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Giving him an almost motherly kiss on the side of his head, Olivia hopped off her bar stool and sauntered towards the locker room.
Still utterly at a loss for words, Rick looked back up at his friends.
Adam sighed, giving him a look of deepest sympathy. “Sucks when she’s right, doesn’t it?”
“Here,” Andrew said, pushing his beer across the table. “You need this more than I do right now, I’ll get another.”
Chris just slapped him on the back again, shaking his head.
“So is anyone else wondering what the hell Lexie is up to?” asked Justin, taking the attention from Rick, which he was immediately grateful for. Patrick scowled.
Rick slowly relaxed as his friends followed Justin’s lead and picked up a conversation around him, sensing he needed some space to think. If he wanted to talk about what Olivia had just said to him, about her dissection of his motives and behavior, then they’d be willing to listen. But they also respected he probably really didn’t want to talk about it.
He was too busy castigating himself for needing everything spelled out to him by Olivia, rather than realizing it on his own. Maybe he really was an idiot. Or maybe Olivia just understood women better than any of them ever could, which was probably a more realistic explanation.
Adam caught his eye and gave him a rueful grimace. Seeing the look, Justin raised his beer just a tiny bit, as if in acknowledgement and Rick knew they were all thinking the same thing: one day, it would be really nice to be the one to explain things to Olivia.
9
Maria was moving so fast for the stall she’d occupied before that she barely even noticed the startled looks she got from the few women who were in the locker room as she went past them. Fortunately, all the stalls were empty. She barged right into the one she’d been in before and locked the door behind her, sitting down on the seat and wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to get her panic under control.
Something inside of her jibbered, screaming at her to get out and away from Rick. Like, seriously, what the hell? The woman had been begging to be let go, pleading to escape her punishment, and not a single person had made a move to help her. They’d all just stood there watching—including Rick. The scene with Lloyd upstairs had been one thing, it had made her uncomfortable, but how was she supposed to be okay with what was going on in the Dungeon? She’d justified the man’s spanking by the fact that he’d obviously enjoyed it, but he hadn’t been asking for mercy. He hadn’t been tied up and unable to escape.
Her breathing was getting faster as her fear and panic coiled around inside of her, confusing thoughts and terrifying images swirling around her head and only escalating her anxieties. Even though she hadn’t seen the marks the long, awful stick had left on the woman downstairs, her imagination was supplying her with all sorts of possibilities. Bruises. Welts. Cuts. Maybe even blood. What the fuck?!
“Maria?”
It was a woman calling her name. Not Rick. Thank heavens. Maria couldn’t face him yet. Why had he chased after her instead of helping that woman? She’d been begging her Master to stop. And apparently no one cared.
“Maria? We know you’re in here, where’d you go?”
Although she couldn’t completely distinguish who went with which voice, she knew immediately who had followed her in. Footsteps moved closer into the bathroom area, probably pointed in the right direction by the women in the locker room.
A tentative knock on the door and she recognized the pink heels as being Hilary’s. She couldn’t see Angel or Jessica’s feet, but she knew they were there.
“Maria? Can you come out? We just want to talk to you... we know you saw... look, can you come out and we can explain?”
“Explain?!” Even to her own ears her voice sounded a bit screechy. “How can you explain...” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the words.
“Maria, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but I promise you, Christina liked what was happening. She wanted it.”
That just sounded like a rapist’s defense. Weird was an understatement. But then again, her brain reminded her, Lloyd had liked what was happening to him too, hadn’t he? At first Maria hadn’t understood that either.
“It freaked me out too, the first time I saw them.” That was Hilary again. “Liam and I do role play, but not like Christina and Paul do it.”
“Role play?” Maria lifted her head. Yeah, it hadn’t looked anything like any role play she’d ever heard of—what happened to something nice and simple like French maid outfits? But her panic was slowly subsiding under the other women’s calm. They’d all seemed like reasonable women before. Not the kind of people who would stand by while someone was being beaten and raped. Then again, she hadn’t thought Rick would be either.
There was silence on the other side of the door for a long moment. A silence fraught with tension, as if there was an unheard conversation happening.
“Maria?” She was pretty sure Jessica was the one talking now. “How much did Rick tell you about Stronghold?”
“Nothing before we got here,” she replied, feeling a small surge of anger over the fact that he’d been so close-mouthed. Then again, he’d probably been afraid she wouldn’t want to come. He might have been right. Three small gasps outside the door made her feel a bit more justified in her anger.
“He told you nothing?”
“That... that...”
“Nincompoop!”
