I couldn’t get the image of Aria tied up to the bed out of my mind all the next day.

I wanted to fuck her. I can’t say it any other way. I wanted to slide my thick cock deep inside of her pussy, keeping her tied up like that, but I couldn’t let myself. Not yet, at least.

She liked it. I could tell she liked it. As soon as I put my hand near her pussy I could feel her heat and practically taste her dripping cunt. She was squirming for it the whole time, and not once did I think I was pushing her too far. It was a simple little spanking, but I could tell she’s never been bound up like that before.

I don’t normally do that with women. It’s true, I have a thing for control, but I don’t show that to the average woman that I bring home. Normally I just get them off and get myself off and that’s enough. But with Aria, I know I need something more. I know she needs it, too.

I keep picturing her perfect round ass as I spank it over and over. I keep getting hard at my desk as I imagine my red palm prints on her perfect, smooth white ass. It drives me fucking crazy, and I crave release, but I know that won’t help anything.

Although there’s more work to be done, around eight that night I have to go home. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t keep pretending like the only thing I want to do is be at home with Aria. I call the car, say goodnight to the few people still working late, and head back through the city.

As I watch the houses flash by, I can’t help but think about how I don’t really know her, not yet at least. I feel like I know her, but I don’t really. I don’t know where she came from and even if her real name is Aria. I suspect it might be, but I’m only just guessing. She doesn’t seem like she’s very good at acting, as evidenced by her little slipups toward the end of our session, but I can’t be sure.

I decide that I’m going to play a different sort of game tonight. Maybe not exactly a game, more like something normal. Once the car pulls up, I head right inside.

Jenkins meets me in the kitchen. “Home early tonight, sir,” he says.

“Yes, I am. How’s Aria?”

“She’s well,” Jenkins says. “Wanted more movies today. And requested some skin lotion.”

I grin at that. “Send dinner up to her room. For both of us. Please.”

“Of course.” Jenkins turns and walks off.

My heart is beating fast and I realize that I’m excited like a little boy as I take the stairs two at a time. I quickly reach her door and stop just short of barging in, gathering myself. I have to get myself under control. I need to be calm and collected when I see her.

Control is what separates us from the animals. We can control ourselves, force ourselves to be calm and to do things we don’t necessarily want to do. I’m obsessed with control because it proves to me that I’m above the animals, that I’m greater than them.

Except sometimes, it feels so fucking good to lose myself. All of my worries, my troubles, they drop away and I can embrace the animal inside of me. That’s how I feel when I’m fucking, but when I’m playing these games, it’s a different sort of release.

I calm my heart rate and finally knock once before walking into her room.

Aria is sitting on the small couch, curled in a little ball, watching TV. She sits up as soon as I walk into the room and wipes her eyes. “Ethan,” she says.

I stop dead and blink, surprised. “Are you okay?” I ask, instantly concerned.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, laughing lightly.

“If there’s something wrong, I’ll fix it. If you don’t like our game, we’ll change it.” I take a step toward her.

She smiles and stands up. “Really Ethan, I’m fine. I was just watching... a movie.” She grabs the remote and turns off the TV.

“What movie?” I ask, taking a step toward her. I’m curious about what would make her cry.

“I don’t want to say.”

“Come on. You read trashy romances. What else can you have to hide?”

She laughs again. “Okay, fine. It was Love Actually.”

I grin at her. “Seriously?”

“It’s good, okay? Gets me every time.”

“You wimp.”

“I’m a big sap.” She laughs and sits down on the bed. “You’re here early,” she says, looking at me.

I sit down on the bed next to her. “I couldn’t stay at work.”

“Rough day?”

I shake my head. “I just kept thinking about you.”

She looks at me, and for a second I see genuine excitement in her eyes. But it quickly passes. “Really?” she asks.

“Really.” I reach out and put my hand on her leg. She’s wearing yoga pants and a white t-shirt, though her hair is done and she’s wearing makeup. I suspect this is her attempt at compromise. She wants to be herself, but she still needs to play her part. It’s good enough, at least for now.

“I was hoping you’d have dinner with me,” I say.

“Of course.”

“You didn’t eat yet?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve always been a late eater.”

“Me too.” There’s a knock at the door and I stand, heading over to it. Jenkins is outside with a meal cart. I give him a little thanks nod and take it from him, wheeling it back inside.

Aria goes to set the table up, but I wave her off. “This way,” I say. I walk over to the back of the room and pull back the curtain. I unlatch the window and pull it open, revealing the balcony.

She blinks, clearly surprised. “It’s gorgeous out here. I had no clue.”

“Good. It was meant to be a surprise.” I wheel the cart out onto the balcony and she follows.

There’s a small table, some chairs, and the view is amazing. It looks out across Old City, at all the historic buildings. The room-length curtains hid this from her view and apparently she didn’t explore her surroundings too much. That tells me a little something about her.

“It’s really beautiful,” she says again, smiling and looking out at the city lights.

“I love it out here,” I say. “This is the only room with a balcony like this.”

“Really? Yours doesn’t have one?”

“I know. Horrible.”

She laughs. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just, this house is amazing.”

“I tried to keep the outside as original as possible, and this was the only original balcony.” I park the cart and begin putting our meal onto the table. There’s a cut of steak and a baked potato for me and what looks like a Caesar salad for her, which I’m guessing is what she asked for at some point. Michelle is very good at learning her guests’ preferences.

“Sit,” I say, pulling her seat out, and she sits. I pour myself a drink of whisky from the cart and sit down across from her. I sip my drink as she starts eating.

I take a bite of my steak, but I’m not really hungry. That’s not the purpose of this little meal, anyway.

“What’s your real name?” I ask her suddenly.

She looks up at me, surprised. “Aria,” she says.

I cock my head. “Really? You used your real name?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t want to have to learn a new one. I figured it’s easier this way.”

“Pretty name,” I say, and I know she’s not lying.

“Thanks. One of the nicest things my mother ever gave me.” Her joke sounds rehearsed, like it’s one she’s made many times before, and I smile.

“Were you and your mother close?” I ask.

“No,” she says, and goes back to eating.

Interesting. Her family life is a touchy subject.

“Can I ask you how you got into this business?”

She shrugs again. “I’ll tell you. But I don’t think you want to know.”

“Why not?”

She puts down her fork and cocks her head at me. “It’ll ruin the fantasy, won’t it?”

“Not at all,” I say. “You’re the fantasy, Aria. The real you.”

“You don’t want the real me,” she says, looking down at her plate.

I lean toward her. “Try me.”

“I’m not like you, Ethan,” she says. “I don’t have anything.”

“Having things doesn’t make a person,” I say.

“I’ve made mistakes.”

“We all have.” I reach my hand out and put it on hers. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. But I want you to know that I want to know, and I’m not afraid of the answers.”

She looks me in the eye and I can see something there, but I’m not sure what it is. I hope she understands that I’m being sincere. I assume something happened to force her into this job. Maybe it’s not a bad thing that forced her to do it, or maybe it is. I can’t really say, but I can accept it either way. We all have a past, but I don’t judge her based on that.

Still, her past can tell me things about her, and I want to know everything there is to know. It won’t change my opinion, but maybe I’ll see a fuller picture of her, get to know her in a way I couldn’t have before.

“I had a boyfriend when I was twenty. He was a real asshole.” She crosses her arms over her chest as she speaks, and I can tell that’s a defense mechanism.

“What was his name?” I ask.

“Derek,” she says. “He seemed so nice at first. Until one night he convinced me to get high with him. Derek was a heroin addict, it turned out. He still had a job and stuff, so he was functional at that point, but it wasn’t long before we were both consumed by addiction.”

I nod slowly, listening intently. So it’s drugs and addiction. That’s her dark secret. I want to smile and tell her that it’s okay, that I’ve heard worse, maybe done worse, but I don’t. I just listen and take her seriously.

“Things got bad for a while. We were junkies, but we were junkies together. And then one night, Derek bought this shit from a guy we didn’t know. We were desperate for it. And he shot up first. I watched him die right there in the street.” She looks down at her lap and is quiet for a little while.

“What happened to you after that?” I ask gently, prodding her.

“The usual stuff. I was still an addict, after all. I met some other addicts, fell in with another group, but didn’t sleep around. Couldn’t bring myself to, not after I watched Derek die. He was my first.” She blushes as she says that, which is so incredibly cute.

“Anyway, eventually I hit rock bottom. From there, I checked myself into a drug rehab place, a really nice place. Also an expensive place. But it was too late. I also had a pretty big debt with a local dealer, the kind of debt you won’t ever run out on. So between the rehab place and the dealer, I needed to make some money. Being a waitress wasn’t doing it. My debt was drowning me. I’ve been clean for years, but the debt hasn’t gone away. So I turned to this.”

She finishes her story and picks her fork back up, playing with her food quietly. I watch her, fascinated.

It’s an interesting story, if a common one. It’s admirable that she got herself clean on her own. Very, very few junkies have the strength to do that, and it speaks volumes about her character. She got out of the life on her own and she should be very proud of that.

Money is what’s holding her back. I smile at her gently. “That’s not such a horrible story,” I say.

“So the fantasy isn’t destroyed?”

“Not at all. Clean for how long?”

“Two years,” she says. “And I’m also, you know, clean in the other way, too. The Syndicate tests us.”

I nod, smiling. “I figured that.”

“Sorry. I just... figured I should say. In case you were curious.”

“I understand.” I reach out and take her hand. “Thanks for telling me that.”

She smiles and looks a little uncertain. I’m guessing most people treat her differently after she admits that she’s an addict, but it doesn’t bother me. I don’t see why it would bother me. She got herself clean and is trying to improve her life. If anything, that just shows how strong she is.

I let go of her hand and go back to eating. We eat together in silence for a few minutes, both absorbing her story.

“What about you?” she asks finally.

“I’m clean too,” I say, and grin at her.

She smiles. “I mean, your life. What brought you here?” She gestures at the house.

“Not really an interesting story.”

“It’s interesting to me.”

I grin at her. “Okay then. When I was fifteen, I really liked building things and I was good with computers. When I was twenty, I started a company that specialized in streamlining the manufacturing process. And that company has been my life ever since, for over ten years.”

“That’s not such a boring story,” she says.

“Sure it is. It’s mundane.”

She laughs, genuinely happy. “None of this is mundane, Ethan.”

“I have money. And I have nice things. But none of that is any more interesting than what you’ve been through.”

“You’re right. I am the most interesting person I know.” She grins at me.

I laugh and go back to eating. She watches me for a second before eating as well. She asks me about work and we fall into normal small talk, which is a welcome relief from the heavy conversation about her past.

It’s comfortable, talking and eating with her, in a way that I didn’t expect. I assumed the games between us would be fun, but I had no idea that we’d have chemistry outside of the bedroom. Apparently we do, though. She’s whip-smart and clever and witty, which makes it easy to chat with her, even about nothing at all.

As we finish up, I realize that this is the first meal I’ve shared with someone and really enjoyed in a long time. Normally I’m stuck with men like Richard Taylor or other boring business contacts, but Aria is different. She’s light and alive in ways I never expected.

When we’re finished, I put the plates back on the cart and sit back down, enjoying my whisky. She watches me for a second before speaking up.

“What was your childhood like?” she asks. “You didn’t say anything about it.”

I freeze for a second and look at her, trying to decide how to respond. “I’d rather not talk about it,” I say.

She must not see that I’m serious, because she pushes on. “Come on, tell me. It can’t be that bad. You seem pretty well-adjusted.”

I stand suddenly. “Thanks for eating with me,” I say.

“What?” she asks.

I grab the cart and wheel it back inside.

“Wait, Ethan. I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about your past if you don’t want.” She follows me into the room.

I wheel the cart to the front door, not sure why I’m reacting this way. Maybe it’s because I’ve never told anyone about my childhood, and I find myself wanting to tell her. But that’s dangerous. I’m not ready to open up yet, but with her it’s tempting.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, pushing the cart out into the hallway.

She stands back in the room, watching me go, and we lock eyes for a minute. She looks sad, genuinely sad that I’m leaving, and I feel a sharp pang in my chest. But I can’t stay, not when I’m so tempted to tell her about my childhood and everything that happened to me.

Instead, I smile at her and shut the door behind me. I walk back down the hall, leaving the cart by the elevator for the staff, before returning to my own room.

That was a good night. I check the clock and am surprised that we were out there for two hours. The conversation flowed so easily.

I feel bad about the way that ended, but I couldn’t help it. She opened up to me, but I’m not ready to do that yet. I should have just told her that I’m not ready, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I was too worried I’d start spilling my guts.

I can’t have that. Not yet. Maybe I’ll tell her, but not tonight.

I’ll make things right. I’ll make this up to her tomorrow. She’ll be happy that I stormed out tonight by the time I’m finished with her tomorrow.

For now, though, it’s bed alone and work early, because that’s my life.