Chapter 7 #2
“Both nights I’ve been there, yes.” Jo’s palms grew clammy not only with the thought of Lia, but Amelia, too. “It’s like my body just knows when she’s in the room. I’ve never experienced anything like it. She makes me feel…wanted. In a way that isn’t just about sex.”
“Sounds like more than a casual club fling, Jo.”
“It feels like it,” Jo said. “But then I remind myself that it is a club. And she probably does this with other women all the time. I mean, that’s what she’s there for, right?”
Amelia had already put that idea out of Jo’s mind on Saturday night, but she would still throw it in Ada’s direction and see if she had a different opinion.
“Maybe. But maybe not. Some people go there to find a connection and not just orgasms.”
“Yeah.” Jo gave that a moment to settle. She didn’t know if she wanted Ada to agree with Amelia or not, it only made things more difficult for Jo, but she was grateful for her best friend’s honesty. “Amelia has a membership at Satin.”
Ada almost fell from the couch at that. “W-what?”
“Yeah. I was just as surprised.”
“Amelia.” Ada’s eyes widened. “Like…Callum’s mum, Amelia?”
“The very same one.” Jo leaned back on her hands. “She turned up while I was having a drink on Saturday night. Said she was curious after I told her about it. We ended up sitting around chatting for a while.”
Ada lifted a hand, confusion etched on her face. “Wait, you sat and had drinks with your ex-mother-in-law at Satin.”
Jo laughed. “I know. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“How was that?”
Jo bit her lip, mulling over the easiest way to describe it. Ada would jump to conclusions—she often did. “Surprisingly nice. Easy. She was…wearing a red pendant, though.”
“No fucking way!” Ada shook her head in disbelief. “Red? She’s bold.”
“Tell me about it. I mean, I know she’s attractive—God, she looked amazing that night—but seeing her there in that dress, all confident and self-assured… It threw me.”
Ada studied Jo from across the room. “You’ve always had a soft spot for her.”
“That’s not what this is.” Jo shook her head. She didn’t need Ada to put any kind of ideas in her head. Jo was already up in the air as it was. “It just…surprised me. That’s all.”
“Have you heard from her since?”
Jo sighed. “Not really. She’s been quiet. I sent her a message earlier, just asking if she was okay, and she said she’s fine. She’s been busy.”
Ada gave her a look.
“What?”
“You seem a bit sad that she hasn’t been in touch much since.” Ada braced her elbows on her knees and searched Jo’s face. “So I have to wonder why it matters to you so much.”
Jo looked down into her wine. “We’ve always got along. Even when Callum left me, that didn’t change. In fact, I’d say it only grew stronger. Our friendship…you know?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Sitting with her, not thinking about him or what he did to me…I don’t know. I just felt like the old me again. She made me feel like myself again.”
Ada reached down and squeezed Jo’s hand. “I’m glad you felt like that with her. You deserve to be happy and find whatever you’re looking for. He doesn’t deserve any more headspace from you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Sensing that the air was about to get a little heavy, Ada laughed and lifted her brows. “So…just to clarify, you’ve been having intense, anonymous sex with a woman in the dark room, while also bonding with your ex’s mum in the lounge…all in the same night?”
Jo winced. “When you say it like that, it sounds like I’m having some kind of crisis.”
Ada shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a bad crisis. Honestly, it sounds kind of epic. But Jo…” Ada paused. “Does it not seem a bit weird that Amelia could have been there the same time you were with Lia? Like, in the same building?”
Jo groaned. “I hadn’t really let myself go there, but thanks for putting it in my head.”
“Hey, I’m just the messenger.” Ada sprawled out on the couch again. “But seriously. Do you think Amelia’s into the club for the same reasons you are? Do you think she’s into the dark rooms, too?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. We didn’t talk about our likes and dislikes as we lounged around the sex club, Ada.”
“Oh for the love of bastard God! Do you not understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Eh?” Jo frowned. She clearly wasn’t understanding what Ada was trying to say.
“Do you think Lia and Amelia could be the same person?”
Jo’s head snapped up. “What?”
Ada shrugged, completely unbothered that she’d just laid that out. “I mean, you imply that the chemistry with Lia is unlike anything you’ve known. But then you talk about Amelia in the same breath with the same kind of awe…having only had a drink with her that night. It just made me wonder.”
Jo shook her head, even though she was battling with the idea of it. “No. No, that’s not possible. Lia is younger than Amelia. I think. It’s hard to tell, but her voice feels different to Amelia’s, too.”
“Everything feels different in the dark, Jo.”
“It’s not Amelia.”
“Okay,” Ada said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “I’m just saying that Satin’s not that big. And if you keep seeing the same woman over and over again…”
“I’d know if it was Amelia.” Jo picked up the wine bottle and topped their glasses up. She felt the heat creeping onto her cheeks, but no…it couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be. “It’s not Amelia, and even if it was…Fuck, that’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.”
“Why not?” Ada asked, as though it wasn’t even an issue.
Jo looked up at her, frowning. “Because she’s Callum’s mum. Because I could have been her daughter-in-law.”
“Could being the operative word.”
Why the hell had Jo even told Ada about Amelia and her membership? “That doesn’t make it less complicated.”
Ada softened. “Jo, you’ve said it yourself. Whoever was in that room…they made you feel wanted. I don’t ever recall you saying anything similar when you were with Callum. Shit, I don’t even remember you saying it about anyone before him.”
“I know.” Jo hated that Ada was right. And now, she hated how part of her wondered.
Perhaps the next time she visited the club, more specifically the dark room, she could listen more closely to the voice in the darkness.
Maybe for clues, inflections…something. Anything.
“I just…it can’t be her,” Jo said to herself rather than to Ada.
“Okay. Then tell me what you’re going to do. About Lia. About Amelia. About all of it.”
Jo drained the last of her wine, the warmth of it doing little to ease the sudden flutter of anxiety in her chest. “I don’t know.”
Ada lowered herself to the floor, sat beside Jo, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Do you want Lia outside of that room?”
Jo swallowed. “I think so.”
“And do you want Amelia outside of that club?”
Whoa. Jo wouldn’t answer that. Not yet.
“Look, just promise me one thing…”
Jo turned her face to Ada. “What?”
“That you’ll consider whatever is happening here. Whoever she is, wherever it leads…you deserve to be happy. You deserve to be desired, and you absolutely deserve to be chosen, rather than thrown away by some little prick who thought he’d found something better.”
Jo barely managed a smile, but she nodded anyway. “Okay.”
Ada leaned back with a grin. “Good. Now finish your wine and tell me everything Lia’s done to you in the dark room. In detail.”
Jo laughed, the tension in her chest beginning to fade for the first time all night. “You’re…I don’t even know what to say.”
“There’s plenty to say…about Lia.”
Perhaps Lia was a safe choice in terms of conversation.
Jo didn’t have to wonder if it was Amelia, not right now.
No, she would do that later when she was alone, and she could freak out about it all without her best friend witnessing it.
Later, she could question fantasy and reality.
Later, she could try to figure out the woman she touched in the dark and the woman she already knew in the light.
Now wasn’t the right time. “Fine. Get another bottle from the kitchen.”