Vicious Carousel (Suncoast Society #25)(30)

With Jack, she’d learned to stay quiet.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Ted didn’t say anything. He simply looked at her as if expecting her to continue.

“I really don’t know,” she said.

He arched an eyebrow but didn’t speak. Even Tilly remained uncharacteristically silent next to her.

Betsy thought about it and finally said the first thing that came to mind. “A year ago, if you’d told me I’d be sitting right here, under these circumstances, I would have said you were nuts. That I’d let a guy do this to me? No flipping way.”

“Were you involved in BDSM a year ago?” Ted asked.

“I’d just started, yeah. Had been to a few munches. A couple of classes. I knew this was what I wanted. Not this, obviously. But BDSM. I wanted a loving Dominant who’d respect my boundaries and make me feel safe.”

“Why?”

She blinked, staring at him. “Why what?”

“Any of that. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

He leveled his gaze at her. Now she felt a little of his Dom stepping out of the shadows and into view. She suspected this wasn’t something that normally happened with his other clients.

“Look me in the eyes,” he said, “and as soon as I finish asking the question, you immediately answer me with the first thing that comes to mind without censoring yourself or thinking about it, okay?”

She nodded.

He crossed his arms in front of him on his desk and leaned forward a little.

Yes, definitely Dom-tude in his gaze.

“Why did you want a loving Dominant who would respect your boundaries and make you feel safe?”

The answer welled up from inside her, beyond her control. “Because for once I wanted someone I could trust and lean on and not feel alone, and feel like I finally belonged somewhere,” she whispered before bursting into tears.





Ted handed Tilly the box of tissues before stepping out with the excuse of getting their drinks.

Tilly immediately ripped a handful from the box and pressed them into Betsy’s hands before wrapping her arms around Betsy and letting her sob.

“You’re not alone,” Tilly whispered. “Sweetie, you’re not alone. You have all of us. I know it’s not the same, but it’s a start. Just don’t close us out.”

“Tilly, I f*cked up sooo bad,” she whispered, barely able to speak. “Look what I did to my life. How am I ever supposed to trust any guy ever again after what I did? I should have said stop so many times and I didn’t.”

“Are you religious?”

“Not really. I went to church when I was a kid. Why?”

“You know the difference between a cult and a religion, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know there’s that one that’s in Clearwater? That famous one. There are people who spent decades of their lives, I’m talking people high up in that so-called ‘church,’ who devoted everything to it, just to quit. And by quitting, they lost everything, including friends, family, kids, sometimes spouses. And sometimes, they fought tooth and nail to stay in before they finally quit.”

“Why?”

“Because they finally realized it was harmful for them to be in it, for whatever reason. There are people who escape cults every day because they realize it’s harmful for them. But does that make other religions bad?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Does that make the people who got out of those cults wrong or bad people?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Are you old enough to remember hearing about that crazy f*cker in South America who killed himself and his followers by ordering they drink poisoned Kool-Aid?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s earth-shattering. That’s bad. Honey, this is painful, yes. It takes, what, nine months to grow a baby. Based on what you’ve told me already, you were ready to leave Jack a while ago, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to borrow a trick from Ted’s book. No thinking, just answer me this—what kept you with Jack?”

“Fear,” she said without having to think about it. She blew her nose.

“Okay. So let’s say nine months, ballpark then. You grew a baby. Your life changed. The baby, instead of being a pooping and peeing and crying and barfing little brick of joy turned out to be a nine-pound bundle of self-realization and experience. Right?”

“I guess.”

Ted returned with their drinks, handing cold bottles of water to Tilly and Betsy and taking his cold bottle of Mountain Dew to his desk.

“How are you doing?” he asked Betsy.

“I quit drinking the Kool-Aid before it killed me,” she quietly said.

He looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, I thought you asked for water?”

Tilly fell over laughing.





With the pizza delivered and served and Ted brought up to speed, this time he let Betsy talk, leading her through what had happened, from meeting Jack until finally making the break on Saturday.

It took an hour and a box of tissues, but Betsy felt a lot lighter when they finished talking. She didn’t feel any less angry at herself for being so gullible, but she had to admit now she had a starting point to work from going forward. She had things to do. She had goals to make, focus to find, and dreams to define.