by Ava Sinclair
The vote of confidence causes me to smile. Langford, with his snow-white hair, close-cropped beard, and round, wire-rimmed glasses has the air of a benevolent professor. I liked him the moment I met him and am pretty sure he felt the same way about me.
“We’re having drinks down at the Peacock Club,” he says. “You want to join us?”
This is another thing I like about Langford. No matter how many times I turn down after-work get-togethers, he still asks me. It’s as much professional as personal courtesy; he doesn’t treat the firm like a boys club. I appreciate that.
“Thanks, but I think I’m going to go home and unwind,” I say.
“Well, see you in the morning.” Langford dons his touring cap and leaves. A few moments later, I’ve swapped my heels for trainers and am on my way to the garage where I’ve deliberately parked my Lexus at the top of the structure. The walk helps me get in my steps for the day.
Traffic is light for a Friday. The corner bistro is already hopping, and two couples are sitting at the outside tables, dining al fresco. My heart twists a little as I image Mr. M. working out at the gym instead of unhooking my bra like I’d imagined he’d be doing. That’s how Mr. M. usually kicks off the weekend—by fucking me silly and then taking me downtown to a fancy restaurant where we make small talk for a couple of hours. Perfect, right?
Tonight isn’t going to be like that, and the sudden break from routine makes me worry. Is he growing bored with our arrangement? Is my compliance making things too easy? Too predictable? I imagine him running on the treadmill while eyeing some sassy blonde who piques his intrigue by smirking at him.
“You won’t smirk when I’m finished with you,” he’d told me early in our arrangement. And what had happened next had made me give up smirking. Had that been the wrong move?
God, I hate feeling like this. I’d even taken pains to avoid it. I’d agreed to the rules. I’d signed off on them, legally. I’d wanted it that way because it gave me ownership of the arrangement. Sure, I was disempowered. But the way I’d done it was empowering. And yet here I am, feeling like a jealous girlfriend when I’m not a girlfriend.
But enough of this. I force myself to stop brooding and once I’m back home focus on my favorite way to deal with stress—yoga. As a runner, yoga has always been my favorite method of cross-training, and I’ve abandoned classes to do it at home because I prefer to personalize my own routine.
I switch on the lights as I walk through the house, muttering sarcastically about how awesome it is to be home alone on Friday night. Petty, I know, but it makes me feel better.
One of the perks of being single and successful is being able to trick out a spare bedroom into a home gym. Mine is nice, with light weights, an exercise ball and—my favorite feature—a wall of mirrors. I keep my trusty workout clothes in a cabinet in the adjoining bathroom. But when I walk in, my heart almost stops. They aren’t there. In their place is a simple white box with the words ‘Tonight’s Yoga Outfit’ written on the top.
I feel a little less resentful. Yes, it’s touching to think that Mr. M. would get me a new yoga outfit and leave it for me before he headed to the gym. But it also makes me sad since if he really knew me, he’d know that nothing can compare to the pants and shirt I launder after each workout to wear again and again.
I sigh and open the box, only to be further surprised. It’s just a slip of paper with the words birthday suit written on it.
Now I don’t know what to think. Is this a joke? Am I supposed to do my yoga routine naked and alone while he yucks it up with his gym rat buddies? Now I’m angry. I look around the bathroom for my trusty yoga clothing, but it’s clear he’s taken them. Hot tears of frustration sting my eyes.
“I won’t do it,” I say aloud. Then I remembered the day we’d signed the agreement, both of us. He’d said, “Are you sure, Sloane? Don’t sign it unless you’re sure. Because once pen is to paper, there’s no backing out of this rabbit hole. You’re agreeing to do everything I say.”
But I’d been sure. We’d talked about it, and I knew there’d be times he’d tell me to do something I wouldn’t want to do, and unless it was needlessly cruel, I’d be expected to follow. “Keep the rules in your head and your heart,” he’d said. “I expect you to obey me even when I’m not at your side.”
“So you’ll test me?” I’d asked, my heart quickening.
“No,” he’d said. “At times like that, you’ll be testing yourself.”
I turn to face the bathroom mirror, kicking off my trainers, which feel out of place over the stockings. I shrug off my jacket and lay it over the towel railing. Next comes the silk blouse.
I study my reflection in the mirror, regretting that Mr. M. isn’t here to see the bra. It was early when I dressed and I never take time to observe myself closely in the mornings. The swell of my breasts rises seductively over the top of the half-cups, which barely cover my areolas. I reach back and undo the clasp and watch as my breasts come free. I’m proud of my breasts. They’re natural C’s, and although they don’t point forward like the fake ones, they’re perfect pears with an upward tilt to the large, dark nipples.
I step away from the mirror and reach back to unzip my skirt. I bend forward to step out of it. It joins the blouse and jacket on the rack and now I can appreciate the panties and garter, which make me look like a stripper. The panties are still riding up, baring over half of a bottom toned by running and yoga. I once asked Mr. M. if he’d like that—if he’d like me to put a stripping pole in this room. Pole routines are actually popular fixtures in some workout rooms, but he said he’s not into strippers, and if I want to dance on a pole, it’ll be his. As serious as he can be, Mr. M. does have his wry moments.
I sit on the edge of the tub and unhook the garters. I roll down the stockings and lean over to put them on the rack, too. Then I stand and hook my fingers in the waistband of the panties.
Do I want to do this? Do I want to work out naked? Not really, I tell myself as I pull my sandy blonde hair into a ponytail. But I do want to be his good girl, so I peel the panties off, noting that they’re still damp from my earlier daydream, and now the whole outfit is on the rack and I’m heading into the studio.
After years of seeing the same reflection in my yoga studio mirror, it’s jarring to see a naked woman, even if that naked woman is me. I pick up the remote and click a button that fills the room with soft instrumental music interspersed with the sounds of flowing water and bird songs. My yoga mat, rolled into a neat tube, sits on a shelf beside two colorful foam blocks and a BPA-free water bottle I picked up last week from Whole Foods. I take the mat down and unroll it on the floor, positioning it parallel with the mirror as I always do so I can gauge my form. To be effective, yoga must be done right. Besides, my OCD demands it.
I start in reclining butterfly, lying down on my back with my legs spread and the soles of my feet pressed together. One hand is on my belly, the other is on my heart. I can feel it beat softly under my palm. The air vent is blowing down on me, and with my legs spread, the cool draft is directed right at my shaved pussy. In this position my labia is lightly spread, and the air is tickling the exposed inner folds. Maybe this won’t be so terrible after all.
I’ve been in this position long enough. I move to table top—all fours, with my hands under my shoulders and knees under my hips. It’s a neutral position that allows me to move from one pose to another.
It’s nice to loosen the kinks out after a long day. I arch my back, drawing my stomach in as I drop my head and draw in my belly. Cat pose. Meow.
I drop my belly, pushing my bottom up and chest out. Cow pose. Moo.
After several reps of cat and cow, I move back to neutral and find down dog, the position that will precede the warrior positions, which is when the workout really begins. I root through my palms and tuck my toes and lift my knees, pushing my hips up and back. I’m an inverted V now and push through the palms as my shoulder blades push toward my ears. My hips go high, my tailbone
lifting as my back lengthens and my hamstrings stretch. After a day in heels, it’s a delightful relief. I push into the pose, flaring my tail upward.
“I knew that outfit was the perfect choice.”
I almost cry out in fear as I look up toward the mirror to see Mr. M. standing in the door of the studio.
I start to rise, but he holds up a hand. “No.” He saunters over, one hand in the pocket of his blazer. “Stay like that. Just like that.”
“I thought you were at the gym.” I’m looking at his reflection in the mirror, watching him walk around me, watching him study me like I’m a living piece of art.
“White lie,” he said. “I figured you might be bored with the Friday-fuck-and-dinner routine, so I thought I’d shake it up.” He’s facing me now, and kneels down. My legs and arms are starting to strain from the position. It takes effort to raise my head as he tilts my chin up to look at him.
“You were mad at me,” he says.
I can’t drop my head, so I drop my eyes. “Yes, sir,” I admit.
“You thought about disobeying me.”
My heart sinks. He was here all the time, so he heard me say I wasn’t going to do it, that I wasn’t going to work out naked.
“Yes, sir.” The strain has reached my voice. Guilt. Ugh. “But I did it,” I say.
He smiles, rubs my face. “Yes, you did.” Mr. M. pauses. “And do you know what I’m going to do now?”
“No.” That’s an honest answer. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.
“I’m going to fuck you while you’re in down dog. I’m going to fuck you while we both watch in the mirror. And then we’re going to order takeout and eat it in bed while we watch a movie.”
It’s not a suggestion. It’s a directive. And already my pussy is starting to throb as I lift my head to watch him walk behind me. He’s unzipping the fly of his tailored pants with one hand as he rubs my ass with the other. His finger dips into the sodden slit of my pussy and trails up and down, up and down. I find myself pushing back, my protesting arms ignored. He shoves into me and I sigh.
“Hold your position,” he says, and I do, watching in the mirror as he drives me forward, watching the smile on the handsome, arrogant face that first got my attention—those boyish dimples juxtaposed with that masculine, square jaw covered in a perpetual five o’clock shadow.
Mr. M., he doesn’t rush anything. He’s as meticulous as I am. Only he’s in control. His strokes are long and slow, his cock slides in and out, in and out. He thrusts upward, and I can feel the upper portion of his thick cock stroking my g-spot. My finger pads dig into the yoga mat.
“Can I come?”
“Not yet,” he says.
I moan. “Please.”
“Hush,” he says, and begins to fuck me hard and fast until I can only babble my words.
When he slows down, his hands move under my belly.
“Find tree pose,” he says, and I rise to stand on one leg, my back pressed against his front, my left foot pressed against my inner right thigh. He’s supporting me, but barely, and I’m glad to be so fit.
He’s taking me in upward thrusts now, his cock butting up against my cervix, filling me. His finger is on my clit. He’s rubbing and rubbing. His mouth is on my neck. He bites me just hard enough to hurt and then rubs the stubble of his jaw against the bite. A finger moves to my nipple. He pinches and pulls in one exquisitely painful motion.
“Come for me,” he says.
My pussy quivers and quenches and draws on him, draws and draws and draws until he’s coming, too. He shoots his tribute up into me and I push myself up and down on his cock as he growls into my ear, growls about how tight I am. How good I feel.
“Now that,” he says, “is some hot yoga.”
I sigh deeply, leaning my head back onto his shoulder as I look into his eyes.
“Namaste,” I reply.
Chapter Three
I admire people who have their acts together. I always have. My parents had their acts together. They are both textbook Type A driven professionals—my father is a district court judge and my mother is an art museum curator.
It was assumed I’d be just as together as my parents, but I struggled in my early school years, despite being labeled as gifted. My mother used that as an excuse. I was easily bored, she said. And that was true.
“You will do better,” she ordered when I came home with anything less than a B. And due to a combination of obsessive genetics and a deep desire to please my parents, I devoted myself to the endless pursuit of good grades.
I achieved them despite very little guidance from my parents who were also workaholics, but again earned my mother’s disappointment when I declared my major. She’d wanted me to follow her into the arts, and I can appreciate art. But a career in the arts? The thought of it terrified me because it’s a creative, open-ended career and I don’t do well with abstractions in schedule.
I chose law, which pleased my father. I’d be a chip off the old block, he said with pride. But admiration for him had nothing to do with it. I was attracted to law because it suited me. Laws are complex, but defined. They are solid and inflexible, and although a good lawyer can manipulate them to a degree, they are fixed boundaries that govern behavior. They represent stability and structure.
I don’t know when I realized that I was romanticizing laws. I don’t know when I realized I was a submissive. My evolution into this orientation was organic, but the strength of it, the darkness of my fantasies? They scared me.
The need for governance, for a framework, grew stronger when I entered law school, but because one can’t enter the world of sexual submission without risk, I internalized my desires. Yes, I became sexually active—not for the romanticism but for the cold, practical experience of taking a lover as part of the human experience—only to find the emptiness of it drove me back to the comforts of my work of studying all those predictable laws. It drove me to exercise, too. Work and fitness became my masters, at least until I found a real one.
It’s a dreary Wednesday, and I’m at the corner market trying to remember whether Mr. M. likes radicchio in his salads. I’ve taken to cooking for us on Wednesday nights. And no, it’s not one of his rules. I do it because he’d never let me pick up a restaurant tab if his life depended on it—he’s very old-fashioned that way—and I enjoy playing housewife.
The organic produce is glistening from the mist ejected from small nozzles positioned discreetly above the overpriced vegetables. The woman next to me picks up an heirloom tomato and examines it from all sides. She’s pushing a jogging stroller and wearing Lululemon tights paired with a crisp, long-sleeved top. She’s also wearing top of the line Asics trainers, but I can tell that she’s not a runner. She just wants to look like one. The baby in the stroller has chubby arms and fat little fists he keeps shoving into his mouth. He’s teething in that angry way babies have. He’s cute, and I wonder when the alarm on my biological clock is going to go off.
“His name’s David.” The woman is smiling at me as she puts the tomato in the basket slung over her arm.
“He’s adorable,” I say. “Really pretty eyes.”
“His dad has dark brown eyes, too.” She picks up another tomato. “We didn’t think we wanted kids. David was an accident.”
I look back down at the kid and wonder why people are so quick to volunteer such personal information. The accidental baby, finding no relief in teething on his fist, begins to wave it about. He hits himself in the face and begins to cry.
“Oh, geesh.” His mom drops the tomato in the basket, which she puts down before moving to the side of the jogging stroller to pick up the baby. She holds out a hand as she hoists him up on her shoulder. “I’m Kara.” She pauses. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”
“Sloane,” I reply, accepting the handshake. “I’ve been living here for a few months. I’ve just been so busy working that I usually have food delivered.”
“What do you do?” she asks.
&n
bsp; “I’m an attorney.”
“That explains the suit,” she says. “It’s beautiful.” She gazes at my clothing with an open longing. “I miss it sometimes, working,” she says. “David is the worst boss I ever had.” She points at the baby. “I feel like my body isn’t my own, you know? I miss my freedom, but I guess that’s just normal, wanting to do your own thing.”
The statement bothers me, but for reasons she’d never understand.
“Well, babies grow fast,” I say by way of encouragement. “He’ll be too big to need you before you know it.”
Her face falls, and I am suddenly reminded how bad I suck at making small talk.
She looks at David, who’s kicking so hard he dislodges a tiny shoe. I retrieve it from the floor and hand it to her.
“Thanks,” she says. “It was nice meeting you.”
“It’s been nice meeting you, too,” I reply. Kara deposits David back in his stroller and heads away without even getting her vegetables. I grab two different kinds of lettuce in addition to the radicchio and head to the counter.
Later that evening, I learn that Mr. M. does indeed like radicchio, and I blush with pleasure as he praises the salad.
“I met a woman at the market today,” I say as Mr. M. pours us each a glass of wine he picked up on the way over. Tonight it’s a crisp Pinot, the perfect complement to braised salmon, sweet potato julienne fries, and salad.
I run my finger around the rim of my glass and look up at him.
“Go on,” he says. “Because I’m thinking what you’re about to say is about more than some lady at the market.”
I don’t know how he does that, how he can read my thoughts like that. I smile a little.
“She’s a stay-at-home mom. She had this fat little fussy baby with her and was saying how much she missed her freedom.” I grow quiet. “She said that was normal, though, wanting your freedom.”
“And it made you feel weird because you want the opposite.”
“Not weird.” I sit back and sigh in frustration. “She sounded trapped by her decision.”