Reconstructing Meredith (21 page)

Adjusting to life after Amy was strange. It wasn’t difficult because we’d barely spent time together lately anyway and our relationship had become a source of unnecessary stress and guilt. It wasn’t easy because I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d failed her somehow, that I should have put more effort into saving something into which we’d invested four good years. Nothing had changed, everything had changed. This was right, this was wrong. It was inevitable, it was a shock.

And as guilty as it made me feel to acknowledge it, it was a relief.

“Scott?”

I jumped at the sound of my name and looked up. Matt, Lynette, and Steve watched me, eyebrows raised inquisitively. Cards in their hands, chips on the table, and with another startle, I remembered where I was and what I was doing.

“Sorry, sorry.” I cleared my throat and looked at my cards. Jack. Nine. Seven. Seven. A two, which was wild. Three of a kind. Not a bad start, but not good enough to take any huge risks. I threw five dollars in. “Call.”

Lynette stared at her cards, pursing her lips and tapping a couple of five-dollar chips together. I watched Matt’s impatience unfolding in his expression, and in spite of my mood, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. The longer she hemmed and hawed over her hand, the less he could resist rolling his eyes. It probably would have annoyed me just as much, but his barely-contained irritation amused me. Kristen had the same reaction whenever she played against Lynette, grinding her teeth and glaring over her cards as if trying to telepathically order Lynette to hurry the fuck up.

Lynette finally threw in ten. That gave me pause. She wasn’t a high-risk player at all. Not even a medium-risk player. She must have had something decent in her hand.

We traded cards in to Steve and looked at our new hands. A ten and a three didn’t do me any good; I was still stuck with a three of a kind. Unless I could bluff everyone into folding, I was pretty well fucked.

Steve threw in ten. Matt raised it and put in fifteen.

I shook my head and laid my cards down. “Fold.”

After much consideration on her part and teeth-grinding on Matt’s, Lynette put in fifteen.

“Okay, show ‘em,” Matt said.

Steve laid down a three of a kind. All eights, so he would have beaten me. Matt produced a nine-high straight. Lynette grinned and fanned a Jack-high straight on to the table.

“Damn it, I was sure I had that one,” Matt muttered. “Guess it’s a good thing we’re not playing strip poker.”

Lynette giggled. “Oh, I don’t know. At a table full of men, I wouldn’t—”

“
Lynette
.” Steve rolled his eyes.

Matt put his hands up. “Hey, if the woman wants to—”

“Shut up, Sommers.”

I gestured at my pitiful stacks of chips. “Matt, before you suggest turning this into a game of strip poker, might I draw your attention to how badly I’m doing right now?”

Matt grimaced. “Never mind, then. The last thing we need is Moore getting naked.”

I laughed behind my beer bottle. “Yeah, God forbid. You might go blind.”

He chuckled and shuffled the cards.
Oh, if the people in this room only knew
.

“Are you guys talking about strip poker over there again?” Kristen looked at us from the other table.

“Maybe,” I said. “Any chance we could talk—”

“I am
not
playing strip poker with you two.”

“Wimp,” Matt said.

Kristen flipped him the bird over her shoulder.

He laughed. “All right, ante up, everyone.”

I pushed my chair back. “I think I’m sitting this one out, actually.”

“Getting tired of losing, Moore?” Steve asked.

“My wallet is screaming for mercy. That, and my beer is empty.”

Matt smirked. “Maybe if you slowed down on the beer, you wouldn’t—”

“Fuck you, Sommers. I’ve had one beer, and that hasn’t done a damned thing to change the cards
you’re
dealing me.”

“Excuses, excuses, you fucking drunk.”

I laughed and went into the kitchen. After I’d gotten a beer out of refrigerator, I leaned against the counter, closing my eyes and pressing the cold bottle against my forehead. Now that I was alone, the cards and banter couldn’t distract me anymore, and all my other thoughts closed in. Amy. Meredith. Confusion. Chaos. Christ, my life was crazy these days.

Light footsteps approached, moving from the crush of carpet to the tap of rubber soles on linoleum. I didn’t have to look up to know who it was.

“Hey you,” Krissy said.

I set my beer down and looked up, forcing a smile. “Hey.”

“You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

“You know how it is,” I said with an equally forced laugh. “Focusing extra hard on the game.”

She didn’t buy it. “Uh-huh.”

I picked up my beer again, tapping the bottle against the counter and staring at the floor while I searched for something to say.

“How did the other night go?” she asked.

“Matt didn’t tell you?”

“He did, but I’m asking you.”

I cocked my head. “You don’t trust his judgment?”

“It’s not that,” she said. “You just seem… you’re… quiet tonight. Distant, maybe that’s the word.”

Running a hand through my hair, I sighed. “Preoccupied, I guess.”

“Everything okay?” Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Matt said everything went fine the other night, but—”

“The other night went fine. Don’t worry about that.” I smiled half-heartedly. “Better than I expected, actually. In fact, Meredith may ask you to share him again in the future.”

She laughed. “I don’t have a problem with that. Especially since that would mean I get to keep you busy.”

“Any chance you girls might—”

“Oh, Jesus, not you too.” She rolled her eyes.

I chuckled. “What?”

“Matt had the same idea.” She shot me a playful glare. “Have you been putting filthy thoughts into his head?”

“Me? Pfft. What man doesn’t have that fantasy?” I gave her the best innocent look I could muster. “So would you consider indulging us?”

She pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Maybe. If you’re both good.”

I grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She rolled her eyes again. Then she looked at me, and her eyebrows pulled together. “Okay, to be serious, I’m concerned about you. And not just tonight. You haven’t been yourself lately.”

I shifted my weight. “How so?”

“When we play, you’re hesitant. When we talk, you’re distracted.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m honestly not trying to ignore you or—”

“No, no, it’s not that. I’m not upset. I know you have a lot on your mind. It just worries me because I’ve never seen you like this.”

Cradling her neck in both hands, I kissed her forehead. “I’ll be okay, Krissy. Don’t worry about me.”

“You know I will.”

I nodded. “I know. But there’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m fine.”

She eyed me. She knew me too well to buy it.

Sighing again, I rested my hip against the counter and didn’t look her in the eye. “I’m doing okay, but I’m still getting used to not being with Amy anymore.”

“What?” She stared at me. “When did you guys break up?”

“A few days ago.” I made a gesture that was probably not nearly as dismissive as it was intended to be. “It’s, it was amicable, and probably a long time coming. It’s…” I looked at her. “You know how it is. It’s… an adjustment.”

“So, are you okay with it?”

I shrugged. “It needed to happen.”

Kristen rolled her eyes and released an exasperated sigh. “Damn it, Scott, stop being such a
guy
about it.”

Grinning, I said, “You are aware that I am a guy, right?”

She didn’t laugh. “Yes, I know you are, but you know what I mean. I’ve never seen you bottle stuff up like this.” She inclined her head. “I’m not asking if it needed to happen, I’m asking how you’re dealing with it. Root canals need to happen, but they still hurt.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, and so does this.”

Krissy grimaced. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Like I said, it probably needed to happen.”

“Yeah, and you probably didn’t need it on top of everything with Meredith.”

I flinched.

“Which I assume you’re also having a hard time with?” she said softly.

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I didn’t say anything.

“Scott, you can talk to me, you know. It’s—”

“Look, it’s not that I’m bottling it up, babe,” I said. “It’s hard, yes, but I don’t want to break Meredith’s confidence about everything that’s going on.”

“So are you talking to her about it?”

“No. She’s got enough on her mind, so—”

“Then who
are
you talking to about it?”

I said nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Just promise me something, Scott.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“If you
need
to talk, you’ll call me.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

“Good.” She gestured toward the kitchen doorway. “I guess we should get back to the tables.”

“Guess we should.” I grinned at her. “So, there’s no chance at all of talking you into a game of strip poker?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Not with this crowd.”

“But if Matt and I assembled a different crowd, then—”

“You know, I think he’s been a bad influence on you.”

“Sure it’s not the other way around?”

She eyed me. “Now that you mention it…”

I laughed. Glancing past her toward the kitchen doorway to make doubly sure we were still alone, I put my hand on her waist and kissed her lightly. “So, any chance of doing a little ‘playing’ tonight?”

Shrugging, she batted her eyes. “Maybe if you play your cards right.”

“Oh?” I grinned. “So you
are
down for some strip poker.”

She smacked me playfully. “No, not strip poker.” Standing up on her toes to kiss me again, she added, “But if you want to come by my apartment after we’re done here…”

“Hmm,” I said. “You know, I’m not having much luck tonight. I think I may cash out.”

“Go ahead, but I’m still winning, so you’ll still have to wait.”

“Vile temptress.” I cast another glance at the doorway, then whispered, “Just remember, the longer you make me wait, the longer I’ll make
you
wait.”

She gulped. I grinned. We both knew just how long I could—and would—keep an orgasm out of her reach.

“I think we understand each other,” I said.

She returned my grin. “Maybe just one more hand, and then we’ll call it a night?”

“I knew you’d see things my way.”

After calling around and scouring the internet, not to mention checking every hardware, craft, woodworking, and cabinetry store in town, I finally had everything to work on the broken music box. I took everything into the garage and laid the parts out on my workbench.

Somehow, having all the pieces in front of me made this project a little more daunting. It wasn’t all that complex. Just a bunch of small, delicate tasks to restore it to some semblance of its previous appearance. I’d built, repaired, and modified complicated machinery, and made my living dealing with the same, but there was more pressure for this one. Mostly self-induced, of course, since Meredith didn’t even know I had it, but pressure nonetheless.

I took a seat and looked everything over.

Fortunately, the box itself was in decent shape. The lid and legs had taken the brunt of the television’s weight, so the intricate dovetailing was still intact. I’d already replaced the rotted section on one side, so I just needed to do some sanding and filling before I finished it. As for the rest of the wood, there wasn’t much I could do about the gouges in the finish except fill them, smooth them over as best I could, and try to match the color. They would probably always be visible, but I could camouflage them to a degree.

Corrosion had left the brass hinges brittle and immobile, but they’d be fairly easy to replace. Finding the exact style and size had taken some work, and the holes in the wood were partly rotted. With some filler and the pair of hinges I’d picked up at the woodworking shop, it could be done.

The interior was a disaster. The velvet had been red at one time, but when I got it home, it was green, black, and white. I’d long since ripped all of that out and gotten rid of it, which also took care of the rather overpowering smell of mildew. Fortunately, I’d found a secondhand jewelry box that had the same interior dimensions, and the insert was more or less the same layout.

The inlay of “Meri” on the lid would be easier than I thought. The “M” was badly scratched and a chunk of the “e’ was missing, but I’d found a light-colored wood filler that would blend fairly well. That would be much less of a headache than trying to cut and shape pieces to fit, and at least the wood he’d used for the inlay was such a fine grain, the lack of grain in the filler wouldn’t be terribly obvious. I didn’t want to cut corners, but inlays were definitely not my forte, so I figured this was the best route that wouldn’t result in making things worse.

I’d made two new legs the other night to replace the one that was missing and the other that was badly splintered. I compared one of the new legs to an old one. The stain I’d used was, now that it was dry, slightly darker than the original, but not noticeably so unless I held them up to a light like I did now. Once they were fastened in place, they’d blend almost perfectly.

While I fastened the new legs on to the box, my mind wandered back to earlier this afternoon when Meredith and I had gone to see Leslie. Meredith had some plans with family for the evening, so we’d grabbed a quick bite to eat after the appointment before going in separate directions.

Truth be told, I was a little relieved to have a night to myself after that visit. Not that I was tired of her, I just needed a break.

Sex with Meredith was easier now than it had been in the beginning. Flogging, bondage, tease and denial; it all went smoother every time.

The same, however, could not be said for these appointments. That wasn’t to say they weren’t helping. Quite the contrary. Leslie had been tremendously helpful for Meredith, and she’d helped her through a hell of a lot by this point.

But the more we went, the more I heard about what had gone on in the few years we were apart, and the farther under my skin it all went until it cut right to the fucking bone. Meredith opened up about everything she’d gone through, which was exactly what she needed to do, and it was only by some miracle that I hadn’t gotten physically ill in Leslie’s office yet. Afterward a time or two, yes, but I hadn’t yet had to lunge for that wastebasket.

I blew out a breath and reached for a tube of wood glue. I turned the box over and glued four round felt pads to the bottoms of each leg. Once those were in place, I set it aside to let the glue dry while I took the interior out of the secondhand box. It didn’t want to come out easily, but I worked at it while my mind continued wandering.

It wasn’t just the things I heard during the therapy sessions that bothered me. Not those horrors alone. Between our respective bedrooms and Leslie’s office, time and intimacy had brought Meredith and me closer together. It had been seven years since we’d split up, five since we’d been a part of each other’s lives, and while we’d been damn near strangers the night she called me, that wasn’t the case anymore. Everything Rich had done to her wasn’t just something that had happened to a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend of a friend. It was her. Meredith. My lover and ex-girlfriend. It would have hit no closer to home if I’d discovered someone did the same thing to Krissy while I wasn’t looking.

That thought raised my hackles. I was fiercely protective of both of them as well as Amy, and if it ever came down to it, I’d have gladly gone to jail for doing whatever it took to keep any of them safe.

The insert finally came out. I thought about throwing the secondhand box away now that I’d removed the insert, but I set it aside. The hinges were similar to the ones I needed to replace, and on the off chance the new hinges didn’t fit, I could try these. I hadn’t paid a lot for it, but I certainly wouldn’t be heartbroken if I managed to swipe a few more parts off it.

I slipped the new insert into the music box, and just as I’d hoped, it fit perfectly with plenty of room for the actual music box, which was still in its package waiting to replace the old one I hadn’t yet removed.

I set the insert aside. With a jeweler’s screwdriver, I loosened the screws on the old music box. Three of the screws were more or less intact and came out with minimal effort. The fourth was as corroded as the hinges and took more work. With a little patience and elbow grease, it would come out, and I had all damned night.

Today, Meredith had gotten into the night Rich tore her back to shreds. My stomach was in a perpetual state of near-reverse through the entire visit. Even now, my skin crawled at the thought of the shame in her eyes when she spoke of displeasing him. What exactly she’d done, I couldn’t recall. Something minor, something for which I’d have punished a sub with little more than a look or refusal to let her come, something that barely registered in my mind when she continued describing what had happened afterward.

The beating. The fear. The pain. The way he calmly, quietly told her what a whore she was while he’d laid waste to her back. When that part was over, the long period—an hour? Two hours? She couldn’t remember—sitting at their kitchen table while he sutured the worst of the wounds. And all the while, he’d explained to her how he hated having to do this, how this was for her own good, that she’d forced him to do this through her disobedience.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath as the nausea returned. There was but cold comfort in the knowledge he’d at least had enough of a heart to use a local anesthetic while he stitched her. Apparently the surgeon in him still had a conscience, even if the so-called “Dom” in him was nothing less than a fucking psychopath.

With the music box finally removed, I pulled the new one out of its packaging and installed it. Once it was in place, I closed the lid, then opened it again so the music would start. Just as I’d hoped, it sounded exactly like the original. It caught me off guard, as a matter of fact. The first few notes were enough to lodge my breath in my throat and send me right back to the day Meredith’s father died.

I quickly snapped the box shut. That part could wait. All that was left on the interior was fastening the insert in anyway. For now, the exterior needed some attention.

Dampening a piece of sandpaper, I carefully sanded a seam where I’d replaced a rotted piece of wood on one side of the box a few days ago. The grain wasn’t an exact match, and the seam would never be completely invisible, but it was the closest I could get it. It probably wouldn’t even be noticeable from more than a few inches away. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help sending a silent “fuck you” in Rich’s direction. One more repair to smooth over the damage he’d done.

I wondered how the fucker liked prison. I wondered if he’d ever found himself in solitary confinement for any reason. If he had, then I considered that a nice heaping dose of well-deserved karma. Especially after today.

Today, Meredith had told us about being left by herself in Rich’s dungeon. Bound, gagged, alone with the sounds of her heart and breathing. Sometimes as punishment, sometimes for no reason at all.

I cringed at the very thought. There were those who thought Doms did that sort of thing on a regular basis, that part of being dominating or, as many of us were, sadistic, meant doing shit like that. Sure, I was a sadist. I liked causing my subs pain. I liked pushing their limits. I wasn’t cruel, though. Everything I did was within an agreed upon set of boundaries. Not only did my subs consent to it, they sought it. Wanted it.
Begged
for it.

Never mind the fact that it was dangerous, leaving a bound sub alone was a damned good way to shatter any trust that existed. No sub should ever develop abandonment issues where her Dom is concerned. If he called himself her Dom, he should have been her anchor. Her rock. Something to hold on to so she could safely let go of everything else. I put a great deal of effort into being exactly that for my subs, whether it was a one-time scene with someone new or one of my girls.

Now that I thought about it, it struck me as ironic that Kristen had become
my
rock lately. As things intensified with Meredith and faded away with Amy, they stayed solidly the same with Kristen. A constant when everything else was in chaos, even if we didn’t see each other nearly as often as we wanted to. Though I didn’t talk to her about the details of Meredith’s situation, knowing she was there, that she was concerned about my well-being, offered some comfort. And when we managed to find the time, she offered an escape. For the duration of a scene with her, nothing existed outside the bedroom or dungeon, and without that occasional escape, I’d have lost my mind by now.

I was more than a little thankful she had Matt, too. I missed her like crazy when we went long periods without seeing each other, but at least his presence tempered some of the guilt. She knew what I was doing with Meredith, she understood, and thanks to Matt, she still had someone to share her bed. The fact that she wasn’t alone offered my guilty conscience some consolation, at least.

I smoothed some filler into the inlay where a chunk of the “e” was missing. It wouldn’t be seamless, but it looked a hell of a lot better than the gaping hole. Once it was dry, I’d put a clear finish over the whole lid so it would be smooth and uniform.

While I filled the inlay, “White Christmas” still played in my head along with all the memories those few notes had resurrected. That was a hell of a time for her. For both of us, if I was honest with myself. Her father’s death had been sudden and more than a little unexpected, and Meredith was devastated. Up until recently, I’d have said I’d never in my life felt as helpless as I had then, when I desperately wanted to do something for her, but knew full well I couldn’t.

These days, powerless didn’t even begin to describe it. Even now, when I knew I’d helped her, that together we’d made more progress than I thought we would, I still questioned my ability to really help her.

Fix a music box? That I could do.

Help a sub face down a phobia involving bondage or pain? Easy.

Heal damage this extensive by taking on the role of the very thing that had broken her? Maybe. Maybe not.

I wouldn’t give up on her, that much was damned certain. I’d do whatever I could within my own abilities, and I hoped to God that was enough.

Not everything that was broken could be fixed, though. Like the vase she’d dropped in the storage unit, some things were beyond repair. If not beyond repair, then beyond my ability to repair them.

I just hoped, when it came to Meredith, I was working with a damaged music box, not a shattered vase.