Page 122 of At Her Pleasure
“When I was in tobacco country a couple years back, a guy I met had a fully functional Henry Ford car in his shed. Took me for a ride. Everyone has a story. You figure out their story, you figure out a way to connect, a way to get in. Just like anything else.”
After taking a sip of his own beer, he glanced her way. “When you’re handling a new sub, it’s that way, isn’t it? Finding the way inside them, figuring out what makes them tick. Faster, slower. What will make the ticking stop altogether.”
His fingers shifted, laced with hers. From the weight in his regard, she knew he’d purposefully given her an opening, if she wanted to talk about things.
“When you told me what you really do, I had the sickest feeling inside,” she admitted.
His eyes darkened. “It’s pretty awful stuff. I’m sorry. I dumped it on you.”
“You wanted me to understand what happened during the CNC. That wasn’t what made me sick to my stomach.”
She let go of him and drew her feet up on the chair, linking her hands over her knees. It was a defensive posture, but she’d decided what she was going to do. She just needed to find the courage, the shovel, to dig it out.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. But don’t touch me.” She wasn’t looking his way, but she’d felt him straighten, about to reach out, reacting to the strain in her voice.
She tried to control the churning in her gut. Stop delaying before you puke. Get it the fuck out.
The power of suggestion could be a bitch. She bolted out of the chair and barely reached the bushes before she lost most of the dinner they’d shared. Well, shit. She’d have preferred not to taste the recycled version.
He was behind her. “Don’t touch me while I tell you this.” A plea this time, not a command. She despised the panic she heard in her own voice. “Promise me.”
“I promise. But I want to hold you.”
She shook her head, and he didn’t press it. “You want to come inside? Lie down?”
“I can’t do it in there. Don’t want to.” This story needed room. Needed the heat of the fire, the darkness. She didn’t want to fill an enclosed space with it. “Let’s go sit back by the fire. I can tell you now.”
“Do you need to?” His voice held concern. Care. “If it’s for me, I don’t need anything bad enough to put you through this.”
She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand. “Some sadist you’d make.”
“Never claimed to be one.” He stayed close as she returned to her chair. Though he respected her desire not to be touched, he brought her a damp towel to wipe her face and a fresh bottle of water to rinse her mouth. He sat down next to her. “I liked when you were sitting in my lap while I was driving. Lap’s here if you want it.”
“Cradle your Mistress? Is that the reverse Daddy Dom thing you were talking about?”
“Just an offer to hold you, Mistress. The way a woman needs and sometimes wants to be held.”
She rubbed her hand over her face. Stared into the flames. She let the visual take up everything so her stomach wouldn’t heave again. Or heave as much.
Why she was doing this, what track she was planning on following tonight with him, this was an important part of it. Holding onto that purpose helped.
“My mother would have babies and sell them.” She said it flatly. Just got it out there. “To the highest bidder.”
Mick went still, but she kept going. “Maybe it was a rich couple who couldn’t adopt the normal way. Maybe they gave my half-sibling a pampered life. I’d tell myself that. Even knowing it was far more likely to be someone who wanted to groom the baby from birth for some horrible, twisted need. The buyers in that market pay even more, if you have the right trafficker to find them. She did. I met him. He wasn’t anything a desperate rich couple wanting to be parents would have touched with a mile long pole.”
“So you see,” she said in a painfully offhand way, “my mother was doing what you fight against. And me and my sister Cissy helped her.”
She needed him to listen, to witness. Not to comfort, and fortunately, she was with a man who understood that. Don’t touch me when I talk about this, because every drop of glue I’ve used on myself will disappear. I’ll break into a million pieces.
“My sister was born with brain issues and an underdeveloped arm, so my mother couldn’t get a premium price for her. She was seven years older than me, and when I came along, my mother had learned the benefit of having live-in child labor. Cleaning, running to the corner store. Helping to take care of a pregnant woman, and the baby, for the short time we had it after it was born.”
She took another breath. “Cissy wasn’t stupid. She actually liked fixing things. If there was something wrong in the apartment, she could figure it out. Or when I was little, she’d fish broken toys out of dumpsters and put them back together for me.”
I fixed it, she'd announce. Every time. It was their inside joke, a comforting little ritual between them. I fixed it.
Cyn closed her trembling hands into fists. “I was supposed to be another sale, but my sister got attached. Like a doll or favorite pet. For whatever reason, my mom said, ‘Fine, we can keep this one. For now. She’ll earn her way when she’s old enough.’”