by CD Reiss
“I’m trying to inform you.”
“To hell with this. I’m going out there right now and getting someone to fuck me with a wooden spoon.”
I stomped down the aisle. He grabbed my arm. I spun around to face him. Behind him, a woman was getting choked, and every time she breathed, the ecstasy on her face was unmistakable.
“Let go of me,” I growled.
“Look at it. You weren’t meant for this.”
But he was? But Serena was? Was I too good? Too weak? Too strong?
None of that mattered.
“You love me. Say it, Adam.”
“I’m keeping the love I have left.”
“Why can’t you love a submissive?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t love weakness?” I asked.
“I said I don’t know.”
“You’re unworthy of a woman who would kneel for you?”
“What do you want out of me?”
He was hurting me. I jerked my arm away, and he let go.
“I want you to leave me for a reason. A real reason. I left you because I was unhappy. I thought we were incompatible. You’re leaving me because you asked me to submit to you and I love it. You’re leaving me because you love me a little but not enough. What is all that? It’s not a reason.”
“I’m protecting you!”
“You’re protecting you.”
No snappy retort. No defense. Behind him, the clips continued.
She’s naked. Blindfolded. Hands tied behind her back and a high collar that forces her chin up. She’s stumbling across the room, following his touch.
“That looks like fun,” I said.
When he looked around to see what I was talking about, I slipped away.
“Diana!”
In addition to being easy to keep on, pants were good for running. Which I did at a respectful jog across the hall and into the club. Not too fast. I wanted him to catch me, but I wanted him to chase first.
I ran into Viktor, who kept me from falling on my face. Adam came behind at a slow trot, unfazed. I smoothed my hair and thanked Viktor the Russian for catching me. Adam took my arm without breaking his pace and led me to the elevator.
“I don’t want to go,” I said.
The doors closed, and we went down. When they opened, Charlie was standing there with his cane.
“Hello, there.”
“Hi!” I said, expecting a conversation, but Adam led me out, down a hall and to the street.
He put his finger up to me. “Hear me. I am not training you. Period. And you are not to come back here. Ever. I don’t care if it’s the only club in the city. It’s not open to you.”
“You can’t expect me to go back to the way I was.”
“I loved you the way you were.”
“Wake up, Mr. Steinbeck. Your heart’s not talking to your head. You still love me.”
Like a chariot from heaven, a cab pulled up. I didn’t wait for him to deny the truth. I opened the door myself and told the driver to go.
I was in the long game now.
Chapter 8
DAY TWENTY-ONE
If I was going to play a game of cat and mouse with Adam, then I had to make sure I was the only mouse worth chasing. He had to see only me through a field of hundreds of beautiful, submissive women who could satisfy his every need.
When I listed my limitations in my journal, I didn’t use the words to become depressed or hurt myself. I didn’t fall into despair. I made a calculation that he would have made. Without doing that first, I’d fail. So I didn’t get my self-worth wrapped up in the reckonings.
I was inexperienced. Unsure. I carried a ton of baggage with his name on it. He might never trust me again. He might always think I was apt to leave him at any moment. I represented an emotional risk.. On paper, I was the least likely candidate for his affections.
Coming back to me would be crazy. The morning after the tryout at the Cellar, I had a come-to-Jesus moment. I knew him well enough to know he’d told himself leaving me was about protecting me. I was sure he believed that, but I didn’t. Without truly understanding what I was saying, I’d told him he was protecting himself. He was legitimately protecting himself from a terrible mistake.
Adam Steinbeck was the jealous type. He still considered me his possession and responsibility, that much was obvious. Best-case scenario, he was telling the truth and wanted to protect me. Worst-case scenario, he wanted me to stay away from the Cellar so he could do/fuck what/whomever he wanted without my eyes on him. Even if that was the case, it proved there a bond between us that hadn’t broken yet.
I felt in my bones that the bond would start to fray at the end of the thirty days we’d promised each other. Any legal action would be legitimized. I’d have nothing to hold over him, and we’d split.
Also, I wanted to finish.
Also, he was mine.
Also, every day that passed without me taking action was a day he drifted further away.
I had to take a risk. I had to do something he didn’t expect. His reaction would save us or end us. What I was going to do could give him ammunition to justify taking another woman to bed before I could bring him closer to me.
But every day that passed brought us closer to the day he’d find someone else.
Every day, we’d be closer to irreconcilable.
Every day that passed brought us closer to the day he’d stop trying to protect me from someone who could hurt or humiliate me.
My thoughts felt calculating, but my heart was getting closer to panic.
The longer I looked at the card marked INSOLENT as it hung from the refrigerator magnet, the more I knew the panic would get both better and worse if I texted that number.
Success or failure, I had to find out who I was. I still had to understand what my submissiveness meant. How deep it went. How it could complement or destroy my life.
—Hello. My name is Diana.
Charlie gave me your number—
—Hello Diana. You
must be a brat—
—Apparently. This makes me
hard to train, right?—
—“Hard to train” is in the
eyes of the trainer—
He didn’t seem very bossy or Dominant. There was nothing sexual about anything he’d said so far. Was I supposed to be attracted to him? I wanted to want him, but it was hard through text and, to be fair, impossible as long as Adam Steinbeck lived and breathed.
—How’s your vision?—
Maybe making a joke wasn’t a good idea. I waited a full minute for a response. Note to self: if the Dom doesn’t have a sense of humor or his standard of humor is too high, walk away. I actually got out my journal, started a new page, and wrote that down.
1) Sense of humor
2) Low bar for laughter
Seemed as good a time as any to make a checklist of the perfect Dom.
3) Tall
4) Gentle and hard at the same time
5) Sexy voice
6) Patient with me on the submissive stuff
7) Takes no for an answer
8) Named Adam Steinbeck
Right. Well, I could push hard for the last one, knowing I might not get it. Or I could just pretend that every future man I ever dated could hold a candle to him. The world was going to run out of candles.
My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, and I would have sent it to voicemail if Insolent’s card wasn’t right next to it. The numbers matched.
He was calling me. Why?
Should I answer?
Odds his name was Adam? Slim.
Odds he was the man for me? Also slim.
List of what I had to lose? Again. Slim.
I tapped the green button and put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Let’s talk.”
Not Adam’s voice. Bottom line. He wasn’t Adam. All I heard was an English accent and the one man he wasn’t.
“I can’t promise anythin
g.”
“It’s early for promises. Don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
Too early, and too late.
Chapter 9
DAY TWENTY-TWO
Ten minutes on the phone the day before, and I felt as if I’d done most of the talking. I’d been focused on what I didn’t want to tell him. Adam’s name, for one. My feelings weren’t his business, and neither were my intentions. I’d highlighted my inexperience and curiosity. I couldn’t tell him what I’d discovered I liked in bed. It felt like cheating on Adam, so I danced around it. He must have seen right through me. Who wouldn’t? I was a stumbling idiot.
He said he wanted to go very slow.
God, what was I doing?
This was the stupidest idea ever.
I had to focus. Shed the shame and get the job done. This was my life now.
Facts about Master Insolent
English
Six-one
Fifty-two YO
Dark hair/eyes
Master’s degree—London School of Economics
Humor: 6/10
Bad humor tolerance: 8/10
Dom for 22 years
Currently single
Goals: break a brat
I didn’t want to break. At least, that was my initial reaction. Adam had broken me. He’d shown me my limits of pain, pleasure, and humiliation. He’d dragged me out of myself, folded me into his will, and put me back together.
How could I let someone else do that? I’d lived for years without getting broken. Why did I need it now?
I took the train to Dad’s place, rocking with the movement of the subway, submitting to its size and speed. I held a pole in my gloved hand, steadying myself against it, working with the inertia to stay steady.
Could I ever go back to vanilla sex? If Adam got the final word and I was in the cold without him, I would have to decide between being single the rest of my life, leading a vanilla life, or taking on another Master. Could I welcome another man into my bed for a lifetime of nice sex? Good sex even?
No. I couldn’t. I’d changed. I was a different woman.
Could I ever let another man beat and humiliate me for pleasure?
No. I couldn’t imagine it. There was only Adam.
Staying single forever seemed like the only option. Staying single or getting him back.
And yet…I couldn’t make that determination. Not yet.
The train stopped, and I was pushed against the pole. The doors swept open, and a cold blast of air hit me. I stepped onto the platform.
Adam was Adam. I’d worked side-by-side with him for four years. He always got what he wanted. His decisions ended discussions. He decided which result he wanted, made a plan to achieve the result, adapted in process, and won the game every time. If he decided to live without me, I could either accept his decision or stand in the way and get run over. Move with the flow and stay upright, or resist and fall under the train.
I changed my mind with every breath, going from hope to despair and back to hope again. Heart and mind battled, changed allegiances, declared victory, surrendered, and ambushed each other. By the time I got to Dad’s apartment, I was exhausted.
Chapter 10
Dad dealt the cards, skitting them across the kitchen table.
“You want to bid on a trump, peanut?”
“Just flip it.”
He turned the top card. Ten of diamonds.
I fanned my cards, plucked out the tricks, and laid them down, melding a nine of diamonds just to get rid of it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, laying out his own little fans. He leaned his elbow on his oxygen tank. His mask was looped over the valve by the elastic band.
“No.”
“Came back early,” he said, sliding a card off the top of the stack.
I could tell from the set of his shoulders that he didn’t have another move. I took a card.
“I know.” I put the queen of spades next to the king for a meld.
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not yet.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. Can we not talk about it? Pick a card.”
He took a card, slid it into his fan, moved stuff around. “Okay. You don’t want to talk about it. I understand.”
“Thank you.”
He threw a royal in diamonds. He was killing me already.
“Then I’m going to bring something else up.”
“Good.” I took a card from the stack. It was completely useless.
“I want to stay in the office.” Dad’s card wasn’t useless apparently. He laid out a fan of four aces. Damn. “Help out. Learn maybe.”
“Learn? Dad, please.”
He took a card from the stack and laid it on the table with the rest of his hand. I tossed him my cards to count up with his points. I tapped out my score in three seconds while he separated his counters from his nines.
My phone buzzed. I flipped the glass up while Dad counted.
—If you’re interested in
continuing this conversation,
I’d like to meet—
It was Insolent. I decided to ignore it. Take an hour or two. Think about it. I didn’t have to decide anything right away, right? I didn’t have to jump in bed with the guy today, tomorrow, or ever.
Then it dinged again.
—I have a safe, public place in mind—
“Hundred forty plus ten for the last trick is a hundred fifty,” Dad said.
I put the phone back and noted his score.
“I mean it,” he continued. “I feel useful again. Not some old codger puttering around the house. Or dragging my tank to the park to feed the pigeons.”
He scooped up the cards for a shuffle. He did seem more lively than usual. His eyes were still red from the constant effort to breathe and he was thinner than I liked, but his voice had real intention and force.
“Do you miss cigarettes?” I asked.
“Every damned day.” He shuffled nimbly. “Almost as much as I miss your mother. But they were killing me. Life isn’t worth much if you’re dead.” He dealt the cards, flipping a queen of hearts from the stack. “Hearts trump.”
“I remember you smoking in the office.”
We shifted our cards around.
“That was before you were born,” he said.
“I caught you out on the balcony more than once.”
“You were little. Now I can’t smoke at all in my own building. It helps actually. You go first.”
I had a trick of kings. Laying three down was a guarantee of thirty points, but I didn’t put it down. “You still want to smoke? After everything it’s done to you?”
“The blood wants what the blood wants.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
What did my blood want? Did it want Adam, or did it want submission?
To my own detriment, I laid the king of hearts next to the queen of hearts, keeping the other kings close to the vest for later, or never. Or tomorrow.
I picked up my phone while Dad made his moves.
—That sounds all right—
Let the queen have her king. The kitchen table could be their tiny kingdom while outside, they broke each other apart.
Chapter 11
DAY TWENTY-THREE
In the daytime, as the night, the Cellar wasn’t more than a sealed and locked black doorway in the Meatpacking District. I went around to Horatio, as instructed in the latest text, until I hit a brick arch at the entrance to a narrow, clean alley. A brass plate was bolted to the bricks.
THE GREENS
Members and Guests only
The solid metal gate was open, and I walked past it, heels bucking and slipping on the uneven pavement. The effect of the alley was of something older than me. Older than New York. A place as old as desire.
Insolent knew about Adam. I felt fine manipulating my husband, since it was for his own damn good, but I didn’t want to drag some
one I didn’t know into my personal dramas. Insolent seemed game for the game, but I didn’t know how committed he was to winning.
Be at the Greens at 1:20 p.m.
Wear a skirt
White underpants. No garter. Nothing fancy
Take a cab
Do not put a napkin or bag in your lap.
Place your phone on the table, glass up.
Wear a string of pearls.
Sit with your back to the door.
A heavy metal door stood at the end of the alley. On my right, the red brick of the building, and on my left, windows looked onto a winter garden with patches of snow and twisted brown rosebushes. Since there was no roof, the alley was as icy as February. The bitter air stung my bare legs, and my face and hands were red from the cold.
A handsome man in an open wool coat and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar stepped out of the black door.
“Are you the guest of Master Insolent?” he asked.
Kick off the heels.
Run away run away run away.
“Yes.”
“Come this way.”
He led me through the door into a restaurant enclosed in glass. Cool winter sun drenched the white tablecloths, and the low hum of conversation filled the room. It looked almost normal.
The handsome man didn’t grab a menu or ask me where I wanted to sit. He took my coat, gave it to someone who whisked it away, and led me to a four-top table in the center of the room. He pulled out a chair for me. I hooked my bag on the back of it and sat.
No water. No menu. Just me in a room full of Cellar members.
I didn’t want to be there. Flat out. I didn’t want to do what this stranger told me. It wasn’t arousing or fun. I wanted Adam. I wanted Adam to tell me to go to some strange glass-encased restaurant that was hidden behind a building. I wanted to know he would be sitting in the seat across from me, not some guy I’d texted. Some guy I’d never seen before.
