Bound in Blue (26 page)

“Bullshit.” Jason laughed and turned away
from him. “We all get so caught up in your bullshit. Your drama.
You get caught up worse than anyone. The truth is, you loved her
the first day, just like I did. Now both of us are sitting here,
dumped, like a couple of jackasses.” He walked across her dorm room
toward the door. “I’m going to Marseille.”

Lemaitre sprang away from the wall and
grabbed his arm. “You’re not. I forbid it.”

“You can forbid my left nut, Michel,” he
said, shaking him off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going.”

“I’m telling you as your boss, you’re not to
interfere in her business. She wants to develop her own act, find
her way through this without depending on anyone else. I promised
she could.”

“And what happens then?”

He shrugged. “It’s up to her. Cirque du Monde
runs sixteen shows, fifteen of which she’s eligible for.”

“Not
Tsilaosa
?”

Lemaitre sighed and shook his head. “The
trapeze. It’s cursed.”

“It’s not cursed. You don’t want her here
because you don’t want to deal with her. You don’t want her in your
face.”

“No.”

“You don’t want to fight your feelings. You
don’t want to have to change from Le Maître, all powerful God and
pervert, to Lemaitre, middle-aged father. I know it’s scary,
Michel—”

“Enough!” Jason could see he’d hit a little
too close to the truth. Lemaitre scowled at him, his eyes dark with
pain. “Yes, it’s the truth. I don’t want her here. Yes, I admit
it.” He bowed his head until he collected himself. “I’m sorry. I
know you wanted her near.”

“Oh, I’m going to have her near. I’m going to
Marseille to win her back, and then I’ll stay with her, go wherever
her talent takes us. I love her.”

“I know you love her, because I’ve seen you
together. I see how you’re both hurting now. But if she’s truly
your slave, she’ll come back to you when she’s ready. And if you’re
a good Master, you’ll give her the space she needs right now.”

Jason wondered how Lemaitre could be so wise
about power exchange, about Master/slave relationships, and so
stupid about other things, like accepting Sara into his life.
Either way, he was right. Sara had requested space and Jason was
obliged to give it to her.

“Have patience,” Lemaitre said. “She’ll be
okay. Let Theo and Kelsey look after her for a while.”

Jason’s phone pinged while he was at lunch.
He flicked onto his messages, hoping it might be Sara. He hadn’t
heard from her in almost two weeks, since she’d gone to Marseille.
But no, it was Theo.

Sara says please stop txting her.

It’s sad, dude.

Jason grimaced and tapped out a reply.

Why won’t she talk to me?

Because she’s busy.

Too busy for one text? “I’m okay, Jason”

You sound like a woman.

Stop.

Jason pushed away his half-eaten plate and
hunched over his phone, and tapped out the one question he had to
ask.

Have you been sleeping with her?

No reply. Jason applied the capslock.

WELL, HAVE YOU?

Theo’s reply came a few seconds later.

I asked but she refused.

She’s slept with Kels several times.

What???!!!

Joking.

Idiote.

Then, a moment later, words that soothed
some of his ire.

She misses you. She doesn’t say, but...

Oh, no. Theo wasn’t leaving him hanging with
an ellipsis.

But what?

No reply.

Call me when you get a min
, Jason
typed.

No.

I need you to call me.

No.

Just tell me how she’s doing. She’s okay?

If she wasn’t, I’d tell you.

Is she sad?

There was a long pause, then Theo typed,
Two more weeks.

Two more weeks, what?

Two more weeks, act is ready.

I can see it?

Yes. In Marseille.

Now stop txting.

I’m busy. She’s busy.

Tell her I love her and I miss her
, he
typed quickly.

No reply.

* * * * *

Sara lay back on the grass in a meadow a few
miles outside the city. A small brook outlined the clearing, as
well as a ring of great, old trees. Marseille was beautiful in late
summer, warm and breezy. A few hundred feet away, two tails of
aerial silk wafted in the breeze. Theo had hung them from a thick
branch of the largest tree, and he and Kelsey played on them,
practicing tricks and showing Sara some of the rudiments of their
art.

It took skill and strength, Sara thought. But
mostly it took trust. It was just like duo trapeze. She’d heard
from Baat, learned he was feeling better now that he’d completed
the first phase of his rehab.
Sobriety is a whole new world
,
he’d written.
I feel like a new man.

Sara was trying to feel like a new woman. She
wasn’t finding success at it, not so far. Oh, her act was coming
along, thanks to Theo and Kelsey’s encouragement. The show in
Marseille had its own rehearsal space, and
Minuit
’s artists
gave her plenty of time to practice. All that was going great,
but...

She watched Kelsey and Theo fool around on
the silks, speaking a cobbled-together mixture of French and
English. Since she was staying at their house, she’d learned a lot
about their relationship. They kissed a lot. They touched a lot.
They fought a lot too, but they always made up. She wished now she
hadn’t blown up at Jason, disappeared and left his ring behind as
if it meant nothing to her. She wished she’d given her and Michel
Lemaitre’s newborn relationship a chance, rather than spewing anger
and accusations at him.

She wished she didn’t have so many
regrets.

“You two sure know how to have fun,” she
called as they swung across the clearing. They were together, a
happy couple. Sara was alone, by choice, because she thought it
would make everything easier to deal with. Maybe she’d been
wrong.

In two days, Lemaitre—her father—was coming
to check out her new act. Theo said Jason would probably come too,
but what if he didn’t? What if he’d found some other slave by now,
a slave who was perfect and normal, and truthful and obedient?

She could text Jason and ask him. She could
call him right now on the phone but she was afraid. With them, it
had always been about what happened when they were face to face.
The chemical reaction that occurred when they were in a room
together, or gazing into each other’s eyes. Would it still be
there? Lemaitre said she had to spend this time growing into her
new self...but two big parts of her new self weren’t there.

Kelsey came over to sit by Sara while Theo
showed off, doing a series of pull-ups on the silks.

“Feats of strength,” Kelsey yelled. “We want
to see them.”

He grinned over his shoulder and levered his
body into a right angle with the ground. His sculpted muscles
contracted into statue-like perfection.

“Whoa,” Sara breathed. “How does he do
that?”

She laughed. “Jason can do it too. I’ve seen
him.” She looked over at Sara, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to bring him up.”

Sara tried to sound casual. Unaffected. “It’s
okay.”

Theo was doing an actual handstand on the
silks now. They applauded and cheered, then lay back on the blanket
again. “He’s going to break his neck, isn’t he?” asked Sara.

Her friend shrugged. “Maybe. Hopefully not. I
learned a long time ago that Theo is gonna do what Theo is gonna
do, and that’s why he’s so good at what he does. You’re the same
way when you’re on the trapeze. Fearless. It’s good to be that way.
It frees you up to create.”

“I guess.” Sara rolled onto her side, picking
at twigs and blades of grass. “But is it hard to be married to
someone like that? Someone so fearless?”

“Sometimes it’s hard. But love is worth the
risk.”

“Was there ever a time you didn’t trust
him?”

Kelsey burst into laughter. “Oh, lady. I
could tell you some stories.”

“I’m waiting. Tell.”

Was Kelsey blushing? She covered her eyes,
then looked back at Sara. “Let’s just say Theo and I didn’t have
the most conventional start. The first time we slept together, I
wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss me or choke the life out of me.
I was a fearless little innocent myself, and I got involved with
him just after...after Minya died.” She looked over at Theo,
swinging in the silks. “There were so many whispers, so many
terrible things people said. Some people said he dropped her on
purpose, that he murdered her—” Her voice cracked and cut off.
“Well.”

“That seems crazy,” said Sara.

“Yes, it does, but for a little while, I
doubted.” She drew in a sharp breath. “I hate that I doubted, but
people are so complicated. In my heart though, I knew the truth. He
never meant to harm Minya. He’d never harm anyone. For all his
hardass, dominant ways, the man’s as gentle as a fly.”

It was Sara’s turn to laugh, because Theo
seemed anything but gentle. He spent most of his free time berating
her in practice sessions.

“He’s a tough coach,” said Kelsey, reading
her thoughts. “But he only means the best for you.”

“I know.”

They fell silent, watching Theo practice
tricks and drops that looked terrifying, although Sara knew they
were safe. After a while, Kelsey turned toward her, brushing her
hair off her face. “We can talk about him if you want. About Jason.
About trust. That’s why you were asking, wasn’t it?”

Sara stared at the ground, at the little pile
of twigs she’d broken and rearranged. “I miss him so much. I wanted
to be with him forever.”

“You can still be with him forever.”

“But I fucked up, Kelsey. I left him. I’ve
ignored his calls, his texts.” She covered her face. “I never even
said goodbye.”

“You were angry. He kept a big secret from
you.”

“But I kept a secret from him too.” Kelsey
was sweet, taking her side like a loyal friend, but over the past
couple weeks Sara had come to realize how unfair she’d been to her
Master. “When I kept a secret, Jason punished me and we moved on.
He
forgave
me. When Jason kept a secret, I closed myself off
and ran away. If I love him, why did I do that?”

Kelsey sighed and touched her hand. “You
didn’t run away. You took the time and space you needed to process
some serious upheaval in your life.”

“Maybe,” Sara said, burying her head in the
blanket. “But I don’t know where things go from here. I’m scared to
face him. I don’t know what he’ll say.”

Theo descended the silks and started toward
them, only to be waved away by Kelsey. “We’re talking about girl
things. Periods and stuff. Can you wait a sec?”

He turned and walked in the other direction,
and settled to lounge beside the tree. He laid his head back and
closed his eyes, so calm, so at peace with the world. Why couldn’t
Sara find that peace? “Men have it easy,” she muttered. “Especially
dominant men. They ask for whatever they need and they always get
their way.”

“That’s not true,” said Kelsey. “You can ask
for what you need, too. You can get your way. What do you need from
Jason?”

“I need him to always do the right thing. I
need him to be perfect.”

Kelsey glanced at her husband, who spied on
them from under his eyelids. “They’re never perfect. So no, you
can’t have that.”

Sara covered her face with a groan. “I made a
mistake, leaving him. I wasn’t thinking. I was confused about who I
was.”

“Are you still confused?”

“Yes.”

Kelsey reached out to squeeze her shoulder.
“Again, this is pretty normal. Do you love him? Do you think he
loves you?”

“I don’t know. He kept secrets from me. He
should have told me Lemaitre was my dad, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t tell you either. Theo didn’t tell
you. We’re all guilty, but you’re only angry with Jason. It doesn’t
seem fair.”

Kelsey was right, as much as she hated to
admit it. “I’m not even angry anymore,” she said. “But I don’t know
what to do now. All these things happened—”

“And you didn’t know how to handle them.
Okay, that’s called life. It happens with me and Theo all the time.
We survive, we regroup, we talk things out. We get over them and
grow past them and it becomes part of the fabric of our love. You
know?”

The fabric of our love.
That was a
pretty way to put it, especially for two silks artists. Now that
Theo was on the ground, the silks were flying free, almost close
enough for Sara to touch. But her and Jason’s love wasn’t like
fabric. It was more like a trapeze at the moment, off-balance,
swinging back and forth.

“Maybe I just need to hang on the bar for a
while,” Sara sighed.

“What? I don’t think alcohol’s the answer,”
said her friend with a frown.

“No, not that kind of bar. I was thinking
about trapeze. You do tricks, but then you take breathers where you
‘hang on the bar.’ And you relax and exist and just...hang.” She
shook her head and rubbed her forehead. “I’ve been so stressed, so
worried about everything. About Baat and Jason, and the act, and
the Citadel and Lemaitre, and Las Vegas, and my future. Maybe I
need to stop stressing about everything so much and just...”

Kelsey smiled. “Hang on the bar for a
while?”

“Yes. And apologize to Jason, and forgive
him, and ask if we can try things again.”