Work Text:
Hit Me Once
by Aramae
Author's disclaimer: Not my characters, not my copyright. Just borrowing them for awhile.
ain't for you! Thank you, thank you and thank you again to my amazing beta reader and friend Thalasia, for help with this story and for holding my hand.
Hit Me Once
by Aramae
I can tell Blair has something on his mind the minute I walk in the front door. He stands at the counter hacking vegetables into tiny bits while safflower oil heats in the wok. He has the phone wedged painfully between his ear and his hunched shoulder. Although one of the first things he does whenever he gets home is take off his shoes, he's still wearing two battered brown loafers. Little bits of fallen cabbage decorate them. Over the loud grunge music blasting out of the stereo he berates the unfortunate telemarketer who has interrupted his dinner preparations.
"Four times I've asked to be put on your 'do not call' list," he says angrily. "Do you guys even read it?"
He looks at me, acknowledging my return home, but keeps right on with his scolding. "Do you know a man in Los Angeles won a lawsuit against a company just like yours because they refused to stop calling? I'm keeping documentation, man. Stop calling me."
Blair slams the phone down and starts off on a tirade. "I worked as a telemarketer once, you know, had to do it because I was low on money that semester, but I was considerate, I never called during dinner, I always checked the lists, I don't know where these people get off doing what they do, you know?"
"Bad day?" I ask quietly.
"No, it was a fine day." Blair savagely halves a head of broccoli and works on reducing it to a pile of green slivers. The only thing bigger than the knife he's using would be a machete. Convinced that he's about to chop off a finger, I nearly zone on the blur of the silver serrated edge.
"How about you?" he asks, almost an afterthought.
"Fine." I stand watching him, trying to think of way to diffuse his anger, but I'm not in the best mood, either. Ten hours of making phone calls and typing reports has left a crick in my neck and pain in my wrists. All day long I'd been looking forward to a quiet evening with my lover, and I don't really have the energy or inclination to deal with his bad mood. Call me selfish, call me human. "Can I turn the stereo down?"
"Huh? Yeah, if you have to."
I drop the music to a more acceptable volume. Upstairs, in our bedroom, I pull off my clothes and slip into sweats and a T-shirt. A little voice nags at me to go to the gym - I haven't been there in a week - but instead I stretch out on the bed and put a pillow over my head. Even through the goose down I can smell broccoli, carrots, cabbage and snow peas cooking. Blair adds soy sauce. No, tamari. Vegetable stock, rich and thick, hisses as he pours it into the mix.
A few minutes later he yells that dinner is ready. I consider just staying where I am. Hunger helps me decide. Blair snaps off the stereo, leaving me with a few seconds of enjoyable quiet, but then he turns on the TV. By the time I go downstairs, he's sitting cross- legged on the floor with a plate in his lap, watching the evening news and making comments on every single story.
"Who voted for this jerk, anyway?" he says as a congressman speaks at a news conference. "The whole electoral process is so screwed up."
After a story about a house fire: "I bet those people never even checked their smoke alarm batteries. And ten-to-one someone fell asleep smoking in bed."
The weatherman appears. "This guy's always wrong," Blair announces, jabbing his fork toward the screen. "They should fire him and get somebody who's actually competent."
Who is this obnoxious, wound-up stranger who's replaced my normally calm Blair? I sit on the sofa with my own plate and watch him. He looks identical. Has the same voice. Is wearing the same earrings Blair put on this morning, little silver hoops with bits of hematite and turquoise on them. I bought him those earrings last year when we took a vacation to New Mexico.
"Chief, are you sure you had a good day?"
He doesn't even look at me. "I'm fine."
Liar, liar. But I'm not his mother. I'm not here to coddle and fuss and make things all right. If he wants to be in a bad mood, let him. Most people think Blair expresses his anger freely and quite verbally. I've been with him long enough to know that's not always the case. Sometimes he lets things burrow deep and fester. The only thing to do is wait out the storm until he's ready to talk. Luckily, I can wait just as easily at the gym. I go upstairs and pack my sports bag.
"Where are you going?" he demands, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, Alex Trebek has just appeared on the seven- thirty episode of 'Jeopardy.'
"To go work out," I answer, trying to sound even-handed and calm.
The tightness in his expression slips. "Don't go," he says softly, and puts his hand on the handle beside mine. He looks suddenly afraid and vulnerable. "I'm sorry I've been acting like a jerk."
I gently tug the bag back toward me. "I won't be long."
"I'm sorry. Something happened at school today, and I need your advice. Please stay." He kisses my cheek and rests his head against my shoulder. Coyly he promises, "I'll give you a foot massage."
Oh, well, that's different. I'd put up with a month of bad moods if I got a foot massage each night. He turns off the TV and we sit facing each other on opposite ends of the sofa. He lets me have all the comfortable cushions and then starts rubbing my feet with some non-scented oil.
"Jim, tell me something," he says, his eyes focused on his task, his hair falling across his face. "Would you ever hit me if you thought I needed it?"
I frown at him. "You mean, if you were hysterical or something? Would I slap you?"
"No. More like . . . would you hit me if I broke one of your house rules?"
I pull my feet away. "What kind of a jerk do you think I am?"
"I don't!" His eyes, wide and blue and pained, meet mine. "It's a hypothetical question. I know the answer. I just want to hear you say it."
"Hypothetical but not rhetorical," I grumble. After a moment, I let him have my feet again. Blair is wonderful and extraordinary and sometimes a little offbeat in his thinking. Wherever he's going with this conversation, I'll just have to follow. But not if he starts questioning me like I'm some sort of big jerk.
"I would never hit you if you broke a house rule," I tell him firmly. "Some parents spank their children, but I don't agree with that, either."
"What about people who hit their wives or husbands?"
"That's assault."
"What if the wife or husband consents?"
"You can't consent to assault," I say. "And anyone who would consent is, in my opinion, ready for therapy."
"Jill Palmer's husband hits her. Spanks her."
Jill is another grad student and teaching assistant at Rainier. I met her once when I picked Blair up after a faculty party. Tall, willowy, short blonde hair. Good-natured, intelligent. Not the type to let her husband hit her. Of course, there is no real type. Victims of domestic violence run the gamut from physicians and authors to strippers and prostitutes. I haven't met Nathan Palmer, but I think he's a software engineer who works at some big firm.
"Maybe it's kinky sex," I say, just as Blair's talented fingers reach my right little toe. He soothes and stretches the small nub, and I'm in heaven.
"No, it's not kinky sex," Blair says. He adds a small smile. "Some of the stuff we do, that's kinky. Very kinky. But that's sex, man. People will do all sorts of things during sex, I know that."
His smile fades. "But he hits her if she spends too much money on groceries. If she talks too long on the phone with her mother. If she doesn't clean the bathroom every Sunday morning. Jesus, Jim, is that fucked up, or what?"
"It's fucked up," I agree. "How did you find this out?"
"We had a staff meeting this morning. There's always more people than chairs, and by the time she got there, it was standing room only. I tried to give her my seat, but she wouldn't take it. Then Professor Hodgkins left for class, and she wouldn't take his seat, either. I just started watching her. She looked like she was in pain, and she had a bruise on her wrist like someone had grabbed her. So, after the meeting, I asked her to my office and I confronted her."
"And she told you everything?"
"She said she appreciated my concern but it wasn't anything to worry about. Nathan and she have an arrangement. She calls it - get this - 'domestic discipline.' He makes the rules. She follows them. If she breaks them, he hits her. She says 'spank,' but it's the same thing, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's the same thing. Just the location differs."
"Jim, this woman is a Ph.D. candidate. She's smart and funny and one of the best anthropologists I've ever met. How can she let him do that to her?"
My sweet, adorable lover. He wants an answer to a question that has bedeviled police officers, social workers, worried friends, pained family members, and society at large. He knows from riding with me that at least half the calls to 911 during the night shift are domestics. "You tell me," I suggest.
Blair shakes his head. "I don't know. Economics? He makes most of their money. Self-esteem? I never saw a lack of it in her. Fear? She doesn't seem afraid of him. She acts like she's happy . . . I don't know, I'm just really confused."
I take his hands and hold them. "She's a victim, Chief, whether she realizes it or not. For some reason, she stays in a relationship with a man who physically hurts her if she disobeys him. Think about the kind of man who would do that - controlling, egotistical, abusive. I may be two out of the three, but I would never hit or humiliate you like that."
"Oh, Jim, I know that," he says, and kisses me firmly on the lips. His hands cup my head. "Besides, you're only one of the three."
I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him into my lap. For several minutes we kiss and grope and undress each other. I don't know which one of us is more needy for affection tonight, which one hungers more for the other, but I don't care. This man is my life. He fills a hole in my heart that I've been carrying forever. I may be nothing more than a sentimental middle-aged cop with a receding hairline, but I love Blair Sandburg with all my heart.
"Jim," he murmurs in my ear, his breath hot, his jaw coarse with stubble, "make me forget all my questions."
His nipples press against my chest, sizzling little peaks of flesh that I want to lick and suck and tease. I lift him and lay him down on the broad, firm cushions. Good thing we bought this huge sofa with the stain-proof covering. He looks up at me with dark eyes, his lips soft and wine-red, the flush in his cheeks and rising of his cock more than ample evidence of his arousal.
"You love me," he murmurs.
"And you love me," I whisper back.
By the time we're through, he's a sleepy, sweaty, limp bundle of Blair lying blissfully in my arms. I'm completely drained and extremely content. Not even the smell of stir-fry left in the wok bothers me. I snag the blanket folded on the corner of the sofa and pull it over us. The Cascade skyline glows beyond the patio doors.
"Chief?" I whisper.
"Yeah?"
"I should go talk to Jill tomorrow."
He stirs slightly, turns his head to look at me. "Do you have to?"
"I'm a police office aware of a crime." I kiss his temple.
"She won't press charges."
He knows as well as I do that Washington state law allows for the prosecution of a wife abuser whether the wife presses charges or not.
"Talk to her," he says at last. "Maybe you can get her to see the light."
I'm standing outside the anthropology building at ten o'clock the next day when Jill Palmer exits and sees me. She's wearing a bright green skirt, a silk blouse with long sleeves and expensive gold jewelry. Her expression tightens but she doesn't move in the other direction as I approach.
"Detective Ellison," she says crisply.
"Last time it was 'Jim,'" I remind her.
"Last time you weren't here in an official capacity," she replies. "I asked Blair not to share with anyone the details of our private, very personal conversation. He obviously did."
"He's worried about you," I say. "Can we talk?"
She's not happy about it, but she sits with me at a stone picnic table set out under the trees. A group of students play Frisbee nearby. Others study, preparing for spring finals. "I'm here because Blair is concerned about your safety and well-being," I tell her. "You know him well enough to realize how much he cares about his friends, don't you?"
"His concern is unfounded," Jill replies. "I'm fine. What happens between Nathan and me is our own business, no one else's."
"What happens between you?" She doesn't answer, so I try again. "All I know is that he hits you, Jill. Tell me your side of it. Make me understand what's going on here."
She shakes her head. "You won't understand. You're a police officer. You think women in my position are victims of abuse. I'm the last person who would put up with anything like that. And I won't let you take anything I say and turn it against him, like he's some monster or criminal or something."
"All I'm looking for is the truth. If you're in trouble, I want to help. If you're not, then I'll go away and never mention it again."
She stares at me for a long moment. Finally she says, "Nathan and I are in a long-term, committed relationship built on values, trust, respect, reward and punishment. Let's leave it at that, okay?"
It's not okay. It's not okay because I can see the bruises under the cuffs of her sleeves where someone held her tightly. It's not okay because when she sat down, she gave out a tiny hiss that only a Sentinel could hear.
"Nathan punishes you," is all I say.
"Nathan loves me and respects me. He knows me better than I know myself. He cares so much about me, Detective Ellison, that he finds the courage to correct me when I'm wrong. Does that make sense to you?"
"Not exactly."
She gives me a small, bitter smile. "I told you that you wouldn't understand."
"I understand that he sets rules. If you break them, he punishes you hard enough to leave bruises and cause discomfort."
"The discomfort helps me remember that I was wrong. Bruises fade, just like hickeys do. Nathan would never injure me. He's not that kind of man."
He's the kind of man who would lay a woman over his knee and spank her for disobedience. He's the kind of man who's managed to brainwash this reasonably intelligent young woman into believing she needs to be corrected. Nathan Palmer makes me ashamed of being male.
"Do you spank him?" I ask.
"What?"
"When he breaks your rules?"
Pink spots rise in her cheeks. "It doesn't work that way."
"So you're not equals. It's a one-way street."
"Of course we're equals," Jill says immediately. "We're married. We're partners. We're fifty-fifty on everything."
"Except this part."
"This small part," she emphasizes. "Don't you ever want to give up control, Detective? Don't you ever want someone else to make the decisions for you? To help you set limits and live within them?"
For just a moment, I understand a fraction of what she believes. Of course there are times when I want to give up control. When I'm so tired of making decisions that I want Blair to make them, instead. Who doesn't want to abdicate responsibility every now and then, to be a child all over again? But I'm not a child, and neither is she. Being an adult may suck sometimes, but with adulthood comes maturity and self-worth and independence.
I realize Jill Palmer wants to be her husband's child, not his equal or partner. She speaks of this 'lifestyle' with the same calm, quiet sureness I've heard from cult members. People get pulled into cults because they want someone else to make their decisions, crave instant solutions to problems or lack the autonomy to structure their own lives. Cult members also tend to believe they're right when the rest of the world is wrong, and some will blindly follow their leaders to the grave.
Sitting at the table under the trees, Jill sees something in my face that tells her I'm not buying her story. She gathers up her books and rises. "Tell Blair I'm touched that he cares so much. I don't need his help, though, and I certainly don't need yours. Think of me what you will, but I don't go around making judgments about other people's lifestyles the way you do about mine."
"That's what you think this is about? A moral judgment?"
"How could it be anything else?"
Her self-righteousness is annoying. She's the victim, I remind myself. I throw in a ball from left field. "Do you plan on having children, Mrs. Palmer?"
"That's none of your - "
"Because I'm just wondering if you'll let him punish them the way he punishes you. When your son is five or ten. When your daughter is fifteen. Will you let him beat your children?"
She whitens with shock and anger both. "I would never let Nathan beat our children."
"But you let him beat you," I say, and the conversation ends as she walks away.
Carol Lee Sutter snaps a lobster claw into two. "Sounds like you've got a friend so busy looking at pretty toilet paper that she doesn't realize she's standing knee-deep in a shithouse."
Carol Lee, Blair and I are dining at Angelo's on a Thursday night. Sawdust and clam shells litter the floor. Red vinyl tablecloths cover the long plank tables, and fishing nets and ceiling fans hang from the ceiling. The padding on the bench beneath me has seen better days. A strong breeze off the bay blows through the open windows, smelling like salt and oil and pollutants. The good music, cold beer and cheap food make Angelo's my favorite seafood restaurant in Cascade. Carol Lee, in town to visit her mother and stepfather, has let me buy her dinner.
"So you think she has a problem?" Blair asks.
"Hell, yeah. Any woman or man who'd let themselves get hit for spending too much money or talking too long on the phone has got a problem." Carol Lee scoops lobster meat out of the claw, dunks it in butter, and pops it into her mouth. She's petite and pretty, about fifty years old, with a twang thick enough to rope cattle. For thirty years she's been a victim's advocate in the state of Texas, one of the least enlightened places in the United States when it comes to the plight of battered women.
Blair has just met Carol Lee. He doesn't know quite what to make of her cowboy hat, blood-red fingernails or rather direct attitude. "Have you heard about this so-called domestic discipline?"
"Call it what it is, sonny," she barks at him. "Corporal punishment. Spankin', hittin' and beatin'. I make your decisions, I control your life. Disobey me, and you get a lickin'. Sad, ain't it?"
"But you know about it," he insists. "You've met women like Jill."
Carol Lee rips another claw from the lobster on her plate and cracks it open. She's already gone through a dozen steamers and a basket of clam strips. "Sure thing. Women and men both. I had a nephew who let his lover whip his butt if he did wrong. Took him years to wisen up and get the hell out of Dodge."
"At least he got out," I say, signaling the waitress for more beer.
"Hell, sometimes I'd pay money for someone else to make my decisions." Carol Lee extracts more meat and soaks it in butter. "Wouldn't it be grand to have all the freedom of being grown-up, but none of the responsibility? Life ain't like that, though. Take a girl like your friend Jill. She's backed herself into a trap, though she doesn't see it yet."
"What trap?" Blair asks.
"The more control you give a man, the more he takes. The more he gets, the more he wants. One day she might wake up and think, "Hey, I'm sick of being spanked, I want to talk out our differences like reasonable adults." But that's not an option anymore. It's now a condition of the relationship - he says, we do it my way, or I'm out of here. Emotional blackmail. It usually works, too, because by then, the poor thing's so dependent on him that she can't face being an adult on her own anymore."
I tell Carol Lee my cult theory. She's not as impressed as I'd hoped she would be. "I don't know much about cults," she says, "but some people have a mighty big ability to deny what's right in front of them. I've seen women stand up in court and defend men who've beaten the shit out of 'em. I've seen 'em rationalize abuse from here to the moon - "He loves me, he's smarter than I am, I deserve it, I'm lucky he cares so much." Makes me want to vomit."
Blair studies his beer. He doesn't like thinking of Jill as an abused wife. He doesn't like thinking of Nathan, whom he previously respected, as an abuser. Since becoming a police observer he's had to deal with a lot of ugly aspects of our society, but I don't think he ever expected to find some so close to home.
"What can we do to help her?" he asks.
"Be her friend," Carol Lee answers. "Don't criticize her choices. This isn't "Hit me once, shame on you; hit me twice, shame on me." At the same time, don't downplay the danger she's in, either. Let her know there are people who can help her. Be there on the day she wakes up and smells the coffee."
"I can do that," Blair says confidently.
"Don't be so sure," Carol Lee says. "It's harder than it sounds."
The next few weeks fly by. I'm inundated with cases at work, including the murder of a high-priced prostitute with ties to city hall. Blair comes in when he can, but he has to give tests, turn in grades and attend to his own studies as well. He's stretched in all directions. We're both cranky, tired and in need of a weekend getaway. Once I solve my murder and he finishes the semester, we make reservations for a picturesque Victorian inn down the coast that's known for being friendly to same-sex couples. I ask for the room with the double whirlpool tub and garden view.
We're supposed to leave Friday afternoon. In the morning, I go down to the D.A.'s office to prep for a case in which I'll have to testify on Monday. Blair goes to Rainier to finish some paperwork for the summer session he's scheduled to teach. I make it back to the loft before he does, and I've just finished hauling the last of our suitcases down to the truck when he drives up. He looks pale and shaky.
"What's the matter?" I demand, leaning on his door, sniffing for blood or injury. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he says. "Let's go upstairs."
The story pours out of him as he paces around the living room. He'd no sooner arrived at his office when one of his freshman students, Carrie Osborne, showed up with the black eye and two loose teeth her boyfriend Mike had given her. Blair attracts female students by the dozens, so I'm not surprised she turned to him for advice. After listening to her story and handing her tissues, Blair walked her over to the campus counseling center. Rainier has a trained staff to deal with rape, abuse and other situations. That the university even needs such a service is a sad commentary on our times.
"Before we got to the center, I asked her if she'd told anyone else about Mike," Blair says. "She said she talked to Jill Palmer a few weeks ago, didn't give her the details, just asked her advice about what to do if a guy hits you."
Anger rises in my chest. "Let me guess. Jill told her it was okay if the guy loves you and respects you."
"No. That's the first weird thing, okay? Christine said Jill told her it was wrong for a guy to hit a girl like that. Jill even urged her to go to the counseling center, but Christine wasn't ready for it."
My anger turns to confusion. "So what was the second weird thing?"
Blair takes a deep breath. "The second weird thing is that a few days after that meeting, Christine found out that Jill runs a web site for corporal punishment. Apparently a lot of the students know about it."
"A what?"
He opens his laptop, plugs in the modem and boots up. When he types in the address, his fingers shake. I sit at our kitchen table and read from a page captioned "Domestic Discipline: A Choice for Loving Couples." I almost close the screen right then and there.
"I don't think I want to read this, Chief."
Blair's hand squeezes my shoulder. "You don't have to. I did. It's pretty graphic."
"Are you sure this is Jill's?"
"Yeah. It's her free account on the university server."
If I can look at decomposing corpses, I can look at the contents of this web site. The narrative makes it clear the page is not for seekers of erotic punishment. Instead, the author wants to "reach out" to those "who practice a lifestyle in which the husband is the ruler of his home and the wife is obedient and submissive, and spankings are given to teach and modify bad or irresponsible behavior." The site contains a personals section, stories that might or might not be fictitious, and instructions to join a confidential mailing list.
"If more people took the time to warm their spouse's posteriors when warranted, perhaps there might be fewer divorces and more happy families in America," the site also says.
Funniest of all, in a sick sort of way, is the link to a conservative Christian 'discipline' list for monogamous, God-fearing couples who don't smoke, don't drink, and don't cuss, but who believe in sexual expression that includes bondage, masochism and domestic discipline. These are the same kind of people who scorned Matthew Shepard after he was beaten and left to die on a fence one freezing night in Wyoming. They're the type who disown their sons with AIDS. Why homosexuality is such an unforgivable sin to these men and women is something I've never understood, and it strikes me extremely hard that spanking your wife is, on the other hand, perfectly okay.
I can't read any more. "Jesus, Chief. The university hosts pages like that?"
He runs a hand through his hair. "No. Not really. I mean, yes, it's on the server, but there are terms of service. Usually they'll kick off anyone with sexually explicit pages, or anything with hate crimes, discriminatory or derogatory statements."
"They should make her take this down," I say.
"They probably will, if they find out."
"So call them, Chief, and let's be on our way."
He shakes his head. "I'm not a tattletale, Jim. I can't rat Jill out to the university."
"What if this was a site promoting pedophilia? Would you worry so much about "ratting" someone out?"
Blair won't stop pacing. "It's not pedophilia, Jim. Hell, if you believe what they're saying, it's freedom of sexual expression between two consenting adults - "
"Which just happens to be illegal," I interrupt.
He's genuinely confused and upset. Before I can stop him, he grabs his cell phone and punches in a number. Since he hasn't asked me not to listen, I dial up my hearing.
"Nathan Palmer," a smooth voice answers.
"This is Blair Sandburg. I need to talk to Jill."
"Jill's not available, Blair. Can I have her call back?" The man doesn't sound oily or sinister or creepy. He sounds like someone Blair might have interrupted in his study, or out back gardening. A normal guy doing normal things on a normal day in suburbia.
"Make her available," Blair snaps. "It's about her web site at the University and what the chancellor's going to do when she finds it."
Nathan puts the phone aside. A moment later Jill picks up. "Blair, what's the matter?"
They start arguing. It's not pretty. Blair's fairly calm, given his level of emotion, but he tells Jill in no uncertain terms that her site is derogatory and harmful toward women. Jill asks him when he became an opponent of free speech and who appointed him school censor. When she calls him a fascist, I'm tempted to take the phone from Blair's hands and hang up on her. But he does it first.
"Can you believe her?" he yells. "I can't believe I considered this insane woman a friend!"
After several minutes I persuade him to go use the bathroom so we can hit the road and leave Cascade far, far behind for the weekend. He stops and blinks as if he's just remembered our plans.
"Chief?" I ask. "You still want to go?"
"Yeah," he answers, but I've heard him be much more enthusiastic with that one syllable.
"No, you don't." Something or someone always conspires against us when we try to go on vacation - I should have expected a crisis. My disappointment obviously shows on my face, because Blair shakes his head suddenly.
"No," he says. "I'm not letting this ruin our weekend. We're going, Jim."
"We don't have to - "
"Yes, we do. We do because I want to get out of this town. Because you've been working eighteen hours a day for the last two weeks. Because I want to get you into that whirlpool tub and take you until you're begging for mercy." Blair cocks his head and grins at me. "Is that enough, or do you need more reasons?"
What I need are looser pants. "Can I throw you over my shoulder and carry you down to the truck?" I ask him hopefully.
"No. The neighbors will talk." He does, however, give me a deep, wet, incredible kiss as a promise of things to come.
I'm not quite sure, but I think it's an act. I think Blair really wants this to be a special weekend, and so he's going to shove away all the unpleasantness. Compartmentalize and contain it until later. He's not really good at doing that, though - trust me, I'm an authority - and, sure enough, he falls silent as soon as we leave the city and hit the coastal highway. He looks out the window at the sparkling ocean and lets me pick out the radio stations. He tries to read, but doesn't get past a page or two of his magazine. He curls up as if trying to take a nap, but his eyes remain wide open.
"You're not a fascist," I finally say.
"Jill thinks I am."
"Jill is wrong about several things, and that's just one of them."
He opens up. By the time we reach the outskirts of Full Moon Bay, he's talked himself nearly hoarse about Jill, censorship, the web, free speech, consensual sex, sodomy laws, the ACLU and a dozen other topics I haven't been able to track. He's gone from angry to confused to resolved and back to angry. Holly House appears before us in the dusk, a solid Victorian with green trim and well-kept grounds.
I step out of the truck and stretch my back. Without even turning up my senses, I can smell ocean salt, pine trees and the aroma of fine cooking. Blair comes up beside me and reaches for my hand.
"Sorry I was so wound up," he says.
I touch his upturned face. "It's all right. You needed to get it out."
"No more talk about Jill for the rest of the weekend, I promise."
Bob Loder, one of the inn's owners, meets us on the porch. The lobby area is neat and clean, and the antique grandfather clock by the stairs captures Blair's attention while I register. I'm happy to see that the house isn't full of frills, lace, clutter or Victorian gloom. Instead it's airy and bright, with plenty of plants. Our large room has a canopy bed, two-hundred thread cotton sheets, fine country furniture and a large fireplace. Bob promises to have a fire going for us by the time we get back from dinner.
Dinner is a wonderful idea. I'm starving. We walk five minutes down the road into the small town and have a great steak dinner in a small, cozy restaurant. We don't speak much, but then again, we don't have to. Blair's all talked out, except for the erotic promises he keeps whispering over the centerpiece. We walk back to the inn slowly, savoring the darkness and chill air. Up in our room, the fire is burning cheerfully as promised. The sheets have been turned down. Two chocolate chip cookies sit on a plate by the bed.
"I think we should move in here," Blair says, unbuttoning my shirt.
"Okay," I murmur, as I kiss his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, his mouth.
Before I get any further, though, he shoos me off to the bathroom to get that whirlpool tub going. I hear him rummaging in his suitcase and the tell-tale rustling of a paper bag. "What do you have there, Chief?" I ask, poking my head around the corner.
Blair sits cross-legged in the middle of the canopy bed, fiddling with something that has an electrical cord. He shoves it behind his back. "No peeking! Go shave or something."
I've seen the bag long enough to recognize the name of our local adult toy store. He's been shopping again. The possibilities are endless. Humming happily to myself, I start filling the tub. Little bottles of bubble bath line the counter, and after some careful sniffing, I dump in a bunch of vanilla. Fragrant steam fills the room. I strip down, wrap a towel around my hips, and take his suggestion about shaving. In the mirror I see the same James Ellison as usual - decent muscles, okay features, balding head. I suck in my gut. I'm ready for whatever wild sexual fantasy Blair throws at me.
"I'm coming out, Chief, " I warn.
Blair doesn't answer. It's hard to answer when you're sound asleep. He's curled up on top of the blankets, snoring slightly, a very large electric dildo clutched in one hand. With pangs of amusement and disappointment, I wonder just where he intended to insert it, but that's a question that can wait until morning.
I cover him with a blanket from the closet and turn down the lights. The fire sends out a soft red and yellow glow. No sense wasting the whirlpool, though, and I go back to the bathroom to soak in the pulsing hot water. I do more than just soak - a man has needs, after all, especially after being aroused all evening. My hand isn't a perfect substitute for Blair, but it does fine in a pinch. No pun intended.
Blair feels guilty about falling asleep so early, so he makes it up to me in the morning with really great sex. After pancakes and fruit for breakfast, we move into the realm of incredible sex. That whirlpool is double the fun when two people are in it. Because the maid needs some time to change the sheets and towels, we take a four mile walk on the rocky beach, and we do it in a cove with seagulls swirling overhead - not great or incredible, considering how much sand I get in my pants, but definitely invigorating. The afternoon is reserved for sex that zooms past incredible into the land of fan-fucking-tastic. By the time he untwists himself from a position I didn't even know existed, I'm limp with exhaustion on the bed and contemplating my imminent death from sexual overload.
"I'm too old for this," I mumble.
He sneaks up my left side and cuddles under my arm. "Don't give up now, big guy. We've got forty or fifty years to go."
I'm embarrassed by the broad smile Bob Loder gives us on our way out to dinner. He and the other guests must think we're sexual maniacs. Which, I guess, we probably are. We eat at an Italian place and stroll around looking at the small shops, deliberately bumping up against each other in the dark. Blair suggests a moonlit walk on the beach. Remembering how itchy sand can be when it's in the wrong places, I point out that there's no moon and it's starting to drizzle. So instead of the beach we go back to our room, and spend another three or four hours touching and feeling and exploding.
I'm quite pleased with myself and with Blair for managing to put Jill Palmer out of our minds. But sometimes the subconscious remembers what the conscious mind is trying to avoid. Blair's whimpering and restless tossing wakes up me up at three a.m. He jolts awake a second later.
"What's the matter, Chief?" I ask, reaching for him, distressed by the hitch in his breathing. He's ready to cry.
"Oh, Jim," is all he can say, and he repeats himself a dozen times. I pull him close and hold him tight and rub his back until the nightmare loses its grip.
"Bad one, huh?" I ask.
He nods.
"Want to tell me about it?"
His voice is muffled and hesitant against my chest. "I dreamed you were . . . hitting me. You told me it was . . . good for me . . . teach me to listen and obey. Don't be mad. I know you would never do that."
"I'm not mad," I say soothingly. "Sometimes our minds fuck with us pretty badly."
He clings to me like I'm a piece of driftwood in some raging river only he can feel. I hold him tightly and tell him how much I love him. He falls asleep nestled beside me. We wake up late the next morning, a little hungover from too much sex. He's sheepish and ashamed of his nightmare. I kiss his nose until he breaks into giggles.
"I would never hit you," I tell him in the bright light of day.
"I would never hit you," he says back. "You love me."
"And you love me."
We have a great breakfast downstairs and spend a few more hours in town, but the inevitable time comes when we have to leave for Cascade. The drive back is subdued. A light rain pelts the windshield. We play twenty questions and Botticelli and then Blair reads out loud from the latest issue of 'Money' magazine, so we can see how well our mutual funds are doing. When we get home at six o'clock, his laptop is still on the kitchen table, exactly where he left it.
He eyes it.
I shake my head.
He holds up his hands in a helpless fashion.
Jill's web page hasn't changed. Two emails from her wait in his inbox. She's left a short message on the answering machine: "Blair, call me. We need to talk."
Blair deletes the email. He helps me unload the truck. We put our dirty clothes into the washer machine, fix and eat a light dinner, and sit down to watch TV for the rest of the night. On the sofa, wrapped in each other's arms, I ask him what he's going to do about Jill.
"I don't know," he admits. "I keep thinking about people who might read her page. Little kids. Abused women. Men who already think they have a right to hit women. Or maybe some poor girl who maybe doesn't have a great sense of self-esteem. She finds Jill's page and learns what? That it's okay for your husband or boyfriend to spank you for not following his rules. How can Jill possibly believe that?"
"Carol Lee said she's a victim," I remind him.
"It's really hard to think of her a victim when she's promoting this kind of abuse," he confesses. "It's hard to think of her as smart, or compassionate, or anything else I thought she was."
People disappoint Blair. Not life. He's one of those guys who takes lemons and turns them into not just lemonade, but really great-tasting lemonade that everybody else wants to drink, too. He builds lemonade stands that win awards for design excellence. He could have a chain of lemonade stores coast-to-coast if he wanted. But people . . . well, people aren't lemons. He puts his faith and trust and hope in them, and sometimes they throw everything back in his face. Sometimes because they're not deserving, and other times because they can't live up to his expectations. I have some experience with the latter situation, both on the dispensing and receiving end.
"She's who she always was, Chief. You're just learning new and unpleasant things about her. If there's anything I've learned from being a cop, it's that sometimes even incredibly smart people can be incredibly dumb at times."
"I'm afraid, you know," he says.
"Of what?" I ask, but I already know. It's the white elephant that drove down to Full Moon Bay with us, sat in our room, walked on the beach beside us. You know the elephant I mean, don't you? It's the one thing you're acutely aware of, but don't want to mention out loud.
"That push is going to come to shove," Blair answers. His eyes are on the TV, but his hands tighten on my arm. "That she's going to get mad or get even if I pursue this thing, and out us to the university and PD."
Yeah, it's one helluva white elephant. Until he named it, I didn't realize how big it really was. In the confines of the loft, in a few careful forays to faraway inns, we are a couple. On campus, in the bullpen, anywhere else in Cascade, we are roommates. I'm not ready to be known as a gay cop, and Blair's not ready to give up his thesis over the issue of personal involvement. We walk a tightrope every single fucking day.
"She won't do that," I tell Blair, with more confidence than I feel. "And if she does, we'll deal with it."
This time he does turn and look at me. "You make it sound so easy, Jim," he says, low and serious.
"When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade," I say. And I mean it, because he's taught it to me, and the one thing I learned early on in this relationship is that Blair Sandburg is an incredible teacher.
We go to sleep with the elephant in bed beside us. Blair sets out for campus the next morning like a man going to an execution that might very well turn out to be his own. I want to go with him, but I have to be in court. My stomach is so jittery I can't eat breakfast. On the witness stand I'm coherent and calm, although all I can think of is him. I dial his cell phone number as soon as I'm done.
He doesn't sound happy. "Jill's in a lot of trouble over that web site."
For once, I'm impressed with how fast the wheels of bureaucracy turn at Rainier. "You did the right thing, Chief."
"Actually, I did it too late. By the time I called the chancellor's office, she already knew. Christine Osborne told her counselor about it on Friday, and the counselor reported it."
"What do you think is going to happen?"
"I think they'll take the site down. They can't disenroll her as a student, but she might lose her teaching fellowship."
"I want to come over and take you to lunch. I know how hard this has been on you."
"I can't." Blair hesitates, but he doesn't try to lie. "I'm having lunch with Jill. She's pretty upset, and we've been friends for so long . . . "
She gave him nightmares, she called him a fascist, and she promotes the idea of men hitting women. Of course he's having lunch with her. Only Blair.
Jill does, in fact, lose her teaching fellowship. She has shown questionable judgment and failed to set a good example for undergraduates. Maybe a good lawyer could have successfully sued the university for dampening her freedom of speech - or maybe not. In the fall, when the campus newspaper starts up again, a brief blurb about terms of service on the Rainier server triggers publicity about Jill's yanked site. Descriptions of the site bring protests from campus feminists and victim advocates. Cascade newspapers also pick up on the story, but it doesn't make national news.
Jill is labeled abused, brainwashed, demented, stupid and, from a group of otherwise anonymous Christians, "courageous for standing up for the sovereignty of the husband."
She leaves the university in October. Blair says she's transferring to the University of New Mexico. He still feels guilty about what happened to her, although, in retrospect, he had very little to do with it. Jill was the one who put that material on her web site. Blair says Nathan made her do it, as a test of her belief and commitment to 'their lifestyle.'
"You believe that?" I ask him when he tells me.
He isn't sure. It's possible. But one of the last things Jill said to him before she moved away still gnaws at him. She told him that when society interferes with what two adults consent to in the privacy of their relationship, whether it's sexual or not, we're all in danger. Homosexuals most obviously have a lot to fear, but so does anyone who likes a little kink, buys toys at adult stores, watches porn or downloads erotic stories from the internet.
"Healthy adults, Chief," I tell him. We're in our bed. It's one of those nights when the pressures of being a cop, student, Sentinel, Guide or police observer have built up and left us both unable to sleep. Insomniacs 'R' Us. In another few minutes Blair's going to start making tea, or put on soothing music, or try some other remedy.
"Huh?"
"What two healthy adults consent to," I say. "Someone who lets herself or himself be physically punished is not healthy."
"Some would say a guy who sucks another man's dick isn't healthy," he points out.
"Is that an offer or an observation?"
"An observation."
"Tease." We're quiet for a moment, and then I roll over to look at him. He's nude and gorgeous, even with those dark circles under his eyes. "Blair, I mean it. Someone who gives up being an adult so that someone else can reward and punish her has a problem. It's physically and emotionally destructive. It can't come to any good. But what we have . . . it's all good. It's love. It's love that doesn't require hitting or spanking or humiliation."
He rubs my arm. "I know," he says. "I know."
"I'm think we should go away for the weekend," I tell him. "Some little inn somewhere. A big room with a canopy bed. You interested?"
"Does it have a whirlpool tub?"
"A really big one."
He climbs on top of me and begins kissing my stomach. Obviously he's thought up an alternate remedy for insomnia. "Make the reservation, James."
At Christmas, Blair receives an email from Jill. She's still in New Mexico, but she's left Nathan. She came home early one day and found him spanking an eighteen-year-old barista he'd picked up at the local Starbucks. He tried to make it up to her, but she's already filed for divorce. She has standards, after all, and she won't put up with infidelity.
End Hit Me Once.