Page 95 of Bend
, something seemed inherently wrong with the space, the room, the clothes.
Deacon would find me. He was probably in some office right now, demanding my release from the mental ward. He had a way of sniffing me out, even when I snuck away, as if he and I were connected by a vibrating fiber. No matter how far I went, no matter how fast, he knew. If there was anyone in the world I could count on, it was him. He was coming. All I had to do was behave long enough for him to arrive.
Just thinking of him, the bones of his wrist, the tendons tight on his forearms when he gripped my body, his growl—mine mine mine—sent a wave of pleasure between my legs.
I knew who I was. I was a celebrity without talent. I was an heiress. I was a whore. I was a party waiting to happen. I was an addict. I was his, and in that last definition—that I was owned by Deacon I knew my place in the chaos.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, the headache came like slowly tightening wrenches clamped to my temples and the back of my neck. As the pain bloomed, my mind cleared. Though I couldn’t remember shit any better than before, I gained the good sense to worry about it. I gained details. Cast-iron grates on the windows in a decorative pattern. No doorknob. Walls of suede microfiber. Cork floors. Soft wood bed with Egyptian cotton sheets.
There were people around me, but I felt more than saw them. Intuited their presence. How long had I been walking through plasma? Where was the other side?
The last thing I remembered… What was the last thing I remembered? It was Deacon in the kitchen of number three, sweatpants and no shirt, with his arms out. He was saying something. Pleading. He was telling me I had to kick. Kick? What did that mean? And was it the kitchen or the stables? Whatever space he was in was plagued by his raw pain. He was mad and resigned at the same time, two things I’d never seen from him.
Was that the last thing I remembered? Whatever it was must have landed me here.
There had been a dream with red and blue lights.
There had been a party, possibly before the lights, maybe after. I was on my hands and knees. I was high, so high, flooded with endorphins and knocking around subspace. My ache was dulled to pleasure, and I wanted something desperately.
I couldn’t put it all together. Maybe I’d gone just a little heavy on the flake. Deacon would be pissed. I’d apologize. We’d do a knotting, and I’d get better.
The last thing… Deacon had gone away. He’d put his face in my neck, and I was surrounded by peppermint and sandalwood. He’d gotten in the limo, and I watched it glide down the hill and past the gate of the private road, splashing in the rushing water of the drainage dip. Maundy Street. Left turn past Debbie and Martin’s place, and away.
Christmas. He said he’d be back for Christmas.
The house had seemed big, and I’d thought about spending the week at home in Bel-Air. Avoid Debbie. Avoid Martin. Their eyes and their temptations pressed against me. I could handle it. I could handle anything. I was strong.
Was that decision even worth remembering? What was the last thing that had happened?
I only remembered stuff from long ago. A knotting, the last one, my favorite. Deacon had laced me to hooks in the ceiling with patterns of knotted rope, turning my body into a work of art. I was upside down, naked, falling from the sky, and he crouched on the floor, caressing my head and shoulders. I always felt at peace when he knotted me, but that time, when he became part of the work, my very identity and all the anxiety that came with it melted away.
Something about a horse, but I must have been dreaming. I hadn’t touched a horse in months. Years, maybe.
And the last party. The knots of skin and fluid.
A stinging drip in my nose.
When? Yesterday? Last month? Never?
Now. Here. In Westonwood.
Fuck.
two.
Having eaten a meal in a tiny pale grey room, and walked down wide, pale grey hallway, showered in a white-tiled stall, and gotten into a stainless steel elevator, I found the office jarring. It could have been my headache that grew more potent by the moment, or it could have been the presence of actual colors.
Pale blue curtains drawn against the rain pounding the window. Green lantern. Rich brown wainscoting and desk. Burgundy carpets. I squinted. Even the light from the desk lamp felt intentionally painful.
“Thanks, Bernie,” Dr. Chapman said from the corner of the room.
He wore a grey jacket and a sage-green sweater over a white shirt. His voice didn’t hurt my head, though when Bernie, the orderly, clicked the door behind him, I felt as if someone had hit my temple with a crowbar.
“Headache?” the doctor asked. I nodded, and he sighed. “For what you pay to be here, you think they’d be on the ball with the analgesics.” He slid open a desk drawer and removed a bottle of over-the-counter medicine. “Let me get you some water.”
I held out my hand. “Don’t need it.”
He shook two into my palm. I kept my hand out then spread my fingers wider. He shook out two more. I kept my hand out.
