A text from Lizzie pops up like a pimple a couple nights later. You around?

Hand shaking, I run my fingers through my hair and pitch the phone onto my pillow. I refuse to let her suck me into answering.

Ignore her like she ignored you. She’s just more drama you don’t need.

Buzz. Buzz.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Don’t look, Frost. Go yell at the kids. They’re gonna be late for their last show.

“Jillian,” Letty hollers down the aisle, waving a blue bottle with white shit streaming down its sides. “I thought you were picking up my shampoo from Lush. What the fuck is this shit? It smells like a donkey’s ass, post-rimjob by a vulture.”

Letty stands at the back of the bus with a towel wrapped around her, dripping water all over the floor that tends to become very slippery when it’s wet. I broke the mop yesterday after she spilled a mostly full can of Coke someone left open in the fridge and promptly slid through my own cleaning effort to crash land on my ass, which hasn’t healed from the beating it took under Lizzie’s hands.

“Do you not squeeze your hair out when you shower?” I yell. “What the fuck are you doing to my floor?” I storm forward, shooing her toward the stall.

“This shampoo sucks, man!” she argues.

“Then go buy it yourself.” I push her into the shower cubicle, spin her around to face the wall, and snag the thick wad of her red hair. “I bend over backward for you, and all you do is fucking complain.” I twist with all my might, and water sloughs out in a gush, mostly down my sleeves.

“Goddammit.” I drop her hair and shake the droplets from my ruined suit.

Letty turns around. “Can you brush it for me?”

Fury wicks up my throat and explodes from my mouth. “NO, Letty. I can’t brush your hair. I have to make sure the stage is set after you fired that roadie the other day.” I shove a nearby brush from the small vanity into her hand, unsure whether it’s hers. “You’re an adult. Handle your own shit.”

She sticks out her bottom lip. “But you do it better.”

She would know. Because I do do it better. Almost every day.

I mentally add “hairstylist” to my imaginary résumé, chock-full of jobs I don’t get paid for.

“Please, Jillian?” With pleading eyes, she holds out the brush.

Biting off the retort aimed at her face, I snatch the tool back. Why do I let people walk all over me?

Because you’re a Grade A sucker. For everyone.

“Letty, I want you to look me in the eyes and listen to what I’m about to say. I am not a hairstylist.”

“Yes, you—”

“No. I’m not. I’m your manager. Nowhere in my job description does it say, ‘Brush Letty’s hair. Dry Letty’s hair. Fix Letty’s hair.’ Those are all Letty’s jobs. If you can’t handle them yourself, I suggest you consider hiring someone who’s qualified to do it. Italics on the word hire.”

Her face falls. The rock in my gut plummets with it. “But you never had a problem helping me before.”

I shut my eyes for a long moment. She’s right. I never bucked against the extraneous tasks until recently, when I became selfish about my own needs.

I force Letty’s head down, draw a part through the middle of her scalp, and brush the hair to either side. “Let me put it another way. From now on, I’d … appreciate it if you would handle your hair yourself. Is that doable?”

Her shoulders slouch. “I guess so. It’s just that I never had anyone take care of me like you do. My mom wasn’t around much when I was a kid. I didn’t have anyone but my crazy old grandma to play with, and all she wanted to do when she babysat was drink the vinegar from pickle jars and make the empties into little dioramas of rattlesnake round-ups featuring stick people and serpents made of pipe cleaners with googly eyes. I didn’t have a big sister or an aunt who helped me with hair or makeup or clothes or life shit. That’s why I kinda like it when you spend time with me.”

She looks away. I hurt her feelings.

I should try to be more understanding. But damn it, I’m tired.

“I’m sure Jinx would be happy to help you.” I run the brush through a long stripe of red, gently snagging out the knots.

Letty doesn’t answer.

I finish my work quickly and pass the brush to her. “I put your dry cleaning in your trundle.”

She nods and grabs the hair dryer. I pat her shoulder and return to the phone I left in my bunk.

Lizzie’s second message reads: I need to see you.

Fuck. I need to see her too.

“All right, children,” I shout and clap loudly. “Time to get moving. Showtime is one hour, and you gotta give it your all for this last show.”

Grumbles and protests mount the air and fuck it into submission.

Ah, to be the air.

* * *

“I can’t deal with your shit anymore,” I tell Lizzie over FaceTime. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

A mask of coolness slides into place, but not before a cloud of disappointment shadows her face. “What ‘shit’ are you specifically referring to?” she asks.

I sigh and glance out the dark bus window. No one’s home but me. The children are celebrating the end of their run with Just Breathe, chatting with fans, probably lobbing dirty promises back and forth to enact later in their bunks. Business as usual for them, abrupt end of a major tour notwithstanding.

“You’re the very definition of mercurial, Lizzie. And I—” I shake my head and return to the face filling my phone’s screen. “I need something a little more stable in my life.”

“I was a dick at the hotel.” She adjusts in her seat, which appears to be a couch similar to the one I’m sitting on. Dark bus. Alone. We’re not so different.

“Yeah. You were.”

Her eyes flash, but she doesn’t respond.

“I’m new to this … lifestyle,” I confess, “so maybe I don’t understand it completely, but a friend told me—and I believe this to be true—that after one engages in the type of play you and I did, aftercare should follow.”

Lizzie leans into the screen. The freckles taunt me from underneath a layer of makeup. They get me every time.

“I don’t do that shit. It’s not in my nature to coddle people.”

“It’s not in mine either. But a little pillow talk and an affectionate slap on the ass when I left wouldn’t have hurt.”

She stares me down. I’m struck once again by her overwhelming … presence.

“I just wanted a little more than you’re willing to give.” I pick absently at a fingernail that needs trimming. “So, I can’t see you anymore.”

She sits back and pulls up a knee, hooking her arm around it. “No is not a word allowed in my submissives’ vocabulary.”

I grit my teeth to suppress a bitter laugh.

“This,” I gesture to her and then to myself, “is over. I can’t take your beatings—physical or emotional—and get nothing in return.”

That came out harsher than I meant, but it’s true.

She throws her hands up. “Okay, then what, Jillian? What do you want in return? You wanna renegotiate this arrangement?”

Now I do laugh. “Arrangement? Is that what you call it? Because it feels more like a dine-and-dash to me. What we have is one-sided. That’s more of an edict than an ‘arrangement,’ don’t you think?”

“Don’t be that way, Jillian.”

My kindling ire erupts. “Don’t be what? Sensitive? Self-preserving? Cautious? What do you suggest I be, then?”

“I told you I like you,” she snaps.

“Yeah. And I like you. But I don’t like the way you treat me.”

“That’s what Domination is. Lording over someone. Making them do your bidding. Owning them.”

My head threatens to go Exorcist. “Here’s where we’ll have to agree to disagree. I may not be well indoctrinated into the lifestyle, but I’ve heard tell that submission is a gift. What you’re talking about is megalomania. Extreme self-absorption. Vanity. With a side of sadism.”

She shakes out her hair and studies the ends of a handful. “No one else has ever complained before.”

I snort disgustedly. “Goodbye, Lizzie.”

With those two words, everything changes. Her haughty expression dissolves into desperation, and a hand flies out as if to catch me through the vacuum of cyberspace. “Wait. I’m sorry. Don’t go.”

Who the hell is this woman? Or am I dealing with multiple personalities?

“I need you,” she says.

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“I’m working on it.” She sucks in a gulp of air and lets it out slowly. “When Miles approached me about meeting you at the club, I blew him off. He said you were older and had no experience with the lifestyle. I wasn’t interested in training a baby sub past her prime. No offense.”

Plenty taken.

“I’m a demanding Domme in the bedroom and out. With my career, I don’t have time for bullshit. So, I told him no. But he wouldn’t let it go.”

That’s Miles. A clinger if there ever was one.

“He promised you’d be worth it.” She meets my gaze through the screen. “And you were.”

“Why bother with me now?” It hurts to ask, knowing I probably won’t like the answer. “Why come back for another helping?”

“Because you’re different.” Her voice softens. Earnestness fills her eyes. “I’m not sure if it’s the submissive side of you—the lack of experience, the hesitance, the self-consciousness in the bedroom—or the Dominant side that takes control, stands up for herself, gives no fucks, and takes no shit. One or the other strums my chords.”

I stretch uncomfortably.

“I live my life jumping from bottom to bottom in search of the ultimate thrill. I have everything I want, and what I don’t have, Richard can get for me at the drop of a text. If I’m game to flog and fuck a pretty transgender whore with fake eyelashes and the best tits money can buy, I flog and fuck her. There’s an endless supply of free, gag-me-beat-me-stab-me pussy right outside any given hotel room. Except for you. The one person who refused to take my bait. You don’t fit my pattern, Jillian. You changed it.”

The enormity of those words throat-punches me.

“You’re the challenge I have yet to master.” She tilts her head. Hair falls in her eyes, and she lights a cigarette. My mouth waters. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to own your ass.”

To break my ass, more like.

Her card with the phone number going up in flames dances on the IMAX screen in my mind.

She can’t stand that I refused to call her.

Despite all the power she wields over me, an unintended loophole entitles me to one tiny corner of the kingdom she can’t have unless I choose to give it up. The thought of controlling that small piece of emotional real estate in her near-monopoly infuses me with hope. And a hint of excitement.

Loopholes are awesome.

“I get so hot thinking about everything you gave me when you were with Miles and Red, and then with me in my hotel room.” Her body unfolds from a tight ball of raw nerves to a loose conglomeration of vengeance-seeking missiles aimed right between my thighs. She sets the phone on a table and falls against the couch behind her, legs parted enough to reveal black underwear beneath a short red skirt. Her freckled shoulders tease me from either side of her tank top straps with a subtle shake.

“Your submission was so … resistant. Like you fought it the entire time, and finally came to terms with it at the very end. Every muscle slack, the vision blasted clean out of your eyes, bathed in unapologetic sweat. You were a fucking masterpiece of permission granted.” Her thighs spread farther apart.

“Fuck. I’m wet now.” Her sly grin is nothing like the high and mighty one she normally wears. This one is all sizzle with none of the sass.

“I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I say. The promise of slack muscles, dead vision, and a sweat bath threatens to pay another visit.

“I think the appropriate response in this situation would be to get wet with me.”

Shaking my head, I laugh. “You’re a bitch, Lizzie. I wish I didn’t want you—” so badly. I gather my head-game cards and hold them close to my chest. She’s a tough one to bluff. “I wish I didn’t want you to talk dirty to me.”

“A little dirty talk never hurt anyone.” She pops her index finger in her mouth and swirls it around like a lollipop. I would love a lick of that shit.

“Your turn,” she purrs, snuggling up to the camera. I imagine I’m lying with her in the bed, gazing into her eyes, falling for her lies and not even caring. It’s too damn easy to get lost in her web and too damn hard for a weak insect like me to break free of its silk chains.

I’m starstruck. That’s what’s wrong with me. The official diagnosis.

“I didn’t know who you were when we first met,” I say. “My initial attraction had nothing to do with your fame. It was you. Your voice. Your attitude. The whole package. Just you.”

She bites her lip and holds it for a moment. “That’s not what I mean by dirty talk, but keep going,” she teases.

“When you walk into a room, you own it.”

“Being constantly in the spotlight wears me down.” Confidence flees her voice like an exhaled breath. She grabs a pillow, hugs it with one arm, and puffs on her cigarette with the other.

A confession? From my tough-as-nails Domme? Maybe I’m finally breaking through the rock-hard shell to the oyster’s hidden pearl underneath. My heart smiles.

“I can imagine,” I say. “Killer Buzz Float is popular, but not like Banging Betties. You’re regulars on TMZ, People magazine, and Entertainment Weekly.” KBF will be too one day when people realize how talented they are. Art prevails. It has to.

“Do you have any idea how much fame fucks with your head?” she says.

“No.” Fame hasn’t affected my band negatively. There was the alcoholic thing with Rax, but he’s sorted now. Other than that, they’ve handled their popularity well.

“I can’t go into a public bathroom alone. I can’t eat a meal at a restaurant without being interrupted ten times for autographs and selfies. If I gain so much as a pound, the media’s all over me. ‘Is Lizzie Smith pregnant? Check out her baby bump!’ Seriously, it’s exhausting.” Another drag off her cigarette. “I’m a slave to the world.”

Maybe that’s why she’s such a cantankerous twat in public.

“So, you take point in the bedroom because it’s the only way for you to feel like you’re in control,” I venture.

She doesn’t answer.

“I’m a slave too, but for different reasons,” I say, taking her silence for agreement. “I do everything for the band. Direct every minute of their lives when they step off the bus. Sometimes, I just want someone else to handle shit. I guess that makes us opposites.”

“That makes us compatible.” Dropping her voice, she leans closer to her phone and blows a smoke ring at the screen.

I’m not so sure about compatible, but I can’t deny the flare in my gut every time she implies she wants me. Is that so bad? To be wanted? Even if it’s for selfish reasons?

“Give me another chance to handle you, Jillian. Let me have control over one fucking thing in my life.”

“Was that a request or a demand?”

“A request.”

I grunt. Now’s as good a time as any to tell her the news. She may as well hear it from me first. “We’ll be joining your tour soon.”

Her blue eyes widen and brighten. “Seriously?” She stabs out her cigarette on the top of a Coke Zero can.

“Yeah. Just Breathe had to cancel their remaining shows, and Killer Buzz Float agreed to give Get Your Rock Off a shot.”

A smile spreads over her face like the sun murdering a shadow. “I knew you’d come around. This was meant to be.”

In a world where fate likes to fuck me rigorously with power tools, maybe.

“You can stay on my bus. I’ll spoil you rotten.” She seems genuinely excited, which makes me guardedly excited with the possibility of becoming extremely excited.

“You’ll be my pet. I’ll take such good care of you.” Her purr is like a pat on the crotch.

My underwear springs a leak.

“We’ll see. I’ll be working, and so will you. My first commitment is to my band, but whatever time I have outside of that is yours.” I can’t believe I just said that.

“All mine?”

I fall further and further away from myself toward her, circling at the bottom of the pit I swore I wouldn’t fall into again. The landing is like dropping onto a satin cloud blinged out with rainbows and moonbeams.

All great until the next storm arrives. Where’s the killer lightning bolt hiding?

Sometimes, you gotta stick your finger in the wall socket, even though you know it’s gonna zap the fuck out of you. The thrill of the challenge is just too damn tempting not to.

I sigh. “Yes. All yours.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

“Lizzie?” someone offscreen calls.

Lizzie’s expression flickers with frustration. “Gotta go. Call me. Can’t wait to play with you again.” She kisses her fingers and holds the lipstick stain up to the camera just before it goes blank.

Her pet. She said I’d be her pet on the new tour.

Jesus Bitch-on-a-Leash Christ. I need a cigarette.