Unforgettable You (23 page)

A big tear rolls down her cheek. “I don’t know, honey. I really don’t.”

“What did she say the last time you talked to her about me?”

Pink spreads across Trish’s cheeks. “She said with your memory she figured you’d forgotten about her by now.”

A knife-edged pain flashes in my chest and I can barely breathe. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to think.” I jump up and almost run to the door, then turn around and go back to hug Trish and give her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. Thank you for being my friend and loving me, you and Clint. I love you both so much. I hope you know that.”

“Steffen, please stay for a few minutes and . . .”

“No. I’ve got to go.” The walls are closing in on me and I’ve got to get out of that room, find a place where there’s more air. “But thanks, honey. Thank you.” I’m practically running by the time I get to my car.

I drive aimlessly for hours, thinking, running conversations back in my head, wishing I’d done things differently. I finally park down in one of the pay garages and walk down to the pier. There are gulls everywhere, and I think about the night that Sheila and I walked down here after dinner. Her hand had felt so good in mine, and I want that moment back, want to relive it, want to turn back the hands of time and reclaim what I gave away. But I can’t.

After dark, I finally get up and go back to the car. Numb and dazed, I just drive home and crawl into bed in my clothes.

It’s over. I know that now. I’ve lost her. And I’ve got no one but myself to blame.

“H
ave you ever seen needle and blade play?” Clint’s obviously eating something while he’s talking. “I really want to go and watch. Trish doesn’t; she says it’ll freak her out. But I want to see what it’s all about. I mean, I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never really seen it done.”

I shudder. “I’ve never seen it either, but it’s never appealed to me.”

“It doesn’t really appeal to me either, but it’s something I’ve never seen.”

I hesitate before I ask, “Have you seen her?”

Clint sighs. “No one’s seen her, and she and Trish don’t talk much. She’s afraid Trish will bring you up, and she just doesn’t want to talk to or about you. I heard a rumor that she’s going to another club here in town, but I don’t know if it’s this one or not.”

“Why is it named The Catacombs?” The picture I have in my head is of old bones lying about.

“Because it’s in a subterranean location. Under a bank.”

“Great. I can’t get away from banks even in the BDSM world.” I take another sip of my beer and wonder why there are banks everywhere. Why does the world need so damn many banks?

“So will you go with me?”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Sure, I’ll go out with you. I’m not dating anybody else.” I hear him groan. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go. Sounds like fun.”

Clint snorts. “Smartass.”

“Yeah, that’s me. When?”

“It starts at seven thirty tomorrow night. And they’re expecting a big crowd, or so I hear. Want me to come and pick you up?”

“Sure. Tell Trish I said hi and we’ll all have to get together soon.”

“Sure thing. See you tomorrow night, Steffen.”

Needle and blade play. That’s not something I think I’ll ever be interested in, but it might be interesting to watch. I finish my beer and drag myself to bed after the late night news.

When Clint picks me up the next night, I’m a little confused. “So how are we supposed to get into this club? We’re not members.”

“Bliss has reciprocal memberships with the other clubs in the area. If you’re a member of one, you can get into the others. Encourages cross-play and stuff like that.”

“We don’t get many people from other clubs though.”

Clint grins. “That’s because Bliss is tightly-run and clean. We have too many rules for a lot of people. But the ones who come to Bliss come because they want a clean, safe place to play. You’d be surprised at the condition of some of these clubs.”

Huh. I knew there were a couple of other clubs in the area, but I’ve never even seen them. Clint drives us up into the parking lot and we stride to the stairwell that leads down to the entrance. I look around at the other people either coming in or hanging around outside the door on the sunken patio-like area. The difference is night and day. Most of them are kind of sloppy-looking and unkempt, and here we are, just a hair away from being considered metrosexual, our hair neat, our clothes clean, and leathers that would be the envy of most of the people here. Yep, I’d say there aren’t a lot of rules here.

The guy at the door takes one look at our IDs from Bliss and lets us right in. He doesn’t even check them against our driver’s licenses. We could be anybody and they’d never know. The place is crowded, and it’s not nearly as comfortable as Bliss. The bar is just chipboard and Formica. Sad, really. The music is okay, but the lighting is terrible. It’s too low in the general areas, and way too harsh in the performance areas. I hate to think what the private rooms might look like.

Two guys come out and start laying stuff out on a small table. I can’t see what it is from where I am. In the performance alcove next to that one, there are another couple of guys laying things out, and I
can
see those – knives. One of them holds something up to look at it, and it flashes in the light. A scalpel. “So which are you most interested in?”

Clint looks back and forth. “I think the needle play.”

“Yeah, me too. The knife thing scares the shit out of me.”

That gets a shivering nod from Clint. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

There are announcements made, and one of them is about the names of the Doms who’ll be performing. Each man has a sub he’ll be working with, and they’ll all be up there scening at the same time. I’m looking around, checking out the subs. Trust me, I’d never scene with most of them. Too scary. Plus they’re eyeing us like bears at a campground full of bacon lovers. But there’s a lot of them there, and I’m just perusing when Clint says, “Come on. We need to leave.”

“But we just got here!”

“Yeah, but we need to go.” When I catch a look at his face, it’s pale.

“What the hell?”

“Steffen, please, just . . .” I turn and the room starts to spin.

It’s Sheila. She’s completely naked, and she’s being escorted by the biggest and scariest of the four Doms. The first thing I notice is the expression on her face: It’s very odd, almost wooden-looking, like the muscles are paralyzed. I’m trying to figure it out as she walks up into the middle of the performance area. He says something to her and she drops in perfect presentation pose. Someone’s been working with her, obviously. Plus he has her turned facing the crowd, so they can see everything with her knees as far apart as they’ll go. I can feel Clint bristling beside me. He asks me, “What’s up with the look on her face?”

“I noticed that and I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. It’s like . . . it’s familiar, but I don’t . . .” I watch her carefully, and then I remember. She had a migraine one time and I took her to the emergency room. They gave her a pain pill. She looked just like that for about ten hours. Now it’s clear – we’re looking at someone who’s drugged. “My god, Clint, they’ve given her something.”

“Shit. I don’t like this at all. Shit, shit, shit. What do we do?”

I shrug. “We do nothing. She’s a grown woman and she signed on for this. But I don’t know if I can watch.”

The Dom unzips his leathers, whispers something to her, and when she opens her mouth, he shoves his cock down her throat. She chokes, and I almost throw up. He pumps into her about four more times, and she settles into it. But about the time she does, he stops, zips up, helps her up, and points to the cross.

It’s a six-point restraint – both wrists, both ankles, waist, and neck. He immobilizes her head, too, with a strap across the head rest but, before he does, he blindfolds her. I look at that soft, curvy body that I held in my arms and I feel like I don’t even know its owner anymore. Maybe I never really knew her. Once he’s got her strapped in, he starts to flog her with a leather flogger. Not suede; leather. Her skin not only turns red, but there are lash marks on it. Occasionally she opens her mouth as though she’s going to scream or cry out, but no sound comes out. That really scares me. I sneak a look at Clint, and his face is drawn and chalky. I probably look the same way.

She takes at least fifty lashes, mostly on her breasts. They’re beet red, and they’re bound to hurt. I watch as he pulls the little table closer and picks up a package of some kind.

They’re hypodermic needles, the little plastic fittings with the metal needles on them. I’ve seen some pictures on the internet of this kind of thing, so I figure I know what he’s going to do, but there seems to be an awful lot of them. He pulls the first one from the package and I notice two things: He isn’t wearing gloves, and he doesn’t have anything to prep her skin with. And then, without any further preparation, he goes to work.

I watch in abject horror as he takes the first needle and presses it into her flesh at the edge of her areola. Once again, she opens her mouth, but she doesn’t make a sound. I assume he’s going to run it just under the skin and back out, a secant – that’s what they’ve done in all the pics I’ve seen on the internet. But no, he runs it in at an angle, and the needles look to be an inch and a half long. He does that all the way around her right areola, and from what I can tell, it’s about sixteen needles. He starts the same process on the other nipple, and I cringe with every stick. I’m watching her face, but it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking or feeling with the blindfold in place. I count this time – yes, sixteen needles, all perfectly symmetrical.

When he’s done with those, I assume he’s finished, but he’s far from it. I hear Clint murmur, “Oh my fucking god, I don’t believe what I’m seeing.” The Dom, if you could call the son of a bitch one, begins again, doing the exact same thing, this time where the nipple joins the areola. He again runs the needles all the way in and at an angle, and I realize that they’re long enough that their tips have to meet under the skin; hell, their shanks may even crisscross each other. This time, he uses eight needles on one nipple, then turns to the other to repeat the process.

Now, every time he runs a needle in, she makes a little whimpering sound and her knees buckle a little. I don’t know how she’s tolerating it. I’d be screaming like a little bitch, but she’s taking it. I think back to what Clint told me that day:
It’s always the hardcore sadists she looks for, so she’s using the pain to get through it.
My stomach churns to think that what happened between us could cause her to do something this drastic and, quite frankly, dangerous. A few trickles of blood have started to run down her breasts, and I’m more than alarmed. With every additional needle, she whimpers and her knees give way just slightly, but she’s spread-eagle and bound in tight, so she’s not going anywhere. She can’t fall. And it almost looks like she can’t cry or scream for some reason.

“Steffen, we should go. I don’t know if I can watch any more of this.” Clint’s shaking, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen him looking like this.

“I can’t. I can’t leave. I have to know that she’s okay.” The guy finishes with her left nipple, and then he picks up another package, a different colored one. I can’t figure out what he’s planning to do.

Until he holds up one of the needles. The thing is at least two inches long and a big enough gauge that I can see it really well from where I’m standing. There’s a cheer that starts in the crowd, and I can’t figure it out. He walks toward her, places the tip of the needle on the tip of her nipple, and shoves it straight in until the plastic is seated on her skin.

This time, there’s no doubt in my mind about the expression on her face. It’s excruciating pain. Features contorted and mouth open in a silent scream, her knees buckle again. I want to do something, anything, but she had to know what she was getting into and it’s none of my business. He runs the second needle into her left nipple and she finally does get something out – it’s a groan that sounds like someone’s squeezed all the life out of her. This time, her knees sag and they don’t straighten again. She’s practically hanging there, limp, unable to move.

And my stomach lurches when he takes his hand and swipes it up and down over the protruding ends of the needles. I see Sheila shudder, her skin turning a pasty white, and she’s panting in an odd fashion. I’m getting really scared. I turn to Clint and I see that he’s not looking too well at all. “What do you think is happening to her, Clint? I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too. Something’s not right. I don’t know if she’s going into shock or what, but it’s just not right.” Every time the guy runs his hands up and down, back and forth, over the needle tops, the crowd cheers. Can’t they see how much pain she’s in? I’ve watched subs be striped until blood was running down their backs, but this is something I’ve never seen before. It’s barbaric in its follow-through. And just when I think he’s done and maybe he’ll start backing everything out, my heart freezes.

I’m not sure I’m going to make it out of the club standing when he takes up another needle and kneels in front of her. I hear Clint groan out, “Okay, somebody needs to stop this. It’s just too much. Why doesn’t somebody stop this?” I watch in terror as he retracts the hood of her clit and, with great flair, takes the needle in his hand and runs it directly into the spot on her body with more than eight thousand nerve endings.