Beautiful Beloved

And proving that I was right, no one appeared at the side of our table asking us to leave.

No one signaled a warning to me across the room.

Instead, it felt like the entire room held its breath, watching.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

She shrugged, tucking her long hair behind her ear. That was another thing that had changed over the past year. Her hair had grown out, curves had bloomed. “About ten minutes before you.”

I studied her face—the pink flush to her cheeks, the quick intake of breaths, the way her gaze could barely stray from my mouth. “Did you feel them watching you?”

She nodded.

“Was it weird?”

She shook her head slowly before whispering, “No.”

I slid my hand under the table, up her bare thighs to the soft lace of her underwear beneath. I could feel the heat through, warming my fingers. “Did it make you wet?”

She watched my mouth. “Yeah.”

“What do you think they remember the most?” I rubbed my fingers over her clit beneath the lace, kissed her cheek, and then moved to her lips, kissing her once at the fullest part of her perfect fucking mouth.

“Maybe the time I tied you up,” she said, taking my face in her hands so she could tilt my head and scrape her teeth over my jaw. “Or maybe the first time we . . .” She trailed off, smiling knowingly.

I nodded. The first time we’d had anal sex, we’d had it here. Somehow it felt safer, slower. Her hunger, her surprise, her pleasure had been so raw. I was sure as soon as she said it that if anyone here tonight had seen it, they would never forget the soft curved shape of her mouth when she felt me fully inside her, and when she came harder than I think she ever had before.

The attention in the room ebbed and returned, ricocheting between the main act and us. We were the quieter option; we had always been the quiet act. What we offered wasn’t hard kink, it was simply us—a relationship that deepened, trust that intensified, sexual exploration that matured. What we received in return was a safe place to try it all. Their focus was a paradoxical sort of respect: they watched nearly every move we made but they loved it. They were invested.

We didn’t normally drink much before a show, but since this particular occasion seemed to be about breaking all the rules—arriving separately, entering through the front door, and touching each other on the main floor—I waved the waitress over with a subtle lift of my hand. She brought me a vodka gimlet, and Sara ordered a club soda with lime.

I was so excited for what would follow that my hand nearly trembled as I lifted the glass to my mouth, which was all the more reason to do this. I needed to be calm, to settle into the atmosphere before we walked back to our room. We sipped our drinks as we watched the others around us, and wordlessly agreed to save the real show for Room Six.

A tall woman in a flowing pink negligee, nothing but glittering pink pasties visible beneath, stepped to our table, signaling that it was time.

I followed Sara as she stood, and sensed the way the room grew still. As we headed toward the hallway, I could hear the quiet shuffle of chairs pushed back from tables, of footsteps following at a respectable distance.

“You ready for this?” I asked her.

I could hear her smile: “Yeah.”

My heart seemed intent on hammering its way up my throat. We passed the scenes in the other rooms to our left.

An orgy of men.

An older woman masturbating a man who had such a young face, he may have turned legal only today.

I watched Sara walk confidently past clientele who looked up as she passed as if they knew her. I felt their eyes on my face.

To our left, a woman behind the glass was tied up and being prepared for anal penetration.

I could see the door to our room just around the slight bend and my body seemed to come to life.

I never knew what to expect as far as room décor went; some nights Johnny kept Room Six simple, with a bed and nothing more. Other nights it looked like my living room, a lavish hotel room, or, once, even a tropical bungalow.

Tonight Mr. French had gone with simple: a gleaming silver rolling cart with a decanter of scotch and some chocolates, a plush rug covering most of the smooth wood floor, and an enormous bed in the middle of the room. Soft plum-colored sheets covered the mattress but it was otherwise bare.

I walked to the rolling cart, looking over my shoulder at Sara. Already the thrill of being here overwhelmed me; I needed to distract myself with an activity other than throwing her onto the mattress and defiling her.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked. I poured myself a small bit of scotch and looked up at her.

“Sure. A little of that.” She nodded to the bottle in my hand. Sara rarely drank hard alcohol, but, again: breaking all the rules. She looked so in her element right now, so fucking thrilled. I could tell by the flush of her neck how much the walk down that hall had turned her on.

I poured her a small glass of whisky and she took it from me before dipping a finger in it and painting a wet line across her neck.

An invitation.

“We’re starting, then?”

Her laugh was a quiet, husky thing. “We started an hour ago.”

I downed my shot, took a step closer, and bent to suck her neck.

“The last time we were here, I was pregnant,” she whispered, and I wondered how firm the pressure of attention through the mirrored glass felt against her back.

“You were glorious,” I corrected her.

“Tell me what we did that night.”

“We were lying down,” I said, looking over to the far side of the room where the bed had been that time, right up against the mirrored window that let others see in where we couldn’t see out. “I was curled behind you, taking you like that.”

“Gently,” she interjected, laughing.

I smiled into her shoulder, nipping it. “Despite your efforts, yes, gently. But I watched you come with a scream, in the mirror just as clearly as they did.”

Her fingers moved up my chest and touched the bare skin beneath the collar of my shirt. “And then what happened?”

Inhaling deeply, I closed my eyes as the memory caused my heart to pound harder, squeeze faster. “Your water broke in the car on the way home.”

“And then what?”

And then what.

And then we turned around, drove to the hospital in a heady fog of terror and glee, and I burst into the ER, carrying Sara in my arms and yelling for help like she’d been shot instead of simply gone into labor.

“And then Annabel Dillon Stella was born thirty hours later.”