by Stacey Lynn
Simon had been distant, bold and demanding and skirted the edge of cold and detached. Yet I’d still loved everything we’d done, even if it didn’t make him talk to me like Haley had hoped it would.
True to our deal, I’d called her when I got home and she was so surprised to hear from me, so certain she wouldn’t hear from me, she’d shown up less than an hour later with two bottles of wine on hand. I hadn’t had the energy to drink them.
For the rest of the week, I’d thrown myself in work to forget about the night we spent together. The way he’d spanked me, first with his hands, and then his belt, and given me orgasms more powerful than anything I could ever imagine. He hadn’t once called or texted. The looming deadline of our time together settled over me like a heavy, weighted blanket. I’d gone into this, approached him and asked him to train and teach me because more than being a sub, I’d wanted to be with him. Now, it seemed like I was only going to get partially what I wanted. After Friday, I most likely wouldn’t see him again unless I ran into him at Luminous.
A weight sank into my stomach and I wanted to crawl into a ball and weep.
It twisted me up at the same time it unraveled me. How did I become someone who not only enjoyed some kink play, but had begun to crave it? I wasn’t even certain anymore if it was the kink or Simon, or if I’d skirted into some kind of darkness I should be trying to crawl myself out of.
Sitting next to Cassie’s car, knowing I was going to have to spend the entire day with her, everything inside me pulled tight.
I expelled another harsh, deep breath that did nothing to calm the rioting inside me, reached for my purse, and exited my car.
It snowed that morning, a light dusting on my parents’ driveway that hadn’t been enough to shovel. I took small, careful steps so I didn’t slip in my boots and walked up to my parents’ door.
I opened it and entered, immediately inhaling the aroma of Thanksgiving dinner already cooking in the oven and the sounds of the early football game already on the television.
“Hello!” I called out. “Happy Thanksgiving!”
“Happy Thanksgiving!” Mom returned, her voice echoing through the entryway from the kitchen.
I set my purse on a small entryway table, hung my coat in the hall closet, and was just kicking off my ankle boots when my mom walked through the small dining room to greet me.
“Hi, Mom.”
She pulled me into a quick hug and pressed her soft lips to my cheek. “How are you sweetie?” She ran her hands down the lace sleeves of my dress and stepped back, still holding on to my hands. “Your dress is beautiful. New?”
Thankfully, my sleeves were long and flared at the wrists, making it easy to hide the marks from Simon’s ties. “Of course.” I followed her to the kitchen. “Smells delicious in here. What can I do to help?”
Before she could reply, I grabbed one of her aprons from a hook inside the pantry door and slid it over my head.
“You can come say hi to your old man, young lady.”
“He could also get off his butt and come say hello to his daughter,” Mom said playfully.
I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Knowing Dad, he either needed one or would soon. “Like that’d happen when there’s a game on.”
“Too right.”
I walked through the open kitchen to the family room at the back of my house where my dad was seated exactly where I’d expected him. When I was ten, my mom had given him a chocolate brown leather recliner chair for Christmas. Now it was faded and worn and the leather well wrinkled. If he were to stand, there’d be a permanent impression in the leather from the weight of his body.
A captain of a fire department in Grand Rapids, he was aging gracefully despite his salt and pepper hair and wrinkles lining his eyes.
“Hey, Dad,” I said and stopped him as he moved to put down the foot rest on his recliner. “Don’t get up for me.” I leaned into his outstretched arms and fell into his bear hug. “How are you, Dad?”
“Old.”
I laughed softly and kissed his cheek. He always smelled the same, wearing the same cologne for as long as I could remember. Musky and spicy. I loved that when I came home to my parents’ house, nothing ever changed.
“Stop it.” I pulled back and put the beer I’d brought him on the table next to his chair. After a quick check of his already opened bottle and finding it empty, I cleared it off the table. “You’re not old, you’re well-seasoned and wise.”
“What do you want and how much is it going to cost me?”
“Nothing.” I kissed his cheek again and curled my hand around his shoulder. “I don’t like hearing talk of you getting old.”
“Then don’t go talk to your mom. She’s still on me about being too old to work.”
Mom’s voice echoed from the kitchen. “Because you are too darn old and stubborn to keep running into burning buildings.”
“Ah,” I said, walking back to the kitchen. “This conversation sounds familiar. Dad’s still refusing to retire?”
“I’m only fifty-seven! I got years left in me.”
Mom rolled out pie dough and barely spared me a glance to roll her eyes. “Fifty-seven. He’s been putting out fires for almost forty years and he still refuses to believe he might be getting too old to wear over sixty pounds of gear on a daily basis. It’s killing his knees and his back. Stubborn old fart.”
I’d been hearing similar conversations for the last two years. Dad would retire when he was ready and probably not even then. I figured someday the rest of the firefighters would be shoving him out of the firehouse, forcing him into retirement around the age of seventy. I dumped my dad’s empty beer bottle into the recycling bin and washed my hands.
“Where’s Cassie?”
“Upstairs. She arrived earlier but said she had some work to do.”
Typical. When Cassie decided to be the first woman to become partner at her firm, she became singularly focused on it.
“Will she come down to eat with us?”
“She said it would just be a couple hours.”
I tried to push down the irritation. I admired her career path and her intelligence. I even admired her goals. I just didn’t like how reaching them came at the expense of everything else, especially her family. What I hated even more was how distant we’d become over the last few years. I could be blamed for part of it. Carrying a torch for your sister’s boyfriend and then ex wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, but I’d still at least tried to not let it affect my relationship with Cassie.
“Okay, then. What do you need me to do?”
She put me to work on the stuffing and mashed potatoes and we lost ourselves in the hustle of Thanksgiving dinner, our conversations peppered with the occasional shouts and cheers from Dad whenever the Detroit Lions made a play he either loved or hated.
* * *
“Dinner looks amazing, Mom,” Cassie said.
I’d been in the house for hours and she was finally coming downstairs to join us, right as Mom and I began placing food on the formal dining table where we always ate our holiday dinners. “Smells great, too. It’s been hard to focus upstairs.”
She pressed a brief kiss to my mom’s cheek and did the same to my dad. She walked around me like I didn’t exist.
What the hell? We weren’t close, but she’d never been outright dismissive to me.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Cassie,” I said. “How are you?”
“Busy. Work is insane and my current case is my most frustrating one yet.” She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table even though Mom and I were still bringing the food out. She whipped open a cloth napkin, settled it on her lap, and took a drink of her water.
My jaw dropped. She hadn’t even offered to help.
When the rest of the food was p
laced at the center of the table, and my mom and I took our seats, my dad offered up a quick prayer of thanks before we dug in.
Conversation was sprinkled throughout the dinner. Cassie talked more about her job. Mom talked about gossip from the neighborhood, including who was getting married and having kids and who was getting divorced. None of it interested me but I listened politely, sprinkling the conversation with the correct number of, “Oh reallys?” that a family conversation required.
Dad spent most of it with one eye on his fork filled with food and the other trying to catch a glimpse of the second football game he couldn’t even see from the room we were in.
“How’s your store doing?” Cassie asked. I almost choked on a bite of mouth-watering turkey. She hadn’t glanced my way since she’d taken a seat.
“Um. Good.” I patted my mouth with a napkin. “Actually, it’s going great. I’ve had to hire more temporary employees this year than last. We’re anticipating Black Friday sales and this coming weekend doing at least twice as much business as last year.”
“How wonderful, dear,” my mom said.
“Does this mean you’ll be able to get out of the closet you call an apartment anytime soon?” Cassie asked.
My head snapped back like she’d slapped me. “What?”
“Cassie, don’t be rude,” my mom said.
Cassie ignored her. She went back to elegantly cutting into her turkey with the grace of a model. She was always so perfectly polished from her haircut, ending in perfect sharp edges just beneath her chin to her gray silk blouse, still perfectly pressed and wrinkle-free even though she had to have been wearing it for hours. Even her makeup was still perfectly applied, not a smudge in sight. Cassie speared me with a glare that had a heat in it I’d never seen from her. “What? I’m just suggesting Chloe could be doing something more with her life than working retail.”
What the hell? My head spun like she’d thrown me on a Tilt-A-Whirl. I forced myself to set down my silverware gently instead of slamming it onto the plate. “I own my business, Cassie. I don’t just work retail, and even if I did, why would you suddenly be so disrespectful and rude to me? Especially here, at dinner?”
She arched one brow slowly, pierced a bite of beans with her fork and held it to her mouth. “Really? You can’t imagine why I’d be rude to you?” She chewed her food and with every passing moment, fury inside me turned to ice, chilling me. “Come on, now Chloe. Don’t play me for a fool.”
Holy shit. She knew.
I couldn’t believe her. I couldn’t even bear to turn and look at either of my parents to see their expressions.
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “If you know, then you also know now is not the appropriate time. And if you’d like to discuss this with me, like an adult, then we can wait until after dinner and do it privately. Okay?”
“Will someone please tell me what in the hell is going on between you?” My dad growled the question, slamming down his beer. He rarely lost his temper and I jumped at the loud noise.
“Oh, that’s easy.” Cassie smirked at me, and turned back to my dad. “Chloe is dating the man who abused me.”
Mom gasped. “What? Chloe—”
I shook my head. It was the only thing I could do. Somehow, I’d lost the ability to speak.
“Please, tell me you’re not, honey.” My mom’s hand covered mine, her warmth igniting a spark in me. I tugged it way from her and placed my hands in my lap.
“I can’t believe you—”
“You? You can’t believe me? Simon Delgado beat me. A man I thought I loved and would marry someday and he beat me! And now I hear from friends who still live here that he’s been seen around town with you and you’ve been to his hockey games? How could you do that to me?”
“Chloe.” Dad’s eyes were filled with pain. “Is this true?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Yes. No. It was and it wasn’t and my God, this was not how I wanted to explain any of it. We were supposed to have hidden this.
But God.
I curled my hands into my lap beneath the table until my nails dug into my palms. The sting helped me focus. And damn, was I really so screwed up now that I needed pain just to have a conversation?
“I’m not dating Simon,” I said to my dad. As humiliating as the truth was going to be, especially now, in front of my parents, I wasn’t a liar and there was no way to sugar coat it. I faced Cassie. “I don’t know why you chose a family dinner to do this, and I think it’s absolutely disgusting that you’d bring it up now like we’re children and I just cut your Barbie’s hair, but you’re wrong. I’m not dating Simon. He’s training me.”
Her face twisted into disgust.
On one side, my mother whispered, “Training you?”
On the other side, my dad cursed. “I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
My sister was undeterred. “He’s abusing you and you don’t even realize it.”
“Cassie, he’s not.”
“Please, God help me. I do not want my daughters discussing this,” my dad muttered.
I wanted to give him the respect he was due, but there was no way Cassie was going to let this go.
“I just don’t understand,” my mom repeated.
Anger burned through me until my cheeks were singed. I turned away from Cassie’s disgust and looked at my mom. Poor, sweet woman. She truly had no clue what was going on.
I had to tell them, though. If there was ever any chance of Simon and me lasting past Friday night, there had to be honesty in all areas. Especially with this. And Haley and Gabby had been right. I was an adult and when push came to shove, they had no decision on who I dated or screwed or submitted to. Not even when it came to Simon.
“We’re not dating, Mom, but I do love him. And I have been seeing him, but it’s not what you think.”
“He’s got you so tied up and twisted you’re not even making sense. Don’t you see it’s what he does, Chloe? He did the same thing to me. He made me think he was this smart, sweet and caring guy and the next thing I knew he’s throwing me over his knees—”
“I’m going to throw up.”
“Dad.”
He held up his hand and silenced me. “There are things a man never needs to know.” He turned to Cassie, his expression softening. “And this is one of them, honey. I swear, you two need to work this out but your mother and I don’t need to be witness to this conversation.”
“He beat me!” Cassie jumped to her feet and slammed her hands to the table, refusing to listen to my dad. “Simon Delgado spanked me and tied me up and abused me.”
I understood her perspective. I also wouldn’t sit there and continue to let her say such horrible things about him. They had to know the truth and if she was going to do it here, with an audience, I’d join her.
“I know.” I stood and held my hands up, palms out. “I know, and I know he hurt you. But Cassie, he wasn’t trying to. He likes kinky sex and he pushed you too far and he’s aware of it, but he’s not abusing me.”
“Then why are your wrists bruised?”
I jerked my hands back.
“Cassie, I went to him. I went to him because I knew he was a dominant and I wanted him to train me to be a submissive.”
“Oh fucking Christ.” Dad took a large swig of his beer.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” my mom said, “but your father’s right. This isn’t a conversation we need to be a part of.” She turned to Cassie first. “Honey, I’m sorry what you went through with him. I am, truly, and I’m so sorry he hurt you. And you, Chloe—” She turned to me, disappointment clear in her eyes. The pain and the fear and all of what she was feeling. “I don’t even understand the terms you’re using, but if you’re mixed up with Simon Delgado, who isn’t a good man—”
“He
is a good man.” Tears burned my eyes and I shook with fear and indignation. “He’s the best man I know, and I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, but I like what he does to me, and I ask for it, and it’s okay and it’s healthy and I’m sorry—” I swiped tears from beneath my eyes before I turned back to Cassie. “I’m sorry I’m hurting you. You weren’t supposed to find out, and things between Simon and I are supposed to be temporary, but I love him.”
Her face morphed to disgust. “You can’t love a man who beats you, Chloe. You’re smarter than this.”
“He doesn’t beat me,” I insisted. “I enjoy what we do.”
“Enough,” Dad stated. “I’ve heard enough and this conversation has gone well past appropriate. And as a man and a husband and a father to girls, everything I have heard here is the number one thing a man never wants to hear about his daughters’ lives. This ends, now. Either you two excuse yourselves to go finish your argument in private, or you sit down and enjoy the meal your mother has spent days preparing.”
“I can’t believe this,” Cassie hissed. She tossed her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair. “I have work to do and a case to work on and the fact that neither of you are taking my side on this is absolutely absurd. He hurt me and you’re ignoring it.”
She slammed her chair into the table so hard it shook the champagne glasses, and stalked past the end of the table.
When she reached my dad, he reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist. “Your choice to leave, darling girl, and I’ve always got your back, you know I do. But perhaps there’s a perspective when it comes to Simon that you don’t understand, and as much as it makes me want to puke to admit it, perhaps there’s a perspective from what happened between the two of you that you never took the time to understand, either.”
She yanked out of Dad’s hold. “He disgusts me.” She whipped to me. Her hair struck her cheek before settling perfectly at her shoulders and she glared at me. “You disgust me.”
She stomped out of the room, slammed a door upstairs, and seconds later, pounded down the stairs. She left, and slammed the door behind her. Silence thickened the air as we all listened to her car start and pull out of the driveway.