THE DEEP END (6 page)

He shouldn’t go at all. Well actually, he should. He should go home. He should go to the office or the country club. He and his ridiculous request should go somewhere other than my kitchen.

He wiped his eyes with hands that still shook despite my super-secret cure. Then his shoulders began to shake. “Please?”

Oh dear Lord. More drama. Roger Harper was crying at my kitchen counter. “I have a luncheon planned this afternoon.”

He choked on a sob.

“It won’t change anything,” I said.

“It will. I know it will.”

I tried to reason with him. “Nothing you find will change anything. There are some things you don’t want to know.”

“I went there. The things I saw...” He rubbed his face, still a near indescribable shade of green. “I have to know why.”

“What makes you think this woman has the answer?”

“She said she did.”

Well, if a dominatrix said so, it must be true. “Roger, it’s a terrible idea.”

Tears ran freely down his sunken cheeks and his shoulders didn’t just shake, they convulsed. His sobs attracted Max. The dog appeared in the doorway, his head cocked as he tried to decipher the unfamiliar sound of a man barely treading water in a bottomless pool of anguish.

Of all the things my mother taught me—how to plan a party, how to begin with the silverware on the outside and work my way in, how to smile sweetly when I wanted to rage—why hadn’t she showed me how to handle a crying man?

Visiting Club K was the very last thing on earth I wanted to do. It was contrary to my better judgment. It was something I could never undo, sure to be chock full of sights I could never unsee. But poor, gin-soaked Roger looked as if he was about to collapse with grief. Spending an awkward hour with a dominatrix was a small thing to bring him solace. At the very least, it would get him out of my kitchen. Silently calling myself ten kinds of fool, I nodded. “All right, I’ll go with you. But I have to be home by noon and you have to shower first.”

Six

I parked Roger’s car in front of a warehouse and wished with all my too-soft heart that I’d found a spine and stayed home. If the hung-over husband of my father’s dead mistress asked Mother to go to a club where spanking passed as recreation and handcuffs replaced tennis bracelets as a status symbol, she’d laugh in his face then eject him from her kitchen, not drive him to the club. Certainly she wouldn’t knock on the door. For the first time in my life, I thought it might be nice to be more like Mother.

Get in. Get Roger’s answers. Get out. Preferably in five minutes or less. That was the plan.

I rapped on the steel door a second time and prayed no one would hear or that no one was there. Like so many of my prayers, it went unanswered.

A woman with hooded eyes and sharp cheekbones opened the door, took one look at my seersucker dress, curled her glossy lip and said, “We don’t need any Girl Scout cookies.”

“I’m not selling any.” A rude, leather-clad woman with hair that could do with some conditioner and lips that glistened blood red was as good a reason to leave as any. I turned on my heel.

Roger caught my elbow. “Please. Don’t go.”

I felt distinctly less inclined to indulge him now that he wasn’t sobbing in my kitchen. I pulled my arm loose. “I’m taking your car. If you stay, you’ll have to call a cab.”

“Please, Ellison.” He looked as lost and lonely as a bottle bobbing in the ocean. One whose message was slowly disintegrating.

“Let me guess.” The woman drew out the ess sound. “You must be Ellison Russell.”

The air around me stilled.

She continued, “You’re exactly as Henry described. Country club pretty with an expression that could form icicles on eaves in August. I didn’t ever expect to see you here.”

My faithless husband had talked about me to a dominatrix. I shuddered. “I didn’t ever expect to be here.” Could she know where Henry was? Did I care enough to ask? I didn’t. But Grace cared. “Have you seen my husband?”

“Every inch.” Her hands measured those inches. Correctly.

My hand tightened around the handle of my purse. I wanted to swing it at her head. Two things stopped me. First off, the purse was a Nantucket Lightship signed by José Reyes. It wasn’t just a handbag, it was a piece of handcrafted art and I didn’t want to damage the weaving or scrimshaw against the blades of her cheeks. Second, she was obviously trying to get a rise out of me. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“He’s left town. Do you know where he went?”

“Not a clue.”

I doubted she’d tell me if she did know. I borrowed the voice Mother saves for waiters who bring her tepid coffee. “Mr. Harper wants to ask you a few questions about his wife. Do you have a clue about her?”

She curled her kewpie doll lips again and stood back. “Come in.”

Why couldn’t we just stand on the sidewalk while the woman in the leather bustier told Roger his wife had worn a dog collar and liked it?

Roger, fool that he was, stepped inside. Fool that I am, I followed him. Maybe it was prurient curiosity. If so, I wasn’t willing to admit it, even to myself.

The place reeked of stale cigarettes, spilled liquor, and sex. Murky light filtered through shuttered second-story windows then glanced off a brick wall dotted with cuffs and shackles.

“Lovely place you have here,” I said. Sarcasm—another lesson learned at Mother’s knee, and a tactic best used when losing an argument. Also useful when the urge to run screaming from a warehouse filled with torture equipment is overwhelming. Mother probably didn’t know about that use.

“What is that?” Roger pointed to a terrifying looking apparatus—padded, a bit bigger than a door, able to tilt like a lounge chair next to the pool. It had sections—key sections—cut out of the middle so that once someone was restrained, their bits would hang out the other side.

“A Berkley horse.” She smiled at it as if it was an adorable child who’d just presented her with a bouquet of flowers. Then her gaze cut to Roger. “A favorite of your wife.” Her smile lost its indulgent softness when she looked at me. “And your husband.”

Next to me, Roger gasped. His skin, which had finally regained the color of skin on the drive over, reverted to green. The shade was reminiscent of cream of asparagus soup. “Henry tied my wife to that thing?” His red-rimmed eyes didn’t look horrified. They looked curious.

“He did.”

“And then?”

She ran the tip of her of tongue across the front of her teeth. “Then he whipped her or flogged her or caned her.”

“Why?” Roger’s green skin glazed with sweat and his throat worked as if he had more to say but couldn’t bring himself to utter the words.

“She liked it. They both did. He would have one of his other subs sit on the front side of the Berkley and pleasure Madeline while he whipped her. The combination of pleasure and pain was...” She paused to find the right word. “Delectable.”

Other subs? What the hell? She wanted me to ask. I could tell. I sealed my lips.

Roger sank onto a piece of leather. I couldn’t imagine what it was for, didn’t want to.

His head fell to his hands. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple.” Mistress K’s voice was soft, sibilant. “What part don’t you understand? The part where Henry shackled Madeline to the Berkley? The part where he flogged her? Or the part where she loved every second of it?” She stepped so close to Roger that his knees touched her legs. “She wanted someone to take charge.”

Roger turned his head away, stared at the wall of manacles. “You’re lying.”

Mistress K’s laugh was gentle. She reached out, hooked a pointed fingernail under Roger’s chin, and turned his head so he was forced to look at her. “Don’t you ever want someone to take charge? To let them take responsibility?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it feel good to replace the pain in your heart with the sting of leather on your body?”

Why didn’t he tell her to go to hell? I would. Roger sighed as if she’d described a dream vacation, not an intimate encounter with a flogger.

With just the pressure of her finger under his chin, she made him stand and drew him closer to her. Didn’t the idiot man know the story of the spider and the fly?

“Roger!”

They both looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was there.

“What the hell are you doing? You came here for answers not to let some woman whip you.”

She answered me with a smile worthy of a lion on Wild Kingdom—right before it tried to eat Marlin Perkins’ co-host Jim. “Perhaps the whip is the answer. Perhaps Roger needs to feel it to understand why Madeline loved it so.”

Oh. Dear. Lord. “Roger you’re the CFO of a publicly traded company. You’re vice president of your country club. You’re a deacon in your church. You can’t mean to let this woman tie you to that thing.”

I might as well have talked to the brick wall. Roger took a tentative step toward the Berkley.

“I can take away the pain, Roger. I can take away the sorrow.” Each word was low and seductive and venomous. “I can take away the guilt.”

Guilt? What guilt? Had Roger killed Madeline? He couldn’t have. He didn’t have the force of character to kill a mouse, much less Madeline.

“Take off your shirt, Roger.” Her voice was still low, still seductive, but I heard iron beneath the velvet.

Roger, the idiot, unbuttoned the first button.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded.

Roger didn’t seem to hear me. It was as if he’d gotten lost in his own head and only Mistress K’s voice could reach him.

“He wants to know why. I’m going to show him.”

“Do you have to work at being a bitch or does it come naturally?”

She smiled as if I’d paid her a compliment. “It’s all natural.”

Roger unbuttoned the rest of the buttons and shrugged out of his shirt. His forearms and neck were tanned from golf. His torso was ghostly white. Mistress K ran her fingernail down his chest, raising goose bumps. I looked away.

She led him to the Berkley, helped him lean into it, lifted his right arm and shackled him.

“Roger, have you lost your mind?” My voice was loud enough to echo through the empty warehouse, but it wasn’t loud enough to reach Roger. He didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken.

Mistress K shackled his left arm then gently patted his bare shoulder.

I took a reluctant step toward them. “He lost his wife. He’s lost in his grief. You can’t do this to him.”

The woman in leather raised an eyebrow, daring me to stop her.

“You’re a sadist.”

“You say the nicest things.” She circled the Berkley, looking at Roger from all angles. “Of course, I’m nowhere near as sadistic as your husband. He manipulates his subs better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

There it was again. Subs. Plural.

“Roger,” she said, “do you know what a safe word is?”

He shook his head.

“If you don’t like what I do to you, if you want me to stop, you say the safe word. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

Dear merciful Lord, the man had rocks for brains.

Mistress K cut her gaze to me for a half-second then said to Roger, “Your safe word is ‘seersucker.’ Say it.”

Roger said it.

“Let him go.”

She snorted.

“You can beat him bloody when he’s not grieving, but right now he’s not in his right mind.”

“He wants to submit. Just look at him.”

I looked. I saw a man leaned against a padded board, unable to move his arms and without the strength of will or character to lift his head. I saw a broken man, not a submissive one. “You’re wrong.”

“She’s right.” Roger’s voice was raw with emotion.

Who was I to argue? He was a grown man. A grown idiot.

Mistress K laughed. At me. “The look on your face.” She smiled as if recalling a fond memory. “It’s funny, because Henry’s so twisted. He played his subs off against each other until they’d do anything to please him. Depraved things.”

“How many did he have?” I hated myself for asking.

Her smile was pure evil. “Your husband had three subs. Two now that Madeline’s gone—Kitty and Prudence. I wonder if he’ll add another.” Then she turned her attention to Roger. “Are you ready?”

I had to get out of there. Immediately. If the man was stupid enough to put himself in her power, he deserved what he got. “I’m taking his car. Getting him home is your problem.”

“You’re not staying?” She blinked at me, her expression as wide-eyed and innocent as a kitten’s. Bitch.

Leaving Roger to his fate, I headed for the door.

I was almost there when her voice stopped me. “Henry’s been coming here for almost two years. He said you wouldn’t let him touch you.”

Not when he wanted to touch me with the end of a crop. Not when he was spending his free time tying up Madeline...or Kitty or Prudence. I took another step toward the door.

“I was wondering,” she called, “what you do for sex?”

Sadistic bitch. I kept walking.