3
Days passed after the first date, and Dana didn’t hear from Greg. She accepted the fact that it had been a one-night stand, and her life got back to normal. On the next Thursday, however, while Dana was ringing up a customer at her shop, her cell rang. She finished with her customer and then fished it out of her pocket.
“Hey, Dana,” Greg said when she answered.
“Hi,” she said. Simply talking to the man made her heart beat fast, and she felt her palms grow sweaty.
“Are you busy this weekend?” he asked her.
“I work on Saturday, but the shop is closed on Sunday.”
“Can you close it Saturday too?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want you to come to the city with me. I’ll be there all weekend, but I only have a meeting Saturday morning. I thought we could have some fun,” Greg said.
“What kind of fun?”
Greg laughed. “All kinds of fun.”
“Let me think about it,” Dana said, and they hung up. He called her again later that night after she had closed up her sex shop and returned to her small apartment. By the time he had called, she had already packed a bag.
“I’m in,” she said when she answered.
“Great. I’ll pick you up tomorrow around six.”
Dana hung up and couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her lips.
She closed the Treasure Chest early the next day and hurried home so she could shower and dress. She once again wasn’t sure how to dress, but she figured for a drive to New York City she should be comfortable, so she settled on shorts and a loose shirt that was cut low enough to show off some cleavage.
Greg picked Dana up in the same cherry red sports car, but once he was on the highway, he headed away from New York.
“Where are we going?” Dana asked.
“I hate driving into the city,” Greg answered cryptically, though it didn’t take long for Dana to discover his meaning. He pulled off the highway, and ten minutes later he was parking in the small lot of a tiny airport. On a nearby blacktop tarmac there was a helicopter, the pilot inside already and the rotor blades beginning to turn.
Dana had never been in a helicopter before, but her nerves were overpowered by a sense of excitement and adventure, and soon she was hundreds of feet in the air, the ground a blur as it slipped away below them.
As interesting as the ride was, nothing could have prepared the young woman for landing on the roof of a massive skyscraper. She was led inside and to a penthouse apartment, where they dined and then made love.
The weekend was a blast, Greg only disappearing for his meeting on Saturday morning. They saw the sights for the rest of the day and then retired to the penthouse for more food, wine, and sex. Sunday they planned to go to a local museum, but they never managed to leave the bed. They returned to Apple Tree early Monday morning, and after being dropped off at her apartment, Dana hurried to open the shop.
Bad news was waiting for her. She’d been behind on her bills for the shop, and it was finally catching up to her. The bliss she had felt that weekend quickly washed away. She called up a realtor. She would have to sell the place.
Greg called her that evening. As the weeks wore on, she met him more and more, and they fell into what could only be called a relationship. She never bothered him with her shop problem; she didn’t want to borrow money from him. She would never want such a powerful man to have that much power over her. She was enjoying their relationship, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for anything more than dates and screwing.
He was rich, and it opened Dana to a world she never could have imagined she would be a part of. The extravagance, the seemingly wasted money. Dana often teased the older man about what she would do with so much money. “I would give most of it to charity,” she said from bed one evening.
“Which charity?” Greg asked, a smirk upon his face.
“A lot of charities,” she said, and he laughed and nodded.
The problem with the sex shop was resolved a month after she put it up for sale, and Dana couldn’t have hoped for anything better. Someone had purchased it, apparently a businessman from across the country. He wanted to keep the business open, and he wanted her to run it. The only real difference, other than the fact that she didn’t own the Treasure Chest anymore, was that she was now drawing an actual salary.
“Did you buy my shop?” Dana asked Greg over dinner one night. They were back in New York City, having flown in on Saturday and planning to stay until Sunday night.
“What?” Greg asked, looking at her. He had found out about her problems a week before the shop had been bought. She had been stressed out on one of their dates, and after a couple of glasses of wine, he had gotten the whole story out of her. He had promised her he would not get involved, however.
“A man named Mr. White bought the shop, some mysterious business man from California. He wants me to run the place. Was it you?”
“My name isn’t Mr. White,” Greg said, smiling and cracking a joke.
“I know it isn’t, but I haven’t met him or anything. He’s just some mysterious rich man who wants my business?”
“Sex sells.”
“Not that sex. The internet is killing me. He won’t make money.”
“He must think he will, eventually.”
“Did you buy it? I don’t want your help.”
“I know,” Greg said. “It wasn’t me.”
“You promise?””
“Yes.”
“All right,” Dana said, and she smiled across the table at her lover. “What are we doing tonight?”
Greg smiled. “I have a surprise for you, actually.”
After dinner, they returned to his penthouse, the massive open space in the skyscraper they had landed on once more after flying into the city. Greg led the way out of the elevator, heading down a long hall to the only door there. He unlocked it with a key card, as he did each time they visited the room. Flickering light met Dana as she stepped inside. There were at least a hundred lit candles in the open living room and even more leading back toward the far corner of the massive apartment, where a king-sized bed sat under a long window with an impressive view of the city.
“Romantic.” Dana smiled, looking over at Greg as he shut the door and locked it behind them.
“Wait,” he said, and then he motioned toward the bed, and she went that way. She was wearing a red dress and matching heels, and she stopped for a moment to bend and take them off, but Greg stopped her. “Do what I tell you. Don’t undress yourself. Go sit on the bed.”
Dana nodded, her heart rate already elevated. It was going to be one of those nights. He was in charge. He would dominate her, and she would do what he said. Dana had no idea just what that would entail.
She perched on the end of the bed and looked up at him. He stood before her, reaching into his pocket and pulling his cell phone out. He dialed a number and held the phone to his ear.
“Come up,” he said.
A single thought flashed through Dana’s head: a woman with the strap on, coming to fuck her while Greg watched from the high-back easy chair in the corner.
“I don’t think I’m ready for a woman,” Dana said, but Greg just glared at her and raised a finger to quiet her as he hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket.
“I’m in charge,” he said, and then as he turned and left, he added, “Stay here.”
Dana did so, her pulse pounding, the idea of being with another woman freezing her in place. It was frightening. She didn’t remotely swing that way; she had never been curious about women. She was so reserved, something she had been working through with the help of Greg, but this, it was just too much.
And then Greg returned, and she found that her fears were unwarranted. Greg did return with someone, but it wasn’t some busty bimbo with a big black strap on jutting from delicate hips.
It was a young man.