“He’s not weird. He’s just…”
“Sounds weird to me,” her sister said. “If he’s making you wait thirty days, something’s wrong. Either he’s got a wife he’s not telling you about and he’s waiting for the divorce to be final, or he’s got some disease he’s getting rid of.”
“Teri!” Sheri hissed. “Talk about rude.”
“Just saying what no one else has the guts to. Any man who says he’s got to wait thirty days to show you his dick is a weirdo, or he’s got something.” She looked at me and shrugged one shoulder. “Sorry, Taryn, that’s just how I feel.”
“I understand. But, he’s not weird. He’s just. It’s complicated. When it comes to sex, he’s different.”
“Different? How?” Sheri asked.
“Yeah how?” Teri chimed.
Stefanie cleared her throat. “He’s a Dom.”
“Well, that explains alot,” Teri said over her shoulder. “Those guys are an odd bunch. He’s probably going to make you sign a contract at the end of thirty days.”
“I don’t know if he’s a Dom, he’s just--”
“He’s a Dom.”
“He hasn’t said anything that--”
She peeled off her gloves. “He’s a Dom.”
“Read all the fine print when he gives you a contract.” Teri chuckled. “One day you’ll be getting it from behind and thinking everything’s on the up and up, and the next thing you know, he’ll make you wear a butt plug to work and a collar around your neck.”
I spit out a laugh. “He’s not poking anything in my butt. And, I’m not a dog, I’m not wearing a collar.”
“Won’t have much say about it when you’re tied up and a rag’s stuffed in your mouth,” she said.
“He’s not going to shove--”
“Believe me,” Teri said. “He will. I know. I was with one of those guys for a year. He had me so brainwashed, I thought what we were doing was normal.”
“George wasn’t a Dom, he was a dick,” Sheri said.
Teri shook her head. “He’s was both. I’m just telling you to be careful. Those guys get inside your head and make you believe you want whatever it is that they want. That crazy bastard I was seeing talked me into a threesome. I was convinced he loved me. He loved screwing me, but that was it. Never again. Lesson. Learned.”
“I’m not doing any threesomes. Like I said, I don’t even think he’s a Dom.”
“I know a girl who wore a butt plug,” Stefanie said.
I laughed. “That was random.”
“Who?” Teri asked.
“I’m not saying.” She alternated glances between all of us. “But she liked it. She wore it all the time, and nobody made her. She loved it. Had a permanent smile on her face.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Teri said. “I felt violated.”
I shook my head. “No butt plugs. No threesomes. No brainwashing.”
“You say that now,” Teri said. “I’ll see what you say when I come back here in four weeks.”
“I think you’ll be surprised.”
I had twenty-six days to figure out who Marc was. In the end, I hoped it wasn’t me who was surprised. If I was, I could always walk away.
That would be a first.
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Eight
Marc – Day six
I sat in my normal seat. After adjusting my silverware and repositioning the condiment basket, I glanced at Charlee.
Seated across from me, she had her nose buried in a tattered paperback. Her hair, normally a cute mess, was simply a mess. Wearing jean shorts, sneakers, and a sleeveless The Smiths concert tee, it appeared she hadn’t slept since I’d last seen her.
I unfolded my newspaper and situated it on the table. “Late night?”
She continued reading for a length of time that made the silence between us awkward. While I prepared to repeat the question, Jacky walked into my line of sight and smiled.
She set a cup of coffee on the corner of the table. “Good morning, Marc. The usual?”
I met her gaze. “Good morning. Yes, please.”
“Ever since she started that book, she’s been a disaster,” she whispered.
“What’s she reading?” I asked under my breath.
“That conspiracy theory book. She’s convinced the author could see into the future. You should tell her she’s nuts. She’ll listen to you.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you.”
I smiled in return.
“It’ll be up in a few,” she said.
I gave a nod, checked my silverware, and looked at Charlee. “Late night?” I said, the tone of my voice raised as if trying to wake her from sleeping.
She lowered the book and looked up. Her eyes were wide and her face was slightly gaunt. It had only been twenty-four hours since I’d seen her, yet her appearance had changed dramatically.
She scratched at her hair with her free hand. Loose strands of her curly locks fell over her eyes, partially obstructing her view. “I have two words for you.” She swept her hair away from her face. “Winston. Smith.”
“Big brother is watching,” I said.
“You’ve read this one, too?”
Her reference to the character Winston Smith, of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, shed a little light on her unkempt appearance. I could see her reading and re-reading the novel, trying to piece together scenes from the book, while comparing them to modern day events.
“Several times,” I said.
She slapped the book against the table with a thud. “I haven’t slept in three days.”
“You were reading it yesterday? I thought you were reading The Great Gatsby again?”
“I tried to read Gatsby again. I’d already read this piece of crap twice.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I’m almost done with the second read. Orwell’s foresight was genius.”
“It’s an interesting read, that’s for sure.”
“He explained what’s going on today with the government, in detail, almost seventy years ago. Cameras on the street corners, someone watching your every move. He even described Photoshop long before there were computers. Cutting people out of photographs to support your story? Re-writing what actually happened to match the government’s claim of what they want you to believe happened? Re-writing history? Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. It’s crazy when you think about it. I’ve highlighted about half of this book. I hate Big Brother.”
“The thought of a Big Brother existing, or the depiction of it in the--”
Her eyes shot wide. “The thought of one existing? Hell-o. The White House. The CIA. The FBI. The POTUS. Even Amazon. It’s crazy. Big Brother is everywhere.” She scratched the sides of her head frantically with both hands, and then looked at me. “I’m never watching the news again. They feed us what they want us to believe. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. That is never going to happen to me. I’ll be a free thinker forever. When this world goes to hell, and believe me, it will – I’ll be the one handing out propaganda on the street corners.”
Resembling a female version of Albert Einstein, only with much longer hair, she looked like a lunatic. I struggled not to laugh. “Propaganda, huh?”
“Pamphlets.”
“What will they say?”
She pursed her lips, glanced at the book, and then looked at me. “Oppose everyone who opposes you. Oppose the Opposition. That will be the headline.”
“Doesn’t leave much room for growth, does it?”
She shot me a glare. “Are you one of them?”
I chuckled at the thought. “I believe in considering everything that’s presented to me, and only adhering to what it is that makes perfect sense to me. I’ve never cared to have anything shoved down my throat.”
“That’s a decent policy.”
“Sometimes, your
opposition’s beliefs need to become your own.”
She cocked her head. “When?”
“Upon realizing your beliefs are preventing you from making progress.”
“So, life is about progress, and nothing else?”
“We’re all on a journey,” I explained. “Every inch traveled between our beginning and our destination is progress.”
“I like that. Okay, we’re still friends.”
I cleared my throat. “I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind, except that you happen to be insane,” I said, citing a quote from Orwell’s book.
“I may be insane, but one of these days, I’m going to save the world. I need to get a cape and a really cool suit to wear, though. That Super Girl crap is so yesteryear. I want something cool. Something purple with pink piping. Maybe some gray just to make it pop.”
Jacky walked between us.
She set the plate just inside the edge of the table, beside my newspaper. “Three over medium, dry wheat toast, and three pieces of turkey bacon.”
“Thank you.”
She looked at Charlee. “Super Girl, huh? I doubt Super Girl’s bedroom looks like a bomb went off in it.”
“I know where everything is.”
“I’m afraid to go in there. You need to clean it.”
Charlee fashioned a gun with her fingers, and then gave her mother a salute with her free hand.
Jacky looked at me. “Enjoy.” She turned toward Charlee. “Let him--”
“Let him eat, Charlee,” Charlee said mockingly. “I always do, mother.”
I folded my newspaper, set it aside, and moved my plate to the center of the table. Halfway through my breakfast, a line from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four came to me.
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
I wondered how many people simply wanted to be understood. If being understood was often mistaken for love. I doubted anyone could or would ever understand me, and decided to have someone love me would be much easier than having them developing an understanding of who I truly was.
I finished my meal, pushed the plate to the side, and repositioned the newspaper.
“Why do you bring that thing?” She motioned toward the newspaper. “You never read it.”
“Habit.”
“But you’ve never read it. Not once.”
“Maybe one day I’ll leave it at home,” I said, knowing doing so would be impossible.
She gave it another look and then shrugged. “Doubt it.”
I raised my coffee cup and grinned. After finishing it, I folded my newspaper, stood, and tucked it under my arm.
“Are you going to save the world today?” she asked.
I tossed $30 on the table. “I’m going to give it one hell of a try.”
She leaned against the back of the booth and swept her hair away from her face. “Maybe you should get a cape and a cool suit. You’d look good in black.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
“Have a good day, Atticus.”
I paused. “I figured you’d call me Winston.”
“He betrayed his true love to save himself from facing his greatest fear. I don’t think you’re like that. At least not in my mind. If you are, don’t tell me. Now, go save the world, Mr. Watson.”
“Who am I saving it from?” I asked. “I want to be sure and target the right group.”
“Anyone’s whose thoughts oppose yours.”
“That might take a while.”
“It’s easy.” She opened her book and then peered into it. “All you’ve got to do change their way of thinking.”
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Nine
Taryn – Day eight
There were three weeks and one day left in my thirty-day no-sex agreement, and I hadn’t seen Marc since we had the Dom/sub discussion in the salon. Going to a coffee shop wasn’t on my list of favorite things to do, but that’s what we were doing, nonetheless.
While bile slowly rose in my throat, I studied the wall-mounted menu. “Who drinks this stuff in the middle of the day?”
He motioned toward the only two empty seats in the coffee shop. “The place is packed, Apparently, everyone but you.”
I found the smell of coffee disgusting. If it tasted the way it smelled, there was no way I could choke down a cup of it. I couldn’t imagine the mustachioed seventeen-year-old hipster standing at the cash register could do anything with it to change my mind, either.
I glanced at his ridiculous mustache and then at Marc. “I don’t even know what to get.”
“Do you want hot, cold, sweet, caramel, or--”
“Caramel.”
“Hot? Cold?”
Cold had to smell better than hot, at least the stench wouldn’t rise out of the cup and float around the room while we talked.
I let out a sigh. “Cold.”
“I’ll order,” he said.
I gave the menu one last look and shrugged. “Okay.”
He ordered our drinks, and we sat side by side in the two leather chairs positioned against a narrow back wall. As far as I was concerned, it was the best seat in the place, but it seemed the laptop clad nerds that were pecking away at their keyboards didn’t agree.
“I have questions,” I said. “A lot of them.”
“I’m sure I’ll have answers.”
I wasn’t accustomed to having meaningful conversations with a man. Actually, I wasn’t used to having conversations with a man, period. Most of my time with men in recent years was spent struggling to get my pants down while they were on their lunch break.
“You’re not going to get mad?” I asked.
“Not at all.”
“Promise?”
“Marc! Drinks are ready at the bar!” someone shouted.
“Let me grab our drinks,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked to the counter, and quickly returned with two matching drinks. He handed me one of them. “It’s an iced caramel macchiato. Espresso, milk, and caramel. You might want to stir it first.”
I looked at the drink. Dark brown at the top, and white at the bottom, with two very definitive layers, the drink looked like a work of coffee shop art. “It’s pretty, I’ll drink it like this.”
“Suit yourself.”
I poked my straw into the bottom of the cup and took a sip of the drink. Milk laced with threads of caramel filled my mouth. After swallowing it, a hint of coffee flavor lingered, but didn’t last.
“Holy shit, this is good.”
In sheer disbelief of any coffee product tasting so good, I eagerly took another sip.
He cocked his head to the side. “You had questions?”
“Oh. Yeah. You never promised.”
“Promised what?”
“I asked if you were going to get mad. You said no. I asked if you promised. You didn’t respond.”
“No means no.” He chuckled. “There’s no need to promise.”
“Okay, fine.” I took another sip of my drink, and then set it on the table situated between our chairs. “Do you have any diseases?”
He choked on his drink. “Excuse me?”
“Diseases. STDs. Are you clean?”
He wiped the corner of his mouth with the end of his thumb, and then looked at it. “Sterile.”
“Okay. Next question. If we go through this thirty-day thing, and you decide you like what I have to offer, are you going to make me have threesomes and wear a collar?”
He barked out a laugh, which started a coughing fit. As he almost choked to death coughing, he set his drink beside mine. When he finally caught his breath, he wiped the tears from his eyes and then looked right at me.
“Who have you been talking to?”
I slumped in my chair. “Some girls at work.”
“Our sexual relationship, if we have one, won’t be like that.”
“What will it be like?”
“It will be something that will satisfy us both
. Something we both agree is suitable. Something that meets both our needs. Knowing what I know about people, I’m going to guess you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“How can you say that?”
“It’s what I believe, so saying it comes easy.”
I wanted more details, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to give them. I straightened my posture and exhaled a breath of frustration. “Okay.”
“I’d like oysters for dinner tonight,” he said. “Have you ever had them?”
It was a random insertion of grossness that caught me off guard. If I had to make a list of the ten things that I would rather die than have in my mouth, coffee and oysters would be the first two. It was going to be one of those days.
“I uhhm. No. I haven’t.”
“They’re one of my favorites.” He clasped his hands together. “Will you go with me to the oyster bar this evening?”
With my eyes fixed on his, I slow blinked. Repeatedly. It seemed to have no effect.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I let out a sigh. “Sure.”
“They have Oysters Rockefeller that are out of this world.”
“What’s that?”
“A fresh oyster is covered in a spinach sauce and cheese, then sprinkled with breadcrumbs. They’re baked and served warm.”
I threw up in my mouth. Spinach would have been number three on my vile substances list. It was clear that God wasn’t done punishing me for my past, and I did my best to accept a spinach-covered oyster being in my near future.
“Sounds interesting.”
He cocked his head slightly. “Did you have any other questions?”
I couldn’t rid my mind of having to eat spinach and oysters, let alone both in one meal. I struggled to swallow the bile that had risen in my throat. After half a dozen failed attempts, I reached for my drink and took a long sip.
The taste went from caramel and milk to coffee surrounded by more coffee. With my cheeks bulging like an overfed chipmunk, I pulled the straw from my mouth and looked at the cup.
The milky caramel goodness was gone. All that remained was a dark brown substance and a few ice cubes.
He was right, I should have stirred it.
I decided it just wasn’t my day. After looking away, I plugged my nose and swallowed the vile filth.
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