Please, Sir

by Leigha Taylor

  Grabbing my napkin from the table, I wipe my eyes and nose. I help Caroline clear the table in silence, knowing that she hasn’t given up. She’s just giving me time to catch my breath. This conversation is far from over.

  I sense she’s gearing up for round two when I see her pull a bottle of Merlot from my wine rack. While she pulls the cork, I grab two glasses and gesture toward the living room, saying, “After you.”

  “Okay, spill.”

  “I told you. It wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes it just isn’t.”

  “That’s a load of bullshit, Allie. If it was that simple, you’d brush it off and move on. Tell me what happened so I can help.”

  “It was just sex, Care. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s true. For him, it was always just sex. For me, the waters got a little muddy. It’s my own fault. I’ve never had that kind of connection, sexually or otherwise, with anyone, and it got to me.” I took a large gulp of my wine before continuing, saying, “I think I fell in love with him a little. It was stupid and reckless and I knew almost from the beginning that it was going to happen, but I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Love isn’t some chocolate cake, you know. Chocolate I could understand. You eat a piece and then you have to have another and another, knowing it’s going to eventually make you sick and knowing your pants aren’t gonna fit next week, but you keep eating. When that happens, yeah, it’s your fault. You take an antacid, sleep it off, and hit the gym hard for a while and before you know it, you’re healed. But, love? Love doesn’t just go away. There’s a huge difference between a passing craving and falling in love with someone. I know you well enough to know that you don’t throw that word around lightly. If you even mentioned the L word, it’s going to take a lot more than a few extra miles on the treadmill to fix this one.”

  I should have known talking to Caroline would be good for me. I may not be able to tell her everything, but at least she makes me smile.

  “I’ll be fine. Maybe some of that chocolate cake you mentioned will help. Chocolate is good for the heart and soul.”

  “You know I won’t argue with that, but I want to make sure you’re okay. Will you at least tell me what happened? The Cliff’s Notes version isn’t working for me.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell you what I can, but this guy and I? We’re beyond saving. If you want to worry about my heart and mending it with wine and chocolate, I’m all in, but I want you to know right now that that’s all this is. We fix me, get my head on straight, and move on.”

  “Okay, okay!” She puts her hands up in surrender and then reaches for her wine glass, settling in to listen to my story.

  “After Robert left, I started to try new things, you know that. The yoga, the art, different things I’d had an interest in, but never gotten around to while playing Stepford Wife. I realized that I not only had the freedom to take on new hobbies, but anything I wanted. For the first time in my adult life, my decisions were all my own. I wasn’t looking to fall in love, or even find a long-term relationship. Believe it or not, I was just looking for satisfying sex.”

  Caroline opens her mouth and I know she wants to say something, after all, random online hookups aren’t the best idea, but she takes a sip of wine instead and lets me continue.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t like that. I didn’t just arbitrarily pick some hottie from Tinder, meet him at a bar, and fuck his brains out. I’m a little smarter and more selective than that. Well, more selective, anyway. So I met up with this guy and it turns out I’d met him before. There was sort of this instant connection in my brain to the guy I’d known previously and it made me really comfortable around him. It helped me to step out of my comfort zone, to basically become someone else, someone new, and go for what I wanted.

  “The emotions were all on my side, though. We’d only been seeing each other about three weeks when we had a, well, a fight, I guess. He was so cold and harsh that by the time he got around to trying to explain himself, I couldn’t be there another minute. I basically ran with my tail between my legs. I haven’t talked to him since.”

  Caroline looks surprised and says, “You haven’t called? He hasn’t called you? That was it? One fight and it’s over? I don’t know why you’re so upset then, Allie. Just call him! You two haven’t even had the chance to talk things out!”

  “Care, when I left, I looked at him with as blank a face as I could and told him to have a nice life. I’m pretty sure that right there was enough to make him lose my number and I certainly can’t call him after that.”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “I told you. All the emotion was on my side. He felt nothing for me. It was different for me than it was for him.”

  “God, you sound just like Jesse,” Caroline muses. My spine stiffens and my breath catches at his name. I take several more sips of wine, trying to choke down my reaction and hoping my face isn’t as pale as it feels.

  “What does Jesse have to do with this?” I squeak.

  She gives me a strange look, but doesn’t seem to dwell on my sudden loss of voice as she unknowingly tells the other side of my story.

  “He’s all up in arms over some girl right now. I swear, you two should start your own chapter of the Broken Hearts Club.”

  “He’s, um, I mean… Someone broke his heart?”

  “Big time. He was supposed to come to dinner at my parents on Sunday, but he called them in the afternoon to say he wasn’t feeling well. They asked me to take him a care package when I left, so I dropped by his house, expecting him to be in bed with the flu or something. Instead, I could hear pounding death metal coming from the house. He never listens to that crap, so I wondered what was up with that. I banged on the door for like five minutes, but he couldn’t hear it over the noise, so I tried the door and it was open. I walked in to find my brother sitting on the couch, head in his hands, drunk as a skunk.”

  My body has gone cold as I listened to her words. Is it possible that Jesse misses me, too? I shake my head, clearing those thoughts. This can’t have anything to do with me. I was just a client, a nobody. If he’s heartbroken over a relationship, it’s outside of whatever it was I had with him.

  Luckily, Caroline is too wrapped up in her story to notice my reaction. I say nothing and she continues talking.

  “He didn’t hear me come in, so I called his name, trying not to scare the hell out of him. He must have realized I was there because he looked up, but it was like he was looking through me. I turned down the stereo and went to sit next to him. He said, ‘I fucked up, Care. All this time and I fucked it up like that,’ and he snapped his fingers in front of my face.

  “I asked him what happened, but he, like you, wouldn’t give me any details. He just said over and over that he fucked up. I asked him if it was over some girl and he told me it wasn’t just some girl, it was the girl, but that’s all he would say.

  “You know how I like to fix things, so I told him I was sure things would work out and he told me she wants nothing to do with him.”

  She looks at me expectantly and I suppose it’s time to say something, so I come up with, “Wow, Care. That sounds serious.” Inside, my stomach is churning at the thought that I was sleeping with him, contract or no contract, while he was discovering his version of the girl.

  “I guess it was serious to him. I asked how he could be so sure she wanted nothing to do with him and he said it was in her expression when she left him. He said her final words were just that, final.”

  Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I ask her, “Did he tell you what she said?”

  “Yeah. She told him to have a nice…” Her words trail off as her eyes widen and she blurts out, “Holy shit! You fucked my brother!”

  My heart stops still in my chest as she repeats my words to me. I hadn’t thought for a single moment that the heartbreaker in Jesse’s life could be me. The realization that the two stories were actually one hit us both at the same time and I couldn’t manage to
put two words together.

  “Caroline, I… Well, you…”

  “What the fuck, Allison? What in the actual fuck is going on? My brother? I can’t even wrap my head around this. He’s a… Holy shit! He’s… Do you even know what he does for a living? You love him? Wait, you, like, love love him?”

  “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be, well, something different. I didn’t mean to betray you. I know how you feel about the idea of us together and I swear I didn’t intend to go against your wishes.”

  “You think that’s what I’m upset about? I don’t care about some silly teenage jealousy. I warned you away from my brother because I saw the way you two were looking at each other and I didn’t want to lose my best friend. I’m upset now that neither of you thought you could tell me. Two of the most important people in my life are heartbroken and miserable and I never saw it coming because I didn’t even know they were together!”

  “I didn’t know it was going to be Jesse.”

  “What was it, like a blind date or something? How could you not… Ohmygod. You didn’t.”

  The color in Caroline’s cheeks comes back in a rush. I expected that if anyone ever found out about my time with HJR Services, I’d be embarrassed as hell, but, instead, I’ve accepted that part of myself and I’m able to look her in the face.

  “I did. I’ve wanted this experience for a long time and with Robert, it was not only off the table, there was no table. I did my research, I filled out my application, and I showed up to my first session. When Jesse opened that door, it was a huge shock for both of us. He had seen my profile, but the names aren’t on them. It makes the selection completely anonymous to get the best fit for each applicant. It appears that Jesse and I were the perfect fit.”

  “So my brother… He’s your… Master?”

  “He was. Temporarily. I was never supposed to fall for him. I was supposed to get the experience and find out if the lifestyle is right for me. It’s my own fault that I couldn’t separate sex and love.”

  “Allison, did you not hear me when I told you that Jesse is as heartbroken as you are? He has been doing this for years and I’ve never seen anyone affect him like this. You’d never know if he has an incoming client or an outgoing client; it was all part of the job. This time, he fell hard.”

  “I think he’s just upset because of the way things went down with us. Maybe he feels angry or guilty or something. I’m telling you, there is no way Jesse is in love with me.”

  Caroline mumbles something about selling me the Brooklyn Bridge and reaches for her wine glass. She picks it up, finishes the last bit, and fills both glasses again.

  “So,” she says, licking a droplet of the deep red liquid off her lip, “what are we going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  “How do we fix this thing between you and my brother?”

  “This changes nothing! It could be the Dalai Lama, Bill Cosby, the garbage man, or any other man out there. It doesn’t matter who it is – what we had is still over.”

  “I don’t even know what to say. I’m floored that your mystery man is Jesse and at the same time, I’m so sad for both of you because you could be so good together. If only you weren’t both so goddamned stubborn, you could figure this thing out.”

  “Can we go back to five minutes ago when his identity was still a mystery and focus on my need to move on?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Please, Care, just let me work through this, okay?”

  “Fine, but the minute you wise up and decide to let me help get the two of you back together, you let me know.”

  “I will. Don’t hold your breath or anything, but I will.”

  Chapter Five

  I’m slowly getting back to some kind of normal. On one hand, I’m ashamed of myself for letting a three-week relationship turn me into some freakish version of Heartbreak Barbie. The fact that I’m still thinking of it as a relationship tells me I still don’t quite have my head on straight.

  Caroline has taken me to lunch twice over the last two weeks. I can’t figure out if it has more to do with her hoping I’ve finally relented where Jesse is concerned or if she’s just making sure I haven’t fallen back off the deep end.

  I hear my phone go off, the short and annoying tone indicating that I have a new email. Since I’ve already cleaned this place from top to bottom, organized my spices by alphabetical order, rearranged the furniture in the living room twice, and given my bathroom a mini-makeover, I might as well see what my neglected inbox has to offer.

  Since it’s easier to delete a large number of useless electronic messages from my laptop, I fire it up and sit down at my desk. One hundred seventy-four new messages later, I’m ready to click delete all and start fresh, but the subject line of one of them catches my eye. Pleasure Bound misses you!

  I click to open the message, only vaguely interested in reading what the BDSM dating site has to say. I joined it on a whim shortly before signing up with HJR Services and never actually got around to using it after setting up my ridiculously embarrassing profile. Apparently, it has been so long since my last login that the Pleasure Bound servers are checking in with me, making sure I’m still out here and looking for someone to fulfill my submissive desires.

  I’m stunned when I see that I have fifty-seven messages waiting for me from Doms who are interested in talking to me after reading my profile. The one which consists of a selfie taken right here at this desk and some very basic personal information. I’m 5’6” tall, have long auburn hair, blue eyes, little to no previous BDSM experience (there was no checkbox for absolutely none), am interested in one-on-one play only, and have listed no hard or soft limits.

  Either there are slim pickings right now in the available pool of female masochists, or there is some hidden message in my profile that’s sending out cyber pheromones to all these would-be lovers.

  I click out of the email and get to work deleting one hundred seventy-three other messages with subjects like Save up to $100 per month on your heating bill! and You’re pre-approved for our VISA Platinum Card! Act now! When the rest are gone, the cursor hovers over the box for the Pleasure Bound message, taunting me. In the end, I can’t delete it and, instead, I click the link to head over to their site and see what my fifty-seven suitors have to say.

  Most of the messages are straight up propositions asking me to meet up for a one-off. I discard those immediately because if I end up talking to any of these guys, I don’t want it to be some serial dater who will fuck, and spank, anything that moves and brings a whole host of issues and diseases right along with him. I want someone who would like to actually talk to me before commanding me to take my clothes off. If there is one thing I learned from my time with Master J, it’s that trust is incredibly important in BDSM relationships.

  I don’t end up finding a single man I’m interested in meeting and, disgusted, I close the lid of my laptop. Even if I’d found someone interesting and considered responding, I know I’d compare them to Jesse and they would fall short. Way short.

  There is a sinking feeling in my chest when I consider the idea that I will never have a relationship that is as sexually or emotionally fulfilling as what I experienced in the hands of Master J. Not only were we a complete match as lovers, scoring way off the charts in terms of chemistry and spark, but trusting him was as easy as breathing. Whether knowing him most of my life was responsible for that or not, it’s apparent that it won’t be easy to replace.

  I lose myself further in my thoughts and I’m scared half to death by the sound of my phone trilling obnoxiously on the desk beside me. It’s Caroline’s ring tone, so I shake myself out of my melancholy reverie and try to put some cheer into my “Hello?”

  “Allie! What are ya doing?”

  “Nothing interesting. How about you?”

  “I’m making my famous Spaghetti Bolognese and, as usual, there is a ton, so
I was hoping you’d find it in your heart to help me eat it. Can you come for dinner?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, I know it’s short notice, but there will be wine, Italian food, and amazing company. Really, how could you possibly say no?”

  “What time do you want me?”

  “Yay! Umm, how about six? That gives you an hour to cheer yourself up from whatever was going on in your head before I called, get dressed, and get your ass over here.”

  “I wasn’t… Okay, maybe I was thinking too much. I’ll see you at six.”

  I hang up and shake my head at the blank screen. If there is one person I can never fool with a fake smile, it’s Caroline. Hopefully my mind won’t wander too much this evening. She’s finally starting to get off my back about Jesse and I don’t want to give her any reason to start campaigning for him all over again.

  ***

  An hour later, I pull into Caroline’s driveway. I picked up a dozen cupcakes from Valarie’s Bakery on the way here and it was all I could do not to eat every one of them while I drove. My favorites are the Salted Caramel-Filled Fudge Cupcakes and I swear I could smell them over the rest, taunting me and screaming my name. If I’m going to gorge on wine and Italian food, I might as well go hog wild and eat my weight in buttercream.

  I went with ultra-casual tonight, kind of like wearing your “fat pants” to Thanksgiving dinner. You know that food baby is coming, so you prepare. Yoga pants and an old college sweatshirt, it is. At least I showered. I managed to put my hair back into a sleek ponytail and swipe some mascara on my lashes, but I only did that so Caroline wouldn’t think I was falling back into my pit of despair.

  I’d normally just walk in since she’s expecting me, but no way am I taking the chance that I will drop these cupcakes, so I press the doorbell button with my knuckle and tap the toes of my Chuck Taylor high tops to the beat of the music playing in my head.