SIXTEEN

Athena paused outside of Release, shifting from foot to foot. Was this the right thing to do? Of course it was. Three months. She and Dale had been together for three months. Though it seemed like the relationship was progressing so well on all fronts, this remained a hitch. He commanded her in the bedroom and often out of it, when that gave both of them pleasure, but whenever the topic of the club was broached, she stalled, and he saw it.

He’d told her that she didn’t need to worry about it. When she was ready, he would know, and then, objections or no, they’d go. She’d tensed up over that possibility, but as the weeks passed and he didn’t act upon it, she relaxed. Until she started to feel like a coward. Crossing that last bridge with him was a signal she was ready to be his, unconditionally. He’d given her so much, she wanted to give him that gift. She didn’t want to blight their relationship with one thorny trust issue. She needed to show she was ready to do this. So she’d decided on a test run of sorts, by herself.

It was a good time to do it. Dale was in Houston tonight, visiting and helping out a family where the husband and father was a deployed SEAL. She would have accompanied him, since she’d been invited, but she’d had a couple of unavoidable work issues.

Though being away from him was never easy, work had become more so these days. For one thing, ever since the night of the dinner, Larry had been noticeably better, less aggressive in the board meetings, demonstrating more of his pluses than his minuses. Whatever had changed, she hoped it was permanent, though she remained distantly cordial, not wanting to encourage him back to bad habits. When she’d mentioned that to Dale, she’d earned herself a frown and a rather thrilling punishment.

He’d told her that she didn’t encourage the man at all—that his character was flawed, not her behavior. Then he’d stretched her arms above her head, hooking them on the weight machine in the rec room. He tied her up in one of those beautiful and erotic rope harnesses he did so well. When she was bound from throat to thighs, he had three knots placed strategically against her clit and labia, such that as he used a paddle on her with powerful, stinging strokes, she writhed and stimulated herself. He’d drawn it out, increasing the pain to balance the pleasure, until she was pleading with him to let her come.

He only gave her the command when she stated three times that she was not responsible for Larry’s actions. She’d soaked the nylon of those knots with her climax. After that, he’d gagged her with that piece, tying it around her head. She tasted her release as he put her over the arm of an overstuffed chair and fucked her hard, making her come again.

She swallowed on a dry throat at the memory. Though they weren’t in “active” session all the time, in some ways she thought of them as a 24/7, because the Dominant side of him and the submissive side of her was always there, right beneath the surface, in everything they did. It was as if being together so much allowed her to reveal how much of her personality went in that direction, and of course it was clear how much of his did.

They’d met Matt and Savannah for dinner one night, an invitation initiated by Dale. The lovely rose quartz and silver choker Savannah wore must hold the same significance as Athena’s Trident pendant, since she saw Matt put his hand on her neck once or twice and do the same maneuver Dale did with her on frequent occasions, a light tug while sliding a finger between warm skin and the metal, a reminder of its significance.

—

As she entered the club and drew in the familiar scents, she saw that they’d added a couple new pieces of equipment and changed out some of the wall art, keeping the erotic prints fresh and interesting. But Jimmy was behind the bar as usual. He was talking to a couple of the Dommes, that easy flirting he did so well with men and women alike. The man was a bit of a chameleon, all told, though she’d heard less magnanimous members hint that he was merely uncommitted, as if being a switch, keeping his options open, was a bad thing. As if a set-in-stone, black-or-white classification was necessary to gauge a person’s value.

It was part of the reason she was here tonight, right? Actually, both reasons explained her presence here tonight. She’d decided to leave behind one classification and embrace another. The key had been in Dale’s words. Ultimately you have to make a choice. Or I’ll walk. No, he hadn’t been talking about this, but she wouldn’t let this one issue erode their growing relationship.

As she moved to the bar, Jimmy saw her. His eyes lit up, reassuring her. “Hey, Lady Mistress. What’s up?”

It jarred her. She’d forgotten the name they called her. Wasn’t it odd, that something she’d been called for nearly five years in this environment had slipped her mind, obliterated by what she’d become under Dale’s command, something that felt so much more like what she was?

“Hi, Jimmy,” she said with a casualness she didn’t feel. Was this a good idea? Yes. She needed to do this, get the first obstacle out of the way, see how it went. No need to make Dale suffer through this awkward and potentially disastrous foray.

“Diet Coke as usual?” He reached for the bottle.

“That would be great.” She nodded to the other two women. “Mistress Sheila, Mistress Amy.”

“Lady Mistress. Good to see you tonight. Are you playing?”

She imagined Dale’s reaction to that, the feelings he’d made clear about any other man touching her. She was his, utterly and exclusively. It gave her the courage to meet Sheila’s gaze, shake her head. “Not tonight. Actually, there’ve been some changes in my life.” She touched her necklace. She hadn’t intended to use it to initiate the discussion, but in this environment, it was pretty clear what it was, so it might make some of the elaborate explanations she’d rehearsed on the way over here unnecessary.

It did that, and then some. The shift in their expressions from warm welcome to silent shock made it clear they’d understood the message. It also gave her a premonition that things weren’t going to go as well as she’d hoped. Or maybe just as bad as she expected, given that a fearful tension broke loose inside her that was all too familiar. Over the past few weeks, she’d done such a good job of compartmentalizing it, she’d forgotten how deep her dread about this moment was. Those unlocked emotions surged up now, filling her mind to the walls during the silence.

Jimmy was the first to break it, giving the other two women an unfathomable look before he spoke. “You playing with the switch side of things?”

“Yes. No.” She corrected herself, not allowing herself the out. She closed cold hands in her lap, covering their sudden trembling. This was a mistake, this was a mistake.

No, you can do this. You’re being silly and melodramatic.

This was your and Roy’s place. You have no place here anymore. You need to go.

She set her jaw. “Actually, I was a Mistress to my husband because that was what he wanted, and I wanted to be what he needed. I’m a submissive, Jimmy. I always have been.”

He blinked, processing that. Sheila and Amy exchanged a glance. “Told you,” Amy said to the other Mistress.

Athena’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry?”

Amy shrugged. “I told Sheila it felt like you were faking it sometimes. Don’t get me wrong. It was a good fake, but it didn’t come off right. When you were in session, you did everything right, but it was almost too perfect. Plus you didn’t act the same way toward him after, when you were hanging out together here. Like you just turned it on and off. And you never had the same vibe toward any of the other submissives.”

She couldn’t argue with any of it, but the word fake felt wrong to her. It hadn’t felt fake to Roy, and that was what was important, wasn’t it? Even more vital, it hadn’t felt fake to her. It hadn’t been what she was, but she’d viewed it no differently than watching a football game with him or him attending a book reading with her, things neither of them would choose to do themselves, but they enjoyed because of how the other enjoyed it. They’d liked pleasing one another, and that was a different type of enjoyment, no less real, because it all was part of loving one another. How could she explain that? She couldn’t of course. It was too personal, too intimate.

Sheila shook her head. “No offense, but do you know how often I have to deal with the ‘you must have been abused by your daddy, that’s why you’re a Domme’ or ‘you just haven’t had a real man’? Or worse, the guys who think I’m one step away from a whore, ‘playing’ Mistress to meet their needs? What you did just underscores that attitude.”

“This is a private membership club,” Athena said evenly. “I came here to serve my husband, not to make a public statement about being a Domme.”

“Whatever.” Sheila slid off the stool. “Go kiss your Master’s ass. C’mon, Amy.”

Amy gave her another look, an additional shrug as if to say, “it is what it is,” then followed her. They were headed to the suspension room, probably to hook up with one of the watching submissives in there.

“Here’s your drink.” Jimmy placed the cup at her wrist. Another couple had sat down on the other end of the bar, and he gave her a nod before he turned to them. But his welcome had definitely cooled. Not him, too?

She could have moved away, but she wasn’t going to leave it there. After he took care of them, she drew his attention by lifting the cup. As he returned to her, she met his gaze. “Jimmy, what’s wrong? I expected some negative reaction from the other Dommes, but you?”

He made a face, spread his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “Don’t get me wrong. You have every right to be what you need to be here. Domme, sub, switch. But people have the right to also be disappointed by it. I didn’t think you were faking, Lady Mistress. A lot of people didn’t.”

“I wasn’t, Jimmy.” Because Jimmy had been a good friend, she tried to take the edge from her voice, give him more. “It’s hard to explain. I wanted to be anything Roy needed, because of the way he loved me. The way I love him. When I was acting as Mistress to him, it was all part of that.”

“Yeah. When it was never stated up front, that’s hard for a lot of people here to understand. Even me,” he admitted. “But you know some Mistresses have strong feelings about a Domme suddenly claiming to be a submissive. Especially one who was good at it, who attracted attention. Who has a rep for it, as you do, no matter what Amy says. Yeah, Sheila’s right about the attitudes they face, and you’re right that this is supposed to be a private forum to be what you want, but . . .” He gave her a helpless look. “It throws us for a loop. You’ll just have to let us deal, learn to see it differently, and you be what you need to be. I have another customer.”

“Hey, girl.”

Startled to hear Dale’s endearment for her spoken in such a scornful female tone, Athena looked toward the doorway to the suspension room. Sheila was leaning against the wood, coiling a single tail in her long-nailed fingers. “Yeah, see? Guess Amy was right. You already respond to being summoned like a sub. Want to exercise those real feelings and let me top you? Maybe we’ll find out what’s real. Like maybe you shouldn’t be coming here anymore, because you’re just a vanilla chick who was your husband’s doormat.”

Conversation at the bar and in the sitting room came to a halt, the few members present staring between the two of them. Hearing the conflict, several more had come out of the various playrooms. She recognized at least half of the curious faces.

“Mistress Sheila.” Jimmy spoke sharply. “We have strict rules about harassing any member. That’s uncalled-for.”

“What are they going to call you now, Lady Mistress?” Sheila asked, brown eyes trained on Athena’s face.

Jimmy came out from behind the bar, interjecting his body in between the two of them, breaking Sheila’s line of sight. “Keep it up,” he said between his teeth. “She can have your privileges suspended by the membership committee. Is that what you want?”

“Jimmy, that’s not necessary.” Athena slid off the stool. She appreciated his stepping up to defend her, but from the wooden expression he turned toward her, she thought he was just doing his job. She put down money for the drink and a tip, and shifted to meet Sheila’s gaze. Sheila had hugged her the first time Athena returned to the club after Roy’s death, but their relationship was defined by the location, the setting. It wasn’t like she and Sheila were the type of friends who visited one another’s homes or had shared interests outside the club.

During Roy’s illness, she’d discovered which of his friends were true and which were fond acquaintances or worse, hangers-on. When things changed so dramatically, all but one’s true friends disappeared, didn’t they? “Thank you, Jimmy. It’s clear I’m not welcome here, so I won’t be returning. Good night.”

She thought she saw a look of regret on Jimmy’s face, a protest rising on his lips, but she was already turning, walking up the corridor, nodding politely to the hostess as she took her leave.

She reminded herself Sheila had resented her decision in a way that was disproportionately personal. Everyone knew she had some issues with authority, which was one of many reasons she’d embraced being a Domme. Whereas for Amy, it was the simple pleasure of topping a sub. That was the point. The motive was different for all of them. Some natural, some benignly dysfunctional, but all healthy as long as it was consensual and no one was hurt in the wrong kind of way.

So reasonable and logical. During those weeks Athena had been managing her worries, she’d considered that she might be “making too much of it,” just as Dale had suggested. That rationalization had brought her here tonight, with her insulated bubble of unchallenged ideas.

There’d been no physical violence. Sheila hadn’t even raised her voice, not really, yet the bubble had burst, and those ideas had disintegrated in the air of reality. Athena felt shredded inside. Now that she’d revealed her true nature, she was hit by shame and misery. They thought she was a liar and a fake, so how could she feel validated as a submissive? Even knowing she was being irrational, the feelings only expanded as she left the building, like a thick black smoke obscuring everything else.

Yes, Dale had seen what she was, and when he looked at her, she felt she’d embraced her true self. For heaven’s sake, she’d admitted she loved him. But she hadn’t said it to him, had she? And here she was, her confidence in who and what she was shattered in a matter of minutes. If that sense of herself was that fragile, had she just been kidding herself all along, on all of it? Had she been right in the beginning, that she should have kept her request to Dale limited to physical sessions?

No. There was no way he would have ever accepted that. He’d said so at the beginning. So she’d stepped into his world, telling herself it would be a nice fantasy. Then he’d swept her away and it became so much more than that. He’d become so much more than that. But she couldn’t back away from this and keep him. It was too much a part of what he was. She could never ask him to give it up.

She tried to ignore the fact that giving up being his submissive, for her own self, felt like a raw wound in her chest. That didn’t matter. Maybe it was time to end all of it, go back to the identity she knew best. Athena Summers, businesswoman, philanthropist, a person who liked to read and garden on her days off. She’d handled losing a husband she’d loved for over two decades. She could handle . . . whatever else she had to give up.

As she headed for her car, she felt like a tired and downtrodden middle-aged woman, wanting a cup of tea and to go to bed early.

She was pulling in her driveway when the cell phone rang. She saw it was him, but she didn’t answer. She listened to his message, though, her heart aching at the sound of his warm voice and children in the background. “Hey, girl. Hope you had a good day. I’ll be coming back tomorrow. Want to do dinner and a movie? I’d suggest my place, but my crappy DVD player is a poor substitute for your home theater. I told Gayle’s boys about it and they said if they had their own movie theater, they’d camp out in there every night, make it their bedroom. Sounds pretty good, right? Anyhow, gotta go. I’ll see you soon. I’m thinking about you.”

She sent him a text about thirty minutes later.

Will be busy next couple days, but maybe we can get together this weekend. I’ll call you later. Gone to bed early. Headache. Glad you’re having a good time.

Then she turned off her phone.

Hey, girl. Hey, girl . . . When she crawled into bed, taking two over-the-counter sleep aids, she dreamed of the two of them saying it. Dale’s sensual tease, Sheila’s scornful mockery. The sleep aids didn’t work. She kept waking up, tossing and turning, and finally moved to her reading nook.

They’d put Roy’s hospital bed in the solarium during his final days. He’d wanted to see the gardens, feel the sunlight. Since she didn’t want to sleep in their bed without him, she’d slept here, because it was close by and she could hear him call out. After his death, she’d spent a lot of nights in this chair for the same reasons. She didn’t want to be in their bed alone. From here, she could see the little garden she’d made around his marker. The bronze of the golf statue gleamed in the moonlight. Nearby was the corner she and Dale had redesigned. She averted her eyes from it.

This room was her place, her sanctuary. Her place to hide from the world, to be just Athena, the girl inside the woman, the one who had thought about being a ballerina, a famous writer, an equestrian rider, a tennis player. As that girl grew into a woman, those dreams had been released like balloons in a park, and she’d embraced happiness in ways not anticipated. She’d found a wonderful man who’d loved her.

Reality and romantic dreams didn’t necessary mesh, but that was okay, because the day-to-day exercise of loving someone could exceed both. But what could she be with Dale? She loved being his sub intensely. Loved him, period. However, the Master and sub was an undeniably important, vital part of their relationship. Not because it was too weak to stand without it, but because it was who they were, that definition an integral part of each of their personalities. They’d woven that reality together, and there was no way to retreat from that. Not together. Dale would never be less than a Master, a pure sexual Dominant who would need that part of himself accepted in a permanent, committed relationship. Whereas she knew how to function as a submissive without actively being one, didn’t she? She knew how to fake anything.

She swallowed the jagged ache in her throat and wrapped her arms around herself. She hated that a few cruel words had destroyed her confidence so easily, but what did it say, that they had? She was glad she’d managed to keep her composure, leave the club with dignity, but it didn’t eradicate the sense of shame. She wanted Dale here, yet she didn’t as well. She didn’t want anything right now. Except for the night to last forever, so she didn’t have to face what came tomorrow.

On her most painful days of grieving, she’d understood why some widows said they wished they’d died with their spouses. It had been a while since she’d grappled with that feeling, but it was there, tangled with the mess of other emotions she couldn’t overcome any longer. She put her head down and tried to make it all go away. She prayed for the oblivion of sleep.

—

On the third day, she still hadn’t spoken to Dale. She’d done what was needed for work, and when she wasn’t there, she worked in the garden or read. She felt Lynn’s gaze on her as she moved through the house, Hector watching her as she weeded and pruned. She knew she was acting the way she had when she first started feeling the reality of Roy’s death. Everything was on autopilot.

On the second day, she’d lost the energy to try and analyze why one incident in the club had unlocked all of this inside her. On top of that, those feelings had wrapped themselves up like barbed wire around her feelings with Dale, so that everything hurt so badly. All she could do to mitigate the pain was shut down. She couldn’t examine a wound that raw, and though she knew she was in trouble, she couldn’t make herself care. Not as long as she kept taking care of everything expected of her, and she was.

On day three, Lynn brought the house phone out to the garden. “It’s Mr. Rousseau,” she said clearly. Since the housekeeper wasn’t covering the mouthpiece, Athena knew it was pointless to offer the silent gestures to indicate she wasn’t available, but she tried anyway. In response, the housekeeper simply handed her the phone. “He said he knows you’re here and”—she cleared her throat—“he says you damn well will talk to him. Apologies, ma’am.” Then she fled.

Well, she shouldn’t be surprised that Dale could intimidate someone even over the phone. She put the receiver up to her ear. “That was direct enough,” she said coldly.

“It was intended to be. What’s going on, Athena?”

“Nothing. I just . . .” Hearing his voice, angry and rough, made her heart start to throb. If she opened up the locked box of her feelings, she was pretty sure it would explode. “I need some time, Dale. As I said in my message, I’ll call you when I’m ready. Please respect that.” She cut the connection, set the phone aside.

She went back to her weeding. When the first drop fell on her forearm, she thought it was starting to rain. Glancing up, she noticed a sunny sky, and felt the tears running down her face. Damn it. She bent to her task again, ignoring them, even as they continued to fall into the soil she was disturbing. Hopefully it wouldn’t be enough salt water to harm the plants.

Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying.

She didn’t even notice when Lynn retrieved the phone, until she became aware she was just standing there, watching Athena with worried eyes.

“Ma’am . . . can I bring you a sandwich? It’s well past lunch.”

Athena shook her head, keeping her face averted toward her task. “No. I’m fine, thank you. I’ll fix myself something later. Why don’t you and the other staff take the rest of the day off?”

“Well, I was going to do the curtains . . .”

“I’m sure they can wait.” Athena stared down at the weeds. “In fact, tell everyone they have the week off with pay. Don’t come back until Monday.”

“Mrs. Summers—”

“Lynn.” She’d never snapped at her housekeeper. She curled her fingers inside her gloves, took a deep breath, and pasted a smile on her face, softening the admonition with a chuckle that came out sounding real and warm. A miracle. When she turned her face toward the housekeeper, she’d done a quick swipe, taking away the evidence of the tears. “I mean it. You all work too hard. Take the week. I’ll be fine. Please.”

If there was a touch of desperation in her voice on that last note, there was nothing she could do to help that. Lynn studied her face, gave her a nod. “I’ll be just a phone call away if you need anything, though.”

“Okay. I appreciate that.”

She turned back to ripping up plants. A few moments later, she was alone. Sometimes a woman just needed solitude to figure out what and who she was. Not today, though. She’d think about weeds instead, pulling out what didn’t belong and restoring order to her flower beds.