Discovering Maggie

by KT Morrison

  Fucking Cole and Max would earn her a spanking. Ten times. Only ten times? Surely what she had done was worth more than that. It was an enormous indiscretion. One hundred? One thousand?

  It would be welcomed. Let him. The deed, the fucking, was done. The deed would be done again. The threat of displeasing Carol and Martin was shrinking. What were ten strikes on her bottom in the grand scheme of things?

  She could grip that rail, wait for her skirt to be lifted. She could take ten strikes. She could take a lot of punishment.

  Her father would always undo his cufflinks, slowly dragging the moment as he was fond of doing. When you controlled the moment you could control the person. It was agonizing. Waiting for the sound of silver being set in front of her. Silver cuff links being set on his silver tray. Her skirt would drag on the back of her thighs...

  Picturing it now, looking over her shoulder this time, only the man with his sleeves rolled up was Cole. He had her skirt lifted, his head turned down to look at the curve of her rump in her panties...

  “Are you smiling to irritate me, Margaret?”

  “What? No, sir, I...”

  “You know something you’re not telling me.”

  “No. Honestly, I ...”

  “Margaret. You are an adult. But you are still living off me...you follow my rules. You live in Farmingham, but you’re under my roof. I pay your tuition, I pay everything. Every bill you have, and there are a lot.”

  “I know, sir,” she said, lowering her eyes.

  “You know. So, there is no room for childish games.”

  “Father, I honestly don’t know.”

  His eyes stuck on her coldly and he gripped his own chin. She was an adult. Spankings were over even though he thought she needed one. Laying a hand on your adult daughter’s bottom was assault.

  In that moment she felt shame. Hated it, hated that he could make her feel that way over something that had come about so organically. There was no shame in being with her two men. Though it was more than two, wasn’t it, Margaret?

  “Go to your room. You can come out at dinner,” he said.

  Standing weakly, she hesitated, wishing to say something, not knowing what to say. She didn’t know why the video was gone. She couldn’t answer him. The content of the video she did know. The things she had done that night began to weigh on her but it wasn’t shame she felt. It was dishonor. Dishonoring her parents was tantamount to failure, a failure of oneself, and in that moment something that had been welling up in her over the last few days bubbled right to the surface, oozing from her pores, spreading and pooling now on her like hot lava.

  Pausing before she left, she turned and gripped the back of the chair on which she had been sitting.

  “Father...I want...I was thinking of law school next year. I...was wondering about Harvard.”

  2

  Prowler

  Saturday, October 7th

  Martin and Carol had a dinner date with the Schlesinger’s and they left together at 6 P.M. in a limousine. Maggie watched behind the large plate glass window that looked down from the library on the second floor; Martin escorting his lovely wife on his arm, handing her off to the driver who held the rear door open. Father in a fresh suit, steel gray as usual, mother in a black Gucci dress and low heels. The long black car crept the gravel, paused while the gate yawned open. When it left, the gate closed behind them, and she watched the dark yard, the gravel wet and glinting in the blue dusk.

  She showered because her train was leaving early in the morning and she didn’t want to hang around too long in the Becker mansion. Wanted to be home. Her dorm room and her Max were more her home than this place, and she missed them. With Strauss playing on her turntable she packed her bag hinged open on her bed.

  A chime resounded, long, staccato beeps that indicated someone at the front gate. A visitor obviously, her parents returning knew the security code. Perhaps the Schlesingers, some mix-up in their scheduling...I thought we were meeting at your place...

  There was a control panel in the hall outside her room, and she padded the stone floor in bare feet, touched the screen, said, “Hello?”

  “Jamestown police,” an official and deep voice simply said.

  A dread shivered through her, a hydra of awful possibilities tumbling around in her mind. “Police?” she said into the microphone.

  “Ma’am, we’d like to do a property check...there’s been a prowler reported in the area...”

  A prowler? Did police still say that word? Now she was convinced this man was the prowler. “Well, hold on...” she said, thinking, searching—

  “Have you received any disturbing calls, ma’am?”

  —finding the cyan blue square that floated behind the black glass of the control panel, pressed it. A full color screen blossomed on the right of the display and she saw the vehicle stopped out front of the gate. Not a cop car, but a lifted white Jeep. One arm hung out the driver’s window while a face obscured in shadow talked into the intercom box.

  “Why, yes,” she continued, “this man said awful things to me. I was so frightened. Can you trace the calls?”

  “We did...”

  “Where are they coming from?”

  “Guess...”

  “Please, don’t say inside the house...”

  “Afraid so. You’ve got a bona fide sex pre-vert locked in there with you.”

  “You’re the sex pervert,” she laughed. “Maxy with you?”

  “You letting me in?”

  “I’m probably safer with you out there,” she said and pressed the magenta square that opened the gate. Folding her arms, she pressed her back to the wall and twisted her mouth around. She was genuinely happy for company but that tightness had come back again...

  She hoped Max was with him.

  Maggie met him at the door of the kitchen and he was alone.

  “Max isn’t here?” she said, looking around him to the dark of the yard, beyond the cone of white light that shone from the halogen lamp above the door.

  “Just me,” he said, stepping into the foyer.

  Cole wore a charcoal suit. Sharp white dress shirt under that (white-only after six), and an expertly knotted tie in gunmetal silk. She was barefoot, yoga pants, baggy sweatshirt, wet hair that hung in dripping waves.

  “You came by yourself?”

  “Told you I missed you.”

  “Cole...”

  He walked to the island, leaned an elbow on the high counter and cocked his head at her. His long hair had been combed back behind his ears, but he hadn’t shaved. “I’m only here to take you out for dinner,” he said with a smirk.

  “What if my parents were home?”

  “Friends go to dinner all the time. They don’t know what we’ve done.”

  “Shh-sh,” she shushed him, moved closer but kept the island between them.

  “Someone home?” he said, putting both elbows on the counter and leaning near her. Their faces were level, extended over the countertop toward each other.

  “No. But they have cameras. Maybe microphones.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Yeah. Did you...do anything to the security system?”

  “What security system?” he laughed.

  “You didn’t erase any videos?”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to find them.”

  She rubbed her arms and looked away for a moment. “Would Max?”

  “And not tell you?”

  “No, I suppose not. Then...Ken?”

  “He didn’t say a thing to us.”

  “Would he? He was so odd that morning...”

  “Hey,” he said, straightening. “Those things glitch all the time. How many people you seen freak out when their essay just disappears off their laptop?”

  “Happened to me,” she murmured.

  “You know those things fuck up all the time.” Now he held a hand out to her and smiled at her expectantly, waiting for her to take it.

  She accepted it, found it easier t
han to stand there thinking of the things that her brother would have seen if he’d watched that video. But why would he watch the video? What would make him think to do it? It was nicer to believe father’s security system shit the bed, as Max sometimes said. So she let her hand fall into Cole’s big grip, and he walked her, their arms joined above the counter, out of the kitchen and into the hall. Then she pulled her hand from him and whispered, “Cameras.”

  “Let’s find you something to wear and get the hell out of here then,” he said close and conspiratorially.

  “Really?” she said, her voice with a high inflection.

  He held both hands up, said, “Just dinner, Maggie.”

  She showed him a smirk, eyes narrowed, one corner of her mouth pulled up. “I have to dress up?”

  His hands smoothed his tie, said, “I want you to dress like a lady.”

  “And how’s that?”

  He walked past her, down the hall and to the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s explore your closet, Margaret. Let’s find you some appropriate attire.”

  Leaning on the concrete wall, arms folded across her chest, she watched him mount the stairs and head to her bedroom. Confident and without the slightest trepidation.

  It was just dinner.

  It was her good friend Cole.

  She followed warily behind him, but his pace was unfaltering. When she caught up with him in her bedroom he was already in her closet, indexing through her clothing admiringly.

  “You have some lovely clothes, Margaret,” he said, glancing her way, her standing outside her walk-in closet, a dozen feet away. Her hands had climbed up inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt and the soles of her feet had dampened.

  Cole said, “Lovely things. Yet, all I ever see you in is...cotton.”

  “You don’t like what I wear?”

  He stopped his action, turned and regarded her with a hand on his hip. “You’re always attractive, Maggie. Tonight I want to see my grown-up little girl. I want to see a woman.”

  Standing in the archway, she leaned against the frame, her legs crossing over, she said, “What are you doing, Cole?”

  Ignoring her, though she could see the slightest of smirks trying to work on his face, he continued through her clothing, pulling the hanging items apart and regarding them. “Ah,” he said, now taking a dress out, holding it by the hanger. “I would fucking kill to see you in this.”

  Under a thin film of frosted plastic was a black silk Prada dress she had worn only one time. Bought for a symphony she attended with her parents two years ago in Boston. It was delicate and ethereal, sleeveless, with a low, scooped and ruffled neckline, black lace trim and a plissé pleated ankle-length skirt.

  “I bet you would,” she said softly, averting her eyes from his gaze as she took the dress from him and held it to her, letting it fold in half over her arm.

  “I know you want to show me.”

  “Oh? Do I?”

  “You’re being coy but I know you want me to see the real Margaret.”

  “That’s what you think?” she said, smirking now, bold enough to look him in the eye.

  “You want to show me, and I’m dying to see you in that dress. Just show me.”

  They held each other’s gaze a long moment. Both of them unflinching. Both of them with clever little smiles. Hers showing she was onto his silly game and that she wasn’t backing down from him.

  “If you insist,” she said, easing languidly off the frame.

  Touching her wrist, he looked in her eyes and said, “Max can have you in white. When you’re with me, you wear black.”

  She huffed, chuckled, held his gaze. “Why?”

  He inhaled, speculated, let her wrist go and said, “There’s no mystery when we’re together. We both know what this is about.”

  “I’m not fucking you tonight, Cole.”

  An amused smile flashed instantly on his face, and he said, “I’m just taking you to dinner.”

  She shook her head at him, looked him up and down in comical disdain and moved to the foot of her bed, tossing the dress on to it. She stopped.

  This was where she would usually get undressed, but Cole was watching. He blocked the walk-in and she wouldn’t ask to get by him, it would display her weakness. She wouldn’t leave and go to her bathroom either for the same reason. She tried another tactic.

  “You’re going to stand and watch, like a lecherous toad?”

  “I’ve seen it all already, Margaret. I’ve seen it, held it, I’ve... There’s no shame between us...”

  “Fine,” she said, but she gave him her back, took a deep breath and slipped her sweatshirt off over her head and tossed it up on her pillows. She was braless, and she held her forearm across her chest even though her back was to him. Moving slowly, like this charade had no effect on her, she imagined him seeing the small muscles of her back working as she slipped her dress out of its protective cover using only one hand. Her nipples bunched against the underside of her forearm.

  Shaking the dress out, she held it before her, pinched in both hands. Turned then, giving Cole a glance over her shoulder, making it sexy, knowing, (hoping), he might glimpse the profile of a bare breast. Such a dirty thought, but they’d been intimate before, seen each other naked before. Gosh, just the other night. What would he think seeing her nipple so swollen?

  Cole watched, leaning now on the door frame as she had, arms folded, eyes narrowed by a confident smirk.

  “Getting a good look?” she said.

  “Taking it all in.”

  She laughed so he could hear it, tossing the dress over her head and shimmying herself into it til the skirt fell to her ankles. Still with her back to him, she lifted the skirt and tucked her hands underneath, thumbed under the waistband of her yoga pants and slipped them down, thrusting her hips from side-to-side until she could step out of them. As she threw them on the bed he said, “Turn for me. Let me see you.”

  She complied, turning a tight circle til she faced him, rolled her eyes, cocked a hip and slipped a hand up on her waist.

  “You are the most perfect woman I have ever seen.”

  “Flattery,” she said.

  He crossed to her, a slow and steady clop of his dress shoes on the hard floor as he closed the distance. She tingled watching him, every bit of her working up a playful swagger so he wouldn’t catch her swooning. One eyebrow went up, and she tried not to burst into a giggle as he drew up so close she had to tilt her head to look in his eyes. She was in her bare feet, he was tall and masculine, fully dressed, his shining shoes touching her tiny toes. It made her feel a wash of prickly vulnerability and she cleared her throat; wanting to say something but finding herself at a loss for words.

  “Turn again for me,” he said. She did, going around in a complete circle, the other direction, but twisting a gaze over her shoulders as she did, wanting to see his eyes on her.

  “Hm,” he grunted as she made her way to face him again.

  “What?” she said.

  His hands came to her hips, his fingers walking her skirt higher, gathering the material up in his hands. The hem of her dress danced and tickled up her shins, up over her knees. When it touched the middle of her thighs, starting a tremor in her stomach, she said, “What are you doing?”

  The skirt rose higher and higher, he smiled, said, “Your panty line is showing.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said, lowering her brows.

  His fingertips touched her bare skin, grazing the sides of her tummy at the low hollow where it met her hips. She flinched strongly, gasped, whispered, “Hey.”

  His fingers slipped under the waistband.

  “He-ey,” she whispered again, and she put her hands over his. “What are you doing?”

  His fingers stayed, unmoving, warm. They pulsed with life but were held immobile as they both looked deep into each other’s eyes.

  Finally, he softened, smiled, withdrew his hands, put them in his pockets and stepped back.

  They still stared
at one another, eyes darting, both of them stifling wider smiles, holding back lusty breath. At last, she slipped her panties down, underneath her skirt, stepped her feet out of them, held them wadded up in her fist and presented them to him.

  “You want these ones in your pocket too?”

  He sneered unevenly, and she tossed the panties into a laundry hamper by her dresser with a soft whomp.

  She giggled now, breaking the spell, pulled her wet hair back from her face and said, “What should I do about my hair?”

  “Pulled back like that it shows how beautiful you are.”

  “Tie it back?”

  “Yes,” he said, turned and made his way to her closet again. “Let’s find you some shoes. Something with a heel.”

  3

  Trothplight

  Saturday, October 7th

  She watched their reflection in the glass atrium as they descended the stairs together. It was black night outside now, the interior of the home lit with warm ambient light, and two finely dressed, beautiful people walked hand in hand; ghostly, pale mirror reflections. Her hand was in his because her heels were high. Cole had picked for her the tallest heel in her closet. A pair of shoes that, like the dress, had been bought for an event and worn only one time. Five-inch Gucci heels she had gladly let hide in the back of her closet because at that event, Yo-Yo Ma at the Lincoln Center in New York City, she had come seriously close to toppling in front of Manhattan’s elite. She’d stumbled but her father caught her. Sixteen-years-old then, a woman now. Now she would wear heels and she would learn to walk in them. However, the concrete steps in her home were daunting.