Sacred revelations, p.1
Sacred Revelations, page 1
Sacred Revelations
A Chronicle of Surrender
Roxy Harte
Published 2007
ISBN 1-59578-326-1
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2007, Roxy Harte. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com
Email:
raven@LSbooks.com
Editor
Laurie M. Rauch
Cover Artist
April Martinez
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Chapter 1
“The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant…”
-Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Kitten
Time no longer exists. I do not know if it is day or night, time to wake or sleep, even though I am physically exhausted, even though I have not moved in what seems like forever. I am caged, but not in a kennel. No, my master is more ingenious than that, making sure that my confinement is slightly more entertaining than a random store-purchased wire crate. I think he studied the torture devices of the Dark Ages to come up with something so delightfully beautiful and intriguing to look at, yet so deviously wicked.
He said only that a friend welded it for him to his specifications—for me.
Now I know why he measured me with a dressmaker’s bright yellow measuring tape the day after he agreed to master me. I was naïve enough to believe that he wanted to make sure I was eating enough while I was in the hospital. He visited me while I recuperated, still attached to too many tubes and wires after my encounter with Craig Michael Bosko.
I only ever thought of him as Mr. Bosko, my boss. It is hard for me to believe that he is dead, harder still to believe that he was the one responsible for killing Tony Giovanni, Garrett’s significant other and business partner. I guess I have to believe all the horrible things about him now that the truth is revealed. My mind cannot reconcile that my boss kidnapped me and could have… No! I’m not strong enough to think of all the could haves, better to try to forget what he did, even though I see the kidnapping as my true turning point, the event that led me to today…
As much as I want to hate all that happened, the journey began there, with me chained in Mr. Bosko’s office. I won’t say that it was a pleasurable experience—far from it—but neither can I say that I regret the pleasure or the pain I felt at Mr. Bosko’s hand. It seems crazy that I would feel anything but anger, hate. I was victimized, brutalized. Raped. Tortured. And yet, there are no tears for what happened to me. I only know that, in the foggy grey haze of pleasure-pain that was, for a moment, my existence, two men came to rescue me, Garrett and Thomas.
Two men.
In that moment, my world tilted and everything changed.
That night, sitting on my hospital bed, Garrett held me before he unlocked my collar, releasing me. He promised, “I’ll be waiting for you to come back to me.”
He didn’t come back to the hospital. Thomas visited twice and, strangely, I found I could talk to Thomas about anything. Though at first it seemed like he asked questions and I answered.
He seemed perfectly at ease on the ugly blue-green hospital chair. Leaning forward, he captured my gaze and held it long after I should have been made uncomfortable enough to look away. “You liked the isolation sphere at Lewd Larry’s. What did it for you, Celia? Being watched, being alone, being bound?”
I sat cross-legged on the bed, sheet pulled up to my chin, hugging a pillow to my middle, perhaps hiding behind it a bit. “The isolation.”
“Explain.”
“Too much time to think.”
He smiled at that, repeating, “Too much time to think,” as he laughed softly. “You fascinate me, Celia. Most people think that is the worst part of being in isolation. So, if facing your demons excites you, and that is what you are saying, of everything you experienced at Lewd Larry’s, what was the worst for you?”
“Hands down, the human-size litter box.” I answered. Looking back, I realize I gave him way too much information. Only after I was here, caged, did I understand the purpose of his questions. He has combined the best…and the worst.
My cage is shaped like an animal, the top half of the form folded down over me after I got into position, crawling into the form, placing my legs into the wire-form leg holders, my body supported by a wide chain-link belly, my arms sliding into the front wire-forms. At first, it’s not comfortable, but not miserable, kind of like sitting naked in a wrought-iron lawn chair, cool metal warming to match body temperature, causing pain when the depressed skin is released, the metal indentations obvious in the skin pattern created. Yes, something like that.
Except my weight is distributed on hands and knees, my belly, ribs, breasts all molded to fit inside the wire cage perfectly before the top half of the form is lowered. Lord Fyre lined the inside of the hand platform and the lower leg and foot encasements with bright green Astroturf to make my stay even more entertaining. The first few minutes, the spiky green plastic was a curious sensation, after a while, though, the pointy plastic spikes became agony. I can put most of my weight on my stomach to take the pressure off my hands and legs, but then replacing my hands onto spiky plastic is ten times worse. I can arch my back for slight exercise, but pulling my skin away from the imprinted grooves is agonizing. Scratching my nose is out of the question.
My head sticks through the large neck opening and, after finding me droopy, Lord Fyre shook me aware, pulling me from deep sub-space to place a cushioned cervical collar around my neck. I had thought he woke me to remove me. That I was not freed made me cry, not because of my physical discomfort, although I was more than ready for the freedom of standing and stretching, but disappointment that I was going to be left alone again. Not that I am really alone, being caged has afforded my brain the luxury of being acutely aware of my surroundings, even when sleeping or zoning, I am aware, especially of the small blinking red light up in the right corner next to the ceiling. It is a camera, but not just a camera, a link between us. Yes, I admit it, I’m a naughty caged girl, but I wanted to know if he was watching. When I screamed and screamed in the dark, he did nothing, but I knew instinctively that he was watching. I screamed myself hoarse and then I screamed some more until there was no scream left. With no scream left, I forced myself to vomit. It’s harder without fingers to shove down my throat, or my personal favorite, a toothbrush, but I had to get creative. Trying to swallow my tongue did the trick.
Vomiting and turning blue produced the man.
It didn’t get me released, but the lights are back on and, more importantly, I know he is watching me. I wonder who is suffering more. Me caged? Or he, bored out of his fucking mind, watching me caged? If it were me watching, I’d have quit by now, released my captive so that I would be free of the monotony of watching.
My cage sits inside a small room, or maybe a large walk-in closet. The walls are white, the ceiling and floor also white. Blinding white with the lights on, but at least the lights are on. For breaking my silence, I will be punished. As long as the lights remain on, punishment seems fair trade. A girl has to know her limitations and pitch-black darkness is mine.
Trapped in darkness, I found my father. He stood behind the pulpit, preaching about his favorite subject, fire and brimstone. If my father walked in, would he even recognize me? Would he want to? The dark made it worse, the visions too clear, not knowing if I was thinking or dreaming. Either way—thought or dream—I was terrified. My father, illuminated behind his pulpit, waving his Bible in the air, pointing his finger at me. I was raised better than this. I know the difference. Right, wrong. Good, evil. Saint, sinner. In such terms of black and white, I should be praying right now, admitting my sins, repentant.
Father, forgive me, I know what I ask. I want this darkness. I have no strength to walk away from the pleasures promised my flesh in chain and whip. I call another Master, and I am not sorry. I want this. I want Lord Fyre to master me. I want this, I want this, I want this.
Time has no meaning, but it is a long time, never-ending, without cessation, a bit like hell I suppose, without the fire and brimstone part. My preparation for hell to come.
The darkness was hell.
When the lights are on, I know when I sleep, and when I sleep, I dream of Garrett.
I dream of taking tongue baths on tabletops and drinking champagne from crystal bowls. I dream about his smooth bourbon voice and the touch of his soft hands sliding over my bare ass. I dream of kisses and spankings. My dreams are heaven, although they make me miss him terribly. I don’t know how long it will be before I see him again, if ever. I want to see him. However, not here like this. I do not want him to see what Lord Fyre has reduced me to.
I piss and the pee settles into a puddle beneath me on a metal tray, removable when necessary. It could be worse. Lord Fyre is detached, almost like the hospital nurse when I was confined to bed—depersonali
Awake, I remember the few days before I became Lord Fyre’s property…the kidnapping, the conversation that led Master to share me, actually relinquish me, to Lord Fyre. The few remaining days spent in the hospital were an emotional rollercoaster ride. I utterly and completely bottomed out. Sub drop. Abandoned emotionally, at a loss as to whether I’d made the right decision, Garrett gave me time and space to prepare for a new master; Lord Fyre gave me time and space to share a few final days with Garrett—neither saw my abandonment.
After a week, I was free of sterile disinfectant smell, hospital chic blue-green furniture, and scratchy blue-and-white-patterned hospital gowns that made sleeping, walking, sitting an uncomfortable nightmare—half dressed, half-naked. Is it really necessary to be that physically accessible?
My discharge papers were neat and tidy when the nurse handed them to me, along with two prescriptions, Erythromycin and Xanax. By the time she got me settled into the wheelchair for the ride to the exit, the papers were squeezed tightly inside my fist, wrinkled beyond recognition. I was nervous, not knowing which of the two men in my life would be picking me up, wondering why of all the things we discussed, we neglected the most important topics. Who? When? Where?
As soon as I saw the waiting Yellow Cab, I knew neither man was meeting me, the large neat letters of the cab company logo glaring at me from the side of the bright yellow Ford Escape Hybrid. The choice was still mine. Do I give the address of the luxury sky-high penthouse of Garrett Lawrence, otherwise known as Master? Do I give the address of Lewd Larry’s, the fetish nightclub owned by Garrett Lawrence, and incidentally where the second man in my life was employed under the professional dominant name, Lord Fyre? Actually, both men are professional dominants and, prior to a psychopathic murderer kidnapping me and trying to kill me—the reason I was in this hospital in the first place—neither wanted me. Amazing how a little thing like almost being killed makes a man sit up and take notice. For a second, I thought they might fight over me, but alas, no. Duels are the tools of heroes trapped within the written page and the damsel being fought over, so overwrought, faints, not knowing which hero lives to carry her off into the happily ever after until the epilogue, where he kisses her back to her senses.
I have a feeling my happily ever after epilogue is far off. I think perhaps I am still trapped in the prologue. This is the story of what happened to a girl from Kentucky. Once she was a very nice girl, with rosy cheeks and a dimpled smile. Everyone adored her…
Except now, she isn’t a very nice girl and she plays with sadists.
No fainting allowed in this story.
The cab driver stood beside the rear passenger door, holding it open, waiting, his kind-hearted if impatient smile wavering with each second I sit in the chair. I wadded the discharge papers tighter, twisting them and untwisting them. Garrett wasn’t there. Thomas wasn’t there either. I wasn’t surprised. My life has never been a fairytale.
“Easy honey,” the nurse took my elbow, lifting. I stood on solid ground for the first time in three days, with the exception of the four-foot shuffle to the bathroom. Wobbly, not from lack of strength as the nurse assumes, but because of the decision I have to make. Settling in the backseat, I waited for the cab driver to climb behind the wheel. He pulled away from the curb without a word.
“Aren’t you going to ask me where to take me?”
“I have the address, ma’am. Just sit back and relax, I’ll have you home real quick.”
I cringed at the use of ma’am, knowing it would happen someday, I must really look my age, or the title is a reflection of his upbringing. “You’re from Kentucky,” I guessed.
“Yes, ma’am, yes I am.” He grinned big in his rearview mirror, going for eye contact. I didn’t give him any. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess,” I answered, not willing to divulge that I too grew up in Kentucky, my upbringing over and past, no looking back, no longer wondering if my father is okay. Once, I used to wonder if he was even still alive—he was old when I left, older now—or dead. I don’t care. I really don’t, I told myself, wiping away a tear. “Exactly what address are you taking me to?” I asked, though his answer really wasn’t necessary, by the route he took, I knew exactly where we were going. He was taking me home.
Not Garrett’s.
Not Thomas’s.
Just as well, I was in no shape to be mastered by anyone. Exhausted just from the trip across town, I was more than ready to crawl between my sheets and sleep rather than be tied up and spanked.
Ask anyone who has recently been there, the hospital is no place to catch up on rest, five a.m. wake up, six a.m. sponge bath, seven a.m. doctor rounds, eight a.m. breakfast and the night shift, good lord. Did I really need my vitals taken every hour—all night long? Definitely not a place to rest.
My house looked the same as it did before I left—was kidnapped.
Climbing the four steps to the large wrap-around porch, I noticed first, there were no newspapers, someone had cleared the porch, and second, my front door was standing wide open. Windows, too, open, as if someone was inside purposely airing out my house for my arrival. The someone in question worried me enough for me to drag myself to the porch swing and sit, worrying the edge of a plumped, frilly pillow, too exhausted to face an intruder if there was one. Not curious enough to see which man waited for me, if not an intruder.
“Girl! Get yourself in here! I see you out there—don’t you think I don’t.”
Jackie. Garrett’s best friend and my newly entrusted confidante. She awed me the very first time I met her. She wasn’t what I expected, but then I could never have been prepared for her in all her glory. I knew immediately that she was a man, or had been a man at one time, I think. I’ve never really been brave enough to ask, just accepted Jackie for who Jackie is.
Oh hell and thank God passed through my brain simultaneously.
She opened the screen door, holding it open for me, looking me up and down as I approached. “You look a little worse for wear. I sent the boys to the market for a few things. Lord have mercy, your refrigerator was empty! I say we start with a glass of my famous Southern Lemonade, if it doesn’t cure what ails ya’, it’ll sure make ya’ forget the pain!” She laughed, pulling me in for a big hug, towering over me, well over six-and-a-half feet tall, probably closer to seven feet with the spikes she always wears, her natural beauty overwhelming. She is dark-skinned, a pure, deep russet, with almond-shaped brown eyes, made even larger and more dramatic by her always-present false eyelashes. Her full, sensual lips are artistically lined and filled with a slick, glossy lipstick. Her wig was a multitude of long, burgundy braids caught and bound in a loose knot, a more casual look than I’d ever seen on Jackie, but a hairstyle that complemented the exotic, brightly colored caftan that reached to her brightly painted toes.
She wrapped around me, cradling me, making me feel six again, held like my mother held me when I’d skin my knee and I’d run to her crying and she would grab me and hold me tight, my face buried against her breasts. Then, a kiss and a Band-Aid were a miracle cure.
Hugged, pulled into the house, with a very strong, heavily spiked lemonade in hand, I felt better, not great, but definitely better. At least until she demanded, “Now, before they get back, I want you to tell me just what in the hell is going on! Why on earth would you agree to let Lord Fyre master you? Are you insane, girl? Lord, lord, whatever were you thinking. Sit and spill.” She sat on my overstuffed sofa, patting the faded floral print, indicating for me to sit beside her.
God, I really needed new furniture, not because it’s faded and threadbare, that was once the charm for me, but because after seeing the ultra-chic, ultra modern furnishings at Garrett’s, mine are grotesquely grandmotherly in comparison.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Start with why Garrett is suddenly not man enough for you,” she demanded bluntly. “And what Lord Fyre has to do with this?”
“Jackie, I told you to leave her alone.” Garrett’s warning growl came from the other side of the screen door. Looking up, I saw he had his arms loaded down with paper grocery bags, each overflowing. Racing from the couch, smiling ear to ear, I was glad it was he on the other side of the screen. I couldn’t get the door open fast enough, pushing between the weighted bags to press against his chest, his soft, well-worn T-shirt a comfort against my cheek, citrusy and breezy all at once.
