She smiled up at him like he had created the sun. “Yes, Sir. I have to go check on dinner, but we’re gonna figure this out, Xander.” She went to the kitchen and I could hear her humming to herself as she clanged and clattered pans and whatever else. I smiled at how they had taken something really complicated and made it simple.
“How’s school going?”
“Really well. I like it and I just finished the first half of the year-long neurology course. It’s intense, man.”
“Well, yeah. That’s why I like it. Have you gotten into brain chemistry yet?”
“No, it was all peripheral nervous system and spinal column for first semester. Next semester is brain and brainstem.”
“You’ll like it. You just have to make concrete connections to real life.”
June walked out from the kitchen and interrupted us. “Stop talking about work and school. What’s happening with your little sub-morsel? I was impressed with her when I met her.”
“June.” There was a warning in Michael’s tone at her interruption and general bossiness. She held his gaze for just a beat and dropped her eyes with a small bob of her head. I waited until Michael turned back to me, asking, “So, what’s happening with this girl?”
“I’m so glad you’re both here. I’m fucking freaking out over her. I’m in love with her, want to collar her, shit…want to marry her.”
“Why?”
It was a simple question and Michael’s calm but strong voice cut through my anxious, pressured speech. I looked at him, mouth half-open, not sure what to say.
He elaborated, “I’ve known you for years and you have never been particularly serious about a girl. Why this one?”
June settled on his lap, smiling.
“She’s smart and kind and funny and a smart-ass. But she gets it and accepts me the way I am. You know how shit-Doms are always telling the newbies that they’re ‘natural submissives’?” I waited for his nod, then added, “She actually is.”
“How so?” He leaned forward a bit, shifting June in his lap.
“She just accepts anything I give her. She…so here, like this— When we were first talking, I joked with her about being in trouble and punishing her and she flirted back. But then, when I promised to come over the next day to deliver said punishment, she asked what she could do to prepare.” He nodded in appreciation. “I mean, she didn’t even know what a safeword was. And she has instincts. She stands so still when I touch her, like she’s been trained for inspection.”
“And tell him about playing with Seraphim,” June prompted me, smiling.
“So this is where it starts to get weird and, June, you haven’t heard this part yet.” As I spoke, she stood and directed us into the dining room, where she served us, plating her meal last. As we ate, I filled them in on what had happened with her, how she seemed too perfect to be real, how she pushed me just right, how she tried everything I brought to her. How much it freaked me out.
“Well, she sounds perfect. What’s the problem?” Michael made it sound so simple.
“We played again the night before we came up here and I put her in there with the other girl. Again, she didn’t even really balk. And then when it was over, I fucked her in the dungeon, in front of everyone, and she thanked me, Mike. She fucking thanked me.” Incredulity laced my words.
“Again, what’s the problem?” His voice was stern, but kind.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I don’t believe her. And I’m sure I’m gonna fuck it up somehow. And then…” I paused, sipping the wine. “I don’t want to hurt her, but I do. I want to let all this out on her, but I never want her to feel the remotest pain. Does that make sense?”
Michael smiled, and held June’s hand on the table. “Yes, I completely understand. The loving Dom’s dilemma.”
“So…what do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I think I want to marry her. But I’m constantly running this shitty monologue in my head. And after that play a few nights ago, I think I had Dom-drop—and that shit sucks.”
“Hmm, yeah. Yeah it does.” He dropped his gaze to his plate for a minute and I saw a memory running through him. “Yeah, it’s awful. But you know what it is. It’s the backlash of using up the neurotransmitters, the backlash of doing what we do.”
Some slow and sweet love song was playing and I felt incredibly sad, missing Leda, wanting her with me always. Michael pulled June back into his lap and she laughed and threw her arms around him. She spoke, “Xander, we love you. And that girl loves you too. Why can’t you just accept it and enjoy it?”
“I don’t know.”
* * * *
There was a car I didn’t recognize in the driveway when I got back. Before I was through the door, I knew it was going to be bad. The only light on was my parents’ bedroom.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I came through the door, slamming it behind me so that whoever wasn’t one of my parents—most likely whoever wasn’t my dad—up there knew that the house wasn’t empty anymore. I heard a muted yelp and feet moving around a bunch.
I got some water, trying to waste time downstairs because I was going to choose where I confronted whatever asshole my mom was fucking now. I sat at the table, waiting. Predictably, my mom came down first. In her fucking robe. Some guy who was not my dad, by a long shot, sort of scuttled by in her shadow. I had fucking had it.
“Man, if you’re gonna fuck my mom, who is another man’s wife, be a fucking man about it and stand up straight, head high when you walk out.” My voice was arctic cold and my mom gasped a little.
“Xander! That’s enough.” She admonished me, attempting to find some purchase on a moral high ground and failing, epically.
I just scoffed at her and stood. I walked to the man and extended my hand. “I’m Xander, her son. And don’t act so awkward. You’re not the first one I’ve found her with.” After I shook his hand, I turned to my mother, who was absolutely beet red. “Goodnight, Mother.”
I walked away, up to my room. I heard them murmuring, both apologizing, which just made me angrier. If you’re doing something you need to apologize for, you’re not doing it right. Do what you can live with. I heard the door close and my mom’s steps as she came up the stairs.
She opened my door, ready to yell, but I cut her off. “What the hell, Mom? What if I had been jerking off? You gotta knock. I’m thirty-fucking-four.”
She drew a breath, about to blow up, but instead she started laughing. “Well, I’m fifty-fucking-seven and I’ll sleep with whomever I’d like. You don’t get a say, son.” She held her head up, holier-than-thou. It was hilarious and my anger cracked as I started laughing.
She sat on the end of my bed, both of us laughing, until we had to wipe our eyes. She leaned toward me. “Jerking off, Alex? Jesus Christ. I am still your mother.”
“Shit, Mom, with everything we’ve been through. It would be great if me spanking it was the worst, right?” We both started laughing again.
As much as my mom had faults, she had always stood by me, even when shit blew up with Stacy and my life fell apart. It didn’t really matter that I had found her with various men, more than a few times. She always had my back, and I’d always have hers—which was part of what bugged me about that guy. “Who the hell was that, anyway? He was seriously skulking. It was shady, Mom.”
“That was Tim, the new tennis pro at the club. I don’t know. Go to bed. I don’t want to talk about this. Wanna go Christmas shopping tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Shopping would suck and we have ice skating.”
“Oh, all right. I guess I don’t really have anything else to get, anyway.”
My family kept Christmas pretty minimal. One present each. I had gotten my mom some earrings and my dad some cuff links and a tie clip.
My dad came home with us after the skating party and we actually had dinner together. I tried to keep the conversation light, talking about school, tutor
ing and inevitably, Leda.
“Oh…this is the one Rodriguez told me about, right?” Dad was conversational, like he wasn’t talking about the total invasion of my privacy, that was. Right…invasion of privacy when they only know about her because I got a fucking background check on her. Hypocrite.
“I guess so, but remind me to slap him.”
He scoffed, “Like you could land one on him.”
Mom cleared her throat, and said, “So, you tell us about her. All we know is the background check stuff. She’s very cute.”
I smiled, because it was true. “She’s smart, funny. I like her a lot. She’s easy to be around—like it’s not complicated unless I make it complicated.”
A knowing look passed around the table, but no one said anything, and I was suddenly weary, annoyed at the whole situation. I stood, clearing my dishes. “You’ll get to meet her for yourself. She’ll be at the gala.”
* * * *
Christmas with my parents was peaceful, better than I expected. We were scheduled to attend the Senator’s formal Christmas dinner that night and, even though I had done it practically every year, I still dreaded it.
It was excess and luxury, exactly as one would expect when being completely cynical about Washington. The meal was amazing, but it sort of had to be. Stacy was there with her family, but they were seated at the other end of the table. Someone still remembers.
She caught my eye a few times, sometimes smiling, sometimes rolling her eyes at the BS flying around the room. After the meal ended, the guests were invited to the various common rooms of the home. Most of the men went to the den to play snooker because Billings was a pretentious fuck who couldn’t play pool like the unwashed masses. I groaned inwardly and went the other way, to the bar between the den and the formal living room.
The bartender poured me a neat Macallan 25, and when I turned, Stacy was there. She wore a long red dress with gold threading that was a mix of sexy and festive. She smiled at me, but leaned past me to order the same drink. As I tried to walk away, she grabbed my hand, subtly, almost covertly.
I looked at her in surprise. Absolutely everyone at this party knew what had happened between us. Well, not everything that happened, but they did all know about her father finding us fucking—with what I now knew was questionable consent—in my office at the Pentagon, about him punching me in the face, about her absolute refusal to press charges against me even though she could have and would have won in court.
We were supposed to be personae non-grata to each other. Once she had her drink, she pulled my hand and tugged me out a wide French door to the patio. It was warmed with braziers so guests could smoke or get fresh air without freezing.
“Hello.”
She said it sweetly, kind of soft, like we were intimate. But we weren’t. Not anymore.
I responded, gruffly, taking a step back from her. “Hi, Stacy. Merry Christmas.”
She pressed forward to kiss my cheeks. “Merry Christmas.” Her voice was breathy, and she lent the words a dark, lusty tone that hinted at how merry she wanted to make my Christmas.
I held her shoulders and disengaged her from my space. Firmly, so it was clear that there wasn’t going to be any merrymaking between us, this Christmas or any other.
Her shoulders slumped and her face fell. “How long are you going to keep punishing me, Xander?” Her voice was actually forlorn.
Empathy colored my response. “Stacy, I’m not punishing you. There’s nothing to punish you for. But we don’t belong together. You were an important part of my life for a long time, but things changed between us. You have to move on.” My last words were more emphatic.
She got a determined set to her jaw that I recognized. She was going to do something stupid and self-destructive, under the guise of refusing to let me tell her what to do. “There’s nowhere for me to move on to. No one else I can even think of trying to build a life with. There’s just you. You’re the only one who knows.”
She ran her hand through her hair and I distractedly thought that I would have wanted her to wear it up. She had a beautiful neck. My thoughts flashed to the memory of my mouth on her throat and the sounds she would make underneath me. She spoke again, pulling me back to the moment.
“What can she possibly know about all this? How will she survive this?”
I didn’t answer her because I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know how Leda would navigate the world I came from. It was full of lying, promises in exchange for favors, fine print fuckovers, ruthless people doing what they thought they had to, to survive. Leda was too damn good to know how to deal with this. Finally, I looked at Stacy and just said, “I don’t know.”
I was too sick of the game with her to keep playing, and she misunderstood, thinking she had a small victory, so I added, “But I’m not discussing it here, with you.”
She flashed a megawatt smile and slammed her scotch. “All right, big man. I’ll leave you to figure it out on your own. We’ll see if you come up with the same answer I did.” She walked back into the house and I sat in an Adirondack chair under the brazier, sipping my scotch, savoring it.
I checked the time on my phone, and saw a text message from Leda. It was a few hours old and so sweet and pure that it just twisted in my gut as it nearly proved everything Stacy had been talking about.
Hey Boss man! How RU? Merry Christmas. Miss you. XXOO—L
I responded, but refused to let my fucked up life touch her in anyway, if I could help it.
Little girl…I miss you too, so much. I’m bored without you. But on the plus side, daydreaming of what I’m going to do to you when I see you. Merry Xmas XXOOFFFFFFF—X
She responded quickly and we had a flirty text exchange that did more to cheer me up than anything anyone currently in DC could have.
What is FFFFFF? ☺—L
What do you think an F might be?—X
Well, then that was a lot of F’ing. A little pent up, are we?—L
“Alex? What are you doing out here?” My mom was at the doors, beckoning me in. “Come inside. We’re leaving and you need to thank our hosts.” But I was already moving toward her. I left my empty glass on the bar with a tip and we wound our way through the house to the foyer.
Senator and Mrs. Noe were at the door, saying goodbyes—gracious smiles, glad-handing. He was about the same height as me, a full head of gray hair and some loose wrinkles in his face. She was significantly younger than him, but still older than me. She had a deep strawberry blonde hair color that didn’t seem entirely feasible on her tanned, almost swarthy, skin tone.
We said our goodbyes, barely keeping eye contact long enough to avoid being rude. In the car, my mother turned to me.
“What were you doing talking to Stacy outside?” Her voice was worried, more than angry.
“Exactly that. Talking to Stacy, outside.”
She just held my gaze, face implacable.
I relented. They knew everything already anyway. “She wants to get back together. She’s actually wanted to for a while. It’s why she came to Texas for med school. She could have gone anywhere with her letter of rec from the Surgeon General. I mean…done and done. Welcome to med school. She came down there to follow me, try to get back together with me.”
There were a few beats of silence then my mom and dad spoke at that same time.
“Maybe you should give it another try. It’d piss her dad off plenty.” Dad laughed at that.
“You have to stay away from her, son.” My mother’s voice carried some alarm.
I responded to both of them. “Or, you can let me handle my own shit.”
My mom turned back to the front and asked my dad, “Why would you even suggest that, Denny? That little fuck up nearly ruined all of us.” Her voice was whip-crack sharp, but Dad was unimpressed.
“Because Jackson is being a fucking idiot lately. He voted against a bill we sponsored and he’s been courting that jackass, Rusty Weintraub. You know, the Jew from California.”
Jesus, this the gene pool I was created from. God damn it. I’m not coming back here again. I was silent for the rest of the drive, plotting how I’d take Leda somewhere, anywhere, else.
* * * *
The next morning I called Leda, but she didn’t answer her phone. I tried her parents’ home number. Her mom answered and informed me that she and her siblings had taken the kids out. I asked to leave a message, and once I told her my name, we had a short conversation.
“Oh! Xander! Hi, Merry Christmas! How is your vacation going?”
“Hi, Mrs. Collins. Vacation is very quiet, relaxing. Honestly, kind of boring.” I chuckled a little.
“Oh, gosh! With all these little ones underfoot—and really the big ones too—it’s never boring around here.”
“Well, Merry Christmas to you, too. Could you just let Leda know I called to give her the flight information?”
“Oh, sure. Do you want to give it to me and I can pass it on? Let me just grab something to write with.”
I heard her setting the phone down before I answered. I smiled, hearing some of Leda’s kindness in her mom’s voice. I heard a sound of victory and she picked the phone back up.
“Okay, I’m ready now! I mean, it’s really like I can’t ever find anything when I need it, but when I go to clean things up later today, I’ll find seven pens.” She laughed.
“I hate that too!” I let my smile into my voice.
“Ready. Give me the flight info.”
“The plane is going to come up on the thirtieth and there’ll be a two p.m. departure on the thirty-first, from the private air field near O’Hare. She’ll need ID at the driveway. I can text her the exact address. I don’t have it right now. She is going to fly with the Senator’s sister and her husband. Bitsy and John Ivory.”
She had been murmuring along with me, letting me know she has heard me. But she paused there, and I knew it was because of the name. To her credit, she held her tongue. Her voice was a little softer when she spoke again. “Okay, Xander. We will drop her off. Why don’t you touch base with Leda before then, just to let her know who to look for?”
Wrecked (The Blackened Window) Page 30