by Tara Rose
“I thought one day, when I’m giving lessons again up here or letting students use these rooms for practice, that this could be a waiting area since it’s so big and there are windows.”
The upstairs hallway was huge and bathed in natural sunlight. As Gary glanced around, he nodded. It was easy to picture sofas and chairs up here. “That would definitely work. So then, you plan to offer both lessons and studios for practice?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet what I’ll do up here. I thought I’d wait and see what people ask for.”
“It’s too bad there’s no money in the school for this. The kids are really missing out.”
The change that came over her face tugged at his heart. She’d found a comrade in arms, and she knew it. “Oh, I know. It must be difficult for you, though.”
“I have the marching band to work with. I’m grateful for that.”
“Which room do you think would be best for a drum set?”
There were five large rooms up here and two bathrooms. They walked into each one, and when Gary came to the rounded one that formed the top of the tower, he stood in the center and grinned. “This one. You could set up one set in the center for playing, and have others on the fringes to display more options.”
“What a wonderful idea. But I’ll need contacts. Like I said, I don’t really know anyone who plays percussion.”
He chuckled. “You do now.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, and Gary fought to keep from crossing the room and kissing her. He’d never had such an immediate, strong reaction to a woman before, and it made him feel off-balance. It was time to get out of here before he overstayed his welcome. She was clearly very busy. “Thank you for the tour, but I should let you get back to work.”
“Honestly, I’ve been at it all day. I was about ready to stop when Buddy and Luke showed up to hang the sign.”
Gary nearly pumped his fist in the air. Talk about a lucky break. “Do you have dinner plans?”
“No, not really.”
He smiled and held out his arm. “Well, in that case, have you had the pleasure of tasting the food at Nan’s Place yet?”
When she laughed and wrapped a hand around his arm, he almost came in his pants. “I have, but I’d still love to eat dinner there with you.”
Nan’s Place was very popular, but not because of the food. That she wanted to eat there with him anyway spoke volumes about her. Gary knew he was in deep trouble, but he didn’t care. He wanted to spend time with this charming woman, and that’s exactly what he was going to do.
Chapter Six
Ava loved the way heads turned to watch her and Gary walk into Nan’s Place. She’d only ordered takeout from here, and each time she’d regretted it the next day. But the only other restaurant in town was Gino’s Ristoranti, and it was expensive. Not that she couldn’t afford to eat there, but buying takeout from Nan’s was easier and quicker. Plus, the atmosphere was warm and friendly. She really liked Emma Falcon, the current owner and granddaughter of the original Nan.
Gary led them to a booth in the back corner, which Ava thought was perfect. He let her choose which side to sit on, and she chose the bench against the back wall so that she could watch everyone. Emma came over to take their drink orders, greeting them both like old friends. Ava ordered a ginger ale, knowing she’d need it later, and Gary ordered water with lemon.
“What do you like best here?” he asked, scanning the menu.
“Her salads aren’t terrible, but really I think most people come here for the greasy burgers and onion rings, not the salad.”
He placed his menu back in the metal holder. “I agree. It’s torture the next morning, but tastes so good going down.”
There was something almost sensual about the way he said that last sentence. Coupled with the way his blue eyes twinkled, the tone of his voice conjured up images of them naked and sweating, tasting each other’s bodies. It had been a long time since a man had had such a powerful, immediate effect on her.
She studied his face. He really was handsome, but it wasn’t his looks that made her want to follow him home and move in. It was his aura. She assumed he was a Dom, like Jake, but he didn’t have the same commanding presence about him. Gary exuded fun and lightheartedness, which was something that had been sorely missing from her life for years. How could she help but be drawn to someone like that?
“So Kari says you two met in New York.”
Should she just go for it? She might as well. Why dance around the issue? “Yes. We met at a play party. My friend and her Dom took me. He knew Kari’s ex-Dom and introduced us.”
Gary’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Clearly he hadn’t known she was in the lifestyle before now. Score one for Kari, Noah, and Adison. “How did you end up in Racy from New York?”
She told him about attending school in Boston, and about playing for the Northwest Chamber Orchestra in Chicago.
“Impressive. And…who did you leave behind in Chicago? Or will he be joining you soon?” There was a tentative quality to his voice that tugged at her heart. He didn’t want her to be attached, and that realization sent shivers up and down her spine.
“He won’t be joining me. It’s been over for several months.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She felt bold and confident. She wanted to spill all her secrets to this charming man.
Emma approached their table, placed their drinks on it, then took their orders. Ava waited until she’d left and took the paper off her straw. “He wasn’t a very nice Dom, but I was young, inexperienced, and terribly flattered when we met, so I put up with a lot of things I’d never tolerate now.”
“I see.” He took a sip of his water. “We all do that, you know. At least you got away.”
“Finally, yes.”
“What happened to make you leave?”
She glanced around, but no one was paying attention to them. Still, Ava leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It’s not pretty. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“If you need to talk about it, absolutely.” The tone in his voice was full of concern, and it gave the impression that she could trust this man with her life. She’d had that experience before when meeting people for the first time, but not very often. Kari had been like that, too. That’s why she trusted the instinct now. Gary was one of the good guys.
“I meet Leo when I was a freshman at Berklee. That’s not his real name, by the way. I can’t tell you who he is because you’d recognize him, and he’s not out to the music community in general. He came to Berklee as a guest conductor for our student orchestra, and invited a bunch of us to his house for dinner. He was so…enigmatic. You understand, right? A great musician and conductor like that, paying attention to me, a nobody freshman.”
Gary frowned slightly. “I’d hardly call you a nobody. Kari mentioned your family is in software development and is quite wealthy.”
She nodded. “You know those programs that run your house? They lock doors, open and close windows, wash dishes, flush toilets?”
Gary laughed, and Ava’s heart gave a strange lurch. Leo had never found her sarcastic side humorous, but this guy seemed to be drinking it in. “That’s what they design?”
“No, but they own several companies that design them. My father was a programmer at IBM back in the day, but he doesn’t do much of it now. His brothers were into paper products and lumber, but now the parent company they all formed has moved away from that into software design.”
Gary made knots in the paper from his straw. “Why didn’t you just stay in Boston?”
“Because Leo lived in Chicago. Let me back up. He came to Boston a few times a year to conduct or sometimes to play. He’s a brass player. Each time he visited, we’d spend time alone together. It was his idea that I attend the party where I met Kari. He couldn’t come to Boston or New York that day, but he let me go because he wanted me to see the inside of a club.”
Ava took a large sip of
ginger ale because her mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“He’s twenty-six years my senior, by the way. I was infatuated. With his accomplishments, with his name, and with his talent. He promised to help my career, and he could have. That much is true. One word from him and I would get an audition spot in any orchestra I wanted.”
Emma brought their food, and Ava waited until she’d left to continue.
“But I was too naïve to realize that it would come with a price.” She held up her hands as he opened his mouth to speak. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not that foolish. I knew he wanted a physical relationship. And by then I knew he was secretly a Dom as well. But what I didn’t find out about Leo’s specific kinks was that he was very into humiliation. More so than anything.”
“Didn’t he take you to clubs when he came to Boston?”
“No. We played in private. He had to be very careful. And when we did eventually get back to Chicago after I graduated, we played at exclusive, discreet clubs where he knew that no one would recognize him or out him.”
“So it was more of a gradual role you slipped into with him. Being his sub, I mean.”
She swallowed the bite of cheeseburger she’d just taken. “Oh, no. It wasn’t gradual at all. It was merely long-distance. He would text or e-mail me instructions each morning. Things like wearing no underwear all day, especially on days when he knew I had a concert that night. Or telling me to stand on a certain street corner holding something bizarre, like a bag full of tangerines or something. And then I had to send him a picture of me doing it so he knew I had followed the instructions.”
Gary nodded. “The ultimate control. He’s not there with you, but he still knows you’re doing exactly what he said to do.”
“Bingo. And not just control. He wanted me embarrassed. Humiliated. He wanted to know how uncomfortable I was following his instructions. It made him feel powerful. He’d tell me over and over that I was serving him, but that was bullshit. He didn’t care how much I hated what he told me to do. In fact, the more upset I was over it, the more he insisted I do it.”
Gary snorted. “Forgive me, but what an asshole.”
“No forgiveness necessary. He was an asshole. But I had no frame of reference, and no one to talk to. I didn’t know any better. I should have, but I didn’t. Over time, the instructions got more and more personal. They were designed to make me feel cheap and dirty. He’d tell me to pick out a man at a restaurant or bar and flirt with him, just to the point of having the guy ask me back to his place. I had to text or e-mail Leo all the details. But what he didn’t know was how many times I also had to call a friend to come and pick me up so I could get away from the guys who didn’t like me being a cock tease. I never told him that part.”
“Why on earth not? Ava, what he made you do is downright dangerous.”
“I know that. That was part of the thrill for him. Knowing I was in that situation because he’d told me to place myself in it.” Her pulse raced now, but she had to keep going. She had tell him everything. “He used to beat off on the phone when I’d call him later, in tears, and tell him how afraid I’d been. He said the element of danger was what he needed as a Dom. I once asked him what he would do if I couldn’t get away from one of the men and got raped, and he said I’d better make sure that never happened.”
Gary slammed a fist on the table, and Ava jumped slightly. “That is not what being a Dom is about.”
That he would care so much about this almost brought tears to her eyes. “I know that now. And on some level back then I knew it as well, but I was so afraid that if I ended things with him, he’d ruin any chance of a career I had in the future. He never came out and said so, but the implication was always there.”
“That’s despicable. He blackmailed you.”
“Yes. He did. After that conversation where he said I’d better make sure I never got into a situation where I was forced to have sex with one of the men, I had one of my friends come with me each time he sent me out to a bar. But I never told Leo about that. And I…” She picked at spot of dried mustard on the table. “I lied to him about the evenings after that. I made things up. Things I knew he wanted to hear.”
“I would have done the same thing.”
She glanced into Gary’s eyes, wishing she’d met him and Jake in Boston all those years ago instead.
“Did you go straight to Chicago after you graduated?”
“Yes, because he offered me a job. They were scarce, or at least he said they were. I never really auditioned for anything. He didn’t want me to. My place was with him, where he could watch me all the time.”
“So then, he was involved with the orchestra you played in?”
“He was their artistic director, and he gave a shitload of money to them every year.”
“Why did you finally leave?”
That was the question she wished she didn’t have to answer. She finished the last of her cheeseburger, swallowed it, then drained her ginger ale. She needed another one, but first she wanted to answer Gary’s question. “He started having his friends over to watch us play. They were also in the lifestyle. At first it was behind a one-way mirror he had installed in the bedroom, and then I accidentally found out that they’d also been filming us. I wasn’t afraid he’d show it around. He had too much to lose by doing that because his face would have been visible.”
“But he didn’t tell you he was doing it. It wasn’t consensual.”
Ava stared into those beautiful blue eyes and tried to keep breathing. She’d never met a Dom who had so instantly put her at ease, and who spoke to her with care and respect. They did exist, after all. She’d met two, now, right here in the same town. It was too much to have hoped for. “I know. But it got worse.”
She popped the last onion ring into her mouth then asked for another ginger ale when Emma came over to check on them. Gary asked for more water, and Ava waited until Emma had brought their drinks before she continued.
“One night he invited them into the bedroom to watch us play and have sex. At first I was too shy to do anything, so he blindfolded me. I knew they were beating off as they watched us. I could hear it. And Leo kept telling me what they each were doing. He got off on it. On the fact that I was so uncomfortable with them in the room.”
Gary looked like he was going to be sick. “Oh, Ava…I don’t even know what to say. I am so sorry.” He took her hands in his, and the warmth of his touch forced fat tears over her lids. She started to pull one hand away to wipe them, but stopped when instead he reached up with his right hand and gently brushed them away. Then he held her hand again. “That was inexcusable. You know that, right? It had nothing to do with submission.”
“I know that,” she whispered. “It was the ultimate humiliation, you see. It’s what he’d been leading up to all those years. I’m sure if I’d stayed he would have eventually made me have sex with them.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“It was fate that he had to leave town to tour with another Chicago orchestra the morning after that happened. As soon as he left, I packed my things and went to my parents’ estate in Lake Forest.”
“Didn’t he come after you when he returned?”
“Oh yes. He kept calling and trying to get on the grounds, but my father threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave me alone. I eventually changed my cell phone number so he’d stop calling.”
“Did you quit the orchestra as well?”
She nodded. “I had to. There was no way I could face him again, even in that setting.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“And tell them what? That my Dom let his friends watch while he had sex with me? You know how it is. He’s a world-class musician and conductor. I’m a nobody.”
“That’s bullshit. It angers me so much that you feel you had no recourse for what he did to you.”
Should she tell Gary how much she’d cried that month at her parents’ house? Did he want to know t
hat she couldn’t even play her cello for weeks because her hands wouldn’t stop shaking? “I just want to put it behind me. I want to forget it.”
“You did the right thing in leaving. It was the brave thing to do.”
“It was brave. Braver than I’d been up to that point. The worst part was not being able to tell my parents the truth. They would have killed him, and I never would have lived down the humiliation. I made up a story about him cheating on me. They still don’t know everything he did to me, or what I did for him while I was in Boston.”
“You were only protecting yourself. How did you end up here? Did you call Kari?”
She shook her head, gripping his hands tighter to draw strength from his warm skin. “No. It was a coincidence. I e-mailed my friends to let them know of the phone number change, and Kari called to catch up. She mentioned the shops on Lawnview Drive in passing, and an idea began to grow. Eventually, I sought her help in making sure I could get on the list to buy one, and here I am.”
Gary massaged the back of her hands, sending shivers up and down her spine. This man would never do to any woman what Leo had done to her. She was sure of it. “That is an amazing story. It’s full of redemption and hope. Others could benefit from it. Women, and men for that matter, who may not understand that what Leo did to you is not what being a Dom is all about.”
“I could never tell it to just anyone. I’m so embarrassed about the things I did.”
“I understand. But will you at least think about doing so?”
“But who would I tell it to?”
“Did you know that Maddox is starting classes at his club? You could teach one to subs or to women and men who think they might be submissive. You could tell that story so they understand how easy it is to get taken in by the wrong kind of Dom.”