Chapter 8
Alex
I could have slapped him. I could also, horribly, feel the low liquid tremor in my belly that his certainty kept calling forth.
He leaned back slightly. “I’m not asking you to decide blindly, Alexandra. I can show you enough now for you to know whether this is something you want.”
My pulse jumped at my throat. I didn’t think I’d ever actually felt it do that before.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, “that I’ll give you a chance to sample obedience under my direction before you accept or refuse my terms.”
Part of me felt certain I should have stood up then. Instead I sat perfectly still, every nerve suddenly alert.
He went on as if we were discussing a minor clause in a piece of legislation.
“In a moment I’m going to give you some instructions. You’ll have five minutes to consider them. If you decide you want to leave, leave. If you decide you want to know what it would be like to belong to me, even briefly, you’ll follow my instructions.”
My lips parted. I could hear my own breathing now.
“Porter—”
“Sir.”
I blinked, unsure for an instant whether he had actually spoken the monosyllable, or whether it represented some kind of auditory hallucination produced by my probably feverish mental state.
My lips parted.
“Say it,” he said. It didn’t sound like a command. It sounded like a suggestion, and the slight smile on his perfect lips strengthened that impression. But that made it worse, because the suggestion was that I start following his… my potential sponsor’s… commands.
His smile broadened slightly. His eyes crinkled. My heart skipped a beat.
“Alright. We can wait on that one. Not long, or your backside will pay for it, but—”
“What?” I demanded, my eyes going very wide. I looked around, suddenly sure that everyone in the café had heard.
“You heard me,” Porter said, his voice suddenly flinty and his eyes narrowing. “And you’ll definitely need to learn not to interrupt me.”
My skin prickled with mortification.
He folded his hands on the table. His smile reappeared, and to my dismay my chest warmed again.
“There’s a single-occupancy restroom at the back of the café.
If you want to try this, you’ll get up from this table and walk to that restroom.
You’ll go inside and lock the door. I’ll give you a little time, during which you will undress to your lingerie.
Then I’ll come to the door. I’ll knock twice, pause, and then knock three times.
You’ll open the door. I’ll come in, and I’ll teach you your first lesson. ”
The words seemed to enter my body more directly than my mind.
I stared at him. “In the bathroom of a café?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“A little, maybe, from the standpoint of your previous life.” He held my gaze. “So is downloading Selecta Arrangements the morning after being fired for taking a senator’s cock and his belt in the same evening.”
The shock of hearing it said so plainly made me flinch as if he had struck me.
“Stop,” I whispered.
“Do you want me to?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer.
He let the silence sit there, then said, “The lesson will not be random. I’ll begin by seeing how well you follow simple instructions given you by a dominant man.
I’ll see whether your body tells the same truth your pride keeps trying to conceal.
And I’ll decide whether I’m interested in the effort required to train you. ”
Train you.
My nipples tightened almost painfully under the ivory lace. I crossed my legs without thinking about it.
I watched him observe the movement, and more heat came to my face.
“Ten thousand,” I said, because I had to say something. My voice sounded thin. “That’s… excessive.”
“For most girls, perhaps. You’re more valuable than most girls, I believe, as an associate member.”
The bluntness of that made me blush again. I could practically hear sexual servant through the sounds of associate member.
“And,” he added, “you will require more work.”
To my horror, I clenched, down there, at this statement that should have offended the hell out of me.
My shaking hand brushed the water glass. I didn’t trust myself to bring it to my lips.
“You’re talking as if I’m already yours.” I realized I had begun to try to buy time, but I had no idea what else to do.
“No,” he said. “I’m talking as if you’re standing on the threshold of a choice and pretending not to recognize the doorway.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know me.”
He looked almost bored by that. “I know enough to know that Senator Gowry did not invent your response to authority. He only found a crude way to exploit it.”
The accuracy of that hit me like a brick to the head. I felt like I should hate him for seeing even that much.
“I said I don’t want to talk about that.”
“And I said I’d make it simple. If you want ten thousand a month, a subsidized apartment, and my mentoring, then eventually you will tell me exactly what happened and let me decide what kind of correction you need for what you did with your lovely body.
If you don’t want that, leave now and we’ll never speak again.
” He glanced at his watch. “If you want to test whether obedience to me is something your body and mind can bear, you have five minutes.”
He took out his phone.
Just like that.
The conversation, or that part of it, was apparently over.
He unlocked the screen and began typing with efficient attention, as if he had not just overturned my entire inner life in the space of three minutes.
I sat there in shocked stillness.
My heart had started to pound so hard that my blouse felt too tight.
My breathing had gone shallow. I was suddenly afraid I might actually faint, here among marble tables and pastries and people discussing absolutely ordinary things while I sat across from a man who had offered to pay me ten thousand dollars a month to become, in essence, his trained sexual possession.
I told myself to stand up.
I told myself to tell him to go to hell.
I told myself to throw the water in his face, or at least to pick up my bag and leave with whatever remained of my dignity.
Instead I sat motionless and watched him answer email.
As far as I could tell, he was not paying any attention to me at all. That was what undid me the most thoroughly.
If he had watched me, I thought I could have resisted him.
If he had smirked, I could have hated him cleanly.
If he had leaned forward and coaxed, I could have called it manipulation.
But he simply gave me a structure, a time limit, and then withdrew his visible interest as though my choice belonged to me and he had no need to beg for it to go in his favor.
My fingers had gone cold. Under the table my thighs were pressed together so tightly they ached.
I looked toward the back of the café without meaning to. A short hallway. A dark little sign. Restrooms.
My pulse lurched.
No.
Absolutely not.
I picked up my bag. My hand shook so badly I nearly fumbled the strap. Porter did not look up.
Good, I thought wildly. Fine. Good. I’m leaving.
I stood.
The room felt slightly tilted. I had that odd sensation again of watching myself from a step outside my own body: the red-haired woman in the neat skirt and blouse rising from the table where a rich, self-possessed man sat with his phone…
the same woman, aware of the sexy lingerie under her clothes, face flushed, breathing too fast.
Leave, I told myself.
I turned.
I took one step, then another.
Not toward the door, but toward the back of the café.
My mind seemed to lag behind my body by a full second. By the time I understood where I was going, I was already crossing the café, passing the pastry case, moving down the short corridor.
I could still stop. I could keep walking, turn left, go out through the service exit if I had to, vanish into the city and delete the app forever.
Instead I reached the restroom door, glanced once over my shoulder, and saw only the corridor behind me.
My hand found the knob, I slipped inside the door and locked it behind me.
The room was small and surprisingly elegant, floral wallpaper above white tile, a brass-framed mirror, a little sink with folded linen hand towels instead of paper.
The air smelled faintly of soap and coffee and something citrusy.
I stood with my back to the door, my bag still clutched in one hand, trying to breathe.
What the hell was I doing?
I set my bag on the counter because I had to do something with my hands. In the mirror I looked flushed, wild-eyed, too bright. My blouse lay smoothly enough over my breasts, but I could see the faint rise and fall of my chest from breathing too hard.
I should unlock the door and leave right now, I thought.
I didn’t move. The passing seconds seemed to thicken.
My hands rose to the first button of my blouse and then stopped there.
I stared at myself in the mirror as if the woman reflected there might decide for me.
Strip, and this became unmistakably real.
Don’t strip, and perhaps I could still tell myself I had only come back here to prove I could leave.
My fingers trembled against the button. I imagined easing the blouse off my shoulders, standing in the little floral bathroom in my ivory bra and panties waiting for him like some kind of arranged toy, and heat rushed through me so hard I had to grip the edge of the sink.
I didn’t do it, but I didn’t leave either.
I was still standing there with my blouse on and my skirt smooth over my hips when the knock came: two measured taps, a pause, then three.
My whole body jumped. For one panicked second I just stared at the door, behind me in the mirror’s reflection, incapable of movement. Then I turned and unlocked it.