I'd systematically stripped her of her defenses. Running away was not an option for me. I'd stay and do what I could without stepping in and being a crutch for her. She had to stand up again on her own.

So. My locum was leaving this morning. I'd arranged to have him come in to get paid today. I'd open up the business, do what I did to earn a living, arrange a few things, get on with life. Forget I was a sadistic bastard. Pray I was whole enough to function.

Chapter Twenty-One.

Jodie *

A warm lump vibrated against my back. Baxter. I smiled. That cat was getting more and more demanding. The light filtering through my closed eyelids and the coolness said morning sometime. I shifted beneath the sheet. Aches and sharp twinges all over my body stirred.

Ow. Last night. I remembered, running through what had happened, bliss, BDSM, me being deliciously dominated, and then my memory blurred. Something had happened when Kat went to stick a needle in me. I'd been scared but Klaus had stopped her. Klaus...

I sat up and looked around. Where was he? The rest of the bed was cold. The house was silent of the sounds of another person living in it. It felt empty. Had he gone somewhere?

I was utterly awake and aware in a heart-seizing fraction of time. The room around me sprang into bright relief.

Where was he?

In a few sweeping seconds, I spotted the pile of stuff on the bedside table and some paper with writing on it scrawled in his hand. The date at the top-the day my fantasy ended. I grabbed the paper and let the sheet float onto the bed. The first words were galling.

I can't be with you without hurting you. I'm not safe. Don't follow me. I won't leave you instructions as that would defeat the purpose. Remember who you are. How you used to live.

I stared. The next words were crossed out.

Forget what we did.

The rest was nothing important or nothing that seemed so-it was all about passwords and the film and something called subdrop and what I could do.

Doing anything seemed wrong.

I let out a shuddery breath and clutched the sheet to my chest. I was alone. It wasn't just the house that was empty, it was me.

Cold seeped into my bones, froze my muscles, pained me so badly my stomach grew claws. I hurt. I hurt so much.

I got underneath the sheet and buried my eyes in the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Klaus *

Monday went by. I paid my locum. I worked. I stared out my window, a lot. I wondered what she was doing. I couldn't be with her. I was dangerous around her, but depression could hit some people hard. For once the palm trees lining the beach road didn't make me smile. She needed someone to talk to. I knew some of her friends. I texted them. Arranged things. Told a heap of white lies.

Lunchtime. I was eating a chicken sandwich at my desk and wondering why it was making me feel ill. Lifting the top layer revealed chicken and butter. Dead flesh. Ugh.

What might she do, by herself? I made my jaw work, chewing over and over, and I swallowed. It went down in a lump. I was a vulture. Maybe I should have a label on my head that said, Carnivore. Beware of the teeth. It bites.

The remains of the sandwich placed to one side, I rested my forehead on the heels of my hands.

Would she try to see me?

I thought about hiring a security guard. I think that was what's called a what-the-fuck moment. I caught myself in time. What was I scared of? Jodie? Myself? A security guard wouldn't help me against either of those.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Jodie *

For the third time that day, the knocking then banging on the front door awoke me. There was nobody but me to answer it. I sighed and dragged myself from bed.

Clothes, needed some. Naked, I rummaged through my cupboard and drawers. The denim shorts went on only to be pulled off when I spied the bruises on my legs. Jeans. Had to be jeans. A T-shirt would do, though.

I combed my hair with my fingers and found my way to my front door.

Adrianna was on the other side. Bright white-and-blue strappy dress and her expression seemed to bubble over with enthusiasm.

"Hi! Jodie where have you been? It's been a whole month! You said you'd be away, but a month with no phone, email, nothing?" She hugged me then brushed past in mini-tornado mode. "Klaus texted me this morning. Said you'd broken up, again. When will you two learn? Isn't this the second time in a few years? He said you needed someone to lean on."

As she talked she marched toward the kitchen pulling me in her wake like a giant spaceship with one of those tractor beams glued to my ass. "But, hey girl, least he cares. My exes just vanished over the fucking horizon!"

Bemused and tired, I followed.

"You got coffee? I neeed coffee. I'll make and you..." She yanked open the fridge door. "Can pile the Tim Tams on a plate. You can do that can't you?" She eyed me. I must have looked bedraggled. "Hmm. Maybe not. Still chocolate biscuits fix everything!"

Now that was probably going to be engraved on Adrianna's gravestone. Though blonde, tattooed, and skinny as any surfer chick, she ate chocolate by the truckload.

Jug boiled, coffee made, biscuits piled, we sat down at the dining room table.

"Tell me all." Her instant sad face resonated within me. "Tell Auntie Adrianna and I'll make it all better."

We'd stopped moving, stopped talking. The activity had made the immensity of my feelings go away for a while.

I was alone in my house. How could that be? The table, the floor near the chair he used to sit in, even the sound of the surf outside reminded me of our month together when he'd made me his slave. Not fantasy slave. Not pretend. Real. Now he'd gone. Was it me?

I searched through memories. Was it the party? I remembered very little toward the end but I had a feeling something jarring had happened. What, though? I must have done something wrong and yet somehow Klaus thought it was his fault. The weight of all this seemed to drag at my body, at my face. All I wanted to do was to crumple to the floor and cry. Maybe I could go beg him to take me back. But the note had been so final.

How could he do that? Cutting us apart so easily, like it had been nothing. I wanted it back. I wanted to be his again.

Was I mad?

Yes, probably.

"Jodie?" She gently touched my hand where I rested it on my coffee mug. "That bad? Things get better, ya know? It won't last. Never does. You'll get over him."

I eyed her. She didn't know a thing. I couldn't tell her anything that wasn't a lie. So I smiled a lifeless smile, the best I could summon. "Thanks. I know. Thank you for coming."

I was thankful. People who were friends like this counted. But not enough. So I tried not to show how alien she seemed to me, and we chatted about nothing for a while. Then I shooed her away with promises that we'd get together and do something soon-dance club, girls night out, invasion of Cuba, whatever.

I went back to bed, but at least this time I read all of his note. I didn't cry, I was too disconnected to cry. None of this was real.

But I put the sim card back in my cellphone like he suggested. I checked out what subdrop was on the net. Huh. Yeah, I sure had all those symptoms.

I was cold, lonely, dead inside, but I didn't need any of the suggested treatments. All I needed was him. So I speed dialed his number and got nothing. No answer. Texting was the same.

Baxter meowed at me and I shot him a sour look. Had I been left this menace purely to get me to live? I wouldn't have been surprised. But I trudged into the kitchen, opened a sachet of food and poured it out. The cat food reminded me of eating. Baxter liked the stuff. I sniffed it.

As some sort of weird revenge against Klaus for abandoning me, I put a spoonful in my mouth. Uck.

I spit it out in the sink then leaned over with the water running, rinsing my mouth and spitting for the next minute.

"Fuck you, Klaus," I muttered, arms propped either side of the sink. "Fuck you to hell and back."

Damn. If he was here, I would've been caned for that.

I wished so much he was here.

The first tear rolled down my cheek. Stiffly, angrily, I wiped it away but another followed like some stupid product rolling off an assembly line.

"Go away," I growled at my tears. "Go away!"

They kept coming, filling my eyes, dripping into the sink, wetting my chin, my shirt.

At last the sorrow broke through and I sobbed out loud. I stayed there for ages, crying into the sink, then I gave in and folded up, sliding my back down the cupboard and sitting on the floor with my head hanging in my hands. The tears filtered through my fingers like rain.

"Why didn't you at least talk? Why?" The words echoed in my head.

They were plastic words that meant nothing, but I kept saying them when the tears choked me up so much that I stopped crying. Then I gripped my jeans hard until I hurt the flesh underneath. No one heard me crying and asking inane questions except the cat, who lay next to me in a curled-up bundle, purring his little heart out.

When I finally ran out of tears, I sat staring at the floor until the daylight went.

I heaved myself to my feet. Dark outside, mosquitoes were whining, my body was one huge, hot, prickly balloon. It seemed too big, as if my fingers were too far away and not mine. I shivered. Tired, so tired. I should eat.

I washed my face, stuck my head under the tap, and wiped my wet hair with a towel. Then I went back to bed. Being hungry seemed a good punishment.

I drifted off.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Klaus *

Tuesday, one of her friends, Adrianna, phoned to say Jodie was shaky but good. Shaky? I fended off her questions and hung up when I could. They could think what they liked. If I said too much it might contradict whatever story Jodie made up.

The "shaky" description had me googling again though. Never, never trust your first google. Subdrop could last for days. I'd known friends with long-term depression. How could I tell if this was worse than a fleeting problem? I doodled holes in the notepad on my desk for a while. I couldn't, could I? Not the way I'd severed all ties.

Half wondering if I was justifying something I longed to do anyway, I answered one of her emails.

If you need me for anything, Jodie. You can text me or email. Just nothing physical, though. No meeting. No chats online. Would you like to do that?

I waited nervously for her reply, checking my inbox every fifteen minutes until I saw her answer.

Yes. Thank you.

Those simple words sank into me like a stone settling to the bottom of a pool. My mind went quiet. I could have kissed the laptop screen.

I wasn't sure what I'd been afraid of...that she'd suicide? Maybe. Guess I had. Guess I needed this contact as much as she did. Without it I'd be wondering what she was up to.

Her next email was simple, and one word: Why?

It took me an hour of typing and deleting a long and complex answer several times, before I gave in and mailed off my reply.

I'm afraid I will hurt you. I did hurt you at the play party.

Her answer arrived later that night.

Not really. No more than I liked. The party was amazing. If I did something wrong, please *please* tell me.

I read it over and over. She was still confused about my reasons. It seemed as if she'd forgotten what Kat had almost done to her. The terror on her face had been real. I knew it had. Should I bring it up if she'd forgotten? What justification did I have for such cruelty? None.

So I answered in general terms again. I told her, I stressed, that she'd done nothing wrong.