“Sam.”
There is a long silence where the drone of conversations and the Billy Squier playing in the background seem to fade to nothingness; all that is audible is the terrified beating of my heart.
“Sam?” Michelle finally breaks the silence.
“Yes,” I croak.
Sandra suddenly springs to life. “Congratulations.” She hugs me. “This is really exciting.”
“Sandra! This is hardly cause for celebration . . .,” Michelle begins angrily, but Sandra cuts her off.
“Didn’t you learn anything from the whole experience with George and me? You can’t control what your friends do, and if you try to, you’ll lose them.”
“Well . . .,” Michelle says, but she trails off. To my surprise, her voice is shaky with emotion when she continues. “I just . . . I just don’t want you to get hurt. I care about you . . . all of you.”
Val squeezes Michelle’s hand. “We know you do.”
“She’s following her heart.” Sandra smiles at me. “Someone wise once told me that your heart will never steer you wrong.”
“Thanks guys,” I say, biting my lip to keep from bursting into tears.
“I’m happy for you,” Val says, taking me into her arms. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
“I do,” I sniff. “He’s changed. He promises.”
We all look to Michelle for the expected retort, but instead, she is biting her lip in an effort to keep her emotions in check. “You guys are right,” she says hoarsely. “I can’t risk losing another friend. Come here.”
The four of us embrace, and the lump of emotion lodged in my throat bubbles forth in a torrent of tears. I’m racked with sobs as I cling to my three best friends, crying because I love them so much, because Sandra is leaving, because Michelle let us see her vulnerable side, because I’m relieved they didn’t judge me . . . I can’t put a name on all the emotions I’m feeling. We stay like that for a long time, until someone puts “Billy Jean” on.
“Come on, Michael,” Michelle says, breaking away and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Let’s dance.”
“Welcome, class!” The instructor, Helen, greeted us enthusiastically. She was a fiftyish woman with long, bushy brown hair and a voluptuous figure squeezed into a pink velour track suit. The seven women comprising the class mumbled hello awkwardly from our cross-legged positions on rattan mats. We were squeezed into a tiny studio apartment furnished sparely with a dingy floral sofa, two bean-bag chairs and a multitude of ferns. Behind us, what looked like the headboard of a wrought-iron bed was propped against the wall.
“I’d like to start out by quoting Freud, if I may.” Helen beamed at us. “ ‘The only abnormal sex is no sex.’ So let’s take all those sexual inhibitions and throw them out the window!”
Following Helen’s lead, we all mimed extracting our inhibitions (mostly from the head region but some from the chest and abdomen), crumpling them into a ball and hurling them out the window.
“This particular class is devoted to freeing your inner dominatrix.”
I shot Val a look—a mixture of shock, horror, and outrage. Our attendance at this seminar had been her idea (she was in a promising new relationship), but the brochure she’d shown us had been titled Deepening Intimacy. The content had focused on connecting emotionally with your partner and heightening sexual excitement through shared growth and mutual understanding. I hadn’t read anything about freeing my inner dominatrix! I wasn’t even sure I had one!
Val smiled sheepishly, instantly revealing that she was well aware of the curriculum, and that her boyfriend Stuart was in for an exciting evening. I turned to Michelle, who smiled and raised her eyebrows in anticipation. I was not surprised that she was eager to unleash her inner whip-wielding, leather-wearing mistress on Thomas, the attorney she’d been dating.
I, on the other hand, was instantly uncomfortable. My unease was due in part to my own long-ingrained inhibitions (despite their mimed removal) and concern about the reaction of my current boyfriend. I’d been seeing Kevin, the VP of a market research firm for five months. He was witty, intelligent and attractive—in his conservative, market-researcher sort of way. He had great taste in restaurants, was a connoisseur of wines, and could engage me in conversations—in turns thought-provoking and hilarious—for hours on end. But physically, we’d been taking it slow. We’d waited three months to become intimate, and when we had, it had been very . . . nice, but definitely tame. I was fairly sure that Kevin was a rule-follower, a low-risk taker, a fan of the tried-and-true formula. I wasn’t sure how he was going to take to his relatively new lover coming at him with whips and batons and who knew what else!
Helen, apparently, was reading my mind. “Some of you may feel shocked and uncomfortable at first,” she continued. “But I can assure you that the reaction of your partner will be so intensely positive that you’ll wonder why you didn’t try this a long time ago!” Val and Michelle exchanged gleeful looks and then both included me hopefully. I managed a weak smile. Everyone else seemed really enthusiastic. Since I was here, I may as well give it a try.
The Freeing Your Inner Dominatrix course was broken into three sections. First, Helen instructed us on creating the perfect setting: multiple candles, gauzy scarves draped from bedposts and over lampshades, seductive background music—anything from Enya to Nine Inch Nails would work—whatever helped you connect with the “naughty lady deep within.”
Next, Helen displayed the tools of the trade. For us novices, these included feathers, fringed leather whips, fur-lined handcuffs, silk blindfolds, et cetera. Michelle smiled at me encouragingly. I smiled back. This wasn’t nearly as kinky as I’d expected, and I found I was actually enjoying myself. It helped that Helen’s assistant, a middle-aged Asian man clad in a yellow kimono-style robe and black satin pants, served us a continual stream of champagne.
Finally, it was time for the demonstration. Helen removed the pink track suit to reveal a horrifying studded leather G-string and bustier, to which she added thigh-high leather boots, and a small black mask that obscured only her eyes.
Then, the champagne-serving assistant dropped his kimono and satin pants, revealing tight white briefs and the fit body of an eighteen-year-old Olympic gymnast. There were several gasps to accompany my own as well as a smattering of nervous giggles, but our instructors were oblivious.
“Lie down!” Helen barked, and her partner eagerly prostrated himself facedown on a rattan mat. He obediently extended his arms which she cuffed to two posts of the headboard structure. “Now!” she snapped, as she strode around his body, her butt cheeks jiggling ferociously with each step. “You belong to me! You will obey my every command for without me, you are worthless. You will call me Mistress Raven Claw, and I shall call you Slave Dog!” To emphasize her point, she smacked Slave Dog’s bare back with a menacing device that resembled a riding crop.
Most of the audience shifted uncomfortably as he moaned, “Yes, Mistress Raven Claw,” in a voice both obsequious and turned on.
“Shut up!” she yelled, startling us all as she whacked his back and buttocks again. “You will not speak unless I speak your name . . . Slave Dog!”
Long pause.
“I said Slave Dog!” Smack with whip.
“Yes, Mistress Raven Claw!” he wailed.
“Anyway,” Helen addressed us in a completely normal voice despite her outfit and recent actions. “It’s a good idea to give yourselves dominant and submissive pseudonyms as we have. That way, what happens in the bedroom doesn’t infringe on your regular lives.” She turned her attentions back to Slave Dog, her voice morphing back into dominatrix mode. “Slave Dog! I want you to lick my toes.”
“Yes, Mistress Raven Claw.”
All seven audience members recoiled in disgust and several of us covered our eyes in terror.
“This is just an example of the type of demands you can make on your slave,” Helen said cheerily. “Most of you won’t be ready for ultimate submissio
n yet, but I wanted to show you how satisfying this type of sexual encounter can ultimately be.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Trust me, ladies . . . there is not a man alive who won’t be turned on by some level of S and M. Often, the more powerful they are in the corporate world, the more submissive they’d like to be in the bedroom. Ron here is CFO of a multinational company. We’ve been in a dominant–submissive relationship for nine years now, and we’re both extremely fulfilled.”
“Yes,” Ron agreed, lifting his head to nod enthusiastically.
“Shut up!” she screeched. “Slave Dog is not obeying orders and will be severely punished when the audience leaves!”
With that, we were dismissed.
When we were on the street in the fading afternoon light, Michelle said, “So?”
“So?” Val and I giggled.
“Let’s go down to Carl’s Adult Emporium and get the stuff we need.”
“I’m game!” Val said.
“Okay,” I acquiesced. “But we’d better hurry before the champagne wears off.”
An hour and a half later we emerged, burdened down with S&M paraphernalia.
“I don’t know . . .,” I said, peeking in the bag that held my three-hundred-dollar leather teddy, a leather crop, and a pair of handcuffs. The alcohol buzz had worn off, and I could feel doubt creeping over me. Not to mention remorse for the amount of money I’d just spent.
The girls pounced on my skepticism.
“Remember what Helen said?”
“The more conservative men are, the more they’re into this kind of thing!”
“Kevin will love it!”
“He’ll go crazy!”
“I thought she said ‘the more powerful they are,’ ” I countered.
“Powerful and conservative!” Michelle insisted.
“And Kevin is both, right?” Val added.
“He’s the perfect candidate. You’ll drive him wild!” Michelle affirmed. “I can’t wait to try this out on Thomas!”
“And Stuart!”
“Besides . . . you’ve bought all the stuff,” Michelle added practically. “You have to do it now.”
“I will!” I said, a sudden surge of courage washing over me. “I’m going to rock his world!”
Later that night, Kevin buzzed me in the front doors of his squat, brick apartment complex. I struggled with my three large shopping bags through the upscale lobby to the elevator. When he opened the door to his chic suite, I stumbled inside. “Don’t worry,” I laughed nervously. “I’m not moving in. I just have . . . a little surprise for you.” I forced a seductive tone.
“Oh, really?” Kevin replied sexily, removing his wire-rimmed glasses and kissing me.
I played with the buttons of his perfectly pressed white shirt. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
He kissed me again. “I’m sure I will. And I have a surprise for you, as well.”
“Oh?”
“A 1982 bottle of French cabernet sauvignon! It’s from the Bergerac region, which, in my opinion, grows superior grapes. The specialty wine shop near the office got it in today. I just had to rush right down and pick it up!”
The girls were right. Kevin was sure to love what I had in store for him.
I sent Kevin to the kitchen to open the wine, with instructions to join me in the bedroom when summoned. I busied myself creating the perfect setting, draping gauzy scarves (and some not so gauzy as my gauzy supply was limited) over the bedside lamp, the bedposts, the mirror, and side tables. Next, I tore into a bag containing forty tea lights, scattering them on every available surface, and in a vaguely satanic pattern on the floor around the bed. I popped a Lenny Kravitz CD into the player and hoped he would do his job bringing out the naughty lady hidden inside me.
Okay . . . there was no putting it off. It was time to free my inner dominatrix. But first I needed some liquid courage. I scurried to the kitchen where Kevin was sniffing the wine cork, a look of ecstasy on his face.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Not yet.” I took the proffered wineglass and downed it in large, noisy gulps. “Bring me a refill,” I instructed and then rushed back to the bedroom to squeeze into my leather underwear.
When the multitude of candles were lit, I tentatively called, “Kevin?”
“Ready?” He responded from the kitchen.
“Ummm . . . yes . . . I mean . . . Get in here! Now!” I said forcefully, smacking my hand with the whip for practice.
He stopped in the doorway, his eyes behind his glasses wide, his mouth dropped open in shock.
I suddenly felt incredibly foolish in my leather corset, French-cut panties, and fishnet stockings. I wobbled momentarily in my stiletto heels, the whip falling limply to my side.
“Wow,” Kevin said, his voice thick with desire.
“Strip!” I barked, instantly warming to the role now that Kevin’s enthusiasm was so obvious. He handed me the wineglasses and began to hurriedly undress.
“Now,” I ordered, downing my wine and most of Kevin’s before placing the glasses on the dresser. “Face down on the bed!” I proceeded to cuff Kevin’s wrists to the bedposts and then smacked him lightly on the buttocks with my whip. “You are my slave and you belong to me!” I continued in my most commanding voice. “You will call me—” Shit! I’d completely forgotten to make up a dominatrix name. “—You will call me—Mistress—Wolf—Fang. And I will call you—Toad Boy.”
“Toad Boy?”
“Shut up!” I screeched, smacking his back. “You will not speak unless spoken to.”
“Sorry, Mistress Wolf Fang.”
“Very good . . . Toad Boy.” I patted his head awkwardly. “Now, my worthless slave . . .,” I continued, circling the bed precariously on my four-inch heels. I had to admit I was really enjoying playing Mistress Wolf Fang. It was a heady feeling—being so completely in control and having Kevin at my mercy. I was drunk with power—and 1982 Cabernet.
“Uh . . . Kerry?”
“No!” I yelled, tapping his leg smartly with the whip. “My name is Mistress Wolf Fang, and you are not to—”
“Kerry! The scarf on the lamp! It’s too close to the candle!”
I turned in the direction that Kevin was frantically jerking his head, but it was too late. The thin fabric burst into flame.
“Oh, no! Oh, no! I’ll get water!” I called, tottering to the master bathroom. Unfortunately, I stumbled in my stilettos, knocking over several tea lights. Now, another scarf began to curl, menacingly signaling its proximity to the flame.
“Holy shit!” Kevin began to panic. “Uncuff me! Uncuff me!”
“Okay! Okay!” I froze between the bathroom and the bed, momentarily stunned and motionless. The keys! Where were the handcuff keys?
“Hurry! Hurry! For Christ’s sake, Kerry!” The pitch of Kevin’s voice rose with the flames.
“The keys are in my purse!” I called, rushing as fast as my heels would allow to the front room.
I rummaged through my bag. “For the love of God!” Kevin shrieked from the bedroom. He actually sounded like he was crying! “Help me! Pleeeeeeeeeeze! Help me!”
When I returned, the reason for Kevin’s panic became evident. The flames were licking at one side of the bed clothes as I released him. Who knew gauzy scarves were so darned flammable? They should come with a warning for smokers.
Kevin grabbed my wrist and dragged me from what was now verging on an inferno.
“Do you have a fire extinguisher?” I asked hopefully.
“It’s too late for that,” he cried, grabbing his cell phone and a pillow from the couch to cover his privates. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
As we made our way down the hall we banged on the doors of the other tenants to alert them to the danger. “Fire!” I screamed, my fists aching from the pounding. “Fire!”
Kevin screamed into his cell phone. “My entire bedroom’s on fire! Seven hundred Robertson Drive, Apartment two-oh-four! Please! Hurry!”
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We were outside the lobby when the fire truck wailed up and the firemen burst through the doors and ran up the stairs. We waited, with about forty other tenants, shivering in the chill night air, for them to return with a prognosis. It felt like hours, days, weeks . . . In our haste, Kevin and I hadn’t had time to grab coats or clothes to cover our near—or in his case, complete—nakedness. The scratchy blankets the firemen had provided did a poor job of shielding us from the cold—and the judgmental stares of the other apartment dwellers, an uncanny number of whom were women over sixty-five. Finally, the firemen emerged.
“The fire’s out!” the burly, mustachioed chief bellowed. “You can all return to your apartments now—except the tenants in two-oh-four. We’ll need to speak with them,” he said ominously.
“The naked guy and the pervert in the leather!” one of the old ladies called out helpfully. Then they shuffled past us, each muttering “sickos” or “weirdos” or another variation on the sexually deviant theme.
Chapter 28
That was the end of that relationship, of course. When I’d finally screwed up the courage to call Kevin and apologize, he said he was too busy looking for a new apartment to speak with me. I offered helpfully to pay for the damage to his bedroom, but he said it was more the humiliation he’d suffered in front of his neighbors than the cost of home renos that was causing him to move. We didn’t speak again after that.
I tuck the journal away in the junk drawer and head to the bathroom. Despite having just relived the horrific demise of yet another relationship, I am feeling upbeat. The success of the previous night has somewhat lessened my apprehension about Sam’s office party. If I can face my girlfriends with such a positive and heartwarming outcome, maybe I have nothing to fear from his coworkers? Who are they to judge our relationship? They don’t even know us—well, they don’t know me. Given the fact that Sam has spent an average of twelve hours a day working with them for the last four years, I guess they know him quite well.
But with my girlfriend’s supportive (or at least nonjudgmental) words ringing in my ears, I prepare for Sam’s party. I painstakingly apply my makeup, blow out my hair, squeeze into control-top pantyhose and a formfitting black dress. There. I take in my reflection in the full-length mirror. I look poised, sophisticated . . . glamorous, even. I am the perfect match for Sam. I am every bit as attractive, charming, and successful as he is. No one will be shocked that he is engaged to such a big fat lump, because I am not one. I am . . . well, probably not quite as attractive or successful as Sam is . . . or as charming, for that matter. But I can be funny! Probably even funnier than he is. Everyone at Kazzerkoff Developments will adore me. The men will make comments like, “Miller, you lucky dog, you!” and “Does she have any sisters?” The women will probably just stare at me, seething with jealously. In their heads they’ll say, “She’s got it all. She’s attractive, confident, and happily engaged. And to the best-looking guy in our office, too!” No one will say “What is gorgeous Sam doing with her?” No one! It will be wonderful.
The Journal of Mortifying Moments_A Novel Page 23