Unforgettable: Book Three (A Hollywood Love Story #3)(23)
“Mister—”
Ignoring the concerned kid and the cluster-f*ck, I start walking. One painful step after another. There’s someone I need to see.
It takes me forty-five long, desperate, desolate minutes to get to my destination by foot. It should have taken only twenty, but I’m unable to walk in a straight line or take strong, steady steps. Plus, I take side streets to avoid pedestrians in my pitiful state. If I pass one, I just bow my head, skirting their gaze. A nanny with a stroller comes at me from around a corner and, with one glimpse, scurries past me, her expression one of pure terror. With my swollen, blood-streaked face and stained, ragged T-shirt, I must look frightening. As the sun descends and the pink-flecked sky morphs into an orange-blue hue, fewer people take notice of me. A dog-walker ignores me. Dusk is my friend.
Bella’s cottage is on Spaulding, a charming, palm-tree lined street in Beverly Hills south of Wilshire. It’s not the über-mansion Beverly Hills type of the rich and famous, but rather a middle-class neighborhood, filled with modest one-family stucco homes and duplexes, many built in the twenties. A rose garden and beds of colorful flowers line the verdant lawn. While not large, her beautifully lit, pink-stucco one-story house has incredible curb appeal. Taking a deep breath, I eschew the bell and knock at the wood door. Seven rapid times in succession. The way I signaled my arrival at her doorstep many years ago when I was her student.
Almost instantly, a trim, brown-skinned woman with twinkling dark eyes and wearing the uniform of a professional caretaker, comes to the door and swings it open. She looks to be from India or Pakistan. Masking any shock at my gruesome appearance, she leads me through the entryway to the coved-ceiling living room. It’s exactly as I remember it. Filled with worn vintage velvet furnishings draped with fringed silk shawls, oriental rugs scattered on dark hardwood floors, and whimsical bronze lamps with hand-painted glass shades that bathe the rose-colored walls in a warm amber glow. Scented candles are everywhere and soft classical music fills the air.
No, the house hasn’t changed a bit, but she has. My bleary eyes drink her in. She was always twenty-five-years older than me, but then her beauty negated the age difference. Though still stunning, she now looks older than her years. She’s let her long ebony hair turn silver and her thinness has given way to gauntness. Crinkly gray eyes set off her high cheekbones, which against the hollows of her cheeks look like apples. The woman, who would be bent over the couch, naked with her gorgeous ass in the air, always ready for me, is now hunched in a wheelchair. A blanket covers her withered legs. She shakes. And upon seeing me, her tremors become more pronounced. She has Parkinson’s.
“Divya,” she says in her still breathy, deep theatrical voice, “please bring me some first aid, an ice pack, and a glass of water with some Advil.”
“Right away, Miss Stadler.” The exotic caretaker scuttles off.
“Brandon, come here,” she orders, her voice softer.
Battling fatigue and pain, I take one small shaky step after another in her direction, each step more agonizing than the one before. It feels like an eternity until I reach her and when I do, I fall to my knees and bury my face in her lap. I do something I’ve done only once—when my parents died—I cry.
A melodic “shh” sounds in my ears. Her fingertips caress my scalp while I heave quietly and shed tears into her soft cashmere blanket. I seek solace with the extraordinary woman who taught me to master my craft and master my sexuality. The teacher who introduced me to the world of BDSM and taught me to be a Dom.
The lifestyle she introduced me to felt so right. So out of control after my parents’ demise, the control I got from sexual domination filled a need, a void. She was the perfect teacher. The perfect submissive. Strong but compliant. Vulnerable but fearless. A willing sub to indulge in the pain I inflicted and the pleasure I gave her. She showed me all kinds of kinks and fetishes, and opened my mind and body to fantasies and desires, blurring the line between acting out our fantasies and satisfying our real needs. A classically trained pianist, she compared our sexploits to Mozart. Just the way he included unexpected little notes and trills in his music to make the piece twinkle and feel more fun, our trills were composed of spankings, candle wax, sex toys, and much more. We had boundaries and she had a safe word, Shakespeare, but her hard limits were limited. She opened my eyes; she opened my world. As much as I needed to be a Dom, she needed to be a sub and relinquish the control she exerted in her everyday life over her academy and students. Shut down her brain and let me make the choices. Surrender. It was the perfect Dom-sub relationship. And then she got sick.
I don’t know how long I stay in this position when I hear her voice again.
“Mr. Taylor, look up at me.”
Wordlessly, I lift my head and meet her gaze.
“What happened?” Her husky submissive voice is soft.
“I f*cked up. I crashed my car.”
Her prescient eyes penetrate mine. “What really happened?”
Before I can answer, Divya returns with a silver tray full of first aid and a bag of ice.
“Divya, please set the tray down on the end table and give us some time alone together.”
“Yes, ma’am,” says the obliging caretaker.
“And would you please make us some tea.”
Divya quietly departs.
With her frail, trembling hands, Bella opens the bottle of peroxide and moistens a cotton ball. She dabs it on my gash. Still in a kneeling position, I wince.