by Kitty Thomas
Her heart lurched in her chest. Stop, she thought. She couldn’t let herself love him again. Too much had come between them. She couldn’t feel safe sharing the deepest parts of herself with this man.
It didn’t help that she couldn’t shake the belief, irrational or not, that he continued to stay with her as a financial decision to avoid losing money in a divorce or out of social obligation to a woman who’d never learned to fend for herself.
His hand cupped her elbow as he steered her toward the door. It was a possessive move, akin to how a man might place his hand on the small of a woman’s back, while leading her through a crowded venue. A bolt of something she could barely remember shot through her at his touch, and she was simultaneously assaulted with sense memory of Anton’s hands on her earlier that afternoon.
Michael didn’t seem to notice her reaction. “Shall we go?”
Vivian nodded, not trusting her voice.
The restaurant was busy, but a reservation had been made, probably before Michael ever left the gym. She bristled at him making a reservation without so much as mentioning it or asking her opinion.
A petite Japanese woman took menus from behind the hostess stand and led them to an empty table.
A few minutes after they’d placed their order, a porcelain bottle of sake was placed on the table along with two small cups without handles. Michael had told her what they were called once before, but she couldn’t remember. Ochoko?
When the waiter left, Michael poured the alcohol. Vivian sipped the cool, sweet liquid. Sakura served only top-notch sake. It was the cheaper grades of the beverage that were typically served warm. She remembered drinking it warm before she’d met Michael, back when she’d had very little money and thought it was supposed to be served that way.
He’d gently teased her the first time he’d brought her here when she’d complained about the temperature of her drink.
“Hello, Mrs. Delaney.”
Vivian looked up, startled from the memory, to find Dr. Smith standing beside their table. He nodded at her husband. “Michael. It was good meeting you today.”
Her husband nodded back.
Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you didn’t know the doctor.”
“We met at the gym earlier. You know what a small world it is at the nicer clubs. He mentioned Sakura. I didn’t realize he’d made dinner plans here as well.”
Vivian rolled her eyes, not buying it for a minute. “Is this some trick to talk me into going back to therapy?”
Dr. Smith looked surprised. “You aren’t coming back?”
Michael put down his cup. “Stop being so paranoid, Vivi. He mentioned it. I got the idea to bring you. I didn’t think we’d run into him. I’m trying here.”
Vivian wasn’t convinced. It seemed too much like a set-up.
“I do apologize. I saw the two of you and decided to come by and say hello. I thought it would be rude not to.” The doctor quickly excused himself.
“Vivi, I swear I didn’t know he was coming here tonight.”
Vivian stood from the table. “I’m going to the ladies room.”
But she didn’t go to the ladies room. Instead, she followed Dr. Smith to the back of the restaurant. He appeared to have come to Sakura alone, no wife or girlfriend on his arm. Maybe he’d met up with friends. Or maybe it really was a set-up, orchestrated by Michael to try to get her back into therapy. But if that was true, neither man had made much of an effort toward that goal.
Vivian caught up and placed a hand on the doctor’s arm, causing him to slow his stride.
He looked down at her hand. “Mrs. Delaney?”
“I just need to know.”
He guided her into the coat room, away from the noise and bustle of the restaurant. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “And what is it that you needed to know, Mrs. Delaney?”
She suddenly became tongue-tied, unsure how to phrase her question. The question that had been burning through her since Anton’s fingers had turned her body into a raging furnace of need. “Um . . . ”
He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her, amused. He seemed to know exactly what she would ask, but enjoyed watching her struggle to find the right words.
“When you sent me to Dome, did you know?”
“Know what?”
Of course, he would make this difficult. She flushed with embarrassment. If he did know, she had to find out why. If he didn’t, she owed it to every other woman who crossed the threshold of the therapist’s office, to tell him.
“Did you know that Anton would touch me?”
“Yes, Mrs. Delaney. That would be in the job description of a massage therapist.”
“No! I mean . . . did you know he’d touch me inappropriately?” she said, growing more flustered. What kind of person suspected such vile behavior from a doctor? Yet, he had made the recommendation.
“I did, yes.”
She was speechless for a moment, not quite able to believe he’d admitted to sending her willingly to a spa to be molested. “Why would you do that to me?”
He took her arm and eased her into a corner. His large hand slid along her thigh, moving beneath the slit of her dress. “Anton lets me sample some of his ladies in exchange for sending them to him. Though normally I don’t get to sample quite this soon in the process.”
For the second time that day she felt the wetness soak through her panties as the doctor’s lips grazed the side of her neck.
“Too soon in what process?”
He chuckled against her throat. “You’ll find out soon enough, my dear.”
She pushed against his chest, and was shocked when he voluntarily backed off. “Are you even a real doctor?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She tried to move past him, but his broad body blocked her exit. “I’ll tell Michael what you’ve both done.”
“No you won’t. You’ll lose him, and you know it. Your credibility will never be higher than mine, and Anton’s when he shows your husband the video.”
Lindsay pressed her against the wall and left a soft, lingering kiss on her neck. Vivian felt her pulse pounding at his lips. She shuddered and struggled to get away. The doctor’s hand moved underneath her dress, his fingers brushing against the wetness of her panties.
“Let me go,” she said.
“It doesn’t feel to me like you want that. You’re such a responsive little thing. Why couldn’t you respond this way for your husband?” His words held no accusation, only curiosity.
Vivian squeezed her eyes shut and looked away as his hand began to grind against her heat. She was horrified to find her hips betraying her to press harder against him.
His mouth moved close to her ear. “Is it the danger you love? Is it strangers, the thrill of someone you don’t know running his hands all over you? Perhaps you just need variety. The newness, the excitement.”
She whimpered, her eyes meeting his, pleading with him to stop because she didn’t trust her voice, or how it would sound coming out of her throat just then.
He considered her for a moment, then shook his head. “No, that’s not it either. You like being under someone else’s control. You get off being dominated like a bitch in heat.”
Though his words were cruel, his tone was soft, soothing, nonjudgmental. Her eyes widened at that, not sure what to make of him. Not sure why she didn’t scream, or try harder to get free.
“Yours is a token struggle, isn’t it?”
She looked away again, unable to bear the perception in his gaze, wondering how many others like her he’d done this with, and why the idea excited her so much.
“Just let me go. Please. I can’t . . . I can’t take this.”
“If you can tell me honestly that you don’t like what I’m doing to you right now, I’ll stop.”
A finger slipped beneath the satin fabric of her panties to touch the yielding, soft flesh and incredible wetness. She flushed.
“Tell me something
, Vivian.”
Her eyes shot up to meet his at the use of her first name.
“If you were single, would you struggle?”
“Yes.” She would struggle. Because if not for Michael and the idea that she couldn’t just give in sexually to other men, she would have to struggle to avoid dealing with what could be wrong with her to be so turned on by this. Two attractive males touching her against her will, making her wet. Making her writhe for them.
Hadn’t she felt the same way when Michael had let that thread of menace seep out with her?
“What’s wrong with me?” Fresh tears ran down her cheeks, dripping onto her dress.
“Nothing. You’re perfect. Just let yourself feel.”
“What you’re doing is wrong. What I’m feeling is wrong. It’s just . . . it’s so fucked up.”
“Shhhh” His fingers had found the opening of her pussy and started to pump in and out of her in a rhythm far too pleasurable for the situation.
“Michael will come looking for me. He’ll think I’m cheating.”
“And aren’t you?”
“No, of course not! I didn’t ask for this. You won’t let me go.”
He took her to the edge of her orgasm, then withdrew his fingers and stepped back. There was enough space for her to maneuver past him, if he didn’t step forward again to block her path.
“Do you want to go or do you want me to make you come, Vivian?”
Her voice was thready, barely above a whisper. “I want to go.”
“You’re such a little liar.” He sucked her juices off his fingers, then turned and walked out of the coat room, leaving her shaking and unsatisfied against the wall.
4
Vivian sat silent in the car, not wanting to stir Michael up again. He’d noted how pale she was on her return from the bathroom and rushed them through dinner. He glanced over as he drove, a look of concern on his face.
She sighed. “Michael, I told you, I’m fine.”
Uncertainty shone out from his eyes, but he turned his attention back to the road. “If you felt ill, you could have told me. I wouldn’t have made you go out.”
“You didn’t make me go out. I wanted to go out. I’m fine.”
Shame swamped her as she thought about the coat room and the doctor. Maybe he wasn’t even a doctor. He hadn’t answered her question in the affirmative.
Maybe Dr. Lindsay Smith was a woman, and that man had merely taken over her office. Maybe she only kept office hours Monday through Thursday. The lavender cards and walls, the orchids, the name. Didn’t that all scream female?
The feeling between her legs intensified. All she wanted right now was an orgasm. Her eyes shifted to her husband.
On top of violating her, the doctor had gotten her revved up without satisfaction. She should have been
more upset that he’d touched her but found she was upset he’d stopped. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Michael was right. She needed a therapist. She needed to be doped up on something that would bring her back around to something resembling sane. She couldn’t enjoy sex with her own husband. Yet two handsome strangers had their hands on her in the space of a day, and like some writhing whore, she wanted to come.
She stared out the window as the lights of the city flitted past, thankful her husband had gone silent so she could think. Michael had been her first. Her only.
Did she resent him for that? Was she upset she hadn’t had more experience, more lovers? Was she punishing him?
She began setting up columns in her brain. One column was labeled: violated, the other: willing participant. Under the violated column she considered Anton had intended to touch her with or without her capitulation. And he’d locked her in with him. He’d blackmailed her. There was nothing about the exchange that said consent.
And yet, hadn’t he freed her to do something she might have done otherwise? In another set of circumstances? If she’d had another life? The thought made bile rise in her throat. Why was she reframing this? Was it self-preservation? What he’d done was wrong. Pure, and simple. There was no gray about it.
Anton and the doctor, or whoever the male posing as Dr. Lindsay Smith was, what they’d done was a crime. She should report them. Fuck the video.
The willing participant column stayed blank. Except for the pulsing between her legs.
When they arrived home, Michael settled her in bed and brought her a cup of hot tea with ginger. “It’ll calm your stomach,” he said.
She accepted the brew with a weak smile.
“I’m going to sleep in the guest bedroom, so you can get better rest.”
She nodded, still feeling guilty for what had happened earlier that day. All the rationalizing in the world couldn’t make her feel like she wasn’t somehow cheating. After all, wasn’t she going back to see Anton on Tuesday?
Her body hummed with both fear and anticipation over what might happen in that room with him. Would it be the same as today? Would it scare her more or less? Would she come just as hard anyway?
“Do you need anything else?”
She looked up to find Michael still hovering. “No. I’m fine.”
“I’ll be down the hall if you need me.” When the door clicked shut, she brought her hand between her legs.
Vivian’s mind flashed to the coat room with the doctor. His hands were so warm and solid. So smooth. And yet the smoothness didn’t detract from his masculinity. Something about the softness of his hand, slippery with her juices, caused a warmth to flare out from her core.
She thought of Anton whispering threats in her ear, telling her she was powerless to resist the pleasure he would deliver. Then suddenly both Anton and the doctor were there, touching, stroking, observing her as she squirmed on the massage table, her legs spread wide for them.
The fantasy heightened when she imagined Michael standing to the side, watching. Not watching in a jealous rage, but with interest, his hand fumbling in his pants for his cock as she was used. The orgasm that followed caused her to shudder and rise off the bed.
She rolled to her side and let out a long breath. What the fuck? It was screwed up enough that she’d masturbated while thinking about Anton and the doctor, but why the hell had she brought her husband into it?
Tuesday came out of nowhere. After Michael left for work, Vivian took two showers and a bath. She tried on five different outfits, finally shaking herself back into reality. This isn’t a date. I’m going to this fucker to be abused so he won’t humiliate me by sharing a video with Michael that will have me tossed out on the street without a penny.
Despite the self-talk, she felt the familiar flutter in her stomach as she dressed in something sexier than she usually wore in the afternoon. She’d been bargaining with herself since nine o’clock that morning.
Beyond the morality of the situation, the only choice left was if she would let him break her and make her his victim. She’d decided she wouldn’t. She’d already felt guilt and shame, as if she were both being molested and cheating at the same time.
She had to pick one of those feelings and go with it. So she picked cheating. As she gazed into the mirror, some part of her knowing she’d disconnected from reality to embrace an easier fantasy, she thought of this as dressing for her lover. She pulled her skirt down over her garter belt and stockings and slipped into a pair of fuck-me pumps.
She applied a translucent cherry-colored lip gloss to her lips and mascara to her lashes. Having convinced herself she was having an affair of her own free will, she snapped her purse shut with the lip gloss and her wallet inside, then went to Dome to see Anton.
The spa was crowded when she arrived. A flush crept up her neck at the idea of biting back moans behind one of those doors while women and the occasional man sat in the waiting area flipping through magazines.
Janette was at the front desk with a friendly smile on her face. Could the woman know what went on behind the door in Anton’s little room? You’re being ridiculous. Of course she do
esn’t know.
“Hi, Mrs. Delaney. You’re scheduled with Anton in fifteen minutes. That’ll be two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
A bit of the color drained back out of her face. She was paying him? To molest her? She covered her surprise with a manufactured coughing fit.
In response, Janette placed a bottle of imported spring water on the counter. It was cold from the mini-fridge under the desk. Vivian forced a smile, twisted off the cap, and drank. When she was finished, she pulled out her checkbook and wrote the check, her signature feeling like a pact with Satan.
A buzzer sounded and Janette picked up the phone, speaking in hushed tones. When she hung up she handed Vivian a receipt.
“That was Anton. He’s running a little late with another client and said you should go to the restaurant and have a complimentary sandwich or soup. Whatever you like.”
Vivian nodded numbly, with the weird, fake smile plastered to her face. She wondered if Anton had someone else in the room like her. Someone he touched against her will. Someone else he had some nasty artificial blackmail on.
It was too late for lunch but too early for dinner, and only a few tables were occupied in the spa restaurant. She wasn’t terribly hungry, but she allowed them to seat her anyway, considering it a better alternative to remaining in the waiting room while her nerves became more frayed.
The restaurant was encased in glass, allowing bright sunlight to filter in from everywhere. Towering palms and ferns lined the walls, giving the sense of being outdoors in a lush jungle. A lush jungle that just happened to have a restaurant sitting in the middle of it.
“Madame, can I interest you in one of our soups? We have a very nice tomato bisque today.”
“That would be fine, thank you.”
The waiter handed her a menu. “It comes with half a sandwich.”
She skimmed the selection and picked the turkey spinach.
He nodded once, took her menu, and departed.
Ten minutes later a plate and bowl were placed in front of her, along with a crystal glass and a chilled bottle of imported spring water. She’d just dipped her spoon in the soup when she felt a presence looming over her. Or perhaps it was the shadow that fell across the white linen tablecloth.
