The Original Sinners: The Red Years. Tiffany Reisz

      “Eleanor is always joking. Eleanor is never joking. Best to learn that as soon as possible. Care to see the rest of the suite?”

      “Suite?”

      “Eleanor’s earned very posh accommodations here.”

      Søren raised the oil lamp to shine a light on a door to the left of the massive bed.

      “How does one become a top Dominant here?” Zach asked as he walked around the bed to the door. As soon as Søren’s back was turned, Zach took the white garter off the bed and shoved it in his pocket.

      “The same way anyone else would ascend to the heights of her chosen field.” Søren opened the door. “Practice.”

      Zach inhaled sharply as he entered the second room of Nora’s suite.

      “Good God,” he breathed. In the center of the room stood a massive wooden X. Leather thongs were attached to the tops and bottoms of the wood planks—a large-scale cross of her very own. Zach had no doubt what Nora used it for. He’d seen the pit, seen a man lashed to it and beaten until he came.

      Eyes wide with shock, Zach turned his attention to the walls. On hooks and racks, in rows of military precision hung whips, floggers, bamboo canes, crops…a hundred various instruments of torture. On a small table lay an assortment of spreader bars like the one Nora had in her toy bag at home. He opened a drawer and found cuffs and collars, leashes and leads. In addition to the cross was a large examining table, the kind found in a doctor’s office. Except this one came equipped with four-point restraints.

      Søren’s voice came from over his shoulder.

      “Impressive, isn’t it?”

      “No,” Zach said. “It’s appalling.”

      “Really? Such a strong word to describe sensual activities shared between consenting adults.”

      “Hurting people for pleasure? For sexual pleasure?”

      “Holding Eleanor down while she struggled underneath me and begged me to stop…that was beauty.”

      “Rape isn’t beautiful.”

      “But you see, it wasn’t rape,” Søren said, his tone light and conversational. “She enjoyed the struggle, enjoyed feeling overpowered and taken. I take rape very seriously, Zachary. My mother was a rape victim.”

      Zach turned and looked at Søren in shocked sympathy. His distrust of the man wavered.

      “I’m sorry,” he said with sincerity. “That must have been traumatic. For you and her.”

      “It was.”

      “May I ask how old you were when it happened?” Zach asked, trying to find the origin of Søren’s violent sexual proclivities.

      “It happened roughly nine months before I was born. But that is neither here nor there. You seem uncomfortable with women fully owning their sexuality.”

      “That isn’t true. Women have as much right to their bodies and desires as men. Nora accuses me of being a stuffy Englishman and she isn’t far off the mark. But I am no prude.”

      “You say that and yet the thought of a woman allowing herself to be violated appalls you.”

      “Of course it does. There are limits to what’s healthy.”

      “Healthy…interesting word choice. Are you much familiar with the disease leprosy?”

      Zach furrowed his brow at the odd question.

      “No more so than the next man, I suppose.”

      “I mention it for a reason.” Søren began to make a slow circuit of the room. “During my summers at seminary I worked in a leprosy camp in India. There is a disturbing amount of misinformation about the disease. The idea that it is the disease that infects the limbs and causes them to rot and fall off? Pure myth. Leprosy, Hansen’s disease as it should be called, is a disease of the nerves. It destroys the nerves that experience pain. And once the ability to feel pain is gone, then it is a simple matter to burn the hand off while cooking dinner over an open fire, or to step on a small nail and not realize it until a doctor pulls it from a festering wound a week later. There were mornings,” Søren said as he took a whip from its hook on the wall and examined it, “I awoke to the sound of screams. Without the capacity for pain it is all too easy to slumber in peace as a rat chews off your fingers in the night.”

      “Pain is a necessary evil,” Zach said, fighting off the chills produced by Søren’s hypnotic speech. “But still an evil.”

      “Pain is a gift from God. It imparts understanding, wisdom. Pain is life. And here we give pain as freely as we give pleasure.”

      Zach watched Søren’s hand as he gripped the handle of the whip and coiled it neatly. Every movement the priest made was precise, his fingers as deft as an artist’s, his muscles lean and taut as a dancer. And on his face he wore an expression of quiet peace, of intelligent disinterest. A true believer, Zach could tell. But a believer in what? Words from Paradise Lost came to Zach’s mind—“Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.” Somehow, Zach realized, Nora’s priest had found a way to do both.

      “If pain is a sign of love,” Zach said as Søren hung the whip on the wall once more, “then I must love a great deal.” He thought of Grace now, wondered what she would say if she knew where he was, what he was doing.

      Søren’s eyes found his and the look he gave Zach was one of the most profound compassion.

      “I am certain that you do.”

      Zach held the priest’s gaze as long as he could, but the moment grew too intimate and Zach turned away. A good priest, Griffin had called Søren. He was certainly adept at inspiring confessions.

      A mural adorned the fourth wall of the room. Zach picked up the oil lamp and threw light against the familiar monster on the wall.

      “The lesson of the Jabberwocky,” Zach said, studying its line and angles. Søren came to stand at his side. “I saw a book at Nora’s. The Jabberwocky. You, I presume it was you, wrote, ‘Never forget the lesson of the Jabberwocky’ inside it. But it’s a nonsense poem. It has no lesson.”

      “But it does,” Søren countered. “A handsome prince fights a terrible, beautiful dragon and slays him then carries the head home strapped to his saddle. The lesson is obvious. When one is a monster, one does well to beware knights in shining armor. A good lesson for Eleanor.”

      Zach heard the meaning behind Søren’s words. “Nora is not a monster. She’s not perfect obviously. But she’s a good person, and to call her a monster is ridiculous.”

      “You know her that well, do you?” Søren asked, turning to face him full-on. “Before tonight she scared you, didn’t she? Her fearlessness, her brazenness, I’m sure it’s terrifying at first. Foreign to those who lead the proverbial life of quiet desperation as I imagine you do. She scared you with the sheer force of her life and being. But now you look around and think her courage is merely a byproduct of her damage. You imagine I abused her, changed her. And you would save her, as Wesley imagines he can? You would be her knight in shining armor? Yes, before you feared her and now you pity her. I assure you, Zachary, you were right the first time.”

      * * *

      This was her favorite part.

      Nora ordered Michael to lie on his back in the middle of the bed. She pulled out from under the bed a silver spreader bar. She laid the bar, a length of rope and a pair of scissors on the bed next to Michael’s hip. She lit three candles and let them burn on the table next to the bed.

      “Don’t be scared, angel,” she said. “You are completely safe here. You have your safe word. You can stop this at any time. You don’t have to do anything but lie there and take what I give you. Do you understand?”

      Michael eyed the scissors warily.