Chapter 26

[Caution: this chapter includes disturbing and potentially triggering references to traumatic events in Kathryn’s past. There are absolutely no descriptions of these events, which include the sexual assault of a teenager and nonconsensual incest. If you wish to avoid even the references, abandon the narrative at “Not until I’m finished” and resume at “So, now it’s all out in the open.” The general nature of what transpired will be made clear elsewhere in the text.]

The bed shook.

It shook again.

Out of the deepest, most dream-free slumber he could remember having in quite some time, Luke struggled towards conscious thought. He gradually became aware that, while the bed was moving semi-rhythmically — a sensation he was used to waking up to — he was no longer in contact with his bedmate. Prying his reluctant eyes open, he stared at Kathryn’s exposed back. It was shaking. And not, he soon realized, due to a secretive bout of self-pleasure.

She was crying.

Suddenly wide awake, he tried to wrap his arm around her. To his dismay, she pushed it aside and stood up. She was facing away from him, but it was obvious that she was still quietly sobbing.

“I’m sorry for waking you up. I’m not ready to talk about it, and you can’t comfort me,” she sullenly announced amidst her weeping. “Later, I hope. But not yet. The best thing you can do right now is to go back to sleep and gather your energy. I’ll wake you when I’m ready.”

His worried eyes followed as she shuffled to the sofa, cocooning herself in a blanket as the dirge of her misery endured.

Sleep eventually returned, but it was fitful, long in coming, and no longer dreamless.

The sound of birds and the rustling of leaves in the brisk morning breeze were what finally roused him a second time. The floral aroma of some sort of infusion or tea lingered in the air. Kathryn was curled up in a protective ball on one end of the couch, cradling a steaming cup and staring though the open windows at the foreboding dark blue of the lake’s pre-sunrise surface, her eyes reddened by tears that — at least from his vantage point — looked to be temporarily stilled.

“You were supposed to wait for me to wake you,” she mumbled between sips, still not looking at him.

“Nature called. Several ways.”

With a dismissive wave of her hand, she urged him to do whatever he needed to. “You might as well shower while you’re in there,” she rattled in an unsteady and defeated voice. “I don’t want to talk here.”

When he exited the bathroom, Kathryn was nowhere to be found. Confused and distressed, he donned some clothes and was just about to start searching for her when she came trudging up the stairs. She looked terrible, her incomparable beauty muted, the light in her eyes dulled to a pale flicker. Her normally lustrous hair was tightly knotted and wan, hanging limply from ties she rarely employed. There was a bulging canvas bag slung over her shoulder, and she was carrying a pair of camp-style thermoses capped by metal cups. Handing both to Luke, she silently beckoned him to follow her outside.

A few minutes later, they occupied their usual spot for revelation and connection: the rock bench near the lake. It was a clear day and the forecast promised warmth, but they shivered in the pre-dawn chill. But there was more than one type of ice at work. Kathryn filled both cups with coffee from a thermos, handed one to Luke, and leaned back, staring at some distant and undefined point across the lake. Luke only had eyes for her, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to return the favor.

“Did you sleep well?” Even her voice was dull and flat.

“Up to a point. I guess I don’t have to ask whether or not you did.” He wanted to pepper her with questions and smother her with comfort, but instead he let her dictate the pace and the terms.

It was a long while before she responded. “I did at first. But then the nightmares started. Terrible nightmares. I was so relieved to wake up, except the nightmares didn’t go away...” Her words trailed off and he reached for her shoulder. He was shocked when she shrugged his hand away. “No. Please. I have to get this out first. I don’t want you, of all people, touching me until I do. I know that’s confusing and hurtful, but hopefully you’ll understand when I’m finished. Though I won’t blame you if you don’t.”

Though it was indeed hurtful, he summoned up enough as much emotional self-preservation as he could to face whatever was coming. Every speculation seemed darker than the last. How could we go from such erotic euphoria to this so quickly? What happened? Was Faith right about adding to her confusion? Did we push her too fast, too soon? Did I somehow ruin everything by trying to be the instigator of our sexual adventures?

“Luke, I’m going to tell you a story. You’re not going to like it — no one could — but you need to hear it. Please don’t interrupt. Don’t ask questions. And don’t touch me, no matter how much I seem to need it. Not until I’m finished.”

His coffee was cold and long-forgotten. He was as he’d been for an unknowable time: essentially motionless, rooted in place by horror and raging fury as Kathryn narrated her excruciating tale. A few minutes after starting to talk, she reached inside her bag for a box of tissues, of which she thereafter made extensive use. He needed dozens of his own to endure what followed.

She told him in soul-flaying detail of how a deceptively normal childhood turned into the nightmare of her early teens. Of the abuse she’d suffered from her father and her uncle once she hit puberty. Of how, after unendurable months of private depredations, they expanded their cruelty by lending ... or sometimes renting ... her out for the amusement of others. Of indifference, disbelief, and even hostility from her mother, her aunt, and everyone else she tried to tell. Of how, at long last, a classmate observed the bruises she tried so hard to hide and told a teacher. Of how that teacher finally managed to get the proper authorities involved, the cold bureaucratic efficiency of her removal from the only home and family — no matter how deranged — she’d ever known, and the successful but (for her) emotionally brutal prosecution and conviction of nearly everyone who’d abused her. Of how it both steeled and changed her forever, how it encouraged her to pursue law as a career, and how the specter of her past haunted her relationships even now.

“There are a lot of ways to survive that sort of abuse, though unfortunately there are even more ways to succumb to it. Most people try to hide from it or wall it off. One of the first things I learned in therapy — and god, there’s been so much therapy — was that I might’ve been better off choosing almost any of the others. If I could’ve just shut myself off, emptied my mind, drifted away ... well, I might still be suffering from personality disorders, but it would’ve hurt a lot less while it was happening. And I don’t mean physical pain, though it quite frequently hurt that way too. But the thing is, I didn’t. I made a different choice. The problem was that I was too young and too damaged to make it. So my body made it for me.” It took her a long time, and a lot of tear-soaked tissues, to gather the strength to go on.

“They were monsters, and that many of them suffered or died in the most cliché yet karmically appropriate fashion while serving their prison terms is the only simulacrum of justice I’m ever going to get. But they left wounds much deeper and more permanent than the bruises, or the pain, or the loss of innocence, all of which healed sooner or later. Because they were also endlessly creative in their evil.” Luke’s horror grew as he began to intuit what she was going to say. “So, on one hand you have a teenager who’s learned to experience pleasure — on a purely physical level, I mean — from what’s being done to her, because it’s the only way she can live through the next hour, the next day, the next perversion. Even though, in a twisted but entirely predictable way, my responses only encouraged the escalation of their abuse. On the other hand, you have abusers with a limitless palette of interests but apparently without consenting adults with whom to practice those interests. As you know by now, there’s more than pure physicality involved when it comes to such matters, and so those marks and scars were much deeper and more inaccessible than the others.”

“I don’t say this to upset you, Luke, and I hope it doesn’t, but when I told you, or Wendy, or Alejandro, or really anyone I’ve ever been with that you were the first to ... well, any of it ... that was, technically, a lie. I should instead say probably a lie, as for obvious reasons I’ve tried to forget the details. For me, though, none of those lies were actually lies, because in my heart, only moments that I’ve chosen matter. That those milestones were taken from me, at some earlier date but against my will, is irrelevant.

“Despite what happened to me, I’ve managed to live a largely trauma-free and extremely rewarding sexual life, and though I’m immensely grateful to a long procession of therapists and caring lovers for that, I mostly credit my own strength ... both during the abuse and in the long aftermath. But dominance and submission ... in fact, all my BDSM- or fetish- or kink-related interests ... have been a much more difficult path for me to navigate.”

“The thing is, choosing between one sexual act or another is, for me, a choice between equals. If there’s a specific thing my partner doesn’t enjoy, I’m content as long as there are enough alternatives. But my darker, more dangerous desires are something I can’t just turn on and off without consequence. They’re always there, lurking in the background. It’s not, by the way, like I haven’t tried to bury them in a locked casket and throw away the key. All but one of my therapists did their very best to help me find a way around them, to put them behind me, to break their hold on me, but nothing worked.”

“Finally, one therapist — in fact, the one I still have on call in case I ever need her; though it’s been a while, I’m going to talk to her today — suggested that I try the opposite. She said that, since there was some primal instinct within me that chose to survive by ‘enjoying’ what they did to me, allowing myself to experience, and even enjoy, the rest might be the only way to control it and make it part of a fully consensual sex life, just as I have with everything else. And yes, as you’ve no doubt concluded, I accepted long ago that the intensity of my adult sexuality wasn’t necessarily born of my own volition. Nonetheless, it’s part of me now, and I refuse to be ashamed of who I am. I took that power away from them, and I’ll never give it back.”

“At first, I tried to take her advice literally and actually be in control, but as you know that’s not how I’m wired. Whether that’s innate or a result of what they did to me, I don’t know and probably won’t ever know, but either way it’s who I am. In college I had a friend who knew a little about such matters and who I trusted enough to experiment with, and so we did. At first it was tentative and terrifying because we were both so scared of re-traumatizing me, but she was patient and kind and I couldn’t have had a better first experience. You see how it works, by the way? I call it my first, even though ... well, you understand. Still, she was unwilling to go beyond a certain point. Whether that was good or bad I can’t say, but I knew I needed more, or at least needed to know more.”

“After that the desires went dormant for a while, and few of my partners seemed to trigger them enough for me to just come out and ask. I think it was because I didn’t feel strongly enough about any of them to make myself vulnerable in that way. I also believe that the reason my submission was never under my or anyone else’s control — why it arrived randomly and unexpectedly, I mean — was that, on a subconscious level, I was afraid of it being under control. Anyone’s control.”

“But while I was in my first semester of law school, the desires came roaring back. I wasn’t in a serious relationship at the time — this was before the one that ended in a miscarriage — so, lacking any better ideas, I contacted a professor of human sexuality at my alma mater. He used his network to connect me with an experienced dominant. He wasn’t a professional or anything, but he was highly respected in the local community. He was an older man, very handsome, a good listener who was extremely incisive regarding my needs, and obviously quite eager to explore with someone who looked like me. From the moment we began communicating, I was sure he could provide exactly what I needed to take the next step. At least, that is, in theory.”

“One problem, as I just indicated, was that my submissive urges — until I learned otherwise this weekend — were so unpredictable that it was somewhere between difficult and impossible to arrange sessions on short enough notice. In retrospect, I assume he could have forced it like Faith did, but on the other hand that level of control probably would have scared me away back then. Anyway, over the course of two and a half months we managed to meet a half-dozen times, and he pushed and tested me in many of the ways I wanted and needed. And then, by mutual agreement, we ended it, because while there was still a lot more I wanted to try, it turned out I wasn’t finding what I was looking for. Not really.”

“At first, I told him that I didn’t mind being naked, but that I wasn’t ready for anything more than incidental sexual contact. Unfortunately that’s hard to navigate without missing out on what actually interested me, so before the second session I changed my mind and we incorporated various types of sex into our exploration. In part that’s because I was legitimately turned on by his dominance, but mostly it’s because I realized — and, to be fair, he assured me of the same at the end of our second session — that I’m really only interested in submission in a sexual context. Unfortunately, the sex was somewhat mechanical and passionless. I came, of course ... if and when he allowed or demanded it, that is ... and so did he, but there wasn’t any spark behind it. His assessment — and I was fortunate to find someone I could not only trust, but who considered what I took from the experience of equal value to the experience itself — was that what I really needed was to explore that aspect of my desires in the context of a relationship. Which was good advice, except that it didn’t happen for a long while. And when it did...”

She paused again, absorbing a few more tears. “Well, I don’t think I’m betraying an unguessable confidence to reveal that Irina and I explored together. She’s a natural dominant, though when we started dating she wasn’t much more experienced with the actual practice than I was, but she had the confidence to push me harder — and here I mean both emotionally and physically — than anyone else had. Since I both trusted and loved her, it was a revelatory experience unlike any of the others, and exactly what I was looking for. She probably told you that I stayed with her past our natural expiration date because of her daughter, and there’s a large kernel of truth in that, but being unwilling to give up experiencing submission might have been an even bigger part of it. Because ... well, by then I had good reason to doubt it was going to be a regular part of my future. I gave it all up for love: Irina, Sasha, and the submission.” For the first time all morning, she turned to look at Luke. His heart broke at her hopelessness and despair. “You already know what that choice has brought me ... the joy and the frustration ... and you also know what you’ve given me.” Her attempt at a smile was as pale and injured as an alpine flower trampled in the early morning frost, and she turned away again.

“And then, this weekend...” Another pause. “Everything came rushing back. Everything. Sex with more than one person at the same time. Well, let me be specific: more than one man at the same time, because being with more than one woman never roused these memories. The feeling of being too small — physically, I mean — for what’s inside me, but accepting it anyway, enduring the pain until it turns to pleasure, and eventually even begging for it. The unexpected arrival of additional sexual partners. The submission and the agony, the denial and the forced orgasms, pleasures anticipated and unforeseen ... straight out of all the different eras of my past, consensual and otherwise.”

“Please don’t think I’m saying I didn’t enjoy what we did. I loved it. Nor should you think I’m experiencing regrets in the aftermath, because I don’t possess a single one, save perhaps that I wish it could’ve gone on longer. Finally being able to express and immerse myself in those desires again was a form of healing no therapy could provide. Everything that happened was my choice, ultimately under my control, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Nor will I ever be anything but grateful to the beautiful people who gave me such a wonderful gift. Most of all you.”

“Now I can finally explain the nightmares.” Luke watched her fists clench and unclench as she forced herself to continue. “I tried dream therapy once, and for a few years it helped me sleep through the night when nothing else except obliterating chemicals would. But it’s been a very long time since I’ve practiced, because after a while I didn’t need it anymore. For better or worse, I’d survived my trauma and emerged whole. Or so I thought. Until last night, when the nightmares returned and did their best to ruin everything. You, my father, Faith, my mother, Alejandro, my uncle, Irina, all the others ... the Kathryn that suffered at their hands and the Kathryn that enthusiastically threw herself into this weekend’s fray ... all jumbled up and twisted around until I didn’t know who to trust and who to fear. What to flee and what to pursue. That’s why I woke up crying, and why I haven’t been willing or able to go back to sleep. And that’s also why I haven’t let you touch me. Because I didn’t want to associate you — the real you — with the horrible memories and the bad dreams until I’d broken their hold on me. Which telling you has accomplished.”

“So, now it’s all out in the open and I can start healing myself the way I always have: by layering better memories over the bad ones. And so, my love, now that you’ve listened to something I know you never wanted to hear, you can finally help me. I’m still not ready for questions, but will you please just hold me for a while? Take me in your arms and force me to remember that you love me. That with you, I’ll always be safe.” He wrapped himself around her as tightly as he dared, listening to her tortured breathing and riding out her wracking sobs of emotional release, soothing her as best he could. Words didn’t come, for there were none to offer that could address the full measure of her pain. Instead, he gave her love and his own quiet sadness, and hoped it would be enough.

Their tears were still falling when dawn’s blazing fire crested the horizon.

Shifting in his arms, she turned and kissed him; sweetly, tenderly, and lovingly. She no longer looked quite so defeated, nor quite so damaged, and the first stirrings of renewed life could be seen in her reddened eyes.

“Thank you, Luke. I’m sorry for all this. I know it’s not exactly easy to hear, and I’m sure it wasn’t how you wanted to wake up the morning after...”

“Hush. You don’t owe anyone an apology, least of all me. I just hope I’m helping.”

“You are, my love. You are. But I do think I need to make that call. There are a lot of things I still need to work through, and a completely objective voice who already knows my history would be welcome.” Standing, she pulled him with her and straight into another embrace. “Would you mind if I took the day off? I promise we’ll have dinner together, and that I’ll be with you tonight. If that’s what you want, of course.” She sounded so terribly uncertain that his heart broke yet again.

“Of course it’s what I want. Take whatever time and space you need. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, or in your absence.”

Kathryn pulled away and gave him a slightly odd look before settling back into their hug. “What you’re doing is enough. Oh, and one more thing. Everything I’ve told you ... the list of people other than professionals who know the whole story is very small. Among them are Irina and...” She hesitated.

“Bill.”

“Yes. But I’d like to keep that list as short as possible. I don’t necessarily mind if you tell Wendy, but ... well, if it comes up and you really need to talk to someone about how you’re feeling, you have my permission. Still, I’d prefer it if you didn’t just volunteer the information. I’m sorry. I don’t like asking you to keep secrets from your best friend, but...”

“It’s fine. She’s used to prying while I stonewall.”

“Except that she always breaks your resistance, and now she has even more ways to do that.” For the first time all morning, Luke could hear the faintest hint of levity in her voice.

“True. I promise I’ll put up a better fight.”

“I don’t mind if you try to talk to Irina about it, though she may or may not want to for what should be obvious reasons. Or ... I know it’s an odd suggestion, but I could ask my therapist if she’d hear you out in case you have questions or concerns about me, or that you’re not sure I can address.”

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Is this a roundabout way of suggesting that you’d rather I not bring this up with you?”

She looked down, sadness the entirety of her expression. “At this point, it’s inevitable that it’ll come up again. I made it inevitable when I told you the whole story. But I had to tell you. It’s not a pain I could shed by keeping it secret. If you touch me, and I flinch but you don’t know why, my pain not only increases but part of it gets transferred to you. Telling you breaks its hold on me, but the same won’t be true for you. Not for a while. Just ... be careful. Looking into my past for answers is a necessary part of my mental and emotional health, but it’s also forcing me to revisit my trauma. I much prefer the present.”

She didn’t say anything about the future, Luke noted as Kathryn broke contact to rinse their cups in the lake and stow them (and a plastic bag stuffed with well-used tissues) in her bag. Though maybe that’s part of how she deals with her past.

“Hey stud, what’s up? Did you nail your dream girl yet?”

Luke chuckled into his phone, relieved to be having a lighthearted conversation free of incalculable pain, wondering if that was why he’d made this call in the first place. Shortly after he and Kathryn parted with another mournful embrace, he texted Liz to ask for a favor. An hour or so later, she called back.

“I suppose, especially given what happened the last time I saw you, that you’re owed the truth. Yes, I did.”

“Awesome! Does that mean your dick’s off the market? Because I was dreaming about it the other day. I don’t suppose there’s any chance for a sweaty farewell fuck, is there?” One of the surprisingly delightful things about Liz was that, despite her aggressively open sexuality and her many partners, she was extremely solicitous regarding relationships. While it was nearly impossible to get her to say “no” once you’d drawn her sexual interest, one absolutely reliable way was being in a committed relationship and lying about it. And, for all her emotional disconnection, she was very good at figuring out when someone was lying to her.

She has a much better developed set of sexual ethics than me. “It’s complicated, and I’ll tell you all about it another time, but the short answer’s no, it’s not off the market, even though it’s possible I could be at some point in the uncertain future. Anyway, I reached out for a different reason. Can you put me in touch with Michelle?”

“Michelle? Do you mean Michelle, my brilliant yet demanding boss, or Michelle, the dominatrix for whom I fruitlessly, pointlessly, desperately lust?”

“Aren’t they the same person?”

“Yes and no,” she explained with a slightly distracted laugh.

“Well, I’m not aware of any urgent graphic design needs, so the dominatrix would be fine.”

“Oooh, kinky! Is this for you or your girl?”

“Both, in a way.”

“No, I mean who’s Michelle going to turn into her slave? Or is that what you meant by both? She loves dominating couples, though I’m pretty sure the man bears the brunt of it anyway. It’s weird; she’s married, and apparently they don’t have any sort of domme/sub relationship at home — though he’s obviously fine with her doing it as a side gig — but the rest of the time it’s like she’s working out some really deep issues regarding your gender.”

“As horrible as that sounds, she’s not going to be turning either of us into her slaves. I just need some advice.”

“Ah-hah! I see right through your evasions, by the way. That means you’re planning to use what you learn on your girl. Found a submissive hottie, did you? I always knew you had it in you, Daddy.” The appellation was delivered with such throaty outrageousness that Luke immediately knew just how much fun she was having mocking him, though in the context of his morning the word also came with a bitter aftertaste.

“Hilarious. So can I have her number, or do you need to make fun of me for a while longer?”

“Awww, baby, you know I’d rather do that in person. Well, in person and naked. Well, actually, in person and naked with your beautiful cock in my ass. You can make me call you Daddy anytime, you know, but you’re going to have to spank me while you’re doing it. Anyway, she wouldn’t like me giving out her number without permission. I don’t know if that’s a boss thing or a domme thing. Maybe it’s both. Can she call you instead?”

“When?”

“Today? Soon? Now?”

“Sure, that works. I don’t have any plans until tonight.”

“Great! Oh, and be careful because she’ll try to findom you. I think she enjoys that even more than grinding her stilettos into scrotums. And yes, I can hear you wincing from here; frankly, I don’t really see the appeal either. I’d much rather have them in my mouth, and that’s true for both the stilettos and the balls. The point is: unless that’s your kink, don’t let her.”

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“F-I-N-D-O-M. Google it before she calls. Do it quickly though, because she’ll probably open with it. Later, stud!”

He’d just barely discovered what the term meant when his phone rang. The caller ID was blocked. Normally, I’d let this go to voicemail, but...

“Hello?”

“Give me your credit card number, pussyboy.” It was a woman, her voice hard and demanding, yet threateningly sexy in its own way.

“That’s quite a greeting, but no thanks. I take it this is Michelle?”

“That’s Mistress Michelle to you, little bitch.”

“Seriously, I’m assured by a very reliable source that you’re excellent at this, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m not a sub, I’m not interested in being dominated, and that isn’t why I wanted to talk to you.”

She loudly exhaled. It was a heavy sigh, full of disappointment. Then: “Okay, okay. It was worth a shot, at least. I’ve seen you around the office once or twice, and I thought maybe we were about to have some fun. At the very least I was hoping to score some free wine in return for making you cry and beg for a few hours.” Suddenly, her tone was completely neutral. Low-pitched for a woman, perhaps, and with the casual authority any successful boss might possess, but no longer harsh, demanding, or overtly sexy. “No matter what it is, though, you’re going to owe me something.”

“I’m always happy to work out a wine-for-advice trade.”

“Advice, hmmm? Does this involve the lovely Elizabeth?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Here’s the first and most essential part of my price, then: just how badly does she want me?”

Despite his laughter, Luke answered, “I don’t know. Honestly,” he hastened to add in response to Michelle’s distrustful snort. “I mean, I don’t know how she acts at work, but in private she talks about various people and activities a lot. It’s not always easy to tell when she’s being serious.”

“Right,” Michelle sighed. “Like her weird fantasy about the Swedish royal family.”

“Actually, she’s been on that one so long that I think she’s mostly serious. Who really knows? All I can tell you is that, when she’s exhausted her partners ... or, at least, one particular partner ... she thinks about you to get herself off again, or at least that’s what she claims.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. “You know, if she wasn’t such a damned good employee I’d fire her ass so I could have my way with it. As it is, I can’t even flirt with her, though I’m quite certain she knows what I’m thinking. Oh well. Anyway, if I can’t take your money while I whip your balls, and I can’t do something naughty with Elizabeth, tell me what I can do.”