I’d never flown in a private jet before. From Sydney, I flew to Hawaii, where I switched planes and pilots. The second flight took me to Dallas’s Love Field, where I changed pilots and planes again. No waiting. No lines. No delays. I made the normal twenty-hour return to Chicago in under fifteen. When the plane landed, I limped slightly as I walked down the jetway. Sitting for an entire day had stiffened my body. The bruises on my palms and rear end ached. Sore muscles complained when I collected my backpack from the attendant. On the tarmac, a black Mercedes waited with the driver standing beside it. Travis took my backpack and pretended to sink under the weight of it.Though he relieved my ankle, I said, “I can carry that. It shouldn’t be too heavy for you.”“Did you pack rocks in here? How long were you gone?” Travis joked. “Two days. Three if you count the flights.”“We missed you.” With a smile, he heaved the bulky backpack into the trunk of the car.“Thanks, Travis.”Once on
Something was different. With a bounce in my step, I entered the elevator going down. From the lobby window, I looked for Travis, but didn’t see him. “Ms. Robert?”I turned to see a young man with an artfully trimmed black goatee standing behind me. “My name is Assad Ridhwaan. Mr. Mackenzie sent me.”“Where’s Travis? “He had a family emergency and couldn’t come to work today.” Assad led me to the Mercedes. I snapped my seatbelt into place and said, “I would have called a cab. Thanks for stepping in.”“Mr. Mackenzie wouldn’t stand for that. Besides, it’s my pleasure,” he said with a grin. Assad navigated Chicago traffic, turning toward downtown.At work, a bouquet of summer flowers arrived. Perry placed them on my desk. “There’s no card. Who do you think sent them? Was it. . . ?”The arrangement brightened my office. Perry and I both hoped it was Richard. “I don’t know,” I said. After I’d returned from Australia, I sensed that Richard wanted more from our relationship. And I felt th
In the days that followed, a weight lifted from my shoulders. It was as if I dove from the orange cliff at Navajo Falls into the spring waters of Lake Havasu. Our relationship had begun again with a fresh start. Tonight, I skipped my evening swim to stop at the grocery because I’d invited Richard for dinner. Since cooking took unnatural effort for me, I kept it simple and planned a meal of pasta Alfredo and a salad. I’d even bought new plates to serve dinner on. On the way home, I stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of white wine. The clerk talked me into a pricey California Chardonnay. It was more money than I had ever spent on wine. But I wanted to impress Richard, whose knowledge of wine far exceeded my own. And though he didn’t drink, I would. With alternative rock music playing, I swept the floors and wiped the counters. I straightened stacks of books and lit a few candles. I washed vegetables and shredded lettuce for the salad. At seven o’clock precisely, the phone rang. Th
It took me fifteen minutes to find my martial arts training uniform and black belt. Apparently Roman had unpacked it for me after the move, and she buried it in the drawer with my pajamas. I missed having Roman as a roommate. She cooked and kept the place tidy. She took care of things that I didn’t have time to. But I didn’t miss waking up to her sleep-over friends. She frequently brought home men she’d met in bars. It unnerved me walking into the kitchen and bumping into her half naked sex partners. Wearing the loose-fitting black gi uniform belted around my waist made me feel powerful again. It was a feeling that I savored as I sat cross-legged in the back row of Max Hiroaki’s class. Other black belts had welcomed me with a wary eye when I assured them that I’d been practicing for years. I’d left the dojo I practiced at for five years because of petty rivalry, but that was the least of the problems I had with them. The owner of that school regularly used his wife as a verbal punch
Bareilles sang, “Not gonna write you a love song,” as I made my breakfast coffee in the French press and checked emails. My backside tingled when I thought of the dungeon master and his whip, but otherwise wasn’t injured. My bum was a little tender and sported a small bruise which I wore like a medal of honor.I donned a simple black sleeveless form-fitting dress and my favorite shoes. The ones Richard had given me. As I put my cell phone in my purse, I spotted the black jewelry box on my dresser. Richard had asked me to wear the collar today. I lifted it out of the box and let the sparkling necklace drape over my fingers. I couldn’t fathom how much it cost but it seemed too flashy for the courtroom. “Wear it tomorrow,” Richard said. It wasn’t a request, more like a command that warmed my entire body. I buckled it around my neck and admired it in the mirror. “And if I don’t?” I’d asked. “There will be consequences,” he’d said, blue eyes flashing. It made me hot to think about Ri
Richard had invited me to meet him at the Virgin Hotel, and the irony didn’t get past me. He wanted a secret liaison where we could explore our first BDSM encounter together. Neither of us would risk a meeting at our homes. Police protection was watching over me. Last week I’d drawn too much media attention when I went to Richard’s apartment with Assad. Now, the paparazzi was watching us both. There were too many eyes on our personal lives.My request to lose Travis for the night didn’t fly with Richard. And recalling Domie’s warning, I agreed.Derek Stone is a scapegoat. The killer’s still out there.After swimming that night, I sat at my kitchen counter, a big glass of wine in my hand. Gazing at the note, I set the glass down and removed the collar necklace. With it splayed out beside the Richard’s gifts—the rose and the invitation—I realized what he wanted. The question was, was I ready? This was what I’d wanted for so long. He was what I wanted. From a relationship standpoint, fro
A few mornings later, as I poured a cup of coffee from my French press, I glanced up at the TV. The news scroll at the bottom announced that Senator Peterson had been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Alexis Moore. Two reporters on television sat at a glass desk with their feet on the rungs of their stools and a page of notes in front of them. I turned it up. A woman with overprocessed hair and shiny pink lipstick and wearing a bright yellow dress leaned toward a black man in a dark gray suit and blue tie as he said, “It begs the question, is our legal system broken? When shrewd, manipulative attorneys like Thena Robert can get a man like Senator Peterson, an accused sexual predator, acquitted, is she to blame? Is it our legal system? Was it the fault of the jury? Or did something unnatural happen in that courtroom?” “That’s right, Barry. Our panel of experts is here to discuss the law and sexual predators this morning,” the blonde said. Barry gave the lead-in. “Senator P
Bondage. Discipline. Sadism. Masochism. On my laptop, the screen filled with images of beautiful women tied with black rope. With red rope. And placed into positions that compromised their movement. It held them. It kept them from moving, walking, or running away. I wanted to be them. I wanted to feel the rope on my skin. And more than anything in the world, I wanted to fight against it. Richard hadn’t tied me up, so to speak. If anything, our encounter had been vanilla. I wanted more. He said he was a dominant man, why hadn’t he shown me that side of himself? In life I felt restricted. By my family and by rules. By the law. By the life I’d made. That was the reason I tombstoned. Because facing the risk head-on freed me from the restrictions of life. Of my life.Could bondage free me in ways that tombstoning could not? I wondered. Could fighting against rope metaphorically untie me from guilt and shame? What if letting Richard call the shots—take control—could absolve me? I needed