Chapter 2 #2
Because I prefer to be incandescent so that my mind can’t slip into the most dangerous space. Where I start thinking about my current obsession. About the Club, and the Duke, and whether or not I’m actually going to meet him. About the ways in which that fantasy crosses over with Caleb himself.
Fucking dangerous.
I go to the laundry room, and find a load of clean clothes in the dryer. I’m touching his clothes. It feels intimate, even though the clothes are clean. Even though it’s jeans and very little else.
I take the load of clean washing into the living room and sit on the couch, methodically folding at each item of clothing and ignoring the building tension in my stomach.
It’s easy for me to imagine that he’s watching me.
Judging me. Needing me to do a good job.
I find myself sliding off the edge of the couch and getting on my knees on the living room floor as I continue with my job.
Trying to make the clothes perfect. Perfect for him.
And if I don’t succeed, maybe I’ll be punished.
The thought shocks me. Jolts me out of my daydream.
This is getting very weird, and very dangerous.
I’m actually in the man’s house having unbidden sexual fantasies about laundry. That’s weird.
Fucking weird.
I gather up the folded clothing and make my way upstairs.
He didn’t show me around up here. I push open one door and find a bedroom that’s almost exactly how I would’ve imagined it if I was tasked with creating what I thought would be the ideal bedroom for Caleb.
The bed is rustic, made of natural slabs of wood with a Pendleton-style bedspread.
It’s Western, as committed to the cowboy aesthetic as he is, and masculine.
I go inside and I tried to see if there are any clues about who he is as a man. I don’t know why I’m doing that either. Except the teenage girl in me who sneaked onto the ranch and tried to burn it to the ground wants me to. She’s curious and I have to admit that I am, too.
I pull open the top drawer of his dresser and find black briefs folded with precision.
I don’t know why, but I feel a kick of satisfaction that I knew he would want his laundry folded with even lines and sharp corners.
That he does it for himself. Unless he has a housekeeper that he released for the special purpose of torturing me. Always a possibility.
Actually, if there’s one thing that surprises me about him, it is the precision.
I’ve known my share of cowboys. And though I’ve never had an intimate relationship with one, they’re not known to be the neatest people.
Hell, I’m not this neat. I’m busy. Up at the crack of dawn doing ranch work and I do my very best to keep mine in my dad’s house in order, but it is what it is.
Caleb’s living situation gives me the impression that he has never said it is what it is even one moment in his whole life.
But maybe that’s why he’s a billionaire and we’re drowning in debt.
I turn and open up the side table drawer. Condoms. Lots of them. Absolutely no surprise. Because he’s a man.
And honestly he ought to have them. It’s safe and all.
My mouth goes dry and I close the drawer quickly.
I move to the bathroom, where I open up the medicine cabinet and look at his aftershave, his razor.
He’s not clean-shaven. He always has a neat beard and I would say that I don’t like facial hair on men. John was clean-shaven.
Clean-shaven and soft in just about every way. Easy.
Caleb could never be called easy.
I shut the medicine cabinet and exit the bathroom, then walk out of the bedroom.
I’m tempted to explore the rest of the upstairs.
I push open the next door and find a study.
It’s full of books and I wonder if he’s read a single one or if it’s just part of the look.
The proper adornments to give the room a homey feel.
I move into the room and over to the bookshelf. I touch the tops of the books, most of them leather bound with gold embossing on the spine. Which to me suggests aesthetic purchases rather than books bought to be read and treasured.
I make my way to the fireplace. There’s a book sitting on the side table next to a wingback chair.
And I touch the cover. I realize that I’m snooping and if he were to walk in at any point, or if there was surveillance, it looks like exactly what it is.
I move my hand away from the book, turn around, and walk out of the room.
It’s reasonable, I think, for me to see what each of the rooms on this floor are.
But much less reasonable to be going through his things.
I walk all the way down to the end of the hall and open the last door.
The room is almost entirely windows. It faces not the view down below, but the mountain behind, surrounded by forest with no houses or humans in sight.
It’s entirely different to the first bedroom that I walked into that I assumed had to be his.
This one is done in soft, neutral colors.
The bed is the biggest one I’ve ever seen.
Not a standard size at all. The bedspread looks like it’s made of silk.
The bed is on a raised platform, with a headboard behind it. It’s a strange headboard. Smooth wood with metal rings fastened to the posts.
It’s like a spa, the kind of high-end resort that I’ve certainly never been to. There is a chaise lounge and another chair in the corner that almost seems incongruous. The whole room is incongruous with the rest of the house.
I wonder if it’s guest quarters. That would be about the only thing that makes sense, because it doesn’t seem to jibe with the whole rest of the place. Or with him.
I ease out of the room and close the door quietly behind me, not wanting to disturb a single thing in the space, though I don’t know why that instinct feels so strong.
I go downstairs and check the dinner, then busy myself straightening and cleaning as much of the already-clean house as I can.
When he walks back in the door, my heart leaps up in my throat. I stand at attention like a soldier, my hands clasped behind my back as he shifts his cowboy hat on his head and looks down at me. “Smells good,” he says, moving into the kitchen.
“I’ll just go now,” I say.
“You’re dismissed.”
The words are strange and formal and hit me hard in the pit of my stomach.
“Thank you. What time do you want me here tomorrow?”
“You can come at one. I’ll be expecting you.”
And with that, I make my way out of the house and back to my truck, taking the drive back to my house in near record time.
I feel guilty, because I know Dad had to eat left over sandwiches or something because I wasn’t there to cook for him. But the truth of the matter is, he’s a grown man who should be able to take more care of himself than he does.
I do it because on some level of always felt guilty about Mom leaving. Like it was my fault. Because things were okay with them before she had me, or at least that’s always the impression that I had.
Not that Dad has ever said that directly.
It’s just he’s always made it a point to tell me that I didn’t really know the woman that he fell in love with.
Which means on some level I’m the one that changed her.
I guess being a mother made her so miserable she had to go find herself in the beds of random men.
And, eventually, out of state, and out of contact with her only child.
But right now I feel tired. Aware of the fact that this present situation is my dad’s fault.
I could leave. I could leave town and leave him.
I could get a job at some other ranch. But then what am I?
Our family land feels important to me, it feels grounding.
I don’t have other skills. Just ranching skills.
And yeah, I could give them to somebody else.
I feel squeezed. Like I’m being weighed down by everything, which is why I shut myself in the room and open the Club app before I can even think.
It would be so nice to take a break from all this. To stop thinking.
I open up The Duke’s profile. I message him. Before I can think better of it.
I think I’m getting closer to wanting to meet.
I let out a breath, and set my phone down, going and putting my pajamas on. And I hear the chime that the app uses go off as I get a message. I race back over and look, my heart pounding.
What are you looking for?
His messages are always like that. They don’t betray a hint of personality.
He often doesn’t even act like we’ve spoken before.
I suppose I should be grateful. He isn’t pressuring me.
Far from it. A lot of Doms probably wouldn’t have the patience for a sub waffling around in their DM’s. But I’m not really a sub.
I might be.
It seems weird to take on an identity that has to do with sex. Especially because it’s been such a nominal part of my life so far.
But it also feels so forbidden. Like something secret. Like something that’s just mine.
I’m probably attracted to this for all the wrong reasons. Though, if there are right reasons for wanting to fling yourself into the bed of a kinky stranger, I’d love to know what they are.
All I have is bone deep weariness and desperation for something that I have a hard time naming.
I’m so tired of carrying everything. I just want to not think. I want someone else to make me feel good. Even if I resist. I want control to be taken away from me.
I can do that.
I want to ask him a hundred questions. But he’s not a mentor or coach. He’s a man I’m considering…
I close the app because I’ve gone and freaked myself out. Honestly, the whole day did. Getting turned on by a pile of laundry is a new low for me.
But then, my life is a new low for me at the moment. And tomorrow, I have to get up and face it all over again. The only way things are going to change is if I change them. I could set up a meeting with The Duke.
I go to sleep turning that over and over in my mind. And when I wake up, Caleb is the first thing I think of.