by CD Reiss
“I thought you were fucking Zack Abramson.”
Her eyes flashed. Anger or recognition? Couldn’t tell anything anymore.
“That’s why I went to Riverside Drive,” I said. “To kill him if he was.”
“From the BDSM club?”
“Directly.”
“How could you? You’re worried about me with Zack, and you’d just paid some woman to tie you up and spank you or whatever?”
I laughed so loud I thought the whole office would descend on the bathroom to see what the joke was.
“What’s so funny?”
“Look, I have nothing against male subs, and the femdom rooms are packed, but—”
“How long have you been into this shit, Adam? From the beginning or after? Is this why you’re distracted when we make love? You wish I was something else?”
I stepped back. What she’d said was insulting. She’d missed the entire point and hit the bullseye.
As if sensing the crack in my armor, she went in. “You say you love me. How can you? You had this whole other life and never shared it. What kind of marriage did we have? Tell me, how deep does this go?”
“I’m saying this once to you personally, and once in front of a lawyer if I have to. I shouldn’t have to repeat the truth more than that.”
I looked her in the eye as she scanned me back and forth, flick flick flick. Her eyes couldn’t stay still. She could have known me but never loved me, or loved me without ever knowing me.
“I haven’t been to the club since before we dated, and you’re the only woman I’ve touched since then. Period.”
“You went before? This is a thing for you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because I loved you.
Because I was afraid you’d like it.
“Do you want the car?” I asked. “I’ll sign it over. One hundred percent.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You give me five minutes. Right here. Right now.”
“I’m not having sex with you.”
I smirked. Somewhere in there was an opening. She was interested. Curious what I had in mind. I owned her attention. Her lawyer could have banged down the door and not moved Diana’s dial a single notch. “I won’t touch you.”
She swallowed and tilted her head just a tiny bit. That was the curiosity. “What is this?”
“You’ll have to pull your skirt up.”
Her brows knotted. “I said I wasn’t having sex with you.”
“And I said I wasn’t touching you. You want to know about me and what that part of me is like? I’m going to show you. It won’t hurt. It might even be fun.”
She just drilled, pushing her intention forward, trying to see through me.
“Pull your skirt up.” I said it without acknowledging the possibility that she’d do anything but what I commanded.
It felt good to use those words and that tone. It felt good when her eyes went to the floor.
“Trust me.” I said it so low she was just within range to hear it. “Five minutes. Then we don’t have to fight over the car.”
I stepped back and set my watch with a beep. It wasn’t about the car for her. The Jag was the least of her worries, but it was a tangible justification.
For the downcast eyes. For the way her breathing changed. For what Charlie knew and I suspected but wouldn’t acknowledge.
Maybe every bone in her body was vanilla. Maybe.
“Quit any time,” I said. “Just say the word.”
She laid her hands on her hips.
Curled her fingers.
Gripped fabric.
Pulled up her skirt.
The tops of her thighs came into view then met at the crotch. I was hard already and made no move to hide it. She noticed and stopped moving the skirt.
“Higher,” I said as if telling her how to center a picture over the couch. Higher was where it had to be. It wasn’t a request.
Up it went. Cotton underwear in a pink so pale they were almost white. Tiny falling raindrops of hair at the edges of the fabric. The surprise of the hair pressed against the base of my balls.
Diana kept herself completely smooth, all the time. It was a priority for her. If she let it grow, that meant one thing. She didn’t think anyone was going to see it. Not me, but more tellingly, not Zack or anyone else. Those little hairs were a relief.
“Now what?” she asked.
“How do you feel?”
“Weird, Adam. Really weird.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m standing here with my skirt around my waist? Because you told me to? For a car, no less, which is creepy.”
She was so honest. I ached for her honesty.
“Not for the car. So you don’t have to fight for the car.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s an important distinction. You’re not obeying me for an object. You’re obeying me so I do something. Take an action or don’t.”
“You think that’s not weird?”
“No, I don’t. And we have four minutes.” I stepped forward. Part of her discomfort was in the physical distance between us. I’d stepped away so she didn’t feel threatened, but my gaze was keeping her from relaxing. I kept my eyes on hers. I could smell her perfume and feel the shortness of her breath. “Are you turned on?”
“Sex isn’t going to get me back. I’m sorry—”
“Touch yourself.”
I remembered that first night in the cab. She’d seemed so solidly vanilla she wouldn’t even play. But alone, in the bathroom, her initial shock and offense lasted only a second before she pressed her lips together and reached down, shoulders angling, hand thrusting as if checking to make sure her cunt was still there.
We have hundreds of bones in our bodies, and sometimes we won’t acknowledge the preferences of the ones that scare us.
“Are you wet?”
“A little.”
I gripped the edge of the vanity and put my lips near her cheek, millimeters from touching her.
“You don’t love me anymore,” I whispered. “But I could always make you wet, and you always came for me. Like our Italy vacation. In Florence. Coming back from that club, in the little alley. Against the wall. I ripped through your underwear.”
Her breathing got shallow and fast.
“I fucked you in the dark, and when you came, you screamed my name so loud all the lights in the apartments went on.”
“That was good.” She turned her face toward mine.
When her lips nearly touched me, I pulled away just enough. “I said I wouldn’t touch you.”
“I changed my mind.”
I wasn’t fooled. Her arousal was talking. “Are you wet?”
“Yes.”
“How wet?”
“Very.”
I owned her. She’d do whatever I told her. But I wanted something very simple. I wanted her pleasure. “Take the juice from your cunt and rub it on your clit. Make it wet.”
“Adam.”
“What?”
“What’s come over you?”
“Do it.” I felt her arm move against me. “Rub your clit back and forth. Be consistent. One-two-one-two.”
When I felt that she had it, I stepped back. She stopped. Her knees were bent slightly and her fingers had taken her cunt from the side of the crotch, not the waistband. She never ceased to surprise me. Her shame was apparent. So was her arousal.
“One-two-one-two, huntress.”
“Is this your way of getting back at me?”
“One-two-one-two. Let me see you come. You’re so beautiful when you come. You’ve gone this far.”
I didn’t think she’d continue with me watching her, but her clit must have been throbbing and hard. Her body must have been able to override her mind, because she moved her finger again, closing her eyes. Her cheeks reddened and her knees bent more deeply.
“In Florence. An hour after we got to the hotel. I came so
deep in you that night. I fucked you from behind with your leg up on the dresser. I wanted to thrust my whole body inside you. I loved you that much. And I gave up who I was. Last night, at the club, I remembered what I was. I was a man who was obeyed. I dominated women, and they submitted to me. The result was what you’re about to feel. Complete pleasure.”
She let out a long, low groan, leaning on the vanity, twisting. I could have fucked her right then. I could have bent her over the counter and pounded her. But that wasn’t the point. No. Watching her hand move under her clothes because I commanded it. That was the point.
An uh escaped her throat. Years of marriage had taught me that meant she was about to come.
My watch beeped.
“Time’s up,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. Her hand stopped.
“Thank you,” I said. “We’re done. I’ll send you the title to the car. You might want to pull your skirt down, since I can’t lock the door from the outside.”
It was hard to walk away from her panting, bent frame without tasting her cunt or even seeing more of her reaction, but I turned the corner, unlocked the door, and left the bathroom.
Chapter 22
PRESENT TENSE
It wasn’t until I got to the corner that I realized I was shaking. Not from the cold, which was significant. Blood had been dumped from my heart and was coloring my entire body hot red. She’d done what I told her. I’d dominated her for five minutes. Owned her. Pleasure and shame, every submissive bone in her body had been mine for that little bit of time.
It all came back in a flood. I was high on dominance. I remembered how it had felt with other women, but it was a hundred times more powerful with her. After such a long time away, the surge of adrenaline and endorphins made me feel like a perfectly tuned instrument.
I stepped onto the street in my flat-bottomed shoes, the melting ice creating new treacheries, and I knew I wouldn’t fall.
Walking across, my feet counting one-two-one-two-one with the rhythms of the street, the sounds of the city, the wind on my face, the towering obelisks above, I was threaded into the fabric of the world.
I heard the yellow cab before I saw it. The wheels didn’t screech—the street was too coated in melting ice for that. They made a splashing crackle as the hulk of metal barreled toward me out of control, so close. No way to run. No way to jump or dodge.
Yet I was in complete control of myself. I was right in the world. I felt the substance of my existence and the calculations of my thoughts.
I took one step sideways.
The cab missed me by an inch, skidding to a splashy stop.
With that lurching yellow car and the collective exhale of everyone who saw the skid, the door behind me closed. My journey had to go forward, back to who I’d been.
Chapter 23
PAST PERFECT
McNeill-Barnes company archives.
Transcript of Lloyd Barnes’s retirement speech.
The Claude Hotel Ballroom
June 21st, 2012.
Staff, authors, and their guests in attendance.
Full guest list in appendix.
My wife and I took this company over twenty-five years ago from another team forged in the bonds of marriage—my wife’s parents, Richard and Bertha McNeill. Dick and Bert were pioneers. Together they published and nurtured some of the greatest American authors of the century. True literary giants. And mostly because of Bert’s influence, they published some of the most esteemed female authors of the generation.
Martha and I tried to maintain that vision, but we had a slow leak in the business. Technology. Changing tastes. We kept her afloat, working day and night, but by the time Martha couldn’t fight off the second round of cancer, we were struggling to see a future.
And I can’t imagine a future without McNeill-Barnes. The only thing that’s kept me alive this past year has been the slow, steady, incremental revival of this company, thanks to my daughter, Diana, and her future husband, Adam Steinbeck.
(raises glass)
(guests cheer)
What a joy to give the day-to-day operations over to my daughter and another husband-and-wife team. It was my dream to pass them a profitable and historically relevant publishing house. I’ve downgraded that a little.
(cries of denial)
I’m passing them a company rife with potential to create and release important work in this new century. Most importantly, I’m passing it to family. I’ll die happy if this company stays alive and in family hands.
You two need to have kids, stat.
(laughter)
Chapter 24
PRESENT TENSE
Two days had passed since I dominated Diana in the bathroom at R+D. Since then, she’d worked from home, and I’d jumped between publishing and real estate development.
I carried around five tons of pain where she used to be. But those minutes of submission, as reluctant as they were, they were minutes of heaven I never thought I’d have.
I thought about her constantly.
My wife and I worked because I was a planner and she was the creative mind behind our life together. She had ideas and ran at the starting gun, but midway, she’d get distracted and move on to the next thing.
That worked. Because I liked finishing. She wanted a condo down the street from the McNeill-Barnes building and attacked the purchase single-mindedly. When we talked about reviving the publishing business, she had the idea to diminish the importance of fiction in their catalog and pump new life into long-form journalism based on the questions in her journals. She started both projects. I finished them.
What had there been besides work?
Us, together. In the office, in bed, in the kitchen in the morning, strategizing, coming up with ideas, these were my best memories of Diana.
“Let’s sleep in,” she’d asked once. Maybe a year into our marriage.
I’d stroked her arm, feeling her eyelashes flutter on my chest. Saturdays were the only day to get anything done, and we had to do it. The financial bloodletting was slowing, but we had to keep pushing.
“We can sleep in tomorrow.”
She’d gotten up before I finished the last syllable and she was in the bathroom before I could tell her to stay still a second, another half an hour wasn’t going to hurt.
I hadn’t gone to her cousin’s wedding in Minnesota. She’d only taken two days leave for her aunt’s death in New Jersey because we had a pitch meeting in Los Angeles. We’d lost the baby, and beside screwing regularly, we hadn’t made any effort to time sex with her cycle.
Every step was another way we failed each other.
I ached. My joints. My head. My heart. I ached with emptiness and helplessness. The pain was physical. I tried to jog it off on the salty streets. Piles of snow built up on the curb, leaving less room for joggers, and I veered right to avoid a stroller. My shoulder brushed against the green subway railing.
Without pausing or missing a beat, I ran down the stairs and got on the Uptown A.
Fucking train. I couldn’t tell how fast it was going because it was so goddamn slow. I needed to say what needed saying. We had been too focused on work. That was the problem.
I got off on Riverside Drive and jogged west in the Saturday twilight. I had so many things to say. All obvious. All puzzle pieces clicking into place.
The lights in Zack’s apartment were off. I looked at my phone for the time, but I didn’t need to. It was dark enough for her to need the lights.
It was almost the end of the month. Did she move out? And to where?
I slid the bar to make a call. She had to answer.
But then I saw a little app that would tell me when a phone was stolen. Was she still on my account?
I sat on a cold bench by the Hudson River and tapped the icon.
In half a second, her phone showed up. Downtown.
At the Cellar.
Chapter 25
PAST PERFECT
Did you never dominate her? D
id she never submit to you, even a little? Take a command? A strong request?
Open your legs.
I didn’t shave yesterday.
I don’t care.
Or the day before.
I open her legs. It’s dark. It’s late. We haven’t had time to breathe all week. We haven’t made love in eight days, and the sight of her in the office is driving me insane. Seeing her in the morning as we talk about leasing parts of the SoHo building through the shower doors gives me a boner I never consider relieving because I know the schedule. I know where we have to be and when. But I can smell the delicious tang of her cunt.
I kneel on the bed and open her legs at the knees.
I’m so tired, honey.
She is tired. It’s not a ploy. I run my hands down her inner thighs, and when my fingers reach her cunt, it’s wet. She groans.
I bend her knees up and apart. She is deliciously compliant.
I can’t move. So tired. We have to be up in four hours.
She can barely make the words.
Don’t move then.
Can’t.
Just let me take you.
Okay.
I fuck her. When she moves, I tell her to stay still. When her eyebrows tense and her mouth opens, I shush her.
Don’t move. Stay absolutely still.
Adam. Adam…
Shh. Not a word.
I love you.
I can tell she comes when I feel her muscles tense and release. And when I come inside her, I own the world.
Chapter 26
PRESENT TENSE
—Are you at the Cellar?—
—What, mate? It’s tryout
night. We’re at the Loft Club—
—Diana’s there—
—Diana your vanilla wife?—
—I’m uptown. I need you to go over
there and make sure she’s all right.
I’m coming ASAP—
—We’re on our way—
—Thank you—
