DAY THIRTY

I’d never been to the Cellar outside a tryout night. Without the amateur population, it was much emptier and had the feel of an exclusive gathering place, rather than a nightclub.

Stefan met me in the lobby, wearing a sweater with his collared shirt and a pair of slim slacks. He’d told me to wear whatever I thought would help me achieve my goal for the evening. I didn’t tell him my goal. He was trying to get it out of me.

I’d chosen a long silk skirt and heels. The skirt covered me to the ankles but was so tight my goose bumps showed.

Adam had started texting me at four thirty.

I didn’t answer the first time.

I hoped he felt his power waning. I hoped he felt the weight of day thirty. I hoped he wanted to make it the most memorable day of the past month and I was thwarting him by not giving a shit.

Which was untrue. I gave a shit. Just not the same shit.

I called Stefan. I lobbed the ball high assuming he wouldn’t catch it, but he did. That was the problem with asking people to help you do crazy things.

Sometimes they said yes.

* * *

Stefan signed me into the Cellar as a guest.

“I want to tell you something,” I said in the elevator ride up to the Cellar’s sixth floor.

“Yes?” Stefan answered, hands in his pockets as if it were the only way he could keep himself from using them brutally.

“Serena’s after Adam. She thinks she can make him happy where I failed.”

“And vice versa.”

The elevator doors opened, and we went to the bar.

“You knew?”

“I know her. Inside and out.”

Could I say the same of Adam? Did I know him inside and out? I did, but it hadn’t helped me one bit.

“You can stay close to me,” he said.

“Okay.”

Stefan pulled a chair for me at a little table by the window and ordered two ginger ales. At the bar, I recognized the young Dom from my first visit, when I’d gotten pulled into a dark room to watch a woman get paddled. He was in a crisp white shirt open at the neck and a grey sports jacket, talking to a woman in a business suit.

“If you have any plans,” Stefan said when he saw me watching the young Dom, “consider me first. For your own safety.”

Stefan was still Stefan. He still didn’t care for Adam, yet he tied himself to a man he didn’t like in an obsessive knot I didn’t understand. If I could hazard a guess, Stefan didn’t understand it either.

“Really? Safety?”

“I’m less of a wild card than you think.”

I’d have to consider it. If I was going to continue experimenting in this world, I would have to weigh my options. Stefan was attractive. He respected me. He was probably more hardcore than I was ready for but—

“Well,” I said, sitting up straighter. “You might want to turn around.”

He raised an eyebrow, finally turning when I nodded.

Serena stood in the doorway, looking so confident a normal person wouldn’t believe she was submissive. I wanted to look that confident. I wanted to fully submit and fully dominate at the same time, just like Serena.

Stefan only had eyes for her.

I didn’t want what they had. Their relationship walked too many wires, was too high maintenance, too brutal and servile.

Locking eyes with her, Stefan grabbed my hand across the table. “Now. Please.”

The please was more of a command than appeal. She turned her head away and went to the bar.

Stefan took his eyes from her and met mine. “I can give you what you want, however you want.”

“Are you trying to make her jealous?”

“Come.” He stood and held out his hand.

His Dominant voice had no effect on me. He was good, but he wasn’t Adam.

I stood without his help. “Listen to me, you need to try something different. She’s not coming back to you over sharing. Give her a reason to want you.”

“I know her,” he hissed.

“Apparently not. You’re invested in keeping Adam and me together so she comes back to you. Get her back because she loves you.”

Stefan and I were locked in a dead heat when an Australian-accented voice came from behind me.

“I just got the most interesting text.” Charlie leaned on his cane.

“Let me guess,” I said, letting Stefan watch Serena get a drink. “Is my wife there? You said yes. He said he was on his way. How long do I have?”

“This is getting old,” Charlie said, leaning on Stefan’s chair.

“At some point, he’s going to have to just deal with the fact that I have a body and I’m going to do what I want with it.”

“This is his club, missy.” Charlie’s voice was unusually sharp. “This is his safe space.”

“Missy?” I sat so I could be eye-to-eye with him. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’m talking to one half of a hot mess. The closer you get to what makes you happy, the more miserable he’s going to be. And the only way for him to be happy is for you to forget all this and be miserable. What you two need is a few miles between you. Indefinitely.”

Fuck him. He was butting in where he had no business butting. I sipped my ginger ale to hide the tension in my mouth. Scanning for Serena, I caught the eye of the young Dom in the white shirt. He raised his eyebrows just a little. Enough to let me know he wasn’t looking at me by accident.

“He’s like an alcoholic.” I looked back at Charlie. I could have made a speech about my explorations and self-actualization, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. They were too abstract. “He’s addicted to ideas about who he can love. You know the best thing for an alcoholic? Hit bottom.”

Hit bottom. Make it worse by far. Take it as far as it would go. Was that the answer? Or would it make reconciliation impossible? And if it did mean Adam and I were finished forever, did that also mean that was best for both of us?

“People break up all the time. We’re not inventing anything new.”

“On the contrary.” He leaned both hands on his cane. “You two are definitely inventing something new.”

“Then let’s not pretend to follow the old rules.” I picked up my bag and coat and walked past him.

He laid his hand on my arm. Not a hard or threatening gesture, but it made me stop. “Where are you going?”

“Winning the race to the bottom.”

I walked to the bar before he could ask me to explain. I made sure the young Dom saw me, but he was talking to a woman. I couldn’t approach directly.

I needn’t have worried. He met me halfway across the room.

“Hello,” I said, folding my coat in front of me.

“I was hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you.”

“About?”

He didn’t pause a beat. “About where our needs intersect.”

“I have a need.”

“Tell me.”

“My husband.”

“Your husband?”

“You might know him. Adam Steinbeck.”

“Adam Steinbeck?”

“Is there an echo in here?”

He laughed a little. Nice smile. Nice face. I convinced myself I could do this.

“You intrigue me past original thought,” he said. “Tell me more.”

“I was with him when you paddled a sub in one of the rooms back there.”

“And?”

“And it looked like fun.”

He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly. “I like fun as much as the next guy. Adam hasn’t been around in years, now his wife shows up wanting a paddling? Is he allowing it?”

“No. But he doesn’t want me. He dropped me. So I can get my paddlings anywhere I want.”

He crossed his arms. “What’s your end game, Mrs. Steinbeck?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Get him pissed enough to do it himself. He won’t because I’m his wife. I need him to address our intersecting needs, as you say. If you do it, he might wake up out of his stupor.”

“You know how foolish that is, right?”

“He’s on his way.”

His grey eyes lit up, and he put on a mischievous grin. “We’d better get to it then. My name is Chris.”

“Diana. Nice to meet you.”

He led me to the back. When I looked back, Charlie was no longer at the table. Serena was at the bar. I turned the corner with the vision of Stefan five feet from her, standing stock still as if afraid to approach. Three weeks earlier, I wouldn’t have believed Stefan was afraid of anything, Serena least of all. Maybe it would be a night of shattered assumptions.