“I’ll start at the beginning. I’ll start with what really happened with Rose. I didn’t abandon her, Melanie. I ended things because she was careless about her limits. And it nearly killed her.”
Mel watched Vanessa take another drink. She was clearly struggling with this. Mel owed it to Vanessa to hear her out.
“I met Rose years ago at Lilith’s Den. We were instantly drawn to each other. We were both deep into the BDSM scene at the time, her even more so than me. She was older and more experienced, which was why I never expected that things could go so wrong…” She trailed off, a distant look in her eyes. “It started as the two of us just having fun together. Then, she became my submissive. And eventually, we fell in love, and she became my girlfriend too. It was the first and last time I had ever mixed love and BDSM.”
Mel felt a twinge of jealousy, but pushed it away.
“Rose was a BDSM junkie. She was always chasing that high. She loved bondage more than anything. I learned shibari for her.”
Mel thought back to her birthday when Vanessa had bound her up in all those knots. It only aggravated her even more.
Vanessa pressed on. “Over time, the things that she wanted us to do together became more and more extreme. There were many occasions when I refused to do something she wanted because I felt it was too risky. But Rose would keep pushing. Sometimes I held firm, but occasionally I gave in.” A wistful look crossed her face. “I’ve never been good at saying no to the people I love. I just want so much to make them happy.”
Vanessa’s words from that night after the fundraiser echoed in Mel’s mind. All these things I do, all the lengths I go to. It’s all to please you.
“There were so many red flags. Rose was irresponsible and reckless from the start. She was always pushing limits in every area of her life and our relationship. She didn’t take things seriously. Didn’t respect my boundaries or her own. But I ignored the signs because I was in love with her.”
Mel couldn’t help but empathize. She knew what it was like to be blind to someone’s faults because of love.
“It’s no excuse, of course. Her safety was my responsibility. I should never have done anything I felt uncomfortable with. But one day, I agreed to do a very complex scene with her. Rose wanted to be tied up, gagged, and suspended from the ceiling. Suspension bondage is not for beginners. By then, I was experienced enough that I felt confident doing something like that. But no amount of experience changes the fact that if anything goes wrong, getting out of all those bonds is a long and difficult process. And it requires an incredible amount of trust on both sides. Which, until that point, I thought we had.” Vanessa stared down into her glass. “But there was something that Rose had kept from me. And I found out about it in the worst possible way.”
Mel watched Vanessa as she gulped down the last of her drink.
“We were at my apartment. In the playroom. I had tied Rose up in a way that immobilized her entire body, and I suspended her from the ceiling, just like she wanted. I was teasing her with a flogger. She had a gag in her mouth which made it difficult for her to communicate. But we had come up with signs for situations like that. Simple signs she could make with her hands, for things like ‘I’m okay,’ ‘stop,’ and her safe word. Rose had given me the okay several times. Everything was going well. Suddenly, she started gasping for air. Like she couldn’t breathe. And she was shaking, and crying, and…” Vanessa’s voice was so quiet that Mel could barely hear her. “I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. She thought she was going to die. And maybe she would have if I hadn’t acted quickly. I took the gag from her mouth and cut her down. I always kept scissors nearby just in case, but I didn’t think I’d ever need them. It took far too long to get her out of all the ropes. Those seconds, they felt like hours. I didn’t know what was happening to her. I called 911, frantic. And I held her until the ambulance arrived.”
The pain in Vanessa’s voice made Mel’s heart ache.
“They took her to the hospital. They treated her. She was fine in the end. But I didn’t know this at the time because I was detained by the police at the hospital. The scene that the paramedics were faced with when
they walked into my apartment must have looked suspicious from the outside. Not to mention all the marks on Rose’s body. The police had questions for me. They interrogated me about my relationship with Rose as if they didn’t believe that I was her girlfriend of two years. They took the fact that I didn’t even know about Rose’s condition to mean that our relationship wasn’t what I said it was. Because I should have known if I was that close to her. It took several hours and a phone call from my lawyer to clear it all up. And once I was released, Rose told me the truth.”
“She’d had asthma her entire life. Serious asthma that had her in and out of the hospital. No one ever thinks of asthma as something that can be life-threatening. But it was for Rose. It almost killed her as a child on a few occasions. It was very traumatic for her. I think those memories are what had her so afraid that day in my playroom when she started to have trouble breathing…” Vanessa gripped her empty glass, her knuckles white. “Rose said that her asthma improved as she got older. She still had to take medication for it daily. And she still occasionally had attacks. But she hid it from everyone, including me. I don’t know why. Perhaps she deliberately kept it from me because she knew that I would never do anything extreme with her if I knew. Or perhaps she was just in denial about how serious her condition was.
“But her secrecy made everything so much worse. She had an inhaler in her purse the entire time. It was on the coffee table, just a few feet from the playroom door. But I didn’t know it was there. And she was too incoherent to tell me about it. It wasn’t just the asthma. All the adrenaline running through her veins seemed to trigger a panic attack, which made everything worse. Not to mention she was already deep in subspace. You know what it’s like when you’re there. How detached you feel from reality, how hard it is to think, to feel.”
Mel knew Vanessa was right about that. It would be terrifying to have something go wrong while in that headspace.
“That incident shook us both to the core. I know in my head that what happened wasn’t my fault, but in my heart I can’t stop feeling like I failed to protect her.” Vanessa’s eyes were wet with tears. But she wouldn’t let them fall. “Rose wanted to keep going. To continue with our life, our relationship, like nothing had happened. I tried. But I just couldn’t do it. Every time I looked at her it was a reminder of how I let love cloud my judgment and nearly killed someone I loved. So I ended things with her.
“She didn’t take it well. She’d show up at all the places she knew I’d be and beg me to take her back. But I couldn’t let it happen again. So I locked that playroom door forever. And I locked up my heart forever. I banned her from all the places I owned, hoping it would keep her away.
“But it didn’t stop her. She kept calling me, begging me to take her back. Eventually, she stopped. I thought that was the end of it. But now and then, for whatever reason, she starts again. The phone calls I keep getting that I never answer? They’re not from work. They’re from her.”
Mel spoke for the first time during Vanessa’s long confession. “Why do you put up with it? You could have changed your number, you could have blocked her. You don’t even answer her calls.” Mel didn’t mean to sound like she was blaming Vanessa, although she likely did. She just couldn’t understand why someone as strong as Vanessa would allow Rose to hold her hostage all this time.
“Because I know her. I’ve seen firsthand the lengths she was willing to go to get me back. It bordered on stalking. So when it stopped, and all that was left was her calling me once in a while? I was relieved. I figured that if this was all I had to deal with I could handle it. And I think there was a part of me that saw it as a kind of penance.”
Mel’s surprise turned into empathy. She knew what it was like to feel the guilt of something that wasn’t your fault. Her father leaving. Her mother’s resentment toward her. Kim’s unpredictable anger. She knew now that none of it was her fault. But it didn’t stop her from feeling like it was.
Vanessa picked up her glass to drink and saw that it was empty. She placed it back down and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Rose ended up escalating her behavior again in the end. The night that she came into The Lounge and spoke to you wasn’t the first time she’d tried to slip past security recently. That night long ago when I came in to see you and ran off after talking to James? It was because she’d tried to get into the club just hours before. I was far too shaken to talk to you for the rest of the night. I never did apologize to you for that.” Vanessa smiled weakly. “It seems silly in comparison now.”
Mel didn’t know what to say. She had no idea that any of this was going on.
“Everything with Rose? It happened years ago. And it took a long time for me to get over it. Initially, I stayed away from BDSM altogether. But eventually, I found myself back at Lilith’s. And since then there have been other women, some of them submissives. And yes, there were a lot of them. I suppose I gained a reputation because of it, which is what Vicki hinted at when she spoke to you. I’m not proud of the way I behaved. But it was all because I didn’t want anyone to get too close. I felt that if I developed feelings for them, I couldn’t trust myself to be responsible. So I cut them loose before they could get too attached.” Vanessa looked up at Mel. “But then I met you.”
Mel’s heart skipped a beat. The sudden affection in Vanessa’s eyes made her resolve waver.
“I never intended to start anything with you. But I couldn’t help it. I was drawn to you. That night in the Scarlet Room, the first time I took you to Lilith’s Den? That was when I realized I was falling for you. And it terrified me. I considered ending things. But I couldn’t stay away.”