We were cuddled up together afterward, kissing every so often, mostly quiet as we lay there. She was stroking my arm with her fingertips and looking at the ceiling. I wondered what she was thinking.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked her, leaning up to kiss her jaw.
“You,” she said, looking into my eyes. “You’re perfect.”
I blushed and kissed her. We fell asleep a few minutes later, our bodies pressed together.
Chapter 4: Dominique
I woke up the next morning to the smell of breakfast wafting through the house. Naked, I rolled out of bed and slipped into my dress from the night before, buttoning it up quickly before leaving the room. I saw Sandra in the kitchen facing the stove and wearing only a t-shirt and panties. I wanted to peel them off of her, push her up against the counter and eat her pretty flower until she came again. Instead, I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, kissing the back of her neck. She snuggled back against me and let me hold her there for a moment, then told me to sit down while she finished making breakfast.
“How are you this morning?” she asked me. I was still groggy from sleep but the sight of her kept me awake and bright-eyed. I would have never slept again had it meant I would keep looking at her soft smile and green eyes.
“Beautiful,” I said, watching her as she brought everything to the table. I was suddenly very hungry, having been so vigorous with her the night before. I wanted more of that and was suddenly wishing that I had woken up first. If I had, I would have had her for breakfast before she even got out of bed.
She smiled at me and kissed my forehead. “You are that.”
My phone rang as I was prepared to eat. I wouldn’t have answered it if I hadn’t been expecting an important and dangerous phone call. When I saw the number on the screen, my face went gray. I knew what this was about. It was the lawyers, the ones who were going to deliver the bad news about my business. Not many people knew, but my company was downsizing. I was constantly under the threat that I would lose my position, and now it looked like I had.
“I have to go,” I said, standing up. Sandra studied my face, her lips turning down in a frown of concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I kissed her.
On the way out the door, she called to me.
“When will I see you again?” she asked, her voice full of hope.
“Soon,” I told her, though I didn’t know the answer to that. My whole life had changed in one phone call and I wasn’t sure about anything in that moment.
I got into the car that was waiting for me and instructed the driver to take me to my office. I was nervous the whole way there, my gut heavy and hot. Inside, I went upstairs to find my boss and his lawyer in my office. I sighed, shut the door and sat down. I knew what this was about. I didn’t pay much attention to the words being said; I didn’t really need to. When it was over, they left, and I did a quick job of gathering up my things in the office before leaving.
I was tempted to go back to Sandra, to see if she was still home, but part of me grew bitter at the thought. This had all begun when I was powerful, when I had an unlimited amount of money to lavish her with romantic gestures. I didn’t know what she would think of me now that I had lost everything. I wouldn’t be able to give her the treatment she had grown accustomed to from me and in turn she would lose interest. It had happened over and over; I dated women only to find them gone when they realized they wouldn’t get access to the money. I hadn’t known Sandra for that long and wasn’t sure I could trust her to stay; I was prone to thinking the worst of people who got close to me because of my past.
I sighed. Instead of going to see Sandra at her work, I went home.
Chapter 5: Sandra
I was puzzled by the way Dominique had left suddenly and with no explanation this morning, but decided to try not to think about it. I tried not to think about her, period, but the image of her face, of those red lips, stuck with me on the drive to my work and filled my mind with pleasure.
The first thing Jamie did when I got inside was sit me down and stand in front of me, all excitement.
“How was it?”
“It was perfect,” I said dreamily. And it really had been. “Magical. It was the best date I’ve ever had.”
“Really?” she asked. “Did she sweep you off your feet? That limo thing was nice, I’ll give her that.”
“She took me to the Bay,” I said. “Gave me flowers. We danced. She’s an amazing kisser.”
Jamie looked happy for me but also a little concerned.
“So what’s wrong? You look a little down.”
She sat down next to me and I turned in my chair to her. “Well, she left really abruptly this morning. She barely had time to say goodbye. I had cooked her breakfast and I was just worried I’d done something wrong, or misread her the night before, or—“
Jamie put her hand up to silence me.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, girl,” my friend said, patting my hand. “You just gotta get used to it. You’re on the arm of a powerful woman now. She’s got to get shit done.”
“I guess,” I said, looking down at my hands. Then I looked back up at Jamie and smiled.
“She spent the night last night,” I told her, and she laughed.
“I bet she did. Was it good?”
I nodded, blushing a bit as I recalled the night before, particularly the feeling of her wet, swollen mound against mine. That had been my favorite part, the most intimate, and I couldn’t wait to do it again with her the next time I saw her. I knew there would be a next time. I felt better after Jamie’s reassurance and more sure than ever of the fact that Dominique had enjoyed herself just as much as I had last night. This morning, too, she’d kissed me so sweetly, so I knew that she wasn’t regretting what had happened.
I went about the day with back-to-back clients. Jamie was busy too—we didn’t have much time to talk anymore as the day went on. Finally, at about three o’clock, we both found a break in our schedules and were hanging out in the staff room area together when Jamie exclaimed my name.
“What?” I asked, annoyed. I had been reading.
“Come look at this,” she said, reaching across the table to hand me her tablet. I was shocked when I read it. It was about Dominique. Her company was downsizing and it said in the article that her position was one of the first to be cut. I looked up at Jamie and realized this must be why she had left so abruptly this morning; she must have gotten word about her job loss and left to take care of it. She probably hadn’t wanted to tell me and ruin our morning together.
I reached for my phone and dialed Dominique’s number, but the call went straight to voicemail. I hung up without leaving one, instead texting for her to call me later. I spent the rest of the day fidgeting, checking my phone every hour or so to see if she’d texted or called back. The longer there was no word from her, the more anxious I got. Who knew if she was handling the news well, if she was okay at all. She seemed like a pretty strong woman but something so life-changing would surely affect her in some way. I called again when I got off work and did leave her a voicemail, telling her I’d like her to come over whenever she could. There was no answer, and by the next morning I decided to go find her.
I didn’t know where she lived. I had never been to her house here, so I didn’t even know what area of town she lived in. All I knew about was that she had a house in the Bay that we’d stopped at on the way home last night. I drove there later in the evening, listening blurrily to the radio, thinking about what to say when and if I saw her. All I could do was offer her my comfort. I hoped it was enough.
She answered the door to her house and looked at me with dull eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
I was taken aback by her flat tone, by the look in her eyes that told me I wasn’t welcome. All I had seen from her so far was warmth and invitation, so her being closed-off threw me completely off my feet and made my ches
t ache.
“I came to see you, to see if there’s something I can do,” I told her. Her gaze was colder than anything I could have imagined and I almost winced with under her stare.
“You should have stayed away,” she said firmly. “I would have called you if I’d have wanted to.”
I felt stricken by her words. As if she wasn’t interested at all, as if she’d used me. I wouldn’t be as angry as if it had been the truth but we both knew it was wrong. There had been magic between us that we both felt.
“Come here,” I said, putting my hand to her cheek. She lingered for a moment, looking in my eyes before her face turned stony again and she turned her face away. “You’ll get back on your feet, Dominique. I know you will.”
There was fire in her eyes now when she said, “I bet you’re counting on that.”
“What does that mean?” I asked her, narrowing my eyes at her. She put her hands on her hips and glared at me back, her face hostile now.
“I assume you want more of the princess treatment?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what it’s about.”
She sneered at me. “I’m sure it’s not. You broke all of your rules in search of the ‘high-life.’ And I doubt you’ll stick around now.”
I lost my temper and closed my eyes for a moment, then flashed them at her.
“I did like the flowers and the music,” I told her. “But I liked you more.”
Her eyes softened, her rage seeming to subside for a moment as she considered my statement, but then she smirked and said, “I guess you made another bad call.”
Those words felt like a slap. Blinded by tears, I turned from her, went back to my car and got inside. She had already shut the door by the time I looked back at her. I wiped the tears from my eyes and drove away, drove back to my apartment in a fog of numbness. I hadn’t been hurt like this in a long time. I couldn’t believe that’s what she thought of me, that she assumed I was the kind of woman who would be interested in her for her money. I hadn’t asked her for the flowers, nor the date, and though I had appreciated them deeply I hadn’t done anything to deserve her accusations. Trying desperately to push her out of my head, I did everything from reading to watching TV to distract myself. I would have done anything to stop feeling the pain I was feeling at her rejection. The sting of it was overwhelming.
I tried to go about life as usual after that. The days passed in a fog, though. My life felt like it had a little less light in it—though I had known Dominique only a short while, she had touched my heart in the same gentle, tender way she’d touched my body. Jamie tried to cheer me up by telling me jokes at work and planning girls’ evenings for us afterward but I something new in me seemed to be broken and I was under a blanket of darkness because of it.
We were at work one day when she asked me if I wanted to go get a drink later in the evening. I told her no. I just wanted to go home and rest. Lately it seemed like all I did was sleep and work; I had no interest in anything else.
“Hey,” said Jamie. “Cheer up. At least you didn’t get in too deep.”
But the truth was that I had. Even in two dates, I knew that I wanted to have Dominique in my life forever, knew that I wanted to hold her and kiss her every day for the rest of my life. I was in love with her, with or without the things she’d lavished me with. But there was no way I could make her believe me, so I had to let her go.
Chapter 6: Dominique
It was already killing me that I had so callously pushed her away as she was leaving my front porch. I regretted all the words I had said instantly and wanted to take them back, but I could tell in the set of her shoulders, the look on her face, that nothing I said was going to fix what I’d ruined. I’d accused her of something I knew logically she would never do; she had never even asked for the things I’d given her, not even hinted at expecting them. I had showered her with gifts and though she had accepted gratefully, she hadn’t seemed to be trying to get her hands on more.
I felt like an idiot. After the night we shared together, the romantic date we’d had on the Bay, I should have known better than to screw it all up. It had been magical and perfect. We fit together so well, body and spirit. There seemed to be nothing we couldn’t talk about already, and I felt as if I had known her forever. She was perfect for me. And I had destroyed her.
I spent days thinking about it, about her. I stayed at my place in the Bay and would lie in bed at night, wishing she was beside me. No matter what I did, she filled my head. I went to a bar one night in desperation, sat down on a stool and ordered a drink while trying to ignore the people around me. After a few moments, a woman took the seat next to me and ordered me another round. I turned to look at her and saw that she was beautiful in a long-legged, elegant sort of way. She was dressed in a tight outfit that showed off her every curve and had lips the color of berries. I smiled at her, though there was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Hi, there,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. “What are you doing over here, all quiet?”
“Waiting for the right company,” I told her, slightly tipsy just from the small amount I’d had to drink before she got there. “Looks like it found me.”
She giggled and brushed her hand against mine. We talked for a moment, nothing important. Small talk. What we did, how we ended up here. I made up a story about who I was and what I did for a living. There was no way I was going to go into the fact that I had lost my job, no matter how much I was worth. I rarely told women who I was upon first meeting them, which is another thing that had been different about my time with Sandra. With her, it was all honesty, refreshing in the best way.
I flirted with the stranger most of the night, trying to fill some hole that had become a part of me. I went home with her but stopped myself when she took that dress off. It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful, it was that she didn’t have the same soft skin as Sandra, didn’t make the same noises when I touched her. I left with an apology and without an explanation, only got in my car and took off in the direction of Sandra’s place. There was no telling what I was going to do when I got there, but it was the only place I could think of to go.
She wasn’t home yet, so I sat on her porch and waited for her to arrive. When she saw me, she stopped and stared, tilting her head to one side to study my face.
“Why are you here?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. I sighed and walked to her, took her hands and held them between us.
“I missed you,” I told her honestly. I missed her more than anything. All I thought about was her. She looked at me and didn’t pull her hands away, just squeezed mine and gazed at me as if she hoped for the best.
“Why did you push me away?” she asked me, lifting her hand to my cheek. She stroked my lips with her thumb and I knew she was about to kiss me, that she couldn’t resist being in my arms any more than I could hers. I pressed my lips to hers, unable to wait any longer, and she responded with a kiss that was sweet and feather-soft.
“I lost my job,” I said, holding her close. “My lifestyle. But the worst part is that I can’t give you everything you deserve.”
She smiled at me, leaned forward to kiss me again.
“You made a bad call,” she said, her eyes sparkling. I looked at her with confusion, wondering what she meant. She kissed my fingers.
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