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He kissed me once more, tenderly now, his hands cupping my face, his thumb stroking my cheek.
"I usually just accept my scar as evidence that I survived, but I suddenly felt so self-conscious. I don't know why. Maybe it was the video I saw of Lisa on the internet earlier today."
"T
here's a video of Lisa on the internet?"
"Yes," I said, remembering it. "She's wearing a bikini and her body is perfect. People were commenting that she could have been a model. Long legs, slim, beautiful."
"She's a murdering psychopath," Drake said, his tone derisive. "She's ugly inside and believe me, that moves her from attractive to unattractive in anyone but the crassest of men."
"Still, I remembered how beautiful she is and for some reason, I just felt sick about my scar. It'll continue to fade but it'll never go away completely. I'll never be able to wear a bikini again in public."
"You should wear one just to give the universe and any shallow person who might care about it the finger. If anyone dared say anything about it, I'd punch them out."
"Drake Morgan!" I laughed and wiped my eyes. He sounded like my knight in shining armor, ready to defend my honor, that my heart warmed. "You'd do no such thing."
"I would. I did it before," he said and I thought immediately about Sefton at the art studio and the day Drake punched him in the nose when he rushed onto the elevator unexpectedly. "I'd do it again if I thought anyone hurt your feelings about the scar or threatened you. Seriously, Kate."
Then even he laughed, because Drake was the most laid-back man when it came to confrontations. He was so calm usually. You couldn't be a neurosurgeon doing delicate robotic maneuvers and get easily flustered.
Later, after we had showered and were lying in bed, basking in the afterglow of our lovemaking, Drake rubbed my cheek with the backs of his fingers.
"I talked to Lara while you were out," he said, his voice sounding grim. "Someone provided one of the news stations with several images of me dressed up in my leather pants, bare chest, tying up a woman I was having sex with. I'm pretty sure it was Lisa. Anyway, she's all bound up, and I'm leaning over her menacingly. Of course, it's all part of the game, but the casual onlooker won't understand."
"Were you threatening her?" I asked, a catch in my throat. I rolled over onto my stomach and gazed into his eyes. "I thought you were just supposed to tie her up and fuck her."
"I did, and I wasn't really threatening her," he said and frowned. "It's all a game intended to heighten arousal. She liked to feel forced, and that's why she liked bondage. She wanted to feel like she had no control over the pleasure she felt and how her body responded."
"I know the feeling," I said, familiar with that particular response. I traced a pattern over Drake's bare chest. "When I'm bound up, I feel free. Like feeling pleasure at what you're doing to me is no longer my fault or my responsibility. It must be my Catholic upbringing. I must feel like I'm bad, deep down, for enjoying sex. Bondage frees me to be sexual. I can't help it because it's no longer my choice -- other than the fact that I have chosen to be tied up of course." I grinned at him and he nodded.
"That's the main dynamic to bondage. It's consensual and done for mutual pleasure. But the average Joe and Jane on the street thinks it means the woman is being forced against her will, abused and dominated, diminished. That's rape. Bondage and Dominance are really done for her pleasure, but the public is caught up in this notion of consent meaning there can be no resistance or force. It's totally psychological. Someone who really enjoys forcing a woman -- tying her up against her will -- is a psychopath. Some people don't get the difference."
I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling, my body feeling well used. Drake would usually tie my hands and feet to the bedposts and use several sex toys and his mouth to make me come three times before fucking me when we did a normal scene. If anyone was to watch us, they would know immediately that it was all freely chosen and freely offered and was only about pleasure. There was no force involved or lack of consent. I trusted him completely to do what he wanted with my body because I knew he loved me and only wanted my pleasure. It was entirely consensual and by choice.
But seeing Drake tying up Lisa would appear to be all about force and lack of consent if all you saw were the pictures. Her lawyers would play that up, saying that instead of doing so voluntarily, she was doing it because she was coerced, taken advantage of by two older men.
Drake rolled over and pulled me against his body, folding me in his arms and wrapping the down quilt around us both, my back to him. Then he switched off the light.
"I wish all this was over," I whispered in the darkness.
"It will be, soon," he whispered back and kissed my neck. "Then we can find some new normal."
I nodded and turned to face him.
"Good night, my love," I said and he kissed me on the lips once more.
"Good night," he replied and that was how I fell asleep.
* * *
I woke in the night, my heart racing and blinked in the darkness, trying to get my bearings. I'd had a nightmare of Drake in a dark dungeon with Lisa and Lara, both of them telling me that I just didn't understand that Drake needed more than I could give him. When I finally realized it was a dream and not reality, my heart rate decreased and my eyes adjusted to the night. I turned over and watched Drake, who was lying on his stomach with the pillow over his head, which was his normal mode from years of trying to sleep during the day while he worked shift. My gut was still in knots about the dream and about Lisa, wondering whether Drake and Derek Richardson should have understood at the time that Lisa was mentally unstable and should not have been involved in a B&D relationship. Drake assured me that Lisa was totally positive about their scenes. She was casual about her relationship with Derek and seemed to be his equal, free to speak her mind when she was not in scene. Derek seemed really fond of her, indulgent even.
But underneath that confident facade was a budding erotomaniac, if we were right about her now. She fixated on Drake and imagined a relationship between them that didn't exist outside her fantasy world.
How could Drake, who was trained in psychology and psychiatry, be so wrong about her? It had to be because Drake went by appearance and Lisa was a master at presenting a confident self-assured and competent appearance.
I knew that Drake wouldn't have been with her if he thought for a moment that she was mentally unstable.
