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I didn’t want to describe our post-shower fuck. It was too wrapped up in feelings and fantasies Lee would want to spend the next twenty minutes uncoiling. And it didn’t matter. What mattered was
why
I was having those feelings and fantasies. What mattered was the situation before Fiona Drazen ever walked into my office.

“I think the worst thing I ever did was cave to what she wanted and work at Westonwood. I’m carrying around a ton of resentment. And the pressure hasn’t stopped; she’s just moved it to something else. I mean, you’d think we were compatible. I worry. I cope by being organized. She worries. She copes by being organized. But it’s deadening. I find I’m the one who’s trying to be unsystematic, and I’m not good at chaos.”

“Then your problem is with your own life. Please, I’m begging you, don’t jeopardize your career by confusing that with redirected feelings for a patient.”

FIONA

“Y
 ou seem different,” I said.

Elliot smirked from behind his desk. He did seem different. He sat a little straighter maybe, or was nervous, or more relaxed. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“I’m the same,” he said. “Maybe you’ve changed.”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess that’s why I’m here.”

“You saw Deacon come in yesterday, I presume?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?” He smiled. “You know what I’m going to ask.”

“How I feel about it? Fine. Great. When can I see him?”

“First I want to talk about your injuries. Your tooth and wrist.”

“I don’t think that memory was real,” I blurted. “You said that I could create false memories under hypnosis, and I think I did. You said that the made-up stuff always favors the person remembering, and I think that however I got hurt, I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. Like, something really bad. So I made the other thing up.”

“That just points to you being afraid of him.”

I sank a little deeper into my chair. I was afraid of Deacon, in a way. I was terrified he’d leave me and I’d go crazy without him. And how did that jibe with my growing pipedream of being normal? I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to even think about it, much less talk about it.

Elliot leaned forward. “Here’s my problem. It’s my job to make sure you’re safe for as long as you’re here. It’s very difficult for me to let you see him if I believe he’s hurt you, or that he will again. If I think he has some sort of unhealthy control over you, and if I think that’ll affect your treatment, I can’t allow it.”

“What do I have to promise?”

“I’ll take your firstborn.”

A wisecrack was the last thing I’d expected, but it was exactly what I needed. I put my forehead to my knees and groaned. “Take it. I don’t want kids anyway.”

“It’s a deal,” he said.

My head shot up with surprise.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my God,” I said, “can I kiss you?”

“No.” He stood.

I stood as well and looked down at my pale blue psycho suit. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Does he have to see me like this? I mean, it’s bad enough I’m here, but I look like a janitor.”

He looked at me, toes to crown, as if I was a real woman with curves under my clothes and a choice about what I wore, then took his eyes from me and looked at his hand on the doorknob. I pretended I’d imagined the sex in his gaze.

“All right,” he said as he opened the door. “I’ll see if we can arrange some normal clothes for you.”

ELLIOT

M
y belief that Deacon wouldn’t hurt Fiona wasn’t based on any kind of data, but on instinct. He might have an unhealthy control over her, but I didn’t think he was an immediate threat. I feared that if I didn’t allow him to see her, I was preventing it because I wanted her for myself. After my session with Lee, I could at least think the words.

I wanted her.

I couldn’t do a damn thing about it, but I would call it what it was. I would look it in the face and say “no” with conscious intention. I would want her until she stopped being my patient, then I would forget her and deal with Jana as if I’d never met the beautiful, vibrant, decadent heiress.

“Hello?” Jana’s voice came over the phone, crisp and taut.

It was dark as I pulled onto the freeway, making my choice to call her even more stupid. Maybe I felt a little suicidal. “I’m going to be late.”

“How late?”

“I have to run an errand.”

“Thanks for telling me. Um, can you come in tomorrow to meet Mary? They really need to hire someone.”

The school counselor position. I’d never given her a new resume, but Jana must have smoothed it over.

“I’m working at Westonwood in the morning,” I said.

“You aren’t at Alondra until two. Maybe you could squeeze it in? Think how great it would be to work together. We could have lunch together every day in the break room. It would be like a vacation.”

I changed lanes, giving myself a second to think, but I had no way around it. The school was the third option that solved everything. “Sure. Noon should work. Thanks.”

“Okay, see you in a bit.”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.” I hung up.

***

There was only one Maundy Street in all of Los Angeles. It was a block long, at the crown of hills above Beechwood Canyon. I twisted up the treacherous slope, back and around, only seeing the headlights of oncoming traffic a second before the car got close enough to hit. To my right, the landscape got longer and longer, the city stretching beneath in a plaid of lights.

Maundy had three houses on it, all behind an iron gate. I stopped the car in front of the gate, my headlights illuminating the houses and trees. All were on the left, facing the view. The house closest was the smallest, and the lights were off. Number three. The house in the center had a few lights on. The back house had huge double doors and hooks in the front facade.

An intercom and keypad were set into the gate, but my lights had alerted the occupants of the middle house to my presence. A slim Asian woman in a mandarin collar walked down the hill. As she got closer, I realized she was barely a woman at all, just at the beginning stages of adulthood.

“Hi,” I said. “You must be Debbie.”

“Yes, Doctor Chapman?” She shifted the bag to her forearm and pushed numbers on her side of the gate. I heard a
clack,
and she slid the gate open.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“How is she? Are you allowed to say?” Debbie asked.

“Better. Thanks for the clothes.”

Smiling, Debbie handed me the bag. “I packed her something comfortable. If she doesn’t like the shoes, she can complain later.”

I was tempted to open the bag and see what shoes she was talking about, but I didn’t want to walk away just yet. “Do you have a minute?”

She looked me up and down, as if assessing the danger I posed, then slid the gate all the way open. “Pull in. I’ll be out in a second.”

She went to the small house in the center. I went back to my car to drive through. When I was in, the gate closed automatically. I got out. The door to the little house was still closed, but it wasn’t as small as I thought. Only the top was visible; the rest was built into the hill.

I approached the last building. The front windows were covered from the inside. The hooks I’d seen were lower than I expected. Hooks to hold plants were usually above the doorframe, but these were about seven feet off the ground, and more hoops than hooks. Beneath them were smaller U-shaped loops that looked more functional than decorative.

That was number one, Maundy. Of course I should have left it alone. I should have let Fiona’s descriptions, which were heavy with her emotions, suffice as a matter of principle. But I couldn’t stop myself from walking around the house.

The windows on the side were less carefully covered. Maundy was a private street, so I could understand why they weren’t sealed all around. Had the street been subject to any kind of traffic, they would have had to brick up the windows.

A huge room with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the mountain, and along the wall I could see, wooden Xs were bolted to the tufted wall. There was a line of chairs that couldn’t be called chairs. They were more cushions configured in a way I couldn’t understand until I imagined human bodies on them, crouching, kneeling, legs up, spread, arms back or above the head, shackled down with another body. Then their function became clear. The tables for observers only highlighted the fact that the window looked over Los Angeles if anyone cared to watch.

Had that been safe for Fiona with her paparazzi-magnet lifestyle? Why had no pictures of her strapped to U-shaped mattresses and wooden Xs surfaced? Screaming, wet, come-dripping pink-slapped skin, begging for more more more?

“That big window facing the view is one-way,” Debbie said from behind me. “You can see out, but no one can see in.”

I jumped as if she’d caught me fucking.

“It’s the first thing anyone asks,” she continued. “You imagine you’re seen, but you’re safe. It’s got to be safe, or it doesn’t work.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“Obviously, the side windows are two-way, but the coverings are sealed on the inside when the house is in use.” She smiled, hands folded in front of her. “Come on in.” She stepped aside so I could take the stone path to the center house.

The center house was stunning, if understated. Two floors, a modest pool, large windows, and a balcony where I sat on a sofa spanning the length of it. The patio overlooked a terraced yard, the lights of the city, and the black ocean. On one of the terraces, in the dotted lamplight, a slim figure danced, flinging her long, straight hair. No, she wasn’t dancing. She was doing some sort of martial art.

Behind me, an indoor light went on, illuminating the figure. I saw the bare chest and loose black pants. The dancer was a man, and he was working with a sword. He moved it with grace and beauty, like a gymnast with an apparatus. I couldn’t see him well enough to tell more, but his practice was hypnotic.

Debbie brought out a tray of tea.

“You didn’t have to,” I said.

“I already had it steeping.” She sat across from me on a wicker-and-metal chair and pressed her legs together while she poured.

“This is a fantastic view,” I said.

“Yes. I take it for granted, but whenever someone new comes, I’m reminded.”

“Do you live here alone?”

“With another student. Martin. The middle house is for functions only, and in the end house, the shibari master lives.” She said “master” with a sort of reverence I admired.

“Deacon.”

“Yes.”

“And Fiona?”

“Yes and no. She’s here when he’s here. When he’s not, she’s not.”

“May I ask why?”

“You may ask.” She sipped her tea, giving away nothing, telling me I could ask, but I’d better be ready to hear something I didn’t like.

“Is that Martin?” I asked, referring to the man below.

“No. Junto is mine. Martin was removed just before Christmas. He hasn’t been back since.”

“Martin was in Los Angeles the days before Fiona went to the stables?”

“Yes, why?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know why that rankled, but it did. “I thought he was gone. I don’t know why it’s relevant. Probably isn’t.”

But it was, because Fiona had mentioned that time in session.

Even if I was so stoned I’d let them knot me, well, Debbie wouldn’t have disobeyed, and Martin was in New York
.

Fiona had a memory of being tied while Deacon was away, and had no idea who had done it. But from what I could see, if Martin had been in town, he was the knotter.

“I reported all this to the police,” Debbie said. “I knew something was wrong that night. I could tell. Fiona ran out of the house with a bag. I stopped her and asked what was wrong. She was crying. She said she was going to Snowcone. When I saw Master Deacon later, I asked him what that meant. He went to get her.” She stopped and looked at Junto, as if clicking pieces of the night in her mind. “Master Deacon told me I shouldn’t feel responsible for what happened. But sometimes I do.”

“Anyone would have done what you did.”

“You care about her,” Debbie said.

I almost choked on my tea. She watched me sidelong, her gaze suddenly pointed with intention. I felt as if I was being taken apart and scanned.

“She’s my patient. So yes, I do care.” I was sure she saw right through me. “What about you?”

“Fiona is one of the few friends I’ve made since I came here. She is very loyal, very strong. When I came, I had nothing. Deacon pulled me from hell because he recognized something in me. And Fiona was right there, making sure I had everything I needed. She introduced me to important people. They’re a beautiful couple.”

“What did he recognize?”

“I’m a female Dominant.”

“Ah.”

“And good with knots.” She smiled into the rim of her cup, still dissecting me.

“I’ve been told you’re very talented.”

“I have skill with certain things. The most difficult knottings involve multiple strands. Anyone can tie two, but tying three, from crotch and over the shoulders, it’s hard to get them to work in harmony. It’s hard to make it strong so that each works equally. But I’ve been taught by the best.” She put her cup down and changed the subject by changing her posture. “Do you run to get clothes for all your clients?”

“Not usually, but I wanted to see this place. Her life here is part of who she is, and I’ve had trouble imagining it. It’s been a block for me. I can’t understand the day-to-day.”

“You’re curious?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I can get you an invitation to an event.”

“No.” I couldn’t have been more definite about crossing that line. It would damage Fiona’s trust in me completely.

“Really?” She obviously didn’t believe me.

“Really. I’m just here to learn about Fiona.”

She sighed. “Is it breaking a trust for me to tell you what everyone already knows? It’s in the news every night. The public feeds off her like birds on suet. And she doesn’t have the upbringing to stand up against it. No grounding.”