Laughing hysterically, I shut off the pitiful water and reached for a towel. I'd never wanted anything more than to just go home, back to my cozy apartment where I paid half as much for twice the square footage. Where I knew everyone, and everyone knew me.
Where all of my dreams would go to die.
I wouldn't. I couldn't.
I just wanted my life to be simple again.
Well, that was basically impossible at this point. After I'd dried off and dressed, I picked up the phone and called Maddy. I didn't know what else to do.
Pick up the phone, pick up the phone, pick up the phone.
"Hello?" She sounded breathless.
"Hey, um, could you..." I swallowed hard. "I was hoping we could talk. I kind of wanted to...run something by you. Is this a bad time?"
There was rustling in the background, and a series of more abstract sounds that basically answered my question for me. "Yeah, it kind of is, sorry," she said, sounding incredibly distracted. "But, you want to get coffee later? Like in um...an hour?"
"Two hours." Daniel's voice cut in, sounding very close.
Maddy made a little scoffing noise. "An hour," she said, before turning her mouth away from the phone slightly to address her husband. "If you think that kid of yours is actually going to nap for longer than an hour, you're delusional."
"Forty-five minutes for us," I heard him murmur, faintly, in the background. "Forty-five minutes for you to recover, and half an hour to get cleaned up, get dressed, and get yourself to the coffee shop." A moment of silence. "Any arguments? Tick tock, Ms. Wainright."
I heard her soft, indulgent laugh. "I'm so sorry," she said, into the phone. "Two hours, okay? Same place as before. I'll try not to be late -"
The phone cut off abruptly, and I was left to think in silence.
I should probably feel a little embarrassed that I'd clearly interrupted something intimate, but instead, I was vaguely fascinated. He called her by her maiden name, like they were playing some kind of game. Maybe enacting old workplace fantasies they'd never had the chance to fulfill, when she actually did work for him.
That, I could wrap my head around.
There was something about Daniel's voice. His tone. It was completely unlike the way he usually spoke to her, when other people were around. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd witnessed, but even over the phone, I could feel the electricity between them.
I wondered what any of this had to do with spankings, and corrections, and being...taken in hand.
I spent the next few hours wondering.
***
Maddy was late.
She burst into the coffee shop with a furtive smile that she couldn't quite seem to hold back. Her hair had clearly been hastily blow-dried, and she was wearing a silk scarf around her neck in the way women only do when they're hiding love bites. It was impossible not to smile.
"Sorry," she breathed, sitting down across from me. She was glowing, as if she'd just finished laughing at some secret joke I couldn't possibly understand. "And, uh, you know, I'm sorry about earlier. He's usually a lot more, uh...discreet. I probably shouldn't have answered, but..."
"No, I'm glad you did," I said. "Really." A moment later, I realized how that sounded. "Not in a creepy way."
She laughed. "No, I get it. So what's going on?"
I'd been so anxious to tell someone, and now, I realized I didn't even know where to start. We hadn't finalized our story. If I said the wrong thing, I could screw this whole thing up.
The hell with it. I'd wing it, and screw the consequences.
"I spent last night at Ben's place," I confessed. Maddy's eyebrows shot up. "Not like that," I hurriedly added. "I just - look, okay, I'd tell you if I slept with him."
She was smiling like the cat that got the cream.
"I'm serious," I said, trying to mold my facial expression into something like sincerity. Already, I was starting to lie to her - I didn't know how long I could keep this up. "They were doing work on my street, there was a gas leak. I couldn't go home. He invited me to stay at his place, so I wouldn't have to spend money on a shitty motel. I just happened to run into him after I got back from my audition from hell."
"Audition from hell?" she repeated, clearly wanting to know the whole story.
I made a vague gesture. "I'll get to that later. The point is, I did it. I followed him home. I don't know why. I wasn't sure what was going to happen."
Once again, she broke into a smile, this time with a little accompanying giggle.
"Turns out, nothing much," I went on. "Just cards. Lots and lots of cards. And...we talked."
"You talked," she echoed, meaningfully.
"Yes," I emphasized. "Just talked. But it was..." I cleared my throat. "I don't know, it was...surprisingly nice."
"Huh." Maddy shifted in her seat, watching me closely. She could tell I was holding something back, but with any luck, she wouldn't be able to tell what. "I got the feeling you couldn't stand him."
"Well. He sort of grows on you. Like a fungus." I was no longer sure if I was lying. "It's weird. I've been...I don't know. I've been running into him a lot lately, and every time we talk, he makes me smile." I shrugged. "That's something, right?"
"It is something," Maddy agreed. "Jen, are you sure you're not just...nervous, or lonely, or something? I just don't think you should jump into anything you're going to regret."
Excellent advice. How could I deflect it? "I know, I know. I'm not exactly rushing into something serious. I just wanted to..." Taking a deep breath, I tried to gather my thoughts. "I wanted to ask you about something. As one woman to another. It's not exactly something I can run by my mom."
Her eyes lit up. "Okay, that sounds juicy."
"It is fairly..." I laughed a little. "...juicy. I guess. So, okay, let's not get into the details of how I found this out. All right? Because that's just a distraction. It's not important. What is important, though, is how I'm supposed to react to it."
"Wait, wait, wait." Maddy held up her hands, a smile playing on her lips. "Okay. You can't just gloss over that. Were you snooping?"
"Maybe a little," I admitted. "But not really. He wasn't making an effort to hide anything. I mean, who just lets somebody use their computer without at least logging them into a guest account first? Obviously he wasn't really trying to hide anything."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Maddy set her drink down so abruptly that it sloshed over the edge of the glass. "Hold on. What did you find on his computer?"
"I'm getting to it!" I insisted.
"Not fast enough!" she squealed. "I need to know yesterday. Come on, don't hold out on me. I'm dying over here."
Taking another steadying breath, I bit my lower lip. How was I supposed to ease into this? Especially without letting on that I'd overheard Ben and Daniel talking about something that sounded suspiciously related?
I hesitated as long as I thought I could, without Maddy throwing her drink in my face.
"Have you ever heard of domestic discipline?"
The silence was deafening. Maddy stared at me, her face completely blank, before she broke into a fit of giggles.
"Oh my God," she managed, finally, her cheeks pink. "Okay. So. All right. That answers a lot of questions."
My stomach tightened. "Shit. I hope I didn't tell you something you weren't supposed to know."
"Oh, please." She made a dismissive gesture. "I knew there was a reason Daniel wasn't telling me how he and Ben really met. He doesn't like reminding me that he had a life before we were together. He knows how I get sometimes. But he's really, really bad at judging what's going to bother me, and what isn't. Emotionally tone deaf, these billionaires." She was grinning like she'd never stop. "So, domestic discipline - that's kind of an unusual flavor, for somebody like Ben. Or maybe not. It kind of depends on the person. Wait - what was your question?"
"I'm not sure anymore," I admitted. "But I've got like, a thousand more."
"Okay." She took a deep breath, laying her hands flat
on the table. "So. Let's see. This is all very top secret stuff, okay? Very private. I don't usually talk about it. I mean, who would I tell? But you're the exception...especially considering the situation."
My head was swimming. "Slow down, Mads. Seriously. I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that this guy probably wants to spank me for speaking out of turn - I don't even know what the hell you're talking about."
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Her face flushed a deeper shade of red. "So...BDSM. You've heard of it, right?"
"Once or twice," I said, dryly. "But it's not something I ever..." Hesitating, I watched her face. So she and Daniel did do that kind of thing. That much was clear, from her expression. But how? The girl I knew in college would never stand for that sort of disrespect.
Maddy let out a long sigh. "It's not like what you think," she said. "First of all - I don't do that. The domestic discipline thing. But from what I see - I mean, it's different for everyone. But someone like Ben, I think, it's just another way of playing with those dynamics. You know. Just a game."
What I saw looked pretty fucking serious, but I couldn't figure out a way to explain that without sounding like an overly-sheltered child. Clearly, Maddy had gone leaps and bounds ahead of me when it came to this stuff. "I don't understand," I said, helplessly. "And I don't know how to ask him what it means. I'd have to admit I was snooping."
"Not necessarily," she said, shrugging. "Just say that something popped up on his computer. He's not going to know enough to contradict you, and he'll be on the defensive so fast he won't have time to question whether or not it makes sense."
"He doesn't need to be defensive," I insisted, although I wasn't sure how true that was. "I don't even have the right to ask him about it. I just..."
"It kind of sounds like it's going to concern you," Maddy said, with a meaningful look.
"Stop it," I grumbled, staring down at the table.
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Her eyes sparkled. I refused to meet them, hoping that my embarrassment passed for a genuine interest in Ben. And hoping, more than anything, that it wasn't so convincing because there was a grain of truth in it.
I did not want to be treated like a disobedient child. Not by my boyfriend, not by a lover, not by my fake husband. Not by anybody. It didn't matter what I'd agreed to - I would never kneel down for this ridiculous, insulting charade.
Then why are you so anxious to know about it?
"I...I really don't think that's for me," I said, finally. "It was more...I don't know. I just want to make sure he's not some kind of psychopath."
"He's not," said Maddy. "I promise. I know it seems..." Her eyes went slightly dreamy. "Until you've experienced it, you can't really know. It sounds kind of...scary, or brutal, or something. But it's not. You'll never feel more valued than you do in the hands of a caring dominant. Trust me. The connection is unreal. It's electric. I'm not even convinced we were ever meant to have vanilla sex, you know. As a species."
I blinked. "That might be taking it a little far."
"Maybe," she said, still smiling like a smitten schoolgirl. "Don't knock it till you've tried it."
This was just too much. Suddenly, I felt like the weird one for not wanting to be tied up and flogged.
You've stumbled into a nest of deviants, just like Grandma always warned you about when you said you wanted to move to New York.
I had to grin. This probably wasn't exactly what she was picturing. Fifty shades of long-term monogamy.
Resting my chin on my hand, I tried to absorb everything I'd just learned. Part of me wondered if I was being unreasonably prudish. I mean, this stuff was practically in the mainstream now. I was pretty sure I saw fuzzy handcuffs for sale at Target. But if people really needed to spice things up, couldn't they do it without some kind of contrived game about ownership and control? What on earth was hot about that?
The goosebumps that suddenly appeared on my arms offered an answer, but I wasn't ready to explore it.
"Go on," said Maddy, gently. "I know you want to ask me something. I'm not exactly an expert, but I'll try to make you understand."
I was massaging my temples, slowly, trying to get rid of the pervasive headache that had been hanging out behind my eyes since yesterday. "I don't know. Just, the whole thing doesn't make sense to me. I have a feeling it's just one of those things. Like anchovies, or caviar."
Maddy grinned. "An acquired taste?"
"I was going to say, some people like it, and some people just don't. And they never will." Folding my hands on the table, I stared down at my fingers for a second before I looked up at her. "The people who are into this kind of thing - can they ever give it up?"
It was pure curiosity, I told myself. But it played well. She thought I was into Ben, and I was feeling out my options. That was exactly what I needed her to believe.
She shrugged, uncomfortably. "I don't know, Jen. I don't think there's always an easy answer for that."
"Sorry, is that...rude?" I turned my gaze back down to my hands, feeling foolish. "I just don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not saying I'd ask someone to give it up, I just want to understand. Is it recreational fun, or is it part of somebody's sexual identity?"
Maddy half-smiled. "I think you're asking the wrong person."
Shaking my head, I pushed my chair back. "I can't possibly ask him any of this. We barely know each other."
"He doesn't seem very shy," Maddy said, standing up. "I think it's worth a shot, if you really want to know what makes him tick."
Chapter Twelve
Jenna
What makes him tick.
I wasn't sure I wanted to know. But I needed to know, for some reason that I couldn't quite explain. The questions had wormed their way into my brain and wouldn't let go until I had answers.
Later on, I found myself slipping into my nicest dress, brushing my hair, touching up my makeup. Just like I was preparing for a date. Like I had to impress him. Hell, the guy had already proposed to me. What was I after, exactly?
We hadn't agreed on a time, so I waited as long as I could. Staring at the blank wall where I should probably have a TV, but I still hadn't bothered to buy one. When the anxious vibrations in my chest reached a fever pitch, I dumped my essentials into my nice purse and headed for the door.
Halfway there, I saw him across the street. Hands in his pockets, dressed like he was yesterday, before he started slowly unraveling. I wondered if he'd been into work today, even though it was a weekend. Probably. He certainly hadn't spent the day staring at a blank wall and worrying about what he was going to say when we saw each other.
"I was coming to pick you up," he explained, when I reached him on the sidewalk. "Realized I didn't have your number."
There was something hesitant in the way he spoke, like he was biting back something he really wanted to say. Probably what the hell? Because unless he'd dug into his browser history and figured out what I did, what I saw, there was no particular explanation for why I suddenly ran off just as the sun was coming up.
"Yeah," I said. "I realized that too."
I wasn't going to mention that I realized it because I was planning on canceling. It was too late for that now.
He was like something out of a catalog, walking beside me, long strides showing off the perfect cut of his pants. Even though it was still balmy outside, he wore his jacket to complete the look. I had to admit, if he was going to play dominant, at least he dressed the part. There was something about a well-dressed man that primed you to say yes, Sir.
Social conditioning. But in his case, there was something more to it.
Even with his tie off and his sleeves rumpled up past his elbows, he exuded a certain authority. Maybe especially like that. Because it was clear, then, that he wasn't just relying on some kind of costume. He was born into this role. He commanded hundreds, maybe thousands of people, on a daily basis. People couldn't say no to him. He snapped his fingers, they obeyed.
He didn't know
how to be any other way.
We reached his place in silence, and it wasn't until I was in the massive foyer that I realized I had no idea what to say to him. But apparently, I didn't have to. He headed for the library and gestured for me to follow him - a little twitch of his fingers, but unmistakable, and needing no words.
Without questioning, I followed him.
He sat down behind his desk, and I took my seat across from him. I felt like I'd been called into the principal's office. It was tempting, terribly tempting, to just get up and run away. I didn't want to talk about this. I didn't want to explain myself, or hear his justifications for why he was the way he was.
"I know you left for a reason," he said. "So, just tell me."
Taking a deep breath, I watched him carefully for his reaction. Now or never.
"I saw something on your computer."
There was a moment of heart-stopping silence before he reacted.
He grinned. "You were snooping."
"I wasn't snooping." Immediately, I felt defensive, folding my arms across my chest. "I just pulled up your bookmarks. I was curious."
"In what universe does that not count as snooping?" He raised his eyebrows. "A man's bookmarks are private. That's like somebody looking through your purse."
Cringing, I shrunk slightly in my seat. I knew he was right. If I caught him doing something similar to me, I'd kill him. So much for Maddy's assertion that he'd be the one on the defensive. I made the choice to delicately ignore his implication that I wouldn't understand the concept of privacy, unless he drew an analogy to something uniquely feminine.
Ugh.
"Who lets somebody use their computer without logging into a guest account first?" I challenged.
He just smirked. "Somebody who trusts his fellow humans."
I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "Am I supposed to believe that's you?"
"What, do you think I set this up?" He made a who, me? gesture with open palms. "You're the one who asked to use my computer."
"No, you offered," I corrected him.
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