Master's Flame (27 page)

“There weren’t more than fifty.”

“A hundred fucking people disagree with you, and a hundred fucking people are out there gossiping about this to anyone who will listen. You know how gossip is in the circus. They’re talking about it in Vegas, in Toronto, in Sydney, in Buenos Aires, fucking everywhere about how you’ve freaking lost your brain over a woman and what you did to her that night. And a lot of the people hearing this—they work for you. They respect you. You’re their boss and they’re scared that you’re not really worthy of that respect anymore.” He crossed his arms over his chest, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “And I’m kind of scared too. If you don’t love her, what’s going on? What’s making you act this way? Is it the wedding? Is it letting go of Sara?”

Michel waved a hand. He didn’t want Sara in this conversation. “This has nothing to do with my daughter, nothing to do with anything but me and Valentina being a really bad match. I messed up.” He gave Jason a rueful look. “You told me. You warned me at the beginning that I was making a huge mistake and I didn’t listen. I regret that. You have no idea how much.”

“I have some idea how much, seeing as how I came into practice today and heard that you had fourteen guys shove their dicks into the woman you love.”

“Enough with the love,” Michel snapped. “You and Sara are about to drive me mad with all this love nonsense. You’re as bad as Valentina. Love, love, love, rainbows and unicorns and hearts made of glitter. None of it is real, you realize.”

“I’m about to marry your daughter. I think you’d better take those words back.”

Michel studied the younger man, rubbing a finger over his lower lip. Valentina’s artwork came into his brain, Jason’s key and Sara’s lock. “Maybe love works for some people,” he admitted. “But not for me.”

Jason blew out his breath and pushed Michel’s laptop shut before he could return to his task. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it. It’s your thing with Sara all over again. ‘
I don’t know how to love. I don’t have feelings. Wah wah wah, I’m a big forty-five year old uber-Master who can’t process basic human emotions like caring and affection.’
”

His mocking, sing-song voice had Michel’s headache throbbing into a migraine. “Enough,” he roared.

“No, it’s not enough,” Jason said, talking over him. “I stood by and watched you rip your daughter’s heart out. That’s on me, letting that go on as long as it did. I won’t let you do it to Valentina. And to yourself, you fucking lunatic. You love her.”

“I think I get to decide who I love. That is, if I wanted to love anyone romantically, which I don’t. Do we have anything else to discuss?” Michel was sure his strident tones could be heard throughout the entire floor. At this point, he didn’t care. “Do you have anything else to say to me before you fucking get out of my office, you fucking prick?”

Jason stood, scowling at him with an expression that would have lesser men ducking back. “I do have one last thing to say to you. Someday you’re going to be sorry you sat by and watched fourteen guys gangbang the woman you love. You’re gonna really fucking hate yourself for it, and you’re going to deserve every fucking iota of angst you feel.” He went to the door, then turned back, poking a finger into the air. “You won’t ever forget these things you’re doing to her, Michel. And you know what? Neither will she.”

*** *** ***

The evenings were the hardest time for Valentina. Even with the noise and bustle of the dormitories all around her, she felt lonely. She read books, she worked on her art, and practiced French a little bit, not because Mr. Lemaitre spoke it, but because she lived in France now and it would be a good language to know. She had lots of friends to help her practice the language, people who had been so nice to her ever since...

Well, she didn’t want to think about that, but with all the gossip, it was hard to get away from it. People looked at her differently. Nicely, but differently. They were sorry for her. It sucked.

She ate ice cream when she felt really sad. She watched movies late into the night curled under a blanket on her couch, and sometimes she slept there because she felt too lazy—or lonely—to sleep in her bed.

She was having just such an evening when someone knocked at her door. She pulled the blanket up a little. She was already in her fuzzy pajamas, settled in for the night.

“Valentina?”

Another knock, sharper. Jason Beck. She considered not answering but he could probably hear the television and he’d just keep knocking. She switched the maudlin movie to a cartoon channel, then shuffled over in her slippers and opened her door. She kept it locked now that Mr. Lemaitre had had the deadbolt replaced, and her key.

“Were you sleeping?” he asked.

“No. Not yet.” She stood back to let him in.

He looked around at the mess that comprised her life, the mess that had only grown in scope during the past few days as she tried to forget about her broken heart.

“Wow,” he said quietly. The last time he’d been here, she’d had everything packed up so she could run away from the circus. So many things had happened since then. He walked over to her bird made of matchsticks and lightly touched one of the wings. He turned around and bumped into a bust made of plaster and colored tiles. He grabbed for it, barely rescuing it from a crash to the floor.

“I’m sorry.” He placed it back on its wobbly pedestal, a laptop table Valentina had scavenged from someone’s trash heap. “I hope I didn’t mess it up.”

She shrugged. “If you did, I’ll fix it. There’s more room over on the couch.”

Jason moved across her living room and sat, still looking wide-eyed around her apartment. Why did her life and her work always elicit that reaction in people?
Because you’re a freak. Obviously.

She tried to think what normal people did when guests came over. “Can I get you something?” she asked, heading for the kitchen. “Some coffee? A glass of water?”

“Will you come sit with me? I want to talk to you about something.”

She stopped en route and turned back around. “I know what you want to talk about, and I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I do. Come and sit down.”

Jason wasn’t her Master. He didn’t have the right to issue her orders, but he was her development director and she usually listened when he used that tone of voice. She came back to the couch and collapsed beside him with a sigh. She didn’t want to look at him, so she looked at the TV where a cartoon cat and mouse were embroiled in an endless chase. In her peripheral vision, she could see Jason’s hands tighten on his knees.

“So, I guess the first thing I want to know is, are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. I’ve been working, haven’t I?”

His gaze swept her apartment again, all the scraps and odds and ends, and stuff hanging from the ceiling. She was glad she’d left her painting of Jason and Sara at Mr. Lemaitre’s house. There was nowhere to hide it here and it would have ruined the surprise.

“You can work and still not be okay,” he persisted. “I heard about the Citadel incident second hand, but what I heard was enough to worry me.”

Valentina forced a brittle smile. “Now I’ve been involved in two Citadel incidents. I think it’s best if I stay away from that place.”

“What he did to you was wrong.”

The certainty in his voice ruffled her a little. “Who are you to judge our kink, Jason? How do you know I didn’t enjoy it?”

He gazed back at her, saying nothing. She felt angry, confused. Defensive. She didn’t like being depicted as a victim. She didn’t like that she probably was the victim in Friday night’s scenario.

“I liked it at first,” she said, lifting her chin. “I like when he makes me do vile, perverted stuff. I like being humiliated by him, and feeling used by him. That is my kink and I don’t want to be judged for it.”

Still, nothing from Jason, just that steady gaze. She looked down at her hands, then started tracing the panda faces on her pants. The rest of the words spilled out like a dirty confession.

“I did it because he asked me to, and with the first couple of guys, I enjoyed it. I’m not ashamed.” The fact that she was saying she wasn’t ashamed kind of gave away the fact that she was struggling with shame, but her coach didn’t call her out on it. “It turned me on, him watching me while other guys fucked me. The fact that he could make me do anything—even that. That he had that much control over me. It felt kind of hot.”

“I can see that side of it,” Jason said.

“But then...then it started to feel bad and I didn’t know how to stop it.” This was where the shame really ate at her. She had reached a point in the scene where she didn’t know what to do, where it had progressed past eroticism to something ugly, and she had felt powerless to make it beautiful again. “Everyone was watching and really...I didn’t...I didn’t want to mess up the scene. I didn’t want to challenge him in front of everyone. I wanted it to be exciting for everyone, and hot and sexy.” Her voice trailed off as Jason leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.

He looked up at her a moment later. “I want to fucking kill someone right now.”

“It was just...just a scene that went bad. It’s not this big disaster everyone is making it out to be. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t because...”

“Because you’re such a good slave,” he said in a derisive tone.

“No. Because I thought he’d be able to save the scene. Up until the end, I thought he’d figure out some way to make it better, and hotter, because he’s Le Maître and he’s really good at this stuff.”

“He usually is,” said Jason grudgingly. “But in this case he fucked up.”

Valentina hugged herself, feeling the same unsettled angst she felt every time she hashed over the events of that night. “Up until the end, I thought he’d do some magic to make it all mean something, to bring us closer together. To make it about some connection between us. But afterward, I realized there was no connection between us, that I’d been making it up in my head because that’s what I wanted. And that’s when I really felt devastated. That’s when I really felt embarrassed and ashamed.”

“A relationship with Michel Lemaitre is not for the faint of heart.” Jason reached over and stroked the back of her hand. She wondered if he could feel it trembling. “I told you once, at the very start of all this, that it was a game. That it was supposed to be fun. Do you remember?”

She nodded. She remembered most of that conversation, all his warnings and truths. She should have listened. It was too late now.

“So, I was wrong,” he said, drawing his hand back. “I don’t think it was ever a game. Not for you, not for him. I think he’s in love with you. I think he has been from the start.”

Valentina stood, knocking the remote to the floor. The channel changed to a late night soap opera. “Why does everyone say that? Have his actions ever been the actions of someone in love?”

Jason stood too, switching off the TV. “We’re talking about Michel Lemaitre. He’s not normal. Neither are you. I’m trying to figure this out but it’s not very easy, seeing as how both of you are half-insane.”

His words hurt her. She didn’t know why, since she’d long ago understood she wasn’t a typical person. “I’m trying to be myself,” she yelled back. “I don’t know how else to be. I am very frustrated and very sad, and if he loves me, it doesn’t help me because he’s sent me away.”

“Don’t you get it? He sent you away
because
he loves you. That’s the reason for everything he’s done to you. He has this belief that love is a bad thing, which is, yes, very frustrating and sad.”

“Well, what do I do?”

Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. I wish you could fix him, but if that means you keep getting hurt... I don’t know if it’s worth sacrificing the small amount of sanity you possess.”

It was a joke, a small glimmer of humor in the midst of this heavy exchange. Did Mr. Lemaitre love her? If he didn’t love her proudly and openly, giving her everything in his heart, then it wasn’t a love she wanted. She didn’t want love that diminished her.

And she couldn’t bear any more hurt.

“Has he said anything to you since last Friday?” Jason asked. “Anything at all?”

Valentina moved to a table near the window, to a pile of dried, denuded rose stems. She picked up a note card beside them. “He sent me flowers, and this.”

Jason tilted the card to the light and read the note. “
Forgive me for any pain I’ve caused. M.L.
” He looked up at her. “Really? Seriously? And this didn’t send you into a murderous rage?”

“I ripped up the flowers but it didn’t make me feel better, and afterward I wished I hadn’t. It wasn’t the flowers’ fault.”

Jason tapped the note card twice on the table and put it down. Valentina stared at the words scrawled on the card, at the sentence she’d read so many times, and at the bare stems that looked as dried up as her heart. “I thought we were meant to be together. From the moment I looked in his eyes I felt a connection to him. I thought finally,
finally
, I had met my soul mate. Now I’m just trying to move on in life. Bad things happen and good things happen. The important thing is to keep going.”

Jason let out a sigh. “Can I give you a hug? Friend to friend?”

Valentina moved into his arms. Jason was a great hugger, always warm and supportive. She let herself sag against him for a moment, and remember that she had at least one friend who’d be there for her no matter what.

“You’re so badass, you know that?” he said against her ear. “Nothing defeats you. Maybe you are meant to be his soul mate, because you survived him without losing yourself, or changing. But Valentina...” He pulled back from her with a frown. “To be with him would mean so much sacrifice. Perhaps too much.”

“Don’t all people make sacrifices for love? Husbands and wives, and parents for their children? The love is more important than the things you lose.” She shrugged. “But in this case, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want me to love him, and he refuses to love me.” She lined the stems up side by side, then swept them up and moved with them to the trash can. “As Mr. Lemaitre says, love is one of those things, like slavery, that requires consent.”