-24-
Grant
When Tara’s alarm went off at four a.m., I was already awake. I didn’t move, pretending to sleep as she rolled out of bed and quietly tiptoed across the dark room to her bathroom. The door shut, light glowed from beneath it, and a shower handle squeaked as it was turned. Water beat against the porcelain tub and gurgled down the drain.
I wasn’t having second thoughts about this evening.
This couple, Silas and Regan, had invited us over for drinks at Regan’s place, and I was looking forward to it . . . mostly. But I was anxious. Tara had said it would be casual because when you started planning specifics, that was when it became tricky and awkward. If things were supposed to happen, they would.
It didn’t matter if Silas and Regan approved of me when it came to her. Tara reminded me of what she’d said before; if she didn’t like a dom’s rules, she’d find a new one. But I still wanted their approval. They had been a significant part of her life for almost a year.
So, while I was sure I wanted to go through with the meeting, this morning I was wishing I hadn’t been so stupid and asked for it the same night as her audition. I’d added more stress to what would already be a stressful day.
Behind the bathroom door, the shower curtain slid across the rod with a metallic jangle.
The longer I lay in her bed, with the sheets that smelled like her, the more my nerves gnawed at me. She said it didn’t matter, but if Silas and Regan disapproved of me, wouldn’t that give her pause? Our connection was strong, but what if theirs was stronger?
I needed to make a good first impression. That should be easy. I’d done it with Tara.
A dark corner of my mind whispered to me. What about the first time?
There was a black ledger in the drawer, less than a foot away from my head, which could answer that. All I had to do was page to the date and read it.
Doing that would be wrong. Looking in her journal was invasive, but the desire to know what she’d written about me was fierce. I was good at controlling her, but terrible at controlling myself. I reached over and tugged the drawer open. It was too dark in the room to make out what was inside, but my phone rested on the nightstand.
I grabbed it, sat up, and flipped on the flashlight app. It cast light across the leather cover of the journal, and I scowled. Part of me had hoped she’d moved it somewhere else, saving me from myself. But, no. It was right there.
The shower was still running, the door to the bathroom closed.
Don’t do it.
I didn’t listen. It was a shitty justification, but after everything we’d done together, she still hadn’t told me about the blindfold club. We were both keeping secrets from each other. This was small. What was one more?
I grabbed the book, shut the drawer, and swung my legs over the side of the bed so my back was to the bathroom door. I juggled the phone in my hands as I searched for the right page.
Her script handwriting reminded me of the way she danced. It was delicate and feminine. It flowed across the pages, and I imagined her writing it with the same energy she had when she performed.
My heart thundered as I flipped through the pages, finally landing on the one I wanted.
It was three paragraphs long.
She’d written the negotiated price of fifteen hundred, and below that the deal had been canceled and I’d been escorted from the club. They hadn’t told her who I was, but I assumed either this, or that she hadn’t connected on my name.
To her, I’d come off as unsure in the beginning. Either shy or nervous, she couldn’t tell. But then I’d been sweet, using the ice cube against her mosquito bite, which she’d liked. And what she’d really liked, was when the ice unexpectedly turned into sensory play, and I put my mouth on her.
As I’d suspected, I’d brought her to the edge of an orgasm. If I’d been pulled from the room just a minute later—
“Grant?”
Instinct forced me to drop the journal. It fell and landed noiselessly on top of my open overnight bag.
“Shower’s ready.” Tara’s voice was curious. “What are you doing?”
I bent over and grabbed my toiletry kit out of the bag, covering the journal with a sweater. “Nothing, just getting my things together.”
“You can turn on the lights, you know,” she teased. There was a snap of a light switch and I blinked at the brightness.
“Right.” I turned off the flashlight and stood to face her.
She wore the blue robe, her hair wrapped up turban-style in a gray towel. She looked at me expectantly, and when I didn’t move, she glanced at the alarm clock. “Are you going to be ready to go in twenty minutes?”
This was her way of telling me to get my ass in the shower and not make her late. I nodded and grabbed my bag, trudging toward the bathroom.
I was fucking stupid. Now I’d have to find a way to get the journal back in the drawer while she wasn’t nearby, and preferably before she noticed it was missing.
We ate a breakfast of Clif bars while we stood outside the Auditorium Theatre, and as she’d predicted, the line went on for blocks behind us. Before the sun had risen, I left her sitting on the chilly concrete beside my cello case and grabbed us coffee. It was cold outside, and when I returned from Starbucks, she’d pulled the blanket from her bag and wrapped it around herself to combat the wind.
She was nervous. Tara was normally cheerful, but this morning she was a thousand-watt lightbulb of energy. I probably should have gotten her decaf. While we spent the hours camped out and waiting for the doors to open, we talked about random things. Movies we liked. Favorite songs to perform. Places we wanted to visit on our bucket list.
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “South Africa? I bet it’s beautiful.”
“Parts of it, yes.”
“Elephants and zebras and giraffes, just wandering around.” She got a dreamy look in her eyes. “I can’t even. I’d love to go someday.”
I grinned. The South Africa she imagined was the tourist version, and very different from my time growing up. “The elephants and giraffes and zebras,” I pronounced it the correct way, which was zehbra, “mostly wander around in the protected parks. Johannesburg isn’t all that different than any other urban city.”
“Zehbra,” she repeated, tickled.
She made me teach her a few dirty phrases in Afrikaans, which had us both laughing by the end. Her accent was horrible, and I loved it.
Twenty minutes before the doors were set to open, she left me to hold her spot while she found a restroom in one of the open shops nearby. As she came back, a girl stepped out of line and waved. “Ms. Tara,” she called.
Tara stopped and gave the girl a bright smile. “Kelsey. How are you?”
“Oh my God, I’m so nervous.” Kelsey was cocooned in a puffy coat and stood beside an older couple. She was so young, they had to be her parents. In fact, most of the people in this line were either five years younger or fifteen years older than Tara. The girl shoved her hands in her coat pockets, and her tone was polite and friendly. “Who are you here for? I thought Ms. Elena said I was the only student going out for this.”
Tara didn’t falter, her smile held firm. “I’m here for me.”
Confusion splashed through Kelsey’s expression. “You’re . . . auditioning?”
“Yup.”
A range of emotions played out on the girl’s face. Disbelief. Skepticism. Judgement. It was followed by the best emotion of all—worry. This girl was nervous about competing against Tara.
Good. You should be.
I thrived on competition. I was a fighter, but Tara was subtler, a silent warrior. She didn’t have to tell people she was talented. All she needed to do to prove it was show up.
“Oh, wow,” the girl mumbled. It was clear she didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m sure you’ll do great.” Tara sounded heartfelt. “Good luck!”
“Yeah, you too,” Kelsey chirped.
She came back to me, and if the interaction bothered her, it didn’t show. I took her hand in mine as the doors opened and the line began to move.
It had been so cold outside, it felt muggy in the fancy lobby. There were tables of production assistants and some on headsets milling about as we came up the marble staircase and filed in. The room was full of gold accents and arches, and the lighting was warm, like artificial candlelight.
She handed over her packet of paperwork, answered some questions, and was given a number badge to pin on before her audition. Arriving early had paid off. Tara would be in the first group of ballet dancers, and the fourth group to perform overall. It meant she had to get ready almost immediately, so she could begin stretching.
It was a “hurry up and wait” schedule, very much like rugby matches could be, and I did my best to support her however I could. With her paperwork taken care of, we moved out of the way and down a corridor the wasn’t as loud or crowded. She pointed to a spot by the wall, out of the way, and I set down my cello.
She began to shed her outer layers, stripping down to the same outfit she’d worn for the ChiComm performance, exposing her flat stomach and shapely legs. I tried not to get distracted as I took her jacket and pants and packed them away in her bag for her.
All around me were reminders of how out of my element I was.
Dads dispensed bobby pins while moms applied makeup to the faces of their daughters. The elegant, carpeted hallways of the theatre became rehearsal space. As Tara laced up her pointe shoes, I watched a guy across the room dance hip hop while wearing earbuds and a focused expression. A couple near us practiced what I assumed was the tango.
“How am I doing on time?” she asked, tucking the ribbon she’d just knotted into the inside of her ankle.
I checked my phone. “It’s eight forty-six. Your group is at nine ten.”
She used the selfie mode on her phone to check her makeup and seemed satisfied with the situation. Her hair was twisted back into the prerequisite ballet bun. Her costume was understated and all black . . . but her lips were a bold, vibrant red. I wanted to kiss her before she went but didn’t want to risk messing them up.
I wasn’t sure if she wanted a pep talk or not, but she was getting one regardless. I grabbed her hips and pulled her close. Her eyes were wild and unfocused until I captured her face in my hands. “Good luck, even though you don’t need it. I know you’re going to be amazing.”
She looked at me with so much feeling, I wondered for a moment if it was love.