Backed Redux … Chapter 2

I jerked awake to find dim, early morning light shining through the blinds in front of me. My head felt foggy, disoriented by my inability to move or speak.
 
Oh. That’s right.
 
Maybe Seth was still asleep. Maybe I could slip out of the ropes without waking him up.
 
Seth moved into my line of vision and ripped the tape off my mouth. So much for slipping out of my bonds. “Feeling rested?” he asked.
 
“Not really,” I replied as I stretched my jaw. At some point during the night, he had removed his shirt and jeans. He’d apparently slept only in his shorts, and I’d been completely unaware. I took the opportunity to allow my eyes to linger on his lean, muscled torso.
 
“First I shower, then we talk,” he said.
 
My libido wasn’t the only thing awake. “Can you untie me first?” I said hurriedly. “I really need to pee. I mean it.”
 
Seth rushed back to my side and pulled back the covers. “Oh. Sure,” he said.
 
My arms were numb and I shook them out as I rushed to the bathroom. My legs, though weak, were at least able to support me.
 
When I exited, Seth was hovering just outside the door. Still shirtless. It was hard to tell how ripped he was when he was clothed. He didn’t look like a body builder or anything. But the sight of him in this state was distracting despite the circumstances.
 
“Jesus, do you like to watch or something?” I asked. 
 
“I needed to be sure you wouldn’t run,” he said. A hand on my back guided me gently yet firmly back to the bedroom.
 
“You know, I’m not quite the flight risk you seem to think I am,” I snapped.
 
“And what reasons have you given me to believe that?” he retorted.
 
“Have a little faith,” I suggested. “You haven’t even given me a chance. I mean, you could try taking me at my word.”          
 
“Maybe later,” he said with another chuckle that signaled he was not amused. “For now, it’s back to handcuffs for you. Get on your knees on the bed.”
 
“What the fuck?” I screeched.
 
“I’m trying something different,” he said and tilted his head toward the headboard.
 
My headboard was wrought iron with several vertical bars running along the length of it. Another, horizontal, bar ran along the bottom, while the top was made up of a series of bars in curlicue designs. I’d bought it years earlier, at a significant discount, precisely because of the bondage potential.
 
Seth locked one cuff around my left wrist, then wrapped the short chain around a bar going along the top of the headboard before locking on the other cuff. I could move my wrists side-to-side a few inches, but nothing more.
 
“For someone who has always said that this, quote, isn’t your thing, unquote, you certainly are insistent on doing it,” I spat out.
 
Seth draped an arm over the top of the headboard and leaned in close. “You know what ‘my thing’ is, babe?” he asked. “Not getting cheated out of a small fortune that I worked my ass off for. That’s my thing.”
 
“Worked!” I yelled at his retreating form. “I doubt that. More like you got lucky at a couple of hands of poker!”
 
Seth paused mid-stride and grabbed his knife from the dresser – it was closed now – and stuck it in my mouth. “If you drop this, or I find teeth marks on it, there will be hell to pay. Nod if you understand.”
 
I nodded.
 
And with that, I was more convinced than ever that this was about punishment. I’d been with dominants like him before, and they were all arrogant and insufferable.
 
More background. I’d been a member of the local kink – or BDSM – community for almost 10 years. I’d been out for almost a year, however, due to lack of finances. And a bad breakup. I’d told Seth about my interests when we’d met and he’d looked at me like I was crazy.
 
Maybe we had more in common than I thought.
 
Seth returned, steam still surrounding him, his hips encased in a towel and hair still wet. My focus disappeared, and I nearly dropped the knife. Thankfully, he took it from me before I did. “You’re coming with me,” he said as he inspected it.
 
“I what?” I shrieked. “What are you talking about?”
 
Seth lifted the handcuff key from the dresser and slipped it into one of the cuffs. “I’m willing to bet that our mutual friend has skipped town,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I want you to help me find him and get my money back. In exchange, you’ll get a cut and I’ll help you start over somewhere new.”
 
By the time he was finished, I was free. And he had sounded legitimately reasonable. This wasn’t the fake calm he’d shown me earlier that had barely concealed his rage. He was serious.
 
“What do you mean by ‘somewhere new’?” I asked as I rubbed my wrists. They were raw already and still bore marks from the ropes. “Why can’t I come back here?”
 
“I suppose that’s an option,” he said with a shrug. “I just assumed you’d want to start over somewhere else is all.”
 
Where was the anger? The frustration? Suddenly, Seth was a different person, closer to the person I knew most of the time. “I mean, I do have a life here, you know?” I said. “A family, friends, a job.”
 
“Right,” he nodded. His anger seemed to be making a comeback. “More like you have a mother you can’t stand, a dead-end job which is what? Your third in less than a year? And as for friends, who can you really count on besides Christine?”
 
Two of those things were undeniable, but the third – “I have friends,” I said weakly.
 
Seth nodded toward the bathroom. “Go shower and then pack,” he said. “I’ll make us a quick breakfast, and then – ”
 
“Wait a minute!” I yelled. “Don’t I even get a chance to think about this?”
 
“Sure,” he said, hands on his hips as he advanced on me. “But consider this as well. If I leave you here, it will be chained to the bed and gagged. Maybe I’ll leave your phone nearby. With whatever battery life it happens to have at that point. And then, once you manage to ungag yourself, you get to figure out just how ‘reliable’ the voice recognition is on your phone. If it’s still on. Or you scream until someone – maybe – comes to your rescue. Face it, Dani. I’m your only option here.”
 
“I – I wouldn’t let you do any of that,” I said. My voice shook, ruining the bluff. He would have said it was a tell. “I’d fight you.”
 
“Really? How’s that going for you so far?” he asked.
 
He’d driven me into the corner between my dresser and the wall. I shoved him backward. “Let me by,” I muttered and headed for the bathroom.
 
“I’m just making sure you have all the information you need to make an informed decision!” he called after me.
 
“Fuck you!” I yelled back, and slammed the bathroom door shut behind me.
 
Seth didn’t come after me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I just wanted the entire ordeal to come to an end. And whether I went with him or stayed, that didn’t seem to be an option. So I turned on the water, sat down on the edge of the bathtub and simply cried. Out of frustration, out of guilt, and out of anger that every word Seth had uttered had been true.
 
I hated my receptionist job. I should have been working as a legal assistant or even a paralegal. After all, that’s what I had trained as. But I’d been fired so many times, I had taken the first job I was offered. I was behind on my mortgage and behind on my utility bills. I owned my car, but it needed work I couldn’t afford. Worse, I’d been caught speeding so many times that if I got caught again, I could go to jail.
 
But a new life – with Seth? There was too much uncertainty. I didn’t know where we might end up, or what such an arrangement might look like. Would he keep me in handcuffs all the time? And since when did I object to bondage?
 
Goddammit.
 
I got undressed and stuck my head under the spray to give myself the appearance of having showered. But the towel wasn’t big enough to go all the way around me and not leave me exposed. Add being overweight to my list of problems. I gathered my clothes in a bundle in front of me and rushed back to my bedroom where I closed the door.
 
Seth’s clothes and boots were gone from the floor, but his knife and other detritus remained on the dresser. As I put on clean clothes, I very briefly considered pocketing the knife. But what good would that do? He’d only get it back from me, and I’d end up in worse trouble than I already was.
 
A knock sounded at the door and it cracked open. “There’s eggs if you want some,” he said from the hall. I noted that he didn’t try to peak in. He certainly picked the oddest times to be a gentleman.
 
I pulled a sweater over my head and buttoned my jeans. “You can come in,” I told him. “But I’m not hungry.”
 
Seth slipped inside the room and put his hands in his pockets. Later, looking back, I would realize that this was the moment I decided to go with him. It was the small kindness of privacy – not to mention the thoughtfulness of cooking – that had won me over. Not the threats.
 
“You should eat,” he said softly. “I don’t know when we’ll get another chance.”
 
I pulled a large suitcase down from the top shelf of my closet as if I’d intended to go with him all along. “Is that your new plan?” I asked. “Starve me to death?”
 
“I find that days like this can be extremely unpredictable,” he said. “Best to eat when you have the time.”
 
Unsure I wanted to explore the particulars of that sentiment, I pointed down at myself and the size 18 jeans that barely fit. Fucking women’s clothes sizes. I had size 14 ones that fit better. “I’m not exactly wasting away here. I’ll be fine.”
 
Seth gave a tiny nod, obviously smart enough to not comment on a woman’s weight. “If you have a birth certificate, social security card, and driver’s license, bring them,” he said.
 
Despite the perpetual state of disarray in which I kept my condo, such documents were actually within reach. “Social security and driver’s license are in my purse,” I said and indicated the guest room next door. “Birth certificate is in there.”
 
Seth stepped aside even though he hadn’t actually been blocking the door. “Go ahead.”
 
A short, plastic storage unit with three drawers sat in the closet. In one of the drawers was old family photos I didn’t dare think too much about in that moment. In another was abandoned art supplies for hobbies I was never going to take up again. In the bottom, however, were important papers including the title to my car, mortgage documents, and my birth certificate.
 
“Why do I need this?” I asked as I handed the sheet to him.
 
“I don’t want it,” he said and nodded toward the suitcase. “Put it with the rest of your stuff. And you need it in case we need to change your identity.”
 
“Oh,” I said. He’d said it as if he did this all the time, as if all of this was normal. Maybe it was for him. But it suddenly hit me that I was about to leave everything for a man I barely knew. I pulled some shirts from a drawer, along with a couple of sweaters, and started to cry again.
 
“Don’t expect tears to get you any sympathy from me,” Seth said. “And hurry up.”
 
“I wasn’t expecting sympathy,” I said as I swiped at my eyes. My voice rose as I continued “I’m having normal, human emotions. Remember those? So would you mind just giving me a minute?”
 
“Every minute we spend here is another minute Paul has to get away,” he retorted. “So no, you don’t get a minute. Get your ass packed. Now. Any more delays and I swear on my mother’s grave you will be riding in the trunk.” He turned to leave but paused. “And if you have one of those hooded sweatshirts with one big pocket in front, wear it instead.”
 
I did, in fact, have one of those sweatshirts, but couldn’t imagine why he’d want it. And if I lied, how was he going to know the difference? Shit, he’d know. He’d see it on my face, go through my stuff, something. I threw the sweater I’d been wearing into the suitcase and found the sweatshirt. A few more items went in and then I closed the zipper.
 
Dishes clanged together in the kitchen, and I assumed Seth was finishing up his breakfast. I rolled the suitcase into the living room and found my purse sitting in one of the chairs. Finally, I could get back to my phone, I thought, and started rooting around for it. Meanwhile, Seth returned to my bedroom.
 
“Where’s that – there it is,” I heard him mutter. Seconds later, he emerged with a large gym bag that held all my kinky toys hoisted over his shoulder. It held plenty of rope, some leather cuffs, a couple of collars, floggers, paddles, even two instructional books on bondage “Jesus, this is heavy. Do subs usually have this much stuff?”
 
“A sub is a sandwich,” I told him. “Submissives are allowed to have whatever they want.”
 
Seth shook his head and pointed at my phone. “You’re not taking that.”
 
“What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding!” I yelled.
 
“First of all, I don’t want you alerting him,” he said as he snatched it away from me. “Second, if it’s on, you can be traced by the GPS. If you intend to make a clean break, you need to disappear.”
 
“So keep it and leave it off, but – ”
 
“What would be the point?” he countered. “I’m not going to let you use it. It might as well stay here.”
 
“Why are you allowed to have a phone then?” I asked.
 
He held up the old, flip style phone he’d used for as long as I’d known him. “No GPS,” he said.
 
It was my turn to be incredulous. He was going to say anything to get his way and deprive me of even basic comforts. “And why are we taking my toys?” I asked instead.
 
Dropping it onto one of my chairs, he began rooting through it. He looked impressed. “Some of this might come in handy,” he said. Then he winked and held up a leather wrist cuff. The leather was padded with a red strap over black. “These are actually nice.”
 
One of the many reasons I’m broke, I thought. “I’m aware,” I said out loud.
 
“Besides, in the very likely event that you don’t return, do you really want all this getting into someone else’s hands?” he asked.
 
Honestly, I didn’t care. I wanted to move on to the next step in his plan.
 
“Do you want your mother finding it?” he continued.
 
“No,” I stated adamantly. “No, I do not.”
 
Seth glanced around the place, mostly satisfied that there was nothing else to be done there. “Last thing – do you have any cash lying around? We can stop by the bank later too so you can make a withdrawal. You’ll need cash instead of – Jesus, do you even have any working credit cards at this point?”
 
I had a couple of store cards that I hadn’t dared try to use in months. Otherwise, I had received past due notices on all of them. “Fuck you,” I said. “And I’m probably overdrawn after last night anyway. I ended up spending more than I expected to.”
 
Neither of us moved, but the entire energy of the room shifted then. Whatever fragile peace we had created in the past few minutes had vanished, leaving an angry vacuum. “Where were you last night?” he demanded.
 
“I – I was out with Christine,” I said. “It had been awhile and with payday coming up tomorrow – ”
 
“Oh, you thought there was a payday coming alright,” he snarled and nodded slowly as he advanced on me. “You were celebrating, weren’t you?”
 
I swallowed hard, certain my face would give away any remaining secrets. Tears stung my eyes. “I – I promise that’s not how I was thinking of it,” I said.
 
“No?” he asked, still advancing. I ended up backed against the wall next to my front door. “You didn’t spend the night checking your phone every five minutes, anxious to tell Christine the good news? Tell me, babe – did I enter your thoughts at all?”
 
His tranquil exterior hid a well of rage that anyone farther away than I was would have missed. I hadn’t been so afraid since the previous night. “I told you,” I said. “I didn’t think he’d actually go through with it.”
 
“But you were expecting a call,” he prompted.
 
“Either way,” I told him. “I thought he’d at least let me know what he had decided.”
 
The slap came so fast, I hadn’t even noticed his arm moving.
 
“For all I knew – ” I gulped again and spoke breathlessly as I recovered. “For all I knew, he was going to work with you – make some sort of arrangement.”
 
He hit me again. 
 
“Stop, please,” I whimpered and held my hands up as if in surrender. “Just stop – ”
 
Seth turned away and hoisted the toy bag over his shoulder along with a small duffle of his own that I hadn’t noticed before. “Let’s go,” he said. “It’s actually painful watching you try to lie.”
 
I grabbed my coat, purse, and suitcase and noticed Seth had dropped my phone onto the dining room table. I left it where it was, and nabbed my keys instead. For what purpose, I wasn’t sure. “I wasn’t lying,” I said as I followed him down the hall.
 
Seth paused but didn’t turn. “Then you’re lying to yourself,” he said and continued.
 
We waited silently for the elevator. They had always been slow, but now the wait seemed interminable. Once we were inside, Seth turned to me. “Do you know why I told you about that money in the first place?” he asked.
 
I shook my head. The tears were still close and I didn’t trust myself to speak.
 
Seth chuckled, seemingly amused at his own audacity. “I actually hoped – expected – you to ask for my help,” he said and shrugged. “Even if you didn’t, I was debating whether to offer instead of just disappearing out of town. But no, you had to fuck up everything and do this the hard way.”
 
My heart sank. There was no way I could have known any of that. No way I could have expected his help or counted on it at all.
 
As we reached his car, a recent model black Impala. I glanced across the lot at my own 10-year-old Honda. It had been good to me, and I wanted to say goodbye.
 
“Get in,” Seth said.
 
My attention snapped back to him. He had his trunk open and had tossed everything but my purse into it. There was plenty of room for a body. When I met his eyes, however, he tipped his chin toward the passenger side door. “It should be open,” he added.
 
“Right,” I muttered.
 
I rushed to the side door before he changed his mind and fastened my seatbelt. Seth entered seconds later but didn’t start the car right away. “Put your right hand through the pocket, he ordered.
 
“What? Why?” I sked.
 
“Just do it,” he replied and arched an eyebrow.
 
The moment I complied, he grabbed my wrists and cuffed both of them. The entire process took less than two seconds. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
 
As he started the car and drove out of the lot, however, I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that I would very likely never see my home again. And I had no idea where my next home might be. I turned to stare at the building as it retreated behind us.
 
“It’s better if you don’t look back,” Seth said.
 
He was probably right. I didn’t care. I’m a sentimental sap and nothing he did or said was going to change that. “Now you care about my feelings?” I asked.
 
“Consider it some helpful advice from someone who’s been there more than once,” he said. “Otherwise, no, I don’t particularly care about your feelings right now. You’re basically a bounty to me.”
 
“A what?”
 
Seth sighed loudly and ran a hand through his hair. Whatever followed was information he was reluctant to share. I’d seen that look on him plenty. “When someone skips out on bail, someone has to go find them and bring the back,” he explained. “I’m one of those someones. I’ve had to go after our mutual friend here twice before this.”
 
That’s how they knew each other, I realized. And it was legitimate after all. “You gonna turn me into the cops at the end of all this then?” I asked.
 
“No. That is not an option,” he stated.
 
I glanced over at him, blinking. There was only one explanation for that, and I was going to make him say it. “Where did that money come from?” I asked.
 
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
 
“Oh my god!” I exclaimed, laughing. “I was right, wasn’t I? It was poker, wasn’t it?”
 
“Let it go, Dani.”
 
“No, I won’t,” I said. “Because you want to act all holier than thou, like you’re better than me, when I know for a fact you make your money off gambling and beating people up!”
 
We had reached the highway and were headed north, toward downtown. We had missed the worst of rush hour, but traffic was still heavy. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “You know very little about what I do, and that’s by design. All you need to know is that I don’t lie, and I don’t cheat. I came by that money honestly.”
 
“You’re a fucking hypocrite is what you are,” I countered. “You made it sound like – like – ” I struggled to remember what exactly he had said. “Like it was payment for some sort of services or something. Not that you told me what those services were of course.”
 
A wry grin emerged, and Seth tipped his head in a slight shrug. “Depends on your definition of services.”
 
“You’re a liar too,” I said. “And that’s why you can’t bring in the cops. Because you shouldn’t have that money either.”
 
“You’re in no position to judge me, missy,” he said. “I worked for that money. What did you do? You batted your eyelashes at some criminal.”
 
Either way, we had both gambled. And the only difference to our actions was that he could justify what he had done.
...

Author notes - 
Once again, I enjoyed finding the small kindesses. And as Dani says, it's those actions that make her want to go with him. 
One of the additions was Seth's realization that Dani had been celebrating the night before. Whether she thinks of it that way or not, I love that he calls her out on it. And despite her fear of him, she calls him out in the car. This is a pattern for them that really shows itself well as the books progress - no matter what, they can say anything to each other. It was fun to be able to highlight this pattern from the beginning.