Pleasure Unbound

Margie, three years out of law school, was already boring. I couldn’t stand her, but I loved her for sitting in the visitation room in a pale green suit, her red hair in a sensible bob.

Before I even had my butt in my chair, she said, “He’s alive.”

“How alive?”

“He’s too weak to talk. You got the hoof knife between two ribs-”

“A hoof knife? My God-” Hoof knives didn’t have a point, though mine was sharp on the tip. How hard had I been at him to get that to even puncture?

“You missed his heart by an eighth of an inch and just scraped a lung.

There’ll be a nice scar to show the grandkids.”

“Was it me? I did it? Are you sure?”

“You called the cops and said you did, and you attacked them when they got there.”

“I don’t… There’s no way I could have.” I was utterly baffled. Why would I do that? I’d done crazy shit, but stab Deacon? That was the craziest of crazyfuckshit I’d ever heard. “Where? We weren’t on Maundy Street.

Couldn’t have been.”

“The stables. Then you tried to slit your own throat. You really don’t remember?”

“You think I’m putting it on?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past you.” She held her face firm as if daring me to get offended.

“You don’t have to represent me if you don’t want to,” I said. “I know you find me repulsive.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. You’ve never understood me.”

“That’s not the same as finding you repulsive,” Margie said. “Let’s face it. You don’t even understand you. The difference between us is that I happen to love you.”

I had no answer. I just fixed my jaw and felt like more of a recalcitrant child than I ever did in front of Mom.

“Fiona, do you want to talk about this? Should I come back

tomorrow? Or not at all? Daddy’s trying to get me pulled off the case.”

“Why?”

“He says I’m not experienced enough. I don’t know the real reason.”

She shook her head. “Point is-”

I grabbed her hand over the table. “It has to be you. Don’t leave me.”

“Tell me what happened. I know you don’t remember, but what was with you two? Did he cheat on you? Did he hit you? What would have made you snap?”

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. She didn’t understand us. No one would.

“Drazen pledge,” I said.

“I’m your lawyer. Anything you say is under attorney-client

privilege.”

I held up my hand. “Are you opening pledge or not?”

“Fine.” She held up her hand. “Pledge open.”

I relaxed. Between myself and my seven siblings, six sisters and one brother, opening a pledge meant nothing said could be repeated and only the truth could be spoken.

“This is so hard to explain,” I said.

“It’ll get easier after the first ten times.”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“I don’t know where to start.”

She crossed her arms. “Start by not stalling. Assume I know you use drugs. Assume I know you’ve had more sex in the past three years than I’ve had in my life.”

“We had an open-ish relationship.”

“Okay.”

“The ish part is that…” I swallowed. “Up until a few months ago, my other partners were limited to people we knew, at parties he threw.” I didn’t mention the knottings. I wasn’t ready to tell her I had been a fuckable art object, because I’d have to explain that I’d never been in such control of my sexuality as I was in this open-ish relationship.

“And why did that change?”

There was a relief in her question, because it didn’t judge the excesses, only the switch to normalcy.

“We fell in love.” The blade of those words cut through the dullness of the meds, and snot and tears flooded my face.

“No,” Margie said. “You stop right now.”

I tried to tell her I couldn’t, but I was beyond speaking, beyond using my mouth for anything but breathing thick cry gunk. I could barely breathe without croaking-how could I speak a whole sentence? “I couldn’t have hurt him.”

“Fuck.” Margie had always been impatient with outbursts, yet she always knew what to do about them. She swung her chair to my side of the table as if she was flinging it in a bar fight and sat next to me, putting her arm over my shoulder. I fell into her. She said nothing and stroked my hair.

“He went away, and I couldn’t keep it together,” I croaked. “I have a hard time without sex. I need it. But he understands me. We worked on ways to make it work. Why would I stab him?”

“He’s not saying. Is it possible he came after you, and you stabbed him in self-defense? Maybe he surprised you at the stables?”

“I don’t remember. I swear I don’t. What I was even doing there? I haven’t been to Branwyn in forever.”

“You have a chipped molar. Do you remember when that happened?” she asked.

“No.”

“The exam showed nerve damage in your wrist. Did he ever grab you there?”

I shook my head as if I was emptying change out of the bottom of a piggy bank. Nerve damage to the wrist could be caused by an improper knotting, but Deacon would never, ever make that mistake, and I would have called it out if I’d felt a tingling.

“Margie, I’m so confused. It’s like my brain isn’t working right. I have to see him. I have to talk to him.” I didn’t know how I’d calmed enough to make sentences, but I had. I wiped my nose and smeared my tears over my eyelids with the backs of my hands.

“That’s the least of your worries,” she said. “You have to get released first. Your therapist has seventy-two hours to determine if you’re a danger to yourself or others. So no more lunging over the desk to kill the good doctor. If you do get out, you’ll get taken in for questioning or arrested, depending on what the DA feels he has and, to be honest, whatever Dad decides he wants to do. He’s got every judge in L. A. in his pocket, but the media loves rich girls and violence. If you walk, it’ll look like we’ve gotten away with attempted murder. And just so you know, we’ve got some problems at home.” “What?”

“Jonathan’s girlfriend disappeared from a party at Sheila’s last night. His car’s gone.”

“He had a girlfriend?” I tapped my fingers against my thumb, counting. When did my baby brother turn sixteen? How long had I been high on flake and fucking? Shit, he was old enough to drive?

“Theresa’s friend Rachel.”

Theresa was my sister, and Rachel was, indeed, her friend. She hung around a lot. I’d never given her a thought.

As if reading my mind, Margie continued. “I didn’t know about her and Jon either. So that’s why I’m here and not Quentin.”

“I just want to talk to Deacon.”

“I know. But maybe what you want isn’t what you need.” She took my hand. “When we’re done here, you’re having your orientation meeting with the hospital admin. Be nice. Be good. Okay?”

“Will being nice get me out?”

“It’ll increase the odds.”

“Then I’m all over it.”