Pinch Me

Chapter Five

When Rob returned to the hospital, he felt a slight lift in his spirits to learn Laura had already been moved to a private room.

That was quickly dashed when her doctor informed him her memory hadn’t returned.

Rob found her sitting up in bed, watching cable news with the deputy and the barely eaten remnants of her lunch still sitting on her bed tray. The deputy nodded to him and left to sit in the hall, closing the door behind him.

“Hi, Laura.”

She didn’t look away from the TV, where she stared at it, frowning over a commercial for a local landscaping firm out of Venice. “Hi.” The engagement ring sat on the bedside table next to her.

Rob tried not to show his pain. The last thing Laura needed now was to deal with his emotions. He wanted her to focus on getting her memory back.

He pulled a chair up next to her bed and showed her the albums. “I brought some stuff for us to look at. The doctors said maybe it would help.”

Then she pulled her attention from the TV. “Can we talk first?”

“Sure.”

“How did we meet?”

He paused, not sure how to handle this hot potato. “Through mutual friends,” he said, their usual answer to someone vanilla who asked that same question.

He thought she might ask him for more details, but then she started asking about other things and the questions came one right after another.

Where she was from? Florida. Where was her family? Her parents were dead, killed in a car accident a little over a year earlier, and he hadn’t been able to contact her brother, Bill, in Montana. What did she do for a living? She owned a dive shop and charter business, and wrote freelance articles for fishing and scuba diving magazines and websites.

Why, who, what, where—it nearly wore him out until he put it into perspective that she was, essentially, hearing these things for the first time.

Laura finally paused and lay back in bed, closing her eyes.

“I also brought you some clothes. Your clothes,” he said. “I thought it might make you a little more comfortable.” He opened the duffle bag for her. She reached in and sorted through them, finally selecting a T-shirt and pair of sweat pants.

When he offered her his arm to help her sit up she hesitated at first, then tentatively let him assist her out of bed. He helped her to the bathroom, standing back while she locked the door behind her. She obviously wasn’t comfortable having him so close.

He wasn’t used to this from her, someone he’d shared his life and bed with for two years.

Someone who, until a few days ago, had called him Sir.

Someone who had trusted him with her life and safety when they played very edgy scenes.

Someone who had never hesitated—before—to turn herself over to him completely and without reservation.

Once again he had to force himself to remember he was a stranger to her.

She took several minutes to change and when she emerged, he helped her back to bed. The Laura he knew was physically there, but the tangible emotional gulf felt miles deep and infinitely wide.

Laura reached for the photo albums. The first were from her childhood. Rob thought maybe the older memories would return faster, based on what the doctors had told him.

He watched while she slowly flipped through the pages, occasionally asking him for a name or place. Some he knew, some he didn’t. Once they got to the albums with pictures of them as a couple, he told her the stories, trying to relive them for her as best he could. He also had a ton of pictures on his phone, but until he could sanitize the photo album and remove the ones of her in bondage, or her proudly sticking her ass out so he could take pictures of her bruises, he’d hold off showing them to her.

They were halfway through one album when she smiled at a picture of them on a fishing boat. Rob held a large amberjack. Laura used two hands to hoist an impressive grouper.

“Do you remember that day?” he asked.

Laura closed her eyes, deep in concentration. “Something about a ledge.”

Rob didn’t give her any information, made her search for it.

“Maybe a…croaker?” She looked at him, her brow furrowed. He nodded.

Her finger traced the picture. “We were scuba diving?”

“Yes.”

“I know how to do that?”

He forced the smile. “You’re an instructor.”

“Oh, yeah. You said that, didn’t you. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I know you’re overwhelmed.”

That earned him a sad smile. “That’s an understatement.”

She stared at the photo for a few more minutes without speaking. The obvious intensity of her effort was mind boggling. “Something about a lobster.” After several more minutes she finally shook her head. “That’s all I remember.”

He tried to hide his disappointment. She’d been so close to getting it. “We were spearfishing in the Gulf. You shot the grouper, and he went under a ledge, making the loud croaking noise they do when they’re wounded or scared. While you were digging it out, I shot that amberjack and had my hands full. You yelled into your regulator and I turned and you had a hold of the grouper, but a large lobster had backed out of the hole and you didn’t have any hands to grab it.”

“Was that good?”

He laughed. “Well, it would have been if we could have got it. Lobsters aren’t common this far north in the Gulf. It was lobster season, and we had lobster stamps on our fishing licenses. But he got away, baby girl.”

She flinched and looked at him with a suspicious glare.

“What’s wrong?”

“Baby girl?”

That was one of his pet names for her, had been for years. She was his “baby girl,” even though they didn’t do age play, and he could call her that regardless of who was around. In front of vanillas, she’d teasingly call him Fireman instead of Sir. Or Hose Jockey, depending on her mood and whether she was trying to get him into bed. She had a hellacious sense of humor.

But alone, she always called him Sir.

“That doesn’t bring anything back?” he softly asked, hoping his voice didn’t tremble. He tried to remember Singh’s warning, that he had to stay strong for her.

“Not really.” She wrinkled her nose again. “You really called me that? I liked it?”

“Yeah.” He hoped he could choke out the statement without breaking down. “If you don’t feel comfortable with that now, I won’t.”

She slowly nodded. “Thanks.” She returned her attention to the album.

He felt another piece of his tattered soul ripped from him. But if she didn’t want him calling her that now, he wouldn’t.

No matter how much it hurt.

Laura finally shook her head as she stared at the picture again. She was going to ask him more questions when someone knocked on her door.

The deputy entered. “You have another visitor.” An older woman with short blonde hair walked in. It was obvious she made an effort not to react to Laura’s battered face.

“Hi, honey. How are you feeling?”

“Laura,” Rob said, “this is Carol Langhbine. She’s an old friend of yours. She was in some of the pictures I showed you.”

Laura looked at her, feeling something as new memories swirled in the darkness without fully surfacing, but she wasn’t sure if they were true memories, or just things she’d seen in the pictures. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

Rob somehow managed not to swear when Carol entered the room. He’d specifically told her and Steve both not to come to the hospital yet.

Then he spied the tears in Carol’s eyes.

“Excuse us for just a minute, Laura. I need to talk to Carol outside.” He hustled her out of the room and into the hallway.

Carol’s voice barely rose above a tearful whisper. “Oh my god, Rob. She looks horrible!”

Rob had kept both her and their friend Steve away from the hospital while Laura was unconscious. There was nothing they could do for her, and he knew Laura—the old Laura—wouldn’t want them seeing her like that.

“That’s why I warned you not to visit until I told you to.” He struggled to contain his irritation. He’d wanted a chance to sit down with Carol and Steve and fully brief them before having them come in.

Tony and Shayla were different. He knew he could count on them to maintain a strong façade in front of Laura.

And especially to not say anything about their BDSM activities.

Carol, however, was practically family, even though she had no clue about the private aspects of their relationship.

“She doesn’t remember anything.”

Carol looked at him. “Nothing?”

Rob shook his head. “Everything’s a blank. Even me.”

“Oh my god.” She dug a tissue out of her purse and tried to clean herself up. “What can I do?”

“Just put on a smile and come in there with me and talk to her. She needs information and support right now.” He glanced at the clock over the nurses’ station. “And let’s keep the visit short so you don’t overwhelm her.”

He wanted Carol out of there well before Tony and Shayla arrived so he didn’t have to deal with Carol’s hurt feelings about him inviting others to see Laura before her.

Carol sniffled and nodded. “Okay.”

He waited while she went to the bathroom and washed her face. They returned to Laura’s room and Rob pulled a chair next to the other side of the bed.

Carol had been best friends with Laura’s mother since Laura was five. They returned to the old family photo albums, where Carol was able to fill in names and places Rob couldn’t.

Eventually, Laura asked, “Who would want to do this to me? Who had a motive?”

Rob and Carol looked at each other across the bed. Carol found her voice first, something for which Rob felt extremely thankful.

“We don’t know, honey. The police are working on it.”

“I just keep thinking I must have been some sort of horrible person for something like this to happen to me…”

That’s when Laura’s reserve melted and her tears flowed. Rob tentatively put an arm around her, and when she leaned against him, he slipped the other around her and gently held her.

“Laura, whoever did this was a monster. You’re not to blame.”

That proved no consolation. She cried long enough for him to consider ringing the nurse for a sedative. When she finally calmed down he handed her a tissue and Carol brought her a cup of water.

He snuck a glance at the time. It was later than he’d realized, after five thirty already. “Carol, they’ll be bringing her dinner soon and she needs to rest. Why don’t you let me walk you out?”

Carol nodded, leaning in to give Laura one last hug. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

He waited until he got Carol out the door and down the hall toward the elevator. “I think you’d better wait to hear from me before you visit again.”

“What? Why?”

He tried to soften the blow as much as possible. “Because she’s overwhelmed. You saw her. And right now, frankly, I need some alone time with her, okay?” That was partly the truth. “Please?”

She looked sad, but nodded. “How long until we can see her again?”

“Soon.” He hugged her. “You know how she was…is. If she had her memories she’d be holed up at home refusing to see anyone looking like that.” His Laura wasn’t vain, but she hated being around other people when she didn’t feel good.

And she despised what she considered “pity.” There was no way in hell she would have allowed anyone but Rob and Shayla and Tony to see her that soon.

Which was another point. He also wanted to make sure he could get their closest lifestyle friends in to see her. They’d bared more than just their bodies in front of each other in the course of play, but their souls as well. He needed Laura to spend as much time around them as possible in hopes it would jog her memories.

Down in the parking lot, Carol lost her composure.

“Rob, will she get her memory back?”

“I don’t know. I sure hope so.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

He didn’t want to think about that. “We have to wait and see. It’s all we can do.”

By the time he’d returned to Laura’s room they’d brought her dinner tray. She stared at it, looking disgusted.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

He hoped that endearment, at least, would be all right.

Apparently it was because she didn’t flinch. She did, however, shake her head. “Blech.”

That was, he happily noted, directed at the food on her plate and not him.

He smiled. She wasn’t a picky eater, but she definitely had her preferences. “I have a little surprise for you. Some really close friends of ours are bringing dinner for us soon. Your favorite meal.”

A skeptical eyebrow arched. The familiar gesture nearly made him cry.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She replaced the cover over the plate. “Can’t be worse than this slop.”

“Tony and Shayla know your favorites. It’s an Italian restaurant several of us eat at every week.”

Laura’s stomach grumbled. “That actually sounds good. I couldn’t finish lunch. It was horrible. Bland.”

“Did they say you can eat a normal diet?”

She nodded. “I had oatmeal, and then eggs this morning, after I kept the broth down. It hurts to chew is all.”

Rob gave her another sad smile. She wondered if he always looked so sad or if it was due to the circumstances. “I didn’t even think to ask if they were keeping you on a restricted diet when I talked to Tony earlier.”

“Who are they?” she asked. “The people coming to visit.” The older woman, Carol, she jostled a few memories, but they felt like old ones. Very faded, disjointed, like she was a kid when they happened.

At least, she hoped they were true memories and not just wishful thinking on her part as they’d gone through photos together.

“Tony and Shayla Daniels.”

“How did I meet them?”

“You’ve known them for several years. They’re the friends who introduced us. You and Shayla are extremely close. Best friends.”

She felt like maybe he was holding something back but it didn’t feel bad, or like he was lying.

She wasn’t sure how she knew that, or if it was simply more mental gymnastics courtesy of her battered brain.

She opted to let it go for now.

“Why haven’t more people come to see me?” She feared the answer.

“Oh, sweetie. I’ve told people to stay away for now. You were in the ICU, and now…” He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

“Because I can’t remember them anyway,” she quietly said.

He let out a sigh as he nodded. “I didn’t want you to get overwhelmed. And…” She forced herself not to flinch away from him as he reached out and gently stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I knew you wouldn’t want a lot of people seeing you like this.”

“You’re seeing me like this.” She felt an instinctive urge to tip her face toward his hand, to nuzzle against it.

Familiar.

She closed her eyes and hoped more came to her but it didn’t.

For now, she’d settle for that little beacon of goodness in the middle of the inky sea that still comprised most of her memories.

“That’s because I love you,” he said. “You’re my life. Good luck trying to keep me from your side.”

“What about the couple bringing dinner? Would I want them seeing me like this?”

“They’re like family to us. You wouldn’t care what condition they saw you in.”

The door opened again and the deputy popped his head in. “Rob, there’s a couple here to see Laura.”

“Send them in.” He stood to greet them. Laura clutched at the sheet and waited for them to get all the way in.

They did feel familiar.

More importantly, like Carol earlier, they felt safe.

Tony Daniels stood a little taller than Rob and had green eyes, dark brown hair, and a friendly smile surrounded by a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee. Even though he had his hands full of take-out bags, he accepted an awkward one-armed hug from Rob. His wife, Shayla, had hazel eyes and wore her brown hair down past her shoulders.

She also noticed Shayla wore a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm on it. Something about the look of it pulled a wistful pang from deep in Laura’s heart. Her hand flew to her throat again, fingers helplessly fluttering against the empty real estate there.

I need to remember to ask Rob about that.

Tony put the bags down on the bed tray. “We come bearing food,” he joked.

“Thank you,” Laura said. “Rob told me you were bringing dinner.”

Shayla hesitantly walked around the bed to the other side. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. “May I hug you?” she softly asked Laura.

Laura pulled back the sheet and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. Shayla tentatively wrapped her arms around her as Laura did the same.

She heard Shayla sniffle. “I love you so much, sister,” she whispered in her ear. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.”

A wave of emotion Laura couldn’t process swept through her. She let out a sob of her own as she tightly clutched Shayla and they cried together.

Alarmed, Rob started toward the women. Tony stepped in his path and gave a terse shake of his head. He motioned for Rob to follow him out into the hall.

When the door closed behind them, Rob whispered, “Why are we out here?”

“Give them a couple of minutes alone together,” he said, peeking through a crack in the blinds. “It’ll do them both some good. Even if it doesn’t jostle Laura’s memory, she’s obviously reacting to Shay.” He eyed Rob. “And Shayla was about to go crazy with grief, so she needs to let it out.”

Rob tried to look through the same space in the blinds as the women remained motionless, obviously still crying.

Shayla and Laura rarely went a day without talking on the phone. The reason Rob and Laura had an unlimited text plan was due to the tens of thousands of texts the women exchanged every month.

Laura was nearly as close to Leah, Tilly, Loren, and Clarisse, but Shayla and Laura were closer than sisters. When Laura first entered the lifestyle, Shayla had immediately scooped Laura under her wing, both her and Tony offering Laura mentorship and protection from douchetards.

On FetLife, they had each other listed as sisters on their profiles.

That did nothing to soothe the ugly jealously trying to ooze its way through Rob’s soul. Laura hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to him.

Then the ugly jealousy tried to spawn a whole lot of dark, nasty eggs of doubt.

Tony put his hand out and caught Rob’s arm. He waited until Rob finally looked at him. “Women relate differently than we do, okay?” he quietly said. “It’s not a personal statement against you. And she’s known Shayla a few months longer than she’s known you. Try not to read too much into it.”

Rob slumped against the wall. Tony was spooky like that in his ability to read and relate to people. It was one of the reasons people liked him so much, and why his classes in communication and negotiation in the lifestyle were so popular.

“What if she never remembers me?”

Tony’s expression softened. “She will. Just give her time.” He stared through the window again. “The way she looked at you before all this? You are her heart and soul. You will be again. Love like that doesn’t just disappear.”

“I hope you’re right.”

After a few minutes, Tony nodded. “Okay, let’s see if that did any good for either or both of them.”

Laura hated that she couldn’t coax any concrete memories from the abyss to go with the overwhelming emotions swamping her.

The only thing she knew for certain was she did love this woman, and that she was a safe person to confide in.

“I can’t remember anything,” Laura tearfully whispered. “I can’t remember Rob or you or your husband or anything.”

Shayla stroked her hair. “I know. Rob told us. It’s okay. We’re here for you. You’re not alone.”

After a few minutes the men returned. Rob walked over to her while Shayla stepped into the bathroom to blow her nose and wash her face.

“Are you okay?” Rob asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked up when he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to voice his question. “No new memories. But,” she quickly added when disappointment flowed across his face, “it’s like when I met you. I feel something, I just don’t have the memories.”

Before he could step away, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. After hesitating, he draped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.

As she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled, she pictured a laundry room, where she stood holding her face pressed against a shirt she had to put in the wash, one of his, maybe.

She pulled herself from the vision. “It’s a yellow jug,” she softly said, surprising herself.

“What?”

She didn’t want to look up or let go, afraid to break whatever tenuous connection she had with the delicately sprouting memory. “The laundry soap. It’s in a yellow jug.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Tony spoke from across the room. “I once read that the sense of smell is very powerful in anchoring and triggering memories.”

She pressed her face more tightly against Rob’s stomach, against the firm abs that no doubt lurked beneath the fabric, and deeply inhaled again.

Warm, slightly musky, and…

“Coconut?” she asked, mostly to herself. “Coconut body wash.”

She felt him exhale sharply, as if someone had punched him in the gut. “Yeah. Your favorite.”

After a few more minutes, she released him and wiped at her face. “Sorry. That’s all.”

He caught her hands and gently kissed them. “Hey, it’s a start.”

Bitter disappointment coursed through her. “It’s not very much.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Tony cautioned. “Don’t push yourself. They’ll come back when they come back.”

“If.” She looked at him. He was setting the food out on the rolling bed tray table.

He shrugged. “What comes back will come back. We’ll help you make new memories, if that’s what it takes. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You’re a strong woman. Your body is trying to heal right now. I can’t imagine you not getting your memories back.”

Shayla returned from the bathroom, her face freshly scrubbed and devoid of makeup. Laura realized Shayla hadn’t been wearing any makeup when she arrived.

In a flash, the words were out of Laura’s mouth before she knew she was saying them. “Tony, why don’t you let her wear makeup?”

The three of them froze, staring at her. Tony recovered first. “What?”

Laura turned on the bed to face him. She didn’t miss how Shayla was now totally focused on Tony. “You don’t let her wear makeup?” It was more a question than a statement.

Tony’s gaze darted to Shayla before returning to her. “That’s not true.”

“But she has to ask?”

He set down the food container he’d been in the process of opening. “Rob?”

Rob looked clueless.

Tony sighed. “Shayla and I have a very close relationship,” he carefully said. “She asks me my opinion. My opinion is she’s beautiful without makeup. If she wants to wear makeup, that’s her choice.”

Shayla rapidly nodded.

Laura processed that while Tony continued setting out the food. His answer didn’t feel exactly like the truth. Then she got a strong whiff of the dinner and her eyes dropped closed again as she deeply inhaled, her previous train of thought completely and aromatically derailed.

“Eggplant parm,” she practically sighed, the picture of a restaurant’s dining room coming into view in her mind’s eye. “Sigalo’s.” She realized what she’d said. “Is that right? It just popped into my head.” She looked at them.

Maybe Tony is right about the sense of smell triggering stuff.

Everyone nodded. “That’s right,” Rob said. “It’s your favorite.”

Tony handed her a container. “And a batch of their famous garlic knots,” he said, holding up another container. He opened it for her, revealing it was crammed full of the bread.

“Oooh!” She grabbed three and jammed one into her mouth, letting out a soft moan as she carefully chewed. Her jaw still hurt like a bitch, but she would willingly endure the pain so as not to have to eat hospital food. “That is sooo good.”

She didn’t miss how the other three intently watched her as she chewed. “Are you going to eat or let it go cold?”

Shayla kicked off her shoes and settled, cross-legged, on the end of the bed, facing Laura and using the other side of the bed table for her food. “I’ll make you a batch of my dark chocolate Buckeyes and bring them in tomorrow,” she said. “They’re one of your favorites.”

That sounded familiar to Laura, but no memory accompanied it. “What are they?”

“A peanut butter mix covered with dark chocolate,” Rob said. “You love them.”

“Am I allergic to anything?” She didn’t know why that thought emerged out of left field, but something about peanut allergies had suddenly sprang to mind.

“No,” Rob assured her. “You get seasonal allergies sometimes, and sometimes to dust, but nothing serious.”

“Oh.” She dug into her eggplant parm and closed her eyes as she chewed. “This is amazing,” she softly said, her previous thoughts about Shayla and makeup completely set aside in the face of the best meal she’d ever eaten in her life.

That she could remember up until this point, at least.

“I’m surprised I don’t weigh three hundred pounds,” she said after savoring another bite.

Rob smiled, but it looked sad. “You’re out scuba diving many weekends. Or teaching in a pool. Taking care of the boats, hauling scuba tanks, jogging, swimming—you’re pretty active. This is the least active you’ve ever been since I’ve known you.”

“I don’t relax?”

“Sometimes. Not willingly.”

She looked at him as she forked another bite into her mouth and carefully chewed. “Do they have pictures of Italy on the walls? Paintings? No, wait…” She closed her eyes. “Murals.” She opened her eyes again to look at everyone.

They nodded. “You love their murals,” Rob confirmed.

She stared at the food, the tears taking her by surprise. “Why can I remember stupid stuff like laundry soap and restaurant walls and not anything about people?”

The men flanked her on either side while Shayla reached across the bed tray and held her hands. “We’re here for you, sweetie,” Shayla assured her. “Tony’s right. Don’t try to force things. That might make it harder. Go easy on yourself, okay? We’ll be here every step of the way with you.”

“We promise,” Rob said.

“Yep,” Tony echoed.

Laura took her time eating, savoring every bite. It didn’t matter how many times she’d supposedly eaten this dish before. She appreciated every nuance of flavor.

She wished Shayla could spend the night with her there at the hospital. More guilt she wouldn’t readily admit to Rob, but she suspected she’d spent many long hours with the woman, baring secrets and their souls together.

Rationally, she understood she shouldn’t feel that way. The doctors had gone out of their way to explain her memory might return in odd spurts, or all at once, or not at all.

But that she’d had this reaction to Shayla and not Rob unsettled her. It didn’t shake her trust in Rob, but it did make her wonder if Rob didn’t know all the secrets of her soul…before.

It also made her wonder how much she’d confided in Rob…

Before.

And if things in their relationship had really been good…

Before.

…or maybe they’d been better for Rob than her, and she’d never said anything.

She’d have to wait until she could talk to Shayla in private. She suspected the woman likely held many of those clues.

They stayed until after ten o’clock. She started yawning, and Shayla was actually the one who called it a night despite Laura wanting her—all of them—to stay.

Tony and Shayla both hugged her, with Laura eliciting a promise from the other woman to return the next morning to stay with her. Then they left, giving Laura and Rob a little privacy.

She held out her hands to Rob, a little thrill running through her when he stepped into her embrace. She once again buried her face against his stomach and breathed in deeply, hoping for another insight.

Nothing.

She sighed, then remembered her question.

“Did I used to wear a necklace or something?”

She felt his body tense a little. “Why?”

“It feels like I’m missing one. I keep finding myself reaching up to my neck, like I’m used to playing with it.”

She didn’t mind it when he kissed the top of her head. “Yes. Apparently your attacker stole it.”

“Oh.” She felt a keen sense of loss, even though she had no memory of it. Of its own volition, one hand went to the base of her throat. “What did it look like?”

“A lot like the one Shayla wears,” Rob mumbled into her hair. “I got it for you because you loved hers so much. I promise I’m going to get you another one, sweetheart. I will get you another one.”

Her eyes squeezed closed. “He took everything from me. And that, too. How much more, Rob? How much more did he steal from us?”

His embrace felt like a safe harbor in which she could hide from the swirling vortex of a storm she found herself trapped in. “He can’t take our love, Laura. That’s ours, and ours alone.”

The idle thought crossed her mind that she wished she knew whether she was a religious person or not, and if she found comfort in prayer.

Rob wanted to spend the night there with her and knew he couldn’t. He had to go home and take care of Doogie, for starters.

And she needed time alone to process the day.

As he drove through the darkness his mind drifted. To the last time they’d made love.

He never imagined as he’d held her wrists pinned over her head, her legs wrapped around his hips as he slowly thrust, patiently waiting for her to come first, that it might be the last time in a long time.

Their bodies fit perfectly together. As if made to be together. Despite his profession he never dreamed a future without her was something he might have to contemplate this soon.

He could still envision the unfocused look in her eyes, the way her lower lip caught under her teeth, hear her soft gasps at the bottom of every stroke as his cock filled her and he bumped against her clit.

The way she felt when she came, her cries of pleasure as he hurried to catch up and join her.

Nothing had ever felt as right in his life as loving her. Making love to her.

Owning her.

And now…

Now their entire future was a huge, murky if instead of the certainty he’d known not even a week before.

And seeing her battered face, even if she did get her memory back, could he ever bring himself to lay a hand on her again? Even when, before, she would sometimes playfully beg for her daily spanking? When, before, she would tease him if he didn’t leave bruises on her ass after a scene?

Doogie eagerly awaited his return. He walked the dog before stripping and stepping into the shower in an attempt to relax.

Closing his eyes, he turned his face into the stinging spray. Even here held countless memories. Of pushing her up against the wall and fucking her brains out while she begged for more. Or fisting her hair while she gave him a blow job.

Everywhere lay memories of not only her and their love, but of their dynamic. The plastic storage bins of toys and implements under the bed, and his rolling black suitcase in the closet that held rope and implements and other toys and went with them to the club. The tube of lube on the bathroom counter for when he decided to fuck her ass in the shower.

The bottle of soap under the bathroom sink they used to clean their toys.

The matching black leather leash and collar in the bedside table that had never been around Doogie’s neck, and yet were well used. Along with several wooden spoons and bamboo spatulas that would never be used in the kitchen.

Not for cooking, at least.

I just want her back. However I can have her, I just want her back.