Hard Lessons (24 page)

I’m not an owner. At least not until now. I bought Queenie on impulse when she was auctioned at Cartmel. I thought she looked nice.

He reads my reply then glances at me in surprise. “Nice! People don’t spend hundreds of thousands on a horse just because it looks nice. It’s an investment. Or an expensive hobby for the filthy rich. A bit like some billionaires buy themselves a football team. You don’t look like a billionaire…”

I start punching out a note on my phone again.

Not a billionaire, but I’m a lottery winner. More money than sense probably. But I did like the look of Queenie. I could afford her, so I bought her. But now I want her to do well, win me some prize money perhaps.

He smiles. “Well, Freya, I promise I’ll do my best to make sure she does.”

And I believe him.

* * * *

Back at my apartment the buzz of excitement generated by my visit to Talltrees soon recedes and I sink into my lonely existence again. But I do have an open invitation to go back any time to see Queenie, and I’m planning to be at Thirsk next month to cheer for her at her first outing under my ownership.

Vanilla aside, it might be nice to see Pat too. Possibly.

I’m again considering a trip to Australia, but I don’t really want to go just yet. Nevertheless, I get as far as checking out flights on the Internet, but log off without booking anything. Maybe next week.

* * * *

But by next week I’m no further forward. I’m still drifting around my apartment looking for meaningful things to do, and fast coming to the conclusion that maybe Nick was right. Maybe my life does lack purpose. Certainly, I can’t find any purpose to it just now. The days slip by, and are turning into weeks. Empty, tedious weeks full of nothing of any significance. I eat, I sleep—sometimes. I sit on my balcony and watch people go by on the street below, happy people, people with lives and futures and important, fun-filled existences.

Not like me. I’m just here—continuing to use up oxygen. The Queenie effect has long since been exhausted and I know I really should muster up the energy to drive back down to Nantwich for a refill. But I can’t be bothered. Maybe I won’t bother with Thirsk either. It’s a long way to go, on my own.

I’m even considering a return trip to the Collared and Tied club, though I’m not entirely sure why that might be even halfway toward being a good idea. If I’d been willing, able to scene with other Doms, Nick and I would still be together. Subconsciously I suspect I’m thinking about going on the faint chance that I might run into Nick there, or maybe Mistress Angela. Perhaps she could pass on a message or something. What message exactly I have no idea.

Whatever my reasons, I dig around in my wardrobe for my sexiest fetish gear and select an outfit for the club—a leather bustier, black with bright red laces and a pair of tight Lycra leggings with a cleverly concealed Velcro opening in the crotch. I could have found skimpier gear, but this outfit covers my waist, which means I can conceal Nick’s chain underneath. For reasons I’m not ready to even try to examine, I’m not prepared to remove it and I don’t want anyone else to see that I’m still wearing it. I don’t want anyone to ask questions, jump to any conclusions.

I pull up in the car park and make my way to the front door. I’m greeted by the usual staff, who remember me from my last visit—the visit when Nick scened with me in the dungeon then took me back up to our private room and treated me to the most sensuous, erotic experience of my life. Well, my life to date then. He’s surpassed himself since, of course. I seem to have left a lasting impression from that memorable occasion, or maybe it’s just that word gets round. In any case, I’m not short of offers, and a couple of them come from Doms I would previously have leaped at the chance to scene with. Experienced Doms, Doms I could trust, especially now I’m kitted out with my wristbands and the other safe signals in my arsenal.

It’s not fear or any lack of confidence on my part that has me turning them down now. It’s simply that they’re not my Master—no one else can be. That position is taken, whether Nick Hardisty knows it or not. The chain around my waist is proof of that. Which does, obviously, leave me with something of a dilemma. I’m a trained submissive. Well, half-trained. And I want to be topped so much it actually hurts. My nipples ache, my clit throbs. I can bring myself to orgasm if I have to, and that would probably offer some relief. But really, any of that would be a stopgap. I need my Master to provide the release I’m craving, but he sent me away. He refuses to claim me or even to have anything at all to do with me now.

So, I settle for watching the activities of others in the dungeon, drawing some shred of comfort from the knowledge that this time I’m on the sidelines by my own choice. I leave the club after a couple of hours, fairly sure that I won’t be back.

Back at my apartment I decide I need a project, something I can do here, at home. I really don’t want to face the outside world all that much at the moment. Maybe a new quilt…? But even that seems like too much effort. Now I know I’m in trouble. I need to get a grip.

So I decide on spring cleaning. It’s not spring, and I’ve no real intention of cleaning, if I’m honest. When things need a proper scrub down, maybe twice a year, I usually hire professional cleaners to come in and blitz the place. It’s a good system and one I have no intention of changing now, no matter how depressed I might be feeling. I can’t somehow see myself being cheered up much by soap suds and disinfectant.

But a project is a project, and I need the sense of purpose so I email the cleaning company and arrange for them to send in the domestic storm troopers next Thursday. Meanwhile I start looking around for some small contribution I might make to the effort. And I decide on curtains. Washing the curtains, to be exact. As I look around I can see that all my curtains need a thorough tubbing. It won’t entail massive effort on my part—all I need to do is get them down from the windows, bundle them up and sling them in the washing machine, possibly iron them, then hang them up again. What could be more straightforward?

I tug my solid little oak coffee table over to the window in my lounge and stand on it to quickly unhook the heavy full-length curtains from their fixings under the pelmet. I ram all the heavy fabric into the washing machine, set it for a delicate cycle, and turn the machine on. I wait to hear the cheerful gurgling of the water gushing in before getting started on dislodging the bedroom curtains. There’s no solid little coffee table in here so I settle for my pretty bedroom chair. It’s a Queen Anne antique and I suppose not really intended for such mundane use, but needs must so I drag it across the room. I clamber onto it and reach up to undo the hooks fixing the curtains.

One moment I’m safely perched on my Queen Anne chair, reaching out to unhook the far corner of the curtain, and the next moment I’m not. I’ve no idea what’s gone wrong, but I lose my balance somehow and go crashing down onto the floor with all the innate grace of a sack of spuds. I stick out my hand to break my fall, which works up to a point. I succeed in breaking my wrist instead. I know the instant I hit the carpet that I’ve done some real damage. I hear my wrist snap and the pain is excruciating, well beyond anything Nick has ever done to me even at his most determined or inventive. I lie there on the floor for long moments, sobbing with pain and shock, hugging my injured wrist, and wondering what the hell to do now.

To cap it all, it’s my left wrist. Not only can’t I sign, I can’t write now either.

But at least my chair seems all right.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

Carrot and Coriander

Ashe Barker

Excerpt

Chapter One

She’s there again. Watching. Always bloody watching. Nice legs though…

Callum O’Neill flexed his shoulders as he poured a healthy glug of cool water down his throat. He replaced the half-empty plastic bottle on the wall beside him and picked up his spade. Another couple of hours should see the heavy work done, then he could get on to the planting up. Mrs Saunders wanted a rockery, so she’d have one. By Tuesday.

He put his back into shoveling loose soil from an underused patch of scrub round the back, before hefting it onto his customer’s sturdy if somewhat battered wheelbarrow. Once full, or fullish, he shoved the load around to the front of the house. There he upturned it onto the growing heap of soil and rubble that was, by Tuesday, to become magically transformed into a rock garden.

He stood for a few moments to assess his progress so far, contemplating once more the uncertain wisdom of creating a rockery in the shade of a horse chestnut tree and a four foot high wall. Rock plants needed dry, well-drained soil. They also needed sun. Mrs Saunders’ aubretia and candytuft would struggle to get either tucked away in this dark corner. This spot called for ferns, primulas or maybe some bluebells. Pretty, shade-loving plants not sun-worshiping perennials.

A diligent and knowledgeable plantsman, Callum had offered his advice. Leave the rocks where they were in the sunny back yard. He could make them into a rock garden for her there if she liked, it would take him half the time to build and be so much cheaper for her. But his words had fallen on deaf ears. The lady had insisted. He needed the work so he’d shrugged pragmatically, cast another doubtful glance at her preferred rockery site, and had gotten on with the job.

It didn’t do to argue, or to turn down trade. But he wasn’t especially happy. He took pride in his creations, he knew Mrs Saunders’ heathers and sedums wouldn’t thrive in the dark, dank spot. And despite her apparent indifference to their plight that mattered to him. Callum wanted Mrs Saunders to look out of her window and enjoy the fruits of his labor. He wanted her to be pleased with his work. He had a business to build, he needed more clients like Mrs Saunders, so it would help if she’d recommend him to her friends. She wouldn’t do that if her aubretia shriveled and her heathers flopped.

He sighed, shook his head in resignation, and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow to trundle it back round to the rear of the house.
Best get on with it.

He was never sure just how to refer to the half a dozen or so people who engaged his services to help them wage that war of attrition which is gardening. Strictly speaking, he was self-employed so that probably made them clients. Whatever, gardening was nice work—good, outdoors work, creative, satisfying. Better than working in an office—not that anyone in their right mind would have given him a job anywhere near their computers and phones. Plus it was a lot better than being locked up. He should know, having spent just under a year cooling his heels in HMP Leeds, that auspicious establishment in Armley where the likes of him tended to end up. By that he meant car thieves stupid enough to get caught and cocky enough to think they could manage to bluff their way through the judicial system without the services of a half-decent solicitor.

Once was enough though. Short, sharp shock tactics had worked on Callum O’Neill. Lessons learnt, career change required. Hence the self-employed jobbing gardener. He’d been out of prison for six months and had spent the first few weeks applying for jobs, initially as a mechanic because he did at least know his way around motors. But he’d soon gotten tired of trying to explain to prospective employers that he was a reformed character, and fed up of assuring them that their precious customers’ cars would be safe with him. No more dodgy number plates for him, no nicking top-end vehicles to order and passing them on to his contacts to be shipped abroad. No. All that was behind him now.

Still though his job hunting efforts had gotten him nowhere. Too many good lads out there competing for jobs—nice little apprentices without murky pasts and a prison record—for anyone to have wanted to consider someone like him. Why would they? He wouldn’t have employed him either.

Maybe he should have smartened himself up a bit. His hair was just a bit too long, possibly. And a lot too black. It could be said there was a little too much artwork on his forearms. Not much he could do about that, but he did seem to keep on rolling his sleeves up when he didn’t absolutely need to. Without doubt his tall, athletic build could be intimidating, on occasions. He could definitely have tried to be more personable, maybe smiling once or twice in interviews, or at least trying not to scowl. But he had been angry. Bitter. And more than a bit nervous about what his future might have held if he hadn’t been able to manage to get gainful employment, and fast. This was what he knew dragged most ex-cons back into a life of crime—the fact that there were precious few alternatives if they wanted cash to spend and a decent place to live.

He had fast realized no one was going to give him a job, so the obvious solution had been to make one for himself. Always enterprising, Callum had worked out that a freelance gardener might stand a chance. As a lad he’d helped his granddad on his allotment in east Leeds often enough—he knew the basics. Probably. So he’d taken himself off to some of the leafy outlying suburbs, spent a few hours strolling the avenues and lanes of Adel, Alwoodley, Bramhope, Headingley. There he’d peered over garden walls, hoping not to get arrested as a Peeping Tom, or worse still, as a potential burglar. He’d identified those places where the occupants seemed to be well-heeled enough to be able to afford a posh house in an upmarket neighborhood, but didn’t seem unduly meticulous in the care of their gardens. Messy, overgrown lawns, untrimmed hedges, weeds in the flowers beds, those were the clues that here might be clients.

When he’d found a likely place, one that looked as though they could do with the services of a jobbing gardener, he’d just marched right up to the door and knocked. He had offered to help, just casual labor at first, one-off clear ups. “I’ll mow your lawn, twenty quid, cash in hand.” He got quite a few takers on that basis, and what’s more a lot of the takers hired him again, and again. He did a good job, didn’t nick anything. Soon he had begun to build up a regular round of mowing, weeding, trimming, watering. Other odd jobs too, nothing turned down.