“Kim, how about a refill?” Mr. Washington said from the counter. Kim took the coffeepot over and filled his cup. He was a regular at Joe’s, and Kim was always happy to see him when he came in during his lunch break from the meatpacking plant across the road. That was Joe’s clientele: meatpackers and cops.

“What’s a pretty girl like you working in a dump like this for, Kimmy? You need to get you a fancy-girl job downtown, where you can wear those short skirts and pantyhose, a pair of shiny high heels,” Mr. Washington joked.

“You know I don’t like high heels, Mr. Washington,” Kim teased.

“No woman likes high heels; it’s us men who like you in them.” They both laughed at that.

Kim checked the clock. An hour more and she’d be off. If she caught the train in time, she might to be able to get home for two hours and spend some time with Derek before heading off to the gallery for the night shift.

It had been two weeks since the dinner on the yacht with Robert. For about a week, he kept calling her cell phone, but she never answered. She feared he’d come into gallery, but he never had. He disappeared from her life just like she had wanted him to do. That was all a bit of nonsense, she thought now, a dream that would never come true. Kim had learned dreams were made-up things; real life was never like that. She needed to forget about all of it. She needed to forget about Robert. She needed to concentrate on what was important, taking care of Derek and her mother. Those two were what was important. Dreaming about fairy-tale lives on yachts, eating shrimp, and drinking champagne in limousines was not what a sensible woman like her wasted her time on. With the three jobs, things were looking up. She just needed to keep her head down and stay on task.

Sometimes, though, when she was alone, she remembered the feelings she had when she was with Robert. She remembered what happened in the janitor’s closet, how alive she had felt. How had she run away from something like that? She doubted she would ever feel like that again with another man. How could she walk away from that? But she knew for her sake and her son’s sake she had to. Robert was too different from her, and when she was with him, she became too different from herself as well, which was frightening. Robert would never understand her life and what was important to her, and that meant they could never be together.

***

SHE SAT WITH DEREK as he “read” her his favorite book. Her mother had read it to him so many times that with the help of the illustrations he was able to appear as if he was reading, but he really had only memorized the story. The book was about a naughty monkey who got up to all sorts of mischief—mischief Derek found inexplicably hilarious.

“Look now, Mommy, what Bonzo is going to do. He’s riding on the elephant. Look how angry she is.” He laughed. “Bonzo is crazy.”

“I’d be angry too if someone jumped on my back,” Kim said.

“Me too. Bonzo is so naughty.”

Kim didn’t like having to leave Derek, but she’d be late for her cleaning job if she didn’t leave now, right in the middle of Bonzo’s funniest part. “I’m sorry, honey, we’re going to have to finish Bonzo’s story later. I need to leave for work.”

“You’re always at work. Teddy’s mother stays home with him. Why can’t you stay home with me?”

“I wish I could, D. But your mother has to work. You always have Granny,” Kim said.

“But I want you to stay. I want you to hear me read the rest of Bonzo.” Derek began to cry.

Kim’s mother came over and picked him up, and he cried into her shoulder. “You know what, D, how about you help Granny make some bread? Would you like that?” she asked.

Derek nodded his head against Kim’s mother’s shoulder. Her mother indicated that Kim should just slip away while Derek was distracted with the bread making. She grabbed her purse and slipped out the door without saying goodbye. As she walked to the bus stop, she couldn’t stop the tears from coming. She felt like a failure as a mother, and that was the only thing that really mattered to her, so she guessed that meant she was a failure at everything.

***

“HEY, SEXY,” FRANK SAID when she arrived.

“Hey, Frank. What are you doing there?” Kim asked as she arrived at Rive Gauche.

Frank held up a tablet. “My wife bought me this. It was my birthday on the weekend. My son put a football game in there. I’m the coach for the Chicago Bears today. How about that?”

Kim smiled. “Good luck with that. Maybe they’ll win the Super Bowl this year.”

“With me as their coach, it’s a sure thing.”

Kim collected the vacuum cleaner and got to work on the floors. Something about the rhythmic routine of cleaning calmed her troubled mind. The putting things back to right was satisfying too. She finished the three floors, emptying the garbage at the back dumpster. It was a lovely night; it reminded her of that time on the yacht. The air was calm and warm after the stuffy hotness of the day. She stood a bit. She was feeling better. She knew Derek didn’t mean what he said; he didn’t understand how things were. He would when he was a bit older. He would see she was never leaving him—she was going to work, going to work for them, but always returned to him again.

Kim went back inside to collect the cleaning cart for the bathrooms. She got inside the janitor’s closet and started loading up the cart with all of the things she would need, but then she heard a noise and looked to the back of the closet to find Robert standing there.

“I... I needed to see you,” he said. “You won’t answer my calls.”

“Yes.” What could Kim say? She didn’t feel right in his world? She felt unstable being back in the same place where everything had started. She suddenly didn’t trust herself.

“Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” Robert said. “I think about you constantly.”

“It can’t work, Robert, can’t you see that? We’re too different. Our lives are too different. The way we think about the world is too different.”

“No, I can’t accept that. On the surface maybe, but for what matters? The real things? No. Don’t you remember that first night at the party? The gallery was full of paintings, all sorts of gorgeous canvases, but you chose my painting, the one I’d already bought, as your favorite. And you explained why you loved it, and it was exactly why I loved it too. You see? We have things in common, the things that are important.”

“Yes, perhaps, but I told you, I can’t have a man in my life now. I need to be a mother to my son, and I don’t even seem to have enough time to do that properly anymore.”

Robert came closer to her. He pulled her to him and kissed her passionately. Her words left her, and her reasons for saying no seemed to not be reasons at all. His kiss already set her body on fire.

“God! Can’t you feel that?” Robert asked. You must be feeling that too.”

“Of course I can—you know I can. That’s part of the problem.”

“You know, that night on the yacht, I felt like Prince Charming. I felt like you were Cinderella suddenly needing to flee before your ball gown turned to a simple dress and your horses to mice. Are you my Cinderella? Can I be your Prince Charming?”

Kim kissed him and couldn’t believe what she was hearing herself say. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear.

He pushed her to the back of the closet. It was as if a storm had suddenly grown between them, something uncontrollable, something that would happen no matter who tried to stop it. He pulled her to him.

They were desperate for each other. Robert tore at her blouse, pulling her breasts from her bra. His warm, wet mouth on her nipples drove her crazy. His tongue flicked back and forth, sending sparks everywhere around her body. She wanted him. She had to have him no matter what her brain told her.

She felt him hard against her, and she rubbed her hand along the length of his cock still in his pants. He groaned with pleasure. She slipped her hand inside and cupped his balls, massaging them as her other hand rubbed his perfect cock up and down. Robert moaned against her. He kissed and bit at her neck, cupping her ass in his hands and pushing him into her.

But then he stopped. He reached to one of the shelves and pulled a cloth down. He tore a strip off and grabbed Kim’s hands, pulling them behind her back and tying them there. She allowed him to do it because it was what she wanted too. That first magical time had showed her what it could do to her, and she wanted it. She’d wanted it again ever since the last time had finished.

He kissed her roughly and moaned against her. He kissed and bit at her neck, her ears, her breasts. He was untamed, uncontrollable. The bounding had changed him, had changed her. They were unhinged with untapped ferocity. She willed him to dominate her completely. Only then would she feel what she yearned for.

He yanked her jeans down and reached under her panties. His fingers slipped smoothly over her clit and into her wetness, his fingers deep and probing, searching for the spot to release her. Her first orgasm was quick and sharp, and she groaned into his neck as it went through her body, rocking her back and forth into his hand. Her wetness spread over his fingers, and they slid in and out, prolonging her ecstasy. He kneeled down and sucked her pussy into his mouth, and she came again, gripping him with her strong thighs. He devoured her and she rocked against him.

He stood up and grabbed her by the hair. He pushed her head downward. She held her lips closed, only to prolong the game, to feel him force her. She wanted that.

He pushed his hard, rigid cock against her lips, her teeth. “Open!” he demanded.

She did and he shoved himself into her mouth. She held him there, licking the end of him with her tongue, and he moaned, his hands braced on the wall above her head. She moved her head and let his cock fall to the side as she mouthed his balls, flicking them apart, sucking them together, pulling at them as she felt him quivering next to her.

He pulled her to her feet. She watched as he opened a condom and put it on. He pushed his hard cock into her as he held her to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist to force him inside as deeply as possible. He rocked against her, pushing her into the wall behind her. With frenzy, he rammed into her. He thrusted into her, fast and rough, exactly how she wanted him. Rabid and wild, his hardness ripped at her, her body full of him, her cunt squeezing him deeper and tighter, wanting him never to leave.

He grabbed her hair from behind and pushed her head toward him, kissing her deeply. As she felt him explode inside of her, she bit deep into his shoulder. From deep inside of her, her orgasm rose, forceful and immense. Together they came, shaking and rocking, riding their feelings to their very ends. Then silence as their bodies adjusted to the wave of pleasure that passed through.

She stayed locked to him, her legs around his waist, his cock deep inside of her. He held her, his warm breath against her neck. She let her head fall on his strong shoulder. He reached behind her and freed her hands. She wrapped her arms around his neck. They sat like this for minutes, hours, they didn’t know. Time stopped, their bodies joined as one.

He touched his shoulder and looked at his finger, bloodied from the bite she had left there. She laughed, embarrassed, not believing she had done such a thing. He smiled at her.

“That was amazing, Cinderella.”

“It was, Prince Charming.”

In the rush of passion, she forgot about Frank, only reminded when she heard him passing by the closet door on one of his periodic trips to the toilet. When she was sure he was gone, she whispered to Robert, “We’re going to get caught.”

“Never.” He buttoned his pants and rebuckled his belt. “Don’t worry. I’ll slip out first. You come out later with your cart. He’ll just think you were collecting your equipment.”

“Good plan,” Kim said, smiling.

“You’re amazing. I need to see you again. When?” Robert asked.

Kim knew they were back where they started. “I can’t. Robert, this isn’t me. It’s too crazy and wild. I need normal and calm. This... all of this... it just messes up my head. I want to... I want you, I wish I could, but I know I can’t.”

They kept quiet as they heard Frank passing back to his desk at the entrance. Once it was quiet again, Robert said, “What can I do to make you stay with me? To give me a chance? A real chance?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I know what’s best for me, and it is not this. I wish so badly that it was, but it’s not. It can never be. I should have never let this happen again.” Kim placed her ear at the door to hear. “Okay, go. Now! You need to go now.”

Robert reluctantly left. Kim leaned against the door feeling so conflicted. Robert felt amazing, and, more importantly, he made her feel amazing. He set her free. Didn’t everyone want freedom? Why did she choose to remain in her chains? She knew why. She was sure she knew why. But how could she never be with Robert again when he made her feel so wonderful?

But Kim knew she had to do the right thing, and the right thing meant not seeing Robert.