“I’ll just go and help out, make sure Nathan’s gone. This is a man-free zone tonight and he does seem to like pushing his luck.” Eva trots off after them, following Nathan and the visitors upstairs. Just a couple of minutes later, footsteps in the hallway again herald the imminent departure of the remaining male interlopers. The sound of an engine and tires complete the picture as Eva comes back into the room. And my heart lurches in astonished recognition.
What the fuck is
she
doing here?
Freya North, my closest friend, last seen dangling from a cross in Lancaster, Nicholas Hardisty whispering something wicked and soothing into her ear. The friend I abandoned with hardly a word of explanation. Here, now, large as life in Eva Byrne’s crowded living room. Freya catches sight of me the same instant I see her. And from her expression, it’s clear I’m about to find myself at the center of another domestic commotion. This is getting to be a habit.
At least this time there’s no shouting. Freya doesn’t do shouting. To the best of my knowledge, she doesn’t do drive-by shootings either, but judging by her expression, she might be considering that option. I hope Nathan doesn’t have a gun.
Freya prowls toward me, oblivious to all others in the room, her glare one that would curdle milk. Her hands are signing furiously. I notice she has a plaster cast on her wrist, though it doesn’t appear to be hampering her movements at all.
“Where the hell have you been?” Freya launches into me, demanding answers.
She’s entitled, I do get that but even so, I’m thrown by her vehemence. I’ve never seen her so angry. I sign my response, a rather inadequate, “I’m sorry.”
Freya is far from satisfied. The silent tirade continues.
Thank heaven for Eva, the perfect hostess again, saving the day and my hide as she swiftly inserts herself between us and marches us from the room. Moments later we’re shoved unceremoniously into the kitchen. Under Eva’s autocratic glare, we both sit. Ashley has appeared behind Eva, clearly not about to let such excitement go on without her. I can’t really blame her—it’s
her
party after all.
“Now, do I need to stand here and supervise or can you two sort yourselves out?” Eva’s question is sharp, her tone suggesting that she’s been paying close attention when Nathan gets into his Dom ways.
I wonder briefly if she’s missed her calling, but I gather my wits sufficiently to mumble a hurried, “Yes. Yes, sorry.”
Apparently satisfied I pose no immediate threat, Eva turns her attention to Freya.
“Freya?” Eva glares at her, evidently less than satisfied.
Freya signs her reply, “We’re fine. Yes, sorry. It was a shock though. I didn’t expect to see Summer here.”
Old habits die hard. On autopilot I start to translate, intending to verbalize Freya’s words for her. I’m stopped in my tracks as Eva raises an imperious hand. I can definitely see the respected academic now. Woe betides any cocky undergraduate who falls foul of Professor Byrne.
Eva’s gaze scans the pair of us then settles on Freya. “Shock, as in nasty? Or surprise, as in nice?”
I hold my breath. Long moments pass before Freya’s furious expression softens. I see…relief. Sorrow. Bewilderment. And fear. All caused by me. Could I feel any smaller?
She inhales slowly, deeply. Then, “Surprise. A nice surprise.”
Eva appears ready to accept that. She draws our attention to the wine chilling in the fridge and reminds us that there’s a party going on and we’re missing it. Ashley places two glasses on the table before leveling a long stare at me. “Well, Summer. You are full of surprises. I’m so glad you could come. You’ve really livened things up. And here I was, thinking my side of the wedding would be a bit on the quiet side. But no, not a bit of it, not with you around. First you offer to deck Dan, and then we have to stop you brawling with our little Freya here. I will be wanting to hear the full story, you can be sure of that. Meanwhile, get drunk and giggly and love each other. Please.”
I stand to hug Ashley, her irreverent mischief just the antidote to the depth of emotion threatening to completely overwhelm me. Even so, my gaze is watery as I catch sight of Freya over her shoulder. I try a smile—and another attempt at an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. I’d never have come if I thought…”
“Don’t you dare!” This from Ashley, who grabs me and pulls me back into a hug. She’s surprisingly strong for her size. “You’re welcome, both of you. Freya?”
And that’s it. Freya launches herself from her chair and rushes at me, but this time her face is alight with joy. She hurls herself into my arms. Or it may have been the other way round. Whatever, we’re clinging to each other, sobbing. I’m apologizing, though it seems an irrelevance. No one’s listening. And a few moments later both Freya and I realize we’re alone. Eva and Ashley clearly consider their duty done for now and they’ve rejoined the party leaving us to sort out our differences.
Chapter Eleven
Freya goes straight to the heart of things. Her first question, once we’ve poured the wine and sat back down, is of her usual ‘take no prisoners’ variety.
“Something happened, didn’t it? Something between you and Dan? That night at the club when I met Nick.”
I gaze at her, then at my wine. I’m making a habit of this. Too much of a habit and the night’s hardly started yet. I leave the table and go to the sink, grab a tumbler and fill it with tap water. By the time I’ve glugged most of it down and refilled the glass, ready to resume my place at the table, I’ve gathered my wits sufficiently to be able to formulate an answer. Which is not to answer. Not yet. Something happened, sure enough, but I couldn’t for the life in me even start to tell her what. Apart from the obvious—he stripped me and spanked me. Between orgasms, naturally. No doubt Freya is owed an explanation, but she’ll have to join the queue.
I tell her that what happened is history now, which of course it is. Sort of. I’m not yet ready to contemplate the future in any detail. I don’t think for one moment Freya’s convinced—she’s known me too long—but she decides not to press me on the matter, for which I’m profoundly grateful. I do reassure her, though, that I’m on my way home, expecting to be back in Cumbria in a day or so. She’s pleased and relieved. I ask if my old room at her apartment is still vacant. Freya tells me that she’s more or less moved in with Nick now, in Cartmel, so the whole flat is vacant and mine for as long as I want to use it.
I don’t deserve Freya. I really don’t.
We rejoin the party after a half hour or so. Eva catches my eye immediately from across the room, her eyebrow raised in inquiry, a quest for reassurance that she will not after all need to trouble herself with getting bloodstains out of her living room carpet. I smile and nod. She smiles back, and resumes her conversation with Tom’s mother as Freya and I start to mingle. Freya knows one or two of the guests but like me, she’s something of an outsider, a newcomer to this group. We stick together, circulating and socializing, and generally enjoying the company. Ashley’s friends are nice, pleasant people. And it’s so good to be back with my closest friend. Eventually, I start to relax.
I automatically translate for Freya, though it’s quickly apparent that Eva is well able to fill that role too. We don’t get that many opportunities to chat just the two of us, but I do manage to establish that Freya’s not been exactly idle while I’ve been away. Despite his initial point-blank refusal to entertain her, she did manage, after all, to convince Nicholas Hardisty to train her in the submissive arts. The deal they struck was that she’d move into his home for a month, where it seems he has his own private dungeon, placing herself entirely at his disposal. He refused to accept payment, which strikes me as nothing short of astonishing but maybe I have a skewed perspective on this. Freya just waves my surprise away.
“Oh, it was a daft idea. I never should have offered him money. And now, we’re…well, we’re—a couple. Permanent. He’s my Master.”
I pass her an orange juice, her plastered wrist reminding me I really should ask how she came by that injury. I’m no longer inclined to lay the blame for it at Nick Hardisty’s feet, though I once would have. This ‘Master’ business, though, now I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
“Did you say ‘Master’?” Best to check. My signing is a little rusty. It’s been a few weeks.
She nods earnestly. “Yes. Master. It’s what I wanted all along. Nick too, I think, but he took long enough getting his head around it. Still, I’m patient and we got there eventually.”
Not that rusty, it seems.
I’m not entirely certain where ‘there’ is, but there’s no denying Freya’s happiness. She’s positively glowing. Eva and Ashley’s revelations from earlier have at least alerted me to the possibility that these Dom/sub relationships can work, do seem to work. Sometimes. Maybe Freya
has
found her Mr Right. But
Master
?
“If he’s your Master, what does that make you?”
She looks at me, her gaze long, considering. At last she lifts her hands to answer, her words carefully chosen, “Not his slave, if that’s what you mean? Or his property. I obey him though. Usually. And I always put his needs and wishes first—except when he’s wrong, obviously.”
Right. No help there then. There’s something else I need to ask, but I’m cautious, uncertain how to phrase it. I wouldn’t want her to misunderstand, get the wrong end of the stick. “What about your money? I mean, as your Master, does he…?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t…”
“Doesn’t know. That’s right. I never got round to telling him.”
“But, what about the car? The flat? The bloody clothes you spend a fortune on? The first class travel to Australia at every verse end, for Christ’s sake?” I’m speaking in a whisper.
Even so, Freya glances around nervously, making sure no one can overhear me. I could lower my voice, but the issues won’t diminish. I settle though for sticking to signing. At least then only Eva could understand what we’re talking about and she’s preoccupied with refilling the nibbles. “He must suspect something. I mean, forty odd million quid takes some hiding.”
“No it doesn’t. Not really. The bank looks after everything, makes my investments, deals with my bills, expenses, all that. When we first met, I told Nick I’d won the Lottery, that I’d won enough to splash out on the car, the flat. He never asked for more details. I don’t imagine he even notices what I wear. He’s more interested in me naked, in any case.”
Too much information.
Freya rushes on, keen to reassure me, “I’m going to tell him. Soon. Very soon.”
“But, even if he didn’t ask you outright how much you won, won’t he feel you’ve deceived him? For all this time. I mean, this is big. It makes a difference. It has to.”
“Perhaps. Yes, probably. I know. I meant to. But it’s hard. And as time passed, it just got harder. But I will tell him. I have to. I know. Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“I want to buy shares in Tom’s wind farm project. Well, I’m thinking about it. If the financial projections check out, I might put up around five million pounds. And then, everyone will know, because I’ll have to provide my bank details. I’ll definitely tell Nick the truth before we get to that stage.”
I just stare at her, my brain approaching meltdown. I’m no expert on Dom/sub stuff, far from it, but I’d have thought honesty would rank up there with nice boobs and a more than passable pain tolerance threshold in the catalog of sub requirements. I may be a novice as far as this lifestyle of Freya’s is concerned but I’m pretty sure that the mere fact that Nick Hardisty didn’t ask her directly will not cut it as adequate explanation for such a glaring omission. I’m also more than a little taken aback at the casual mention of a five million pound investment, but all things are relative, I daresay. I reach for my drink, another iced water this time, just by way of pacing myself.
“I bought a racehorse, did I mention that?”
The glass falls from my nerveless fingers, splashing water all over Eva’s beautiful shag pile. I just knew I was destined to make a mess. “A racehorse. Did you say
racehorse
?”
Freya’s smile is benign as she helps Eva and Mrs Richardson to mop up the puddle I’ve caused. Permanent water damage averted, she continues her tale. “Yes. A racehorse. She’s beautiful. She’s called Dancing Queen, Queenie for short. She’s stabled in Cheshire somewhere. I’m going to go and see her as soon as I can.”
“You haven’t even seen her?” I sip my water, careful to keep a tight grip on the glass.
“Oh, yes. When I bought her. It was a race meeting at Cartmel. Nick and I went, and Queenie was auctioned there.”
My head reeling, I try to make some sort of sense of it all. “Didn’t Nick smell a rat when you started bidding?”
Racehorses don’t come cheap.
Freya has the grace to look slightly sheepish, but only for a fleeting moment. “Not from the toilet. I waited till he needed the loo then I emailed Max at the bank, got them to represent me at the auction. I was an anonymous UK bidder.” She looks quite proud of herself now and clearly does not regret her purchase. I’m horrified. When did my lovely, honest and transparent friend become so devious?
I might have quizzed Freya more closely on the events of recent weeks. I certainly want to. Apart from my rampant curiosity, while she’s answering my questions she can’t be firing any of her own off.
The rest of the party passes in something of a blur for me, no doubt helped along that way by my imbibing at least a bottle of Nathan Darke’s fine chardonnay. At last, sometime around midnight I think, we all totter off to bed, the children having been banished upstairs much earlier in the evening. Eva was worrying about where to put us all, but as soon as she realizes that Freya and I are friends, she bunks us up together. Nick is dossing at Greystones with the rest of the menfolk so I get his half of their double bed. I’m asleep almost before my head hits the pillow.
* * * *
I’m never very good company first thing, and especially not when my head is still pounding from the effects of alcohol. A cheery male voice dragging me from my sleep, announcing himself as Nick Hardisty and observing that I’m sleeping in his bed does nothing to improve my mood. I mutter the first thing that enters my head, and it isn’t especially polite.