She wiped at her face. “He liked it,” she finally got out. “The things you said and did, they relaxed him.”
Good. At least she’d seen more than just me supposedly belittling my lover.
“He doesn’t like it, Daisy. Heneedsit,” I clarified.
She mulled that over for a moment. “That night in the motel. After the wedding… it was like that between you two, but I thought it… it…”
“You thought it was limited to the bedroom. That I controlled him only when it came to sex and that he got off on it.”
She nodded stiffly.
I sighed and dropped my eyes to look at Sage. “Did you notice how he wears long sleeves a lot?” I asked.
My question seemed to throw her off. She shook her head.
“He only does that around you. Because he doesn’t want you to ask about these.” I carefully moved one of Sage’s arms so that Daisy could see the thin scar running from the inside of his wrist almost all the way to his inner elbow.
She gasped when she realized what she was seeing.
“Whatever he used to do it with luckily wasn’t sharp enough to sever a vein or artery,” I murmured.
Daisy moved closer to Sage so she could touch the scar on his arm. Then she gently folded his arm so it was resting along his hipand she covered his hand with hers. Sage sighed and pressed into me, even as he turned his hand so he could link his fingers with Daisy’s. I knew he was still asleep, but it didn’t surprise me in the least that he’d reach for her while lost in the peace that only sleep brought him these days.
“He’s never told me what happened to him when he was a kid, but I found out some of it on my own. One night a few months after he and I started sleeping together, he was having a nightmare. He mentioned ‘pure love’ and ‘mouse.’ I tried asking him about it the next morning, but he wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Couldn’t you have ordered him to?” Daisy asked, then seemed to realize what she’d asked. Her cheeks colored and she dropped her eyes.
“What we have doesn’t work like that,” I explained. “What you saw in the kitchen was extreme, but it had to be to bring him back. I give Sage orders and I control what he does, but only because it’s what he wants and needs. I only have that power over him because he gives it to me. But while he trusts me implicitly with his body, his mind is another story. When I tell you what I know about his childhood, it might make more sense.”
Daisy nodded.
“When he wouldn’t tell me about his nightmare, I took a chance and googled the words he’d spoken. What I found was enough to make my blood run cold.”
I had to force myself to take a deep breath to try and quell the rage that was already starting to bubble up at the memory of what I’d found.
“About forty years ago, there was this defrocked priest who started his own religion that was based on his extreme views of the bible. He started this thing called the Church of Pure Love. He and his religion were denounced for his beliefs, but of course, there were some people who bought into his preachings. He managed to gain a small following and soon there were sects popping up all around the country. They were tiny – just a dozen members here and there, not enough to gain any kind of foothold or even attract media attention… until something happened that shoved them into the limelight.”
Daisy stiffened and she automatically tightened her fingers on Sage’s.
“About fifteen years ago, the police were called about some farm animals wandering loose on some property just outside this small town in Mississippi. The farm belonged to a woman whose husband had died a year earlier. She’d moved to town and had rented the farmhouse and property out to a group of people who’d said they were starting a commune.”
“A commune?” Daisy asked. “That’s where a bunch of people live together and grow their own food and stuff?”
I nodded. “Yeah, exactly. People never really saw or heard from these residents of the commune – they’d wander into town occasionally, but kept mostly to themselves. Anyway, the police were called and went to the property to see what was going on. What they found…”
I shook my head because I felt sick just thinking about it. “In the basement was a large alter. In front of it was this bed all made up in white. There was a large circle of dried flowers around the bed. The main floor of the house had been converted to have several beds in it. There was no television or radio… no phone either. Upstairs were several bedrooms. They all had locks on the outside… padlocks.”
Daisy’s free hand went to her stomach and I knew she knew where I was going with my story.
“All the rooms were empty except one. The sheriff kicked in the door of the one that was still locked. Inside he found two kids. A boy and a girl. He thought they were both dead at first. They were lying on a cot in the middle of the room. There were no other furnishings in the room. Just a bucket that was used as a toilet and a second bucket that had water in it.”
Daisy began shaking her head and crying. Part of me wanted to stop so she’d never have to hear the rest, but I wanted her to know… I wasdesperatefor her to know. I selfishly needed to share it. It had been a burden to carry it by myself for so long.
“The sheriff went to check the kids… to see if he could figure out how they’d died. They were covered in blood, but he realized it was just the boy’s blood. He’d sliced his arms open with a piece of metal from the mattress frame. The sheriff couldn’t tell how the girl had died because he didn’t see any wounds on her. That was when he saw the boy move.”
“No,” Daisy whispered as she began shaking her head.
“They managed to save the boy. He hadn’t cut deep enough to kill himself, but he’d lost a lot of blood. He was unconscious for four days. When he finally woke up, he told the police that he was a member of the Church of Pure Love. He wouldn’t talk about the girl… only said her name was Michelle, but that he’d called her Mouse. The police began investigating the Church of Pure Love to see if they could figure out what happened. They discovered that the ‘Pure’ part of the religion was based on the idea that love in its purest form happened between the innocent… kids.”
