When One Day We are Gone Ch. 06

[Author's note: Cassidy Hayes, psychologist by day and mother of two, is struggling as her husband Damian cheats on her with Lily. Blackmailed through incriminating videos into doing what Lily tells her, Cassie finds herself yielding to the domineering sexy blonde younger woman. Meanwhile, Cassie is exploring a strange world, having made a new friend in Madame Syn, the owner of the Lost and Found and a highly accomplished Dominatrix. As her marriage implodes, torn between urges to dominate and submit, Cassie must make a choice.]

---

TWO BIRDS, ONE STONE

Ally had sent her a message mid-week after nearly a month of radio silence, suggesting a catch up. Cassie had jumped at the chance, eager to find out how they were going in their new life, but however she juggled it, she couldn't make it work. In exasperation, she went back with a suggestion of a picnic at the waterfall by the lake on Saturday. Cassie was going to take the boys down there and Billie was going to bring her wife and daughter too. It would be a family affair. Cassie finished the message with the words that she understood completely if it wasn't suitable and was stunned by how quickly Ally came back. Love to, she'd replied, I'm only bringing Quinn.

Damian had told her that he was going kayaking. She knew he wasn't because Lily's message had been gleefully explicit. Damian was going to be spending the afternoon at her apartment. It could go later into the evening, she'd warned, depending on how many times he could get it up. Cassie had slammed the phone down on the benchtop and walked away, loathing her more than ever.

She wanted to tell Syn all about Lily, to ask for her help. Out of everyone, Cassie was sure Syn would be able to guide her out of her awful situation. Syn would understand about the dark, subservient feelings that Cassie felt each time Lily put her in her place, the way Lily could trigger her to switch from the confident, professional woman who guided people through their issues into the powerless submissive unable to escape her own. But something stopped her; Cassie didn't want to confess to her new friend that she was under Lily's thumb. Cassie enjoyed the high regard that Syn seemed to have for her, the mutual respect. She didn't want to look like a failure in front of the formidable Dominatrix. Syn had managed to switch all by herself, taking charge of her life and the club after her husband passed away. Cassie realised she needed to do the same. Her problem was that Damian wasn't gone; he was still there each morning, a tether to a rosy past life that no longer held any meaning.

Cassie thought about Quinn again, then Ally, and then an idea occurred to her. She knew it was a distraction, attempting to take her mind off her disintegrating marriage, but she if she was ever going to escape her current predicament, she needed to stretch her wings. Cassie picked up her phone again and made some very specific arrangements of her own, messaging Victoria, the woman who she was coaching through her own tough marriage decisions.

C: Are you free on Saturday Vicki?

V: I can be

C: Good. I have an exercise in mind, something I think we need to explore

V: What do I need to do?

Cassie smiled as she read the other woman's response, sensing an eagerness there

C: Nothing yet. But I'm going to need to keep you locked up until the weekend, okay?

There was a long pause this time. Cassie prompted her again.

C: Okay?

V: I was hoping to be let out. Marlowe is taking me out for dinner tonight

Cassie considered her response carefully.

C: Your loving husband is doing something nice for you, and yet here you are arranging to go behind his back. What kind of person would do that? What does that make you?

V: I don't know

C: A slut

Cassie looked at the words that she'd typed, imagining the expression on Victoria's face as she read the messages.

C: You're lucky you're locked up safe and sound. I'd hate you to get tempted. No, we're going to have to extend your denial period so you'll have to find another way to show your husband your appreciation. It's not fair that he goes without, just because you can't be trusted out of chastity

V: I suppose

C: Good. See you Saturday

Cassie put her phone down again, pleased with how easily Victoria had acquiesced and allowed Cassie to extend her period of sexual denial. She had a good idea how the other woman would be feeling by now; it had been weeks since Damian had shown any interest in Cassie, leaving her supremely unsatisfied herself.

Cassie's mood darkened again at the thought of him. Their worlds were diverging faster and faster. Each night that she slid into bed next to Damian it felt more and more like a lie. In place of the love that she had cherished for so many years, now they lay in silence as the secrets they kept from each other multiplied in the dark.

---

"Stop," Cassie growled, threading the car through traffic, "Not one more word or I'm turning around."

"He started it," Sam pouted from the back seat, "I don't know why I should get into trouble."

"You were prodding him," Cassie retorted, "I saw it."

"How?"

"I'm a mother. When you give birth, you also get given a second pair of eyes in the back of your head."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Prove it."

Cassie smiled to herself. "Put the towel down," she grinned.

Sam's eyes widened, looking down at the rolled-up towel he was obviously about to hit his twin brother with.

"See?" she said, "All knowing."

Cassie watched the scene playing out through the rear-view mirror, one step ahead. More than a match for seven-year-olds, still.

"Anyway, we're nearly there. Then we can have a swim. Ready?"

"Yes," Charlie replied, "So long as Sam doesn't make you turn around."

Cassie smiled. "Good boy," she said.

They turned off the road, heading down a dirt track between the trees. Cassie was careful, avoiding potholes left after the rains, but navigating to a wide expanse of gravel and dirt on the edge of the lake. She pulled up next to a silver four-wheel-drive with bull bars and mud spatters. In the back window was a bright pink love heart.

"Looks like they're already here," Cassie called, as the doors flew open to release her offspring into the sunshine. The doors slammed and she was treated to a moment of perfect silence. She took a few seconds for herself, then picked up the beach bag from the passenger seat and got out.

The terrain rose to her left, becoming a cliff hanging over the edge of the lake, strewn at the bottom with half-submerged boulders that her kids were already busy hopping between. The waterfall cascaded in a single gossamer veil from the clifftop, a dozen metres above the surface of the clear water, into a rounded plunge pool of its own making. At the water's edge, the grass was already marked with a picnic blanket. A hand snaked into the air and waved: it was Billie.

Cassie waved back and then pointed up to the brick toilet block. She saw Billie nod, then stand up to greet Cassie's boys as they came hurtling over. Hope was already in the water with her mother, splashing. Cassie trudged up to the toilet block to get changed. She hadn't intended to go swimming, but now she was here, and the day was so nice, it seemed a shame not to. Cassie picked one of the unisex stalls and locked herself inside.

Quickly, she stripped, working her shorts down her legs and unfastening her bra, wriggling everything off at once, rolling it into a ball and dropping it into her beach bag. This was the real reason she hadn't got ready at home. She had a choice to make: the one-piece from summer last year or the new black bikini. Cassie closed her eyes and for some reason, the memory popped into her head of opening the door in the club, stepping out into the crowd in the tight, short white latex dress, with the leather stiletto boots laced all the way up above her knees, the rush she had felt as strangers' eyes fell on her body. She stuffed the one-piece back into her bag and slipped her new bikini on.

Emerging from the toilets, she headed over to Billie, walking as nonchalantly as she could in her new purchase. The bottoms were high-cut, showing off her shapely thighs and the curve of her bottom; the top was a single wrap-around lycra panel with shoe-string straps to keep it in place, pushing her breasts together and showing off her cleavage. As she got closer, she could see that Billie was grinning.

"You look good."

Cassie grinned back, buoyed by her friend's reception.

"You think?"

"Not good. Hot. I reckon I need to be careful, if Morgan sees you like that."

"Am I a threat to your marriage?"

"Fucking hell, Cassidy Hayes, looking like that, however you got to looking like that, you're threatening everyone's marriage."

"Flatterer."

"Slut."

Billie's eyes sparkled, mouthing the word carefully.

"That's uncalled for," Cassie admonished, settling down on the picnic blanket, reclining in the sun.

"Ah, but is it?"

Cassie turned to look at her. "What do you mean?"

"So coy. So secretive."

Cassie held up a warding hand. "No, hold on."

"You can tell me. To the grave, remember."

Cassie sighed, letting her head fall back, her blonde hair pooling on the picnic rug.

"Either you have done," Billie continued, "Or you're about to. Either way, good work. Nicely done."

"You're way off the mark," Cassie countered, fixing Billie with a stare.

Billie shrugged. "Please yourself. I just thought, is all."

"Thought what, exactly?"

"That you'd finally seen the light. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for you."

"Two wrongs don't make a right, Billie."

"Are you sure?"

Cassie paused, frowning at her friend. Billie's smile faded.

"Let me put it another way, Cassie. You remember at school, Jeremy fucking Parsons?" she asked.

"Sure," Cassie replied, unsure of where the conversation was heading.

"You remember what he did?"

"Yeah, Billie. He made your life hell."

"Yeah. All the way through to graduation, him and his friends. What did you say to me then?"

"I don't know, it was a long time ago."

"Let me jog your memory. We talked, and we decided that there was no way we were going to change the situation, and who the fuck could we tell? Then there was how I felt, even back then, the way I was, none of it was gonna change. Jeremy wasn't gonna fucking change either, picking on me and calling me a fucking sissy."

Billie reached out and took Cassie's hand.

"The thing you said changed everything. I've never forgotten, and y'know, it's something that I trot out even these days when I get a look on the bus, or whatever."

"I don't remember what I said," Cassie confessed.

"You told me the only way that I could be defeated is if I gave up. It's not how many times you get knocked down that matters, it's how many times you get back up. You said, don't give up, get angry."

Billie squeezed her hand.

"That bitch and your fucking husband, all of it. Don't just lie down. Get angry Cassie, get fucking normal."

Billie knew all about being bullied, about the worthless feelings, about the self-recrimination for not fighting back, for being weak. Billie knew all about the little dark hole and where it led.

"I'm right here," she said, her voice suddenly hoarse, "And so are you. Cassie, you are hard core. Get angry."

For a moment, it looked like Billie was about to say something else, but instead she looked up and waved, smiling as her daughter began to splash Cassie's boys, the intense expression melting away as she put on a bright face for the children. When she looked back to Cassie, the moment had passed.

"Anyway, you should try the water. But I'm warning you, if you make a move on my wife in your hot little black bikini I will fucking hunt you down."

Cassie took the hint, getting to her feet.

"You coming?"

Billie smiled strangely, crossing her legs.

"Nah, I'll sit this out. They're going to go diving at the waterfall. The last thing anyone wants to see is me in a bathing suit, popping up out of the water, suddenly untucked."

She smiled wryly, but there was something behind it. Cassie hesitated.

"It's fine, really," Billie continued, "It's a small price to pay."

---

Cassie found herself bringing up the rear of the little exploration party with Morgan in the lead and the children strung out between them on the path. She couldn't shake it, after seeing the look in Billie's eyes, the understanding that Billie knew more than anyone about what Cassie was going through. Billie didn't know about the Lost and Found, what Cassie did there, Syn's games. Billie also didn't know just how far Lily had managed to push Cassie down, reducing her to a meek puppet each time they met. But she was right. It was time to fight back, to use what she was learning from Syn, and her years of experience as a psychologist. That dark aching hole that Lily opened up inside her so easily needed to be filled otherwise it would engulf her completely. She needed to get angry.

Morgan led them all up the little path between the boulders. Where it switched back on itself to climb higher, there was a rock ledge overhanging the waterfall's plunge pool about three metres below. Morgan took the lead, jumping feet first and making a terrific splash as she hit the water. Hope followed, going headfirst in a practiced dive and hitting the water neatly. Sam and Charlie heaved themselves off the edge more or less simultaneously, landing with a crash dangerously close to each other. Cassie looked down at everyone treading water.

"C'mon jump!" Sam yelled, and the other children joined in.

Morgan bobbed behind them smiling as they began to holler at Cassie as she hesitated on the edge of the rock. At last, Morgan called up to her, a devious smile on her face.

"Don't jump," she called out, "Stay right there. It's a nice view."

"Don't look at the view," Charlie shouted, "Jump."

Cassie laughed; Morgan's comment had gone right over their heads. She took a breath and stepped forwards into space, hitting the surface in an inelegant plume of water. When she surfaced, Morgan was grinning at her.

"I was beginning to suspect that you were afraid your bikini was going to shrink if it got wet," she said, "Not that there's very much further to shrink."

Before Cassie could voice a retort, Morgan was already moving through the water, outpacing the children effortlessly with long strokes honed by years of practice. Cassie followed behind, feeling distinctly outclassed.

They all hauled themselves back up and jumped off a few more times, until Morgan held back, watching all their children take a running jump with hands held off the edge. She nodded at the switchback track.

"Want to go up, now you've got the hang of it?"

"Uh, where's it go?"

"The top."

Cassie eyed the top of the waterfall warily. It was at least twice as high as the platform.

"It's about equivalent to a ten-metre board. Come and see."

Morgan held out her hand, smiling. Cassie regarded Billie's wife for a moment, wondering why she was being invited up the track to the top. Morgan turned and began to ascend the steep climb, scrambling between the rocks in her bare feet, her long, silver hair plastered to her neck and back. Cassie followed.

At the top, Morgan straightened up and beckoned Cassie over to the edge.

"Come on, take a look."

Cassie approached the edge carefully, leaning out a little to look down at the pool far below, with three expectant faces bobbing up and down in the water. To their left, the little stream threaded its way to the edge and then abruptly dissipated into a tumbling veil of mist.

"This is really high, Morgan. What are we doing up here?"

Morgan laughed. "Adult fun," she exclaimed, her eyes twinkling, and for a moment, it crossed her mind that Morgan had ulterior motives.

"Really, and what kind of fun is that?"

Morgan peered over the edge. "Just a bit over ten metres up, one and a half seconds of freefall. The best kind of fun, Cassie."

"No! No way."

"It's easy," Morgan said, taking a few steps away from the edge and then turning to face it.

Her lithe body was poised, a vision in her blue one-piece swimsuit.

"All you have to do is commit."

Morgan took three powerful steps, building up speed and then leaping into the air. She arched her back, extending her arms and legs in a star shape, but bending backwards in a lazy flip, her eyes fixed on Cassie as her body rotated. She seemed to hang there for a split second, upside down in the afternoon sun, face lit in a wide grin, before she plummeted, spread eagled, to the water below. At the very last second, her legs snapped closed and she brought her hands together above her head, reaching behind her for the entry point. In stark counterpoint to her first dive of the day, this time, Morgan entered the water without so much as a splash.

Cassie stared, waiting for Morgan to surface, then she spotted a shape swimming powerfully under the water, passing under the legs of the children to surface behind them. Morgan looked up.

"Easy," she called out.

"For you," Cassie called back, "But I never made the Olympic squad."

"Neither did I," Morgan laughed, "Well, not for diving."

Cassie looked down. It seemed a long way.

"Just do a pin drop, Cassie, feet together," Morgan called up, "Otherwise you might get a forced clean-out."

Cassie heard her laugh again and looked down at her little audience, feeling the tingle of nerves in her stomach as she contemplated the drop. All eyes were on her. Without thinking, she took a step forward into the air, pushing off hard with her foot. Her stomach flipped, feeling the moment of freefall and then she was underwater. Cassie thrust her outstretched arms down to her sides and propelled herself back upwards out of the depths, breaking the surface and drawing in a lungful of air.

She heard Morgan's voice. "See, Cassie. Just commit. It's all possible."

"Can I?" asked a child's voice and Cassie wiped the water from her eyes, identifying Sam.

Morgan laughed. "Not today. We should get back to the picnic."

Cassie continued to tread water, rained on by the spray of the falls. She had an intuition that she was being tag-teamed by the two women, each pushing the point. Commit. Fight. Take the leap. She sighed to herself, but was also glad. It was good that they had been discussing her and looking out for her. It felt good to be cared about.

Back at the rug, Billie had laid out the food and the children fell to it like wild things.

"The locusts have descended," she observed, eyeing up the two women, "Better get in quick."

Cassie took a sausage roll and began to dry herself off. Looking along the waterfront, she could see another car had arrived and she spotted a familiar figure. She waved. Quinn spotted her and waved back, dragging Ally in tow behind his tall, gangly frame.

"Ah," Morgan observed, "Your friends have arrived, then?"

"Uh huh."

Morgan wrapped a towel around her waist tightly, smoothing her hair back. Billie got to her feet and adjusted her top.

"It's not the inquisition," Cassie murmured.

"We'll behave. Just want to make a good impression on your new friends."

"What? They're not... I mean...."

But Morgan wasn't paying attention, striding around Cassie as she fumbled, to greet the newcomers.

"Hi, I'm Morgan," she said, holding out her hand. Quinn shook it and introduced himself and Ally.

Morgan introduced her wife. Billie smiled nervously and held out her hand. It was a characteristic of her, Cassie thought, that she could be so brash and bombastic at school pick-up but reluctant around new faces.

"Lovely to meet you," Quinn replied effortlessly, oozing the kind of confidence that he must have been used to projecting in the courtroom.