Forbidden: A Standalone Read online

  I’d stabbed Deacon.

  No, it was a lie.

  You know it’s true.

  Not.

  Yes.

  Not.

  You did it.

  Never.

  I turned my head. Nothing in that room could upset me, because the space was absent of stimuli. The room was still grey, still bathed in light, and in the corner, a silver disk got lost in the vents and alarms dotting the ceiling.

  A camera.

  If I screamed—and I believed I could—they’d know, and they’d come for me. Or not. I wasn’t ready to find out.

  I’d been strapped to beds for long periods of time, usually with my legs spread farther than they were now, often with my knees bent. When I was left in that position, it was so I couldn’t press my legs closed and give myself an orgasm. By the time Deacon came in, I was wet with anticipation and ready for anything he dished out.

  In the hospital, my ankles and wrists were bound so I couldn’t hurt myself. I was wet all over again. I tried to close my legs and couldn’t. And no one was coming to slap or fuck me. Not even one of Deacon’s friends. Not even Debbie. I wasn’t strapped down so I could stew in my own lust. I was strapped down because after Elliot had told me I’d stabbed Deacon, my mind had gone white hot.

  Fuck.

  Even as I got angry at myself over this forgotten thing, I felt the bloat of arousal.

  You’re swelled, kitten.

  Swelled didn’t mean horny. That was easy enough. Swelled meant I needed it. Sex. Hot and dirty fucking. Masturbating couldn’t stop a swell. Rubbing my cunt on the pillow, vibrators, dildos, eggs, none of them chased away a swell. Only penetration, anywhere, by a warm-blooded man, took care of it. Until that happened, I couldn’t function.

  It had never been a problem. I took what I wanted, made no commitments, found willing participants wherever, whenever I needed it. I was on three forms of birth control, for fuck’s sake. I got tested weekly. I wrapped it up. Past that, my first priority to a swell was getting rid of it, and I was mindless in my pursuit. For Deacon, it became a challenge—to know when I would need it, predict it, and put me in a position where he could withhold penetration. He created the unique torture of being tied in knots, naked, cunt out, ready as he tugged the rope and I begged him to take me.

  “I need to finish, kitten. How would it be to have people arrive to a party without the table set?”

  He’d hurt me to forestall satisfaction, leaving my ass a deep shade of pink and my little tits sore, putting me on the edge and keeping me there for hours, until I wept.

  Had I killed Deacon? My master? Why? How? Oh God, what had I done?

  The holes in my mind closed, filled with the thick caulk of sex. I needed it. I needed to feel good. I needed my mind to go blank with pleasure for a second or two, to clear the pain out like a firehose. I could be in for a swell. I needed to feel good. Needed.

  “Now!” I cried. “Bathroom!”

  Bernie, a big, dark-skinned guy with a kind face, came through the door seconds later. “Hi, Miss Drazen.”

  He smelled of man, and though he wasn’t the best looking guy ever, I was painfully aware of the cock under his blue cotton pants.

  “Bernie.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Do you know anything? About my case?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  He unstrapped me. When his hands touched my wrist, the feeling went right between my legs. I tried to catch his gaze, but his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and I noticed he was trying to avoid touching me. It was as if he knew.

  “Thank you.” Despite everything, I said it in my softest, most inviting voice.

  He let me in the bathroom without another word or touch. When the door snapped shut, I stripped out of the jumpsuit and hitched my leg over the sink. The cold porcelain edge lay hard against my cunt, and I shuddered, clasping my left hand on the faucet, and my right on the edge in front of me.

  “Let me come, Sir,” I whispered so it wouldn’t echo, and I called to mind our first knotting.

  ***

  The twenty-two year old me, the taste of flake a bitter, recent memory, kneels on the wood floor of his loft with light pouring in the windows. I am naked but for simple panties. He says that when he ties me naked, he’s taking me. We haven’t fucked, though our relationship is intensely sexual. He’s worth waiting for, this delicious man with his scorching eyes and knowing smirk. I want to obey the rules for him. I feel right when I take care of myself for him.

  When Deacon returned from Africa, he sailed, and when he sailed, he knotted mast ropes and women. He’d been led to what Westerners called shibari. In its ancient form, it was the art of binding prisoners to maximize pain and humiliation. In its modern form, it is the art of patterning rope around a subject for an aesthetic—drawing the lengths around the body to create patterns, to press against erogenous zones, to provide a sexual partner with a compliant, accessible body. The black and white photographs of his work are erotic and sublime, and I knew as soon as he showed me them that I wanted to be part of it.

  He puts my hands behind my back and begins. He handles me roughly, moving my body to tie it. There will be no suspension today. Just me, on the floor. It’s too soon to risk suspension. I’m not practiced enough. And he won’t put anything through my nipple rings until he’s sure I can stay still. He’s still keeping it simple—teaching me how to hold my hands, checking my reactions, my ability to take instruction, my commitment to safety.

  He touches me more than he ever has, and though I’d promised many men I’d be their fuckdoll, for the first time, I actually feel like one. My arms twist behind my back, hands clasping elbows, wrists facing away from the ropes, protected from the pressure. I’m to tell him if anything tingles or feels wrong, but so far, everything is exactly right.

  He loops the rope around my ponytail, yanking it so the short rope can be tied to my ankles, and he’s done. I’m immobilized, calves to the floor, back arched, forced to look at the hooks in the ceiling from the pressure on the back of my head.

  I’ve never been so aroused. From the tips of my toes to the beating of my heart, my tranquility vibrates with awakening. I feel him standing over me, cutting off the light.

  “You doing all right?” he asks.

  I open my eyes halfway. He’s down to his bare feet and trousers. Shirtless, magnificent Deacon. I can’t make words, but my smile answers in the affirmative. He kneels and puts his fingers to my lips. I part them, and he slides them in.

  “I’ll gag you next time,” he says. “The cloth will go around the ropes.”

  I wet his finger with my tongue. I usually have a ton of dirty talk at my disposal, but I’m so high from this, I can’t even speak.

  “You’ll only be able to grunt, but I’ll understand you, kitten. You and I, we’re going to speak without speaking.”

  Lightly, so very lightly, his fingers stroke inside my thigh. I feel my spit drying on them.

  “I’m going to tie you and fuck you breathless.” He slides my panties aside and runs his finger along the length of my slit. “I’ve never seen a girl so wet. You really want to fuck.”

  “I need it.” I whisper the only three words I have at the moment.

  He gathers the wetness at my tingling opening and moistens me all over, asshole to clit. His pressure is perfect, delicate, gentle. He’s not trying to get me to come; he’s trying to get me turned on. He slides two fingers in my cunt so slowly, I feel my soul go to heaven.

  “You like my fingers?”

  I swallow in response. He pulls them out, slowly again, then touches the hood of my clit, shifting it slightly. The effect is hypnotic.

  “Look at you,” he says, his face close enough to mine that I can smell his peppermint breath. “You’re a slave to me right now.” He runs his fingers back to my opening, and to my clit, with just the tip, in circles. “Your discomfort is getting crowded out by pleasure. You want to come so bad. This isn’t even pleasure. It’s t
he expectation of release. Do you know how long I can keep you going like this? Do you know what I can do to your body? As long as you need that release, I can take you to the breaking point. What wouldn’t you do for me?”

  He circles a wet finger around my asshole then back to my clit, which feels explosive, engorged, hot to the touch.

  “Show me what a kitten you are. Meow for me.”

  I mewl, wiggling my hips to get a little more pressure on my cunt when he puts his fingers in me. But he and the ropes have complete control.

  “Not like that. Don’t be saucy. Do it like a real kitten.”

  “Oh God, just let me—”

  He squeezes my clit, and I cry out, because it hurts, and it’s just about as close to an orgasm as possible.

  He slaps the inside of my thigh. “Easy, girl. The more you demand, the longer I’ll keep you on the edge.”

  I’m sweating, leaking fluid everywhere. I don’t have a brain. I don’t even want to fuck. I just want to come.

  “Meow for me,” he says.

  A kitten. What does a kitten sound like? A real mewl. No M sound, just a vowel. I make it. I mewl for him as he runs his fingertip over my hood, shifting it just enough. I mewl again. It’s humiliating, to make animal sounds while tied and bent over, but it gives me something to concentrate on. This isn’t the first time I’ve enjoyed being debased.

  “Good girl. You’re such a good girl. Do you want to come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, please. Please. God, let me come for you.”

  With his free hand, he grabs the hair on the top of my head, yanking it against the ties to my ankles. “Don’t move. Just meow.”

  He slides a finger in my asshole, and my mewl turns to a cry of pleasure. When he presses his thumb to my clit, hard, I lose my breath. He rotates the thumb, and I explode. My asshole pulses around him, my cunt tightens, and the rush of release comes out of my mouth in grunts that I can’t concentrate on enough to make the kitten sounds he likes.

  His thumb drifts off me halfway then presses again, and I explode all over, wiggling in the confines of the ropes. The orgasm is eternal, like an electrical pulse arching my back, my fingers gripping my forearms. He does it again, leaning forward and shoving two fingers in my ass. My back arches farther, and the ropes press into my ribs.

  Time happens for someone else, but not me. The orgasm goes on and on under this madass bastard’s hands.

  I open my eyes, and I see him through my hair as he fucks me with his fingers again. His face is intense, as if he’s reining in a hotblood, and I gear up for another explosion.

  I need to breathe. I need to think. It’s almost painful to come this much. But I can’t move. I’m going to die, and live, and crack into a thousand fleshy pieces.

  “Stop,” I say. “Please stop.”

  “One more, kitten,” he growls. And he gets it.

  ***

  I rode the Westonwood sink on the tips of my right toes, sliding my wet pussy against it. I came in four pushes, legs tingling, back arching, mouth open. Knowing less than the sum of what I remembered and forgot, only blank, preciously empty but for pleasure.

  CHAPTER 4.

  Margie, three years out of law school, was already boring. I couldn’t stand her, but I loved her for sitting in the visitation room in a pale green suit, her red hair in a sensible bob.

  Before I even had my butt in my chair, she said, “He’s alive.”

  “How alive?”

  “He’s too weak to talk. You got the hoof knife between two ribs—”

  “A hoof knife? My God—” Hoof knives didn’t have a point, though mine was sharp on the tip. How hard had I been at him to get that to even puncture?

  “You missed his heart by an eighth of an inch and just scraped a lung. There’ll be a nice scar to show the grandkids.”

  “Was it me? I did it? Are you sure?”

  “You called the cops and said you did, and you attacked them when they got there.”

  “I don’t… There’s no way I could have.” I was utterly baffled. Why would I do that? I’d done crazy shit, but stab Deacon? That was the craziest of crazyfuckshit I’d ever heard. “Where? We weren’t on Maundy Street. Couldn’t have been.”

  “The stables. Then you tried to slit your own throat. You really don’t remember?”

  “You think I’m putting it on?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past you.” She held her face firm as if daring me to get offended.

  “You don’t have to represent me if you don’t want to,” I said. “I know you find me repulsive.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do. You’ve never understood me.”

  “That’s not the same as finding you repulsive,” Margie said. “Let’s face it. You don’t even understand you. The difference between us is that I happen to love you.”

  I had no answer. I just fixed my jaw and felt like more of a recalcitrant child than I ever did in front of Mom.

  “Fiona, do you want to talk about this? Should I come back tomorrow? Or not at all? Daddy’s trying to get me pulled off the case.”

  “Why?”

  “He says I’m not experienced enough. I don’t know the real reason.” She shook her head. “Point is—”

  I grabbed her hand over the table. “It has to be you. Don’t leave me.”

  “Tell me what happened. I know you don’t remember, but what was with you two? Did he cheat on you? Did he hit you? What would have made you snap?”

  I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. She didn’t understand us. No one would.

  “Drazen pledge,” I said.

  “I’m your lawyer. Anything you say is under attorney-client privilege.”

  I held up my hand. “Are you opening pledge or not?”

  “Fine.” She held up her hand. “Pledge open.”

  I relaxed. Between myself and my seven siblings, six sisters and one brother, opening a pledge meant nothing said could be repeated and only the truth could be spoken.

  “This is so hard to explain,” I said.

  “It’ll get easier after the first ten times.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  She crossed her arms. “Start by not stalling. Assume I know you use drugs. Assume I know you’ve had more sex in the past three years than I’ve had in my life.”

  “We had an open-ish relationship.”

  “Okay.”

  “The ish part is that…” I swallowed. “Up until a few months ago, my other partners were limited to people we knew, at parties he threw.” I didn’t mention the knottings. I wasn’t ready to tell her I had been a fuckable art object, because I’d have to explain that I’d never been in such control of my sexuality as I was in this open-ish relationship.

  “And why did that change?”

  There was a relief in her question, because it didn’t judge the excesses, only the switch to normalcy.

  “We fell in love.” The blade of those words cut through the dullness of the meds, and snot and tears flooded my face.

  “No,” Margie said. “You stop right now.”

  I tried to tell her I couldn’t, but I was beyond speaking, beyond using my mouth for anything but breathing thick cry gunk. I could barely breathe without croaking—how could I speak a whole sentence? “I couldn’t have hurt him.”

  “Fuck.” Margie had always been impatient with outbursts, yet she always knew what to do about them. She swung her chair to my side of the table as if she was flinging it in a bar fight and sat next to me, putting her arm over my shoulder. I fell into her. She said nothing and stroked my hair.

  “He went away, and I couldn’t keep it together,” I croaked. “I have a hard time without sex. I need it. But he understands me. We worked on ways to make it work. Why would I stab him?”

  “He’s not saying. Is it possible he came after you, and you stabbed him in self-defense? Maybe he surprised you at the stables?”

  �
�I don’t remember. I swear I don’t. What I was even doing there? I haven’t been to Branwyn in forever.”

  “You have a chipped molar. Do you remember when that happened?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “The exam showed nerve damage in your wrist. Did he ever grab you there?”

  I shook my head as if I was emptying change out of the bottom of a piggy bank. Nerve damage to the wrist could be caused by an improper knotting, but Deacon would never, ever make that mistake, and I would have called it out if I’d felt a tingling.

  “Margie, I’m so confused. It’s like my brain isn’t working right. I have to see him. I have to talk to him.” I didn’t know how I’d calmed enough to make sentences, but I had. I wiped my nose and smeared my tears over my eyelids with the backs of my hands.

  “That’s the least of your worries,” she said. “You have to get released first. Your therapist has seventy-two hours to determine if you’re a danger to yourself or others. So no more lunging over the desk to kill the good doctor. If you do get out, you’ll get taken in for questioning or arrested, depending on what the DA feels he has and, to be honest, whatever Dad decides he wants to do. He’s got every judge in L.A. in his pocket, but the media loves rich girls and violence. If you walk, it’ll look like we’ve gotten away with attempted murder. And just so you know, we’ve got some problems at home.”

  “What?”

  “Jonathan’s girlfriend disappeared from a party at Sheila’s last night. His car’s gone.”

  “He had a girlfriend?” I tapped my fingers against my thumb, counting. When did my baby brother turn sixteen? How long had I been high on flake and fucking? Shit, he was old enough to drive?

  “Theresa’s friend Rachel.”

  Theresa was my sister, and Rachel was, indeed, her friend. She hung around a lot. I’d never given her a thought.

  As if reading my mind, Margie continued. “I didn’t know about her and Jon either. So that’s why I’m here and not Quentin.”