Chapter 1

I am kneeling on the seat of an antique Victorian arm chair that’s probably worth more than I have in my bank account at the moment. That’s okay though, Miss Baxter’s covered it with a bed sheet in case I start to leak. I grip the back of the chair—because I’m facing the wrong way—and spread my thighs. My jeans are a puddle on the floor.

“Are you ready, Anise?”

“Yes, Miss Baxter.”

“What words are you going to remember if things get too intense?”

“Red and yellow, Miss Baxter.”

“Good girl. Ten was the number we agreed upon, correct?”

“Yes, Miss Baxter.”

Crack!

The sound of the leather riding crop striking my bare buttocks fills my ears. I shudder and relish the warmth spreading over my skin. As usual, she is going easy on me at the start.

“One, Miss Baxter.”

I knew that by the time we got to ten, I would be fighting back the tears, and squeezing the back of the chair in an effort to quell my shuddering. But I also knew that when we were done, Miss Baxter would take me in her arms and hold me until the shaking stopped and I was whole again

And at the end of it all, I would thank her. This was my idea after all, our weekly therapy appointment, and I was determined to have it continue.

Crack!

“Two, Miss Baxter.”

* * * *

“You must be my snowboarder.” Those were the first words Hilary Baxter spoke to me when she opened the door to her boarding house. On that gray day when she found me leaning on a pair of crutches on her front porch—back when I thought of her only as my landlady.

“Not anymore,” I said.

She said nothing, but looked me up and down, her gaze starting at the top of my head and ending at my foot—the one foot I still I had. To my surprise, she didn’t linger at the place where my other leg stopped abruptly, not like most people do when they first see me. Nor did she want to know what happened to cause that abrupt stop, like most people do.

“You’re awfully tall for a snowboarder,” was all she said. “I guess I was expecting someone more like five-two or five-three. You must be at least five-eight.”

“Five-nine.”

“Mmm, not when you’re slouching, my dear.” The corners of her mouth took a slight downward turn, but quickly straightened out again. She touched her finger to my cheek. “You’re a beautiful girl, show a little pride.”

“Hmph,” was all I offered in response. She stood there in her perfectly pressed suit, with her immaculately styled hair—judging me. My landlady was judging me. As if she knew the road that led me to her door.

“Well then, come in and I’ll show you to your room.” She reached down to pluck up my bag of meager belongings before quickly leading me through a high-ceilinged entry and past a grand curving stairway.

“I thought I’d put you on the main floor,” she said as we passed the parlor with its opulent Victorian-style furnishings and highly polished baby grand piano. We sailed past a dining room with a table long enough to seat a dozen, maybe more, as hardwood floors creaked here and there under her determined stride.

“It’s a beautiful old mansion, but I’m afraid it was never designed to be very accessible,” she said as we wound our way deeper into the home’s interior. “There is a side entrance that might be easier for you, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide.” She stopped to open the door in front of us and then turned her gaze back to me. “I don’t want you to feel as though you’re the hired help.”

She opened the door onto a narrow room that looked like it may have started its life with another purpose, but had later been converted into a modest bedroom. She set my bag on the floor.

“I’ll leave you to unpack,” she said as she turned. “There’s a bathroom two doors down. We’ll have to share, but I trust I can depend on you not to leave your dirty laundry lying on the floor.”

Uggh.I wasn’t really looking forward to sharing a bathroom with my landlady. I must have grunted or something, because she looked at me with a slight downturn of the corners of her mouth.

“You’re also welcome to take one of the upstairs rooms. But as I said, the house was not built with accessibility in mind.”

“It’s fine,” I said, and turned to face the window. As uptight as she was, staying here was preferable to begging my parents to let me move in again. If they’d even let me this time. And with the current state of my bank account, that was my only other choice.