Saving Sunni (14 page)

I agreed. “He would say himself he’s more of a lover than a fighter.” Sir rolled his eyes in exasperation, which made me want to giggle again. “We’ll be fine, I promise.”

He nodded and got up. “I’m going to take a quick shower before I go. Would you make me a sandwich and some coffee to take with me?”

sage did much better at the sparring that night, although it might not have been evident to anyone but me. She didn’t flail wildly or try to crack anyone’s forearm with hers. She didn’t do much else, but I could see her evaluating her opponents’ strikes and clumsily moving in appropriate ways. It didn’t work very well, but at least she was beginning to put the pieces of the forms together with actual fighting techniques. I was proud of her, as if she were my daughter instead of my sister slave.

I patted her arm when she was done sparring. “Nice job,” I whispered.

She snorted a little. “Thanks, I think. I had no idea what I was doing.”

“You’re starting to,” I said as we scrambled back into position for closing stretches. “I can tell you’re working on applying the forms to your sparring.”

Her eyes widened. “You can?”

I nodded and we turned our attention to Master Rick, who was starting another story about their trip to China the previous year as he led us through closing stretches.

We sat cross-legged on the floor when we were done, listening to Rick as the students for the brown belt class milled around, chatting quietly and limbering up in the corner. When Rick finally noticed that he was intruding into the next class, he trailed off in the middle of a story about finding a chicken head in his soup and wished us good night.

sage and I jumped up and grabbed our bag, aware that Sir might be home by the time we got there. sage ran back to use the restroom, and I went to the door to get out of the way of the crowd pushing their way into and out of the dojo.

The door opened, and Randy walked in. He didn’t see me off to the side at first, and I hoped fervently he was looking for someone else. But when he saw me, that hope vanished.

“Jessie,” he said in a low voice, quickly stepping over next to me. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door.

“Stop it!” I protested, wrenching away and trying to remember the best way to break someone’s grasp. I didn’t know if I would have the nerve to actually hurt him, but I knew I could get help pretty fast if I needed to.

He held on but stopped just outside the door. “Calm down. I just want to talk to you. I need you to come and talk to my pastor with me.”

I glared at him. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I need you to go away and leave me alone.”

“Come on. It won’t take very long. He only lives a couple of miles from here.”

“How did you know I was here tonight?” I asked, very creeped out.

He started to answer, but then changed his mind. “Jessie, you’re my wife. Supposedly you’re with this guy who calls you his slave, and you do whatever he says. Why won’t you do one little thing that I ask you to? I should have more rights than he does.”

He started pulling me toward his car. I considered yelling for help, but decided I should try to get a little information first.

“Where are you staying?” I panted as dug my heels into the concrete sidewalk. It wasn’t easy, but at least we weren’t making much progress toward the street. Any second now someone was going to come out the front door and ask what was going on.

“With some people from my church,” he said vaguely.

“What church? How do you have a church in Denver? You don’t live here.”

“It’s affiliated with one I go to at home. When I asked for help getting my wife back, they put me in contact with the pastor here. We just didn’t realize you were into such bad stuff.” He was still pulling, but also rummaging in his pocket. I hoped he was looking for his keys, but if he brought out a knife or a gun or something, I was going to be in serious trouble.

sage came out the front door then and stopped dead, staring at us with a horrified expression. Her body jerked back toward the door as if she was going to run inside, either to hide or get help.

I nodded at her, trying to look as casual as possible in case Randy did have a weapon and was on the verge of violence.

“sage, Randy’s here,” I called, feeling ridiculous. But it seemed better than, “It’s him! It’s him! Get help!” I hoped a little normalcy would calm Randy down.

It certainly confused him. He stared at sage and stopped pulling.

sage seemed to be shaking, but after a moment she took a step forward.

“I remember Randy,” she said, perfectly calm. “You were friends with my brother in junior high. Randy, I think you should get away from Jessie. She doesn’t want to be with you anymore.”

Randy didn’t say anything. We both stood together, looking at sage, and he still had his hand on my arm. I didn’t want to move too fast in case it set off any kind of reaction in him. sage sounded like a professional counselor. Did she learn this kind of technique at school? Impressive.

“Randy,” she continued softly, “I’m going to go inside and call the police. It would be best for everyone if you would let go of Jessie and go home. She’s not going to go with you.”

I wondered why she didn’t just pull out her cell phone and call the police, then realized what she was doing. She only had to stick her head in the door and yell for help, and there would be all kinds of people here to hold him until the police arrived. Kind of smart of her. I had no idea she could think so quickly.

Randy shook his head, finally releasing my arm.

“Don’t call the police,” he said. “I’m going.” He looked at me. “But we’re not done. I need to make you see some things. Would you consider coming to church with me?”

I shook my head, smirking at the idea of Randy asking me to church. When we had been married he was the biggest partier I knew. I didn’t think he’d even ever been to church before, except maybe as a small child.

“No,” I said. “But give me your phone number and maybe we can set up a meeting. You and me and s-Jill and Rutger. We can all sit down and discuss things calmly. Okay?”

He thought about it but shook his head. “I’ll call you,” he said. “I’ve got your number.”

He turned and almost ran to his car. sage was standing next to me by the time he got in, pulling out a notebook to write down his license number, and several people had finally come out of the school and milled around on the sidewalk. I started to say, “Finally!” but then realized that I really didn’t want a fight out here on the street. That would have just complicated things enormously. Why wouldn’t he just go away?

We went to my car and drove home in silence, both occupied in our own thoughts. Sir was in the living room drinking tea. sage and I knelt in front of him to be kissed, then sage went to get a shower and wash off her own sweat and the scent of everyone else’s while I stayed behind to tell Sir what had happened. I had been tempted to persuade sage that he didn’t need to know, but she would never have gone along with that.

“How did your interview go?” I asked, still kneeling in front of him. He reached over to stroke my hair absently, and I put my head in his lap.

“It went okay, I think,” he said. “It’ll be on the news tonight if you want to watch it.”

“Of course I do,” I said enthusiastically. Taking a deep breath, I plunged in. “But first I have to tell you about tonight.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows rose.

“Randy came to the school.” My head rested on his thigh, turned away from him, and I closed my eyes tightly while waiting for his reaction. I heard him set his cup down, but he didn’t explode.

“Well? What happened?” he said, calm but wary.

“He said he wanted me to go and talk to his pastor. He tried to get me to go with him, but we were right outside the door, so I could have yelled and gotten help if sage hadn’t come out when she did.”

His eyebrows went up a bit farther, but he remained silent.

“sage was really incredible,” I told him, hoping that this would avert some of his anger. “She sounded like a professional, the way she talked to him and got him to leave. It was really cool.”

He nodded thoughtfully, glancing at the bedroom door.

“What else did he say?”

“I asked him where he was staying, and he said with friends from the church he’s going to. Probably the same church that was picketing the store. So that’s a lead. And sage wrote down his license plate number. I offered to take his phone number so that we could all meet and discuss the situation, but he said he would call me.” I spewed out all of the information that came to mind, then fell silent, nervous again.

“He said he would call you?” Sir repeated thoughtfully.

I nodded.

“I believe we should switch phones so when Randy does call, I can talk to him. I think it’s time he and I had a conversation. Now you go and have your shower,” he added as sage came out of the bathroom wearing an open robe and rubbing down her hair. Sir often let us wear robes in the evening, although we always left them hanging open because we knew he liked it that way. He patted his knee, and she went to sit on it while I got up to take my shower. I knew I was the one who had told him how good she had been tonight, but I still felt a pang of resentment. I had almost been abducted, and I was being treated like I was the problem. She was being petted and praised while Sir was making me give up my phone.

I did understand why he wanted to trade phones with me, but it still felt like a punishment. It wasn’t that I had anything to hide from him, but I guiltily pictured the outfit I had purchased and stashed in the dresser, not wanting to remind him of that afternoon. It was the idea of having my phone confiscated as if I were a worrisome teenager trying to sneak off for a tryst that upset me.

Chapter 13

The interview was quite impressive. Sir looked very imposing as he sat across from Charles Cobb, the reporter, who was watching him warily. He seemed to be afraid that Sir would whip out a cat-o-nine-tails and work his way through the station. Cobb wore a somber black suit with a white shirt and a hot pink tie. His steel gray hair looked hurricane-proof.

We all sat in the living room with coffee and cookies. It had seemed almost too trivial to bring out snacks to watch something that might signal the end of Sir’s career, but on second thought I decided that we needed some comfort food. Nobody had complained, and the full plate I had brought was nearly empty by the time the interview got underway.

“Mr. Wulfgar,” Cobb began, and I could tell he had been practicing the name beforehand. He pronounced it carefully, even though it wasn’t a particularly hard name to say. “We have seen the video of you…with the knife.” He paused as if he had wanted to say something else, like “tormenting that poor woman.”

Sir inclined his head but remained silent. This surprised Cobb a little. He must have expected Sir to jump right in and explain himself. After a short, awkward pause, Cobb continued. “You must know that what you were doing looked extremely…dangerous. Can you explain to us what was going on?”

Sir leaned forward, the picture of reason.

“I will be happy to explain it,” he began, and I felt a thrill of excitement at seeing how dignified and intellectual he was. Surely no one could believe him capable of violence or cruelty.

“What you are seeing on the tape is part of the bdsm, or leather, lifestyle. It is called a ‘scene.’ As you might suspect from the word, it primarily involves role-playing and drama. The young lady who is wrapped up in cellophane is one of my partners, and she had negotiated and agreed to such scenes beforehand, so she knew perfectly well that she was in no jeopardy. The knife, while it does look dangerous, did not actually touch her in such a way as to draw blood or even cause her any pain. It is similar to a stage prop. And, as you can see on the video, there were a fair number of people watching the scene. Would you stand by while a lady was being deliberately hurt?”

Cobb narrowed his eyes a bit. “How do we know this? Where is she?”

Sir looked at him sternly. “She is at home. The police have already spoken with her and are satisfied that she is not in danger and has not been held against her will, harassed, harmed, or even intimidated. I will not have my partners subjected to media scrutiny because of”—he broke off and rearranged his face into a serene expression again—“because of people who are trying to cause scandal. This tape was recorded in a private club that has strict rules regarding privacy. He has violated those rules and harmed not only myself but the owner of the establishment. He is the one that should be censured.”

Cobb sat forward a little, clearly impatient with the practical nature of the conversation so far.

“Tell me about this ‘lifestyle,’ as you call it,” he urged. “Is this a common thing? Are you telling me that women actually agree to this treatment?”

Sir took a deep breath and composed himself, obviously organizing his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was calm and authoritative, like he was teaching a class.

“Yes, women participate voluntarily in these activities, although it is not always the woman who is the ‘bottom’ in the scene, or the one being tied up, or flogged, or whatever is happening. Denver has, as do most cities, a fairly large community of people who engage in similar types of play. These are people who find this lifestyle to be exciting, cathartic, invigorating, or sensual. The play ranges from very light sensation play or simple bondage to more severe types, but there is always, or should be, consent between both parties about what they do and the level to which they take the activity. There are strict guidelines within the community about consensuality and respecting limits. Members who ignore those guidelines are generally asked to leave. We are, for the most part, very normal people. Almost everyone undoubtedly has a friend or family member with secret kinky tendencies. It’s not too different from the little games that some married couples play when they blindfold or tie each other up.”