Sydney’s guts tightened. “You have been watching too many porn videos. You don’t the first clue as to what we really do. If you did, you would probably step farther away from me.”


       Margret stepped closer. “You will be called to answer for your sins.”


       “You will…back the hell up before I clean the floor with you,” Sydney warned for the last time, walking to the refrigerator. Margret followed close behind.


       “Do you sleep with my brother?”


       “That’s none of your damn business,” Sydney blood boiled beneath the surface….she tried desperately to control her Domme; it was no use. Iowa had calmed her but she hadn’t forgotten who she was. It was obvious Margret didn’t know who she was dealing with.


       Margret shot Sydney a cunning glare. “Sex is morally legitimate only within the confines of marriage; nonmarital sex is immoral,”


       Sydney stared straight through her. It was game time. “How long have you been sleeping with your pastor?”


       “Excuse me!” Margret gasped. “Why would you ask a question like that?”


       “Because I want an answer. How long have you been sleeping with him?”


       “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she turned to leave.


       Sydney violently grabbed a fist full of Margret’s hair and drug her into an empty bedroom, locking the door behind them. “Answer me!” she barked.


       “Nine months,” Margret confessed, sitting nervously on the bed. “How did you know?”


       “It wasn’t that hard. You smug, pretentious, little bitch,” she slipped into full Domina. “Did you think you could keep it from me? The fact that you refer to marriage as being ‘confining’ was the final straw. Are you that miserable that you had to fuck your pastor? He’s married isn’t he? What does God say about that?”


       Margret’s back straightened. “He’s unhappy…I...I was trying to comfort him in his time of need,”


       “So, you’re an ethical whore?”


       “I’m not…”


       Save it,” Sydney interrupted. “Your self-opinion doesn’t concern me. I know exactly who you are,”


       “You don’t know me,”


       “I know you better than you know yourself,” Sydney stood cross-armed and leaned against the dresser just feet away from Margret. “Your dull vanilla life bores you. You’re sick of being the girl next door; you want to be the slut down the street. Every time your repulsive little husband climbs his fat ass on top of you for another banal session of ‘making love’, you silently wish that he’d go and jerk off on a corner But you would allow your pastor to mount your ass all night,”


       Margret’s jaw went slack, visible shaken by Sydney’s assessment of her character.


       “You probably allow him tie you up,” Sydney continued. “He pulls your hair. He talks dirty to you. What names does he call you? What names get you off? Are you his slut, his whore, his fuck-toy? Does your pussy belong to him? Does he want to you think about him while your husband screws your brains out? “Does he ask you to recount every detail of your sex life and then punishes you for giving away what is rightfully his? Does he fuck you into submission?”


       Margret wilted.


       “Does sleeping with him behind everyone’s back validate who you are? Does it make you feel powerful? Does the fact that others revere him turn you on….why wouldn’t it…. only you know that it’s just a matter of time before he has you bent over his desk with your ass in the air, letting him use your meek little pussy to for his sexual gratification. Does getting him off, get you off?” Sydney’s word tailed off.


       Exposed, laid bare and speechless, Margret’s spirit went flaccid.


       She continued, ‘Topping from the bottom’….If you were Mine I’d wring your neck.” Sydney gave a light chuckle. “You don’t hate me. You want to be me. But you don’t have the courage,”


       I don’t have to listen to this,” Margret stood.


       “Sit down!” Sydney growled. I don’t remember giving you permission to speak much less look at me. Lower your eyes!”


       She sat at once; angling away from Sydney’s looming down cast eyes.


       “You stupid little submissive!” her voice ran cold. “Do you know who you’re dealing with? I’m one of the baddest bitches in the industry and you are hardly worth My time. You walk around here with your high morals and high standards; holding yourself up on a pedestal. You’re fake and so is your pedestal. From where I stand, you appear to be on a sacrificial altar; waiting for anyone to come by and partake and you dare to cast stone at your brother! That man has touched the lives of thousands of people. That’s more than can be said for you; you worthless piece of shit. Take your ass out there and apologize to your brother in front of everyone. And if you ever disrespect him again, I’ll beat you within an inch of your pathetic life. Don’t I make myself clear?”


       “Yes,” Margret whispered.


       “Do I make myself clear?” Sydney repeated more forcefully.


       “Yes,” Margret coward, frozen with fear. “I understand,”


       “Get out of my face,” she ordered. “I want it done before I get out there,”


       Margret hurried from the room, leaving Sydney to pull herself together.


       “I should have charged her for that,” she chuckled to herself.



                            ******



In Sydney’s absence, the room had gone through a renaissance of sorts. Everyone sat/laid around casually, amidst laughter and jovial conversation. The heaviness was gone and Margret sat humbled into submission. Sydney and Jane dished out dessert and coffee before they squawked between their significant other’s legs, joining the banter. 


       “How’d it go?” Mark asked quietly.


       “We spoke briefly. Nothing to write home about,” she shrugged. Sr. and Helen nodded their approval.


       “Mark, when are you going to settle down?” Jill, Daniel’s wife, asked.


       “I don’t know. It’s never come up.” He answered. “I don’t think it will be any time soon.”


       “You might want to ask Sydney before you answer that question the next time.” Reggie added.


       “What do you say, Sydney?” Victoria butted in. “Can we be expecting a wedding invitation soon?”


       Sydney was shell-shocked. “It had occurred to me that we…would…um you know…um marry so soon. It’s too soon.” She took on the kitten with firecrackers, glazed over look again. She turned to Cece for help.


       “Not all of us are meant to marry right away. Some of us prefer to wait.” Cece mercifully came to the rescue.


       “You sound like you’re against marriage.” Ian to remarked to Cece from beneath his thick underbrush.


       “Oh, I’m not against marriage, I’m just saying that not everyone should rush into it. We’ll know when the right person comes along. Then again some of us should never attempt the feat at all.”


       “How can you say that?” Daniel asked. “As I recall, you had a massive ‘thing’ for a certain Mr. Bryant or am I mistaken?”


       Sydney turned her head, looking up at Mark.


       “Don’t look at me. Cece and I are like brother and sister. I’ve never touched her,” Mark threw up his hands.


       “No, Sydney. There is nothing to worry about there. I’m talking about a Mr. Kenneth Bryant, God rest his soul.”


       “He was brilliant. He had the rest of his life ahead of him. I still can’t believe he’s dead.” Victoria lamented.


       “I know. He was in and out of town in spurts right before he passed,” Helen said. “It’s as if I’m expecting him to walk through that door any minute.”


       “How are you two managing?” Sydney inquired of Sr. and Helen.


       “Sometimes it's rather difficult. I don’t feel complete. It is hard to let go when there is a piece of you lying in a jungle unattended,” Helen gave a dismal grin. Mark’s heart broke for her and Cece. “But, day-by-day, it gets easier.”


       “Having Mark and Sydney home has filled a void….for all of us,” Sr. added.


       His words weren’t directed at Mark but in some small way, Mark felt they had come to a turning point.


       “I can’t imagine what you have been through. If one of mine died, I wouldn’t know how to cope but to have it happen so far from home, without a proper burial,” Jill shook her head. “You’re strong, damnit you’re strong,”


       “God will see us through it,” Howard tailed in.


       “Which God?” Cece questioned. “Yours? Hardly. Yours, and what I mean by ‘yours’ is you, probably preaches against offer healthcare to non-Christians. Heaven forbid a Muslim falls ill.”


       “She’s gotta point,” Reggie agreed.


       “It has to be some comfort knowing that he was doing what he loved.” Daniel said.


       “Oh yes!” Helen perked up. “He wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines of life and watch everyone else play. Nah, he and Mark were very much alike in that aspect.”


       “He’d grown into such a wonderful man, so kind and generous.” Victoria rose to clean the dessert plates. “But, like Mark, he could party with the best of them.”


       “Good God, he could! He knew how to blow off steam.” Sr. chuckled. “That was a martial trait. I had nothing to do with that,”


       “Whatever. You’ve forgotten the way we met. You weren’t always this rigid. We have six children as a testament to that fact.”


       “Oh shit, too much information! Change the subject,” Mark insisted. “We don’t need to hear another word.”


       “Yes, please be quiet,” Jane frowned and covered her ears. “You guys are gross.”


       Sydney sat back studying the effusive nuances of this family. She had found a home outside the walls of her parent’s mausoleum. Her father was right. She could feel him wherever she was.




                                            ******




“What are you doing here?” Sydney pulled Mark into her bedroom and closed the door quickly. All the guests had gone and the family retired to bed. “Are you crazy? You know how your folks feel about us sleeping together,”


       “I can’t sleep,” he crawled into her bed. “I need you.”


       “We can’t have sex. Not…”


       “I don’t want sex. That’s a lie. I could with some sex but more importantly, I need to talk to you….about me and Cece.”


       “This had better be good,” Sydney settled under the covers and into his arms. Mark fell silent. Sydney knew this was serious. “Just tell me.”


       “I’ve been trying to tell you but I’m terrified that your impression of me will change,” he paused. “I’m afraid of loosing you because of a mistake I made years ago,”


       “Short of murder, I can forgive anything,”


       Mark didn’t reply.


       Sydney’s heart pounded in her chest, his beat in her ears. “Tell me what happened.


       “Kenneth and I were a year apart; I’d just turned eighteen. He and Cece had dated since childhood. As you can tell, we’re all extremely close. Anyway, I was a freshman in Montreal and Kenneth and Cece were seniors in high school. Over spring break, Kenneth was touring his potential universities and Cece and Jane came to visit me. I swore to him I would take care of her. A friend of a friend was throwing and Cece begged to come along with me. She wasn’t into the scene but I didn’t see a problem with her tagging along. As usual, Jane decided to stay in for the night. We get to the party and I immediately get a bad vibe. I didn’t recognize anyone and my friend wasn’t anywhere to be found,”


       “What do you mean ‘bad vibe’?”


       “It’s the same feel we get from an unresponsive client; weightiness, a sense of urgency. The crowd was too experienced for Cece. She was fresh meat in a lion’s den. After thirty minutes, I was ready to leave. But she wasn’t. I begged her to come with me. I should have dragged her out of there by her hair,”


       “They raped her,” Sydney assessed.


       “Repeatedly. I can’t even recount some of the things they did to her without gagging. It turns out they weren’t Kinksters after all. It was a sex ring.”


       “This is why we have such a bad reputation. Most people can’t tell the difference,” She rubbed his chest. “So what happened?”


       “We filed a report with the local police and campus security but Cece didn’t want to push the issue. She was afraid Kenneth would dump her.”


       “That doesn’t make sense. She was raped.”


       “It makes sense to an innocent girl from Iowa whose only had one guy ever look at her twice. My brother was her world. So, Jane and I backed off and kept our mouths shut. Then a couple of months after they returned home, Cece found out she was pregnant. She didn’t know whether it was Kenneth’s or one of the guys that raped her. There was no way for her to know for certain. Jane called me frantic, Cece was mess and they needed help. They made up some bogus excuse and flew them to Montreal overnight without anyone’s, including Kenneth, knowledge. She had an abortion and we promised never to speak of it again,”


       “And you never did?”


       “Never. Not even amongst the three of us,”


       “Did Kenneth ever find out?”


       “Not that I’m aware of. He loved her. Everyone thought they’d get married after graduation but I don’t know what happened. Somewhere between their graduation and me being cut off from the family, things fell apart for them. He called me a few times while I was living in Montreal but I didn’t bother to call him back,”


       “Why not?”


       “I lumped him with the rest of them. I let him down. I let her down. If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been put in that situation. I should have been there to protect her. Now…I don’t know…Kenneth is gone and I can’t atone for what I have done. I feel as though I killed him. I killed them. I killed any hope of normality she had after the abortion.”


       “We all made our known decisions. Cece made the one that was best for her.” Sydney said in earnest.


       “Yes, but I should have been there,”


       “You were. When she needed help, you were there. You gave her a way out. You gave her a second chance. Did it ever cross your mind that he was calling to tell you that he knew about the abortion and it wasn’t your fault?”


       Mark sighed. “I don’t know. I was too pigheaded to pick up the phone. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to him. That’s what hurts the most. I didn’t get to see him and unlike you, I don’t have a place of refuge to sit and chat. He’s not here.”


       “He is here. Remember what you said about my parent’s: they are with you at all times. Kenneth died doing what he loved and if the photos Helen showed me are to be believed, then he lead one hell of a life after your left. Tomorrow, talk to Cece and find out what happened between the two of them. I doubt you had any barring of their situation. You can’t go back and fix everything at once, but you can start to heal bits and pieces at a time.”


       “You sound like a therapist,”


       “A wise man once told me that I wasn’t broken; I just hadn’t healed. Maybe it’s time you began to heal.”