Informed Consent (4 page)

“Taken in Hand?”

 
“You know; as in ‘She needs to be taken
in hand.’”

 
Denise snorted.
 
She took a long drink.

“I can’t even remember
how I felt back then.
 
After we
broke up my whole life fell apart, on top of the break up, you know?
 
So I don’t know anything. But I know
this.
 
Now? I despise him.
 
I’d happily stick a knife in his
ribs,
 
and wriggle it around to
sever his heart and lungs.”

Samantha whistled. She
shook her head and stared at Denise for a moment.

“You asked how a smart,
successful lawyer could ‘let’ someone treat me like that.
 
I’m going to answer your question.

Good,
thought Denise.
 
It went beyond annoying to pretend
her question wasn’t an extremely reasonable one.

“I fell hard for
Neil.
 
I had a great job.
 
Lots of friends, a lover.
 
But
nobody
lit me up inside the way Neil did, still does.
 
I’ve always been attracted to that type and I was wildly in
love with the man.
 
Of course we
clashed. We’re both very dominant people.
 
I’d known for years I could never love a man who wasn’t as strong as I
am.
 
It was a bit of a shock, I’ll
admit, when I realized he was stronger--that’s not the right word actually--for
now let’s say he was even more dominant than I was.”

 
Denise focused on Sam’s face, mouth
opened.
 
Sam nodded.

 
“Oh yeah. We clashed all the time.
 
At some point, I realized he listened
to me, discussed things, and occasionally even saw things my way, but there
were lots of times he didn’t agree and simply went ahead and did things his
way.
 
No big fuss, no more talking
about the issue.
 
He simply did things
his way.

Neil was also very
dominant sexually, and that was fine with me because, come on! The sex was
beyond amazing. The longer we were together the more overtly dominant he
became.
 
I won’t lie. We had some
fierce battles. No big physical confrontations or screaming matches. He’d
calmly stick to his guns and we’d agree to disagree.

 
“Then one day he swatted me.
 
At the time it felt spontaneous. Later
on I realized he’d been waiting for the opportunity.
 
But anyhow, that night I’d scared him.
 
I was late, really late and I didn’t
call to let him know. He’d been worried sick, he said, and he asked if I’d had
anybody walk me out to my car. When I said ‘no’ he got really pissed and said
I’d acted dangerously. Then he reached behind me and swatted me.
 
It stung, a little. I laughed.
 

“He didn’t laugh.
 
Instead he did it again, harder. And said,
‘Don’t ever do that again.’”

Samantha was quiet for a
brief second.

“He sort of shoved me
against the wall when he did it, that second smack - not hard - and started
nuzzling my neck, nipping, touching my breasts.
 
I was really turned on and that’s what I focused on, not the
fact he’d whacked my butt.”

Her eyes looked directly
into Denise’s.
 

“It was hot.
 
Sex had always been awesome but wow …
that time –unbelievably hot.

Much, much later I
realized how deliberate the whole scene had been. He took me right there,
against the wall. I was absolutely begging.
 
Right when I was sure I’d die if he didn’t…” She drew a deep
breath and laughed.
 
“He said ‘Are
you going to be good from now on?’
 
He made me tell him I’d be his good girl.”

 
Denise blew out a breath.
 
“What a bastard.”

Samantha raised one
shoulder and laughed.
 
“I wrote it
off as sex play.
 
Damn hot, but
play.”

Denise blew her
nose.
 

“So what happened after
that?
 
Did he start paddling you
for random things? How did you explain it to yourself?
 
Didn’t you feel like an idiot?”

 
“Maybe at first.
 
After a while no.
 
Things got pretty interesting. We had
some intense skirmishes here and there at the beginning. I left him more than
once. But things settled down as we adjusted.”

“You adjusted.
 
He bullied, you adjusted.”

 
“No.” Samantha shook her head.
 
“That’s not fair to him.
 
He always,
always
, listens to me, even if he doesn’t change his mind, and
there are plenty of times too when he does accept my way about stuff.

“Face it Denise, all
couples have to give and take.
 
Usually there’s a ton of fighting, until someone gives in for some
reason; maybe a sense that the fighting has to stop before anyone gets badly
hurt. Or maybe because it sucks for kids to live with feuding parents.
 
Then what?
 
Bitter feelings and resentment from the person who gave in.”

 
“You don’t resent him getting his way in
the end?
 
I’m pretty bitter when a
man thinks he can boss me around.”
 
Denise stalked around the room. “How do you live with yourself?”

“But he
can
boss me around.
 
He’s a foot taller and outweighs me by
eighty pounds.
 
Besides, I’m
utterly incapable of living without him.
 
I’m totally miserable without him, so I accept it.
 
I tried the doing without him, because
yeah it was uncomfortable at first. Once you accept it though, you’ll find out
you have a ton of power over him.
 
It’s simply in different spheres.”

Denise looked skeptical.

Samantha laughed. “I
know.
 
Kind of whoo-whoo…?”

“Very.”

Samantha shot Denise a
keen look.
 
“Here’s a piece of
advice.
 
Take it or leave it. About
today?
 
Confess everything.
 
Immediately.”

Chapter Six

 
Denise wasn’t going to confess a darned
thing. Obviously, she needed to be a heck of a lot more careful.
 
Her plan had been to fly under the
radar with Andrew, staying as much out of his way as possible, not giving him
any reasons for pitching a fit.
If
she could avoid it and still live with herself.
 

Well, she’d certainly
screwed that plan up. One kid never made it to school.
 
She’d driven without a license and been
pulled over by the police.
 
Finally, depending on your point of view, she had or had not attempted
to bribe an officer of the law.
 
Hardly stealth mode.

 
She needed to make arrangements, today,
to get the boys to school regularly.
 
Meanwhile, she’d hope and pray Andrew didn’t discover William had missed
class today.
 
And she could cross
her fingers the man didn’t make a habit of reading the police reports and no
one he knew did either.

 
Her chances there were pretty damn
slim.
 
Some busy body always read
the police reports.

 
Possessing an inheritance made it the
transportation issue easy to solve.
 
A few calls later and she’d hired someone to transport the boys to
school.
 
Hopefully the agency did
background checks and wouldn’t assign a member of
Sicko
Man Loves Young Boys
to drive her brothers. That problem solved, she moved upstairs only to discover
that William was no longer in his room.
 
Denise pulled her cell phone out of her jeans and punched in the speed
dial for her oldest, younger brother.
 
A blast of rap coming from under the bed told her wherever William was,
his phone wasn’t.
 
Why have a phone
if you’re not going to carry it?Alternatively, why carry it if you don’t want
people to reach you?

 
She peered under the bed for the heck of
it. The little shit wasn’t there.She stumped back downstairs and searched
through all the nooks and crannies. No way would she check the barn. If William
was out there he was doing something criminal and did she really want to know?

Crap. Better check. She
needed to get to him fast when he got home to give him the word -- if asked,
he’d had a stellar day in school.
 

 
Great. Her current plan involved
encouraging her brothers to lie.
 
That sucked. She knew she fell a little short in the moral department,
but still…way to fall even shorter...
 
On the other hand, she didn’t want another session of discipline with
Andrew.
 
A flush crept up her
cheeks and her tummy did one of those weird flip things.

At the kitchen door
Denise paused and took another long look around as much of the property as was
visible.
 
Not like she’d know if
anything was out of place. She stopped paying attention years ago.
 

A huge, very sorry
looking dog brushed by her and burst into the house.
 
Denise sighed.
 
It’d be great if she had the energy to chase after it and find the damn
dog but she didn’t.
 
She’d get out
a hunk of steak and hopefully the smell would lure the beast back into the
kitchen.
 
Andrew’s expectations
about dogs in the house seemed pretty clear. .
 
Huge, matted and filthy was not on the acceptable list.

She
opened the refrigerator door. Of course there was no hunk of meat in the
frig.
 
So that plan was shot.
 
Pulling out a chair, Denise sank down
and put her head on her arms.
 
What
a day.
 
What an awful day.

Something
snagged in her brain and she straightened, booting up the desktop computer that
lived on the kitchen table along with tons of other crap.
 
Who needed a clear table when the
family never ate together?
 
She
typed
Domestic Discipline
into the
Google bar and hit enter.

***

 
“Yo, Denise!”
 
Lucas swaggered into the kitchen, Zander close on his heels.
He dropped an immense book bag on the floor next to the frig. “Like, where were
you?”

Crap.
 
She groaned and shot a look at the time
stamped on the top of her screen before quickly closing the page.
 
She’d sat there for a very long
time.
 
Oohhh, the things she’d
read.
 
It left her squirming,
annoyed, curious and uncomfortably aroused. Add horrified and pissed off.
 

She began
the steps to erase her browsing history.
 
All she needed was for one of her brothers to find
domestic discipline
flash up as an option when he typed
domestic disorder
into a search engine.

“Like I
forgot,” she said, belatedly answering Lucas. “From now on a driver will drop
you guys at school and pick you up.
 
So it won’t matter if I forget you exist.”

“’Great,’
mumbled the little orphan boy.”
 
Lucas made his voice as pathetic as possible.

Stricken,
Denise looked up and shot death rays at Lucas before swiveling around to glance
at her youngest brother.
 
“I didn’t
mean it Zander.
 
I swear!
 
Oh shit! Look at him!”

Lucas
shot his little brother a look and shook his head.
 
“Cripes, Zander! Get a grip.
 
I only said that to yank Denise’s chain.” He punched his
brother lightly in the arm.
 

Zander
hunched one shoulder and scowled.
 
“Well I am an orphan, dick head.
 
It’s not fun.”
 
He yanked
open the frig, shoving his older brother out of his way.

Lucas, in
a moment of magnanimity brought on by horror at the thought he might really
have upset the kid, allowed the shove to go unchallenged. “Yeah, well, I’m an
orphan too.
 
Heck! We all are.
 
Group hug?”

Denise
ignored the offer.
 
“Do either of
you know where William is?”