Chapter 53

Valerie rested her head on the wooden counter-top of the island, simultaneously steadying herself and letting the cool, rough wood surface ground and distract her from the way the room was trying to spin and twist around her.

She turned Lucca’s story over in her head while they went searching for pain killers. They had definitely filled in some gaps in her understanding, she supposed, and her sympathy at the parallels to her own life tempered some of the fear and hurt she felt, though the aftertaste still lingered.

She did not blame them for the throbbing in her head, but the fear and panic she had felt in those moments and after were difficult to forget. Her nervous system was unmoved by justifications.

She could understand, at least, how much anger and frustration a person would feel in Lucca’s situation; their description of Matt, his choices, demeanor, and selfishness echoed many of her feelings about Heather. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be still tied to the woman, still controlled by her, after so many years.

It was not a pleasant scenario.

“I found some ibuprofen and some oxy, no tylenol…” Lucca appeared again at the doorway into the kitchen, holding a bottle of ibuprofen in one hand and a bottle of something prescription in the other.

Valerie blinked at them in surprise, lifting her head.

“Uhm, just ibuprofen, it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

Lucca nodded, fishing out two of small red tablets and handing them over.

“Maybe four?” Valerie asked.

“Oh, sure.”

They handed over two more, than disappeared briefly to return the drugs from wherever they had found them, returning a moment later.

“There’s something you don’t know about my contract,” Valerie told them, after washing the pills down with a swig of water. “Something I try to forget.”

“What? I read the whole thing. What something?”

“There’s an addendum. Unsigned, for now. Dana only showed it to me once. She wouldn’t let me read it, but that’s kind of the point.”

Valerie stared at the glass of water in front of her, eyes fixating on a couple faint specks of dust visible in it.

“Spit it out, girl.”

Valerie sighed.

“It’s kind of… the opposite of the safe word. I can sign it any time I want, she said. It… makes the arrangement permanent. No payouts, no safe words, no one year limit. Just me and Dana until she gets tired of having me around. I don’t know if it would hold up in court, but it hardly seems like that would actually matter.”

“That’s… insane. Tell me you’re not going to sign that.”

Valerie chewed on her lower lip. She took a long drink of water, dust specks and all, to quell the tears that were starting to rise just from assembling her thoughts into words.

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s not no.”

“I wake up every morning, every single morning, and there’s a little voice in my head, dark as sin and just as sweet, that tells me everything would all be so much easier. Nothing to worry about. No debate about safe words. No scary unknown future.”

Lucca stared at her mutely, traces of horror starting to filter into their expression.

“I go to bed every night,” Valerie continued, “and the rest of this year feels longer and longer. Freedom feels like it’s receding into the distance. The… dissonance, the uncertainty… it’s like a war inside my own head.”

“You have a future without giving your life away to someone, even someone like Dana.”

“Do I? It seems like every choice I make just makes things worse for me. Maybe just one more choice, and then there will be no bad decisions left.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic. You transitioned, you got out of that small town you grew up in, you’ve got skills, a career, even if it’s a little weird right now…”

“I tell that voice the same thing, every single morning. But every morning that voice is a little louder, a little more confident, and me… I’ve got nothing to show. Not even a friend in my corner that I can count on. Maybe things were already as good as they were ever going to get?”

Lucca looked pensive, and maybe a little guilty. They sighed, pain and sadness and frustration.

“Valerie, I’m going to help you however I can, but you can’t expect me to blow up my—”

Valerie waved away the reply, interrupting them mid-sentence.

“I don’t mean it like that. I’m not anybody to you, anyway. This is… what? The third time we’ve met?” She shrugged. “I just… I don’t know. I wanted to say it out loud. I’m just trying to hang on, trying to find something, anything I can use to push that little voice back down into the darkness.”

“Girl, listen, I want you to know… whatever my deal, if you need help, like really need it… a place to crash, a few dollars, I don’t know… I’ll help. Whatever the risk is to me.”

Valerie replied with a skeptical half-frown.

“I can’t be… whatever, in your life,” they continued. “I don’t know; but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to help you out if you need it.”

“You can’t keep letting him control you.”

Lucca shrugged.

“Maybe he’ll get hit by a car?”

“That’s… Yeah. Okay. We could kill him?” Valerie shrugged. “Listen. Can I ask one more question?”

“I don’t promise I’ll answer, but I ain’t gonna cut out your tongue for asking.”

“Bit extreme. Anyway. Uhm.” She glanced, herself, as the spot where the plate had shattered. “Do I still have a job? This project thing?”

Lucca laughed, and Valerie blinked owlishly at them. She had not meant the question as a joke.

“After all that, you think… what? You get under my skin a little, use your safe word, I’m gonna pull the ladder up and leave you on the ground? Maybe throw you out, too?”

Valerie’s cheeks reddened, and she swallowed thickly.

“I… I don’t…” She took in a slow, deep breath, and let it out again. “I don’t know, Lucca. I don’t really know you, do I? And you were… really angry. I’m… not good with anger. I’m not brave.”

She looked away, and raised a hand to forestall their rebuttal as they started to speak.

“I’m not trying to… impugn your honor or whatever. I was gonna leave.” She nodded toward the guest room. “I couldn’t decide if I should take the phone with me or if that’d be stealing. You came back in while I was still arguing with myself.”

“Leave? And go where?”

“I don’t know. Walk to Reno? Hitchhike back to the bay?” She sighed. “Show back up at Dana’s door and hope she lets me in.”

Lucca laughed again, shaking their head.

“Never mind, girl. Of course you still have a job. Look, I’m not holding myself out as some kind of perfect paragon of humanity but I’m not one to kick a girl while she’s down.”

Valerie felt a little tension relax; for all that they had shared over the last couple hours, she had genuinely been uncertain about the answer.

“Okay,” she replied, sagging against the kitchen counter behind her. “Yeah. Good. Okay. Thank you.”

“We didn’t really talk about earlier.”

Valerie tilted her head, trying to find context to match up with their statement.

“Earlier?”

“Your safe word. The play. I know you said you wanted to talk, I want to make sure what we did was okay up to that point.”

Valerie blushed again, reminded of how it felt to have Lucca’s strength pinning her against the wall.

“No, yeah, it was… okay.” She laughed slightly. “It was good. Amazing. I’m sorry, it’s just… I was hurting. And I didn’t understand why you… I jumped ahead, you know? Imagined things that… that weren’t real. And then, lo and behold, they weren’t real and it hurt. But I guess I hurt myself? You didn’t do it, you were just the jagged edge I cut myself with.”

Valerie ran her hands back through her hair. Her side shave had grown out, and she had an inch or so of unbleached, mousey brown roots.

“It felt important,” she continued. “The hurt. The pain. I don’t know. And it felt wrong to ignore it, just skip along behind you like a stupid little puppy, eager to get… I don’t know. Not kicked. Eager to grab the knife by the blade again. Maybe hoping for something I know can’t happen, I know I don’t deserve… maybe even hope like that is better than nothing.”

“I wish my situation were different,” Lucca replied, after a pensive moment. Valerie believed they meant it.

Valerie shrugged, as tears threatened again. She forced them back.

“It’s not my first time getting hurt by the situation.”

“I know it doesn’t mean much, but listen… The phone? Laptop? Clothes? Those are yours. And if you want to leave you don’t have to sneak out, I won’t stop you. Don’t get me wrong- I hope you don’t. But I’ll take you wherever you want to go, if that’s what you choose.”

Valerie stared down at the island. The promise, as simple and small as it was, felt a greater gift than anyone else had ever offered her. Her anxiety whispered to her about how words were easy, and a spoken promise was worth less than the paper it was printed on.

“Okay,” she responded, softly. Even if the words were false, there was some small value in Lucca’s willingness to say them. “Thank you,” she told them, and meant it.