Games We Play

by Cynthia Dane

  This room wouldn’t be the same without those curtains. Leah picked up her phone and wished she had some messages waiting for her. They would give her something to do. Something to take her mind off the shit infesting her subconscious.

  She called Sloan, not expecting her to pick up.

  Why am I calling her? What do I say? Leah almost hung up and texted her instead. “Whoops,” she would say. “I hit the wrong button. Sorry.” Before she could hang up, she heard the kind of familiar voice that soothed her nerves instead of lighting them on fire.

  “What is it, hon?”

  Hon? Hon? That was unexpected. Leah was used to the sexy pet names when they were in bed, but a rogue “hon” on the phone was not something she ever thought she’d hear.

  “Hi…” Leah propped herself up on her elbow. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

  “No. If you were, I’d send you to voicemail.”

  That’s more like it. Leah had been close to wondering if Sloan had been swapped for a changeling. “Well, I meant to text you instead, but thought it might be nice to hear your voice…”

  “Has something happened?”

  Leah swallowed her pride. She might as well say what she had been thinking. “I had a rough day.” She traced a circle in her bedspread.

  “You thought to call me? That’s rich. What can I do for you?”

  “Well… you know… wished I could talk to you and see you, that’s all. Is that weird?”

  Leah worried that the pause meant Sloan was hiding her laughter on the other end of the line. “Not weird at all. I’ve been thinking about you a lot today as well. You’ve been on my mind ever since you left my side on Sunday.”

  Leah almost blushed into her pillow. When she left Chicago, it was with Sloan standing in the waiting area and texting her that they would see each other again soon. Sean had escorted Sloan away from the security checkpoint while Leah was treated to the express line. A kiss had blown in her direction. Raunchy texts awaited her when she landed a few hours later.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, too. When will you be in Portland again?”

  “Not soon enough. I’ll be swinging by Seattle soon. I might have a driver take you up there to meet me.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course, kitten. I want to see you, don’t I? I’m assuming you want to see me too.”

  Leah wiped something from her cheek. “I bought a book today about our kind of relationship. I want to really understand it, so maybe… maybe we can make a long-term go of this. After what happened Saturday night, I realized that I need to understand more things on my end as well.”

  Sloan chuckled. “Are you missing my presence, or is there something you miss more?”

  That innocuous question sent shivers down Leah’s spine. “Maybe there’s something else I miss, too.”

  “Because that’s the kind of woman you are. You feel better when you have someone to coddle you and tell you that everything is going to be all right.” Sloan lowered her voice. “Everything will be all right. Even if we’re two thousand miles apart, I’ll still be with you.”

  She rehearsed that, didn’t she? Leah couldn’t laugh, though. That was one of the sweetest things Sloan had said to her so far, and she wasn’t wont to ruin the moment. I should be encouraging her to say more things like that!

  “What about you?” Leah asked. “Do you miss me, too?”

  “I said I did.”

  Do you mean it? “What do you miss the most?”

  She expected Sloan to say something sexual, and Leah would not be put out if she did. I don’t mind it if you’re only thinking about sex with me. Sex was a fantastic escape, and God knew Leah needed her escapes more than ever right now.

  “I miss the way you look when you’re asleep.” Sloan sucked in a deep breath that cracked over the line. “Specifically, your look of sweet satisfaction after you’ve passed out because I’ve finally worn you out.”

  That might actually be the sweetest thing. It wasn’t that Leah had a low barometer for what constituted “sweet.” Her friends would chide her for saying anything coming out of Sloan’s mouth was sweet. To Leah, though, that spoke to a different level. One that warmed the insecure parts of her soul and made her heart flutter.

  Sloan knew how to talk to her. In so many ways, they were kindred spirits.

  “You sound like you need a little direction,” Sloan said with a purr. “Do you want to play a game?” Before Leah could get too excited, her lover continued, “I don’t have time to have phone sex with you right now, but I could give you something to think about.”

  “Okay.” Leah never meant to sound that meek. It wasn’t even meekness taking control of her vocal chords. That was pure excitement, manifesting in an inability to speak.

  “First of all,” Sloan began, “I want you to know that this phone call is interrupting my dinner. I’m actually in the middle of an important dinner with someone I had to schedule into my life.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry…”

  “I could’ve sent you to voicemail, remember? But now I’m off my game. I decided to indulge you because of how you make me feel, and that’s on the both of us.” Leah smiled to hear that kind of pout in Sloan’s voice. “Tonight, I’ll give you something sweet to do. But before we have the chance to meet again, I’ll make sure you get a little punishment for interrupting me like this. Would you like that?”

  Leah tittered, as if this were her first phone call with someone she had a crush on – fifteen years ago. That’s how it starts, isn’t it? “Yes. When will I see you again, though?”

  “Why are you in such a hurry? Tell me what you’re thinking of right now.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have time for phone sex.”

  “I don’t, but I still want to know what you’re thinking of.”

  “You. Next to me.”

  “What am I doing?”

  Leah almost laughed herself into a stupor, but somehow retained her decorum. “Biting my nipple and looking at me with that cold gaze you have.”

  “Cold gaze? I like that. You speak to me on a fundamental level. Tell you what,” Sloan must have been smoking, for she exhaled a long, languid breath, “tonight, I want you to think about me biting your nipple while you fuck yourself with that toy I sent you home with. Make sure you send me a picture after you’re done.”

  “A picture of what?”

  “Anything that gets the point across. C’mon. It’s up to you how naughty you get with pixels on a server somewhere.”

  Problem was, Sloan was the kind of woman who made Leah want to take a full photoshoot of her naked body orgasming all over the place. Except privacy was always a concern in the digital age, wasn’t it? “I will.”

  “Good. I’ll tell you what your punishment is tomorrow. I should also know when we’ll be seeing each other again. If not this weekend, then sometime next week.”

  That was sooner than Leah expected. “Can I make a small request?”

  “Yes?”

  “If it’s possible… and I understand that you’re really busy, but… could we spend a whole weekend together?”

  “I’ll see if I can make it work. I have to go, kitten, my guest is back from the restroom and I need to finish my dinner. Take care of yourself, all right?”

  She hung up.

  Leah lay still for a while, debating whether to take a shower before having her fun. Ultimately, she got up and went to check in on her sister for a final time that night.

  “Karlie?” she lightly knocked on the bedroom door. “You okay in there? Wanna talk?”

  The door was unlocked. Leah found her sister at her desk, finishing up one of her applications, sans birth certificate.

  “Hey.” Leah closed the door behind her. “Wanna talk about something?”

  Karlie shook her head without a word.

  “How about some ice cream? I could go down and get us both a scoop.”

  “I guess.”

  Leah sa
t on the edge of her sister’s bed. Karlie pulled out her ear buds and gave her sister a furtive glance. Hair as curly as Leah’s hung limp against Karlie’s profile.

  You have the same nose as that little girl…

  “How many schools are you applying to, exactly?”

  Karlie shrugged, as if none of it mattered. “Five. My counselor convinced me to apply to OSU too.”

  “Mom won’t like that. She really wants you to go to PSU.”

  “So? I might not get in. I also might be better off going to community college first.”

  “Well, there certainly isn’t anything wrong with that. I did community college. I bet the programs at PCC are even better now.”

  “Maybe.” Karlie threw down her pencil with a huff. “It’s not fair, sis. Mom is always holding shit back from me.” Her cheeks whitened. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to cuss.”

  “It’s not a big deal to me. As long as you mean it.”

  “Thanks. You’re cool.”

  You wouldn’t think that if you knew certain things about me… “We’ll figure it out, okay? Whatever you need to get for your applications, you’ll get.”

  “It’s not only the birth certificate thing.” Karlie hid her eyes behind her hand. “It’s… everything. I feel like there’s something people aren’t telling me. Like everyone else in the world knows what it is, but I’m too stupid to see it.”

  Leah didn’t say anything for a few moments. What could she say? Because, yes… there were things Karlie was not yet allowed to know, and some of it for her own good. She didn’t know that her grandma Vaughn had dementia. She didn’t know that her parents once came so close to bankruptcy that Ray and Janet were calling extended family members in case they needed a place to stay after they lost the house. She sure as hell didn’t know the real reason she couldn’t see her birth certificate.

  Yet Karlie was a teenager, and teenagers were prone to hormonal paranoias that would never be bested in their adulthoods. Even if nothing was hidden from her, she would still be convinced that there was.

  “I’m gonna go get that ice cream.” Leah stood, the tip of her finger touching her sister’s curly hair. “When I get back, we’ll have some serious girl talk. Then I’ve gotta get ready for bed.”

  “It’s only eight…”

  Leah hesitated in the doorway. “How long do you think girl talk is going to take?”

  Karlie spared a little smile. Leah decided to take it.

  Chapter 19

  “That must have been your girlfriend.”

  Sloan pocketed her phone the moment Aaron returned to the dining room. His smug demeanor said he hadn’t gone to the bathroom to do personal business. Well, not the biological kind. Well, not that biological kind. Disgusting. Hope he shits himself to death. Nevertheless, Sloan spared her business partner a fake smile as she sipped from her wineglass. Her half-eaten plate of elk steak and seasoned vegetables would remain that way for the rest of the conversation. Aaron didn’t hesitate to keep eating his.

  “Certainly wasn’t your girlfriend,” Sloan said. “You know. Christie Yearwood? The woman you sent to the shack Sunday morning?”

  Aaron didn’t deny it. Not the dating Christie Yearwood part, and not the sending her to Sloan’s hideaway, either. All he said was, “Surprised you turned her down. She was so disappointed.”

  “Sex at eight in the morning is reserved for women who have already stayed the night, not late arrivals. You know this.”

  “I already had prepped her for you and everything.”

  “That’s abominable. Seriously. I just ate.”

  Aaron was still smug enough to choke the staff coming in and out of the dining room. They cleared plates, asked their employers if they wanted anything else with their dinners, and relayed pertinent information such as the arrival of guests left waiting in the downstairs salon. Aaron’s guests. He’ll make them wait, too. Occasionally, Aaron’s butler brought in a message from the office telephone. Aaron barely looked at those, too.

  “Is that what this dinner is really about? Because I was shocked when you said you wanted to eat together, and it wasn’t about business.”

  “Everything is business between us.” Sloan had to remind him that every five minutes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, dating Christie Yearwood?”

  “What’s the problem? Everyone knows you cavort with other women. Hell, you’re legendary in Chicago. Is there a single heiress in the Midwest whom you have not fingered in the past five years?”

  Sloan continued to regard him with a smile. “Fuck you.”

  “I fail to see the difference with my seeing Christie in private.”

  “Except she’s probably going to be marrying that department store cad by the end of next year. Do you really want to cause that kind of scandal with your dick?”

  “If my dick isn’t causing scandals, I simply don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Apparently.”

  Aaron pushed his empty plate aside. “Are you jealous, Maggie? When you have that beautiful girlfriend to call your own?”

  “You want to know why I wanted to have dinner with you?” She sniffed. “It’s because you’re stalking Leah, and I want you to stop.”

  “Stalking? Because I stopped in to see what she was like? Hardly call that stalking.”

  “I know you ran background checks on her.”

  “I did. I ran the same ones your man Sean did, although I bet he didn’t tell you the juiciest bits.”

  “Such as?”

  “She’s half Honduran. Her mother’s maiden name is Reyes.”

  “So? You were once half-engaged to that Brazilian film star.”

  “That’s different. She was from a rich family. You know how it is.”

  “If you’re implying that my girlfriend is undocumented…”

  “So she is your girlfriend?” Aaron continued to interrupt her with his laughter. “That’s rich, especially for you. Have you ever had a serious girlfriend in your life?”

  “Once, a very long time ago.” Sloan pretended to think about it. “In fact, it was a while before I met you. Fancy that. Knowing you has killed my ability to have a serious relationship. You have such a wonderful effect on the people around you.”

  “Cut the crap and get to your real gripes, Maggie. I’ve got a date of my own to get to.” He propped his hand on his chin. “Unless you feel like taking up my time for yourself.”

  Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the table with ferocity. “We’re not sleeping together. Ever.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “You want to know what my problem is with you, Aaron? You interfere. You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. You’re tracking where I am, who I’m seeing, and sniffing around the people I see. Don’t tell me for one second you care about my image or how it reflects upon you. You’re a bigger sleaze than I will ever be.”

  “Tell me how you really feel.”

  She grinned. He opened that right up to her, hadn’t he?

  “I feel like I’m going to be sick. Every time I look at you, it’s like the bile comes up from my stomach and threatens to choke me out. You’re so good at doing that to women.”

  He batted his eyelashes at her. “You used to love a good gagging.”

  “Go to hell.” Sloan stood, almost knocking over her glass of water. “Go to hell and cut yourself on the tip of Satan’s pitchfork.”

  She left the dining room the moment a server came by with their dessert. After announcing she would not be eating around Mr. Giles ever again, Sloan went up to her chambers and locked everyone but her chambermaid out. Even then, she made sure the middle-aged woman vacuuming the floors got out the moment her job was finished.

  “What an impossible bastard.” Sloan paced in front of her bed. She had stripped down to her camisole. Where the hell was the thermostat, and how was she supposed to use it without the help of her chambermaid? So many buttons! Fuck it! Get naked! “I hope he’s a fucking centipede
in his next life.”

  She threw herself down on her bed. A mistake, since the first thing she saw when she looked up was the wall of photographs on the far side of her bedroom.

  To someone who didn’t know Margaret Sloan well, it looked like any common collage of carefully framed photographs. Childhood. Adolescence. Degrees and vacations that took her around the world. Handshakes with dignitaries. Holding celebrities’ babies, because her PR agent told her she needed to soften her image. That was back when Sloan believed PR agents and their asinine advice.

  In truth, it was a timeline of the events that made Sloan who she was.

  Everyone had a timeline, of course, but Sloan’s told a story that was more cliffhanger chapter endings than one continuous, flowing scene. Other women would segregate their memoirs by life events. “I lost my virginity here. Went to college here. Met the man who would become my husband. Wedding day. Babies. Retiring to the Riviera and dying with a view to make angels cry. Sloan’s told a different story. It wasn’t a list of events that showed her gradual progression into adulthood.

  She could see the line between the old her and the woman she was now. There. Between the photograph with Senator Barack Obama and the black and white photograph of her sitting on a chaise lounge and gazing at the Chicago River. That was the moment I made the most fateful decision of my life. She had been paying for it – and reveling in it – ever since.

  It was also a month before she shaved off her silky black hair. That was the day the real Sloan was born.

  She had buried her truths, her secrets, and her desires so deep inside of her that she no longer knew what to tell people. One day, a biographer would cross her doorstep and ask her about her life’s mission. What had she always accomplished? What was still on her bucket list? What was the most significant moment of her life? She wouldn’t have answers. She’d confess that she never talked about herself at length since she was the tender age of thirty-two, because certain life events had solidified her need to detach from humanity and simply have a smoke.