by Prince, DD
But I almost had a panic attack waiting for him to come to me because two feet away from where I was on the floor I knew there were two guns and a knife. I had alternating visions playing like a movie in my head of me shooting him in the head with his gun and me plunging his knife into my own stomach. My heart had hammered in my throat and my ears had gotten hot and the sound of his footsteps when he’d come in had made me feel like I was about to commit one of those two acts and I really didn’t know which one it’d be. But then as soon as he called me Baby and told me he loved me he was all I saw. The weapons under the bed were momentarily gone from existence. I was afraid I might be losing my mind.
** ** **
He’d spent the next day in his office and as it hit late afternoon I asked if he wanted me to cook something for him. He surprised me by saying he wanted to go out for burgers and see a movie. I was shocked he didn’t want to just chill and do nothing tonight since we’d just gotten back last night. I was also shocked that he wasn’t tied up with work after being away but he told me that his brother had everything well looked after and there was nothing too pressing.
It was near sunset but it was still sweltering hot outside. We’d gotten dressed in shorts and tank tops and flip flops and Tommy looked so young and carefree compared to his polished serious suit persona. He told me he knew the perfect burger joint. We swung in, filled out burger contracts (a checklist of how we wanted our burgers prepared) and ordered milkshakes. He ordered chocolate and I ordered vanilla but felt my face get flushed when I asked for vanilla and he’d chuckled and kissed me breathless while we were waiting for our orders. Then he drove me to the beach, the beach where we’d gone after that first date at the Italian restaurant. I wondered if he’d taken me there on purpose so that I’d see we could have sunsets on the beach sometimes.
We found a picnic table and it really was a delicious burger. He looked at me with this mortified look when I swiped one of his onion rings (a really crispy one!) and then shoved it under the bun of my burger then gave me a big kiss and stole one of my French fries, which led to me feeding him half of my fries one by one looking at one another all googly-eyed. We got to watch the sun set, all cuddled up together. It felt like we were a normal couple.
He kept looking like he wanted to say something. But he didn’t. I could’ve said stuff too, but I didn’t. So much was exchanged in those glances, it was almost like a conversation that didn’t need words. He wanted to know I was okay. I wanted to be okay. I didn’t know if I was okay but I was trying to be. Maybe if he never got like that again, I could be. Maybe I could make sure he never got like that again. I knew I was taking on a huge responsibility for something that might be completely out of my realm of control but I wanted us to work so I wanted to try.
Then we went to a drive-in and I fell asleep watching the movie, some fast car / gun-toting/ lots of explosions / bromance partner cops type of movie and woke up when he re-started the car to drive us back.
** ** **
The next few days were amazing. It felt like playing house and I was loving it. We’d had three days to ourselves before Sarah was back. I’d been keeping the house tidy, cooking for him, doing laps in the pool and spending time in the basement gym, doing research on my pretty pink laptop about him and his sexual tastes, and considering options for online school. I played Miss Pacman on the arcade machine in the basement, determined to beat Dario’s #1 spot high score. In a few days I was at the #2 spot and I wasn’t giving up. I’d put “TiaTyson” as my name on it.
I’d had two conversations on the phone, one with Lisa about wedding plans and an upcoming baby shower for Luciana. I told her I’d come over and meet with her and the sisters and we could make plans. She told me they were all happy to help. I said I’d talk to Tommy about dinner on the upcoming Sunday and then we’d sit down and go over things. Then I had a phone conversation with my best friend Ruby.
I’d brought it up after afternoon sex when we were all cuddled up afterwards. I nervously told Tommy I needed to talk to her, to put her mind at ease because she’d just been wondering about me for all this time, and because I’d promised Rose that I’d call her. By not calling I’d be leaving them wondering and worrying about me. He said it was fine but that I had to remember that any call could be being recorded and that I had to be very careful of what I said. I assured him it’d be fine to talk to Ruby and that I understood. I was about to dial from the house line when he fetched me an older disposable flip phone call phone, reminding me to be careful on any line, but especially on a house line or traditional cell phone. When he left the room I braced myself with a deep breath and dialed her cell.
First she was pissed at me. I’d just disappeared for weeks and she’d only heard that I’d run off with a guy. Her parents had evidently protected her from their suspicions even in the beginning when they were involving police and my social worker.
I was easily able to sell her on this being a case of a whirlwind romance, especially with the way I’d been obsessing about ‘ice cream parlor hottie’ before grad. The guy from the ice cream parlor had swept me off my feet and we’d moved in together. She was a romantic at heart and so it wasn’t at all hard to convince her that this was just all that’d happened. She was mad at me but said she’d seen how gorgeous he was when he picked me up from the post-grad party in that convertible. When she asked why I was all upset at the house after grad and why I’d disappeared like that I said, “Let’s just say my father did something to seriously disappoint me.” She’d replied with a knowing, “Enough said.” Hallelujah!
I told mostly the truth, or at least selective parts of it, about how Tommy had come in and flirted with me (which she’d already known), I stretched the truth a bit by saying he found out our parents knew one another so had my Dad arrange for us to meet. I told her he’d wined and dined me, taken me on a vacation, that we’d had sunset beach walks, made love in a hayloft when he proposed, told her that I knew when my dream wedding dance song came on and that he’d picked that moment with the fireflies and the stars in the sky to ask me to marry him that I didn’t need to wait to get to know him better, that everything he was in that moment was just what I wanted in a husband. I told her he was protective, fiercely protective, that he was strong, that he was smart and funny, and that sometimes he could be so sweet that it made my heart melt. I also told her about the panty-melting sex, a little. That it was hot, not what it entailed. She practically swooned over the phone when I told her he’d repeatedly made me come hard, not once, but two and three times per sex session.
I told her I was getting married in a few weeks and that of course she needed to be my maid of honor. She was sort of awestruck and didn’t ask me a lot of questions. She gave me shit about not calling a few times during the conversation but I just kept saying it had to do with shit about my Dad that I couldn’t talk about and then she’d say “Enough said!” and let me off the hook.
If it’d been Beth or Mia I know I’d never have gotten away with it. Mia wanted to be a journalist and Beth wanted to go into law. They’d be tag team interrogating me, trying to understand why I just disappeared, why all the plans were suddenly out the window for a guy I’d just met. But Ruby wasn’t a skeptic; in fact, she was a lot like a Disney princess who was listening to me and envisioning the day her prince would come. I cut her short when she told me that Mia was there and wanted her to pass the phone and said I’d call back later.
When I hung up, the bedroom door slowly swung open. Tommy was standing there. By his face I could tell he’d heard the whole thing. I wasn’t surprised he’d eavesdropped at all but couldn’t be mad because he strode in like a man with a mission and ravished me until I’d had two orgasms. He told me that it was beautiful to hear the way I’d chosen to tell the story of us. He’d heard me tell Ruby, how beautiful he was, what an amazing lover he’d been. I’d said something to the effect of him fucking me into oblivion multiple times a day, which was pretty much true because we’d been at it like
rabbits for the past few days. Vanilla rabbits, though.
After hearing that phone call he looked so moved and made love to me so tenderly I wound up crying during the first of the two orgasms. He had kissed away my tears and then brought me to climax again murmuring how much he loved me, how he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life making love to me and making me happy but then he whispered in my ear that not only would he make love to me for the rest of our lives but that he’d fuck me for the rest of our lives, too, and that while he’d fucked before, he’d never made love to anyone before. He would never make love to or fuck anyone but me ever for the rest of his life.
I knew that to him, sometimes he wanted to make love and sometimes he needed to fuck. Those whispers spoke to me, let me know that he would sometimes want one and sometimes need the other. It was my job to be what he needed, to feed his sexual appetite, and I was determined that I could do it.
And I was happy…I was waking up in the morning to sex, I went to bed and had sex (or was woken up by it if I fell asleep first), and the day after we were home from Vegas I’d been washing a frying pan in the kitchen sink from the breakfast I’d made him and he’d come in and screwed me from behind. Just waltzed in, lifted up my sundress, slapped my ass super hard, and then took me with his cock and his fingers and I didn’t even get the way unsexy yellow rubber gloves off. When he finished he washed his hands, grabbed an apple from the fridge, winked at me and then went back to his office. I was just standing there, propped up by my elbows in front of the sink with the ugly yellow gloves on, skirt up, hair all mussed up, and feeling boneless and thinking that it was fairly calm for Tommy but it’d definitely been fucking.
It’d been three days of mostly sweet beautiful vanilla sex and cuddling and talking (but never about the serious dark stuff we eventually needed to discuss) and just enjoying one another. We did things like curl up in front of the big screen at night watching TV or movies, me cooking for him, a naked swim together (it must’ve been premeditated because he’d obviously made the bodyguards leave for a while because I never saw them). He’d just lifted me after sex, both of us naked, and carried me through the bedroom balcony doors down the stairs and then jumped into the pool with me. I’d said, “Hey! What about security?” and he’d answered, “Do you really think I’d allow anybody to lay their eyes on your beautiful naked body?"
We hadn’t left the property since we got back from the drive-in. He’d spent time on the phone and in his office a lot but he spent a lot of time with me, too.
Sarah was due back and the next day we were having dinner at his father’s. And I was starting to get a little bit worried because there’d been no sex games since Vegas. He didn’t seem stressed, he seemed fine. But how long would it last? Would I see the sudden shift so I’d know it was something I needed to handle proactively or would it come out of nowhere and blindside me?
Maybe I should initiate something. Or maybe we should talk. Every time he came in the room I was in I was looking to see if his necklace was on. He’d talked about us needing to talk a few times but it never seemed to happen. I couldn’t blame him for that; I wasn’t initiating it either. It was easier to be ostriches and pretend there wasn’t an elephant looming in the corner.
As he held me that morning after our wake-up sex, he talked about the possibility of moving Sarah out.
“Why?” I asked, tracing the pattern of his tattoo, with my head on his chest.
“She’s gonna get in our way. I like that I can just bend you over anywhere I like without worrying about someone else coming in.”
I laughed but then turned serious, “She already warned me not to put her out of a job! She’ll be pissed at me. Put a price on my head!”
“She won’t be surprised. She cleaned and cooked at my condo but has only been live-in since I moved here so hasn’t had time to get too comfy. Nita’s retiring so we can move her back there until Pop retires. He may even want her to come to the Caymans. She’d have her pick at either of my sisters’ places, too, helping with the kids and their houses. And if she wants, she can come in here to clean based on a schedule you set up with her. If she doesn’t want to take care of multiple houses I’ll hire someone part-time. Then it’s just us most of the time. You’re a way better cook than she is, anyway. If you don’t mind feeding your future husband, that is?”
I winced, “oh please please please don’t tell her that. And no I don’t mind. I love to cook. And you have a very healthy appetite, my future husband.”
He laughed and then kissed me, “We need to talk,” he said.
I felt my heart constrict. His tone was serious, “Okay?” I said, hesitantly.
“I don’t want to just brush shit under the rug, baby. We need to talk some things out and I need some info from you.”
I nodded but wanted no part of this conversation. He looked thoughtful for a second and then seemed to change gears, “First, I’ll go get us coffee and cook you breakfast,” he said, “I do a mean stack of flapjacks.”
“Oooh,” I answered and stretched out, “Bacon, too?”
“Duh? Of course.” He kissed me and left the room.
I was now on his side of the bed and I was suddenly very aware of the weapons under the bed. Maybe him talking about us needing to talk had jolted me out of my self-imposed stupor. I leaned over and hung over the side and looked under the bed. I couldn’t see very well so I reached my hand up and yep, still armed to the teeth.
I rolled back under the blankets and got lost in thought. I’d been so happy these past few days but he was right, we did need to talk about stuff. It was healthy that he wanted to, wasn’t it? What wasn’t healthy was me wanting to keep ignoring it with the idiotic notion that it’d just go away.
Tommy
The last few days had been just what I needed, a bubble with just her and I, mostly. I was finding a way to blend my work life with my relationship with her. Things with work were going well, smooth. And I was thinking about our wedding, a honeymoon, about the future.
I hated that we’d soon have to leave our bubble. I was putting it off. I was putting a lot of things off. Here I was putting talking to her about her Dad and my Pop again with breakfast but before I pricked the bubble with a pin I wanted a few more moments of peace, to show her what life could sometimes be. It was like I was trying to fortify things before bursting the bubble or something.
I used to help my mother make breakfast on Sunday mornings before she got sick. Breakfast was the only cooking I’d done. Really, she’d only let me handle the cracking of the eggs and the putting bread in the toaster and popping the button down as I was just a kid but it made me want to learn how to do breakfast so when I lived on my own for the first time I mastered the art of breakfast. I’d had burnt pans and smoke alarms going off at first but I’d gotten there eventually.
Before Tia, if I wasn’t slammed with work, I’d make it for myself and sit alone and eat it as I read the paper as Sarah was always off on Sundays. I wanted to make making Tia’s breakfast on Sunday mornings part of our tradition together as a couple. Someday our kids would be part of it, too. Sundays were important in my family, always had been, and I wanted that for when me and Tia had kids. Breakfast with us, dinner with the whole family. Church, maybe, too. She’d be a good mother.
I had things to figure out, still, but I was confident that I’d get to where I needed to be with the business, with ensuring I’d eliminated threats but I wasn’t so sure in one area. Sex. I wasn’t clear how that’d be managed. I was loving all the vanilla we’d been having, surprisingly, but that might’ve been because of the guilt I felt about Vegas. How long before I wanted more flavor? How long until something tipped me over the edge of frustration and I took it out on her? How did I get what I needed without hurting my relationship with her? Better yet, how could I make myself not need it?
She loved the pancakes. She ate everything on her plate and declared I was making breakfast for her as often as possible. I told her I�
�d do Sunday breakfast from now on and she asked if she’d be getting a repeat performance the next day, since it was a Sunday.
I agreed and couldn’t bring myself to ruin the day with talk about the dark shit in my head, the shit I was dealing with regarding her father and my father. I needed to do it soon, though. I was at a dead end with the PI and needed some answers from her. She didn’t ask about what I wanted to talk about but she broached another topic.
“Umm…” she said, after she loaded the dishwasher. I’d been sitting at the kitchen island reading the paper and finishing my coffee.
I looked up from the paper and waited.
She was looking a little nervous.
‘What’s up?” I put the paper down and showed her she had my full attention.
“I’ve been doing some reading.”
I waited. She looked at the ceiling and then summoned some courage.
“About dominants and submissives and I was wondering if maybe…”
This oughta be good…
I jerked my chin up to encourage her to continue.
“Maybe we should outline some things. Like they did in Fifty Shades of Grey; they had a contract of guidelines and safe words and…”
I started to laugh. Her face went red.
“I don’t want a submissive, baby girl.”
She frowned a little and then moistened her lips, “Okay…”
I got to my feet and closed the distance between us, backing her up against the pantry door. I took her face into a palm and rubbed my thumb along her lower lip,
“I want a cock slave. No safe words. Whatever my cock wants; you give me. Whatever I want. Degradation, humiliation, I could order you to fuck someone else while I watch, fuck a girl…”
The color drained from her face.
“You good with that?” I gave her an intense glare.
She swallowed hard.
I started to laugh, “Gotcha.”