Page 17 of Brave
“We’re going to go back to the corner we were in last night,” he directed. “Can you do that, or do you need me to blindfold you?”
Her trembling became shaking. In swift, tiny jerks, she shook her head no.
No blindfolds.
“You have as much right to be here as anybody else,” he told her. “I want you right by my side. Let’s go.”
She dropped her eyes the instant he let go of her chin, but the rest of her was straight and almost regal as she attached herself to his side. Shouldering his bag again, he spotted Spencer at the mouth of the locker room area, arms folded, jaw clenching.
Turning on his heel, Carlson led the way into the very back of the dungeon. He ignored the whispers and the stares. Hell, nearly every scene they passed stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to watch her go by.
Something was very wrong here. He didn’t know what, but he was going to get to the bottom of it tonight.
Chapter 6
Few people played in the very back nook where Carlson took her. It was the perfect ‘out of the way’ spot for a rope enthusiast to practice his knots. There were two play areas here, each separated from the other by heavy, red velvet curtains. Each had its own mechanical hoist. Varying lengths and weights of chain hung in neat coils on the wall of each space, and the only time either saw any real use was the rare times that someone did actual suspension work or if someone wanted to do a little blood play and the medical room was already booked. The floor here was tile, with a slight dip and a drain in the center making this an easy area to scrub down.
In the two years that Puppy had been coming here with Ethen, she had only ever seen this nook in use once and that was when a visiting dominant did a class on hook suspension. It had been one of the worst classes she’d ever attended. Not just because blood play made her squeamish, but because she’d been in trouble that night and all through the class Ethen kept whispering, “What do you think? Shall I tell him you’d like to try this? Do you want the hooks in your breasts or your back? How long shall I leave you hanging? Do you think your skin will split?”
Refusing to look at the hoist, Puppy knelt on the floor in front of Carlson with her hands on her knees. Sometimes if she forgot to pay attention or became lulled by his soft and constant talking, she’d suddenly realize she had turned her hands palm up or spread her knees into Ethen’s preferred Display position. Each time she caught herself doing it, she quickly moved her hands higher on her thighs, or put her palms flat on her jeans, or squeezed her knees together. She was wearing pants, thank goodness, so it wasn’t as if she was flashing anything. She just hoped he didn’t notice. With Carlson, she quickly learned, it was hard to tell.
Seemingly off in his own little world, he sat on the floor with shoes and socks off, colorful ropes out, his instruction book open next to him and turned to a beginner’s design. He’d tied up one leg in blue rope using one style of wrap and knot, and now he was working his way up from ankle to knee on the other in red, wrapping in a slightly more elaborate pattern. But for all that he seemed very attentive to what he was doing, it only took one small shift in her position for him to stop talking about some marketplace in Afghanistan that he remembered fondly and ask, “Are you comfortable kneeling like that? Would you like a pillow, or do you want to sit all the way down on your bottom?”
Every nerve inside of her had come to life when he’d done that and it was the weirdest sensation. She’d prickled, just like she used to way back when she was a newbie in the lifestyle and talking to her very first dom. Carlson was so soft-spoken, almost parental—which was, in its own right, incredibly weird.
Get your ass in the air. That was what she was used to.
“I’m fine,” she’d stammered. Because she was caught off guard, she told herself. Not because she was turned on. She wasn’t here to be turned on. She was here because… well, because she’d had a shitty day and after being trapped on a bus with Pony for eight hours round trip, not to mention one hour in front of Ethen while he made ominous inquiries into her recent activities before ordering Pony to bed without supper, just the thought of having to stay home tonight while Pony went hungry was just unbearable.
She and Pony had got into another quiet fight when she tried to get her to disregard Ethen’s instructions. But Pony had immediately put herself to bed without supper, and then burst into tears because she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. And Puppy immediately called a cab so she wouldn’t have to listen to it or feel how hungry she was too. No way was she going to eat now when Pony couldn’t.
All because she’d left the house last night.
She wanted to be normal. Normal people could go wherever they wanted. They could talk to whoever they wanted, too, without fear of having to answer to people like Ethen.
Coming to Black Light was like repeatedly sliding down a sharpened knife’s edge. Everyone here knew her; they knew what she’d done. It was inevitable. One of these days, she was going to get cut, but as soon as she was out of the house tonight, Black Light was the only place she could think of to come. And mostly, that had been because she was hoping Carlson would be here again. He was the only person she knew who didn’t know who she was or have any idea what awful things she’d done in her past. With him, she could pretend she was just like everybody else. At least until someone told him. Then he’d probably want nothing more to do with her and she’d have to find somewhere else to go.
Oh, shit. He was looking at her expectantly, like he’d just asked her something. Lost as she’d been in her own thoughts, she’d missed it.
She froze and, for one perfect, panic-stricken second, she might as well have been staring into Ethen’s waiting eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I told you my favorite place,” he said. “Conversations do work best when both parties get their say. So, tell me. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would that be?”
Her mind went completely blank and the panic surged. She tried to control it, but the longer it took her to answer, the more his head tipped and his gaze narrowed. It became everything she could do not to shove back from him. Her legs itched to run, but where could she go? Back through Black Light, drawing all those stares and whispers after her all over again?
Back home?
“Red,” she stammered, horrified by the thought.
Carlson nodded once. His handsome face was unreadable, and that frightened her almost as much as the thought of having to leave. Eventually she was going to have to give this up, and she knew it. But not now, not yet. She just wasn’t ready.
“Okay,” he said slowly, and changed the subject.
While he went back to knots and talking about his early military days, she struggled without moving—and, hopefully, without looking like she was struggling—to get her heart rate back under tight control so the knots in her stomach would loosen their anaconda grip and she could relax again.
Except that, just as she was starting to succeed, he asked another question. “So, what do you do for a living?”
That question knocked her feet right back out from under her again.
