by CD Reiss
“I changed because you changed me. And I’ll always be grateful. You made me right with myself.”
“And right with yourself means you want to tie women up and hurt them.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. You’re so fucking vanilla, Jess. It’s like a religion. You can’t see outside it.”
I turned into the ER at Cedars, not facing her until I parked. Tears dampened her face. I hadn’t heard her crying in the white noise of the freeway.
I put my hand on hers, but she shook it off.
“I wish we could go back to the way we were,” she said.
“I don’t.”
***
Erik came an hour later, as she was in the x-ray room. We shook hands like gentlemen.
“Nothing happened,” I told him. “She’s all yours.”
The blonde lock drooping over his forehead swayed. He owned a surfboard company, but his face was permanently tanned from twenty years on the waves. “She never was.”
“Well, honestly, this is the last time I’m coming running. I’m done. And I’m sorry I had my foot in your yard for so long.”
We shook hands again, and I put my hand on his arm because I was really, terribly sorry I’d caused him grief over a woman who was completely wrong for me.
***
It wasn’t until I got on the 10 that I started to feel as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I pulled off on Mulholland to feel the Merc take the curves like a lumbering behemoth for the last time. I hated that goddamn car. I would get rid of it immediately. A smile spread across my face, and I laughed so hard I had to pull over. Laughter overtook me, turning to tears and back to a deep, silent laughter in my chest again. From relief. From a break in tension. From sheer joy. I was free. Fucking free.
The car was too small to contain me. I got out and sat on the railing, looking over the city, quiet, tearful bursts overtaking me. I looked at my phone, wanting to say something, connect with someone, but I couldn’t conceive the words.
When I recognized where I was, I sobered up. I’d kissed Monica for the first time there. I felt a stabbing twinge in my twisted balls. Oh God, I could have her. I could own her. She could be mine, without hesitation or reservation. Mine. The relief turned into excitement.
I looked at the time. I’d have to wait.
Thinking of Monica, I got calm and focused on my phone.
-------------------------
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Fr: [email protected]
SUBJECT: open a new account
Matt –
Long time.
I need a favor. I need a diamond navel bar. Not a ring. The other kind. Platinum with a 1.25 to 1.375 carat stone. As perfect as you have on hand. Can you deliver it to the east side before noon tomorrow?
Address to come. Let me know.
J Drazen.
-------------------------
To: [email protected]
Fr: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Kevin Wainwright/Faulkner Coal Mine
KK –
Ivan Sinchot is on the board at the L.A. Mod. I need him on the phone first thing. I want to buy Kevin Wainwright’s piece from Eclipse. All documentation. All copyrights. All assets, period. Do it through the Ibiza trust, immediately. Drop everything.
-JD
-------------------------
My finger hovered over Monica’s number. I wanted to talk to her.
No. I didn’t want to hear her talk. I wanted to hear her scream my name. Hours. I wanted her for hours, and time was one thing I didn’t have. I had real business in San Francisco that couldn’t wait, and I had to break it off with Sharon if I was going to be honest. I texted my pilot, Jacques, telling him I was on my way.
I looked out over the city, feeling as though I owned it.
Beautiful goddess, when I get back, you are mine.
***
SHARON
Having lots of money beat the alternatives, for sure. But having a plane didn’t mean more privacy. It meant less, because everyone on board was there to serve me. I ended up in the bathroom taking care of the dead weight at the bottom of my balls, as if I’d taken a 727 like everyone else. On my mind was Monica, our first night, when we were so sore and tired I didn’t think we’d have another go. She came out of the bathroom, naked, her dark hair a mess, mascara and lipstick worn to nothing. I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her. She kneeled in front of me, looking up with those big, black eyes. Without a word, she kissed my dick, licking up the shaft, bringing the blood with her until it got hard again.
“Jesus, really?” I’d said.
“It’s been eighteen months since I had sex. It might be another eighteen months before I do it again. I’m stocking up.”
I’d laughed. I did that a lot with her. I pulled her up, sitting her on my lap, her back to me and my fingers between her legs and on her breast. Since she was stocking up and I thought I’d never see her again, I fucked her hard, bouncing her on top of me while our hands met between our legs. We connected, feeling each other sliding together. When her back arched, she lost her balance, and we wound up on the floor, laughing, her on her stomach and me coming at her from behind. She turned her head, and I saw the pleasure in her face, her eyes rolling up. She was a gasping, moaning mess, crying and begging for release without being asked.
In the tiny closet of a bathroom on my six-seater plane, my imagination replayed her brown eyes looking up at me while she took my cock in her mouth, then her lips saying please please, don’t stop from underneath me… My use for the bathroom concluded soon after.
I texted Monica a few times, just a couple of pokes to let her know I wasn’t running off and to let myself know I was really doing it.
***
Sharon had been exquisite. Attractive, willing, discreet and far away, she’d do what I told her without question, talk to me about anything, and never open her mouth about who she screwed four or five days a month. Exactly what I needed, when I needed it, and I had been the same for her, but in the end, she needed to make a lifestyle out of her sexuality, and I was just a tourist.
I’d texted her when I landed, but I was two hours early thanks to Jacques answering calls during his morning jog and my desire to clean up business before returning to Los Angeles. She didn’t expect me until after my meeting, so I figured she wouldn’t be in ready position, and we could talk.
She lived on a high floor of one of my buildings by the Embarcadero. When we’d started screwing, she was a wreck from a string of abusive, boundary-free masters who beat or fucked her confidence away, and I was broken from Jessica’s complete rejection of my needs. We were two complete disasters trying to teach each other the meaning of safe, sane, consensual kink. Putting her in one of my apartments seemed like the kindest thing to do, considering she was teaching me as much as I was disciplining her.
The lobby was spare, in dark woods and chrome, with an Italian stone tile floor. I nodded to the doorman and went upstairs.
My phone dinged. It was Sharon.
—I’m ready for you, Sir.—
Shit.
Sharon had three ready positions. That confused her initially. I liked a little surprise. I wanted her to choose, and she was used to being told what to do from how she brushed her teeth, to what she wore, to which route she took to the grocery store. Having a choice of ready position was unheard of in her sexual life, which was why Debbie had set us up in the first place.
But I didn’t want her in a ready position. I wanted her clothed and ready to talk.
I opened the door. The place was impeccably clean, every inch made of glass and steel. I could never live in such a space. The apartment was too cold and impersonal, but it was easy to rent or sell, and it was just fine for fucking.
The living room was a big open area with a leather sectional and a shag rectangle under a teak coffee table. Sharon had both hands on the low table, palms sprea
d, arms straight. Her ass was in the air, perched on top of a pair of beautiful legs planted in heels high enough to make a lesser woman fall over. Her blond hair hung over her face, and I knew she was watching me in the mirrors and chrome all over the apartment. Besides the stilettos, she was naked. Naked or underwear was her call, unless I stated otherwise. She was a lovely creature, with curves in the right places and smooth skin she carefully maintained.
Normally, depending on my mood and demeanor after travelling, I’d taunt and touch her until she begged, or I’d slap her ass and fuck her without a word.
I held my hand over her ass, because touching it was the first thing I’d usually do, then I stopped myself. I couldn’t tease her because I wouldn’t finish what that touch would start. Or worse, I would finish it and make the whole thing a hell of a lot worse.
“You can get up, Sharon.”
“I’m sorry, Sir?”
“Get dressed.”
“Have I displeased you?”
Fuck. Her voice squeaked with nerves. Bad start. I should have told her to be dressed when I texted her. Total miss on my part.
“No, baby. You’re fine. We have to talk, and it’s hard to do that with your beautiful ass in my face.”
I held out my hand and helped her up. Her face was a blank slate of fear. She had no reason to look scared with me. When we met, any implication of my displeasure was greeted by her acceptance of punishment I had no intention of meting out. It wasn’t my thing, but history was hard to shake. She held onto my hand, then pulled it toward her mouth. I twisted away and cupped her cheek. Her grey-blue eyes were full of questions, and her lips were pressed tight, not a position I was used to seeing them in.
“Where do you want to go for breakfast?”
“Wherever you like, Sir.”
“Can we not play right now?”
Her posture changed from erect to relaxed. “So,” she said, “who is she? Or did the wife come to her senses?”
I smiled. She couldn’t have dropped character like that two years ago. “Are you going to get dressed or is the whole town getting a look at you?”
***
Jessica hadn’t up and left a perfectly happy marriage. This took a year or more for me to sort out. As I’d become more comfortable with my past, and the man I was, I changed. I became sexually dominant and emotionally controlling. I wanted her to submit to me in bed, which she wouldn’t have any of. I wanted her body to be available to me more often, which annoyed her. I wanted her to dress for me, even if I wasn’t there. I wanted her to do things during the day, when we were apart. Simple things. Touch herself. Roll her sleeves up. Open her legs. Say my name. It made me feel as though we were connected, but she didn’t want to play the game, at all. I became frustrated and unsatisfied. We both dug in, and by the time I was willing to cave on both points to keep her, it was too late.
It had been my fault. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what to ask or what I wanted, I only knew I had new ideas, new excitement, new desires. My requests sounded like demands, when they should have been demands that sounded like requests. I became, in two words, a controlling asshole.
To Sharon, however, I was a sweetheart, and through her and Debbie’s stories, I learned just how kinky the kinky world was. I learned how her past men had done things and adjusted what I did to suit me and show her a life that wasn’t based on fear, where her needs weren’t just important but pleasurable for both of us. It was a shame I couldn’t work up an emotion outside general tenderness in the two and some years I’d known her.
Sharon chose a place we’d gone to a hundred times before, with coffee handpicked by college graduates, roasted in the sun only during working hours, trucked in on fuel-efficient vehicles, and made onsite with organic water.
She had her hair tied back with a black velvet twist I’d used to bind her any number of times. No doubt she wore it on purpose. She was used to getting by on her looks and had little to recommend her in the way of conversational skills, but she wasn’t stupid. She leaned on her elbows over her skinny latte.
“So?”
“So.” I sipped my black coffee. “I wanted to tell you what you’ve meant to me. You helped me define things I thought had no definition. You’ve had a big part in making me whole again. I want to thank you for that.”
“You never answered my question. The wife or someone else?”
Our relationship was built on honesty and trust but not on fidelity. She’d been on the lookout for a more permanent, full-time Dom, and I’d been searching for what I wanted out of a woman at all. “Both,” I said.
“The wife’s going to share? I thought she was vanilla?”
“No. Jessica’s not going to share, but she did almost get me in the sack. I resisted.”
“No way! And you turned her down? Why?”
Sharon was rapt. My life’s dramas always interested her, yet she’d never betrayed a confidence. “Because I just didn’t want her. Honestly. Just didn’t. And also, there’s someone I promised myself to, at least for the time being.”
“Tell me.”
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“What does she look like?”
I shrugged. “Nothing special.”
“Oh, please.”
I slipped my hand into hers and squeezed it. “You going to be okay without me?”
“You only show up once a month, and you’re too gentle anyway.”
“Without the tasks and the discipline and knowing I’m there. Are you going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
“No assholes.”
She took my hand in both of hers and looked me in the eye. “No assholes.”
“The apartment. Do you want it?”
“I have some modeling things coming up. I’ll pay you for it.” I cocked my head at her. She knew what that place cost. “Installment plan.”
“Fine.”
“Is she short? Tall? How old?”
There is nothing like a woman’s curiosity about other women. She’d never imply or even admit to herself she felt an ounce of competition between herself and Monica, yet she had to know so she could compare herself and decide if she was okay with it.
“I meet a lot of beautiful girls,” I said. “She’s… I don’t know. The first time I talked to her, in my office, she was a waitress at my hotel. I looked at her, trying to figure out why she looked so tangible, so present. Every curve looked exactly right. Even her skin is this perfect color… Not even color. The texture of it. I wanted to touch it like I’d never wanted to touch anything before. She saw me looking, and she stood with her hands on her hips, daring me to get an eyeful. No fear. She filled that fucking room.” I sipped my coffee. “She took my breath away. I was too stunned to even ask her out.”
“So?” Sharon might have been watching the last fifteen minutes of a Lifetime movie, her attention was so focused.
“So I got her a job at the Stock, where Debbie works. I figured she could check her out, tell me if I was crazy.”
“So smart, you. What did she say?”
“You know Debbie. She won’t rest until everyone’s happily coupled off but her.”
I sensed rue in Sharon’s smile. I rested my hand on her forearm. “You’ll find someone, baby.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t think it matters. Can you stay for one last fuck?”
I checked my watch as if it was a possibility. “Got a meeting with Tim LaShaun from District 34. Then a tenant’s advocacy group that wants my head on a stick. More bullshit tomorrow and the next.”
She nodded. I always had at least that much bullshit when I came to San Francisco, but things was different, and she knew it. There wouldn’t be one last fuck. I’d done it. I’d come out unscathed and true to my word. I was less confident about Sharon. She had a way of putting a nice face on everything until she decided the pain was too much to bear.
We parted outside. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I felt that relief again
, but unlike the previous night, when I’d walked out on Jessica, it felt less like getting hit in the head by a two-by-four.
My phone rang as I put Sharon in a cab.
“Hi, Debbie,” I answered as I handed the valet my ticket. “Speak of the devil. I was just with Sharon.”
As usual, she wasted no time getting to the point. “Jessica met Monica last night?”
“Correct.”
“She came here and insisted on sitting at her station.”
Ugly. It was just like Jessica to highlight any class difference she could tease out. Having Monica serve her would be a way to humiliate her with a smile.
Debbie continued, “I don’t expect you to do anything about it. Except your wife—”
“Ex-wife.”
“She said something to Monica. I don’t know what, but now the girl looks like she’s been slapped.”
My fingers got ice cold. Jessica could have said a hundred things, secrets she could have revealed or implied. A million half-truths. Without a man to lean on, she was a cornered animal. I’d forgotten how dangerous she was when I was busy choosing another woman over her.
“Did you ask Monica?” I asked.
“She won’t repeat it.”
Apparently, my beautiful goddess was also a woman of honor. “I’ll call her.”
“She’s working the floor, so her phone is off. Fix it, please. I don’t like it. The power trip. It’s sneaky.”
“I will, Debbie. I will.”
I hung up. My car came, and I parked it around the corner to give myself a minute to think. What did Jessica know? Everything. What was she willing to share? Or imply? Or use? I had no idea. I knew for sure I wasn’t ready to share everything about my past with Monica, not a word or deed I didn’t have to, because I’d lose her. Any woman would run for the hills.
I texted Monica before I drove away.
—Can you call me?—