Free Love and Language by Cheryl Dragon Page B

told.”
    “Good for you.”
    “And my mother sent me to spend the summer with my grandmother. She didn’t totally believe me.” Jane had told the story so rarely, and it was so long ago it felt like someone else’s life.
    “I don’t like your mother.” Ben shook his head.
    “Neither do I. After Grandma’s, I stayed with a cousin of my mother’s. A single mom with two girls. It was great there, but she couldn’t really afford me. She had to send me back to Mom, and I refused to go. I even threatened to run away. By then, I was twelve and started to develop. I told her what had happened, and she reported it.”
    “Your cousin did the right thing, at least.”
    “She did, but Mom wasn’t married to him anymore, I don’t think. I offered to get a job, babysit, anything to make enough money to stay with my cousins. I helped her out with chores and cooking. Her ex didn’t pay support for his kids. My father never sent support for me. It’s like a game. But reporting that my stepdad tried to touch me meant the system found out about me. I was in.” She shook her head. “My cousins still regret that.”
    “Foster families from hell?” he asked.
    “Just moving all the time. Everything was temporary. One place, a foster brother would try to grope you, so I either ran away or reported it and got in trouble myself. Finally, I was put in a group home, and that was the best thing. I stayed in one place and got through high school. I was always a good student and got a scholarship for college.”
    He rounded the desk and pulled her from the chair, hugging her tight. “I’m sorry.”
    “I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you. But that’s not really what you need to know.” She kissed his neck.
    “What?” He pressed his forehead to hers. “We were both shuffled around through our childhoods. Mine obviously was much better than yours. I had two parents and two brothers there for me all the time.”
    “I wish I had real siblings. Being alone was the worst part. Everywhere was different, and not knowing anyone made it hard to know who to trust if something did go wrong. I told you early on I don’t have good luck. It’s true.” She closed her eyes and tried to figure out how to leapfrog from dysfunctional childhood to adult.
    “College was good?” he asked.
    She smiled. “College was great. I had a full ride for undergrad and worked to save up for grad school. I felt safe for the first time in my life. All the other girls worried about being on their own and gaining weight or date rape. I’d learned to knee a guy in the nuts before I was thirteen. Anyway, I did my masters at the same place because I got another partial scholarship there. I worked tutoring kids and taught some intro classes to cover my expenses.”
    “When did you get kinky?”
    “I always was. I guess. A boyfriend when I was an undergrad introduced me to the fun of being tied up and spanked. He wanted to go further into multiple subs and really kinky stuff, so we broke up. But he’d already introduced me to a local dungeon in the city.”
    “You did dungeons? You little tease.” He hugged her tight.
    She relaxed as his arms pinned her in. “Not really. I met the Doms there, and we used private play rooms. I never got as deeply into the play with people watching. I needed intimacy even if it was just the illusion of it.”
    “They hurt you? I never would.” Ben kissed her forehead.
    “No, well not in any wrong way. They respected my limits and played, and it was over. I never met anyone and had a relationship along with kink. That first boyfriend doesn’t really count because he had other girls on the side. I found that out later. I was one of many girls he introduced to the lifestyle. I’m not a harem girl.”
    “Damn right.” Ben looked her in the eyes. “And here? Do I have any competition?”
    “God, no. I came here for my PhD. It was affordable, and I had some student loans that I’d used to pay for a car and other