The Word Master (21 page)

Chapter 39.

For a long time Nancy said nothing. The ebb of sound and laughter from the other tables seemed to swirl around us.

“Jericho… I can’t give up this opportunity to work in New York. It’s just too great an opportunity.” Nancy said softly.

I leaned across the table and held her hand. I smiled. “I know,” I said. “And I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to stay in Boston because of me. That would be madness – and it wouldn’t alter anything, Nancy. We’d still be the same two people who have different desires and limits. Staying here won’t change who you are, or what you want. And it won’t change the fact that those things you’re looking for in your personal life are not the kind of experiences I could ever comfortably give you.”

She shook her head slowly, not in denial, but maybe in disbelief.

“You could try…” she offered weakly.

“No,” I said. “I know the man I am. I know the kind of submissive I am looking for – and you should now know the kind of man you need to satisfy you,” I kept my tone conciliatory. This wasn’t an argument – it was just the truth.

Nancy’s eyes brimmed with tears again. Her lips were trembling.

“You’re not the kind of submissive who is ever going to completely surrender to any man, Nancy,” I went on slowly. “You know what you want, and you know how you like to be treated. A true submissive is obedient and accepting – you’re not. You still want to influence the experience. You still try to get what you want from a scene, rather than accepting the events as they unfold.”

She started to protest. She opened her mouth and there was a flash of defiance. I held up my hand to cut her off.

“It’s not a criticism,” I assured her. “It’s an observation. In the room tonight you were compliant… but for all your willingness to give your body, you still craved something more.”

“But…”

I shook my head. “Deny it,” I dared her. “Look me in the eye and tell me you could be a willing submissive who accepted every scene without question, and a submissive who would be satisfied with the pain limits I will not cross.” I stared across the table, my gaze serious and unwavering. “Tell me that – and I’ll come to New York with you.”

Nancy said nothing. I could see the play of emotions behind her eyes, like some dark personal torture that wrenched at her conscience. She held my gaze for long seconds, and then looked away.

“I can’t,” she said with defeat and despair choking her words. She nodded her head slowly, like she was listening to the beat of a heartbreaking ballad. “Because you’re right about me…” Nancy gave me a lopsided smile and squeezed my hand. She let out a long sigh of breath and within the sound of it was a shudder of acceptance.

“Still friends?” I asked.

She nodded. “It was great while it lasted… but it was never going to last for long, was it?”

I said nothing, because there was nothing left to say except ‘goodbye’.

Chapter 40.

We drove towards Nancy’s apartment complex in the quiet cocoon of the car while the city drifted silently past the windows. Nancy sat small in the corner of her seat with her eyes fixed on the road, but her thoughts far, far away. I wondered if she was thinking about her new job in New York, or maybe playing back over the time we had shared, questioning herself, and her needs as a woman.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said softly at last as I slowed for a set of traffic lights. She never turned her head, but merely spoke the words as if she were talking to the windshield.

“No you won’t,” I said kindly. I felt buoyed by a vague sense of relief – a feeling that a burden had lifted. It was like stepping out of shoes that were too tight – perhaps a metaphor for the relationship.

“You will be too busy with your new job to give me a second thought,” I went on. “I can see you now sitting across a desk from twenty-six rugged guys who are all knowledgeable in the lifestyle. You’ll be like a girl in the world’s biggest sexual candy store.”

She laughed - a light tinkle that sounded just a little hollow. She shook her head and turned her face towards me. “No,” she said earnestly. “There’s only one Jericho James. I’m sure of that.”

The lights changed. I eased through the intersection. The night fog was thickening. It blurred the lights of approaching cars and cast the outside world in a mysterious ethereal haze. Traffic was light, but there were still clusters of dark-coated pedestrians clustered in groups at the corners. A cop car went racing past us, lights flashing and the siren wailing as it sped into the distant eerie half-light of the night.

“Maybe Sondra could call you – when she gets lonely,” Nancy said. “You know, for old times sake.”

“We haven’t been together long enough to have any old times,” I quipped. “But of course Sondra can call the program. It would be interesting to hear some of the things that fill your fantasies once you reach a new city.”

More silence. I turned right, off the main road and the street narrowed.

“Jericho… if you ever change your mind…”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

Nancy nodded. She sat back in the seat and closed her eyes. “I’m still your boss, you know,” she said, her voice drifting out of the darkness.

“I guess you are,” I said.

“I can still call you every week when your ratings slide and kick your ass.”

I smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The conversation became desultory because we had run out of things to say – or perhaps because we had reached the point where to say any more would lead to dark places neither of us was willing to venture.

I slowed the car at another set of lights, but as I started to brake, they turned green and I cruised through the intersection. I flicked the indicator to turn left.

“Let me give you my temporary address,” Nancy said suddenly. “I’ll be there for the first few weeks – at least until I can find a place of my own.” She leaned forward at the waist and reached down into the foot well to rummage around in her purse for a pen and a business card…

At the moment I committed to the corner and began to turn the steering wheel, a sudden dreadful chill of premonition washed over me – a single instant of foreboding that made me wrench my head around.

Too late.

A vehicle came roaring through the red light, a set of headlights spaced wide apart and high above the ground so that I knew it couldn’t be a car. My last thought was that maybe it was a pick-up truck, but by then it was too late to react or respond.

The truck came blasting through the tendrils of misty fog, its engine howling. I cried out to Nancy – a sound of shock and alarm that was incoherent. I turned my head towards her, and felt my whole body clench to brace for the impact. Instinctively I jammed my foot hard on the brakes and heard the screeching shriek of juddering rubber.

Nancy’s face became a pale white mask of terror – and then the truck collided into the side of the car with the crushing roaring impact of tearing metal and catastrophic collision. I flung an arm out to hold Nancy, but I was hurled sideways against the restraint of the seatbelt and heard the sound of the windshield shattering, a million shards of broken glass fell like rain.

Nancy was heaved out of her seat and flung hard against me. I heard the scream torn from her throat as the car was lifted up onto two wheels and shunted sideways. Smoke and fumes filled the air. Nancy slumped forward against the dashboard, limp as a rag doll. There was blood everywhere – splashed across my shirt and spattered in my face.

The roar of the collision faded until all I could hear was the echo of each sound, like a nightmare. All around me was the crumpled metal wreckage, pinning my legs, collapsed like a steel coffin around the steering wheel. I shook my head. My ears were ringing. Everything was hazed in a dripping mist of red, and I realized it was blood filling my eyes.

Through the haze and the horror I saw dark figures moving on the sidewalk – pedestrians gathering in small shocked groups, and others spilling out onto the street. There were shouts and cries of anguish, but the sounds were muted and strangely distant. I tried to call out, but the words were nothing more than a croak in the back of my throat.

I choked out a sob of breath, felt a white-hot lance of pain shoot up my thigh. Dust and smoke swirled in the air. I blinked blood from my eyes and saw Nancy’s crumpled, broken body. She wasn’t moving. There was blood in her hair, her body limp like she was asleep…

…and then the world disappeared into a void of dreadful darkness.

Chapter 41.

I woke to white walls and the smell of antiseptic.

Everything was smudged, softened to a blur.

I could hear the muffled sounds of voices and the incessant beep of hospital monitors.

The beatific image of an angel with a pale face of concern and a mane of fire for hair leaned over me.

“Jericho?”

My vision cleared. April’s worried face emerged. Her eyes were red-rimmed with tears. I felt her seize my hand, but my fingers felt stiff. “You’re going to be okay,” she said. Her voice cracked with raw emotion. “Just rest. You’re going to pull through.”

* * *

When I woke again it could have been a minute, or a week later. I felt drowsy, my eyelids leaden. I blinked into the harsh overhead lights and then slowly turned my head. April was sitting beside the bed. She looked haggard, strung out and ashen-faced with concern. She was staring out through a window as if sending out a silent prayer. She must have caught the movement of my head from the corner of her eye. She leaped to her feet and thumbed a buzzer by the bed.

She smiled with relief and pressed her face close to mine.

“Hospital?” I croaked.

She nodded her head and tears began to spill down her cheeks.

“Bad?”

She shook her head but I saw the lie behind her eyes. “You just need some rest.”

“Nancy?” my voice was barely a rasped whisper, each word a fresh pain.

April blinked, then bit her lip. “Jericho, she died in the crash,” April said through sobs of anguish. “Grover too. They both died before paramedics could arrive.”

I felt a white flush of shock drain the blood from my face.

“Grover?”
I wrenched the word out.

April nodded her head and then the tears fell like summer rain. “He was the driver of the pick-up truck,” she said. “The police say he deliberately went through the intersection. They think he had been following you, Jericho… stalking you.”

I felt myself reeling. My vision seemed to fade in and out, and I could feel a simmering fizz of rage so that I felt beads of perspiration blister across my brow.

April shook her head like she was grappling with things she couldn’t understand. “Why was Nancy in your car?”

I lifted my eyes to April’s slowly. There was a lump of emotion in my throat so that the words were thick.

“A job,” I said slowly. “She wanted to offer me a job in New York.”

I said no more.

* * *

I came awake slowly, like emerging from a long dark tunnel. There was numbing pain down my right side. I blinked my eyes, overcome by some unaccountable sense of remorse and regret – and then remembered that Nancy was dead.

There was a uniformed blonde woman standing close to the bed. She stood, quietly watching me.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the woman said. There was a bright chirp to her voice. “We thought we’d lost you for a while there.”

I swallowed. My mouth felt swollen and the air seemed to wheeze from my lungs.

“How long…?”

The nurse widened her eyes. “It’s been three weeks,” she said.

“Am I going to live?”

“Apparently,” she said in good humor. “I’m sure all your fans will be pleased to hear the news.”

“You know who I am?” every word was a strain.

The nurse smiled. “Of course,” she said off-handedly. “You’re Boston’s own BDSM Master. The nurses on this floor have been drawing straws for the last couple of weeks to see who gets the pleasure of sponge bathing you.”

I think that was a joke. There was a twinkle of mischief in the young woman’s eyes. She was like a bright humming bird. Her hands flitted like wings as she changed a dressing – some kind of wound down around my hip that I couldn’t see – but I could feel.

“What’s the damage?” I asked at last.

The nurse straightened and her face became more serious. I saw her glance over her shoulder as if to be sure we were alone in the room. “The doctors will tell you the details,” she said in a conspiratorial hush. “But you survived with a broken leg, concussion, a collapsed lung and some broken ribs.”

Lucky me.

I nodded, and then flinched. There was a lance of pain like a white-hot needle that stabbed behind my eye. The whole side of my face felt swollen.

“The woman that was here…?” I groaned the words.

The nurse arched an eyebrow. “The pretty redhead?”

“Yes.”

“She’s down at the cafeteria,” the nurse said and then paused as if unsure. “Is she your wife… your girlfriend, maybe?”

“What makes you ask that?”

The nurse shrugged. “She has been here at your bedside since they brought you to the hospital. For the first week she slept on the floor by your bed – we couldn’t get her to leave. Now she arrives at the break of dawn and stays until past visiting hours. She’s very, very devoted to you.”

At that moment April came back through the door.

She saw I was awake. She threw her handbag at a chair and came to the bed, joy blooming across her face. She flicked a glance at the young nurse as if to seek her permission to approach. The nurse smiled a nod and then discreetly drifted from the room.

April clutched at my hand. She was warm and smiling, and there was a glisten of happy tears in her eyes. She smelled of soap and perfume.

“Hi,” she said in a breath of relief.

“Hi,” I muttered. I tried to smile but the swelling tugged at my mouth and the expression became a wince.

“You’ve been in the hospital for three weeks. Did you know that?”

I nodded – and then had a sudden stab of alarm. I tried to sit up. My body wouldn’t work. “My stuff,” I grunted. “My apartment…”

April shook her head and gently touched at my shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve taken care of it. All of your possessions have been moved to my apartment.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I had movers take everything to my place,” she said, then shrugged her shoulders as if it made perfect sense. “After all, I’ve been looking for a flat mate since Renata moved out, and you’re not going to be in any condition to take care of yourself for some time yet.”

For a long time we said nothing. I stared up into April’s face, seeing her afresh. She was beautiful, with an integrity and an honesty that I hadn’t appreciated before. She was smiling. I tried to smile back.

“Work?”

April nodded. A shadow passed across her eyes. “There is a new manager at the station,” she said. “He seems okay. He’s from Cincinnati. He seems to know the industry.”

“So we still have jobs?”

“Of course,” April said. “Whenever you’re fit for work again. Everyone is waiting for you. There has been over ten thousand calls to the station since word got out about the accident.”

But it wasn’t an accident. It was attempted murder. Grover had tried to kill me, and inadvertently killed Nancy instead as he took his own life.

I said nothing.

“So…?” April asked at last.

“So what?”

“Are you okay about sharing an apartment with me?”

I nodded. I liked the idea. A lot.

“Good,” she said and beamed a smile. “And I promise to be a good girl for you,” she leaned close and whispered softly in my ear. “Anything at all you want – anything at all… and I’ll give it to you gladly. Master.”

I felt myself flinch. April leaned back from the bed and smiled at me, her eyes big and artless with innocence.

“Don’t call me that,” I said quietly.

April nodded her head in a gesture of acquiescence and understanding, but the smile stayed on her lips and became feminine and secret. She leaned over the bed and kissed me on the lips.

“Yes, Master,” she nodded.

THE END.