Guardian Girl (The Chronicles of Staffordshire) (53 page)

“Lena, I will never do it again! I promise you! I promise!”

With another brush of Lenore’s hair and touch of her fingertips to Lenore’s cheek, Lena calmed her best girl. “I know you won’t, Freaky. I believe you. I really do.”

It was time for Lena to put her foot down, to draw a very bright line in the sado-masochistic sand. “Listen, Lenore… We need to get something clear between us. I’m
never tying you up like that ever again
! So don’t you
ever
ask me to do it, because I’ll lock you in the bathroom until you come back to your senses. I don’t fucking
care
if the staff at the estate like getting tied up. You can't do it. Your beautiful head can’t handle it. And if I learn that someone else is tying you up, I swear to God I will hunt them down and I WILL kill them. I don’t care who it is, even Rory. If it's Rory, I’ll cut off his big, beautiful… thick… yummy…”

Lena quaked.

“I’ll just do it, goddammit. I swear to God, Lenore, I’ll do it! Nobody better fuck with you, Freaky, or I’ll kill them. And I don’t give a damn if they throw me in jail. If someone
ever
hurts you I’ll swear I’ll kill them. From now on I’m your guardian angel Lenore. And if
anyone
ever
hurts my beautiful, amazing Freaky Baby they’re going to fucking die.

“So you have to promise me, Lenore… You have to promise me you will never let someone chain you up
ever
again!”

“I promise, Lena! No more chains! No more spankings! Just… Please… Please don’t leave me! Please don’t hate me! I can’t live without you, Lena! Please don’t ever leave me!”

“Don’t worry, Lenore. I’m not leaving you. Ever. And I
don’t
hate you! We’re staying together forever, just like in your dream. We’re going to work this out together because we love each other.”

Lenore lifted her head and looked at Lena’s outstretched arm and leg. Another memory returned. Lenore remembered the Wild Child’s stubborn resistance to wearing the cuffs.

“Lena… I… I remember something… You told me you did not want to put yourself in the cuffs. Why are you in them now? Why did you tie yourself to the bed?”

Lena closed her eyes and prayed.

“Okay, God… Now how do I explain this?”

Thirty Five

The door was open. Lenore had asked what Lena hoped she would ask. Lena had not a clue how to answer. She tripped through her thoughts, opening her glib mouth but grasping for the right words, praying silently throughout, that somehow chaining herself to Lenore would make some kind of sense.

“Lenore… I did this… I did this because… I think… I’m half of you and… And I think… You’re half of me. Whatever hurts
you,
hurts
me
.
Your
pain is
my
pain.”

Suddenly, Lena understood. They had become one flesh. Words tumbled forth without effort.

“Every time I hit you tonight, Lenore, it felt like… Like I was hurting myself. But when we make love, Lenore…” Lena tenderly kissed Lenore and lingered, her lips hovering above Lenore’s, her settled breaths warming Lenore’s face. “Do you feel that? Do you feel what I’m talking about?”

Lenore smiled and nodded. It felt as if their bodies had melted together. It wasn’t a kiss as much as an all-encompassing sense of imparted bliss, of their bodies being in perfect balance.

“I put myself in these cuffs because I
had
to, Lenore. I didn’t do it because I
wanted
to. I
wanted
to run away from this room. I
wanted
to get as far away from Mrs. Hyde as possible. But I knew I couldn’t get my Freaky Baby back unless I climbed inside you and brought you back with me. I tied myself to you, Lenore, so I could help you come back to me.”

Lenore’s eyes, already bloodshot from non-stop tears, filled yet again. The Wild Child touched Lenore’s cheek with her free hand, falling anew into Lenore’s heart as she had so many years earlier at Paulson. Lenore responded, closing her eyes and kissing Lena’s bloodied palm, pressing it back to her cheek and holding it tightly.

“Lena… God, I love you! I love you so much! I just love you…!”

Lena interrupted, driving home the inseparability of their lives. “Then never forget this, Lenore.
I’m tying myself to you.
From now till forever, Freaky Baby, my heart and my soul are inside you and your heart and soul are inside me.”

“Lena, I am… I am so sorry. Thank God you have stayed with me all these years! I do not know why you always forgive me so easily.”

Lena lifted her head and smiled. “Freaky, Baby...
I forgive you so easily because…” She cried. “…Because I love you so much.”

An ironic note caught the Wild Child’s attention. In her effort to tiptoe Lenore back through her dissociative delirium, Lena created the embodiment of unbreakable love. Lena lifted her head and looked around the bed, at their arms and legs and the giant “X” they formed together.

“You know what, Freaky Baby? Look at us. Look at the way we’re hooked to each other here, trapped in this bed. We’re not trapped here because we
can’t
get free. Either one of us could have unhooked and walked away any time we wanted to.

“We’re trapped here because
it feels good to be tied together
. You have half the chains. I have half. We’re still here because we
want
to be here, Lenore. Nobody’s stopping us from breaking free. We’re stopping ourselves. Lying here with you like this… It feels like… Like we’re one body. Like we’re one soul. And it feels… Oh God… It feels…”

Lena’s happy tingle was back. Millipedes raced up her legs.
“Oh my God… What am I feeling? What’s happening to me? Not now! Not in the freaking chains! Ohhh… Wow! WOW! Holy shit!”

“Lenore… This feels…” Lena closed her eyes and shivered. The horny little critters raced across her ass and up her back. “God, Lenore… Oh my God…” She instinctively rolled her hips and pressed their muffs together. Lenore instinctively pressed back and ground their clits.

In choosing to be bound to Lenore, Lena finally understood the power of the shackles, why a foolhardy lover might willingly submit to their captivating power. “Lenore… If you ever want to do what we’re doing
right now
… Splitting a set of shackles between us… I think…”

“Damn it! Why do I like this feeling? Why do I love this so much? Am I just as sick as Lenore?”

Lena whispered her confession. “I
will
do this again with you.” She surged forth. “No, Lenore, I
want
to do this again with you! I
love
this, the way we’re tied to each other! In a totally sick way, Freaky Baby, I think… I think…” Lena closed her eyes and cried. She rested her head cheek to cheek with Lenore. “Lenore, this is the most complete I have
ever felt in my whole life!
I could do this every night for the rest of our lives just to feel the way I feel with you right now.

“My God, Lenore!
You…
You’re me
!
And I’m…
I’m you!
My God, Lenore! You’re me and I’m you!”

Lenore clung to Lena’s head with her free arm as the twisted glory of their captivity settled in. Yet again, she attempted to wrap her captive arm and leg around the Wild Child. The freaky attorney uncorked.

“Lena! I cannot take this anymore! Unhook my chains! I will unhook yours! I must hold you with both of my arms or I will go insane!”

The women fumbled to release each other from their chains, leaving the cuffs buckled to their wrists and ankles. Once free, they rolled back and forth on the bed together, hugging, kissing, reveling as two women bound to one sloppy soul, messy psychological schisms and all. Soon, they settled their crazed embrace and rested, Lena lying against Lenore’s side as in the old days, the horny, freshman supermodel holding the cuddling, adoring tennis pro nestled in the crook of her arm.

“Lena… I know I keep saying it, but please… Never leave me.”

Lena stroked Lenore’s super-erogenous tummy to reconnect with the placid side of Lenore’s turbulent soul. She played “cricket” with their legs. “Just relax, Freaky Baby. It's okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But how can you ever trust me again? I don’t know if I trust
myself
after what I did to you tonight!”

“Lenore… The woman who tried to hurt
me
was trying to punish
herself
, not
me
. Somewhere way down inside, something made you use
me
to punish
you.
That person was ready to say anything to get me to kill her. But now that we know she’s out there, I think we have Mrs. Hyde under control.”

For an instant Lenore considered confessing, sharing a childhood trauma too gruesome to relive. She kept the memory safely locked away for more than 10 years, shackled to the walls of her mind’s nightmarish playroom. Through all of their years together, the daily safety of Lena’s arms drove the memory into the shadows. But if it could escape and consume her so easily…?

“But how can you be so sure, Lena? How do you know I will not lose my mind like that again?”

“The truth is I can’t be sure, Freaky. I can’t be certain you'll never lose it again. But I can’t be certain
I
won’t lose it like that again, either. And I know that whatever it is that's hurting you is still inside you. It breaks my heart to know that I can’t fix whatever it is that’s hurting you.

“But because I know that woman is hiding inside you, I’m never going to give her a chance to peek her ugly head around the corner. I can’t get rid of her for you, but I sure can smother the hell out of her with love. I’m going to double up on every opportunity I get to fill that beautiful heart of yours with love. Together we’re going to push that crazy bitch straight out the door.

“Besides, Freaky… My new racket is out of the bag and I’m ready to swing if that sick bitch gets out of line again!”

Lena’s gallows humor lightened Lenore’s mood. She smiled. “Lena, I still do not understand why you love me. I feel so evil sometimes. I feel like I have burdened you so many times with my childish outbursts. With Rory… With you… Why do you still love me after so many incidents?”

Lena snuggled her face against Lenore’s breast, kissing her delicately on the nipple. “Because, Lenore, even when I think about all your ‘incidents,’ for eight years you’ve wrapped me up in your arms every night and taken away every one of my pains as if they were your own. That 'monster’ heart of yours sponged up every one of my tears every time I came home crying after I blew a tournament or bombed a test or lost a case. You never asked for anything in return from me, Lenore. Never.

“Wellll…” With her free hand Lena tapped her cheek and rubbed her chin. “There was that one time when you seduced the shit out of me at Harvard...”

Lena lifted her head and growled at Lenore. Lenore grimaced and offered an embarrassed giggle.

“So for all the meltdowns I’ve had in all our years together, and all the times you stayed up with me until all hours of the morning after my pathetic, fucking forehand failed me yet again…”

Another sound fragment exploded in Lenore’s ears. Lenore had done the unthinkable. She had used Lena’s own, confidential words against her. She insulted Lena’s game.

“Oh God, Lena! Did I say that to you?
I am SO sorry!
I did not mean it! Your forehand is fantastic!”

With icy cool composure, Lena defused Lenore’s hysteria. “Shut it, Lenore. Really. Just shut up and listen. It’s okay, sweetie. I was trying to break the ice a little and give you a huge compliment. I was just trying to say… I mean, I know I fucked it up… But I was trying to say, ‘I love you, Freaky Baby.’ So just shut up and accept it, okay? I’m insanely in love with you, Lenore. I think I’ve been in love with you since before I was born. I’ll be in love with you forever, Freaky.”

With another kiss, Lena took a turn at healing her cratered heart. “But you know what, Freaky? After everything you said earlier, I feel like… Like I need to get a few things off my chest. My head’s exploding after everything that just happened here and… I can’t talk to anyone else about this shit. Do you think you can handle that? Can you hold it together while I do a little therapy with myself? And I promise I won’t call you a ‘has-been’ or… GASP!… A ‘hag’.”

Lenore laughed at Lena’s invocation of Rory’s favorite “naughty time” trigger. “I think I am ready, Wild Child.”

“Good. Now here’s the thing, Lenore… Mrs. Hyde said all that stuff to make me angry, but I’ve said it to you a thousand times after I blew a quarter or a semi. I’m really not ashamed to say my forehand is shot. I used to pretend it was good enough to get the job done, but I can’t anymore. I’ve been compensating for my shitty forehand since… Well… Since I was a kid. If it weren’t for my killer backhand and my awesome tits and my sweet, sexy ass I never would have won a single major or showed up on a single magazine cover or had millions of teenage boys masturbating to a poster of my smokin’ butt in a string bikini.”