Free Hear Me by Skye Warren Page B

this time, to a place where color suffused the air, where sounds clashed in sharp harmony, where memories burst on her tongue like spices, rich and bittersweet.
    * * *
    My name is Melody Cole, and I was born in Syracuse, New York more years ago than I usually cared to admit. As a young child, I ran in a pack of girls, barefoot and wild, kicking up cold dry leaves behind us. We made a fort out of bed sheets and loose lumber that came down when the boys launched a full pillow assault. Soon enough my friends were drawn away from our tight circle by lopsided smiles and stammered invitations to the movies.
    I wasn’t, but not for lack of wanting. Too skinny to be hot, too shy to be noticed, I walked the same wooded trails alone. When I didn’t get asked to prom, my mom set me up with the neighbors’ college-aged son. He was surprisingly charming, and I put out for the first time that night.
    I got my degree in business development and marketing from Penn State, and right about the time I decided I didn’t need boys to make me happy, they discovered they liked my skinny body and aloofness. Dinner at a fabulous restaurant and coffee back at my place became standard Saturday night fare with whatever exec was passing through the office, but relationships took a backseat to my career.
    It was a lonely existence and when one of my girlfriends needed a place to crash after breaking up with her boyfriend, I had been grateful for the company. We built a grown-up fort out of ice cream and sappy movies, swearing off pesky boys for good. But soon my friend grew restless, drawn away by five o’clock shadows and multiple orgasms.
    Ever the follower, I tagged along with her to a munch, where a group of kinky folks got together and one of the Doms presented on the topic of informed consent. That Saturday I bailed on my scheduled date with the VP of Internal Development to go with her to the local kink club. Soon I was going a couple of nights a week, and several play partners had narrowed down to one, and next thing I knew, we had signed a power exchange contract and were picking out curtains.
    I had been so sure of myself, smug in the certainty that I was doing the right thing. Powerful during the day and submissive at night—wasn’t that every girl’s fantasy? So I had everything.
    Until my Dom and boyfriend told me I was too needy, too clingy. He was looking for a partner, not a pet. I needed to move out. Obedient to the end, I left, lost and needier than ever. The sweet contradiction of confidence and humility crumbled, leaving only a mess.
    Things blurred after that. There was a gap in my memory, but it was a small tithe for all that had been returned to me.
    I remembered, again, arriving in a cold building. I remembered that none of the girls would meet my eyes, and how that scared me worse than the guns and masks that had come before. I had sworn they would never break me.
    I had been wrong. It had only been the shell of a woman who woke up here under Sam’s reluctant guidance. Unable to speak, unable to remember, unable to even think.
    Not anymore.
    In a sudden motion, I jerked my head back. A crack sounded in my ear, followed by a pained groan. The impact hurt me too, but if there was one thing to be grateful for in all this, it was that my pain tolerance was practically a superpower at this point. When he tried to restrain me by my hair, I felt it rip from my scalp. When he grabbed hold of my wrist, I twisted hard, sending agony through my shoulder by breaking free in the same motion.
    I shrugged off his attacks as if he were a butterfly flapping at my face. After fumbling with the lock, I flung open the lid of the trunk. A whip. That damned collar. There . The leather bundle unrolled, dropping the knife into my hand.
    I whirled, and his look of shock sent dark satisfaction through me. I wondered if this is what the men had who hurt me had felt, the fear of his victim an aphrodisiac to violence.
    “I was worried about you,”