Bound in Blue (13 page)

It felt good to be forgiven, but she wasn’t
totally at peace. She clung to him, thinking she would never, ever
disobey him again, or injure his pride, or overstep her
boundaries.

There was no need, anyway. This morning he’d
proved he could handle Mr. Lemaitre—and her—just fine.

* * * * *

An hour later, Jason got the call from
Lemaitre to bring Sara to practice. Baat was on board. Lemaitre had
all but promised him
Cirque Brillante
in Vegas to get him to
stay.

When Jason told Theo during practice, the
other man shrugged. “I always assumed she would go to
Brillante
. They’ll love her there.” He gave Jason a
searching look. “Will you go when she goes?”

Jason watched Sara and Baat working through
intricate tricks on the trapeze, as if they’d never been apart. He
wanted to be happy for her, but he felt unsettled. Anxious. “I
don’t know. It’s early to think about it.”

“Michel told me you’re no longer on the
act.”

“I’m not.”

“He also warned me to be careful with Sara’s
ass this morning,” Theo added under his breath.

Jason wasn’t in the mood to be drawn into
this conversation. “She’d probably appreciate it if you were. Not
that it’s any of your business, or Michel’s.”

“She’s my artist, my business.” With that
remark, he approached the trapezists to give directions and request
improvements. Sara relayed his suggestions to Baat in Mongolian. He
acknowledged them with a sullen expression.

Theo wasn’t cowed. One thing about Theo, he
didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about him and he wasn’t
afraid to piss people off. At one point he made Baat get down so he
could show what he meant, and partnered Sara through some moves
they’d practiced while Baat was still in Mongolia.
Now you see
how I feel
, thought Jason as Baat frowned from the sidelines.
How it feels to deal with an interloper.

Jealousy. Jason had never experienced
jealousy like this before, never fallen so hard and fast for a
girl. He hadn’t been joking about wanting to keep her in a cage.
But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t, because she had crazy potential
and a hard-earned career to pursue. He had a career too, artists to
train, acts to develop. It wouldn’t be healthy for either of them
to get too lost in their dynamic.

Eventually Theo returned to his side,
irritation tightening his features.

“What do you think of Baat?” Jason asked.

He waited a moment to answer. “I think he
likes to do things his way. He likes her to do things his way. But
this is the challenge of coaching, no? To get past the
personalities to the talent beneath.”

“Some personalities are worse than others,”
Jason joked, giving him the side eye.

Theo grinned. “My diva days are done. Kelsey
made me grow up. It’s good. Now maybe this is karma, that I have to
work with this jackass.”

“Karma’s a bitch.”

Theo nodded, but his gaze remained on Baat
and Sara. “It’s strange,” he said after a moment. “They don’t like
each other. It’s very bizarre, for trapeze. They work together, but
it’s very strained.”

“Up until now, they probably had no choice
but to work together. Mongolia’s not a hotbed of circus
schools.”

“But if they don’t have fun working
together?”

“From what I understand, they grew up
together. It tore her apart, leaving Mongolia without him. She wept
from the guilt of it, and when I told her he’d come...”

She’d cried then too, great happy tears that
he couldn’t understand, except that Baat was her partner, and
partners, especially trapeze partners, developed an iron bond.

“It’s a Mongolian trait, this fidelity,” said
Theo in a pedantic tone. “Because their people’s history is so
steeped in communal herding. The interdependence of nomadic
groups.”

Jason snorted as Theo laced his fingers
together, demonstrating his comment. “Since when do you know so
much about Mongolian interdependence?”

“I make it my business to know, so I
understand them better,” he said, flicking a finger at the
dark-haired couple on the trapeze.

Jason watched Sara, feeling chastened. He
hadn’t done any research on Mongolia beyond plane schedules and
finding the BDSM club. All he’d researched about Sara were her
pleasure points and her pain tolerance, and that she was amazingly
good at the Master/slave thing.

He silently vowed to spend the next few weeks
learning everything he could about her, not just what turned her on
in bed. She was his slave, but more than that, she was a
fascinating, complex woman. Before the end of summer, before they
had to make a decision about Vegas, he needed to know her inside
and out.

Sara heard the tap on the door, saw Baat
stick his head in.

“Sarantsat?” he said, his own nickname for
her. He refused to use the English derivative.

She considered not answering. She’d taken to
hiding from Baat during breaks, hiding in the locker room or empty
conference spaces. They’d been here four weeks now, and he’d spent
all four of them behaving like an ass. She was so tired of his
complaining and negativity. She was tired of dealing with his
unhappiness. Baat hated Jason, he hated Theo, he hated everyone he
met, even Mr. Lemaitre. He claimed to hate everything about the
Cirque. He cycled between wanting to go to Las Vegas and wanting to
leave, in between blaming Sara for all his unhappiness. He spoke
often about abandoning all their work to go home.

Because at home he could drink. At home there
were no trainers, no artist dorms, no Cirque personnel checking on
his well-being. Everyone in Mongolia drank, and so Baat drank, but
here heavy drinking was frowned upon, and his habit was ballooning
out of control. He knew it, she knew it. When she asked him to get
help, he turned it back on her.
This is your fault. It’s your
fault I’m drinking, because I’m so miserable here.

“Baat,” she said. “
Sain uu.
”

He located her in the corner of the room and
flicked on the lights, and returned her greeting. At one time it
was a pleasure to speak to Baat because they both spoke Mongolian,
but now all she ever heard were gruff, complaining words. “Why are
you hiding here?” he asked.

There was accusation in his tone.
You,
Sara thought.
I’m hiding from you.
It was frowned upon to
hide away, to be anti-social in their culture.
European
manners
, he groused, angered by the hours she spent closeted at
Jason’s house. If he knew what they were doing there...

But it was none of his business, and the only
way to spend time with Baat was to drink and complain, and Sara
didn’t enjoy either activity.

“Stupid Theo,” he said, coming to flop in a
nearby chair. “He treats me like an idiot.”

“He treats you like a coach. He’s trying to
help. He’s trying to make us better.”

“I’ve been doing trapeze fifteen years
now.”

“He’s been doing it longer.” She’d anger him
if she kept up. Then he’d start cursing at her and verbally abusing
her, and he’d threaten to leave for the millionth time.

“Of course you defend him,” Baat said, gazing
at her through slitted eyes. “You’ve become such a slut. Are you
sleeping with him too?”

Sleeping with Theo? Was Baat drinking during
the day now? He usually saved the slut accusations for his drunken
night time phone calls. “Don’t say such things,” she muttered.
“It’s not appropriate. Theo is very nice, and so is Kelsey, his
wife. I’ve talked to her a few times after practice. You should
chat with them too, get to know them better.”

“How would I do that? I don’t speak English
or French or whatever they speak.”

“Human Resources hired a translator for you,”
she pointed out. “You sent him back.”

“Because he was a spy, not a translator. I
didn’t like him following me around.”

“Then you should learn some other way to
communicate. You can learn any language you want here. The Cirque
has tutors who’ll teach you for free.”

“The Cirque this, the Cirque that.” He
wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You’re obsessed with the Cirque,
with your
success
and your
artistry
.” He punctuated
the words with effeminate flips of his hand. “You think any of
these people care about you?”

“They care more than you.”

“Because they chat with you after practice?
I’d love to talk to you. Why don’t you ever come to my place?”

“And watch you sit on your couch getting
drunk and playing video games?”

He scowled at her. “I don’t get drunk.”

“You get drunk all the time.”

“Never when I’m working. When I work, I work
hard. What I do on my own time is my own business.”

Except that his drinking would affect his
fitness and eventually his ability to do their act. “I’m cooking
for Jason tonight,” she said. “Lamb and dumplings. Do you want to
come?”

“And be a third wheel?”

“It’s just dinner at his place. You never
come out and do anything with us, or with Theo and Kelsey. Why
don’t you be social for once?”

He gave a huge sigh. “When are we going
home?”

“As soon as dinner’s over, I guess.”

“No, not home here. Home to Mongolia. How
long are you going to keep this up? Do you realize how unhappy I am
here? Do you even care? Do you care about anything but your
handsome American? I want to go home. I’ll do this for a year, no
more.”

Sara stared at him. “You signed a three-year
contract, Baat.”

He kicked the table leg. “I can leave any
time, so can you. The contract is a joke. This is circus.”

“It’s not just circus. It’s Cirque du Monde.
Why are you doing this? Whining and acting stupid, when we found a
place with the best circus in the world?”

“The best circus in this part of the world,”
he snapped back at her. “What about our circus back home? You left,
turned your back on everyone for this fancy, convoluted nonsense.
Because of your blue eyes and your hunger for European men. The
circus in Ulaanbaatar will fail by winter. Chuluun told me.”

Sara wondered if that was true. “If it does,
it’s not my fault.”

“How will they pay their bills? Pay for food
for their families? Do you enjoy being the cause of starving
children?”

“Shut up.” Her voice rang out in the echoing
room. When she made him angry, he got really mean. It seemed like
she made him angry all the time now.

Or maybe he was just really mean.

“I’m tired of performing here,” he said. “I’m
tired of performing with you.”

“Then go somewhere else.” Her temper snapped,
unleashed in a tirade. “Go back to Mongolia and drink away your
life. Here, we’re at the top of the heap. Cirque du Monde is
professional, artistic. The circus in Mongolia was a joke.”

“Perhaps, but here, you’re a cog in the
wheel,” he yelled back. “You dream of grandeur. You’re just a
little dark-skinned, slanty-eyed trapezist. An exotic monkey for
the owner to show off.”

She gritted her teeth. She wanted to scream
at him to shut up, to stop drinking and pull his shit together. She
needed Baat with the same intensity that she hated him. She wished
she could shout at him to fuck off, but without him she didn’t have
an act.

“They won’t want you without me, you know,”
he said, reading her thoughts. “You can’t do any of those tricks
without me.”

“And you can’t do any tricks without me,” she
shot back. “So go back to Mongolia. The reason you’re here is
because you’re nothing without me. Just like I’m nothing without
you. It goes both ways.”

“I’d be fine without you.”

She stuck out her chin and crossed her arms
over her chest. “Who would you perform with back in
Ulaanbaatar?”

“Anyone. You think you’re so special? There
are gymnasts everywhere, trapezists lighter and stronger than you.
You aren’t indispensable. You’re not even pretty. So I wouldn’t
count on a career at Cirque du Monde without me.”

His words fell on her, piling up and piling
up, until she felt like she was suffocating. It had gotten to the
point where she didn’t even like the sound of his voice. “Please
go,” she cried. “I’m taking a break. I need quiet. I want you to
stay away from me while we’re not working.”

“I won’t, if I don’t want to.” He scoffed,
spitting on the carpeted floor.

“This isn’t a yurt, Baat. It’s a conference
room. Don’t be disgusting.”

He turned on his heel and left, muttering
derogatory things about her under his breath. It would probably be
better for her sanity if he went back to Mongolia, taking his dark
glares, his harsh words, and his emotional blackmail with him. But
if he left, where did that leave her? There was a lot of
competition at Cirque. Without an act, what would she be worth?

“I hate you,” she whispered in the silence of
the room. “I wish you’d stop being an asshole. I wish you’d be the
Baat you used to be.” She loved the old Baat, who’d been a mentor
and a brother to her. She didn’t know if he’d ever be back.

* * * * *

Jason stared across the table at his naked
slave, posed gracefully in her chair. Did she realize how enticing
she looked? He’d made her cook naked and eat naked, and now she
sipped her after-dinner tea naked.

Ah, that mouth of hers.

They’d been together a month now, but she was
so open, so giving that it seemed like longer. She revealed her
heart to him at the most intimate moments, and he…he was falling
hard for her. He tried to guard against it because her future was
unsettled, but then she’d give him a look or reveal some secret
longing, and he’d fall a little more.

Then there was the sex, the hours-long BDSM
scenes. The horny, capricious rules, like requiring her to be naked
while he stayed fully dressed. They maintained this clothing
differential whenever they were alone together because it turned
both of them on, and because it emphasized her status as his slave.
They pulled the drapes closed and went about their business, doing
all the things normal couples did, except that she wasn’t allowed
clothing. He’d memorized every detail of her luscious body by now,
from her curves to her exotic features, to the dusky olive tone of
her skin. Her nakedness seduced him more than any fetish wear or
negligee ever could.