Nobody's Hero (15 page)

Cassie would be going home soon. Realizing
this might be their only opportunity this year to have their
cleansing ceremony—something she’d been looking forward to as a
means of releasing some of her anger and grief—she’d asked Cassie
if they could do it tonight. Angie had also been on the disastrous
Mount Evans camping trip earlier this month. They’d planned
originally to have their ritual around the campfire, before all the
drama had happened. So, Karla had invited Angie, too, and she was
on her way over. The three of them all had things from the past
they needed to heal, and Cassie said this ceremony would help.

“Sorry it took so long,” Angie said, out of
breath as she reached the top of the stairs. She carried her
bathrobe over her forearm and a covered tray in her hand. “Got here
as soon as I could. Had to stop downstairs and get…something. I’m
so glad we’re going to get to do this. I think I’m more focused now
than I would have been two weeks ago. Where should I change?”

Angie’s high-energy and enthusiasm made Karla
chuckle. Master Marc must be getting her to verbally express
herself.

“Just go in there,” she said, pointing to the
master bedroom. “Bathroom’s on the right. Just don’t leave anything
behind for Mas…for Adam to find.”

“How about the food tray?”

“Here, I’ll take it.” Karla took the tray of
the items Cassie had requested—something green and something sweet
to eat after the ceremony.

Angie hurried away just as Cassie opened her
door, dressed in a robe as well. Karla saw she had her own tray of
items—candles, dried and twisted sage, matches. “You’re sure Adam’s
okay with this?”

“Oh, sure.”
More or less
. “We’ll be
finished long before he gets home.”

They padded on slippered feet across the hall
and into Adam’s room. Karla held the French patio door for Cassie
to precede her onto the deck. The scent of Adam’s oak-scented body
wash filled the air. Karla thought it provided the perfect ambiance
and replaced the woodsy scents they were missing this year. She’d
been careful to only use a bit, not wanting a bubble bath fiasco in
his hot tub. Master Adam might not appreciate that.

The mall’s bed-and-bath store chain seemed
the last place she’d expect Adam to buy his shampoo and body wash.
Who had bought it for him? She tamped down the jealous thoughts
that ran through her head.

Angie came outside dressed in her robe, and
the three of them looked at each other. Karla and Angie giggled.
Cassie set about preparing for the ceremony. The night was dark—no
visible moon—but the hot tub lights cast a greenish light over
them. Karla just hoped the lack of moonlight would give them even
more privacy from the prying eyes of neighbors, especially later,
when they got stark naked in the middle of downtown Denver. She
didn’t want to give any of Master Adam’s neighbors fits if they
looked out or up and saw them performing what looked like some kind
of pagan ritual.

Okay, it
was
a pagan ritual. But every
year since Karla had been visiting Cassie out here, she’d derived
such peace from it that she didn’t want to miss it this year.
Especially not this year. Karla’s family had never been religious
and she hadn’t really gone to church much, except with friends like
Cassie in college. Cassie had a mixture of Peruvian Indian and
Catholic backgrounds, which gave her all kinds of ideas for
ritualistic ceremonies. The woman was a bit of a mystic, too. The
drawing she made of Master Luke’s dead wife and baby at the
hospital two weeks—neither of whom she’d ever met—still gave Karla
chills.

Angie had been raised Catholic, too, and had
been enthusiastic about participating when Karla had told her about
it before the fateful camping trip.

“The hot tub is perfect for the cleansing
stage in the ceremony,” Cassie said.

Karla smiled. “Definitely warmer than some of
the streams we’ve cleansed in.”

Cassie nodded, then stood taller and more
confident, deep in her element now. Of course, there were no men
around, which helped. “Did everyone bring a symbol of what they
want to release?”

Karla and Angie nodded and pulled the objects
from their robe pockets. For Karla, it was a miniature motorcycle.
For Angie, the mask Marc wore at the club—did he know Angie had it?
That must have been what she’d stopped downstairs to retrieve. For
Cassie, it was an airline-sized bottle of rum.

Cassie cast the circle around them and
invoked the spirit watchers. She instructed the women to close
their eyes. “Now, imagine a circle within the circle, like a
chain-link fence with posts. This will keep the negativity from
escaping our circle. We don’t want to send it out into the
universe. But any negativity we express or that comes at us will be
deflected by those fence posts into the ground, like lightning
rods. Don’t absorb any of the negativity into yourselves either.
When one of us is expressing our hurt, just ask for blessings to
heal those negative thoughts as they swirl around in the circle,
and then send them on their way to a fiery hell. Don’t let it stay
within our circle, or within us.”

Cassie asked them to take a deep cleansing
breath and to keep their eyes closed. “Now, we will take turns
expressing the hurt we want to release. I’ll go first, so you’ll
see what to do, Angie.”

With her eyes closed, Karla heard her take a
deep breath and slowly release it. For the longest time, there was
silence. They waited. Then Cassie released a keening cry that
bordered on pain, expressing and releasing her anguish and sorrow
over what was taken from her in that Peruvian bar four and a half
years ago. She spoke in a mixture of Spanish and English. This
wasn’t the first time Cassie had been working on releasing this
hurt. God, Karla hoped and prayed she would succeed this time. Her
friend needed to heal and move on with her life without all the
fear and anger.

Tears burned Karla’s eyes as she absorbed
some of Cassie’s pain, then she remembered not to let that
negativity remain inside her. She asked for blessings and sent it
to the grounding poles and away from them. The air among them grew
warmer, lighter.

Breathing heavily, Cassie paused. “Please
open your eyes.” Karla looked across the small circle at her
friend, who had tears shimmering on her cheeks from the shine of a
distant street light. “I denounce the pigs who raped me,” she
gritted out between her teeth. “I denounce the alcohol they drank
that kept them from choosing right over wrong. I denounce the bar
where such attacks on women are condoned as male sport. And I
denounce my homeland that allows such things to happen to its women
in the name of
machismo
.”

She held up the bottle of rum. “This bottle
is a symbol of my attack and my attackers. I denounce it as well.”
She threw the bottle outside the circle, and Karla heard it roll to
the edge of the deck and over the side, falling to the shrubbery
below. Cassie’s chest rose and fell as she breathed rapidly.
Gradually it slowed, as she relaxed.

With what Karla was learning about BDSM now,
she wondered if there was anything in the lifestyle that might help
Cassie regain control of her life, but this wasn’t the time or
place to discuss it.

Cassie dashed the tears from her cheeks and
turned to Angie. “Would you like to go next?”

“Not until I give you a hug, if that’s
okay.”

Cassie nodded and opened her arms; Angie
wrapped her arms around her. Karla joined in, surprised Cassie was
letting someone she barely knew hold her. That was progress, at
least. After a moment, Cassie stiffened, signaling that it was time
to pull away.

“Please, Angelina, just get in touch with the
feelings, especially the anger, then let it go.”

“This is silly, really, compared to
yours.”

“No! Don’t downgrade the emotions you feel,
Angelina. I’m glad it’s not like mine, but the pain you feel is
just as real as mine—just as valid.”

Angie blinked and looked down at the wolf’s
mask she held in her hands. She brushed her fingers over the fur on
the mask. “I’m falling in love with someone who…lied to me about
who he was. At first, he just didn’t share that we’d met before,
because he didn’t expect that he’d ever see me again. But things
happened, and now we’re exploring the possibility of a long-term
relationship. It was a silly lie really, and I don’t know why it
bothers me so much…”

“Angelina, how did the lie make you
feel?”

“Like I can’t fully trust him. But I want to
trust him. And he’s never done anything that’s made me question
giving him my trust, except for this one lie of omission. He also
brought other people into it with him—Karla, Adam, Damián,
Luke.”

“Oh, Angie. You don’t know how much I hated
that I was a part of that. Please forgive me.”

“I have, Karla. And I’ve forgiven everyone
else, even Marc. He’s apologized. I know he’s sincere, but I just
can’t forget. If he did it again, it would be over.”

Karla reached out to stroke Angie’s sleeve.
“What do you want to say to him, Angie, that you haven’t been able
to say yet?”

Angie took a deep breath, staring at the mask
again. “Marc, I want you as my Dom, maybe in more than just the
bedroom and the club. But how can I trust you not to lie to me
about something else? How can I let you put me in even more
vulnerable situations, where I have to totally rely on you for my
well-being, and know you won’t let me down again? I guess I still
don’t understand why he perpetuated it so long.”

Silence fell between them as Angie’s words
drifted away on a breeze, and Karla realized for the first time how
cold it was out here. Her heart ached for Angie, because she and
Marc really were so good for each other. Karla had thought
everything was going well with them, but apparently Marc’s his lies
had caused some damage to their budding relationship.

“Angie, maybe it’s because you're so new as a
couple. When he has a better track record over time with no more
lies, it won’t seem as monumental.”

Angie nodded, but she didn’t say anything
more. Just stared down at the wolf’s mask. After a pause, Cassie
cleared her throat. “Tell us about the mask, Angelina.”

“He continues to hide behind a mask.” Angie
looked down at it again and a tear slid down her cheek and into the
soft fur on the edges. Karla realized there was more going on here
than Marc’s lie.

After a moment, Angie continued. “Family is
everything to me, and I know Marc’s close to his parents and
siblings, too, although not quite as close as I am to my Mom and
brothers. He’s asked me to go home with him for New Year’s dinner,
because he knows I need to be with my Mom at Christmas. I’ve never
missed a Christmas at home.”

Angie’s father had been killed in an
avalanche a number of years ago, a SAR worker trying to rescue
Luke’s pregnant wife, who also died in the tragic accident. Karla
had met Angie’s mother and four brothers while Adam was in the
hospital.

“Here at the club, Marc hides behind this
mask because his Mama is afraid he’ll run into someone from her
Aspen social circle here, which would embarrass her.” Suddenly,
Angie crushed the mask in her fist. “But if they’re embarrassed
about Marc’s connection to the club, then will they be embarrassed
about me, since Marc and I first met here at the club?”

“If Marc’s family won’t accept me, I’ll have
to let him go, because I will not come between them. So I’m scared,
because I don’t want lose Marc. We’ve become very close in the past
two months, and I really think he’s the one for me, but the thought
of being rejected by his family just petrifies me. I’m dreading the
thought of spending New Year’s Eve with them.”

Karla reached out and patted her friend’s
back. “Angie, I’m sure they’ll love you, just as much as Marc does.
But I think you need to tell him how you feel. Open and honest
communication is so important in any relationship.”

“I know. I really should. And I will.” She
looked from Karla to Cassie, as if to convince them, rather than
herself. “Soon.”

Cassie smiled. “Why don’t you put your
emotions, the fear and the hurt, into the mask and then toss those
emotions and the mask from the circle?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot that part.” Angie
smiled and shook her head. “He’s not going to be too happy to see
what I did to his club mask” Angie stared down at the mask a few
moments more, then flung the mangled mask outside the circle, just
as Cassie had tossed away her bottle.

“Just keep the lines of communication open.
I’m sure you’ll be able to work through this anxiety."

Cassie was so intuitive, so wise. Karla
thanked the gods she could count her as a friend.

“I hope you’re right. I had no idea how
worried I was about it. I’ve just tamped it down, because we’re so
new to being a couple. I really do love him, but I want the kind of
love my parents had—the kind that lasts forever, even beyond death.
Anyway, thanks, Cassie. I think this has helped a lot.”

Angie grinned, and Karla relaxed a bit. She
reached over to her and, once again, they were in a three-way group
hug.

When they separated, Karla’s heart began
pounding against her chest. She looked down at the tiny Honda
motorcycle in her hand, trying not to picture Ian riding on it, the
semi crushing him, his mangled body flying through the air to land
with a thud against the pavement.
Okay, fail
. That’s all she
could think about.

“Why’d you have to ride that stupid thing,
Ian?” Tears burned her eyes. “You always thought you were
invincible. That nothing could pierce your super-human armor.” A
tear splashed onto her hand, then rolled off onto the tiny bike.
His casket had remained closed at the funeral. She and her parents
hadn’t wanted to see the reconstructed face the morticians had
tried to make look like her beautiful, handsome brother.