Today, another instalment of our erotic read, The Garden of Earthly Delights – and a quick note for those who’ve already read parts one and two:
This online story is very much a work in progress and, to that end, I’ve made a few modifications to the original posts following some great feedback from a few folks over at Goodreads.com. They kindly took the time to give me a bit of help and advice on some of the BDSM elements and made some great observations – which in turn have allowed me to tighten the story up and more clearly push it in the direction I want it to go. (Although I am sure there will still be things that need improvement!)
I hope you enjoy the revised posts – and a big thank you to those who took the time to help me out (you know who you are!). I hope I’ve managed to address the issues raised sufficiently – but I’m sure you’ll let me know if I haven’t!
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS – PART THREE
Grace was huddled on the sofa in her pyjamas and staring mindlessly at the television – she had no clue what she was watching – when the doorbell rang. She froze. What if it was Nick? There was no way she could face him – and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone else, either. She remained still, praying that whoever was outside would go away. The doorbell rang again.
‘Grace, open up! It’s Jack.’
Her heart stopped. He knew. He must do. There was no way he’d be here otherwise. Hell, Jack had never been to her house in the two years she’d worked for him. She was mortified.
‘Gracie, I know you’re in there. Your lights are on, your car’s outside and I can hear the TV. Let me in. Please. Don’t make me fire you.’
Grace hauled herself to her feet, crossed the living room, and entered the foyer. She cracked the front door open, leaving the security chain in place, and peered at Jack through the gap. ‘You can’t fire me for not opening a door. It’s my bloody house.’
Jack’s mouth, or what she could see of it, split into a grin to reveal straight, white teeth. ‘The threat got you up though, didn’t it?’
‘What do you want, Jack?’
His grin faded.
‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’
‘If you’re here for the reason I think you are, you can turn yourself around and go straight back home. I’m fine.’
‘Gracie, we can either talk about this now or tomorrow in the office. I don’t really want to stand out here talking at you where all your neighbours can overhear me but I’ll do it. Although that might be more preferable than having Rita eavesdrop on any conversation we might have at work.’ He had the gall to quirk an eyebrow. ‘It’s your choice.’
‘Fine.’ She fiddled with the lock, unhooked the chain from the slide on the door and swung it open. ‘You’ve got five minutes. Say what you have to. Then you’re going to turn around, leave this house and we’re both going to forget this conversation or speech or whatever it is we’re having ever took place.’ She quirked an eyebrow at him, mimicking his earlier gesture. ‘Got it?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Jack. Say what you’ve got to say and leave. Please. I’m not up to it.’
Jack’s dark eyes searched her face for a moment. ‘Can we sit down?’
Grace turned and led the way to the sitting room. She grabbed the remote, clicked off the television and sat down in her floral wingback armchair. It had been her grandmother’s and really needed re-covering but there’d always been something else ahead of it in terms of things she had to pay for. She motioned for Jack to sit on the sofa before crossing her arms defensively. ‘Talk.’
Jack sat, his tall lean body taking up a good portion of the couch. And then remained silently starting at his hands for the longest time, his dark head bent, looking as if he didn’t know quite what to say. Grace was about to tell him to get up and leave when he opened his mouth.
‘I met Nick about four years ago. He was friends with a guy I played rugby with and we used to bump into each other socially every now then. We used to chat a bit, shoot the shit. I didn’t know him very well, though.’ Jack looked up. ‘Then one day, out of the blue, he turns up on my doorstep saying he needs to talk to me about Tess.’
Grace couldn’t stop her eyes from widening. ‘Your twin sister?’ She’d met Tess a few times when she’d come into the office to see Jack. Despite being his twin, she was a stark contrast to her brother, all ash blonde hair and gun-metal grey eyes. She had Jack’s height, though; Tess towered over pretty much everyone – including most men. From the limited contact Grace had had with her, she’d seemed very sweet and very smart.
Jack nodded. ‘Yeah. She was living a few streets away from me at the time. We’ve always been close.’ His mouth curled up slightly on one side. ‘Couldn’t quite bring ourselves to live in different towns when we finished university.’ He allowed himself a light chuckle before continuing. ‘Anyway, we had our different groups of friends but we still saw each other every day to chew the fat and just generally hang out.’ Jack paused for a moment.
‘I’d known Nick about a year when approached me. I knew Tess’d been seeing some guy for a few weeks but she refused to introduce him to me, saying it was just a fling. She’d been acting a little secretive for a while but we’d never kept things from each other and I had no reason not to believe she wasn’t telling me the full story.’
Grace couldn’t stop herself. ‘What happened?’
‘Nick basically told me that my sister had started to dip her toes into the BDSM scene – that she was playing with a guy who he didn’t trust and he was worried she was going to get herself hurt.’ Jack locked eyes with Grace. ‘I punched him and broke his nose.’
‘The guy he didn’t trust? The guy she was seeing?’
‘No, I punched Nick.’
Grace jerked her head back, startled. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe my sister would do that,’ he raised his hands and air quoted, ‘sick stuff’.’
Grace stared at him. ‘Then what?’
‘Well despite the fact that he was dripping blood all over my floor, Nick still had the intelligence to leave a piece of paper with his number on it on my kitchen table and tell me to call him when I’d calmed down.’
‘I take it you did?’
‘Yeah. It took me a week to come round but when I sat down and thought about it, I was pretty sure he wasn’t lying to me. I called him and asked him whether I should talk to Tess about it. He told me before I did that that I should visit a club he’d started going to so that I had some vague understanding of what she was doing and that, when done right, BDSM wasn’t bad or about beating the crap out of women.’ Jack ran a hand through his hair. ‘He was worried I was going to go off at Tess, tell her to cut the freaky shit, and in the process have her clam up on me for good.’
‘Would you have done that?’
‘Hell, yes. BDSM was totally beyond my frame of reference. I just thought it was a bunch of guys in leather getting off on hurting females.’
‘So you went to the club?’
‘Yep. And I can tell you I have never felt so out of my depth in all my life. The Sanderson pitch?’
Grace nodded her head, remembering how stressed and strung out Jack had been when pitching for the job – his first million pound contract.
‘That was a cake walk compared the trip to that club.’ His eyes wrinkled. ‘Nick had to stop me from running out. But once I’d calmed down and actually started looking and listening to Nick explain what was going on, it kind of started to make sense. He introduced me to a guy who was mentoring him, I don’t remember his name, and the guy flogged his sub in front of me and made her come.’
Grace felt an unexpected stab of jealousy.
‘I can’t say I completely got the psychology but I left the club with a far better understanding of what Tess was into than when I walked in.
‘How did Nick meet her?’
‘Tess?’
‘Yes.’
‘They both started playing around the same time. With them both being new to things, they had a lot in common. They kept bumping into one another, got talking. Became friends.’
Jack paused again. ‘I spent the next two days working out what I was going to say to Tess and was planning on confronting her – I remember it was a Friday night in March – when I got a call from Nick telling me to get my ass over to her place. When I turned up, I found her lying facedown on her bed with her back and legs in shreds. She’d taken the asshole she’d been seeing had back to her house. He’d gagged her and caned her, and she was in so much agony and so terrified she was unable to use her safe signal. The guy finally stopped when she fainted; he panicked and ran out. When Tess came round, she called Jack to come and help her. Which he did. He tried talking Tess into going to the accident and emergency department at the hospital and phoning the police but she was refused and insisted he she didn’t want the authorities involved. And then he called me.’
Grace leaned forward towards Jack. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she said softly.
Jack looked her dead in the eye.
‘Because you need to know that Nick would never intentionally force you to do something he thought you didn’t truly want to. You also have to understand that I’m not going to judge you for the choices you make in your private life. They’re yours and nothing to do with me, regardless of whether Nick’s my best friend or not.’ He reached forward and took both her hands in his. ‘Are you okay? Really?’
Was she? Now that she’d had a chance to calm down, she supposed she was. Listening to Jack talk about Nick and Tess had definitely helped, too. She felt slightly less isolated somehow. Grace looked at Jack and nodded. ‘Yes, I think I am, but …’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Nick to be my client. I think this,’ she struggled to find the right word, ‘situation has made things a bit … messy.’
Jack stood up and grinned. ‘Nice try, sweetheart. You want to mix business and pleasure, you’ve got to put your big girl pants on and deal with it. You’re my best architect and you’re not moving off that project – it’s worth half a million to me.’
Grace glared at him.
Jack laughed. ‘I’ll show myself out. Don’t be late for your client meeting tomorrow. Nick’s in at 10.00am.’
And with that, he was gone.
……
Nick answered his phone on the first ring. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘She’s fine. Whatever you did, it can’t have been quite as cataclysmic as you thought because she still had the inclination to argue with me.’
‘Thank Christ.’ Nick literally felt has entire body relax at Jack’s words. He hadn’t realised just how tense he was. ‘Did she …’ He hesitated. ‘What did she say?’
‘Not much. I did most of the talking.’
‘About?’
‘You. Me. Tess.’
‘Sounds like you said a lot.’
Nick could imagine Jack shrugging at the other end of the phone.
‘She needed to hear it. Listen, you’re going to have your work cut out for you tomorrow. Grace asked to be taken off your project.’
‘I thought she might. What did you tell her?’
‘That she couldn’t allow her personal life to affect her professional one and that she’d have to deal.’
‘I imagine that went down well.’
‘Like a lead balloon,’ Jack agreed. ‘Look, I won’t take her off your job as long as you can both behave like adults but if things start to go south, I’m going to have to. Gracie’s too good an architect for me to lose. If it comes down to her quitting or your dick, you’re shit out of luck.’
‘Some best friend you are.’
‘I’m serious. So don’t fuck it up.’
‘Trust me. I’m not planning to.’
‘Good. And Nick?’
‘Yeah?’
‘If you ever do whatever you did tonight again, I’ll cut your balls off.’
‘Noted. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
……..
Like it? Click here to read part four.