Disciplined By The Dom (Club Volare)

by Cox, Chloe

  Jake whispered, but his voice was very clear, in the silence that followed.

  “Who?” he said, but he already knew.

  Roman looked at him very sadly. “Catie.”

  chapter 31

  Snow had begun to fall slowly around the heated tent in the middle of the Frick Gardens, hidden by a high fence from the traffic on Fifth Avenue. The champagne flowed, various red and white lights sparkled in the early February night, the auction was underway, and Catie still hadn’t found Jake. She stood like a despairing island amidst a sea of joyous, drunken, slightly debauched fun, shivering even though she wasn’t cold. She was certainly running out of time. Nearly out, in fact. As the minutes ticked by, Catie had made contingency plan after contingency plan, but as the auctioneer raced through the catalog, she was down to one: her confession would have to be public.

  Catie shivered again.

  Worse, she realized that this was probably how it should have been all along. She didn’t owe just Jake an apology, though she owed him most of all; she owed every single person she’d met under false pretenses an apology. She owed everyone who’d shown her kindness while she’d lied to them an apology. She had been dreading this, but it was undeniably right. And she simply couldn’t go up there and allow Jake to bid on her.

  She’d just have to be creative with her phrasing.

  Catie thought about her grandmother and winced. She didn’t actually have a back up plan. She had some money put away, and she thought she would be able to beg and plead for a little bit of time, but she would have to think of something soon. Something she could live with this time. It was another leap of faith.

  “Next up, we have a spa package at Renopo,” Gwen said into the microphone. Catie recognized that item—it was a Volare lot, for sure, one of the subs being auctioned off for a weekend. Nobody had told Catie how the bidding worked; she assumed some of it was prearranged, like her lot was supposed to be, but if the look on a nearby woman’s face was any indication, not all of them were. The woman kept biting her lip to keep from smiling, but it wasn’t working.

  But Catie wasn’t overly concerned with that. She was concerned that she was up next.

  Her attention wandered to the crowd, trying, one last time, to find Jake. If he were to bid, he’d be out there, surely? But she couldn’t find him. The auction had begun to descend into a kind of well-heeled chaos, with various paid performers circulating amongst the party goers, juggling and doing things that required a kind of flexibility that would be highly valued at Volare itself, and society fixtures making drunken passes at models who spoke no English, or pretended not to. Someone she recognized from Volare was drinking vodka as it poured off a delicately carved ice statue. The sub to her right was auctioned off to enthusiastic cheers, and Catie wondered, again, whether any of these people really didn’t know what was up. If she had to guess, she’d say they were all in on it; it was just one of those traditions that morphed over the years and became something else entirely.

  But she was only wondering about things like that to keep her mind off of what she was about to do, and the inevitable consequences.

  She was out of time.

  “Next, we have a gourmet dinner of one,” Gwen read, and laughed. It was getting to be that part of the evening. “Sorry, for one. For two?”

  That was Catie’s cue. In fact, that was Catie, but it was her chance to make it right. Right-ish. Now or never, basically. She stepped up and tapped Gwen on the shoulder.

  “Hey, I have something I need to say,” she whispered.

  Gwen started and turned around wildly, her hand covering the mic.

  “Are you canceling the lot?” Gwen asked, wide-eyed. “I can do that for you if you need me to—don’t worry. Are you ok?”

  Oh man. Another person being nice to her. As if the universe wanted to make absolutely sure she knew what an asshole she’d been.

  Catie took a deep breath. “I’m fine. It’s not that. Just…give me the mic.”

  She stood up before the crowd and took one last look around for Jake. Nothing. The attention of the crowd was scattered, festive, happy. The lots had been auctioned off so far while people enjoyed themselves. All that was about to come to an end.

  “Excuse me,” Catie said, and tapped the mic. “I have a confession to make.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jake ran through the uncovered part of the gardens, soft, heavy flakes of snow falling all around, lit up from below as they fell, and wished he had time to enjoy the spectacle. He’d spent too much time in the coatroom, thinking. He hadn’t even had to think that hard, but he’d been so surprised at how easy his decision was that he’d sort of been taken aback. Eventually he’d checked his watch, and opted for a shortcut through the snow rather than the long way around through the museum itself.

  He elbowed his way through the edge of the crowd, looking for Catie. She didn’t know she’d been found out, and he didn’t want anyone else to be the one to tell her. Vincent was still angry, as was Lola, apparently, and he didn’t want them to be the first people she encountered. No one else would understand like he did.

  He was almost happy to tell her. Not to tell her the part about her being discovered as a mole or a source or whatever it was you called what she’d planned to do, but the next part. The part about how he felt. The part about how he still loved her anyway.

  That’s what he’d spent all that time doing in the coatroom. Musing. Marveling at the bare fact of it. He didn’t understand it, not in an intellectual sense. In fact, it didn’t fully make sense. He should be angry, and he was, but the anger was dwarfed by everything else. Jake finally understood what had happened with Catie the night before, finally understood what had made her cry, finally understood why she’d felt so terrible about herself. And in fact there might not be anyone more equipped to simply understand her plight than him. He, more than anyone else he knew, knew what it was to make a terrible mistake and have to live with it. He couldn’t condemn her for it, not when she’d already absolved him of his own inadequacies.

  But most of all, even with how bad it looked to someone like Roman—and Jake knew, as Roman could not, that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, that Catie wasn’t cold and calculating, that she was in fact quite tortured about the whole thing, and the failing health of her grandmother must have weighed on her enormously—most of all, he found that his love for Catie simply just was. Perhaps that was a burden as well as a blessing, but for the moment, Jake could only revel in the fact that it was apparently possible for him. He’d said that to people for years, never realizing that he’d unconsciously refused to apply it to love. He’d always meant attraction, or sexuality, or any of the other things he felt he had an understanding of.

  But this? This was a revelation. He could love someone no matter what. Or, perhaps importantly, he could love her no matter what. He couldn’t wait to tell her. He couldn’t wait to tell the whole world.

  But first, he had to find her.

  He was searching, in vain, near a melting nude ice sculpture, when instead of seeing her face, he heard her voice.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I have a confession to make.”

  Jake whipped around. He’d never, ever heard her sound frightened like that. Catie stood up at the lectern, her face pale and drawn, waiting for the crowd to quiet down, waiting for all eyes to fall on her. And Jake knew what she was about to do.

  “Oh, damn,” he said. And started to fight his way through the crowd.

  ~ ~ ~

  Catie had originally pictured herself making a graceful admission of guilt, something eloquent, sincere, heartfelt. Now that the moment was here and she was starting to sweat, she lowered her expectations. Now she was just hoping to make it through without throwing up.

  She looked up at the crowd, and then immediately thought better of it. Nope. That was not going to help.

  Just put your head down and do it.

  “Ok, so,” she started, already feeling like a dumb valley girl, “I’
ll make this short and sweet. Um, not sweet. It’s actually the opposite of sweet. But I can’t let anyone…” She braved a look up, hoping to catch Jake. Nothing. “I can’t let anyone bid on my, uh, dinner, without first coming clean about what I’ve done. I have not told the truth. Um, actually, I just straight up lied. It’s not like I forgot to tell the truth, I just lied. Roberts isn’t my real last name. It’s Rose. And as I was…getting to know many of you,” she went on, totally at a loss for an appropriate euphemism, “you know, in the organization, I was also…oh, crap, there’s just no good way to say this. I was also looking for material. For a story.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “For Sizzle.”

  That did it. She heard a few gasps, and then the silence slowly became complete, as people in the know or people who were still sober enough to pay attention shushed anyone still chatting innocently. Even people who weren’t in Volare among this crowd would know this was a big deal. Famous people, rich people, people in entertainment and fashion, people in politics—none of them liked hearing the word ‘Sizzle.’ Catie was pretty sure a few of them were looking over their shoulders.

  “It’s a story I’m never going to write,” she said, her shoulders sinking as she began to relax. It was done. She wasn’t anxious any longer, just sad. And she deserved to be pretty sad. “But I’m afraid someone will probably write it. I just wanted to say how sorry I am, and that all of you deserved much better. I’ve never felt as welcome anywhere—”

  Nope. Now she was going to start crying. She had promised herself that she would not cry; she had promised herself that she would not make this about her. Nobody ever wants to yell at a crying woman, and they should all feel perfectly free to say whatever they wanted.

  “Oh, shit,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I’m just sorry. Really, really sorry.”

  And then Catie forced herself to look up and face what she’d done. She figured she owed them all at least that. If they wanted to demand answers, ask questions, or pelt her with snowballs, she would take it. Or if they had security kick her the hell out, that would work, too.

  But it was worse than any of that. It was just silence. She searched the crowd for the faces she recognized, hoping to see something there, some reaction, some emotion. Anything was better than a vacuum. She saw Lola, looking hurt and furious. She saw Roman, who was, incredibly, smiling. The rest was a sea of anger and confusion, of people who alternately hated her and pitied her, just one after the other. Catie thought she felt bad enough. Looking at those faces, she understood she should feel even worse.

  But she didn’t see the one face, in the end, who mattered.

  She gripped the lectern, not wanting to turn away until she’d seen him, until she’d at least seen, for herself, that he hated her, or was disgusted, or anything really, anything at all except not knowing. But again, she had to face facts: she didn’t deserve to ask anything of him. If he wanted to never see her again, to never be in her presence, to pretend as though she didn’t exist…

  Catie started to shake. She was about to lose it.

  “Ok,” she said, nodding. “Ok, that was it.”

  She turned, about to give the lectern back to a stunned Gwen, when she heard him.

  “Hey!”

  Catie froze, not quite willing to believe her luck. She still couldn’t see him. The voice came from somewhere in the back of the crowd, where people were starting to clear away.

  “Is that lot still up? Lot twenty-three?”

  Catie felt the beginnings of a smile. Just the sound of his voice…but it was more than that. The way she could tell he was smiling, just by his tone. The way he sounded like…he was teasing her?

  She had wanted, more than anything, to get down and out of the spotlight, to go hide somewhere where she could be alone with her shame and her wretchedness—or whatever it was people were supposed to feel in these situations. She was open to the pillory or the stocks, even. All those angry faces looking out at her had only compounded her guilt, magnifying every instance of shame, making her relive all of her offenses one by one. And even though she felt like she deserved it, that didn’t mean she was strong enough to take it, at least not for very long.

  But his voice…

  She could stay up there all night now. She would, if he wanted her to. Just let me see him.

  Gwen gently took the mic and angled it toward her while Catie searched the crowd.

  “I think so? Lot twenty-three?” Gwen said. She looked at Catie, then at Roman, then back to Catie. Catie wasn’t even paying attention. “Let’s go with yes on Lot twenty-three. If we have any bidders?”

  That was an open question.

  “You do.”

  Jake stepped out from behind a melting ice sculpture, his hand up in the air. He was smiling. He was looking at her with those dark, shining eyes, and he was smiling. Why would he be smiling after what she’d just said? Why would he be putting his hand up in the air? Why—?

  “What’s your bid, sir?” Gwen said into the microphone.

  Jake walked toward the lectern, his eyes locked on Catie. She was struck by one of those superstitious compulsions again, where she dared not move for fear of jinxing whatever the hell was happening.

  He mounted the stone steps, taking Catie in hand, his arm around her waist. She didn’t understand. She didn’t believe this was happening. Even as he leaned in to whisper in her ear, she couldn’t quite believe it.

  Not until he said, “Everybody makes mistakes. I still love you.”

  “You love me?” Catie said as he brushed a tear off her cheek.

  Jake shrugged, still smiling like he’d just made an amazing discovery. “Some things just are,” he said. Then he leaned in to the mic. “I bid everything. All of it. Whatever it takes.”

  Roman himself started the applause.

  epilogue

  Catie watched her friend Danny Boylan, recently back from his theatrical tour, try to explain to Eileen Corrigan that stage left was not the direction she thought it was, and smiled. The two of them had shown a strange but strong affinity for each other as soon as they’d both started working to develop a theatrical therapy program for Stephan’s House, and had driven each other happily insane since. Danny didn’t have a great relationship with his family, who weren’t overly thrilled with the gay thing, and it filled Catie with a warm sort of glow to see him get lovingly bullied by Eileen. Families were where you found them, after all.

  Catie hugged herself, she was so happy. Jake had rented this theater space on her suggestion, and Danny had been thrilled to get regular work. Jake himself had seemed buoyantly happy in a way Catie almost didn’t understand—he seemed to take unexpected joy in the simplest things. And seeing him happy made her happy. It was this crazy positive reinforcement loop that just didn’t seem to end.

  Even most of the members of Volare had been eventually forgiving of Catie’s malfeasance, following Lola’s deliberate lead. Lola had been…incredible. Catie would always be grateful to her for her understanding. She only wished that Lola would show the same empathy towards Roman.

  That…was the one thing. The consequences of Roman’s unmasking as Brazzer’s real source were still unfolding, and mostly Roman and Lola were taking the hit. They both seemed miserable. Their pallor was beginning to spread to Volare as a whole, and even casual club members were beginning to feel it.

  Which was why Catie very much hoped she’d done the right thing.

  “So how’s it coming along?” Lola said. She’d come to see the theater space at Catie’s invitation, and brought two hot ciders—Catie’s favorite—as well.

  Catie hadn’t mentioned that she’d extended more than one invitation.

  “It’s…coming,” Catie said, smiling over the sweet smelling steam as Danny rubbed his eyes dramatically. Eileen laughed and swatted him on the arm.

  “Know what they’re doing yet?” Lola grinned.

  “They’re going to start with a bunch of Shakespeare,” Catie said. “
The comedies. I figured…”

  “Of course,” Lola laughed. “Jake will love it.”

  Catie hoped so. Jake seemed to have found a new appreciation for the plays and, especially, the sonnets. Catie was in danger of getting lost in thoughts of Jake again when she caught Lola looking at her with that patented Lola concerned look.

  “What?” Catie said.

  “How goes it with your family?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Catie smiled again, this time a little sadly. All the luck in the world couldn’t make some things right, but it certainly made them easier. “Jake and I go out to see Nana on the weekends, and he’s making preparations so we can go out there long term when the time comes. And my dad…” She shrugged.

  “I heard he wants to come back?”

  “He’s negotiating with the state and the IRS? Somehow? I don’t want to press charges or anything, but you try telling the IRS what to do.”

  Lola shuddered. BDSM clubs, even ones like Volare, tended to be wary of government agencies. And the Sizzle article had once again raised the specter of public scrutiny by a public that wasn’t always open minded where sex was concerned.

  “Hey, speaking of family drama,” Catie said, giving her friend a sidelong look. “You still not speaking to Roman?”

  Lola punched her arm gently, and Catie wondered if Eileen-isms were contagious. “Ok, first of all, don’t make it sound so juvenile. I’m speaking to him, just not unless I have to. And yes, I’m still extremely pissed off.”

  “I probably would be, too, honestly. But I feel like I have to say this: he was kinda right about me, in the end. I mean, I know,” she said, at Lola’s look. “I know, not telling you was…ok, I shouldn’t get in the middle. But I feel like I have to be grateful to him for all of it. I might not have Jake if he hadn’t been so…”