by CD Reiss
I wanted to be inside the circle. I wanted to understand what they understood. I wanted to participate fully in Adam’s secret life. I wanted him to be mine inside that life, if that was possible, because we could never go back to who we were.
And I realized that I was inside the circle. I’d claimed a place there.
“Stefan knew,” I said. “He knew and he was playing a game with us.”
“With me,” Adam said, and Serena stood there with her eyes glued to the floor, denying nothing. “Welcome to my world, Diana.”
Chapter 76
PAST PERFECT
A little ad appeared on the side of my screen. A Manet exhibit at the Met. There hadn’t been a Manet show at the Met since Mom died. I clicked to see which paintings were included, but found the one I wanted to see was still happily in Paris. Then I went looking for a picture of it. I had to see it.
I let it take up my entire screen. I wanted to crawl into it. Understand it. Live it.
The blanket under her ass. She could probably feel the rocks beneath it digging into her skin. Was it cold enough to make her nipples hard? Her left leg, the way it dropped, the men had to see her pussy.
Were they commenting on how wet she was? Who would take her first? Or would one take her mouth while the other—
“I got your dry cleaning.” Kayti came in with a clear plastic trail behind her.
I hurried to shut the browser tab before she saw. “Okay.” I cleared my throat and tried to remember what I had been doing before the ad showed up.
“You should wear this one to Metropolis tonight.” She flipped the clear plastic up, revealing my red blouse with tonal birds. When I moved, they looked as though they were in flight.
“Good idea,” I said, still squirming in my seat from the painting. “Bring your card. We might have to leave early.”
Chapter 77
PRESENT TENSE – DAY TWELVE
He bathed me for the second time. In five years of marriage, he’d only bathed me when I bled from the D&C. Without the sadness of the lost baby or the tears of the previous bath, his hands were slow and erotic. He touched every inch of slick skin.
“She’s been begging me to hurt her every time I go over there. Stefan gave me the green light to fuck her, not paddle her. I’ve caused a ton of trouble with him. Put your head back.”
I faced the ceiling, and he poured water over my head. He was pensive and far away, but different from his distance in Manhattan. He wasn’t closed off. He was both vulnerable and commanding in his own thoughts.
“But he wanted you to.”
He leaned his forearms on the edge of the tub. His fingertips dripped until he turned his hands over and rubbed his right palm with his left. “He wants to open the door to… things. I want the door closed.”
“What things?”
“Things I don’t want.”
“What? Tell me.”
“No!” he barked. He never barked. His voice was most powerful when it was steady and strong.
I drew my knees up like a frightened child and hated myself for it.
He was hiding something. A man without secrets didn’t have to yell.
“You didn’t fuck her, did you?”
I hated that I had to ask. Before Montauk, I never would have.
No, not before Montauk. Before I left a note on the counter, I never would have asked such a question. But I’d set him loose.
“Of course not.” He put the pitcher aside and sat straight on the stool. “She doesn’t want to be fucked as much as she wants to be hurt. You can sit up.”
I sat up, and Adam snapped a hand towel off the rack and dried his hands with his elbows resting on his knees.
“You know what this trip has taught me?” He waited for an answer with the front of his shirt bath-wet and the seam between his lips straight and serious.
I wrapped my arms around my bent legs and cupped my hands on my elbows. “I can’t imagine it taught you anything you didn’t already know.”
“I have limits. Hard limits. But I don’t know what they are until it’s too late. And I just… I’m not ready for this again. The affectation with these people. The overdrawn courtesy. You see what it’s covering up?” He flung his arm toward the wall behind him, pointing at an imaginary Serena. “He manipulated her, and she played me. I can’t even get on his case for it, because it’s so normal. And I should have seen it coming. Should have seen it a mile away and played the game instead of falling into it like a schmuck.”
I put my hand on his, letting the water drip onto his pants. “You’ve been away from it for a long time.”
I squeezed his hand. He looked angry and forlorn, holding on to a thousand words until he found the right handful. I slid to the center of the tub, getting up on my knees. I leaned over to him and moved my hands up his arms.
“You’re going to be all right,” I said with every ounce of conviction I could. “It’ll all come back. You’re amazing. I mean…” I needed more specific words. Accuracy counted or he’d think I was bullshitting him. “You make me feel safe. I’ve been walking around in this body my whole life and it’s been like dragging around a liability. It’s weak, and it wants, and it’s built like a magnet for pain. Men look at me on the street… not just me, all of us…women…and it’s scary. I’m scared all the time. I didn’t know that. I thought it was just how a person felt. Not until you brought me here and I wasn’t scared to give my body to you.”
“That’s you, Diana. You’re finding yourself. Don’t let the high cloud the reality.”
“No.” I squeezed his biceps. “I want the high. I want it so badly, and I want the reality.”
He shook his head, gave one of my hands a short squeeze, and reached for the towel. “Up.”
I stood, and he wrapped the towel around me, tucking one corner tightly under the other until I was snug. I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my head. I could see a quarter of his expression in the mirror, and even from that oblique angle, his trouble ran deep and turbulent.
Chapter 78
PRESENT TENSE – DAY THIRTEEN
Adam wasn’t in bed when I woke. The storm had been relentless. Communication held. The power flicked to the generator. Snow drifted to the bottoms of the windows. I felt wrapped in a white cushion of icy batting, protected from the rest of the world. When it stopped, the world went quiet and bright.
By noon, the sun was bright, and a blue plumber’s van parked in front of the studio.
Things weren’t getting done in New York. Zack’s departure had opened up a five-gallon drum of worms, and they were getting out. We couldn’t have chosen a worse time to be away from the office.
“Dad’s slipping,” Adam said, holding his phone to me over breakfast. “He can’t keep up.”
I read Kayti’s email outlining all the line editing, invoicing, and production decisions she still had on her desk. No mention of the divorce. But she wouldn’t email Adam about my slip. She’d email me, and I didn’t have my email.
“It’s a different business than even four years ago,” I said. “Do you think they need us to come back?”
“Do you?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I want to finish. We have two freelancers we can pay rush fees. And I can do the Islands piece myself.”
“I can run these invoices. Yeah, you take care of the editing.” He nodded to himself, folding his bottom lip in thought. “You should take the office. It’s quiet.” He turned back to his work and spoke absently, “When the sun is down, you’re mine again.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my hand, pulling me down. “And you need to stay away from Serena. You understand why now.”
“Yes, sir.”
He took me by the back of the neck and kissed me, and though only his lips touched me, he kissed me with his whole body. He hadn’t kissed me like that in Manhattan, ever.
Chapter 79
PRESENT TENSE – DAY THIRTEEN
I tucked my laptop unde
r my arm and headed for the office, passing the library. Serena sat in the winged chair there, bare feet tucked under her, flipping through a magazine. I was supposed to stay away from her, but I was so curious I changed direction and went into the library, settling into a thick wooden chair that reminded me I was sore.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Hi.”
I opened the laptop. A folded piece of paper fluttered out.
“How are you doing?” I asked, opening the note. “After last night?”
Remember how you got sore. – Adam.
“Fine. Why?”
I tucked the paper into my pocket, hiding my smile. As if I could forget where the pain came from.
I shrugged. “Just checking. Girl to girl.”
She didn’t respond right away. Just flipped through her magazine. I started my edit when she spoke up.
“You seemed into it.”
“I was.”
“I’ve had a few Masters since him,” she said absently, as if mentioning the weather. “But none like Adam. He’s got the right balance.”
“Of what?”
“Cruelty and compassion.” She closed the magazine. “I’m sorry about your head. It was supposed to be more fun.”
I closed the laptop halfway. This conversation needed my attention. “It wasn’t. We didn’t come here to play. Not with you.”
“Adam knows how it goes. He knew the minute I asked him to punish me straight out. Which he could have just done.”
“I thought Stefan didn’t want Adam punishing you.”
She shrugged. “Things happen.”
Her submission pushed the boundaries of pure aggression. I started to wonder if, five years before, she’d broken Adam on purpose.
“Whatever it is you’re playing, I don’t want it.”
“Why not?” Her dark brown eyes had Venus flytrap lashes that caught my insecurities when they blinked. “You can handle it.”
“You’re not interested in me. You’re interested in Adam. My husband. I’m sorry you couldn’t have him, but he loves me.”
She hung her head, and while her face was out of my view, I thought she was sad. I was wrong. When she looked up, I saw that she’d been hiding a smile.
The low rumble of an engine cut through the dead silence of the icy world outside. A car door slammed. Voices, muffled through the windows and walls.
Serena stood and pulled down her skirt. “No, he doesn’t love you.”
“You think you know him so well?”
“He can’t love a submissive. Once he breaks them, he doesn’t want them. I learned the hard way.”
“Serena!” a voice called from across the house. Stefan. “Come!”
Serena’s lips went slack and her eyelids fluttered. Just before she spun on her bare heel and ran toward the front door, she let out a gasp that I couldn’t deny sounded a little orgasmic.
I needed to see what she did when she saw him, so I got up to follow.
Adam stood in the doorway. I nearly crashed into him.
“Stay in here,” he said, pushing me gently back. “Please.”
“Why?”
“Just stay and finish editing. I’ll come get you.”
Without another word, he slid the pocket door closed, shutting me away from the rest of the house.
Chapter 80
PRESENT TENSE – DAY THIRTEEN
Adam and Stefan stood in the exact center of the yard, in the middle distance between the houses, as if intuiting the point of no return to their safe spaces. They talked, but their footprints in the snow showed their bodies had circled around each other. The plumbers left, and still they were talking.
I watched from the glass door to the veranda. The same door I’d stood at when Stefan choked Serena to orgasm.
She’d left the paddle. I didn’t realize I was running my hand over it, feeling its smooth curves, its weight in my hand, the caress of its warmth.
What are they talking about?
I’d waited in the library, behind the closed pocket door, until I couldn’t take it any longer. I slipped into the kitchen and ate something. The house was empty, or so I thought. Serena was standing in the office, watching Adam talk to Stefan.
“What are they talking about?” I’d asked.
“Me. Us.”
“Who’s us?”
“Adam and me.”
“There is no Adam and you.”
She never answered. I went upstairs. That was when I found the paddle.
I’d watched through a crack in the door as Adam paddled Serena. I was intensely and deeply jealous. He hadn’t touched her skin. He gave her no pleasure and took none for himself. Yet the act was intensely sexual. Intimate. The pain. The emotions. His rage. Her shame.
I swallowed, realizing how my hand had drifted over the paddle’s surface as if it were a lover. I tapped the edge on the tip of my nose as I remembered the scene, then I pressed it to my lips. Paused.
I kissed it. A blessing. An understanding. Closing my eyes, I accepted the place of that tool in the world.
I put it on the window seat.
The paddle had terrified me and now...
I didn’t have a chance to complete the thought. Adam and Stefan headed back to the house. Below me, the door opened, and Serena walked out, hair flowing behind her.
Adam continued into the house. I heard his footfall downstairs. The closet door. The stairs creaking under him.
Outside, Serena reached Stefan. He turned and walked into the studio. She followed. Adam came into my room as the couple disappeared into the side door.
“What’s going on?” I asked without turning around.
I felt his breath on the back of my neck.
“Nothing.”
I turned. “Nothing? You were talking for two hours.”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He reached for the bump on my head.
I slapped his hand away. “I’ll decide what I need to worry about. Is he going to punish her?”
Did I sound too eager? Did I sound as if I wanted to be a part of it?
I didn’t sound concerned about her, that was for sure. It had taken two weeks for that to change.
Adam folded his lips between his teeth, tilting his head at me, as if considering carefully before he spoke. “You’re not part of this world. You never will be. That’s by design.”
I crossed my arms. The wall between us got thicker and higher, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what had happened in the last two hours to close him off. “Was he mad at you?”
“Of course. But he was more concerned about her.”
“Concerned?”
“Why are you challenging me? What’s the problem?”
“Me? What’s my problem? You and me, we were so close last night, and now you’re shut down. You’re hiding things. This is the problem, Adam, it was always the problem. You keep things from me.”
“No, the problem was you leaving me notes on the kitchen counter.”
God, I wanted to punch his face. I walked out. Or I tried to. He grabbed my arm.
“Let me go.”
“You want to know what we talked about?”
I jerked my arm away.
“He wanted to punish me through you. Then he wanted to punish her. He wanted to share you to punish me, then paddle you while I watched. Then he wanted you to serve him while Serena watched.”
“Serve him?”
“Jesus, you’re so curious.” He said it as if it were a moral failing.
“You brought me here.” I was stiff as a board, a finger pointing up and a jaw set so rigidly I spoke through my teeth. “You held my life over my head. You endangered my family’s company. You put me in a car I didn’t know you owned and brought me here. All that’s bad enough, but I chose to go along because I trust you and I had more to gain than lose. Up until now. As of now, it’s all changed. You showed me things I never thought I’d see. You dangled a new way of thinking in front of me, and yeah, I
was curious. But now I’m not curious about other people. I’m not curious about your secret life. I’m curious about me. I’m curious about what I’m feeling, and I can look it in the face for the first time. I don’t have to be afraid, and I’m so free. I’m so…” I held my hands out to him and tried to grasp the feeling. My face stung with tears, but I held them back. I couldn’t let this devolve into crying and comfort. “I didn’t know I’d feel like this. I didn’t know giving control would make me feel in control. I am fearless, but only because Adam Steinbeck is showing me who I am. Without you, this part of myself that’s open now isn’t an opportunity. It’s an open wound. Every time you shut down, it bleeds. I get small and scared all over again.”
I blinked, squeezing out tears. I didn’t want to cry, so I grit my teeth together and breathed slowly through my nose. Cleared my throat. Held it together. I needed to finish this conversation. We needed to.
As if he understood what I couldn’t say, he didn’t wipe my cheeks or put his arms around me. He put his hands on his hips and looked down. It wasn’t a submissive gesture. He was giving me space to get myself together without his scrutiny.
“You didn’t cross off sharing,” he said. “You were right when you said I wouldn’t share you. But he knows you didn’t redline it, so he’s trying to hurt me by pressuring me to share. Even if it’s not about him touching you, if you even kneel to him from ten feet away, it’s sharing.” He finally raised his face to me. “He can’t force me to, and he can’t force you to. But I crossed a line with Serena. I’ll get a reputation. It’s a small community. But I’m not doing it.”
“If it’s from ten feet away?”
“No. And the fact that you’re even considering it? It’s uncomfortable for me.”
“I’m just trying to make your life a little easier.”
