Dangerous Control

by Annabel Joseph

  “I’m good.” He smiled down at me. “Look at that.”

  For the first time I could remember, the clock’s huge gears turned, and the minute hand inched a tiny degree with every second’s click, click, click. Fort looked at his watch while I marked the clicks with the stopwatch on my phone. Thirty seconds. A minute. It matched up perfectly.

  “Holy shit, Forsyth.” I let out a whistle. “You got it working again.”

  “I told you that piece would solve everything.” He climbed down the scaffolding, amazingly nimble for a guy his size. “And there’s a piece that’ll solve everything for you and Alice also. Make sharing optional. Word the new rule so it’s at the sponsor’s discretion. That way the men still feel like they’re in charge, the women still feel owned and controlled, and couples who don’t want to play with other people can do their own thing.”

  I thought a moment, looking up at the clock. “Maybe. It might work. I’ll send an email to the current members, see what they think. I’d love to bring her back here, you know?”

  “It’s better than Underworld any day,” Fort said. “Even if I met my future wife outside that skank hole. I think Juliet and I would come back here more often if you made that small change to the rules.”

  “What about the collars?” I asked. “They all say ‘Property of The Gallery.’”

  “So? Hell, we’re all property of The Gallery when you think about it. We’re the ones who make this place come alive on Saturday night.”

  He had a point there, and coming with Alice would make it even more alive for me. I thought of bringing her back in her gorgeous uniform and stockings, letting others look but not touch. That was as sexy as sharing, now that I thought about it.

  “No, man, wait.” Fort smacked his head. “It’s so obvious. The collars, the locks. If a submissive’s communal property on any given night, she wears the Property of The Gallery lock on her collar. If she’s not available to other Doms, no lock. They can come on and off.”

  “That’s genius.” And he was right, it was such an obvious solution. “That way, the ones who get off on the communal property thing can still have their fun times—”

  “And the couples who aren’t so into sharing can have their boundaries respected without a lot of uncomfortable body language.”

  “And punching, in Dev’s case,” I joked, rubbing my eye where he’d landed a vicious left. “This is good.” I smiled at Fort. “Seriously, it’ll be a good change. I think everyone will be on board with it.”

  “Agreed. Oh, and when you email everyone, make sure you tell them we’re keeping proper time now, thanks to me.”

  I looked at the turning gears, watching them connect for the first time since we’d bought this clock tower. “Where’d you find that missing piece, anyway?”

  “I didn’t find it, my friend. I made it with my ‘petite metal solder’ and those fancy jeweler’s tools you always make fun of. You’re not the only one who can build cool stuff in a workshop.”

  “How’d you figure out the right size?” I squinted to make out the small inner workings beneath the big gears. “How’d you make it fit?”

  “Skill and experience,” he laughed, making a lewd finger-in-the-hole gesture. “With enough patience, you can fit anything anywhere. Speaking of workshops, how does Alice like her new violin?”

  “She loves it. It gets a name this weekend. We’re flying to Italy to see my parents, and, I guess, everyone else she hasn’t seen for a while. Her parents are meeting us there too.”

  “Wow, a big family thing in Milan.”

  “All Fierro violins officially come from Italy,” I said. “Once it has my mother’s blessing—and name—it’s formally adopted and registered.”

  “Congrats, man. That’s a big deal. The family stuff, more than anything. I don’t know. Alice might be the one. If so, you’re a lucky man.”

  “I’m a very lucky man.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “It’s so weird. I never thought everything would work out like this. For me. For you. For Devin.”

  He studied me a moment, then shook his head, taking off his toolbelt. “Yes, you did. With you and Alice, you knew. It was pretty apparent to us, anyway, from the first time we saw you two together. Maybe we don’t deserve the women we ended up with, but I, for one, am not going to let that stop me.” He punched me on the shoulder. “Now get out of here and write that email, you selfish motherfucker. It’s time for The Gallery, Version Two.”

  Chapter Twenty: Alice

  We dropped Blue at Milo’s parents’ home in Chappaqua, so he could be spoiled by their house staff for the weekend, and run wild across their wide open lawn. I watched in amazement as he broke into a sprint the minute we hit the backyard. He went from lazy dog to rocket streak in the space of a few seconds, kicking up sod with his narrow feet.

  “Jesus. I never knew Blue could run like that.”

  “Of course he can run like that. He was a great racer in his day.” Milo smiled at me. “Even though he’s changed, he’s still got that wildness in him. He likes to let it out now and again.”

  Blue blew past us with a big dog grin on his face, starting lap two of the fence’s perimeter. I squeezed Milo’s hand, smiling back. “It’s good to know that wildness isn’t gone.”

  We left Westchester County Airport on a private flight to Atlanta, and picked up a transatlantic Gibraltar Air flight from there. Devin wasn’t in the cockpit this time. Milo told me his friend sometimes flew that route, but this particular weekend, he was taking Ella to Martha’s Vineyard to propose to her, skywriters over the beach and everything.

  “That’s so perfect,” I said. “Ella will love it, because she studies space and stuff.”

  “Yes, Dev’s been working on his proposal speech for a couple weeks. The big line is: You’re my whole universe.”

  I pretended to faint. “That’s too romantic. I’m dead.”

  “Me too. We’re both dead.”

  We slumped in our first class seats together, settling in for the hop over to Milan. The violin he’d made me was in its case, tucked carefully beneath the seat. Skywritten proposals and speeches of love were all well and good, but he’d made me a violin that would last hundreds of years, and bring me, and future owners, untold magnitudes of happiness. When I played Milo’s violin, I felt those magnitudes in the tones it produced. He’d made me a miraculous thing.

  And yet he could still sit beside me, a normal, slightly frazzled man. “Worried about seeing your family?” I asked.

  “Why would I be worried?”

  “It’s your parents’ first time hearing this violin. My parents too.”

  “Think they won’t like it?”

  “You know they’re going to like it,” I said, nudging him. “You’re worried that your father will be upset when he realizes you’ve become a better luthier than him or your grandfather.”

  “Shh.” He shook his head. “Not better or worse, just different.” He took my chin in his hands and kissed me, rough and quick. “And if they hear you play it, of course it’s going to sound like the finest violin in the history of the world.”

  “Too romantic. I’m dying again.”

  He grinned at me as he brushed back an errant lock of his dark hair. As the plane flew over the ocean, I thought about which song I should play for our families as we celebrated Milo’s achievement. Probably Vivaldi. There was no better choice to express my happiness. It wasn’t great to lose everything you owned in an explosion and fire, but I was alive, and everything had turned out more wonderfully than I could have imagined.

  “Oh,” said Milo, turning to me. “I was talking to Fort on Monday, about The Gallery and the rules. He suggested we tweak them a little.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. For those of us who have trouble sharing our pretty toys. You know the lock on the collar, the one that says Property of the Gallery?”

  “Oh!” I blinked at him. “Members can take them on and off.”

  He thr
ew up his hands. “If it’s so obvious to everyone, why are we only thinking of this now? Yes, the idea is that people who are into sharing have the lock attached, and people who want a private scene leave it off. I explained it in the email to all the current members, and every response so far has been positive, so…”

  “So we can go back!”

  “Yes, if you want to.”

  “That’s amazing news. Yes, I want to!” My one sadness about loving Milo was that he might have to forgo certain needs on my account. Now, even if he didn’t want to share me, he could take me to the dungeon he’d help build, and let out some of that wildness that attracted me in the first place. “Although, if we go back, you might hurt me there,” I whispered.

  “Don’t flirt with me. Not now, when I can’t do anything about it.”

  “We’ll be in Milan in a few hours, if you really want to do something about it.”

  “You realize we won’t be in the same room, right? Knowing my mother, once she finds out we’re a couple, she’ll make you bed down in a whole different wing of the house.”

  “Then I’ll sneak over to your wing after dark. I’m not afraid of your mother.” I thought a moment. “Actually, I am a little afraid of your mother. Do you know the name she decided on? The one she picked for my violin?”

  “She might not know it herself yet. She’ll want to pick it up first and see what it’s ‘telling her.’ All Fierro matriarchs possess special violin-communicating abilities.” His fingers tightened on mine, and he gave me a look that made my heart pound wildly in my chest. “Maybe you’ll be the next one, Alice. You’re pretty good with violins, even if you’re not Italian.”

  All I could do was stare at him. So many things flashed through my mind: music, children, a happy marriage, and waking up next to Milo every day, kissing him good morning and running my fingers through his tousled, bedhead hair. “I’ll sully the Fierro family line with my ginger-Swedish genes,” I joked, to cover my deeper feelings. “Maybe we’re not a good idea after all.”

  “There are ginger Italians too. It’s possible you’re stuck with me, Lala. We’ll see.”

  Our relationship was young, with plenty of years to develop, but it also felt old as time, especially when he called me Lala. I closed my eyes and rested my head against his shoulder, dreaming of Italian weddings and spirited ginger-Milo babies. In a way, I couldn’t picture any of it, because the dream was too wonderful and gigantic, but in another way, it felt like it’d always been meant to be.

  *

  We’d flown through rays of sunshine when we left Atlanta, but we landed in Milan under a pall of dark clouds. The Italian skies poured down summer rain, so we had to stow the violin case in a protective plastic pouch before we left the terminal. Even with umbrellas, and a car to pick us up, we arrived at Casa di Fierro in uncomfortably wet clothes. Milo’s parents welcomed us at the door, and my parents emerged from the kitchen, passing around hugs even though we were soaked.

  Then our parents all stood back and looked at us, and I thought, they know. They see it. They know we’re in love with each other. Luciana Fierro wore a huge smile, but no one made us profess our feelings after all these years.

  Milo went to change in his childhood room, and I was shown to my guest room, not in a different wing, but definitely at the opposite end of the hallway. My parents’ room adjoined mine, and we spent time catching up on news in overlapping Swedish while I changed and unpacked. My mother worked the conversation around to Milo as soon as she could.

  “Will you stay at his place through the summer?” she asked. “Are you still looking for apartments?”

  “Well, kind of,” I said. “But not really.”

  “I told you, Freja,” said my father, laughing. “She’ll move in with him, but she’ll never move out.”

  “Is there a romance between you, finally?” My mother’s voice went soft when she was excited. “Have you fallen in love?”

  “Yes, I think so.” I grinned, accepting their ecstatic hugs. “But you can’t tell Milo’s parents. You know how they are about cohabitation before marriage and all that.” My Swedish parents were considerably more lax on the issue. Only my impending birth had nudged them into the registrar’s office for an official marriage certificate.

  My mother held me, squeezing me in her arms. “My sweet girl. We wondered how long it would take both of you to realize that you ought to be in love.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, it took a bunch of arguments and misunderstandings, but it also took no time at all.”

  “Will the wedding be in Italy or Sweden?” my father asked. “Sweden, I hope.”

  “New York,” my mother said. “To keep the peace.”

  “Don’t say anything about it to anyone,” I pleaded. “Everything’s very new. There may not be a wedding. Maybe we’ll break up next week.”

  “Maybe,” said my father. “One never knows.” But his stern blond brows waggled, expressing disbelief and making me laugh.

  An hour later, we sat to eat a late Italian lunch on the covered terrazza. The sun had finally emerged, with birds chirping and flitting outside the screen as we enjoyed fresh bread, salads, lemon-braised fish, and wine. I wondered if Milo had gotten the same probing questions from his parents as I did. He was smiling beside me, but still tense. The violin sat at the end of the table, propped on its case, overseeing the proceedings.

  At the end of the meal, when the dishes were cleared away, Milo’s father brought more wine, and his mother took the violin in her hands, turning it over with careful scrutiny.

  “O, mio figlio,” she sighed. “It’s a beautiful violin.” Her sparkling eyes fixed on me. “You’ve played it already, no?”

  “Many times. But not in public,” I added. “I was waiting for the name.”

  “I have a name,” she said in her thick accent. She turned it over, her finger tracing over the tiny, camouflaged heart as if it was an obvious feature. “We’ll call it the Heartsong, for this heart, and the one that came before it.”

  Milo’s eyes darted toward his father. The older man smiled. “Yes, I saw it. You think I didn’t? I let it go, since, somehow, it improved the violin’s tone.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. The Heartsong. It was an unusually emotional choice for a top-flight instrument. Now the heart, our heart, would be a named feature of the violin. Eyes would seek it out in the grain, and fingers would trace it for many years to come. “I love it,” I said. “I love that name.” I met Luciana’s eyes as she handed it across the table to me, and some of the tears spilled over. My mom gave a loud sniff, and my dad suddenly became very interested in his napkin.

  Milo handed me his napkin so I could wipe my eyes, since mine had disappeared. “I thought I hid the heart so well,” he said.

  “You can’t hide your heart from those who see it,” his mother said in a soft scold. “Once they know it’s there.”

  I’ve always seen your heart, I thought. I’ve always known it was there. When I met his dark, fond gaze, all the tears I’d wiped away started overflowing again. “I’m so grateful for this,” I said to him. “I can never explain how much… Well, I’m going to treasure this.” I took a shaky breath. “My Heartsong violin.”

  “I’m glad you like the name,” he said. Then, in front of everyone, he tilted up my chin and kissed the tears on my cheeks. Time seemed to stand still as he leaned closer and kissed my lips, a slow, lingering, but mostly chaste kiss. “I love you,” he whispered, just for me, then he turned to our parents and said, “I love her. I’ve always loved her, but now I…” He paused and fixed his gaze back on mine. “Now I really love her. And Ma…” He stood to go to her. “You picked the perfect name. Thank you.”

  My mom was openly sobbing now, and Luciana wiped her eyes, rising to give Milo a kiss on both cheeks. I was next, and afterward she took my face between her hands and looked at me with unfettered glee. “I knew you two would end up together. A mother knows the woman who deserves her son’s heart. When you’re
ready, we can start thinking about the wedding. Until then, maybe you can move to our house in Chappaqua. We have plenty of room.”

  “Ma,” Milo protested.

  “That would be best, no?” she said, ignoring his complaint.

  “It’s fine for her to stay with me. She sleeps in the guest room.”

  Luciana shook a finger at her son. “I know you better than that.”

  “I think Alice can decide where she wants to stay. She’s an adult.”

  “These are matters to discuss later,” Milo’s father interrupted. He nodded at the newly christened violin, still clutched in my fingers. “Let’s hear it played. Let’s hear this Heartsong violin, and see if it lives up to its name.”

  The others around the table agreed, cheering and clapping. I stood beside Milo, composing myself, bringing the violin to rest beneath my chin, where it had already come to feel natural and right. Milo handed over the bow from my case. I played a few long, slow notes to show off the instrument’s resonance, then launched into Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in G major.

  Luciana clapped her hands, delighted. Heads nodded as my fingers flew through the rollicking notes and my bow tipped back and forth across the strings. This had been one of my first recital pieces—in a simpler version, of course—and still a song that brought instant joy to my heart. My heartsong, played on my Heartsong, which had been given to me by my heart’s own dream. The notes I loved sounded brighter and clearer than they’d ever sounded before.

  Later that night, I crept down the hall to Milo’s room and let myself in, turning to close the door without making a sound. Before I could finish, I was grabbed, a hand pressed over my mouth to muffle the instinctive scream.

  Milo. I love you. When he felt me relax, he closed the door himself.

  “Did anyone see you?” he whispered.

  I shook my head, and his hand moved from my mouth to circle my neck. I let out a slow breath, pressing my back along his front.

  “I need you,” he said, pulling me with him toward the bed. “I’ve had Vivaldi in my head all day. I need to be inside you.”