Page 13 of At Her Pleasure

After she’d been in New Orleans a few months and found work in a used car dealership, she’d been earning enough for an impulse purchase. She’d bought the skeleton necklace off of the French Market artist. On one of her rare weekends off, she’d gotten into her car and driven eighteen hours to Jersey. Straight to the cemetery.

Cissy’s grave had still been tended, no weeds. More smooth stones had been added around it. Seeing that had made her skin prickle, and her chest get tight.

She told Cissy she’d found a place so very different from where they’d been born and raised. And promised that one day, when Cyn could afford it, Cissy would join her there.

Then Cyn tucked the necklace under the stones, leaving a bit of the chain visible. If it was ever noticed, it would be stolen. But if the cop found it, she intended it as a simple message. You gave me a different world. Thank you.

She’d returned to her car and headed back toward New Orleans. She was at the cemetery less than thirty minutes.

A few years after she started working with Ros, Cyn went back to Jersey again and had her half-sister’s remains exhumed. She was here now, at Metairie Cemetery. The crypt was a small one, but clean and neat, with a sleeping lamb statue on top. There was room for Cyn to join her, whenever Fate said her time was up.

She’d stood by the grave during the exhumation, not wanting Cissy to be afraid. On that visit, she’d noted the stones had been scattered, and the weeds were overgrown again. No cross. Some wino was wearing it, or had traded it for liquor.

She told herself that was okay, because she was taking Cissy to a world of sunshine, music, dancing, good food, and people who spoke in lazy drawls.

And that was the end of that.

Except now he might be here. This was what Fate did. Its motives were its own, and it used wishes for target practice. It also apparently threw people into each other’s path just to see what entertaining fuck-ups would result.

No. This was beyond even the normal crazy shit Fate pulled out of its ass. That jewelry artist made bunches of necklaces, and other people had scars on their chests.

In that exact spot, on that same diagonal track.

Yeah, right.

When she reached the corridor to the private rooms, Cyn took a breath. Most of the action was on the main floor, or already behind sound-buffered closed doors, so she was alone. She listened to muffled thumps, a short note that might be a yelp. A deeper hum could be moaning. The sharp tap was a whip crack.

Some occupied rooms were silent. The play might be about holding it in, letting the energy build under pressure.

A footfall, a disruption of the air behind her, told her someone had entered the hallway. And stopped.

Perhaps it was a sub, recognizing her as a Domme and respectfully waiting until she advanced to the room she’d reserved. But no. As the silence built, that prickling feeling scraped her skin like a vampire glove.

It was him.

She knew it, the way she knew his gaze had been among those she’d felt on the dance floor, a different weight to his regard. A connection that could be felt in a crowded room after ten years of separation.

He’d bled for her. She’d tasted him.

“You filled out good, Mistress. Still lean, but not so many sharp angles. No longer sparking like a frayed wire.”

She’d played his voice in her memory countless times. It was more gravelly, but it had the same sure authority, a man who asserted, confirmed, reassured.

But not one who commanded or ordered. Those words didn’t come to her mind when she thought of him, though she’d felt his resolve, his determination to see done what he believed should be done. Boundaries hadn’t been what mattered to him.

If she turned, would she see that he’d filled out too, become more solid, stronger? He’d looked in his mid-twenties when they met. Pretty enough for you?

She didn’t turn. If she saw him, she couldn’t do a session with Sy, and she needed to do that. In a flood, a smart woman didn’t let go of what kept her above water. The session with Sy would provide that.

She felt him move a step closer. As a kid, when she’d ridden the school bus and someone sat down next to her, she’d feel the compressed space between them. She’d stare harder through the dirty window, ignoring how close they were, avoiding conversation or connection.

A hand touched her waist. She had her arm wrapped over her stomach, so his fingertips overlapped hers. No man touched her without permission. Particularly not here. The jolt that passed through her suggested she was still that frayed wire.

“Touch without express consent is against club rules,” she said. “If I report you, you get suspension, at the very least.”

“By the thumbs, ankles or my dick?”

Her lips pressed against an unexpected smile. She remembered that dry humor. But it was important to keep the past in the past. That night, enshrined in memory, was everything she needed it to be. Nothing else could match it, or be as special. She refused to tarnish it.