ProdigalSlave

by Roxy Harte

  Prodigal Slave

  Roxy Harte

  Recently divorced soccer mom and paralegal extraordinaire Charlotte Sullivan has a secret past life that returns to haunt her on her birthday in the form of a perfectly gift-wrapped, blood-red velvet bustier. A summons from her once Master, François Rene de Hart, follows.

  Pure lust awaits a mere train ride away, but she fears the journey may break more than her heart the second time around. With her teenage daughters in Europe for the summer, Charlotte’s opportunity to relive her youth with a man she once loved seems too good to be true. It’s also a chance to be bad, which she hasn’t been in a very long time. Curiosity and temptation win out over logic.

  But more surprises are in store. François’ current lover, Pierre-Louis, is very much a part of his life. If she wants to be truly reunited with her Master, she must learn to love the other man as well.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Prodigal Slave

  ISBN 9781419935473

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Prodigal Slave Copyright © 2011 Roxy Harte

  Edited by Jillian Bell

  Cover design by Syneca

  Photography: Brenda Carson/Shutterstock.com

  Electronic book publication December 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Prodigal Slave

  Roxy Harte

  Chapter One

  The blood-red velvet bustier lying inside the half-open box on top of my bed was unexpected. It had arrived via Federal Express. Once I realize what it is, I don’t dare lift it from its pristine nest of white tissue.

  I open the card and read Happy Birthday. There is no signature, no identifying mark. “What the heck?”

  I haven’t celebrated my birthday in a very long time. Not since I turned thirty-five.

  I’m certain my entire face frowns. I can’t begin to imagine who would send me such an erotic, very expensive gift. Not my daughters, definitely not my ex-husband, John, and as for suitors or even potential suitors…don’t make me laugh. The delivery was a mistake. It has to be a mistake, but oh, what a very, very nice mistake I think as I lift the heavily boned corset from the box. Dare I even look at the size?

  No. I hold it up, not daring. It looks as if it will fit. Surely to god John wouldn’t send me something so extravagant. I turn it so I can hold the cups over my boobs, smoothing the front over my midriff. Checking the mirror over my dresser, I think I look only slightly ridiculous holding the very sexy lingerie over my work clothes.

  I think it will fit.

  “Okay, it’s a mistake,” I tell my reflection. My reflection argues back, “It only coincidentally arrived on your birthday…in the correct size.”

  Since I’m two-thirds of the way to ancient, who knows if I will ever, ever have an opportunity to try on something so lavish again. My reflection looks back at me with a twinkle in her eyes. Oh no, I remember that look. “I am not twenty years old.”

  My reflection wiggles, dying to try it on.

  “I’m too old. And too fat.”

  “I have no one to wear this for!”

  I bounce in front of the mirror, finally unable to contain myself a moment longer. I know it’s wrong, but I won’t get it dirty. I’ll just try it on for a little fun before breaking out the frozen dessert and pouting the rest of the night because I’m alone on my birthday. “Deal?” I ask my reflection and my mirror image nods willingly.

  The devil himself couldn’t make a more twisted bargain.

  Peeling off my silk blouse and bra, I unhook the fifty-odd hooks lining the back of the corset, wondering how I will ever be able to put it on even for fun without help, and there is absolutely no one I would go to for help with this. In a moment of inspiration, I put it on backward, sucking in and hooking all of the lower hooks before twisting it back around to adjust my breasts in the cups. I turn to look in the mirror and sigh, “Wow,” sounding a little shocked, feeling a whole lot awed. When was the last time I saw myself?

  Sure, I see myself every day. Quick glance when I brush my hair and teeth, closer focus applying makeup, cellulite update when I climb into the shower…but to see myself like this. Sexy. Yeah, it’s been awhile.

  I lift the original Federal Express packaging to find out the name and address of the correct recipient, expecting it to be for Chianti, the tall, leggy blonde with blue eyes as big as saucers and a tan to die for who lives in the Cape Cod across the road that is a mirror twin of my own, but instead find the addressee to be Cassiopeia. “Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck!”

  I twist fabric, unhook hooks and wrench the bustier off, feeling absolutely ridiculous. Tossing the lush scarlet velvet back into the box, I tuck it in, hide it beneath the tissue.

  I think I threw the packaging across the room because I have to cross the room to retrieve it, knowing my vision is playing tricks on me. Alzheimer’s perhaps? I am, after all, forty-five today. Or an acid trip flashback…though I’ve never experienced such an episode before… I suppose twenty-five years post-experimentation it could happen.

  With a shaking hand, I pick the packaging off the ground and with eyes half-squinted peek again, reading through the blur. Cassiopeia. “Holy mother of god.”

  I sit quickly on the carpeted floor…to keep from falling down. “It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.” And really, it couldn’t be. No one has called me Cassiopeia in nineteen years and then, only He called me by my slave name. Master.

  Those days are so long past, another lifetime, it seems unreal. I really was the girl he’d called Cassiopeia, not my real name, Charlotte, or the name the sorority girls lovingly called me, Charley, but my slave name. Had I really called him Master? Had I really been a sex slave?

  God, it seems so incredible…so unlikely…I mean, it happened. I remember those days, have thought about those days in the dark of the night. Or at least I used to think about those days in the hours I couldn’t sleep when I masturbated to John’s soft snores, but I haven’t thought about that lifetime, or Master…in almost twenty years. God, has it really been that long? Yes, I decide, because my twin girls are eighteen.

  I’m suddenly glad they left for a European summer vacation with their grandparents two weeks ago. How would I ever explain this?

  I start laughing when I see the itty-bitty piece of velvet on the floor that prete
nds to be some form of panty, though in my mind a triangle of velvet and strips of elastic do not a pair of panties make.

  Once they did, a voice in my head reminds me. Once you had an entire closet of such deliciously naughty things to wear. Remember?

  I take a deep breath, seeking my girls’ smiling faces framed on the wall, confirmation that yes, I am a mother. I’ve spent eighteen years being Mommy, just Mommy, and I’ve been a great mommy. I went to parent-teacher conferences, PTO meetings, coached their soccer team. I made cookies—not just any cookies, but the best damn chocolate chip espresso cookies known to man, and I can rightfully proclaim so because I won a contest at the state fair three summers ago. I even have a plaque that reads Best Damn Cookies Known to Man—Illinois State Fair.

  I am Mommy.

  I am Charlotte Sullivan, paralegal extraordinaire.

  I am not Cassiopeia.

  Once, but not now. The gift was a mistake…or a joke…and if it was a joke it was a damn cruel joke.

  Standing, I wipe my eyes, trying to forget who I once was, trying to forget what I once meant to the man I called Master. He cherished me. Bending to pick up the spent packaging with every intention of re-boxing the birthday gift and returning to sender, I have to wipe my eyes again, not believing this stupid joke is making me cry.

  The memories flood back with my tears. He had loved me, he begged me not to leave, but he didn’t love me enough to keep me. That was my argument. “If you love me as much as you say you do, you will give me a baby. I’ve never asked anything of you before. Never. I’m asking for this now.”

  He had refused and like a thief in the night, I disappeared and quickly, very quickly, found a man I deemed good enough to father my child. John Phillips. Remembering it all, I can’t believe I’d pushed that year from my mind so easily. I’d cried myself senseless missing Master, but with my biological clock ticking, managed to see John through the blur. He’d been my art appreciation professor years before, and I’d bumped into him at a donut shop. We took the time to catch up on each other’s lives and, over a glazed donut and coffee, I decided he would father my child, so I seduced him. It wasn’t difficult…I was wearing a very revealing halter top at the time…and very, very short shorts. Ten months later, I had my twin girls.

  In the time in between meeting and babies, I agreed to marry him, because it was the right thing to do even though I didn’t love him. I promised myself I would learn to love him, but I never did. I grew quite fond of him, but I honestly never fell in love with him…and he never really fell in love with me either, though he protested he did. I didn’t believe him, and the string of coeds in and out of his bed was proof enough he didn’t love me. Divorce was easy once we decided we could, that it would be okay, it was the right thing to do. Taking back my maiden name was as easy as signing on a line marked with an X. If not for the twins, it would be as if the nineteen years between had never happened.

  The ringing phone interrupts my thoughts.

  “Hello?”

  “Mommy!”

  “Ellie?” My heart jumps in my chest, hearing my daughter’s voice. I rush to the bed, pushing the opulent bustier deeper into the folds of delicate tissue. I know she can’t see me, definitely can’t see what’s lying on my bed, but I need to hide it. Need to hide myself. Yanking on my shirt, skipping the bra, I ask, “Are you okay? Is anything wrong? My god, it’s the middle of the day here…what time is it?”

  “I dunno…late…I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, baby. Where’s your sister? Sleeping? Is that your radio? Geez, Ellie, you’re going to wake everyone in the hotel. Turn it down so I can hear you.” I finish buttoning my blouse and slam the lid down over the tissue paper, fumbling a bit, wondering why things never go back into the box as easily as they come out. I settle for shoving the box under the bed, hands shaking so badly the lid pops off and I don’t even try to fit it back on.

  “You sound weird, Mom. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just fine.” I kick the box farther out of view. “The radio, Ellie, I can barely hear you.”

  “Oh, it’s not the radio. We’re at a disco. Can you believe they really have discothèques here? Amsterdam is so cool,” Ellie gushes, and then I hear her say, “Oh hell” before the phone clatters, leaving me with all manner of awful flying through my brain.

  “Ellie? Ellie! Answer me! You’re at a club?”

  “Mom?”

  “Ellie?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, I dropped the phone when Bree upchucked all over her dance partner.”

  “Dance partner? Ellie? Where are your grandparents?” I do the quick math in my head, figuring if it is 4:00 p.m. here it is 1:00 a.m. there. “Get Bree away from that man. I want you back at the hotel right now!”

  “Mom…Mom. It’s cool. She didn’t drink that much. Geez.”

  “Drinking? She’s drinking? As in alcohol? What were you thinking letting your sister drink so much she’s throwing up? She could have alcohol poisoning! She could be dying even as we speak. Are you drinking too? Ellie?”

  “Mom. Stop. Bree is not going to die. She hardly drank anything at all. It’s probably the brownies. I think she ate too many when she went to the café with Grandpa. Geez, she hasn’t stopped eating since. Did you know kids start drinking here about twelve?”

  “Kids do not start drinking at twelve. Maybe sixteen but not twelve and you, young lady, are American, not European, so rules still apply…no drinking.” I realize I’m shouting and then a terrible thought hits me. “Your grandpa took Breeney to a café? What kind of café?”

  “Aw, Mom, you know. Grandpa even told you he was going to check out the Mary J coffee shops when he hit Amsterdam.”

  “Tell me you did not smoke dope!” I shriek.

  “No. And neither did Bree, she just ate brownies. Hell, I didn’t even go. I went with Grandma. You never told me how much fun she is!”

  I don’t dare imagine.

  “We went shopping.”

  Thank god. At least one child spent an untainted afternoon.

  “We went to the Red Light District but don’t freak out, we were safe ’cause it was like morning and did you know Amsterdam is rated like one of the safest cities in the world? So don’t worry,” Ellie explains fast, giggling. “Grandma bought a real French maid outfit. Not one of those cheap Halloween costume kinds but the real deal. Oh my god, Mom, you will never believe this thing. It’s short. I mean really, really short, a black dress with white ruffles under the skirt and everything. She even got stockings and a garter belt…and oh my god, a feather duster.”

  The vision is clear in my mind. Oh god.

  I listen to my daughter laughing hysterically on the other side of the world, wishing I were there, wishing I knew how much she’d already had to drink and wishing I could kill both of my parents. How dare they? These are my precious babies for crying out loud. I want to think homicidal thoughts but my brain keeps going to the image of my sixty-four-year-old mother dressed in a French maid outfit. I start to laugh hysterically, because the whole situation is too bizarre. Seeing the edge of the box peeking out from under the bed and knowing what I’m trying to hide, I laugh harder. And I was worried about them seeing that.

  “Mom? Have you been drinking? You sound drunk.”

  Tears stream over my cheeks. I hear Ellie telling Bree to talk because the guy she’s been waiting to dance with all night is waiting for her.

  “Hi-ya, Mom-m-my. It’s Bri-an-na.”

  “Hi, baby.” I sober up hearing her sounding very drunk. I wipe my face on the long sleeve of my shirt. “You shouldn’t drink any more, okay? I want you to promise me you won’t and take your sister back to the hotel. Your grandparents are probably worried sick.”

  “Nah, they’re cooool. You never told me what cool parents you have.”

  “I never realized myself.” Oh hell, that’s a lie. I distinctly remember being thirteen the first time I stole a toke from one of my parents’ many long-haired, tie-dyed
friends’ joints. Our house was always crowded…musicians, artists, antiwar protesters…there was always plenty of beer, pot and space to crash. Dear god, whatever made me believe I should let my parents take my children out of the country? Whatever was I thinking? “Where are your grandparents?”

  “They’re here. They’re upstairs in the hotel room.”

  “The discothèque is located in the hotel?”

  “Well, duhhhhhh. You don’t think Grandma and Grandpa would let us roam the streets of an unfamiliar town in a foreign country do you?” Her sarcasm is extra thick as she asks, “Reaaally, Mom?”

  “Of course they wouldn’t. What was I thinking?” I’m thinking I should catch the next plane to Amsterdam…that’s what I’m thinking. “I’m coming to get you. This trip was a bad idea.”

  “Mom. No. We’re fine. Besides, tomorrow is going to be like totally bor-ring. That’s why we’re having a little fun tonight because tomorrow the tour bus goes to like a zillion windmills and a friggin’ tulip farm. Ooh-ee, that’ll be some real excitement. Besides, we’re being good. Grandpa said no absinthe and we haven’t drunk any because he said if we did you’d never forgive him and he didn’t want you to be mad, okay? So we’re being good. Don’t be mad. Look, I gotta go. This is the last dance before they close for the night. I love you. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Bree? Bree. Call me tonight. Call me as soon as you are in the hotel room and safe.”

  A dial tone is my answer. Well, hell. Thanks, Dad. Way to make them be good. Pot-loaded brownies are okay but hallucinogenic beverages are not. Holy mother of god, what was I thinking, trusting my babies to the care of my parents?

  Sitting down on my bed, I force myself to stay sitting and not race to the airport as if I were a lunatic. “They’re fine,” I tell myself. “They’re with my parents.” Funny, that doesn’t make me feel as confident as it should. The phone rings in my hand and I jump, “Breeney?”