Shit. Shehaskilled someone.“Well, let’s get you some ice cream then. I know a spot.”
Soon, the waitress appeared with the check. Val tried to pay for her meal but I wasn’t having any of it. She was definitely going to try and find a way to convince me she needed to pay for dessert but she wouldn’t. I would fight her for it… Literally.
???
The night was beautiful. The air was crisp, not too hot, and not too cold. After we were handed our ice cream cones, we decided to go for a walk down a path overlooking a small pond. I looked over and noticed she had a dab of mint chip ice cream on the tip of her nose. “Hold still.” I reached into my pocket, pulling out a napkin and wiping it off.
In the moonlight, I could still tell she was slightly embarrassed, but I didn’t care. I just added it to my list of cute things she had done this evening. “So, your darkest secret?”
Val stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at me. “I’d hoped you forgot,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “I’ll make you a deal.” She smirked. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Deal.” This gave me the perfect opportunity to disclose my extracurriculars without fear of judgment. Though, shecouldstill judge me. She was the one who asked.
Clearing her throat, Val seemed to be preparing to give a speech. I sat there, intently waiting and listening to what she had to say, bracing myself for the worst and hoping for the best. “Before James, I was going through a rough breakup and needed extra money.”
Okay, I can take murderer off the table, unless she’s about to disclose she is a hired hit woman.
“Anyways, there was this bar down the street and I had been told they were hiring. I went in thinking I was applying for a waitress position and the owner handed me a drink and pointed to the stage.” She shook her head.
“I never thought I had the body type to be a dancer. I was a bit curvier back then. But there I was, on stage. It was mid-afternoon so there weren’t a ton of people, yet. Those who were there? So supportive. After my song was over, I was invited back a few hours later. The bartender was excited to have an alternative girl in the club. We had fun, some days I even let her pick the songs for me to dance to.”
There seemed to be a ‘but’ to her story. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” I assured her.
“No, there’s more,” she continued. “This specific bar had no rules. It was on the outskirts of town and attracted a lot of creeps. I did a lot of things with complete strangers I wasn’t proud of.”
She paused and her eyes wandered out over the pond, watching the moon's reflection dance on the top of the water as bugs teased the fish beneath the surface.
I sat there patiently as she gathered up the courage to finish her story. “There’s a group of guys who would come in and play pool. I got to know them really well and they would pay me to play pool with them to keep me out of the VIP rooms. ‘You aren’t the type of girl who should be working here,’ they would always tell me. They protected me. One night, one of the guys who always bought me for VIP tried to again and they wouldn’t let him. As I left the bar, he tried to follow me home.”
Damnit.
I wasn’t sure where the story was going to go from here, but I felt nervous. A sense of protectiveness came over me and this was something that had happened years ago.
“Thankfully, I am a paranoid person and am always looking in my rear view – my version of texting and driving.” She laughed. “So I saw him before we even left the parking lot. I wasn’t sure what to do so I sped to the gas station in hopes of losing him. After I had parked, I watched him, and his car of friends, speed past the station. That night I decided I was never going back.”
Relief flushed over me.
“But…”
Spoke too soon.
I glanced over as she licked her ice cream which had started to melt. “From there, I ended up doing some nude and lingerie modeling. One photographer wanted to practice his shibari skills, so we did some fetish shoots, too.”
This information piqued my interest and bolstered my confidence in sharing my story with her.
She continued, “Obviously, I wanted to show off my stuff, but I couldn’t just toss it on social media without risk of people who know me seeing. So, the same photographer introduced me to a fetish website where he shared all of his stuff to gain exposure and book more shoots. It was brilliant. I went home and uploaded my stuff and started to browse all the different types of fetishes and relationships in the community. It was eye-opening.”
I began to choke on air, assuring her I was fine. The timing was horrible and I could tell she thought I was judging her. “Have you ever explored any of your fetishes or experienced a relationship as a submissive?”
Val shook her head. “I tried to get James interested.” She looked away. “So when he started abusing me, there was a partof me who thought maybe I deserved it because I had been wanting the dominant and submissive relationship with him.”
Once the words were out of her mouth, I cupped her chin with my finger and thumb, pulling her face up to look at mine.
“You do understand what he did to you is not what this lifestyle is about, don’t you?”
Sighing, Val’s eyes pierced mine and a tear began to form in the corner of her eye as she seemed to be reliving her past. “My heart understands, but it doesn’t mean my brain agrees.”
Fair enough.I had met others who had experienced various types of trauma, so I knew there were a lot of mental changes a survivor went through.