Chapter 21

Amber didn't hang out at the skatepark. She'd never even been there before, knowing it wasn't her scene or her territory. The freaks, geeks, skaters, and stoners owned this space, and even if she had any interest in skating, her kind wasn't welcome.

Today, she arrived alone, searching for Damien. With her new look, she didn't stick out like a sore thumb. Nobody paid her any attention as she ambled about, trying to pick Damien from the crowd of Damien lookalikes.

Eventually, she spotted him skating up the side of the half-pipe. After he spotted her, he kicked the board to his mate who took over as Damien ran over to her.

"Come here," he said, leading her to the bench in the corner of the park. It sat beneath a tree—the leafy branches providing shade from the harsh glow of the sun.

"Are you sure you want to know this?" he asked. "Because I feel like it's wrong of me to tell you. I'm honestly in two minds about this."

"Please, Damien, I have a right to know," she pressured him.

He looked down for a minute, eyes glazed over as if deep in thought.

As Amber stared at him, she noticed his belt, crisscrossed with chains and a pair of handcuffs that looked real. The longer she looked, the more she liked what she saw. She imagined how it would feel if he used them on her.

'Great. I'm getting turned on by Damien's fashion choices,' she thought, wondering what on Earth was wrong with her lately.

"You remember when you force-fed me that burger?" he asked.

Ruby felt her stomach turn. Would he refuse to tell her because he was still mad?

"I'm sorry—" she started to say.

"No, I forgave you, I'm just starting the story," Damien said. "As you might know, my Mum is a prosecutor. I told her I wanted to sue you at the time. I was pretty fucking angry."

"I'm really really sorry, Damien," Ruby told him again, feeling tears form behind her eyes. Every time he mentioned it, she felt sick with disappointment in herself.

"My Mum convinced me to drop it by telling me about your past. Your case was one of the first high profile cases she worked on. She told me some of the specifics because I pushed her and it's bad," Damien said. "And I promised never to tell."

"Oh," Amber mumbled, afraid of what he was going to say next, even though she knew deep down. She occasionally had flashbacks—little snippets of memories that made little sense and filled her with sick dread.

"Did they lock me in cupboards," Amber asked. She didn't like crying in front of people but couldn't control the flow of tears that streamed down her cheeks.

"Yes," Damien nodded. "They locked you up and they hurt you. That's all I'm going to tell you. Okay?"

Amber nodded as she thought back to the movie that had horrified her the other day.

'Because I'm the little girl,' she thought, letting out a loud sob that shocked her.

She jammed her fist into her lips, trying to hold back the sobs, but it was like trying to stop a hurricane with a windbreaker.

Damien pulled her head into his chest, letting her cry on him. The more she cried, the sadder she became.

'Why doesn't anybody want me?' she thought. 'My own parents hated me, my Dad barely sees me once a month, Ruby ditched me, Tom didn't want me and now Greg only wants me when his dick is hard.'

She cried so hard that when the tears finally ran out, Damien's T-shirt was wet through. As she sat up, he wiped her cheeks with his fingerless glove encased hand.

He pulled off one of his gloves and passed it to her.

"You need accessories," he said.

Amber slipped the slightly wet red and black striped glove and held it up to show him, smiling through her tears.

"I like your belt," she blurted, tugging gently on one of the chains.

"Yeah?" He smiled.

"Do you erm..." Amber asked, gently prying about the handcuffs when her nosiness got the better of her. "Use these on girls."

Damien laughed as if she'd asked something ridiculous.

"Yeah," he said and raised his eyebrows. "I mean, it goes both ways. I'd never do something to a girl that I wasn't willing to have done to me. BDSM is about trust and should be an equal partnership, even if you are dominating the other person."

Amber looked away guiltily. Greg was dominating her, but it wasn't an equal partnership. She knew that much.

"I was angry with Greg for what he did the other day," Damien said. "I'm not sure I want to hang around with a guy who pulls that crap."

"Don't fall out with him because of me," Amber pleaded. She dreaded to think how Greg would react if he did.

"You don't get it, do you?" Damien tutted. "It wouldn't be because of YOU. It would be because of HIM."

Amber nodded. She understood what he was saying but knew she would be blamed and probably punished for it regardless of semantics.

"Honestly, how did it feel when he forced you to kiss my boots?"

As he asked the question she glanced at his boots and felt her blood rush south. Weirdly, the memory turned her on, though at the time she had only felt humiliation.

"Embarrassed, I guess," she muttered, feeling her cheeks redden. The more she thought about it, the more aroused she became.

'Oh great,' she thought. 'Now I'm getting turned on by Damien.' It had to be his similarities to Greg triggering this odd reaction.

"You shouldn't be. You aren't responsible for what he makes you do," Damien said. "He embarrasses you; he embarrasses himself."

Amber felt her lips stretch into a dreamy smile as he spoke those words. The deeper they sank, the more she understood what he was telling her. She wasn't responsible for all the shitty and awful things that people had done to her.

"You're the only person who's nice to me," Amber said. "And you get it. You understand."

Damien said nothing.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" she asked. "Is it out of pity?"

He laughed at this.

"I'm not acting out of pity or kindness," he said. "I have my morals and I stick by them."

"Really?" she asked, looking up at him with big eyes. "You don't think I'm a pitiful mess?"

"I didn't say that," Damien said, flashing her a silly grin.

He pulled a sandwich from his pocket, ate a couple of bites, and threw some for the pair of pigeons that loitered about the park. The two pigeons became a dozen as more flew down from the roof of the disused youth club building.

"I was horrible to you and... you were kind to me," Amber mused out loud. "I'm so so sorry."

"You know that's like the fifth time you've apologized, right?" Damien turned to her, running out of bread. He placed a hand on her shoulders and leaned forward, staring into her eyes. "I forgive you."

Amber nodded gently, staring back at him.

"You are worthy of being forgiven. Okay?" he said, speaking slowly and clearly so any idiot could understand.

"Okay," Amber said, choking on the word as the tears started up again.

He chuckled and wiped at her face with his gloved hand.

"You're going to be okay. Okay?" he assured her in a firm voice.

"Okay," she said, sniffing away her tears and putting on her brave face.

A jogger ran past, scaring away the flock of pigeons momentarily. After a moment, the birds tentatively made their way back to the feast Damien had created for them, pecking at the ground and each other.

Amber watched them, feeling the sun warm her back as the light shifted.

"You smoke?" Damien asked as his friends shouted him over.

"No," Amber said.

"I mean... weed," Damien expanded.

"Oh, I've never tried it," she said, feeling childish and lame. Even the school freaks and geeks were getting high.

"Wanna try?" he asked, getting up from the bench.

"Sure," Amber said. She wanted to look cool and was genuinely curious to try it. The pungent aroma filled her nose as she followed Damien to his friends. They weren't the same people he hung out with at school. A large guy with a beard, tattoos and a biker jacket passed the joint to Damien as he approached. Sitting next to him was another guy dressed similarly with half his head shaven and a girl who looked like an adult version of Vampirina.

'She's so pretty and cool looking,' Amber thought, with a flash of jealousy. 'I bet she's just Damien and Greg's type.'

Amber felt dull and childish next to her. When Damien passed her the joint, he told her to breath it in, hold it in for as long as possible and try not to cough too much.

She did cough, but the others didn't tease her. The girl said it was normal to cough the first time.

As Damien talked to his cool older friends about the #notallmen debate, Amber tried not to laugh at the memory of an episode of SpongeBob her kid brother had been watching this morning. Then she noticed with amazement that the paving slabs seemed to be moving up and down.

"Ooo," she cried, trying to place her hand on the moving floor.

"Okay, that's enough drugs for you, Ms.," Damien said and laughed.

For some reason, this struck her as hilarious, but she felt the need to argue.

"You don't get to tell me when I've had enough," she said, waving her arms in a bad impression of some actress whose name she couldn't recall.

"She's the girl you told us about?" the beardy guy asked.

Damien nodded. "She's that girl, yes."

Amber worried for a moment that he might have told them about the burger incident, and they would all hate her.

"That guy who made you lick Damien's boots is a next level douchebag," the pretty girl said. "I'd like to stomp on his balls with my boots."

Looking down at Damien's boots, Amber blurted, "I sort of liked it. It was kinky."

She didn't know why she said it, but it made the others gasp in shock then burst out laughing.

"I like this too," she said, pointing at Damien's belt.

"Okay, and on that enlightening note, I'm taking her home," Damien said.

He took her hand as she told his friends it was nice to meet them, and they looked so cool, and she wished she could be that cool.

The paving slabs began to move up and down, making the road feel like a Mario Kart race. As she jumped from platform to platform, Damien decided to carry her.

"Wow, you're strong," she said as he picked her up and carried her like a baby.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have given you weed that strong if you've never even smoked a cigarette."

"I like it!" Amber cried. "It's like being drunk without the drunkenness."

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"I can't let my Mum see me like this," she said. She thought of going to Ruby’s, but she might still be with Lucas and Greg would get moody if she showed up without him summoning her.

"My parents are both out of town," Damien said. "You can stop at mine."

"Hmm," she said, nuzzling into his chest as he carried her home.