I try to make small talk on the way to the hotel, but she’ll have none of that. “So, do you have some kind of hobby?”
“No.”
“Do you like to cook?”
“No.”
“Do you like movies?”
“No.”
Hmmm. Let’s see … “What about sports? Baseball? Football? Basketball? Soccer?”
“No.”
“Do you ever say anything other than no?” I ask, trying to be a smartass.
“Seldom.” She just met my parry with a thrust of her own. Touché, indeed. And I thought I was the smartass.
Think, Zimmer. Ask her a question that doesn’t have a yes or no answer. After all, that’s what I was taught from Day One in college. “We’re both going to have to find a place to live. Would you rather get two apartments, or share one with two bedrooms and two baths?”
“I think that will depend on the cost of living here,” she says. I have to admit, that’s a brilliant answer, and she’s one hundred percent right to think of that. “I mean, I don’t know what the dollar will buy here in comparison to Cincinnati.”
“Sadly, probably not as much.”
She looks … thoughtful. That’s the best word I can come up with. “So how about if you go to the club tomorrow and do whatever you need to do to get up to speed, and I take the car and go look at a few places. I’ll look at both individual apartments and two bed, two bath combos. Would that be all right?”
“Would that be all right? Hell yeah―that would be excellent. Sure, let’s do that. You can drop me at the club and take the car, then come back. Or Dave can take me to his house and you can meet me there. Whichever you’d prefer.”
“Totally up to you, sir,” she says, never looking at me.
I decide, what the hell, she’s not warm anyway and I’ll just ask. “What did you think of Dave?”
“Seems nice, sir,” she fires back.
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Something in my brain says, Oh, just go for broke, Zimmer. What have you got to lose? “So what did you think of the club?”
“It’s very nice, sir.”
“So just from looking around, would you say it’s the kind of place where you’d be comfortable? I mean, if you were into that, would you want to be a member there?”
“Possibly.”
I’m getting nowhere with this, so I try a different approach. “Dave says it doesn’t make money but it holds its own. Did you see anything that might be done differently to turn it into a money-maker?”
She turns to look at me as I’m driving and I can feel her eyes boring into me, creating two smoldering craters everywhere her gaze lands. “Sir, that’s not the kind of place that’s a money-maker. It’s the kind of place that’s a service to a community, and a particular community at that.” There’s an element of disapproval in her voice that’s impossible to miss.
I can’t argue that. She’s absolutely right about it. I’ve never taken a penny of the profits, and Dave’s only taken what he needed for his own expenses related to it. Everything else has been put back into it. It’s not about making money―it’s about giving people in the kink community a safe space in which to play and meet others with the same appetites. “Spoken like a kinkster,” I say before I even think about the words. Then I wait.
She says nothing. Maybe I’ve stepped in it big time this time. I pull up to the hotel and park, then turn to her. “Cirilla, I’m not trying to meddle in your personal life. I’m just trying to get to know you.”
Her face is expressionless when she asks, “Why, sir?”
“Because we’ve been working together for four years and I still feel like I know nothing about you. Because we’re going to keep working together, and I’d really like to know you.”
“There’s positively nothing interesting in my life, sir,” she says, turning her face forward and staring out the windshield.
The car is flooded with light when I throw my door open, and I snatch a glance back at her when I say, “I somehow highly doubt that.”
Once my bags are in my room, I open the door to the adjoining room and knock on the other door. She opens the door and just stares at me. “I take it the room is to your satisfaction?”
“Yes. It’s very nice. Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. What time do you want to go tomorrow morning?”
She shrugs. “You’re the boss. Whenever you’d like to go.”
“Okay. Eight. We’ll go downstairs and catch some breakfast before we leave. Sound good?”
“Sounds fine, sir. See you at eight tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Goodnight, Cirilla,” I say as I close my door.
“Goodnight, sir.” I hear hers close too, and I wish I could see inside that room, see something that she does that would be considered personal. She’s not a robot―at least I don’t think she is.
Then I wander across the room to the bed. First my shoes and socks go, then my tie and shirt, followed by my belt and slacks. I’m down to my boxer briefs and getting ready to brush my teeth when there’s a tap on the adjoining door. Not giving it much thought, I just open my side, stick my head through, and say, “Yes?”
I know she can see me through the crack in the door. I’m not sure how much of me, but I know she can at least see my shoulders and chest. That’s where things get interesting, because the Dominant in me doesn’t miss the pinning of her irises when she looks at me. Uh-huh. There is a woman somewhere in that body, I tell myself.
“Could you come up with a list of areas in the city where you’d be comfortable living before I go out looking tomorrow morning, sir? I’d hate to waste time looking in the wrong places, and I know nothing about the region.”
“Sure. I can do that. I’ll do it in just a few minutes and have it ready for you. Goodnight,” I say again.
“Goodnight, sir,” she says barely above a whisper and closes the door again.
In my mind, it feels like her acknowledgement of my maleness, regardless that it was involuntary on her part, is a small victory of sorts. For the first time ever, there was a reaction on her face, something I could read, something she couldn’t control.
And I liked it.
* * *
“Good morning!” I say as she steps into the breakfast area of the hotel. “You look nice today.”
“Thank you.” No smile. No embarrassment. Nothing. Just blank.
“You’re welcome. I got us a carafe of coffee. So the lady over there,” I say, pointing to a short, dumpy woman of about seventy still in her robe, “says the waffles are excellent.”
She gives me an absent-minded nod. “Very well.”
“Of course, you can have whatever you’d like,” I remind her.
“I’m aware of that, sir, but I’d prefer that you order for me.”
That’s a shocker. This is the first time we’ve ever eaten a meal together in a restaurant, and I wasn’t expecting to order her food. “Do you have any allergies of which I should be aware?” I ask, thinking about eggs.
“No, sir, but thank you for asking,” she replies, carefully laying out her silverware in anticipation of her plate. “I’m sure whatever you choose will be fine.”
Okay, this is getting weird. I really don’t know what to think, and when the server shows up, I do a knee-jerk kind of thing. “Ah, yes, we’ll both have a serving of waffles, two eggs … Cirilla, how do you like your eggs?”
“Over medium, sir.”
“Okay. Waffles, two eggs over medium, sau … sausage or bacon?” I ask.
“Sausage,” she replies.
“Sausage. Okay. Juice of any kind?” She shakes her head. “Okay. My eggs over easy. I guess that’s it.”
“We’ll get it right out, sir,” the server says and disappears.
We both sip our coffee, neither speaking. I can’t come up with a thing to say to her except to ask all the questions I want answers to, and I know she’ll shut down like the power grid in the Bronx on a hot July
day. Then I think of something else. “Would you like to know how I came to have the club?”
“Yes, please,” she says, stirring her coffee a little.
Bingo! I’ve finally come up with something to talk to her about. “Well, when I got out of college, I wanted to find a job but I had a lot of trouble.”
She interrupts my story with, “With a finance degree?”
“I’d thought I’d go to work at a bank, but the industry was down at the time. I was working at a fast food restaurant―”
“You, sir?” she blurts out in seeming disbelief.
“Yes, me. That was all I could find. Pizza place. It was the pits. Anyway, I was also part of the kink community and I was unhappy because there were no clubs here. None. This friend of mine from college―he was from Tulsa and also in the kink community―he said to me one day, ‘Brian, why don’t we open a club?’ I came up with a list of reasons a mile long as to why we couldn’t. Then he said, ‘But what if we could charge enough for memberships to pay the rent for the year and maybe the utilities? How about then?’ I told him that would be great, but it wouldn’t happen.” I take another sip of coffee and watch her watching me, those big blue eyes following my every movement. At least she’s paying attention. “So we put out feelers. There were two clubs in Portland, and we found out some people from Seattle had been going there. I knew it would be an uphill climb, but we decided we’d try it. We picked a location and got a loan from my friend’s father, who was also a Dominant at a club in Tulsa. Then we put fliers up at all the adult stores in town, all the adult movie houses, anywhere we thought kinksters might be. We figured we’d get about a dozen inquiries.” Then I stop to see if she’ll ask.
“I take it you got plenty?” she asks.
“Plenty? The first two weeks over a hundred people called and asked about it, and we knew we were onto something. We bought some very basic equipment and started taking memberships. Pretty soon, we had enough clientele to purchase a lot more equipment, and to do some modifications to the building to make it a lot more kink-friendly, plus pay back the loan from his dad. At one time, we had over four hundred members.”
Her mouth drops open and her eyes go wide. “Really, sir? That’s a lot!”
“Yes. It was. Now the average membership of the club is two hundred and fifty, and only about a third of those are active, but that doesn’t matter. As long as they pay their memberships, we can keep operating. And the drinks pay for themselves.” My coffee’s gotten cold as I talked, so I top it off. That’s the beauty of black coffee―you never mess it up by topping it off. Without thinking, I ask, “Do you think you’d ever want to be a member of a club like Bliss?”
I can see her shutting down. “Possibly, sir. And Dave? Where does he come in?”
“He was one of the first people to join the club, plus I’d known him for a few years from a private swingers club we were both members of. That was when he was married to his first wife.” I don’t tell her that’s how Marta and Angela, Marta’s wife, met.
“I see.” That’s all she says. “You were a swinger?”
“Yeah. I had a long-term girlfriend, but we broke up because she left to take a job in Denver.” She says nothing. “Well, you know, if you want a membership to Bliss, I’ll give you one free. You won’t have to pay.”
“But sir, I wouldn’t mind―”
“No. There really are benefits to knowing the owner. But it’s your decision.”
“Thank you, sir.” That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear her say that she couldn’t wait to get a membership and start coming to the club. Or to tell me I’m full of shit and to fuck off. Anything that shows some emotion. It’s obvious that she’s not going to give me that.
We go on eating in silence until she says, “Oh! The list of areas. Did you pull that together?”
“Yes, I sure did. Did it not come through in a text?”
She looks at her phone. “Oh. It did. I’m sorry.”
“Wouldn’t have surprised me if it didn’t. Cell reception in this particular area is weird. I noticed it last night. But yeah, if you stay within those areas, you should be fine,” I say, taking another sip of coffee.
“Thank you, sir. Ceiling?”
“Um, five thousand. Although if you find something really nice above that, I’ll consider it.”
“Oh, god, that should give me plenty to work with,” she says, eyes wide.
“Not as much as you’d think. If you can find something on the water, great. Near the university, great. With a private rooftop, great. And parking garage, that would be excellent,” I tell her, hoping she remembers all of this.
She nods. “So I’ll start in the university area and work my way to the others.”
“Sounds good.” I take the last sip of coffee in the cup and set it down. The breakfast was delicious, and I’m glad we got a hotel that’s as nice as this one. The pickings were slim. There must be some kind of event in the area, but when I said I wanted a week, they managed to find us a suite. Money talks, or at least that’s been my experience. “You ready to go?”
“Yes, sir,” she says and stands as soon as I do. I drop a tip on the table and sweep an arm outward for her to precede me. As she walks, I watch her ass sway, and I realize she’s really very beautiful in her own way. The thick, dark glasses don’t do a thing for her, but she’s got a very nice shape underneath those silly, frumpy clothes she wears. It’s almost like she’s in some kind of getup for a movie or something.
There’s little conversation as we drive to the club, and when I get out and she slips into the driver’s seat, I give her a warning. “Listen, the cops in this city, they’re just looking for a reason to stop a woman. So watch your speed.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that. Thank you, sir. So am I picking you up, or am I meeting you at Dave’s?”
“Just meet me over there. I’ll text you his address.”
“Yes, sir. See you later, sir,” she says and drives away.
The front door is unlocked, and it’s dark inside when I step in, but as soon as I open the door to the common room, my vision is flooded with light. “Whoa! What the hell are you doing?”
I hear Dave laughing as I’m waiting for my eyes to adjust. “I’m trying to get the last of these bulbs changed. I couldn’t keep the damn things burning so a few months ago, I started changing them all out to LEDs. Now I don’t have to change them, and you won’t either.” I can actually see by the time he steps off the ladder. “Now come on back here and look at this stuff, and then we’ll go through the records together.”
It takes me all of ten minutes to put his worries to bed. “This? This is what you’ve been worried about?” I almost laugh.
“It’s a lien against the building.”
“It was a lien against the building. I found it and paid it eight years ago. They’d been sending the tax bills to someone else’s address. I don’t know how the hell they did that. Then somebody finally sent me some stuff in the mail, wanting to put the taxes in a sheriff’s auction, so I paid them right then. I thought I told you about that.”
Dave shakes his head. “I think I would’ve remembered that.”
“Well, it’s a non-issue, and I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you. I can see why you’d be concerned. Now what?”
He reaches over and flips the computer on. “Let’s go over the books so you can see what’s been going on.”
We break for lunch a little after noon, then keep going until about four thirty. At that point, I’m frazzled and Dave’s bitching, so we decide to just go ahead and leave for their house. I text the address to Cirilla, followed by, Any luck?
My phone rings almost immediately. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m driving and I don’t text while I’m driving.”
“I appreciate that. So you got the address?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And any luck with a place?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I think you’ll be pleased with wha
t I found. When should I go to their house?”
“We’re on our way now, so any time.”
“Yes, sir. See you as soon as I can get there,” she says and ends the call.
I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting dinner.
Chapter Two
“Oh, my god, Dave, your description didn’t do her justice. Olivia, it’s so good to finally meet you,” I say, taking her hand and squeezing it lightly.
“And it’s good to meet you! Dave’s told me so much about you that I feel like I know you,” she says with a brilliant smile.
“Oh, great. Now I’ve got to prove him a liar,” I say sarcastically.
“It was all good,” she says.
“So you’re both liars now?” I say with a laugh.
“You didn’t tell me he was so funny,” she says to Dave as she turns and heads back into the depths of the house.
“What can I say? I hit the motherlode,” he says and slaps my back as we follow her. The woman is some kind of beautiful and some kind of forty or so years younger than Dave. Hell, she’s younger than Clint. I still don’t know how he managed that, but I’m glad he did. He seems incredibly happy, and he deserves to be. I know he made peace with Marta a long time ago, but I’d still like to punch her for what she did to him. His heart was so broken I didn’t think he’d ever love anybody again. I’m glad I was wrong about that.
Before we step into the kitchen I hear her say, “Look who’s here!”
As soon as we’re through the door, there’s this tiny voice that yells something that sounds like, “Ga da ga ah da ba!”
“Hey, precious!” Dave sings out and lifts the baby out of the highchair. “Brian, this is the light of my life. Say hello, Nadine,” he says and chucks her under the chin.
She stares right at me and shrieks, “Eeeeek! Ga gag ab!” And she’s waving around a tiny fist the whole time.
Leaning in toward her, I say with a big smile, “Hi, Nadine!” And she promptly blows a spit bubble in my face. Dave finds that hugely amusing. “So how old is she now?” I ask.
Completely Mine: Bliss Series, Book Four Page 2