Chapter Thirteen
Daisy
“Are you okay?” Suzie studied me through the narrow slits of her eyes. “You’re usually a little more chatty. Did Brick do something?”
“Just tired,” I said timidly with a small smile. It wasn’t a lie either. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep after Mr. Langston had left me. I was in pain from his strange little visit. At the time, it had been pleasure turned torture, but now, every time that I thought about it, I grew wet. The torture was continuing. What was happening to me?
The thought of him finally entering my pussy had scared me. I’d barely slept. I knew that he wasn’t going to be tender. It was obvious that Mr. Langston didn’t do tender, and his words haunted me. He was far bigger. I wasn’t going to stretch to fit him. I was going to tear, and it would hurt like hell.
“What’s for dinner? It smells wonderful.” I said, trying to distract myself. If I thought about how Mr. Langston would be home from work soon and probably want to pick up where he left off, I’d start shaking all over again. He’d said he was going to take my virginity this morning and I’d been terrified when he walked into my room, but he simply left for work without even touching me. I should have been relieved, and while part of me was, another part—a newer part of me—longed for his touched.
“Lamb and veggies,” Suzie said. “It’s Brick’s favorite. Although, I don’t know why he texted me this morning to request it. We’d planned on lobster. I had to go grocery shopping today, and that messed my whole schedule up.”
I hid a smile as the chef fussed. One thing I knew without a doubt was that Suzie loved Brick like a son, and all that grumbling was bluster to hide the truth. “Mr. Langston says that he’s known you for a long time. How did you two meet?”
“Brick told you that?” She frowned, but shrugged as she continued to chop the veggies. “He was my neighbor while he was in college. We lived in this shitty apartment building that should have been condemned ages ago. The ceilings had water stains. The carpet was torn and moldy. The pipes leaked.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like my apartment.” Then I remembered that it wasn’t really mine anymore. “At least, the one that I grew up in.”
“Well, the last thing that I wanted was some snot-nosed kid moving in next to me. He worked at night and went to school during the day, so he was coming in at all times and slamming the door. He’d throw wild parties during the week or come stumbling home drunk and try to get into my apartment instead.”
“Wow, really?” My eyes widened. “He’s so meticulous about everything. I can’t imagine him like that.”
“Don’t let that fool you. Even as a college student, Brick was different. Driven. I think most of his antics were just a bluff. He was hiding behind that dumb frat-boy facade. Inside was a driven and intelligent young man. His senior year, I fell and broke my damn leg. He started to visit and help out. He even tried to cook for me, and that was torture in itself. So I gave him a few cooking lessons—which seemed more like a ruse because I ended up cooking for him the rest of the year.”
It was hard to imagine Mr. Langston standing at the stove and cooking for anyone. He wasn’t really the domestic sort. More like the predator type. Hunt and devour whole. “Did he move out when he graduated?”
“No. He took a good job and made some money, but he stayed in that crappy apartment until he started to rise through the ranks at the bank. Even then, I think he only gave it up so he could project a different kind of image. He had some broken roots. That’s the only reason a person would cling to a place like that, and I think that’s what he tries so hard to forget.”
Mr. Langston had told me that his grandfather was an alcoholic. I’d been dying to know more, but didn’t know how to ask. “Suzie,” I asked softly. “Has Mr. Langston ever been married? I tried to look it up online, but there’s very little about his personal life that wasn’t just tabloid speculation or pictures.”
“No. No wife. Not even a steady girlfriend.” Her knife stopped in mid-air as she paused. “Girl, you’re not getting any fanciful ideas in that head of yours, are you? Brick is not the kind of man that you fall in love with.”
My eyes widened in alarm, and I grabbed the counter to steady myself. The word lingered in my head. Love. “No. Lord, no. That’s not what I’m getting at. I just don’t know much about Mr. Langston. Or anything, really. I was just curious about why he is the way that he is.”
“Do you care to be more specific?”
“No,” I said hastily. “I’m just speaking generally.” The last thing that I wanted to discuss was Brick’s sexual proclivities. Especially with a woman who saw herself as his mother figure.
“Brick doesn’t discuss his personal life with me. I shouldn’t even be discussing his history with you. What are your plans after this month is up?” Suzie said, changing the subject.
Shifting back and forth on the balls of my feet, I thought it over. “Well, the plan was originally take the money so Ralph could get a nicer apartment here in Manhattan. We live in the Bronx, and he says that it’s not good enough to make an impression. I was going to move in with him.”
“Was?” Suzie echoed as she gathered the chopped veggies and placed them on a baking pan. She began rubbing oil and seasoning on them. “You’ve changed your mind?”
“No,” I said slowly, but knew that things were different. After only a few days of being here, I felt different. What would Ralph think when he laid eyes on me? Would he know all of the things that Mr. Langston had done to me? Would he be disgusted if I told him that I’d liked it? “I just have some thinking to do, that’s all.”
“Do you love him?”
“Ralph?” For some reason, the idea of loving Ralph was completely foreign to me, and I blinked at her.
“Yes. Your boyfriend. The one who’s getting all the good stuff out of this. Do you love him? I figured you must if you were willing to sleep with another man just so he could get a better condo.”
“It’s not like that,” I corrected quickly. “I mean, it’s kind of like that, but it’s not as cold and impersonal as your tone suggests.”
“So you do love him?” Suzie prompted as she glanced at the clock. Leaving the veggies to smoke, she opened the oven to peer on the rack of lamb. Needing to do something with my hands, I grabbed the spoon and stirred the pot of mashed potatoes warming on the stove.
“We’re comfortable together,” I said finally. “Love doesn’t always need to come first and immediately, does it? Sometimes it can just blossom over time, right?”
“You didn’t strike me as a romantic,” Suzie grumbled.
Laughing, I put the spoon down. “I’m not. Not really. I’ve always read books and seen movies and thought that relationships always started by this exploding passion. Even my parents were that way, but with them, I could see what happens when the book ends and the credits rolls. The passion turns sour. That’s why I think a relationship that starts with mutual respect and even friendship is better. You don’t make as many mistakes that way. Maybe that’s sort of the opposite of romantic though.”
She chuckled. “And the opposite of what you have with Brick.”
I clutched on to that observation like a lifeline. “Exactly. So there’s no reason to worry about getting attached to him.”
“What happened to your parents?”
Hopping up on the counter, I wrapped my arms around myself. “They were unhappy. My mother died a year ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Suzie said sympathetically. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“In a way, I think it was a blessing. She was so unhappy. Sometimes I wonder if she didn’t overdose on purpose.”
“Unhappy? With you around? You’re like this annoying little ray of sunshine that never goes away. Even your damn name is irritating.”
Suzie had a way of making me feel better, and I was grateful for it. “We had an interesting relationship. She loved me, but I think she also resented me a little. I was the reason that she didn’t leave when she wanted to. She was never really my mother though. I was more her lifeline, but even that wasn’t enough, I guess.”
“And your father?”
“He’s still alive. Found someone else,” I said shortly and shrugged.
“Why were you a virgin, Daisy? And don’t give me that crap that you just never got around to losing it. That kind of life drives women to seek comfort in others. To want to forget. You don’t drink. You don’t do drugs. You didn’t fuck around, and I don’t think it’s because you wanted to be a good person. Why?”
Gently easing down off the counter, I spread my arms. “I don’t know what to tell you. It just happened that way,” I lied. It was easier that way. Trying to describe my fear of sex was humiliating. It was painful enough to discuss my mother’s depression, but to talk about why she was like that?
I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“Fine,” the old woman grumbled as she opened the oven and put the veggies in. “Everything should be perfect in twenty minutes. Brick will be home in fifteen, so go change. Remember to pat the veggies down before you serve them. Brick doesn’t like them too oily, and only serve him a small helping of mashed potatoes.”
She’d been drilling it into my head since she got there. “Go home. Enjoy your night,” I said with a laugh. “I’m going to be fine.”
I headed to my room to change. This time, Mr. Langston had a green cocktail dress picked out for me. It was nearly as revealing as the sheer fabric that I’d worn last night, and the hem was a little higher than what made me comfortable. My curvy hips stretched the fabric a little too much, and if I bent over, far more would show than was appropriate—though I supposed that why Mr. Langston had chosen this dress.
Once again, I wasn’t to wear panties underneath either.
After refreshing what little make-up I wore and running a brush through my hair, I waited in the kitchen and tried not to panic. After Brick left me alone this morning, I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be like tonight. Would he be angry? Impatient?
Nervously, I clicked my nails on the table and stared aimlessly at the wall until realizing that the tapping of my finger was in sync with the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.
Mr. Langston was late.
I covered the pot of potatoes so they wouldn’t get cold and took the veggies out. As I patted them dry, I set the oven on low to keep the lamb warm, praying that it didn’t overcook while putting the veggies back in too.
Five minutes late turned into ten and then twenty.
Had he been in an accident?
I had no phone, no way of contacting him. After staring nervously out the window, I booted up the laptop that Mr. Langston said was okay to use and quickly went to the traffic website. There were no reports of accidents between here and the bank.
Then twenty minutes turned into thirty. I removed the food from the oven and covered it with foil. Didn’t Suzie say he was never late?
I started to pace.
Thirty minutes turned into an hour, and my panic turned into fear. What if Mr. Langston was so angry with me that he’d decided not to come home? What if he broke our arrangement? I’d be back out on the streets before dawn. Ralph would never take me in if I didn’t have the money in hand, and I had no back up plan.
Sixty minutes turned into ninety, and I managed to cut up the meat and separate them into storage containers. I cleaned the kitchen, and finally, when there was nothing left to do, went back to the computer.
If Mr. Langston was going to come home and kick me out, I’d better have a damn good reason for him not to. If I had to seduce him and please, then I needed to know exactly how to or my ass might end up sleeping on the street tonight.
My finger trembled as I typed in the search bar.
How to be a submissive.