Chapter 23

Tess

~Woodpecker~

A human is adaptable. A human heart is not.

A month trickled past, and I resumed my old life as if I’d never gone. Two weeks after returning, I called my parents.

Brax told them what happened in Mexico, and they cremated an old stuffed unicorn of mine, then scattered it in the back garden, believing I was dead.

In their old, foggy minds, my reincarnation was a messy ordeal, not a happy second chance. The conversation was stilted and hard.

I never called again.

I became addicted to raging songs, just like Q. The lyrics shared my pain, letting it unleash from festering inside.

~Your memory won’t leave my head~

haunting me, hunting me, driving me crazy, I wish I were dead.

Every time I close my eyes, you’re there, ready to suck me into dark desires.

Reality is where I no longer want to be, my dreams are my salvation.

I will cut you out, chop you up, break every bone in my body.

If only it meant peace from your dark melody~

I never played the songs when Brax was home, but when it was just me and loneliness, words rained with heartache and need.

In my dreams, Q visited, and I woke to shooting stars and orgasms. By day, I forced myself to act and lie and be Tessie.

The truth and Q blistered my heart; I became as successful in hiding my feelings as he was.

My secrets stayed locked behind a fortress of blue-eyed innocence. My body healed and the whiplashes no longer showed. But they blazed bright and red on my soul.

Some nights, I twisted my nipples so hard, just to try and recreate mind-tripping lust like Q, but it never worked.

The vibrancy and encompassing life he’d given became a distant, dark paradise. Reality took over. I sat my final exams for uni.

They let me take my tests late, due to circumstances, and I passed with flying colors.

Brax took me out for dinner to celebrate, but I fumbled through the evening, aware I’d snipped another anchor keeping me here. I had an education now. The only thing tethering me was Brax.

And day after day proved it wasn’t enough.

I tried to recapture Q’s mansion on my tatty sketchpad, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it right.

I reconnected with Stacey, and friends from uni, and started looking for work in the property industry. I coasted through life in a semi-aware state.

Smiling, laughing even, but everything was muted—covered by a filmy screen, never letting me see bright colors, or smell rich scents, or enjoy exquisite pleasure.

Thirty-six days after Q abandoned me, two things happened that rocked my bland world.

Brax subtly changed. I noticed he spent a lot of time putting out the garbage. I didn’t care, and only curiosity made me follow one night.

Sneaking outside our apartment block, I found him talking to our neighbor across the hall. She had her face in Blizzard’s fur and a look of adoration in her eyes for Brax.

My fingers convulsed as my heart raced faster—the first spike of emotion in a month.

I never stopped to consider the life Brax led while I played kinky slave with Q. He cared for her—the tentative sweetness he’d shown me when we first met—glowed in his eyes.

Oh, my God, did he resent me for coming back into his life when he thought I was dead?

I was so selfish to never consider it. After the first morning, we pretended as though nothing happened. We never discussed it, and I never complained when we didn’t have sex again.

I didn’t want to admit it, but living with Brax, accepting his kisses and hand-holding, felt like I cheated on Q, which was idiotic and frustrating as hell.

But my body hated me for betraying my master. Subsidizing real Q for dream Q, I grew wet while I slept, and trembled for release.

I lingered like a voyeur as Brax helped the girl stand, holding her for a moment longer than necessary. The look of implicit excitement in her eyes made me yearn. Yearn for another.

I waited for green jealousy. I waited for rage. I waited for anything…~something~ to show I cared.

Nothing.

Brax laughed at something she said, ruffling Blizzard’s head. A smile slowly bloomed on my lips.

Brax liked another. He no longer used me as his crutch, and I no longer needed him as mine. Realization thundered with a hundred drums and lightning bolts.

Happiness. ~Freedom.~

Brax didn’t need me.

~I’m free!~

Emotions frothed and stirred. The leash tying me to Brax—the one woven and threaded with obligation and friendship—snipped, leaving me unbelonging.

For the first time in my life, I was mine. Completely alone. No one had a right to me. No one owned or claimed me. Blazing joy blew away my mediocrity, my need for people to care.

~I~ cared for me. ~Je n’appartiens qu’à moi.~ I am mine. The French affirmation was ridiculously perfect.

I whispered it, tingling with possibility. ~“Je n’appartiens qu’à moi.”~

The next night, I said goodbye to Brax.

While he went to put the rubbish out and flirt with the neighbor, I pulled an old backpack from under the bed and packed. Turning on the radio, I bobbed to pop music, welcoming a new beginning.

Clothes I didn’t like, accessories I no longer cared for, I stuffed in the bottom. For the first time in my life, I was going out on my own. No back-up plan, no safety net. No one to rely on but me.

I didn’t have a destination in mind. But I knew I wanted to make good on my promise. The promise I gave to the woman who tattooed me in Mexico. I told her Karma would bite her ass.

I wanted to be that Karma. I wanted to hunt and hurt every person involved, and stand up for all the women who didn’t have a happy ending like me.

I was done being weak and passive. I’m done being Tessie.

Looking at my newly plastic-wrapped wrist, I smiled. Over the past month, I’d had the middle of the barcode lasered off. I embraced the pain; after all, Q taught me pain was pleasure.

He roared into my head.

“Only think of me and what I’m doing. There is intimacy in pain, esclave. Let me make your pain my pleasure.”

I shook the memory away, ignoring the clenching between my legs. God, I missed him. Missed his egotistical coolness, his super-hot violence.

But I thanked him, too. Without his cruelty, I would never have found the core of iron deep inside.

Smiling, I traced the small bird in flight trapped between the two ends of the barcode. Beneath the sparrow were the numbers: 58.

It was morbid. Wrong on so many levels to brand myself as slave fifty-eight, but Q was the highlight of my life. The poignant centrepiece who would never come again.

When I was old, married, bored, and drained, I wanted something to remember him by. The tattoo of bird and number would always hold those memories.

A lock box of sadistic pleasure available to relive in the privacy of my mind, whenever I needed a shot of fire.

Sighing, I grabbed the last thing in my wardrobe.

The grey dress I’d left Q’s home in. A song switched on the radio.

Your touch consumes me, frightens me, beguiles me

you want to capture me

I want to be your victim

you want to ruin me

I want to be your broken

you show me your darkness

and I’ll give you my light

The lyrics slapped me around the head, and I stared at the dress for ages. My heart didn’t know if it wanted to beat or die. In a horrible moment of disgrace, I sniffed the material.

Soft lingers of citrus and sandalwood gripped my stomach with love and hate. Two equal feelings, so different, yet not different at all. They were both one thing: passion.

Screwing the dress into a little ball, something crinkled.

Frowning, I pulled the envelope free that Franco gave me. I’d been too chicken to read it. Instead, I hid it in the dress, hoping I would forget.

I never forgot.

But now, I had strength. I was in control of my destiny. Sitting on the bed, I slipped a finger under the tacky glue to open.

Heartbeats jangled as I tipped the envelope upside down. Brax’s silver bracelet fell out.

It landed in my lap and I could only gawk. Q returned my bracelet.

“Merde!” he swore. Standing, he scooped the bracelet from the carpet and dangled it above. “This is mine. You are mine. Get that through your head if you ever want it back.”

That was a lie. All of it. He relinquished the bracelet so easily—like I was never his. If he made the commitment to fully own me, I wouldn’t have spent the last month in purgatory.

I flung the bracelet away; it landed on Brax’s pillow. I didn’t want it anymore. It belonged to two identities, who I no longer bowed to.

I will move on, so help me. I would find and rescue women who suffered abuse and hardship. I would become a trafficker’s worst nightmare. Even though you deny him, you’re becoming him.

My eyes widened.

Q saved women, same as I was about to do.

He might save them, but he never brought the bastards who did it to justice. I wanted to go after the monsters, not just the offerings.

I looked into the envelope before tossing it away, and pulled out a small piece of paper. Air refused to enter my lungs.

Esclave,

Tess,

This is for your freedom

Fly high and happy

Je suis à toi

Q~

I clamped a hand over my mouth, holding back a wail. Behind the note was a cheque.

Signed with an arrogant swirl of an autograph Quincy Mercer had given me two hundred thousand euros.

I felt faint. Two hundred thousand! Anger blazed. Two hundred. Was that all I was worth? Less than a Bugatti or some other possession he could buy?

Shit, I wasn’t for sale!

The money sent two hundred spasms of hot frustration at his audacity. He really was a fucking idiot. I didn’t want his money. I didn’t want anything from him apart from peace.

I wanted him out of my head. I wanted my senses to belong to me again. I wanted my heart to stop weeping. So many things I wanted… and would never get.

Damn him to the depths of hell.

My heart raced. Everything I’d been trying to forget, to run from, grabbed me around the throat, choking with ruthless savagery.

“As you wish, esclave. Every time I call you Tess, remember I can do anything I want to you. I fucking own you.”

“Yes.”

“After tonight, every time I say your name you’ll get wet for me. I not only own your body but your identity, too. Do you deny it?”

I tried to deny it. I tried so damn hard.

But I couldn’t swallow the lie. Q still owned me. Owned my body, heart, soul, my fucking everything.

Tears dripped onto my hands. I knew what I had to do.

Rushing to my bedside table, I found my sketchpad and ripped out a page. My hands shook and my stomach tripped into knots.

~Brax~,

I’ll always love you. I’ll love your kindness, your generosity, your friendship, your smile.

I’ll always love the way you made me feel so good about myself and how you kept me safe when I felt so alone. But I know I don’t give you what you need.

I know I’m selfish with not leaning on you enough and I didn’t realize it until now.

Another needs you more than I ever will, and I want you to be happy.

I’m letting you go, Brax, and I wish you so much happiness and jo—~

“You’re leaving. Aren’t you?”

I dropped the pen, sucking in a breath. Brax stood, framed in the door, jaw clenched. He strode to the bed, trying to read my note upside down. His eyes fell to the silver bracelet on his pillow.

I bit my lip as he picked it up, staring, unseeing. The bracelet represented our future and I tossed it away so flippantly.

Leaving a note was cowardly, but face to face, I didn’t know if I had the strength. ~Find the strength. He needs to know the truth.~

Dropping the paper, I walked to his side. “Yes. I’m leaving.”

Brax looked up, holding the bracelet tightly. “You were just going to go, Tessie?” His eyes blazed with hurt. “What about what I want?”

I placed a hand over his heart, looking into blue, blue eyes. “I ~am~ giving you what you want. What you need. I’ll always be your friend, Brax, but we’ve outgrown each other.

“I never wanted to hurt you, and by staying, I will.”

He hung his head, pressing his forehead against mine. “That’s not true. I need you.”

I sighed softly, “I think another needs you more.”

When he looked with an eyebrow raised, I added, “The neighbor you’ve been spending so much time with? I’ve seen you together, Brax. I know you have feelings for her.”

He gulped. “It’s not like that. Honestly. She moved in while you were… um… gone, and I’ve been helping her with some tough shit.” He dropped his voice.

“Her dad and brother were killed in a house fire. Her mom died when she was a baby, and she’s got no one to turn to. I was only being nice.”

“What’s her name?”

He flinched. “Bianca.”

I hated the look in his eyes—the look where he expected me to scream and punch him. He had every right to care for another as lonely as him. Together, they would be each other’s everything.

I wasn’t broken enough for Brax. My courage and strength kept a rift between us all this time.

Kissing him gently, I murmured, “Let me go. You’ll be happier, I swear it. The truth hurts less than fibs and fakers... remember?”

He swallowed hard, nodding once. He knew I spoke the truth. “Where will you go?” He gathered me into a hug.

I squeezed him back, but I couldn’t confess. “I’m not sure. But know that I’m happy and doing what I need to do.” Kissing his cheek, I pulled away.

“I hope you’re truly content with whoever you end up with, Brax.”

He kissed me gently, smiling. “You’re going back to France, aren’t you?”

I froze.

“I’ve seen how different you are, Tess. I sleep next to you. I see how you wake up hot and bothered and sexy as hell. Something happened over there, and it changed you. I get it.

“What happened in Mexico changed both of us.”

I battled with embarrassment and awe. Brax saw more than I gave him credit for. Shame made me blush. He was right. I had changed and I couldn’t undo it.

I couldn’t change the fact he lay next to me while I dreamed of Q whipping and fucking me. He suffered in silence as I cried out in need.

Remorse settled heavily. “Brax, I’m so sorry.”

He laughed lightly. “Nothing to apologize for, Tessie. I knew we were different ever since you pulled out your vibrator.

“I’m not comfortable with that sort of thing, and I think I knew we’d go our separate ways that night.

“It hurt so much at the time, but now... I might be able to breathe with the thought of only having you as a friend.”

His acceptance let my heart fly free; I threw myself into another hug. “Stay in touch.”

Brax hugged me with endless comfort and kissed my cheek goodbye.

Our two-year relationship ended on a friendly note, and I wished Brax the world.

Half an hour later, I strode from the apartment, wearing Q’s grey dress.

No belongings.

No trivial items that meant nothing.

Just me, my passport, and note from my master.

With a heart-winging smile, I left my world behind.