"Pour us some more. You looked like you needed that."
She thought they both did, so Gen topped the glass and brought it back. There were three steps to the stoop and Lyda sat on the top one. Gen sat on the one just below her, the woman's thigh pressed against her upper arm. Lyda shifted, lifting one of those flexible legs and bringing it down on Gen's other side, giving her a nudge so she centered herself between Lyda's knees. Gen adjusted onto a hip, propping her back against Lyda's leg so she could look up into her face. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah. It's always hard, to watch him tear himself apart like that. It hasn't happened in a while. Goddamn Elias."
"Elias?"
Lyda glanced down at her. "Right. Sometimes you feel like such a natural part of this story, I forget you arrived after we were already a few chapters into it."
It was a gratifying and unsettling observation, but Gen put that away to listen.
"Back in New Orleans, Noah belonged to a Master named Elias. Not the worst or best kind of Dom, but Elias had a tendency to get a little carried away with the power aspect of it. Since most healthy subs know how to protect themselves, it was a minor addiction problem, kept in line by that check and balance. Noah was like crack to Elias."
Gen could well imagine.
"When Club Progeny's management recognized the risk, thanks to a couple over-the-top sessions," Lyda continued, "Noah's membership was revoked. He was too big a liability. Remember when I said a sub's first responsibility is to care for herself or himself? Well, Progeny took that shit seriously. As they should."
"Elias wasn't expelled too?"
"Suspended, for a time, because they treated it as one infraction rather than an affliction. Without Noah's proximity, they might have been right, like a drug user staying away from his drug of preference. But they couldn't control what happened outside the club. Elias moved Noah into his house. One night things went so far, he put Noah in the hospital. Couple broken bones, internal hemorrhaging from being kicked."
Gen's fingers had come to rest on Lyda's knee. Now they tightened, horror filling her. "Does that happen often in BDSM?"
"Abuse has no more place in a Dom/sub relationship than any other relationship." The firm set to Lyda's jaw and warning flash in her eyes underscored it. "However, a healthy D/s relationship looks different from a healthy vanilla one, doesn't it? The lines can get confused if the people involved aren't responsible enough."
Gen thought of the night Lyda had switched her. Her ass had been on fire from the punishment, but she'd also never come so hard in her life. Yes, it definitely looked a little different from a vanilla dating scenario.
"D/s brings a lot of things to the top, Gen. It's why it's called Risk Awareness Consensual Kink. Human beings have endless communication problems and weaknesses. Ones they sometimes don't recognize the way they should until it's too late. Fortunately, after that incident, Elias realized his. He cut Noah loose. Too little, too late, to my way of thinking, but I tend to be an unforgiving sort."
Gen wanted to go find the faceless Elias herself and pin him up against a wall with her car. She thought of Noah leaning out over the water, hands gripping the braided nylon lines, holding them taut to keep the boat balanced and flying.
He was strong, healthy. He could defend himself. But he hadn't. She wanted to say she couldn't comprehend it, but she thought of the person she'd once been, the one who thought if she just kept loving her husband and trying to be a good wife, it would work out. Though she'd wised up fairly quickly, a shadow of what she felt then was undeniably connected to what Lyda was describing about Noah.
"On its face, it seemed like Elias backing off resolved things. But that cord was only cut in one direction. Elias didn't tell Noah it was over. He simply stopped visiting him in the hospital, and assumed Noah was as done with it as he was. For all the time he'd spent with Noah, he still didn't get it. Not until Noah was discharged."
Gen shook her head, a futile rejection of what she suspected was coming. "No."
Lyda nodded. "Noah went home. In his mind, that was to Elias. Thank God, Noah wasn't alone when he was discharged. A fellow sub had picked him up, and when Noah made it clear where he was going, that sub texted her Dom." Lyda's lips twisted. "Ironically, he's a hardcore sadist who can dish out pain like a trained interrogator. Yet he understands where the lines are, more than Elias ever will. His sub, who's also his fiancee, is as fiercely cherished as Noah deserves to be."
Gen puzzled over that. "I really have a lot to learn about all this."
"I'd say that g
oes for all of us." Lyda gave her a fond smile, something that helped loosen the band around Gen's stomach. A little.
"What happened?"
"Ben, the Master she called, met them at Elias' house. He made sure Elias clarified the relationship was over. Elias handed Noah his things at the door, pretty much threw him out and told him he was done with him. Ordered him to give back his collar."
Lyda passed an absent hand over her hair as she took another swallow of wine, offered the glass to Gen. "Ben was smart enough to know Elias wasn't cured, and distance was the best plan. Which is where we come in. Ben's boss, Matt Kensington, is a friend of Tyler's, and of course Matt's a Master as well. The D/s community is a tightly knit one. Matt contacted Tyler and told him Noah had a grandmother in Tampa. He suggested Tyler talk to her and figure out a way to get Noah down here. The grandmother has some health issues, so it worked without being a lie. Tyler took Noah under his wing when he first arrived, as a service sub, not sexual, but then he introduced him to me. I got intrigued."
Gen looked up into Lyda's bemused face. "Do you regret that?"
"No. He wasn't something I was planning for my life...but he took me by surprise. I find myself unable to let him go. Not because I'm worried about protecting him, though there's that. I like having him around. Have you ever thought about Jesus, Gen?"
Gen blinked at the shift. "Is this where you tell me you're born-again and ask me if I've accepted Him as my savior?"
"No." Lyda gave her a light pinch on her shoulder. "You know how it's supposed to be--that Jesus merely wants you to let him into your heart, where he'll love you unconditionally. He doesn't choose which of us to love--he waits for us to make the choice to love him completely, totally, which allows him to love us completely as well." She lifted a shoulder. "Or something to that effect."