Chapter 1

Holly gave a start as the handcuffs clicked into place.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Just a lesson, Holly," Doctor Holcomb said, in that deep, soft voice.

She struggled at the handcuffs, but her hands were securely fastened behind her back.

Oh, God, what had she gotten herself into?

The situation had stemmed from an occurrence earlier that afternoon. Doctor Holly Jackson was a new intern at County General Hospital, just settling in to her normal duties in the Emergency Room. A new patient had been brought in by the paramedics and Holly went to admit her.

One look at the girl on the gurney was enough. The ligature marks were plainly visible, both on her wrists and ankles and, by the bruising on her neck, someone had tried to strangle her. She was obviously naked under the thin blanket.

A glimpse under the blanket showed Holly the young woman had bruises and welts all over her body.

"Brief period of unconsciousness," the paramedic told Holly. "She didn't want to come in, but her boyfriend made her."

He motioned over at the boyfriend, a slender young man who stood nervously near the entrance to the hospital. The kid was no older than his girlfriend, maybe twenty, and his slight build belied the harsh injuries he had inflicted on the poor girl. Holly felt her stomach tighten in disgust.

"Bring her in here. We had better notify the police," Holly told them.

The older paramedic stepped close to her.

"It was consensual," he said quietly. "We had to help the kid untie her. He panicked when she passed out and called 911."

Holly looked down at the brutalized woman on the gurney. Her pretty face was streaked with tears.

"You let him do this to you?" Holly asked, incredulously.

The girl looked up at her, embarrassed by all the attention. She looked away, unable to speak.

"Look. If your boyfriend hurt you, I can get you assistance. There's help available. I can refer you..."

The girl on the gurney cut her off. She looked scared and embarrassed as she spoke.

"It was my idea," she said. "I made him do this."

Holly was stunned (and a little disgusted) by the girl's pathetic attempt to blame herself for the terrible abuse she suffered. She opened her mouth to respond, but Doctor John Holcomb's deep voice interrupted her.

"So this is that incident?" he asked the paramedic brusquely, as he stepped in beside Holly.

"Sure is," the paramedic told him. "She was tied up real thoroughly. It took a while to cut off the ropes."

Holcomb looked over at the sallow boy watching from Chairs. He shook his head in thinly disguised disgust. Holly had worked with Doctor Holcomb, of course, and she knew his warm, gentle bedside manner could turn into brusque irritation in a heartbeat. But she also knew he was an excellent physician.

"So why is she still in the hallway, Holly?" he asked her. "Planning on examining her right here, in front of everyone?"

Holly looked down, embarrassed. Doctor Holcomb had that effect on her. His gentle grey eyes would suddenly turn cold, and his manner could turn cold as well.

But Holcomb ignored her embarrassment. He looked at the young woman. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Alicia," she said softly.

"Well, Alicia, we'll take good care of you," the doctor said with a smile. His good looks were an asset in such cases, Holly thought. In the short time she'd been here she'd noticed that his blond hair and strong jaw, not to mention the hours he spent in the gym, made him both an object of interest among some of the women and occasionally the object of scorn by others, who saw him as more of a poster boy for the ER than a "real" doctor.

With the help of the paramedics, Holly rolled Alicia into Exam Room seven. Holcomb followed.

The paramedic began to leave the room, but Holcomb stopped him. "Tell her boyfriend I want him in here," he said.

"Sure thing, Doc," the paramedic answered and left.

Doctor Holcomb began to gently examine the young girl.

"Was this your first time trying bondage?" he asked gently, as he checked her wrists. The marks were livid and bruising was already starting to show.

"Well, kind of. Tim had tied me to the bed, but I wanted to try it standing up."

Doctor Holcomb nodded, seeming to understand. Holly was impressed by how well he covered the anger and disgust he must feel. Why, the young woman might have...

"How long were you tied up for?" Doctor Holcomb asked the young woman, as he checked her ankles.

"About an hour, I guess," the woman told him.

Holcomb shook his head. The exam room door opened, and the boy from the hallway entered. Holcomb looked up at him.

"You Tim?" he asked. "You tied her up?"

Tim blushed furiously, and looked away. "I didn't mean to hurt her," he said quietly.

"I wanted him to," Alicia repeated.

"Yes, but you didn't want him to maim or kill you, did you?" Holcomb asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

Holly was surprised at the odd look on Alicia's face. She seemed almost uncertain how to reply. Finally she managed to say, "No, not really..."

Holcomb nodded. Again, Holly marvelled at the good job he was doing of pretending to understand the whole sick situation. Holly watched him examine the bruising on the girl's throat.

"You enjoy being choked?" he asked, his voice still soft. He pulled up a stool beside the gurney and sat, so his face was on a level with Alicia's.

She nodded.

"I asked him to choke me," she admitted. "Doctor, please don't call the police. It wasn't Tim's fault. I wanted him to do it."

Holcomb nodded, in seeming understanding.

"I understand. But the way the ropes were tied, they tightened as you struggled. That's what caused the injuries and the rope burns. You must like to struggle?"

Alicia shrugged and smiled a little.

"Well, when a man breaks in your house and ties you up and rapes you..." She looked at the doctor, who nodded.

"Well, none of the damage is permanent. You were both lucky. You could be dead and Tim would be looking at a murder charge."

He looked at Alicia, his grey eyes solemn. She managed a nod.

"I didn't really mean to hurt her," Tim interjected. "I just did what she wanted."

Holcomb got up and turned on the boy. His soft attitude was gone, like a mask he no longer needed.

"You ever tie up somebody before? Choked them? Raped them?"

Tim shook his head fearfully.

"God, no! It was just a game."

Doctor Holcomb shook his head.

"It's not a game. Games are for fun," Holcomb told him. "More accurately, it's a sport. Sports injuries are common." He looked at the boy coldly and got up from the stool.

"If you wanted to parachute jump, would you just go out and do it, or would you get training first?"

Tim looked at him uncertainly.

"I guess, I'd get training. I mean, you could die..."

Holcomb nodded. "Very good. You could die. And Alicia could have died today."

Holly watched in relief. The boy had done something terrible, and if the girl actually had wanted this to happen, she needed help.

"Should I get a Psych Consult, Doctor Holcomb? Or call the authorities?" Holly asked, glad to be back in the real world of hospital procedure. But Holcomb turned and pinned her with those hard grey eyes. Holly's stomach tightened. She had angered him.

But Holcomb was not angry, just irritated with her.

"A psych consult, Doctor Jackson? So Doctor Burashi can tell us this girl is masochistic and enjoys having pain inflicted on her? Or call the authorities, so the police can try to put her boyfriend in jail?"

"Well, like you said," Holly responded, "She could have died." Holly looked him squarely in the eyes. She was an intern and knew better than to let some doctor intimidate her, even John Holcomb, the head of Emergency services. Especially in front of a patient.

"She could have, yes." He turned back to the boy.

"If you and your girlfriend want to play bondage games, I suggest you find some books." He reached into his scrubs and pulled out his wallet, withdrawing a business card.

"This woman can help you find lots of information. She can also mentor you. One of the first things she will tell you is NEVER put pressure on the front of the throat." He stared at the boy, then down at Alicia. "He could have easily crushed your larynx. That is not a pleasant way to die."

He handed the card to Alicia, who looked at it.

"But isn't this a sex club?" she asked hesitantly.

Holcomb smiled at her, shaking his head.

"You're playing sex games, pretty advanced ones. You need to learn the rules, before somebody gets badly hurt."

Alicia looked at the card and nodded. She handed it to Tim, who looked at it nervously. Holcomb actually chuckled.

"Nita is a very nice lady, and will totally understand. She can help you learn to do this safely. I don't want to see you back in here again, maybe badly injured next time. The police just don't understand these things."

Both nodded, and Holcomb walked to the door. He turned at the threshold.

"Doctor Jackson can clean those wounds up and can get you some clothes," he told Alicia. He left.

Holly spent the rest of the shift thinking about the incident. She was very nervous over it. She kept thinking about the circumstances, wondering why they had so upset her. She finally realized, with a small shock, that the incident had, to her, a very erotic element.

Something about the girl today, so pretty, so naked, so helpless. And the way the doctor had handled her so confidently and with such... She immediately pushed those thoughts out of her mind. John Holcomb was being professional. He surely didn't have these thoughts.

Yet as she thought of those cold grey eyes, and the thought of being helpless...

She shook her head and went about her business, but her deep centers, the places she seldom even thought about since Rick and she had parted ways, were awake.

At the end of shift, she saw Holcomb walking down the hall toward her. He caught her eye and approached her.

"Our couple get out of here okay?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yes, Doctor Holcomb. I told her to take anti- inflammatories and keep the open areas clean. And to come back if there is any reddening or unusual swelling."

Holcomb said, "We see a lot of S.I, 's here." Seeing the blank look on Holly's face, he added, "Sexual Injuries." He smiled at her. "To be differentiated from M.I.s, which are not heart attacks."

Holly managed a professional smile. "Masturbation Injuries?"

Holcomb nodded. "We had a man come in the hospital last year. He'd tried to use a commercial vacuum to jack off with. He tore the skin off his penis, the scrotum, the whole thing."

Holly looked at him in horror.

"You're kidding."

Holcomb shook his head with a wry smile.

"You're new," he replied. "Any emergency room has stories. People try things they can't handle, and they end up here. You'll see a lot of it."

Holly frowned.

"What's wrong with people?" she asked quietly.

But Holcomb's reaction was hardly the one her parents would have had. 'What's wrong with people?' had been a common question at home. There, it was always connected with a look of disgust or disapproving shake of the head.

But Holcomb smiled.

"They're human. Just pleasure seeking animals. They make mistakes."

Holly reacted to his words without thinking.

"That girl today was sick. You should have committed her, not helped her to..." She stopped, searching for the words to convey her disgust, her uncomfortableness, her...

"Holly, would you come with me, please?" He didn't wait for an answer, but turned and headed back to his office. She followed, that nervous feeling welling up in her stomach.

It was the terrible feeling of her childhood.

She had done something wrong. And now she would be punished.

Holcomb held the door of his office open for her. She stepped in, momentarily surprised at both the size of the room and the number of diplomas and medical books on the walls.

Holcomb closed the door and motioned her to sit down. She sat, but she was not going to play the scared bad little girl.

"Doctor Holcomb," she said, making sure her voice was even and professional, "if you think I did something wrong today, I think you should simply tell me so we can discuss it."

He turned and looked at her, his grey eyes warm.

"First, it's John. Shift's over and we're both on our own time. Second, you did a fine job today. You're a good doctor. Your first thought was assault or domestic abuse, and that's natural."

"I still think that girl..." she began, but John cut her off.

"She asked her boyfriend to do exactly what he did. It was voluntary and consensual. If anything, the girl was in control."

"She was in control?" Holly couldn't keep the shock out of her voice. "She was tied up. Helpless!" But Holly was surprised at the sudden unwelcome stirrings that came, the uncomfortable urges she had not been bothered by for years.

"Yes, she was," John agreed, interrupting her thoughts. "But she was still the one in control. May I show you?"

She looked at John Holcomb. Those grey eyes had so much hidden behind them. She wasn't entirely sure she trusted him. But they were so close to the nurse's station...

"All right," she heard herself say. She wasn't sure what he would do, but surely he would not try anything inappropriate here. Her screams would be heard all over the Unit.

John pulled something from a drawer in his desk and approached her. Holly watched him uncertainly. What had she gotten herself into?

"Would you turn your back to me, please?" His voice was soft but commanding and she did as instructed. "Now bring your hands down and around behind your back."

She did, feeling both exposed and excited. But the sudden cold of the handcuffs and the solid CLICK as they closed extinguished any sexual thrill she was feeling.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her terror rising.

"Just a lesson, Holly," John Holcomb said, in that deep soft voice.

"Take these things off right now, or I'll scream," she said. She half expected his strong soft hand to slide over her mouth, stifling her scream, and the thought ran a sudden tremor of desire through her body.

With a click, he opened the handcuffs and they were gone. He walked back around his desk, slipping the handcuffs into his white physician's coat pocket, then looked over at her.

"There. That's your lesson."

She turned on him, scared and angry at him and at her own feelings. "What the hell does that mean? You put handcuffs on me, you pervert!"

John smiled, gently. "Yes, I did. And I took them off as soon as you asked."

She felt the confusion well up inside of her, tempered with something else. God, she must be close to her period. That was the only time she had those sudden feelings of... She cut off the direction her thoughts were taking.

"That was a lesson?" she asked angrily. "What's the lesson? Never to go into your office alone?"

John laughed, a real, deep, delighted laugh.

"Well, maybe that too, Holly. But it was to show you something important."

He smiled and walked back around the desk, stepping very close to her. She could smell his musky smell, and realized he was as excited as she had been.