Chapter 2
Ophelia. Now.
Here’s the story.
Two months ago, I thought I was getting a proposal.
I know what you’re thinking: Ophelia! You’re young! You’re beautiful! Play the field, who needs to settle down?
Yeah, been there. Done that.
You want the truth?
I’m tired of sex.
I’ve had it all. Men, women. Cougars and playboys. And it was fun for a time, but I’m thirty-five now, and I’m not ashamed to say I want romance. I want companionship. I want a husband. Not a partner, not a fling, but someone who will proudly take my hand in his and say, Mine.
I thought I had that with Brody.
Last December, I got all of my friends together to celebrate my birthday.
Brody surprised me by sending me on a scavenger hunt he’d set up in advance.
For hours, me and my friends went bar-hopping all around the city.
We hunted for clues and found little riddles he’d left stuffed in Christmas ornaments.
The scavenger hunt ultimately led me to Brody.
We’d been dating for a little over a year, and I thought he was going to propose.
Instead, I found him locking lips with another woman at The Carousel Bar, a circus-themed strip club.
On my birthday. With all of my friends there to witness our public, humiliating break up.
At least, that’s how I thought it went.
But Phantom was there. Lingering in the shadows.
Controlling me.
Controlling us all.
Phantom is my dominant. That is, I go to his club every Friday and he spanks me until I scream. Or ties me up and drips wax on me. Or tells me what a good girl I’m being while he suspends me from the ceiling with loops of rope.
If you’re thinking: wow, Ophelia, you’re a whore for having a boyfriend and a dominant, one, they both know about each other, and two, it’s not sexual between me and Phantom. Well, not anymore. Since I started dating Brody, Phantom and I have been nothing but totally platonic play partners.
I’ll explain all of that later.
What you need to know is that I have finally put two and two together. It was Phantom, not Brody, who set me up that night, and Phantom, not Brody, who decided that it was time to end my relationship with Brody by unveiling him for the cheater he is.
I drop my niece and nephew off at Aleena’s, and I’m boiling over with so much rage, I can barely sit still on the bus ride back home.
I rip my notebook out of my bag and start to write.
My pen starts moving and won’t stop for ten pages.
I title it: “Terms of Release.” Then I whip out my phone and text Phantom.
[Text: Ophelia]
We need to talk.