Breaking My Own Rules Ch. 11

I had just finally managed to get the door open when Francois wrapped his long arms around me and gently but firmly pulled me away. I was shaking so hard, I couldn't stand, so he folded me into a chair and placed his hands on my shoulders to keep me in place. "Now tell me what is going on with you," he said sternly.

"That's what he called me," I sobbed.

"Cherie?"

"Yes. He never used my name, well, almost never." I hiccupped as I tried to get my sobbing and quaking under control.

Instead of offering me comfort, Francois became silent. I was devastated. And terror-stricken all at the same time. Was Francois just toying with me, before he proceeded to the torture phase? Was there a whole slew of them out there that went around calling women Cherie then whipping them?

When he finally sat down at the table and reached for my hands, I jumped and pulled them into my lap. He sighed. "Skylar, look at me." I shook my head like a four-year-old. "You're being childish," he scolded, as if I didn't know that perfectly well. "It's just a word. Very common. Now look at me," he commanded. I peered up at him through wet eyelashes.

"Good girl," he said. I guess if I was going to act like a child, he was going to talk to me like one. "This man, did he have a French accent?" I shook my head. "Did he ever tell you where he was from?"

I scoffed. "He never told me anything about himself. Except to call himself a predator." He leaned on his elbow, chin resting on his fist. He seemed to be studying me, but it felt like his mind was worlds away. "What?" I demanded. I was exasperated and didn't even know why.

"Pardon. I'm trying to remember something from some years ago." He shook his head with frustration. "Did you tell the detective about him calling you 'Cherie?'" I nodded. "Good. It is probably nothing."

I reached out and took one of his hands. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to keep flying off the handle."

"That is not a phrase I am familiar with."

"My mom used to say it every time I'd get all dramatic about something. I always pictured a witch falling off her broom," I said with an apologetic shrug. "I mean, the more things that happen, and the more times I relive what he did, I just get even more freaked out. There was one time, this other guy had me in a broom closet, he was going to, uhm, rape me, I think. And then Dr. Tom showed up out of nowhere, and I guess he just threw this great big guy out of the closet. I actually thought at first that they had choreographed it all, you know, him rescuing me at the last minute and all that. But when I accused him of that, he seemed genuinely upset, and he was actually... Well, he stayed and took care of me that night. So then I thought maybe he was just a lot stronger than I thought, but now I don't know what to think." I moaned, burying my face in my hands.

Francois pulled my hands away. "All of these things will sort themselves out in time. It could be that scene was choreographed to earn your trust. You're not the one that has to figure all this out. That's what the police are for."

"When you said... Do you think he was training me to be a sex slave?"

"No," he replied. "That is not how it is done."

"But you know how it is done?" I asked, shivering again.

He gripped my hands tighter. "I told you I did some crime reporting, back in France. Such things occurred, often with women from Eastern Europe. He would have taken you away from everything, everybody that you knew. Put you in an environment that was totally foreign to you. Deprived you of points of reference, like night and day, regular meals. Very much like prisoners of war might be mistreated for interrogation purposes. Not this coming and going that you spoke of."

"But then why?"

"I told you, that is for the police." His words were stern but he had a gentle smile on his face. "I apologize, Skylar. I have not been as patient with you as I should. You have been through a great deal and it is not over yet."

"I looked at him incredulously. "Are you kidding? If you were my little brother, you would have given me a noogie, a wedgie, and tickled me till I threw up."

"He does not sound like a very nice little brother," he commented skeptically.

"Nice? He's the best ever." I took a ragged, deep breath. "And I took his mother away," I added softly.

"And when would he do all these terrible things to you?" He asked, ignoring my last comment.

"When I went all drama queen. He was the only one that ever called me on my shit and kept me in line. Dad tried, but he made excuses for me, too, sometimes. Like I couldn't make enough excuses of my own," I added ruefully.

"And this brother? He is in Afghanistan?"

I nodded. "I keep thinking, if he had just been here, he would have slapped me upside the head and told me to quit acting out with this pervert. And then I feel guilty for fucking up my life when he's over there trying to save lives. And then I feel guilty that he's over there at all."

"Why?" He asked, interrupting my self-pity reverie. I shrugged and looked away. "Skylar," he said with a warning, Dom tone.

"When I dropped out of college, he got really mad at me. He said he was through busting his ass to take care of me, when I didn't care about myself. That's when he enlisted. He didn't come back home to visit after boot camp, like he was punishing me, but it nearly broke my dad. Part of the reason I moved to the city was so he'd at least go home to spend time with dad when he could. A couple of years later, I don't know if he exactly forgave me, but he came to terms, I guess, and started visiting me in the city between deployments. He would call me the brains and I would call him the brawn. But he was really smart, too. Maybe if I'd stayed in college, he would have gone to college, too."

"And instead, he is using brawn and brains to save lives?" Francois said.

"And I'm not using my brains and I have no brawn, so epic fail on both fronts," I groaned.

"Brawn is strength, yes?"

I glanced at him, then away quickly knowing where he was going with this. Once again, he was going to tell me I was doing all the right things, despite the fact that my whole life as well as my friends' were in the shit dumpster and about to go through the compactor just like in Star Wars, except without the escape hatch. Fortunately, I was saved from that discussion by the detectives coming back into the room.

They offered us nothing new or different, saying merely that we could go for now. I wasn't exactly jumping for joy. He had tracked Francois down from his cell phone number. Couldn't he get from there to his credit card to find out the hotel room he'd reserved? Not to mention that he was like some sort of ghost. Maurice had supposedly been at the hospital watching over Crystal and Jessica. He knew what Dr. Tom looked like, yet Jessica's phone had been stolen in broad daylight. How could I be safe anywhere, and which friend would he hit next? Madge ended up taking us to the hotel, because they were checking out Francois' car. They had both our phones, our computers, everything that connected us to the electronic world. I felt like I was lost in the Wisconsin woods. Except Dad had taught my brother and me how to find our way out of the woods if we ever got lost. Somehow, in a city full of steel and stone and human predators, I don't think any of those lessons applied.

In the car, and the hotel lobby and even the elevator, Francois kept pulling me close like he thought I was on the verge of running blindly into the darkness. What he didn't get was that I had already done that, and no GPS in hell was going to help me find my way out of it. My mind was bouncing off the walls, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was ricocheting like a bullet.

When I was a kid in school, the same thing would happen. The teacher would say something, and I'd say to myself, okay, fine. But then she'd say it again in a different way, and then again in another way, trying to make sure everyone in the classroom had a chance to understand and learn in the way they were most comfortable with. Except while she was doing that, I'd be playing tiddlywinks with my lunch money, or making faces at the cute boy next to me, or drawing dragons. When Mom was in charge of parent-teacher conferences, it was never a pretty sight. I got better at hiding my distraction when they started talking about medication.

But after Mom died, and Dad took over, well, he just got it. He'd argue with the teacher, demand that they quiz me right then and there about what had been discussed in the class while I was supposedly not paying attention. Eventually, he taught me tricks to 'hide' the fact that my mind was in a totally other dimension. But I know it frustrated him to no end that I didn't use all that mental energy to a better purpose. Like now. My brain was bouncing off the walls, looking for an escape, not a solution. FAIL! I screamed at myself, as Francois led me into the hotel room.

Then my brain found an escape; latched on to it. And his name was Francois. I watched him as he checked things in the hotel room, like the seasoned traveler he was. He was a Dom. I was theoretically the submissive. How was I going to get what I needed and wanted when he was supposed to call all the shots. I closed my eyes, weary to the bone. It was his job to just know what I needed, but that seemed totally unfair, an unrealistic expectation. And yet, suddenly, he was there in front of me, softly rubbing my arms, and suggesting a warm shower. I melted against him. Part of me wanted to cry, but my eyes were cried out, and he had to be totally sick and tired of my drama. I made a vow. No drama tonight. I wasn't going to set expectations for any longer than a night. I didn't even know if I could make it through a night, but I was determined to try. I smiled up at Francois and said, "Yes, please."

He began slowly, by gently removing my clothes, right there in the middle of the room. "I don't have any clean clothes," I said softly, pleased that it came out more as an observation than a whine.

He smiled and said, "You won't need any tonight. Close your eyes." His voice was low, almost like sound below the audible range; felt, not heard. "I want you to trust me completely. I want you to give yourself over to me tonight. Don't think, don't worry. Just feel."

I obeyed, nothing if not well-trained. Then I was all sensation as he finished removing my clothes, and set the TV to playing some soft jazz. It would have taken me an hour just to figure out how to do that with the remote. A moment later, he was steering me toward the bathroom and admonishing me to keep my eyes closed. I heard him start the shower and smelled a delicious, fruity smell. A moment later, steam began to fill the room. I'd never just stood and 'listened' to the feel of the steam settling, condensing on my skin. It played over me like the distant sound of the jazz in the other room. I realized I was experiencing sensations in a totally new way. Just at his simple commands.

"What are you doing to me?" I asked in wonder.

"It's what you are doing to yourself," he whispered, and I felt his hands on my face with the lightest of touches. Some part of them, his thumbs, perhaps, brushing softly over my eyelashes, then just under my eyebrows, inner corner to outer, and I wasn't sure I could have opened my eyes even had I wanted to. Then he was drawing me into the shower. It wasn't like his shower at home, and yet the feeling against my skin was just as intense. Everything was just so incredibly intense.

"Francois," I said, not sure what I intended to follow that with, but he just shushed me. There was more of that fruit smell, and a very soft sponge running slowly over my body. Ordinarily, I would have been thinking about what my wet hair, plastered to my head and dripping down my face would look like to some hot, perfect hunk. I would have been thinking about my oh-so-linear body. Bean pole, as my mother used to say. I would have been trying to remember the last time I shaved my armpits, let alone my legs. All of those things would have been bouncing around my over-active, Ritalin-starved brain. But now there was nothing but the warm water, hitting softly, splashing, running; jazz playing somewhere in the distance and that sponge. Oh, god, that sponge. I tried to think of words to describe the sensation, but my brain had run away to Tahiti along with my voices.

His gentle fingers pulled my hair back, twisting it down between my shoulders, then the sponge returned, floating over my front from collarbone to navel, nipple to nipple. I think he was standing behind me, though the sensation was of being surrounded by him, and when his lips brushed my neck, my jaw, my shoulder; I was gasping, rolling my head to beg for more, reaching up for his shoulders, trying to pull him tighter against me, into me. And still that sponge, oh god, dipped lower teasing my mound, sliding over my hip bones, sneaking behind me to leave my ass streaked with suds, then forward again to circle my nipples. I was moaning softly and leaning against him.

Time ceased to exist, though there remained a linear quality to events, and it was at some point after the sponge that I began to float. Which was to say, that my feet left the ground, and met each other somewhere close to the vicinity of Francois' fine ass. That seemed totally appropriate given that his hands met in the vicinity of my ass, which was undoubtedly not so fine as his, but thrilled none-the-less to be in such close contact with his strong, playful fingers as they planted themselves firmly between my ass cheeks, then teased relentlessly. My back must have been against the shower wall. I vaguely remember throwing my head back as his kisses drifted across my neck. I had, had, had to give him more access, because that was simply the most exotic sensation ever. I succeeded in bumping my head against the wall, but I didn't care. As long as that feather-soft touch never stopped.

That was until another soft, but somehow more urgent touch twitched against my pussy lips. Francois' cock was seeking entry, knocking ever so softly at the door to my being. I squirmed, searching for the angle that would let him in and he shushed me, leaving me to ponder the connection between squirming and noise and how shushing might equate to 'be still.' But I didn't open my eyes. Didn't question. I was all sensation, and no sensation. Like sensory deprivation, my mind was creating what I wasn't seeing or hearing. Taking touch and molding it into an entire world, into my entire being. When he finally slid into me, I wasn't encasing him. Rather he was a flower bud, opening inside me; blooming, filling me, expanding beyond me until I lay on my back, looking outward through a forest of bright yellow pistils that rained powdered sunshine down on me. Light was a sensation of warmth on my skin, color was the touch of iridescent feathers brushing across me, this way and that like moving shadows.

When my orgasm rolled through me and around me and over me, it was sound. The music of the spheres, and a deep, pounding bass on a dance floor. It was the rolling tide and it was the pull of the moon deep in my belly. It was my breath and my heartbeat. It was my very being. It lasted forever in a place where there was no time. It was ecstasy and it was pain. It was overwhelming, and unbearable, and I couldn't exist apart from it. Didn't want to exist apart from it.

It was a long time and but an instant later when I became aware of Francois imploring me to open my eyes. I didn't want to. I'd found a world that was so much more sensually intense, like the difference between running your finger over a countertop and experiencing an orgasm. Who would choose the countertop? But Francois had transported me to this new, incredible world, and now he was waiting, patiently, but implacably to transport me back home. He would not be denied and I moaned at the loss, but pried my eyes open to see the hotel room ceiling and his beautiful, concerned face gazing down at me. The last I remembered was the shower, but now, somehow, I was in the bed, albeit with damp hair and a tangle of towel about me. I turned my head to more fully meet his warm brown eyes and I smiled up at him. An honest, no-drama smile. He kissed my forehead. 'Home' didn't seem so bad after all, if it included this gentle soul.

"Where was I?" I whispered.

"Subspace," he answered, his fingers gently brushing hair from my forehead. "A very special place, a state of mind. Some say, of expanding beyond your mind."

"Oh," I said, trying to process what he said with what I had experienced. "You've had that feeling?"

"No, Skylar. That place only comes to one who releases their entire trust to another. Even most submissives never reach that level of trust, or they need a physical manifestation, a proof, even to themselves, that they have that much trust in another. Such as being subject to the very limit of their pain tolerance with whipping for example. Or being bound so tightly they cannot move or ever hope to free themselves. I'm afraid I am much better at holding another's trust than at giving mine. That is why I am envious of you, and why I am deeply honored by the trust you placed in me."

I shook my head. "You didn't hurt me," I protested.

"That is what is so wondrous about you, Skylar. And perhaps so dangerously vulnerable, too. Your depth of trust, and your willingness to give it up."

****

I was sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, watching Francois sleep. He had taken me to yet another new place; a pain-free, punishment-free place. What had I done for him in return? Put him in danger. Made him spend money on me. Disrupted his work. Because of me, he'd spent hours last night in a police station. Who did that for a virtual stranger? Even one you got to fuck later? Had to fuck? I couldn't help but wonder, still, if I was just an elaborate favor to Randy and DeDe. I had thought about asking to borrow money to fly home to Dad, but that would have been piling yet more of an obligation on Francois, and possibly putting my dad in more danger than I'd already done.

Last night, I was determined to be stronger. No more wasting energy on drama. Solutions, not escape. So, solutions. The whole situation needed ending, and I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the police. After all, Dr. Tom seemed to have better resources than they did, for crying out loud. I gazed out the window at the slowly lightening sky. He was out there, somewhere, waiting for me in the shadows, lurking like an evil villain waiting to pounce. Yeah, I know I said no more drama, but it was hard to go cold turkey.

I crawled off the bed and picked up my purse out of the heap of clothes Francois had so gently removed last night. When I dug to the very bottom of the bag, I found my old cell phone. The one that Randy had threatened me with mayhem if I ever turned it on again. I stared at it, laying so innocently in the palm of my hand, wondering if there was any charge left. I glanced at Francois again, then I hurriedly dressed, grabbed up my purse and crept out of the room.

I walked for an hour or more through the city. When I got tired of walking, I scraped loose change from the bottom of my purse, enough for a cup of coffee, and ducked into a McDonald's. I knew I should eat, rather than drink coffee, but my brain needed caffeine more than my stomach needed a fake egg product. I sat in a booth and laid the cell phone in front of me. I tried to think what a drama queen would do, so I could do the opposite, but that wasn't really getting me anywhere, so halfway through the cup of coffee, I turned it on. It politely told me that the power level was at four percent and I should consider recharging it. Soon. I stuck my tongue out at the device. Like I said, going cold turkey was hard.