Chapter 18
Kate’s phone buzzed. She flipped it over and found a green-apple message waiting for her.
I’ll be there at nine, Ty had written. When I come through the door, you’ll be bent over your dining table, naked. To your left will be a wooden spoon and to your right a glass of scotch. If you’re lucky, and everything’s laid out perfectly, you might be able to sit down tomorrow.
They had been dating for over a month and yet the very idea got Kate so worked up it might as well have been the first time. She closed her eyes and imagined it—the sound of Ty’s motorcycle boots thudding toward her, his mind intent on nothing but punishing her for her transgressions, his rough palm sliding down her lower back before he—
“Middleton?”
Kate jolted upright. “Huh?”
“Look alive, will you?” Dutchy sniggered at his own joke and dropped a heavy leather-bound folder onto her desk.
“What’s this?” Kate asked, with all the politeness she could muster.
“Sloane brief,” he said flicking the edge of the folder. “You need to take it down to The Breton Club. There’s documents inside that need to be signed.”
Kate looked out of the nearby window. It was raining so heavily it was like god was emptying a Jupiter-sized bucket of water on the city. “So, maybe we could get a courier to do it?”
“Too expensive.”
And sending an engineer in the final stages of a six week project isn’t? Kate inhaled deeply. “What about the interns? Why can’t they go?”
“They’re busy.”
“With what? The last I saw they were making a nip-slip pinboard.”
Dutchy chuckled. “Johnno asked them to do that, it’s for his mate’s birthday. You’re not jealous, are you, Middleton?”
In her mind’s eye, Kate picked up the leather folder and swung it square into Dutchy’s face, spraying bone and brain-meat everywhere. These comments, which had never come her way when she wore pelican shirts and baked lamingtons, were happening more and more. Especially since the bro-town interns—Johnno’s nephews—had arrived on the scene, ramping up the office douche-vibe with their polo shirts and constant references to pussy. Ty thought they were idiots, but everyone else acted like they were some unholy combination of Bill Hicks and Tyler the Creator. It didn’t help that she’d stopped bringing cake to work. It had been Ty’s idea.
“You were hired to be a fucking engineer, not cater morning teas,” he said. “You wanna bake for someone, bake for me, at least you’ll get laid afterward, otherwise don’t bother. It just makes them all think less of you.”
He had a point, but he also didn’t realise apple-cinnamon scrolls went a long way toward keeping her colleagues friendly. Kate took another deep breath. “Look, Jake, I’m crazy busy right now. Can we please find someone else to take the folder?”
Dutchy pointed upstairs. “He wants you to do it.”
“Who, god?”
He didn’t smile. “Johnno. He says it’ll be nice for you to get out of the office and stretch your legs.”
Again, Kate looked out of the window. A woman’s umbrella was blown clean out of her hand and onto the road where it was struck by a passing taxi. “But it’s crazy wet out there, I’ll ruin my clothes.”
Dutchy rolled his eyes. “You’re such a girl. Fine, if you don’t want to do it then you can go upstairs and tell Johnno that yourself. I’m not telling him for you.”
“Fine,” Kate said through gritted teeth. “I’ll take the folder.”
“Cheers, Middleton. Don’t be too long.”
Dutchy strode off and Kate glared after him, loathing as sour as month-old milk in her heart. What the hell was his problem? She thought about Ty. If he suggested she do something pointless and uncomfortable just to please him, she got wet, and yet other people treating her that way just made her angry.
Maybe it was like the cake, she decided as she pulled on her jacket. When she baked for Ty, she got laid afterward; when she baked for Dutchy, all she got was the dumb expectation that she’d do it again and again and again.
Fighting through the water-blasted streets toward The Breton Club was every bit as miserable as it had looked from her window. The sky was black, and the wind whipped the rain sideways, making her jacket and umbrella pointless. Still, Kate marched grimly forward, the leather folder tucked into her chest, determined that when she got back to the office she was going to give Johnno a piece of her mind. Or at least send him a strongly-worded email.
The Breton Club doorman wasn’t keen on letting her inside, but once Kate explained who she was, he reluctantly took her sopping coat and ushered her in.
“Hello there, can I help you?” A crimson-lipped hostess called from behind a wood podium.
“Yeh-hehehehs,” Kate said, her teeth rattling like Yahtzee dice. “I need to give some documents to my boss, Mr Henderson. I think he’s having a meeting right now?”
The hostess consulted a guestbook. “Yes, he’s on the third floor. Would you like me to take the folder to him?”
Kate considered it, seeing Ty when she looked like a drowned rat wasn’t appealing, but at the end of the day, confidentiality was confidentiality. “Could I please bring it to him myself?”
“Sure thing. Take the stairs over there.”
Kate climbed the stairs slowly, trying to give herself time to dry out. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. When she reached the top of the stairs, she ducked into a small service alcove by the door, applied a fresh coat of cranberry lip-gloss and attempted to wipe any and all water droplets from her face. She was steadying herself to enter the dining room when she heard a familiar voice. “Does anyone have the time?”
Through the gaps in the wood panels, Kate could see Ty sitting at a nearby dining table. His golden hair was mussed with what she now knew was surf wax and his grey suit was impeccable. To his right was Stormy who looked a lot less put together. He had gravy down his front and his cheeks were as blotchy as Kate’s uncles’ on Christmas. The third man at their table had his back to her. He was balding and his suit looked expensive. He must be the investor who needed to sign the documents. She watched as he raised a wrist to look at a Panerai watch that Kate knew cost upward of thirty-thousand bucks.
“It’s almost three,” he told Ty. “But it’s still pissing down. Let’s have another drink.”
Stormy slapped the table. “Excellent!”
“I should head off in a minute.” Ty’s voice was as neutral as his expression, but Kate could tell he was bored. Bored and tipsy. He was holding it better than Stormy, but she’d spent the past few weeks drinking with him, first in her home and now in dimly lit Lebanese cafés and tiny wine bars. Whenever he had too much, his eyes grew sharper and his expression more carnivorous, as though his darker desires were wending their way to the surface.
She thought about the spanking she had coming and grinned. Ty had probably texted her during this lunch meeting, plotting the ways he was going to punish her, even as he pretended to listen to Stormy talk. There was something deliciously perverse about that. Almost as perverse as it would be to appear out of nowhere and hand him a folder, knowing he wouldn’t be able to do anything but smile and say ‘thanks, Middleton,’ while his eyes promised to turn her ass black and blue. She brushed the hair from her eyes and prepared to make her big advance.
“You’re no fun, Hendo,” the investor said with what sounded like an old-man pout.
“I know, but I’ve got shit to do back at the office.”
“The day’s as good as done! If you don’t want to stay here, we can always go to Tommy’s.”
Kate stopped in her tracks. She knew about Tommy’s. She’d unearthed a navy blue business card in one of her briefing folders last year and googled the name to discover it was an upmarket strip club. She’d hoped it had been a one off, that the guys she worked with didn’t actually go there to bond in front of naked tits as a part of their freaking jobs. That hope wasn’t holding a lot of water right now. Was this why she was never invited to lunch meetings? Why she had to stay in the office instead of getting smashed and eating pork medallions on the company dime?
“Tommy’s sounds great.” Stormy glanced across the table at Ty. “Can we go to Tommy’s, Hendo?”
Ty picked up his phone and twiddled with it. “I can’t. I need to get back to the office. I have plans tonight.”
“Really?” The investor straightened in his chair. “Business plans or something else?”
“Business plans.”
“I don’t believe you. Word is you’ve been in a very good mood these last few weeks. I know what that means. Who’s been priming your pump, Henderson? And don’t bother denying it.”
As terrified as Kate was by the timing of this conversational shift, she had to wonder how businessmen were so effortlessly sleazy. Did they take seminars? Or did sleazy people just gravitate toward the corporate world like sleazy stars and form sleazy constellations shaped like dick jokes and daytime visits to strip clubs?
Ty shot Stormy a sharp look. “Who told you I was getting laid?”
The investor chuckled “Oh, don’t blame him. We were having a drink, before you arrived and Mr Merriweather revealed you’d been seen laughing, something no one has witnessed since the summer of 2015. I joined the rest of the dots myself.”
Ty gave him a rueful smile. “Clever, but once the talk turns to my sex life, the meal is officially over.” He glanced around, presumably for the wait staff, but there was no one in the room except other diners. He rolled his eyes and tapped at his phone some more. To her horror, Kate felt her pocket vibrate. She pulled it out to see yes, yes, he had texted her from the table she was less than three meters from.
Daddy’s going to make you scream tonight baby, you’ll be begging for mercy by the end.
“Oh sugar,” she whispered. “Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?”
Kate knew she should just hand Ty the folder and leave. Or better yet, creep downstairs, give it to the hostess and leave, but she did neither.
The investor let out a loud, wine soaked laugh. “Stop being coy and admit you’re fucking someone.”
“I might be. Does that make you happy?”
“Not quite.” The investor picked up his wine glass and swirled the crimson liquid like it was brandy. “What’s her name?”
“Never you mind.”
Stormy made a noise like a dog desperate to go outside. “Oh, but Hendo, everyone at the office’s dying to know.”
“Then everyone at the office needs a little more excitement in their lives.”
The investor tapped the table. “I think Henderson’s hiding something. I think he’s fucking someone he shouldn’t be.”
Kate bit the insides of her cheeks. How the hell could Pervy McPerverson have known that? Was he some kind of sex bloodhound?
“That’s no one’s business but mine.” Ty’s smile was easy, but there was a fire flickering in his eyes, the kind that preceded a particularly brutal spanking. “Are we done?”
“Not quite.” McPerverson’s tone was light but Kate sensed irritation beneath it. He was surely the kind of man who got what he wanted when he wanted it and he wanted to know who Ty was sleeping with. The taste of coppery blood spread across her tongue.
“What do you want to know?” Ty said.
“I want to hear you admit you’re playing around with a lovely little thing you shouldn’t be.” McPerverson might as well have come out and said ‘or else,’ it was clear that’s what he meant.
There was a short silence. Ty’s jaw hardened and Kate was sure he was going to tell him to go fuck himself. She was just wondering what she should do if McPerverson threw his wine in Ty’s face like a Real Housewife of Wherever, when Ty’s expression changed. He smiled a smile she knew well, but seemed bizarre in this well-lit restaurant; the slow, hungry grin of her sleazy stepfather. “I am playing around with a lovely little thing I shouldn’t be, happy?”
Kate’s stomach tightened.
“Marginally. Was that so hard?” McPerverson’s sounded like he was wearing a very satisfied smile. “Now, why shouldn’t you be playing with her, is she married?”
Ty’s lupine smile grew wider. “Young. Very young.”
Stormy moaned. “How young?”
Twenty-five. Say twenty-five, or they’ll think I’m jailbait. Twenty-five isn’t that young.
“Legal.”
McPerverson laughed as though he’d told a hilarious joke and Stormy looked sick with envy. “Fuck me, how do you do it, Hendo?”
“Do you need to ask that?” McPerverson raised his beer glass to Ty. “Look at him, he’s a perfect specimen of masculinity.”
“You need to stop drinking.” Ty glanced back at his phone. Dimly, Kate wondered if he was expecting a reply and wondered what he’d do if she texted him the word ‘legal’ followed by a billion question marks.
McPerverson nudged Stormy’s side. “My wife swoons whenever this one comes over for dinner. Fifty-one and she blushes like a schoolgirl. When he leaves, it’s nothing but ‘Tyler, Tyler, Tyler’ for days on end. Why can’t you have hair like Tyler? Why can’t you be in shape like Tyler? Puts us all to shame, he does.”
Stormy’s fat mouth puckered. “I was in shape before I got married.”
It took everything Kate had to not shout, “As if, dickhead!” She’d met Stormy’s wife at last year’s Christmas party and somehow between working and raising two kids she’d managed to run four marathons. Blaming her for the fact he shoved crème éclairs in his face twice a day was like blaming the sun for the rain. Kate had heard enough. She turned to walk back down the stairs, confidentiality be damned, when a waiter moved toward with a plate of beef Wellington. Not wanting to be caught coming out of the service alcove, she shrank back into the shadows.
“So your young amour,” McPerverson was saying. “How long have you been seeing one another?”
Ty shrugged. “Few weeks.”
“And when are we going to meet her?”
Kate felt the warning then, it twanged deep within her body. Leave. Nothing else, just leave. She took a step toward the stairs, but it was already too late.
“You’re not gonna meet this girl. She’s got one place in my life and that’s it.”
McPerverson laughed. “On her back?”
“All fours.”
There was another chorus of male chortling, though Kate barely took it in. Her head was throbbing, her grip loosened on the leather binder and it went tumbling to the ground. No one noticed.
“Some of the best relationships start on all fours,” McPerverson said. “Be careful though, or you’ll find yourself tied down again.”
Ty scoffed, scoffed like someone said the Beatles were a bunch of hacks. “No chance. I’ve done the love thing. Never again.”
Stormy’s smile bordered on bashful. “Oh yeah, you were engaged once, weren’t you?”
Ty picked up his previously untouched glass of wine and took a deep swallow. “For my sins.”
McPerverson laughed, and Kate felt sick, actually physically ill.
“So it’s not serious? With you and this mystery girl?”
Another scoff. “No.”
“You know how women are,” Stormy said. “Aren’t you worried she’s gonna get the wrong idea?”
“An excellent point,” McPerverson chipped in. “What does this girl think about your stance on love and romance, Henderson?”
Another horrible stepfather smile. “We don’t talk about that shit. She knows the score.”
McPerverson pounded his fist on the table. “I want to meet this girl!”
“Well, you can’t. What’s the point of having a dirty little secret if you share it?”
Kate thought about last week when Ty had come to her door with a fresh bottle of Sailor Jerry and a small bunch of gardenias. They’d had sex, then watched Hot Fuzz and when Nick Frost and Simon Pegg were chasing the swan around the countryside, Ty had taken her hand and kissed it.
“What?” she’d said.
“You.”
“What about me?”
The skin around Ty’s eyes had crinkled. “You’re cute when you smile, you’re sexy when you’re naked, but when you laugh…” he shook his head.
It had taken her two hours to pry out the rest—nipping him with her teeth, tickling his sides and threatening him with endless memes he wouldn’t find funny, until finally he said, “You’re beautiful when you laugh. That’s what I was going to tell you. You look beautiful when you laugh.”
What part of that was meant to encourage her to not think it was serious? What part of going out to dinner and sleeping in her bed and telling her she was pretty was making sure she knew the score? She wanted to rush out there and confront him, confront all three of these seedy asshole men. She wanted to see the fear in their eyes when they looked up and realised she’d heard every single word. She inhaled, like a diver preparing to plunge and then the chemical message pulsed again: leave.
This time, Kate obeyed. She scooped up the folder and walked toward the stairs, her feet squishing in her wet Mary Janes.
“Is everything okay?” the hostess asked when she returned to the lobby.
“Totally wonderful,” Kate heard herself say. “My boss seemed busy so I couldn’t give him the forms. Can you please give this folder to him when he leaves?”
The hostess agreed, and Kate headed back out into the typhoon, barely noticing the watery wind as it thrashed against her body. She was thinking of the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, dark bars, and half-empty cafes where she and Ty had been going on ‘real dates.’ She was thinking about the fact that she’d yet to meet any of his friends or see his house or have one conversation about declaring their relationship to Johnno.
What’s the point of having a dirty little secret if you share it?
That’s what she was, a dirty little secret. She had a place in his life, and that place was on all fours. He’d been engaged once, for his sins, but his interest in love was over. He’d thrown her scraps from his table and she was dumb enough to think she’d been invited to the meal. Tears welled in her eyes, hot and thick like silicone.
She walked on for a minute or so, then decided she couldn’t go back to work looking like a mermaid whose parents had just died. She staggered to a nearby café.
“What can I get you?” a waiter asked, looking even more alarmed by her bedraggled appearance that the doorman at The Breton Club. Thinking caffeine and sugar might help with the shock, Kate ordered a latte and a custard tart then sat at a corner table and tried to stop crying. After ten minutes of hiccupping and snuffling and ruining serviettes with mascara-water, she managed it. But that only left her free to address other problems—like what she was going to do next.
More than anything she wanted to go back to work, finish her day, then head home and prepare for Ty’s spanking. She didn’t want it to be over. She didn’t want to have to look him in the face and say ‘I heard what you said about me and you’re every bit the asshole Maria told me you were, so screw you Tyler Henderson, we’re done.’
She couldn’t imagine what Ty would do if she said that, if he’d try to defend himself or simply put on his coat and leave, but she knew she couldn’t do anything without discussing this through with a more neutral party first. The question was, who?
Aunty Rhonda would have been perfect but she’d gone where no call would reach her. Her sisters would answer, so would her mum, so would Maria. But Kate didn’t want to be lectured, or sneered at, or made to feel guilty. She didn’t want to be told to see a shrink, or a new Dom, or to date only mildly attractive men her own age. She wanted someone who understood and who would listen without judgement. A silly thought occurred to her—messaging Deirdre Peterson on Facebook and asking her for Mr Peterson’s mobile number. Another daddy figure to rescue her from the first. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “I am such a fucking idiot.”
The waiter delivered her tart and coffee, and she ate with single-minded numbness. As the caffeine and sugar absorbed into her blood, Kate did feel a little better, and by the time her plate was clean and her cup was empty, she realised there was another number she could call. She hadn’t spoken to Rapunzel since derby season ended, but if anyone would be able to help, it would be her. Her hand hovered over her phone and then she reached up and slapped her cheek, just a little. “Come on bitch,” she whispered. “Do it.”
Rapunzel answered after the second ring. “’Sup Peach! How you been?”
“Rapunzel…” Kate hadn’t realised how terrible she sounded. Her voice, which alternately got her called a man and a pornstar at school, was even throatier than usual, clogged with tears and tart. She swallowed thickly and tried again. “Rapunzel…”
“What’s up? What’s wrong?”
The concern in Rapunzel’s voice took her from tears to all-out weeping. “Something bad’s happened, and I have no idea what to do…”
“Talk to me. Tell me everything.”
Somehow, between gasps and napkin dabs, Kate managed to tell her Ty was her boss, they’d been dating in secret and that she’d been sent to The Breton Club where she’d overheard him talking about her like she was a piece of ass.
When she was done Rapunzel cleared her throat. “You free tonight?”
“Yes. Well, Ty was meant to come over—”
“Fuck him off.”
“I don’t know if I can talk to him…”
“Don’t talk to him, text and say you’re on your rag. Guys hate that, or so I’m led to believe.”
“But I had my period two weeks ago…”
“He’s a fuckin’ man, Peach. He doesn’t know shit about periods. Just say you’re cramping and have no need for his dick. Then text me your address, and I’ll come over. I’ll invite Tam and Casey. We can have some drinks. It’ll be fun.”
“Are you sure? What about work?”
“No stress, I’ve sold all I needed to sell today, I’m golden.”
“I meant me, I’m supposed to go back to work.”
“Ditch,” Rapunzel said without hesitation. “Say you’ve got diarrhoea. Or use the period story, two birds, one stone, that whole thing.”
“I do have some time in lieu…”
“Use it.” Rapunzel gave a soft groan, as though she was getting up from somewhere. “I’ll catch the train in and meet you at yours. Text me your address, yeah? Also, do you like Southern Comfort?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“Well I’ll bring a bottle anyway. If old mate shows I can use it to knock his head in. I’m taller than he is, you know?”
When Kate left The Breton Club she was sure she’d never smile again and yet hearing that, she did.