Chapter 26

Valerie did not, in general, enter Dana’s closets. The woman selected for her what she would wear each morning, and it was not a subject that was up for debate. She wasn’t forbidden from the closets, but she never had any reason to enter. The one time she had wandered in, bored from being left to her own devices during one of Dana’s trips, she had felt guilty, as though she was invading Dana’s privacy. She had not lingered.

Lucca, however, sent Valerie to get dressed that morning, and she scrambled to find something suitable to wear. Dana’s elegant, tailored outfits would look ill-fitting on her. Latex was very obviously not the right vibe for just two people sharing breakfast.

Eventually she found the set of clothes she’d worn that first day; jeans and a threadbare sweater. They’d been laundered at some point, folded, and tucked away in a storage bin in the back of the closet. The jeans were baggier than they had been, and the waist gapped. She borrowed a buttery-soft leather belt from one of Dana’s outfits to hold the jeans up, and she had to close her bra one step tighter to get the band to the right tension.

She stepped out into the living room, feeling strangely awkward in ordinary clothing; and found Lucca staring out through one of the picture windows at the grey morning fog beyond. They turned as she moved just into their field of vision.

“Cute,” Lucca commented, mildly. “Car’s outside, come on.”

Valerie followed them quietly. Her back hurt under her bra, bruising and worse from Lucca’s whip; and her sweater seemed itchier than she remembered. Her shoulders and hips still ached from sleeping awkwardly, bound hand and foot in the cell. She felt uneasy, as though she was treading on uncertain ground; the shifts in Lucca’s demeanor seemed inexplicable and dangerous.

The car in question was an old, boxy two-door Mercedes, sapphire blue. Valerie winced as she settled into the passenger seat, emitting a brief involuntary whimper as the upholstery pressed against her whip-marked back. Lucca glanced over at her with a look she couldn’t decipher, before starting up the car and maneuvering it out onto the road. Despite its age, the car was meticulously clean and the engine’s rumble was smooth and pleasant.

Valerie wondered what Dana had done with her Subaru. It had been a couple months overdue for an oil change it and the engine had started making a grinding sound that Valerie had been desperately ignoring. She pushed the thought aside.

They drove in silence for the next several minutes as they wound down out of the hills and toward civilization.

Lucca spoke first.

“Valerie… what I did was.. a mistake. Inexcusable. The first and most important rule of BDSM is consent, and I violated that.”

Valerie wasn’t sure how to respond; she had been scared, chained to that wall; and goddess the whip had hurt, but she felt a sort of pride that she had endured it. She chewed on her lower lip and stared out the car window. After weeks of only seeing Dana’s house, the passing scenery felt novel.

“I’m not part of your… contract, with Dana.” They couldn’t keep some small amount of distaste from their tone. “I won’t expect you to do any play.. kink.. whatever.. with me. Especially not after yesterday.”

Valerie looked back towards Lucca; they seemed to be struggling and despite what the more rational parts of Valerie might have wanted, she felt sympathy for them.

“I.. do have a safe word,” she spoke softly, and hesitantly. Lucca had said to drop the protocols, but the whip marks on her back still hurt. “I chose not to use it.”

“It’s not… why did you say you would die?”

Valerie looked back out the window again, and sighed. It felt like a different life, already; and it wasn’t a source of joy to think about it, much less talk about it.

“Why do you think I signed the contract?”

Lucca looked embarrassed.

“I thought.. you were just… kinky. Submissive. I—” They sighed, and seemed annoyed at themself. “I thought you were weak. That you’d rather give up your life, your independence, and be some rich girl’s plaything.”

Valerie winced at the words. She couldn’t really find any falsehood in them.

“It’s not like that.” She wasn’t sure where to begin, how to explain. There wasn’t really a life to give up, and independence doesn’t mean much for a homeless trans girl.

“You had a job,” Lucca pushed back. “A home. A life.”

“I was about to get fired,” Valerie replied.

Six weeks ago she would’ve been terrified to say that aloud, to admit to the truth of it. Now she was sure she had been fired, or Dana had resigned on her behalf.

“I was trying, so hard…” Valerie continued, with a shrug. “But… I wasn’t good enough, I guess. I had maybe another week or two.”

She turned her gaze back to the passing scenery, but continued speaking. Lucca listened in silence.

“I didn’t have any savings. Just… debt. Lots of debt. I put everything I had into moving into that apartment, trying to keep myself safe. I failed at that too. As you saw. Thank you, by the way.”

It hurt, putting everything into words like this. None of it was new, of course, but pulled together it was not a flattering portrait. She felt like a failure.

“I had less than nothing. Literally. More debt than I was worth. And I was gonna lose it all anyway.”

“And I was alone,” she laughed, a bitter sound; the only alternative she could muster to another round of sobbing.

“I was working, all the time. I didn’t have time to make friends. Heather— my ex— left, but she was a nightmare in her own right… I don’t know if it was better without her or worse having nobody.”

She exhaled shakily, and drew breath once more.

“And you saw what my family is like. They hate me so much they couldn’t even just let me go.”

Lucca still didn’t speak, only listening as Valerie sketched out the situation for them. They had an expression on their face like they were going to be sick. Valerie glanced at them only for a moment before returning her gaze to the window.

“I wish it was like you said. I wish I was just… weak, and just liked the idea of living with a woman who spied on me, kidnapped me. I fought so hard, M—” She bit off the honorific. “Lucca. For everything. For school, for home, for safety, just to be who I am. And it wasn’t enough. I just wish I could rest.”

“So yeah,” she wound down. “I signed her contract. It was a miracle. It was that or homelessness. Or detransition, conversion therapy, and daily beatings. And those don’t have safe words, either.”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the car ride. Valerie managed not to cry, and with her eyes fixed on the passing scenery, she didn’t notice that Lucca was.

Lucca ordered a full breakfast; Valerie picked at a bowl of oatmeal, and had managed half a cup of black coffee. She knew she ought to eat more, but the conversation in the car had left her numb, and without any appetite. The oatmeal was a concession to the food she knew her body needed.

Valerie had taken a few bites of her oatmeal; she felt queasy. Lucca was halfway through their breakfast when they broke the silence.

“I thought you’d be… angry. I don’t know. Upset? Hurt?”

“About what?” Valerie replied, softly. Her tone asked which of the many things rather than there’s nothing to be angry about.

“About.. last night. Me.”

“I…” Valerie started, and then stopped. She struggled to fit the idea into words, and sipped from her coffee to cover the silence.

“It’s okay. It’s just… one of those things.” She gestured with her free hand, a half-hearted shrug.

“One of what things?” Lucca pushed.

“Like.. Like some ‘christian’ asshole kidnapping you. Like a parking ticket when your bank account is already overdrawn. Like you finally got a good job and then a new manager comes in and only wants to stop on you as a rung on his personal career ladder.”

“None of that’s.. okay.” Lucca sounded sad, and a little frustrated.

“What’s your point?” Valerie’s voice flashed with frustration, as well.

“Should I get angry? And get hurt more for it? Do you want me to rant about how unfair it is? How some people get million dollar mansions in the hills, or—”

It took Valerie a moment to recall some of what Dana had mentioned in passing about Lucca.

“—or their own airplane and a compound in the desert; and I can’t even manage to keep a shitty apartment where I have to buy my own mousetraps? I don’t know, Lucca. I don’t know what you want. I don’t get lucky, that’s not my story. I just try to keep going.”

She pushed the bowl of oatmeal away from her, and lowered her head into her hands, elbows resting on the table.

“I know one day it won’t be enough. Some days, I don’t know why I keep trying.”

She focused on her breathing, trying to calm her shredded nervous system. She took another bite of the oatmeal, and washed it down with some coffee.

“Dana is about as lucky as I get… and I don’t think..” She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, and didn’t finish that thought.

“It’s been.. nice. I know it’s not… I know it’s strange. And.. I mean.. sometimes there are punishments.”

She chewed on her lower lip, recognizing how that sounded in retrospect.

“I would’ve liked… uhm.. I fantasized about it, you know? Having a.. a mistress. And, Dana…”

“She’s a special one, isn’t she?” Lucca offered, as Valerie trailed off.

“Yeah,” Valerie agreed, some sadness creeping into her tone. She couldn’t reconcile in her own head how safe she felt curled up next to the woman against the fact that the same person had invaded every corner of her privacy, broken into her home, literally kidnapped her. She couldn’t even begin to hold those two ideas at the same time, much less express them.

She just felt broken.