Bodhi

by A. R. Hadley

  “Maybe…” Bryson said.

  “Huh?”

  “God, Mom, are you even listening?” Bryson rolled his eyes. “You ask me a question, and then you ignore me. You don’t ever listen anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, then turned to Rick. “Get off the floor, Rick. Come on.”

  “I want these. Please, please, please,” Rick whined. “The box says I could win—”

  “I don’t care. No.”

  “See…” Bry said, full of his twelve-year-old ego, “not listening.”

  Audrey grinned and play-punched his bicep. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she joked. “Come on, I’m starving, and then I have to get you home. Grandpa will be there soon.”

  “Are you leaving again?”

  Her stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

  “With Kate.” Bryson looked serious — more serious than a kid should ever be. “Mom, is she, like, you know…”—he dropped his voice—“your girlfriend?”

  Audrey eyeballed him, wondering if he could read the infatuation in her eyes. “No.” She pushed the cart, wheeling it toward the prepackaged meats. “Do you guys want hotdogs?”

  “Yeah! Let me pick,” Rick said, bouncing and running his hands across the plastic packages.

  “I’ve seen her with you,” Bryson said.

  Audrey set some other meats into the cart and sighed. “Adult relationships are complicated, Bry.”

  “I’m not a baby. That’s what you say about you and Dad too. I’m not a baby.”

  “Fine, fine, fine.” She blew hair from her eyes. “Kate and I are friends. Kate is … God, Bryson, you’re too young.”

  “She likes girls?”

  “She likes both, Bry. Men and women.” His eyes widened. He stared at shelves of meat. “She doesn’t have rules about these things the way other people might. And it’s okay. She doesn’t—”

  “God, Mom, do we have to have this conversation in the middle of the grocery store?”

  “You asked, bud.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed, “because I thought you were a lesbo.”

  “What?” Rick asked, putting his favorite green-and-white package of bun-length hot dogs in the cart. “Who is a lesbo? What’s a lesbo?”

  “Shhh,” Audrey said. “No one, Rick.”

  “Gay,” Bryson said. “Lesbo is lesbian, Ricki.”

  “What do you mean no one is gay? That’s not true. Ellen is gay, and so is one of my friends. Well, not my friend, but her daddies. She has two dads.”

  “Who?”

  “Maddie. That was one of her daddies in the store.”

  “Where?”

  “On the other aisle,” Rick said, flabbergasted, starting to walk away as if on a mission to find the gay daddy.

  “Rick. Come back. Grandpa just texted. He’ll be on his way soon.”

  In the checkout lane, Rick busied himself with lining up the groceries onto the conveyer belt. Everything had an order and place. Cheese and meat and milk. Frozen peas and french fries. Cardboard boxes and cans.

  Audrey flicked hair from Bryson’s eye.

  “Stop, Mom.”

  “You know, Bryson, what we talked about earlier…”

  “Mom,” he said under his breath, looking around. “I’ll talk about this stuff with Dad, okay. I’m sorry I asked.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” she whispered, barely moving her mouth.

  Bryson’s father would never get around to the conversation. Or conversations. Because Bryson knew about sex. Penis meet Vagina. But he didn’t understand relationships. Dell might shove a porno mag or Cosmopolitan into her son’s hands and consider the entire life talk over and done with. God, maybe she should send Bryson to a therapist.

  “I just want you to know…” she began, ignoring the scowl on Bryson’s face, “that what’s important is how we treat each other. Okay? People have different … well, they have various ways of experiencing…”

  “Mom…”

  “So long as people are safe and careful and practice with consenting adults, we don’t pass judgment.”

  Audrey was beginning to sound like an Afterschool Special. At least she was having the talk or any talk … or trying to open up some form of communication. Who knew what the boys he hung with at school discussed. She didn’t want to remember her own prepubescent sexual initiation.

  “Do boys … well, your friends, how do they view girls or women?"

  “I know how to respect a girl.”

  Sometimes, she forgot he was only twelve. Always talking like a little man.

  “Respecting her means listening, too. Going outside your own comfort zone.”

  “Paper or plastic?” the clerk interrupted.

  Bryson rolled his eyes and huffed out a dramatic, “Thank God."

  Audrey playfully gave him a shove and told him to go after his brother. Rick had migrated toward the movie-dispensing machine and was tapping at the screen.

  “How are you today, ma’am?”

  Ma’am. When had that happened? Clerks used to card her for a bottle of wine, and now she was a ma’am.

  Life was too short.

  Today a ma’am. Other nights a vessel. Treated with consenting respect by a man some might say deserved no honor. These people at the supermarket — maybe even her own children once they grew older — might never understand. Even the gay Catholic daddy might not understand why she needed to be humiliated and bound, burned and used. Her ex-husband certainly didn’t comprehend it. Still.

  And did any of that matter? Did she need approval? Audrey didn’t have to answer to any of them. Did God approve?

  Could Audrey continue to straddle a line Gavin hadn't even defined? No contract. No collar. Few intimate conversations. No handholding.

  “Ma'am?”

  “Hmm?” She feigned a smile.

  “Your total today is $112.34.”

  14

  “Your lipstick is smeared,” Kate said, placing her pinky on Audrey’s mouth and fixing it. “There. All better.” She held her gaze, and something in it lit Audrey from the inside.

  “You know he’ll make you take all this shit off,” Kate said, referring to the paint, not the clothing. “Although … that may go too.”

  “I don’t care. Tonight … I’m wearing it.”

  Kate raised both eyebrows. “Looking for a little extra incentive?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mom, I can’t find my tablet,” Bryson said as he banged on the locked door.

  “Jesus, Bry, you scared the crap out of me.” She eyed Kate and smiled. They both stifled a laugh. “Is Grandpa here yet?”

  “No,” he replied through the closed door. “You said we had to hurry home.”

  “He’ll be here any second. Go look on the bookshelf for the contraption.”

  “Device, Mom. Jeez. I did.”

  “Honey, I’m getting ready.”

  “Well, Rick had it, and he won’t tell me anything. I know he lost it. He always takes my things.”

  Without warning, Kate opened the door and stared down at the twelve-year-old young man, but she didn’t have to look far. Kate was probably only about five-four, and Bryson was tall for his age. Brown hair and green eyes and the longest fucking eyelashes. He was a perfect mix of Audrey and Dell.

  “We’ll be out soon,” Kate said, sporting a charming smile. “Shoo.”

  Bryson glanced at his mother, rolled his eyes, and then the doorbell rang.

  “See who it is first,” Audrey yelled after him.

  “Mom … jeez, you know it’s Grandpa.”

  Kate shut the door, locked it, and started thumbing through dresses hanging in Audrey’s closet.

  “I’m wearing this,” Audrey said, indicating the black skirt and top she already had on. “Don’t even start with me.”

  “Are you wearing underwear?”

  “Are you my Dom now?”

  Kate sauntered toward Audrey, a smattering of giggles plastered across her face.


  “Don’t.” Audrey pointed the mascara stick toward her friend, but Kate ignored the directive and inched up Audrey’s skirt anyway. She whistled and smacked Audrey’s bare ass … probably for good measure.

  “Feeling a little frisky tonight?”

  “Always,” Kate said and pressed her freshly painted lips together. “Hey, does your dad know where we go?”

  “No, and don’t you dare even hint at anything, especially in front of my—”

  “Babies…”

  “Stop it.” Audrey’s hand grazed the handle of the door.

  “Wait.”

  “What?” She peered over her shoulder, unable to avoid the look in Kate’s eyes as she stepped closer. Once they met face to face, Kate cupped Audrey’s cheeks.

  “Katy…”

  “I don’t want to mess up your face,” she said and nuzzled her nose and then her cheeks. “You smell amazing.”

  Audrey exhaled and then met Kate’s punch-drunk eyes.

  “Please, soon. Tonight,” Kate pleaded, the longing on the tip of her tongue. “This is the one thing he won’t push you into. He won’t spring it on you. He may never even ask.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “He hasn’t said anything?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Open Communication hasn’t exactly been completely open.”

  “He will be. He must not think you’re ready. He has his ways.” Kate shrugged.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.”

  “No. You implied something quite specific. You said the one thing. What’s the thing, Kate?”

  “I want you,” Kate said, like a giant piece of bubble gum had just popped all over her face.

  “That’s not what you were going to say.”

  “Not verbatim.” Kate flashed a wicked grin. “Look, Audrey, I love Peyton. And I love Gav like the bestest friend ever, and I love you too.”

  “You said you were pan, not total poly. You guys give me headaches.”

  Kate giggled. “I trust you, and I feel amazing when I’m around you. Don’t you feel connected?”

  “What if…?” Audrey shifted her eyes. “What if it ruins this? Our friendship? This is more important to me.”

  As Kate brushed her lips over Audrey’s, giving her the slightest peck, Audrey closed her eyes and exhaled, and then Kate stepped away.

  “It won’t. It will only get better. I promise you. It’s a game, baby girl. We can all play together. I know we’ll play very well together, and we all win. No one loses.”

  “Mom!” Rick yelled. “Bryson punched me in the arm!”

  “Hold on.”

  “No, Mom,” Rick said through the closed door. “Grandpa won’t help me.”

  “All right. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “That’s what you always say. Girls take freaking forever.”

  “Watch your mouth, Rick.”

  “You’re going to steal his breath tonight,” Kate interjected, and then Audrey opened the bathroom door. “He’ll want to share you with everyone — or no one. Hard to tell with Gavin sometimes. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch.”

  “Shhh,” Audrey said, finger to her lips as she walked into the living room in her four-inch heels, a weekender over her shoulder.

  “Dad, you have the numbers. Bry’s inhaler—”

  “Bean, I’ve been taking care of them since they were—”

  “I know. I know. I can’t help it.”

  “Must you girls always go to Tampa?”

  “Tampa?” Rick piped up. “I wanna go to Tampa. Mom, the zoo is there, right? Take me with you.”

  “We’re meeting friends tonight,” Kate said with too much innuendo.

  Dad only rolled his eyes. Maybe that was where Bryson picked it up — a habit she couldn’t blame on Dell.

  “No place for kids, Ricki,” Audrey’s father said with a ruffle of his grandson’s hair.

  Rick scoffed and squirmed and generally protested the way he did best. “Take me with you.”

  “Bryson, why are you looking at me like that?” Audrey had turned her attention to her older son.

  Bryson screwed up his face, his expression saying ewww. “Why do you have on so much makeup?”

  “Told ya,” Kate chimed in.

  “I’ll be back Sunday night, Dad.”

  “Kate too?” Rick asked. “Will she stay the night? Please.”

  Lately, that had become a thing. Popcorn and a movie and Katy staying the night. Audrey couldn’t keep sharing her bed with a woman who had just professed I want you. Could she? And what might her boys think? Bryson already knew Kate was bi. They wouldn’t be able to wrap their heads around the labels poly or pan. Audrey was still trying to figure all of it out.

  Audrey was still trying to figure out Audrey.

  And what if Gavin pushed her into playing a scene with a woman? He hadn’t yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. And even if he did, it didn’t mean she was attracted to women, did it?

  Gavin and Audrey still hadn’t had a lengthy discussion of limits — the man really did break all his own rules. They didn’t have what most people considered a traditional “relationship.” They didn’t take walks or hold hands.

  Still, she trusted him. She felt connected to him.

  Flowers and pillow talk and “normal” were the things she’d had for years. And right now, all she wanted was passion and risk and submission. She craved Gavin Sellers’ dominance, his strong arms and soft lips, the way he pushed and pulled … the irreplaceable cadence of his commands.

  But was he grooming her for something bigger? The something — no, the one thing — Kate had referred to in the bathroom?

  Fantasies came and went … yet Kate remained.

  Audrey had thought about Kate…

  What her breasts would feel like in her hands. What her nipples would taste like. How it would feel to slip her tongue inside her mouth. How Kate’s head would look as Gavin forced it between Audrey’s legs.

  Fantasies weren’t a snapshot of real life though.

  Fantasies could be contained.

  This was spilling over into the movie seats.

  She needed the friendship.

  Audrey couldn’t blur any more lines.

  Wishing for the moon, then being handed the universe came with risk. Supplication meant understanding what you sought, knowing you needed it and could handle it.

  Fate didn’t hold the cards — Audrey did.

  An ace. A king. And a queen.

  Kate had called it a game.

  Audrey now called it reality.

  And she didn’t know how much longer she could straddle the fence between the two dimensions.

  15

  “I’m lost here,” Audrey said inside the confines of one of the dungeon’s six private rooms, one of the two without a viewing window.

  Kate had insisted this was where Peyton wanted them to wait. And a good sub listened. Audrey had yet to see Gavin. They’d only just arrived. Audrey had drunk too much before the drive, and now she regretted it — regretted even coming, leaving the boys … again.

  “No, you’re found.” Kate stepped closer. “I found you.” She sat next to Audrey at the end of the bed.

  “I found you,” Audrey replied, and they both got a little teary-eyed. “I’m not sure who he is or what he needs.”

  “What brought all this on?”

  “The drive. The wine. I don’t know… I’m used to navigating a second or third date. Nothing here follows a pattern, yet there are all sorts of rules.”

  She paused, considering whether or not she should say her next words. But fuck it, Kate was the kind of friend Audrey had never had and desperately needed.

  “I know he keeps things from me.”

  “And you from him.”

  “But I told him about the kids.” As if that was all there was to share. Audrey was more than a mother. More than an ex-wife.

  “The babies.”

  “God,
Katy, they’re hardly babies.” She tried to look away but couldn’t. Kate hadn’t stopped fiddling with Audrey’s hair.

  The two of them had barely moved — knees bent over the quilt, breathing becoming increasingly shallower, eyes communicating feelings Audrey couldn’t speak — from the bed which was placed smack in the center of a different white room. One she hadn’t visited before. There was a doctors’ exam table to their left, a clean sheet of paper ready, stirrups in place. Tools hung on the wall, doctor’s things and kinky things. And a small metal cabinet on wheels was next to it, probably full of vibrators and plugs and lube.

  Kate’s touch made Audrey uncomfortable and comforted. The whole room made her feel that way. A tunnel she either had to follow by instinct for relief and escape or be trapped in.

  She tingled. Her mouth felt parched. Her pussy began to throb with a sharp, dull ache.

  “I’m starting to feel like I’m out of my element here.”

  “You’re starting to think too much. When we met, you said you wanted to have an adventure.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing, mixing my regular life with this one. Up until now, I’d only really done—”

  “Vanilla?”

  “Yeah.” Audrey smiled, and then Kate cupped her cheeks.

  “We just talked about that. And … not true. You’re a kinky little bitch.”

  Audrey laughed, and Kate dropped her hands.

  “You did some shit with your husband.”

  “That hardly counts.”

  “It does. You’ve known who you are for a while, babe. But it’s always scary when it’s time to come out.”

  Audrey stared at Kate, her mouth still dry, her mind racing with thoughts. She’d known she was different for years. She knew exactly what she craved from a partner, but she’d tried over and over to deny it. It wasn’t just sexual.