The Principle of Desire (The Science of Temptation)

by Delphine Dryden

  “Bum ticker,” he’d summed it up. His uncle had died at fifty of the same condition, and apparently Aaron was now convinced he would suffer a similar fate. He gave himself no more than five years, though his doctors were more optimistic. Beth thought self-fulfilling prophecy was the greater danger, but she kept it to herself. The heart scare might explain his sudden change of attitude, but it didn’t excuse his previous appalling behavior.

  And yet...spending time with him, tending to his needs, had an alluring, familiar rhythm. She knew these days, and enough of her bitterness had worn off that she remembered the many good times she and Aaron had shared. Aaron had been there so long and established so many of her baselines. After a few days in his house, Beth began to wonder if Aaron was her default setting. It was always easier to return to that.

  Ed texted her, they talked on the phone once or twice, but he seemed like an increasingly distant daydream. A sweet, almost vanilla daydream. Being with Aaron felt much more like the gritty reality Beth had come to expect. She liked to study psychology, and with Aaron she got to do that all the time. She was good at it; she knew how to manage this difficult man, which had an appeal all its own.

  “You’ve changed,” he told her on the fourth day of her stay. “I get that. I respect that. But Beth, if I met you today I’d still want to get to know you. If I saw you at the club or even at work. Don’t tell me you never think about what we had.”

  She couldn’t lie to him. “I do. Rarely in a good way, though.”

  “Let me change that. Let me show you I’ve changed, too. Give me another chance to show you I appreciate you.”

  He was so beautiful. So perfect, in the abstract. If she’d made a list of attributes she required in a man, he would have met most of them. And in fairness to Aaron, the lack of communication had been on both of them. He hadn’t taken her seriously because she’d never made him take her seriously in the past. If that could change, if they could really talk, it would be like a different relationship.

  But where would that leave Ed? Easy, implausibly loveable Ed.

  “You can keep him as a pet if you want,” Aaron offered. “Use him as a sub or a service bottom or whatever. It’s not like you were ever going to be serious about that guy anyway, right? Your relationship won’t even change that much. I’ll give you time for that, to go be a top, and at home you’ll be mine again. And we can go to counseling if you think that would help.”

  He thought he was being magnanimous. Beth didn’t mention that she’d already gotten serious with Ed, that she might be in love with him. Love was too complicated to think about. The rules weren’t clearly laid out on paper. With love, you worried about whether you were supposed to go help out the needy ex at ungodly hours, instead of just knowing whether or not that was allowed. You had secrets. She already had this one from Aaron, so maybe he was right and what they had was love. Maybe Ed had been her version of sowing wild oats. Wild vanilla-flavored oats. It was all too confusing.

  When Beth was eighteen she had written a list of desirable qualities in a mate, on the back page of her diary like an appendix clarifying guiding principles. Thinking about it now made her shake her head. Tall. Handsome—although she knew looks shouldn’t matter. In good shape. Good sense of humor. Nice smile. Nice manners, like a gentleman. Educated. Intelligent. Rich...she’d actually written that down, though she’d qualified it with a mitigating smiley. There were other items, equally naive and meaningless.

  Ed had a nice smile. He met her “educated” and “intelligent” criteria many times over, though she hadn’t been thinking of STEM field practitioners at the time but men who could discuss literature, philosophy, classics. The way Aaron did...all the time. And Ed’s sense of humor was wicked, though he usually hid it under his grouchy front. As for the rest, it wasn’t that he didn’t meet her specifications, but that those youthful ideals seemed completely irrelevant to the reality that was Ed. The story on paper told so little about the man. If the list mattered, she would have never left Aaron.

  On the other hand, Beth acknowledged—as she stood at the vast kitchen island contemplating the meticulously landscaped backyard through a bay window—that this life Aaron offered was tempting. It would be the easy path in so many ways. Aaron would probably consider her a trophy wife, a prospect that didn’t thrill her, but he would treat her well in his own way. It was the lifestyle she had always pictured for herself, and a part of her still wanted it.

  Another part of her realized she would have to miss this week’s game night, and wondered how the Fighting Perdedors would fare without her.

  * * *

  Hey you! How’s the not-so-patient?

  Walking on crutches. Putting weight on cast. They decided his fracture was stable? Whatever that means. So he’s up. Moving independently. /

  Ed tapped his finger on the edge of his phone, thinking through his next text. Probably overthinking. He wanted to convey eagerness without desperation, a certain level of attraction without revealing sheer horniness. As Beth had been somewhat cryptic about the timetable for Aaron’s recovery, Ed was also working hard to avoid any implication of jealousy.

  When can I see you

  He deleted the line and started again.

  Professor and Lindsey are doing a suspension demo at the club tonight. Will I see

  No, still too needy. After deleting Will I see, he continued in what he hoped was a more neutral tone.

  Professor and Lindsey are doing a suspension demo at the club tonight. I’ll save a space on my dance card in case you can make it!

  He regretted the exclamation point as soon as he’d hit “Send” but it was too late. All he could do was cross his fingers and see what happened.

  Prof and Lindsey? That should be good. If he’s not too tired I’ll be there.

  Ed thought, Come anyway. Screw Aaron, he can walk now, he doesn’t need you now.

  He typed: Cool. Maybe see you later then.

  Let’s hope so :-)

  That sounded like the opposite of hopeful to Ed, but he donned his presentable jeans and a clean black T-shirt and made his way to the club that night. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Beth or not. So he told himself, at least. She’d kept it so cool on the phone, even when they talked instead of texting, that he couldn’t tell how she felt about staying with her ex for over a week. He tried not to picture specifics, but she would have been taking care of him, serving him food, anticipating his needs...doing things she had probably done as a good lifestyle submissive, he suspected. It didn’t sound like Aaron was up to any bondage, discipline or sex, but were those the important features for Beth? Had the taste of her old life reminded her of things she was missing...like the things she swore she hadn’t been crying about, the first time they had sex?

  Mmm...chair sex. He couldn’t regret that, or their second time, even if she did go back to Master Aegis the Asshole. Ed’s experience might be limited, but he somehow knew Beth would always be far and away his best. Best date, best kiss, best sex, best...everything. She had seemed too good to be true, right from the start. Way out of his league.

  That didn’t stop his teeth from grinding when he saw Aaron’s Jag parked right in front of the club.

  He waited in his car for far too long, staring at the Jaguar and thinking about the scene inside the building. Ed had never anticipated it might become his scene—in fact, he hadn’t known places like the club even existed in real life, and it still seemed like a fantasy world to him. But his friends were there, he knew they’d all spend more time there in the future, and whether he ended up with Beth or not he faced a choice now. Was he going into the club only to find Beth, because she was the real draw and he was only doing all this kinky stuff to get with her? Or was he going in for himself, because he wanted to learn more about this new, weirdly and wildly erotic hobby?

  The jerk’s car was already here, which meant Beth was most likely already here. Ed could tell himself he was there for his own purposes all he liked, but knowing
he’d see Beth inside had to affect his decision. He knew that. But he still thought he’d be going to the club again and again, even if he had to go alone. He couldn’t walk away from it now. Something in him had changed, some switch had toggled over, and his wiring had started to reroute itself to treat kinky sex as just “sex.” The new normal. Losing Beth wouldn’t change that.

  Carlos and another guy Ed didn’t know were at the door, and waved him in. Ed felt triumphant, but also a bit like a kid who’d been allowed into the mysterious teachers’ lounge. Being a member of the club demystified the participants, somehow. He pictured them each sitting with a clipboard, searching their phones for the forgotten numbers of emergency contacts, rummaging in their wallets to find their insurance cards. Even the toughest and freakiest-seeming of them had to go through the same dull routine one suffered through before, say, a dental hygiene visit. Deep down, they were all the same.

  Except maybe that guy, Ed thought, as a human pup scampered by on all fours with the handle of his leash in his mouth, fluffy-tailed butt plug flopping against his thighs as he moved. The environment and its inhabitants definitely took some getting used to for a relative innocent like Ed. He had worked his mind around a lot of stuff over the past few weeks, but the animal role-players still baffled him. The pup seemed happy enough, though, which was what counted.

  The Professor and Cami normally only came to the club once or twice a month, Ed had learned. Ben and Lindsey had adopted the same schedule, but tonight’s demonstration would have typically been an “off” night for all of them. Cami was afraid of suspension bondage, and not all that flexible, so Lindsey had volunteered to be Ivan’s model for the evening.

  Ed saw her red hair first thing when he looked to the center of the room. She was floating some five feet off the ground, face down, suspended from four ropes tied to a central supporting ring. Hands tied together with one rope, another to each ankle, and the last supporting her hips to take the bulk of her weight. As Ed approached the group, Ivan was in his workday Professor mode, rather than his kinky Professor mode. He was explaining the versatility of the system, and how to adjust the sub’s pose one point at a time.

  Lindsey, in a sports bra and bike shorts, looked more comfortable than Ed would’ve expected. Cami and Ben stood by in street clothes, sharing some joke as they watched their mates. Envy lashed through Ed, tinged with hope that he might one day be part of that grouping. With Beth.

  Where the hell is she? When he got to the outskirts of the small crowd, he finally saw her. He hadn’t spotted her before because she was sitting down on the far side of the exhibition space. Sitting, more particularly, on the arm of Master Aegis’s chair, while the unworthy asshole himself slung one possessive arm around her hips, hand on her upper thigh. A pair of crutches leaned against the arm of the chair, and Beth’s sandals lay on the floor beside them. Aaron had his broken leg, still encased past the knee, propped up on a footstool. Beth rested her bare toes on the edge of the stool, nearly tucked under the cast.

  They looked so fucking comfortable Ed thought his head might explode. He honestly didn’t know if it was rage or embarrassment that made his pulse pound in his temples. Beth spotted him and smiled broadly, lifting a hand as though she meant to wave, but Aaron interrupted her with a comment and she bent down to listen to him with her hand stuck halfway. After a second she nodded and finished her wave, but the smile had faded to a shadow. Wary, Ed skirted the circle of onlookers, throwing a nod at his friends, and made his way around to Beth and Aaron.

  He had no idea what to say. He’d missed her so much that seeing her was almost painful, a sweet twang like water on a parched tongue. He hadn’t just missed her, he’d needed her in some way he still struggled to define.

  Beth seemed about to rise to greet him, but Aaron’s fingers tightened around her thigh, momentarily pinning her to the chair.

  Then the bastard took advantage of a lull in Ivan’s lecture, and called out, “Hey, it’s the Doughboy.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The silence became a heavy presence, broken only by a nervous throat-clearing and somebody in the crowd whispering, “Whoa.”

  It seemed an eternity, Aaron’s fingers digging into her hip while she tried to pull them away so she could stand, Ed’s expression morphing from hopeful to something awful Beth had never seen before, and the eyes of everybody swinging toward him to the accompaniment of the heartbeat pounding in her ears.

  “Where’s Jerry?” the Professor asked, and the horrible pause swung back into motion as Jerry, that day’s dungeon monitor, appeared through the crowd.

  “Not cool, man. You know the rules,” Jerry told Aaron, never minding the fact that in the normal course of events he would more likely be on the receiving end of reprimands from a Master than delivering one. Last time Beth had seen Jerry, he’d been kneeling at the feet of his own Master and licking the man’s boots. Today, he wore the orange vest and seemed to be the law, and Master Aegis was in clear violation. “First warning, and you’re out for a month. If there’s a second time you’ll get a six-month suspension. Third strike and you’ll be banned. Do you need anyone to help you back to your car, sir?”

  The “sir” was a habit, but it didn’t matter. Aaron seemed to know he was out of line. “No, we’ll be fine on our own.” He released Beth’s hip after a final vicious pinch of her flesh. “Get the crutches and help me up, now!”

  “Your hand is right next to them,” Ed said. Although his voice was quiet, the resolution it carried resonated through the crowd. “Get them yourself and apologize for manhandling Beth’s ass just now.”

  A silence even more profound than the last fell over the group, as Ed stared Aaron down. It seemed like ages passed before Aaron dropped his gaze and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Beth. I had no right to do that or order you around.” Then he amazed her by continuing, in Ed’s direction, “I’m sorry I was a dick, man. I was completely out of line.”

  Beth contemplated them each in turn, her unexpected defender facing off against a man she had never before heard apologize and mean it. She smoothed her skirt down over the spot he’d been gripping. The pinch was already raising a welt she could feel through the cotton. It was the only mark he’d ever left without her consent, and judging by his words and the way his hand trembled as he reached for his clutches, he was genuinely taken aback by his own behavior. As well he might be...but she never would have credited him with the grace to admit it in a public forum.

  She also never would have believed his insecurity over losing her would drive him to a blow as low as insulting a perceived rival in front of their friends, either. The evening was full of surprises.

  “I need to think some things over, Aaron. Don’t call or email or send flowers or whatever else you’re thinking up. I’ll call you when I figure it out. Ed, will you drive me home, please?”

  “Sure. Right now?”

  “Right now,” she confirmed, striding past him toward the door and leaving him little choice but to follow.

  She had come to the demo in street clothes, and the cotton maxi dress clung to her body when she passed the club’s cool threshold and encountered the hot, damp night air. It smelled very late-summer-in-Houston, a wash of night-blooming jasmine over the harsher odor of exhaust fumes, underpinned with a whiff of rotting vegetation. Flowers, cars and garbage. Strange that a girl from San Francisco would come to welcome that scent and the accompanying heat as comfortingly familiar.

  “I’m parked down the block, over there.” Ed pointed as he joined her on the sidewalk.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what Aaron said. I’m sorry he thought it would do him any good to say it.

  “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t take his hand. She didn’t feel worthy of taking Ed’s hand just then.

  She’d forgotten that Ed didn’t know where she lived, so the stuffy silence of the ride ended in her giving him directions. Her house was not far from Aaron’s geographically, and had been built around th
e same time, but it was miles away in terms of style. A little two-bedroom cottage, literally rose-covered. Not much inside, because she didn’t like clutter and had spent most of her time since coming to Houston either working or spending time with Aaron. He’d suggested she buy the house as an investment, since the land it sat on out-valued the house many times over. It had been a good one, but over the past six months the cottage she’d once thought to sell as a tear-down had somehow become her home.

  Ed parked in the narrow driveway and hopped out to open her door for her, change jingling in his pockets. His jeans were nearly as baggy as his gym shorts, and had a hole in one knee. Not a fashionable hole, just a rip he’d acquired somewhere and never bothered to mend or patch. When he handed her out of the car, she smelled deodorant and fabric softener on his faded T-shirt, instead of citrusy Atelier cologne.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” She unlocked the front door and let him in, locking up behind them and tossing her keys on the demilune table by the door. “Fire away.”

  “What the hell did he do?”

  Beth gaped. “You were there. He called you Doughboy. In front of everybody. Regardless of what gets said between consensual partners in scenes, we don’t generally allow name-calling or shaming random members at the club. It’s supposed to be a safe space.”

  “Um...yeah, I know what he called me. I was there, as you pointed out. Not something I’m gonna forget any time soon, but thanks for reminding me. I meant before that. Why are you here with me, not with him? It’s obvious you still care about him, if you’re willing to stay with him for days and snuggle with him at the club. What did he do?”