The Submissive's Last Word (The Power to Please #4) (6 page)

If so, it was confirmation of what Gibson believed. It was
possible he was right, that Michael hadn’t, in the moment, casually dismissed
my suffering and my desire to appease him. At some point, Michael’s thoughts
shifted, and he stopped seeing me as merely an easy lay and potential Web site
profit.

I knew, deep down, that this was serious hair-splitting. Did
it matter that Michael once respected what happened that night, when he later
destroyed that respect by doctoring up and selling a recording of it, then
using that recording to destroy me? I thought that it shouldn’t matter, but for
some reason it did.

I still hated Michael, and after hearing Gibson’s
explanations about what Michael did wrong, I thought I might hate Michael even
more than before, if that were possible.

I’d been so focused that night on my own actions, on trying
to be an obedient, good sub, that I failed to give any thought to Michael and
his actions. The following day, when I saw the physical damage to my body, I
was outraged, but it passed away quickly, due to the memory of what happened
between us post-punishment. I thought of that time as extraordinary, a glimpse
into the bliss of total surrender.

I had to admit to myself that knowing Michael hadn’t wanted
an audience in the shower with us did make me feel less violated. It might have
been strange, but I thought of that time as something approaching sacred, in a
way. When I saw the video, I felt like Michael had desecrated it.

Now, in this different way of seeing what happened, I knew
that he didn’t want anyone to watch us, or film us. He understood it was
special. He didn’t defile it. Not then anyway. Not until he posted the video on
the Internet, sorry fucker.

At least I knew, when we were still together, he hadn’t
wanted anyone else there. It was bizarre, practically nitpicking the situation,
but there was a certain consolation all the same. And even if it didn’t make me
hate him any less, it did make me feel less a deluded fool.

I looked over at Gibson. “You’re right. That helps. It’s
like the difference between a premeditated crime and a crime of passion, isn’t
it? Both are crimes, both despicable, but premeditation is so cold that it’s on
a different level of despicable. Michael lost control, didn’t he?”

“I think so, yes,” Gibson answered.

It shouldn’t make a difference, but it did.

Gibson gave my hands a final squeeze, then let them go. We
walked on, our feet falling quietly on the smooth, stone path.

I didn’t have an ultimate conclusion about how this new
information might affect me moving forward, but I definitely had some
conclusions about Gibson.

I was blown away that he put himself in what had to be an
extremely uncomfortable position in order to explain Michael’s actions. That
Gibson not only told me the bad, but also what could be considered the good (in
a way) in Michael, was impressive.

I tried to put myself in Gibson’s position. He’d watched my
videos, perhaps more than once, seeking information that might help me. I
imagined how difficult that would have been, how it must have offended his pride
and tested his composure. To see what Michael did. To see him doing it to a
woman Gibson had been with. That would be hard.

He was a wonder to me.

And he had taken a gamble. I might not have listened, might
have been angry that he told me all those things. I could have taken offense,
in particular, when he implied that, if I had simply used my safe word, the
night could have been an entirely different experience.

Gibson put himself on the line for me, in more ways than
one. He took a risk for the chance to help me. He had already helped me in a
manner I found astonishing. The way he handled the Web site, the videos, all of
it was nothing short of superhuman.

And now, here he was again. But this time, he wasn’t just
investing impersonal resources. This time, he invested his own feelings, set
them aside in order to help me. And he did it all with a risk of failure, that
it might have been for nothing.

He sacrificed so that I might receive some consolation. I
was overwhelmed with gratitude and respect for what Gibson had done.

I looked at him in profile, admired his easy stride, the
swing of his arms, the strong line of his jaw. He glanced over at me, and we
locked gazes.

I said quietly, “Thank you.”

It was beyond inadequate, ridiculously insufficient. But it
was all I had.

A quick nod was his reply, though I thought I saw a flash of
relief cross his features.

The sun hung low in the sky now, and the light bounced
through the gently swaying reeds, slanting onto the grass and pathway. I
realized it was getting late.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“I could eat.”

“I make a pretty crappy omelet, if you’d care to join me.”

“Sounds terrible. I’d love to.”

We shared small smiles. Then we turned and headed back to
the cottage. We didn’t speak, just enjoyed the walk, and I continued to think
over everything, all of the revelations which would take time to digest in
full.

Once back at the house, I cooked, and we ate the omelets
which fully delivered on my crappy promise.

Gibson helped me clean up and then he went home like the
gentleman he was.

I returned to my closet, found the cat figurine Isabel had
given me. I put it on my bedside table where I would see it every morning when
I woke up, every night before I went to bed.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like
something was missing in my life, that something unidentifiable was lacking,
lost forever.

That something was hope. And I owed mine to Gibson Reeves.

Chapter 5

“Nonnie, dear girl, you have to reach back in there, reach
all the way, or you’ll never get the job done right. And I’m assuming you want
to do the job right,” Paulina said, crouching next to me.

I tried not to roll my eyes as I pushed my hand farther back
into the shrubbery. “It’s not that I don’t want to do the job right, it’s just
that I don’t see the point in picking off dead leaves that no one can see.”

“Tsk-tsk. Even if the guests won’t see it, we’ll know those
dead leaves are there, won’t we?”

I stared at her blankly. She stared back. I finally gave in.
“Yeah, we’d know. So?”

She sighed lightly. “So then we’d know we didn’t do our
best,” she said with a tone that implied the answer was obvious.

“I hate to tell you this, Paulina, but I don’t have a whole
lot of my self-worth invested in the removal of dead leaves. Call me crazy, I
guess.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’d call you cheeky, that’s what.”
She flashed a quick grin, then added, “Now get to work. The guests are due in
less than two hours.”

And just like that, she stood up and strode away across the
lawn, her platinum, bobbed hair swinging and flashing in the morning sun. She
appeared to be making a beeline for the workers casually arranging blankets on
the grass. I sent out a little prayer for those poor, unsuspecting souls who
didn’t realize the terror that would soon be loosed upon them.

I yanked off a few brown leaves, or what I thought were dead
leaves since I couldn’t actually see them. I checked the haul. One brown, one
bright green.

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” I mumbled aloud.

“Just pretend you’re doing it. It’s the best way to handle
her when she’s on a toot.”

 I turned around and smiled. It was Lilly Smith, looking
fresh and pretty, as always. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a simple
ponytail, which only accentuated her pixie face and made her appear to be a
teenager rather than the young woman in her early twenties she actually was.

“I don’t think I could pull that off,” I said. “She’d catch
me and I shudder to think what she’d do if she found out I was slacking.”

Lilly plopped down onto the grass near me. “Her bark’s worse
than her bite.”

I snorted. “Maybe to you because you’re like a daughter to
her. For the rest of us, she’s a pit bull in a lace skirt.”

Lilly laughed. “I’ll have to tell Xavier that one. He’ll
love it.”

I shoved my hand back into the shrubbery and pretended to
search around for dead leaves. “How he ever tamed Paulina, I don’t know. Of
course, that’s assuming he has. It kind of looks like he hasn’t, but —”

She held up her small hand and looked around us, obviously
checking to see if we’d be overheard. Her voice was low when she spoke. “Don’t
tell anyone, but I know for a fact that Paulina has only submitted to two
people, ever. Obviously, Xavier is one. I don’t know who the other one is. I
don’t even know if it’s a man.”

Interesting tidbit of info, that one. I happened to know the
other person was a man, Gibson Reeves, to be exact, though it was many, many
years ago. “Hmm, did Paulina tell you that?”

“Yeah. When I was going through some hard times and we
talked a lot then, about the lifestyle, about being submissive. All that.”

I glanced her direction quickly, then looked back at the
shrub. She’d been gazing off into the distance when she mentioned “hard times.”
I could only presume she was speaking of her past dealings with Michael Weston.
I wasn’t his first victim, not by far.

I tried to sound casual and lighthearted. “I’m sure she had
plenty of advice to give you.”

“Yeah, Paulina never runs out of advice.” Her face became
more serious. “But she’s a smart woman, and she helped me a lot.”

I nodded, fussed around with the leaves, flicked a ladybug
off my knee.

Lilly’s voice was barely audible when she asked, “Has she
been able to help you?”

I turned to her. I hadn’t realized she knew about me and
Michael, about the videos. From her question, it was clear she had heard
something of it, but how much, I couldn’t know. “I haven’t talked a lot with
Paulina, about it. Mostly, I’ve talked with Xavier.”

“Well, that’s good, too. I love Xavier.”

“Me too.”

Silence fell between us. I was at a loss, unsure if I should
ask her if she was okay now, or if I should simply say nothing.

She solved the problem herself. “Oh, Nonnie. I’ve been
wanting to tell you but I’m a big coward and so I didn’t. I want to say I’m
sorry. I should have warned you about him. About Michael. I should have. I’m
sorry.”

I was taken aback, appalled that the girl should think she
needed to apologize to me. “No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. You
didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did,” she said. “The night we met. I should have told you
then. But I ran off and I was afraid of him. I don’t know how I didn’t do
anything to stop it.”

“Lilly, no.” I squeezed her hand. “You don’t have any
responsibility in this. You were a victim yourself. No one could blame you for
it.”

She blinked at me, her blue eyes wide. “You don’t blame me?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re sure? Not even a little?”

“I’m sure. Not even for a split second. You’re not to blame.
No one is. No one but Michael.”

She nodded slowly. “Michael.”

“Yeah, Michael.”

She looked down, toyed with her shoe. “Thanks for not hating
me.”

“Who could hate you? No one.”

“Michael hates me.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“He does. Because I told the Martins and Gibson what he did
to me. He’ll always hate me for that.”

I wanted to raise my hand, wave it in the air to get
Paulina’s attention and yell at her to get her ass over there and take care of
Lilly. I didn’t feel qualified to do it myself. Hell.

“Does it matter how he feels about you? Isn’t it more
important how you feel about him?” I asked.

“You’d think so, but I loved him.” She raised her head, met
my eyes. “Did you love him?”

“No. I thought I might, but I didn’t.”

“I loved him more than anything. And I guess he never loved
me at all. That’s the worst part of it, because I thought he loved me.”

I nodded.

“It made me feel so stupid,” she said, “for doing everything
I did for him, you know? I mean, he was just using me and I thought we were in
love.”

“I know that feeling, maybe not the love part, but the idiot
part.”

“Paulina told me that Michael’s damaged, that he isn’t
capable of loving anyone. Do you think that’s true?”

I considered the question. “I don’t know. Possibly. Maybe
he’s too in love with himself to love anyone else.”

She gave me a small smile. “He did think he was pretty hot
shit.”

“He did. He does.”

“What did we ever see in him?”

I grinned. “I have no idea.”

“Me either.”

We began to gather up the leaves I had piled near my legs,
and we shoved them into the bag Paulina had left for the purpose.

“If I can help,” Lilly said, “with anything, I’d be happy
to. Say, the videos. I know what that’s like. I don’t want to make you
uncomfortable, though.”

“Thank you. It’s kind of you to offer. I’m doing okay.
Really.”

She smiled. I smiled. I hoped this would be the end of the
conversation.

It was.

We cleared out the dead leaves and Lilly stood, taking the
bag with her. “I’m on bagging duty, so I guess I’d better make my rounds.”

“Definitely. Don’t want to push your luck with Mistress Pit
Bull.”

She laughed. “You’d better make sure she never hears you say
that.”

I pretended a half-swoon. “Don’t even joke about it.”

Lilly grinned. “I’ll see you around, Nonnie.”

“You’re coming to the picnic, right?”

“No. I’m only here to help out. It’s just going to be the
Martins’ old friends, and if I know them, they’ll be up to some stuff and I
don’t want to see it. I’m cutting out before they get here.”

This time, I laughed. “Stuff? What kind of stuff? Should I
be worried?”

She shrugged. “Probably. One time, I had to see an old man
who had to have been like a hundred and fifty years old wearing assless chaps.
I can’t talk about it. Scarred me for life.”

I laughed again. “I could do without that sight myself.”

“Then you’d better come up with a good excuse because she’s
counting on you being there. See ya!”

And then she was gone, smiling and acting as if we hadn’t
just had a very serious conversation about a very bad man.

I was turning back to my chore when I caught movement out of
the corner of my eye. I glanced in that direction and saw Gibson standing not
too far away, holding a rake. His expression was thoughtful, and soft somehow.
He simply nodded at me. I returned the nod.

Had he heard what Lilly and I were saying?

I returned to my de-leafing and shoved my hand into the
dense foliage, checked my watch on my other wrist. Still lots of time before
the picnic started. Then I thought of what a hundred-and-fifty-year-old pair of
naked ass cheeks might look like.

Maybe it would be best to put off the picnic as long as
humanly possible.

The time for the picnic did arrive, of course. Paulina gave
us barely enough time to shower and get dressed before the guests arrived. I
was running a little late because I had some supplies to gather before I could
leave. I was about halfway to the south lawn when Toy came jogging up.

He stopped beside me and relieved me of everything I
carried. “Mistress Paulina sent me to help,” he said, slightly out of breath.

He looked quite the treat, all decked out for the picnic.
Paulina had taken it upon herself to dress everyone who belonged to the estate,
and we were all wearing white. No white after Labor Day be damned, was her
opinion, which turned out to be a good thing since it was a warm day, despite
it being late September.

Toy wore a new white loincloth, trimmed in silver studs. His
wrist and ankle cuffs were white leather, also studded. His feet were barely
shod in a pair of flat sandals, white of course, with leather laces running up
his calf. He reminded me of a buff, tanned Roman slave.

I shook my head. Paulina had said she wanted to celebrate
another age at her fete, but I hadn’t realized she actually meant “ages.” My
outfit consisted of a flouncy skirt that stopped mid-calf, an off-the-shoulder
top barely held on with elastic and a few ties, and a pair of simple white
slippers. If Paulina had stuck a red bandana on my head and a colorful shawl
over my hips, I would have been a dead ringer for a gypsy.

I wondered what Paulina had convinced Xavier and Gibson to
wear. I doubted it would be matching loincloths.

I thanked Toy and strode beside him, trying to keep up with
his brisk pace. “So, Toy, does your mistress have anything special planned for
me that I should know about?”

He grinned. “I’m not free to say.”

“Okay. If you can’t say anything, can you nod if I ask a
direct question? Say, umm, is Paulina going to do something that will embarrass
me?”

Toy shrugged.

I shot him a hard look. “Lilly said Paulina’s counting on me
being there, so that means something’s up.”

“You’re manning the art booth, right?” he asked.

I knew that Lilly wasn’t referring to the art booth. Paulina
had told me days ago that she wanted me to set up a spot where I could make
quick sketches of the guests enjoying themselves. She said it would add an
other-age flair, though I questioned the authenticity of a time period where
gypsies sat around on rich men’s lawns drawing picnic guests.

“That’s not it,” I told Toy. “It’s something else. What’s
up? I know you know. Spill it.”

He shook his head.

I gave up, since I was certain he never would. The man was
whipped. Well, duh. He literally was whipped.

There were already a number of people milling around the
south lawn when Toy and I rounded the corner of the big house. I thought it
looked kind of like a fairground, with the huge white canopies and the brightly
colored blankets spread underneath, dotted all around with patterned cushions
and pillows.

Long tables stretched for yards and yards, covered with
chafing dishes, platters, drinks and dinnerware. The party was being catered,
so a number of waiters roamed the grounds, carrying cocktails and hors
d’oeuvres. I knew some of the concoctions were Xavier’s, since I had spent
several hours assisting him in the kitchen on Saturday.

There were several small, square stages that Paulina had
specially built for the day, and one was currently occupied by a string quartet
which added a lovely ambiance to the scene. Another celebration of a past age,
I presumed.

Toy led me to my drawing station, off to one side, not far
from the badminton grounds. I had refused to set up next to the croquet area,
having seen enough movies to have a healthy fear of ricocheting croquet balls.
Besides, in my current spot, I wasn’t far from the gelato stand.

Toy trotted off to rejoin his mistress while I unloaded my
supplies. I propped my sketchbooks on my easel, arranged pencils, charcoal and
pastels on a small table. The sun was fierce, and I was grateful for the
umbrella I would be working under.

A waiter wandered by, and I snagged a fruity cocktail from
his tray. I sipped and thought about my drawing and hoped the guests didn’t
judge them too harshly. I had only been at it since I arrived at the estate.

I was rusty when I first started drawing, not having
sketched in more than ten years. Soon, though, I felt it coming back to me, and
I spent many a relaxed hour tucked away in some nook of the estate, sketching
the scenery, and the people too.