Unraveled Together Read online

  The honk of the ferry breaks into my thoughts, and above me, seagulls whirl in circles, mirroring the circuitous confusion in my heart and mind.

  I know that what I’ve done to Robert is unforgivable and that he would be entirely within his rights to banish me from his life forever. Yet if only I could explain my side of the story to him, the motivations that drove me to lie to him by omission, the fears that caused me to do so, and my sincere guilt and shame over what I did, perhaps he would forgive me and take me back . . .

  At that moment, just as the Brooklyn Bridge materializes to the right of me, and in the distance I can see New Jersey and Hoboken, my home until I moved into Hartwell Castle with Robert, I hear the voice of Georgiana, my nemesis.

  I expect you to craft my autobiography in such a way that when Robert reads it, he’ll understand exactly who I am, what I am, why there was no alternative for me but to do what I did, that I deeply regret my actions, and that I want to make it all up to him. Then he’ll fall in love with me again, much deeper than before, and I’ll get him back.

  That’s it! That’s the answer. Do what Georgiana wanted me to do, only this time, for myself, not her. Write my autobiography so that when Robert reads it, he will understand everything, fall in love with me again, forgive me, and take me back.

  After all, I followed in Georgiana’s footsteps after she had imprisoned me in Le Château, and I managed to free myself from the grasp of her willing acolyte, Angel, by assuming Georgiana’s imperious persona and making it my own.

  My decision to channel my inner Georgiana for a few short hours had the desired result, and, to my discomfort, I loved every second of it, loved it so much that even now, I wonder how much of an inner Georgiana I really have, and whether, in fact, Robert fell in love with the Georgiana in me as well. After all, like her, I’m a deceiver on a grand scale, aren’t I?

  Stop it, Miranda, stop it, you are going to let Georgiana drive you crazy. I hear Robert’s voice in my mind, and I listen, grateful that despite the wrong I’ve done him, I can still summon up his voice to hearten me.

  The ferry docks, and I join the lines of people and disembark. Once in the waiting room, I weigh my options. Another ride to Staten Island, then back again?

  But if not, where to next? And, more to the point, what next?

  On reflection, I come to the realization that writing my autobiography in order to win Robert back and filling it with excuses and explanations for what I did is out of the question. Apart from the fact that I really don’t want to follow in Georgiana’s footsteps yet again, I know that he would hate for me to abase myself to him in that way. Fine to undergo humiliation during a BDSM scene, but not in real life. Particularly not in real life. For while a submissive groveling in front of him in a scene might work wonders for a dominant’s libido, if she grovels to him outside of BDSM, he could easily lose respect for her and view her as a doormat, not a potential partner.

  Besides, if I dropped my pride and sent him a letter explaining why I did what I did, and then begged for forgiveness, that might remind him of the letter Georgiana forced me to write to him, confessing that I was a charlatan, a trickster, a fraud.

  A plain and simple letter probably won’t work with Robert. Nor will a phone call, as he hardly ever has his phone on, and even if he does, the second he hears my voice he’s bound to slam it down.

  I flash back to the mausoleum again, and my SOS to Robert, a text, and nothing else. But not now, not this time. Too short, too bald, too unemotional. Maybe an e-mail, because even if he takes forever to answer it, I don’t care. Because if I don’t have Robert in my life anymore, I’ve got forever to mourn, forever to suffer.

  I’m not going to give up yet. I need to do something, anything, make an opening gambit to let him know that I love him beyond all reason, that I’ll die if he doesn’t take me back into his life and heart, and that I yearn to see him and to explain why I did what I did, and beg him to give me one more chance.

  Then the image of the man who came into my life a few short months ago suddenly rises up before my eyes: Robert Hartwell, the man I fell in love with and whom I pride myself on knowing almost as well as I know myself, and the most dominant man I’ve ever met.

  Even a saint would be furious with me right now, never mind a man for whom getting his own way is virtually a religion. And any man—or woman, for that matter—would need ample time to cool down, to get over the initial anger and start to think rationally. And sending Robert a mea culpa via e-mail won’t give him either the time or the space to do that.

  My next step is eminently clear. Don’t write a formal apology to Robert yet. Give him time to cool down first.

  Meanwhile, I’ll take a leaf out of the book I wrote for a superstar athlete some years ago—whenever anyone wished him good luck before a contest, he would turn on the person and declare, “Good luck? Why do I need any luck when I’ve already won!” And then he invariably did.

  In that spirit, I know exactly what I’m going to do next; act as if I’ve already won Robert back and all is right with us once more. And my erotic writing won me him the first time around, so as soon as I get home, I’m going to write some erotica just for him. Then I’ll send it to him and hope that I’ll win him back once more, this time for real and forever.

  Chapter Six

  Miranda, the Present

  I stare at my blank computer screen and tell myself to stop brooding about Robert, to channel all my grief, all my energy, all my longing into writing erotica for him instead. But exactly what do I write? A scene from our past together? A scene that I hope will happen in the future?

  I munch on a DoveBar, hoping for inspiration. I’ve never suffered from writer’s block, but it looks like now I am. The problem is that I actually lived out the Carlyle scene from Unraveled myself, so it was surprisingly easy for me to write. This time around is far, far more difficult because I know for sure that the erotic scene that will excite Robert is a scene that I would never want to experience for real. In fact, hell will freeze over before I subject myself to it.

  I take another bite of Dove, close my eyes, and picture myself enveloped in Robert’s arms, safe, warm, and his once more. I give a big sigh. And then make up my mind that if writing that particular scene will excite him and win him back, then write it I shall. A scene crafted by a masochistic submissive for a sadistic dominant.

  I finish the DoveBar, take a deep breath, and begin.

  As I follow the Master toward the long and winding staircase leading to the dungeon, I feel more terrified than I’ve ever felt in my life. Not because I’ve never been to a dungeon before but because—for the first time ever—I shall be in the dungeon with other people, a group of sophisticated players who have gathered here tonight in order to indulge their passions without witnesses, without limits, without fear of discovery.

  I belt the sheer black chiffon robe tighter around my body as I take the first step on the staircase, careful that my dark-blue patent stilettos don’t get stuck in any of the cracks in the gnarled wood, causing me to fall head over heels into the dungeon.

  Not the most auspicious entrance, although I don’t really expect anyone to take any notice.

  “Just remember, Miranda, you won’t be the main event tonight. You won’t be the star. Your role is to submit, plain and simple. To do what you are told, and to have done to you exactly what I decide should be done to you,” the Master said earlier this evening.

  Nonetheless, he has dressed me in the most eye-catching outfit imaginable—bright turquoise lace Agent Provocateur lingerie, including an uplift bra that is both see-through and far too tight—and has insisted that I wear the strongest, most attention-getting makeup possible: dark-red lips; maroon eye shadow; black eyeliner; long, black false eyelashes.

  Before we leave home, he spins me around and inspects me. “That will do,” he says, and I flush at the harsh, dismissive ton
e in his voice. In the limo to the party, he sits far away from me, doesn’t say a word to me, touch me, or even look at me, and by the time we arrive at the venue—a glamorous Central Park town house—I am already diminished, chastened, primed for what is to come.

  We are almost at the bottom of the staircase, and the Master hands the waiting retainer his black leather jacket and T-shirt. He is now dressed in black leather trousers and nothing else. At the sight of his broad shoulders, his bulging biceps and triceps, his flat, chiseled chest, his perfectly defined stomach—because he has decreed that I am forbidden to move even a muscle without his permission—I have to force myself not to fling myself at his feet and worship him in all his masculine glory.

  By the same token, squeezed into my turquoise lingerie, which accentuates my cleavage and my bottom, I feel like a confection about to be served up for dinner to a starving man. Or men.

  Twenty men and twenty women, to be exact. At least, that’s how many people he said will be in the dungeon tonight. And that’s all he’s said except “Just do as you’re told,” over and over, anytime I ask.

  Delerium’s Karma rings out from the dungeon, loud, dramatic, ominous, and as we go through the large oak door, the smell of incense overpowers my senses, and a light show composed of hundreds of swirling green, pink, purple, blue, and yellow stars bathe the dungeon in a dreamlike atmosphere.

  The Master pauses on the threshold of the dungeon to get the measure of the place. On the right, next to the door, a vast iron four-poster bed, and under it, a big, long, black cage with a red leather floor. By a fireplace, a green leather–covered whipping bench. Another, more intricate one at the far end of the room. Another cage, this time a standing one (the thought of being imprisoned in it makes me catch my breath with fear). Silver suspension chains hang from the ceiling. In another corner, an iron antique St. Andrew’s Cross. Racks of whips, paddles, canes, floggers. And large, overstuffed black leather sofas in alcoves.

  I keep my eyes down, as I know the Master wishes, and am glad that I must, as this way I won’t have to meet the eyes of any of the other players in the dungeon, and can only see their legs. The men mostly appear to be clad in black leather trousers, the women in fishnets, mostly black, but some scarlet or purple, their shoes high, much higher than mine.

  “Over here,” the Master says, pointing at the cage, and I momentarily hesitate.

  “Do as you’re told this second,” he says, and smacks my ass with a leather paddle I didn’t even see him pick up.

  He opens the cage and points to the floor.

  Afraid not to, I snap to it and get on all fours, then start to crawl into the cage, only to have him smack me again, a heavier smack than before, one that makes me yelp.

  “The other way around, obviously!” he says, his voice full of scorn, and I scurry to obey, and back into the cage as he decreed, feeling utterly humiliated by my clumsiness.

  Lucky for me, the floor of the cage is soft and squishy and almost comforting, and I’m glad of that. But when he slams the door shut and locks it, I panic. Then bite my tongue so that I don’t betray myself, because the last thing I need to do right at the start of the evening is show fear or panic, as the Master would instantly interpret that as a gross insubordination.

  Instead, I curl up in a fetal position on the floor of the cage, and for a second feel relatively safe. But then the Master orders me to kneel up and face the side of the cage, and I do. Whereupon he reaches in and pinches my nipples extremely hard. Then stops and walks away, leaving me wishing that he was still pinching them. Anything rather than abandon me.

  I watch, distraught, as the Master strides away from the cage and toward another room, and I am now alone and bereft.

  Fortunately, no one pays any attention to me, as they are all far too busy taking their pleasure and don’t stop for long enough to even give me a glance.

  As for me, I once read somewhere that people are divided between voyeurs and exhibitionists, and tonight I discover that I am definitely not a voyeur, as the last thing I want to do is to watch anyone else having sex or engaging in BDSM. Problem is, I can’t completely avoid it, as just a few inches away from me, a tall, busty brunette is suspended from the ceiling, her toes hardly touching the floor, while her Master flogs her relatively mercifully and she twists and turns to the rhythm. All I can think is that I wish it were me suspended instead of her. And that I wish he were flogging her harder . . .

  So instead of watching, I curl up on the cage floor and close my eyes. And then a deep sense of peace overcomes me, and—for a dizzying second—it occurs to me that I could become accustomed to being caged, to the confinement, the lack of options, the lack of will. And, above all, the sense of being completely and utterly at the mercy of the Master.

  My reverie is interrupted when I hear the click of the cage lock, and then feel the Master pinch my thighs. I look up at him and am once more dazzled by his classic masterly magnificence: six feet tall, with a perfect body and a face so handsome that it belongs on the silver screen so that mere mortals will gaze upon it and adore it.

  And as for his voice—rich, gravelly, authoritative, yet with a hint of humor in it—it ripples right through me and makes me tremble with lust and yearning.

  “Over here and fast,” he commands, pointing at the whipping bench.

  I hesitate for a split second.

  “Do as you are told, Miranda! And do it right now,” he orders, and I move over there quickly and kneel on the platform at the foot of the bench.

  I long for him to give me a hint of what is ahead of me, how many strokes, of what, and for how long, plus a few words of reassurance, but I know better than to ask, so I just remain in place, silent and compliant.

  Swiftly, he imprisons my ankles in cuffs and fastens them to either side of the platform; then he straps me down on the bench by the waist, so that I lie there, on my front, and the pressure hurts my breasts, but I don’t voice a complaint, simply because I know that I mustn’t.

  Then he takes each one of my wrists in turn, fastens cuffs on them, and then secures them to the top of the bench so that I am tied facedown and helpless. If I lift my head a fraction, in the mirror opposite me I can see my own reflection and—more important—the Master’s, in all his splendor.

  For a moment, I can hardly breathe, such is my anticipation, my excitement, my fear. And then he slams the heavy leather paddle down on my bare and quivering ass and I let out an almighty shriek. Seemingly immune to my shrieks of pain, he just carries on paddling me, left, right, left again, over and over.

  A second’s pause, and he picks up the thick rubber flogger. As the strands cut into my body faster and faster, harder and harder, I yell out in agony, but at the same time pray that he won’t reach between my legs and feel the moisture pouring out of me, betraying how much I am enjoying this, because if he does, my pleasure at the pain will be apparent to him and I’ll have no defense.

  I don’t care that practically everyone in the room is now staring at us. Part of me likes it, and I can’t swear that I’m not exaggerating my screams, my moans, my writhing an iota, just to give my enthralled audience what they crave. Then again, I don’t care about my audience, I just care about the Master, about his reflection in the mirror in front of me, his eyes burning, his gaze so intense, unwavering, his concentration so strong as he raises his heavily muscled arm as high as he can, then brings the flogger down again and again with a loud crack.

  The crowd moves closer toward us; a big, tall, bodybuilder of a man standing close by is playing with himself as the sweat pours down his face from the tension and the excitement of the tableau in which I am now clearly starring.

  A tall, willowy blonde with enviably long legs is rubbing her body frantically against that of her smaller, more effete husband, all the while gazing over his shoulder at my flogging with an aching longing, so much so that I’m terrified that any minute no
w she’ll hurl herself at the Master and beg him to flog her as well. Fat chance. At least, I hope not, as I don’t think I could endure it. Even just the thought of him beating another woman makes me crazy with jealousy.

  Then it happens. As suddenly as he started, he stops thrashing me, strides over to the blonde woman and her effete husband, and hands him the flogger, then points in my direction. “Hurt her for me,” he says, and a combination of sexual excitement and pure terror shoots through me.

  Not nearly as much, though, as when the Master takes a crop from the wall rack and calls after the husband, “Fair exchange?”

  When the husband turns around, the Master indicates the tall, willowy blonde, the husband gives a quick nod, and I, quite simply, want to die. Or at the very least, yank the crop out of the Master’s hands, snap it in half, fling the pieces on the ground, and run out of the dungeon.

  Which, of course, is the most outlandish of all outlandish fantasies, because I’m strapped down on the whipping bench like an animal about to be slaughtered, with no options, no will, no choice. A series of orifices, an inanimate object, unable to fight back, to escape.

  I hate my predicament with everything I’ve got, yet I’m in it because, ahead of time, I made it eminently clear to the Master that I wanted to be rendered helpless, will-less, depersonalized, there only to take punishment, to be reduced to nothing but an instrument of pleasure. His pleasure.

  Now, though, I am about to become an instrument of someone else’s pleasure. The husband’s pleasure. And the wife, the tall, willowy blonde with the impossibly long legs, is about to become the instrument of the Master’s pleasure, to give him pleasure. And I don’t think I’ll be able to endure it. Any of it.