Despite what Tony said, everyone knew Tony’s rep in the department. His routine of waiting outside was not a secret by any stretch of the imagination.
Whether Tony had meant to throw a scare into Michael or not, he had done just that, reaffirming how easy it would be for Tony to let him go. Florida, a right-to-work state, didn’t have laws preventing his dismissal since the employment contract he’d signed upon going to work for Asher Insurance included a fairly standard clause that he could be terminated without cause at any time. Whether a lawyer could challenge it or not was another issue entirely.
It wasn’t exactly something Michael wanted to make national news trying to challenge, either.
DBA Fired PDQ Over BDSM. Story at 11.
But he had also heard that managers and higher-ups in their corporate structure had morality clauses in their employment contracts, meaning Tony absolutely could be fired if that aspect of his life got out.
Michael did not want to be the reason for that.
He followed Tony back into the data center building, relief filling him as it appeared, yes, they were going to go about their Monday as if it were any other Monday.
And while Michael didn’t want to disappoint Jenny, after the scare he’d just received, he thought that maybe it would be best if they let this little fantasy of hers wither on the vine.
* * * *
As the morning droned on and it didn’t differ from any other Monday, Mike’s own fear faded much as the adrenaline spike had earlier.
Then there were the text messages from Jenny.
In the mornings she usually sent him one, a quick I love you and that was the last he heard from her until lunch or even that afternoon. Her Mondays were even crazier than his own.
But all morning, she sent little hearts or smiley faces, completely out of character for her.
Like she was happier than she’d been in a while.
Maybe he couldn’t be hard-hearted enough to just stop doing this for her before they’d even really started.
Mike found himself following and catching up with Tony at lunchtime as the man walked out to his car. “I do have a question,” Mike said.
Tony glanced around to make sure they were alone before leaning against his car. “Okay. Shoot.”
“She said she isn’t sure what she wants. How am I supposed to know what I even want if she can’t tell me what she wants out of this?”
He smiled. “That’s easy. She’s already done a lot of the work for you. Pick up her Kindle and have her show you the books that made her the hottest, and read them.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s that simple. Well, by that I mean it’s a starting point. Keep in mind you should not feel threatened if some of the books are ménages, or seem to have pretty outlandish stuff in them. That doesn’t mean she’s wanting to jump into being a swinger, or be poly, or do crazy sex, or anything like that. It might just be that an aspect of something she read resonated with her. Talk with her. Ask her what it is about those books that really got under her skin. Hell, go read Shay’s series of articles. Give me your personal e-mail address and I’ll send you the link to the series. From my personal e-mail address.”
Mike didn’t miss the subtext. “That sounds too easy.”
Tony laughed. “You want to know a secret?”
Michael nodded.
“This isn’t rocket science. We get all sorts of pompous asshats in the lifestyle who say if you don’t do things their way, then it’s wrong. They try to complicate it. Ignore them. It might work for them, but it doesn’t work for the rest of us. Find out what you like, what she likes, meet in the middle if the two are different. Find out what works for the two of you as a couple and enjoy it. Have fun. Don’t worry about impressing anyone else. It’s you two who matter.”
“Again, it sounds too easy.”
“That’s because it is easy.” Tony unlocked his door and opened it. “It’s so damn easy that too many people trip over themselves trying to complicate it when all they have to do is just have fun and quit thinking they have to imitate Internet bondage porn.”
Tony pointed a finger at Mike. “And, FYI? Internet bondage porn is, for the most part, completely unrealistic. So don’t watch it and think it’s any kind of instructional manual. Because it’s not.”
He closed his door and started the car, rolling down the window. “One other thing. Remember that if you aren’t having fun with it, you’re doing it wrong.” He gave Michael a wave, rolled his window up, and backed out of the parking space.
Well, that did sound way too simplistic.
But maybe the man had a point about the books on Jenny’s Kindle and reading the articles. They shared an Amazon account, so it’d be easy for him to pull Jenny’s books up on his phone or tablet app without even having to ask her about them.
I guess there’s some reading in my future.
* * * *
Michael’s nerve deserted him that night. Instead of asking Jenny what she was reading, he decided to plunge right in and follow along with her most recently read books. She had come home from work with a headache anyway, her typical crazy Monday having been even crazier with two of their nurses out sick. So as she fell asleep in bed next to him, he sat up with his tablet and started reading.
The first one was a contemporary BDSM with just a man and a woman. He looked the title up on Amazon and read through the reviews. They were heavily weighted toward the positive, even though he kept seeing warnings about it being “dark.”
Hell, I grew up watching reruns of Dark Shadows. How bad can it be?
It was after he’d read only two chapters that he decided he’d better get a clearer definition of “dark erotica,” because apparently it wasn’t what he thought it was.
At all.
In fact, if anything in the book he’d read so far—which involved a billionaire bad-boy drug-dealer and a maid who’d agreed to be his courtesan—was stuff Jenny wanted him to do to her, he had a hot and disappointing news flash for her.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
After a little research, which gave him a revised—and more accurate—definition of “dark erotica,” he quit reading that book and went to the next.
He tried to keep Tony’s warnings in mind not to freak out over what he read, but it was hard to do that when the next book involved a woman hooked up with four very well-endowed wolf shifter brothers who apparently liked their sex rough.
Next.
He didn’t consider his penis to be lacking, and Jenny had never voiced any complaints about it, but he damn sure wasn’t able to compete with guys who were hung like Frankensteinian lupine super-studs.
Okay, maybe I do need to start with the articles.
He’d ask Tony about it in the morning. For tonight, he knew he couldn’t sit there chasing his own tail and driving himself crazy by jumping to conclusions.
He’d need a better starting point. The stuff he’d read thus far felt like deep end of the pool material, when he needed the really shallow, kiddie play-fountain end of things.
I’m going to have to admit I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
He just hoped that was good enough for Jenny for right now.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, Mike got to work a little early and waited for Tony in the parking lot.
Mike didn’t waste any time asking him. “You know those articles you mentioned that your wife wrote?”
Tony nodded.
“Did you mean it when you said you’d send me the links to those articles?”
“Sure. Might not be able to look up the links until lunch, though.”
“Whenever you get around to it is fine. I mean, even if it’s not until tomorrow or whenever.”
“Why didn’t you ask your wife for the links?”
“Well, I didn’t think about it. We didn’t get a chance to talk last night.”
Tony knowingly smiled. “You went ahead and read
some of her books anyway and freaked out, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I think I picked the wrong books to start with.”
“Did you ask her about them?”
“No. She was asleep. She came home from work last night not feeling well.”
Tony chuckled. “I’ll get you the links. Text your e-mail address to my personal cell.”
“Thanks.”
Mike followed his boss into the building, waiting his turn to swipe his security badge to make it through the door into the data center.
This BDSM stuff might not be rocket science, but it sure as hell is confusing the crap out of me.
* * * *
Jenny went to work Tuesday morning feeling a little disappointed. Not in Mike, but in herself. She’d wanted to talk with him the night before, but her damn headache had made that impractical. All she’d felt like doing was curling up and forgetting her crazy day.
Maybe tonight will be better.
During one brief lull in the morning’s hectic schedule, Tina gently nudged Jenny in the ribs. “What’s on your mind, girl? You’ve been looking a little out of it.”
Jenny hoped her face didn’t turn beet red. “Still adjusting to our empty nest.”
“Ah. Missing the kid, huh?”
“Yeah.”
That wasn’t even a lie. Now that her excitement about going to the munch had waned, Jenny realized there was a gaping void laid out in front of her. She had book club on Thursday.
And work.
And…that was pretty much it, other than her usual housework.
She’d talked to Mikey a couple of times the week before, just checking in with him. And he texted her every day, at least once, but she could tell he’d already settled in to his new schedule and was going about his life without a look back.
Why can’t I just do that?
The BDSM stuff notwithstanding, Mike’s life remained essentially unchanged despite their son no longer living under their roof. Well, she’d probably do a lot more cooking now, instead of pulling stuff from the freezer to nuke for a rushed dinner between Mikey’s events.
She was the one who needed to figure out how to deal with this.
“You know,” Tina said, “we could get together, just us girls, and go out to dinner one evening this week.”
That meant those of them from the office. “I can’t on Thursday, but any other day works for me.”
“Let me ask around and see what’ll work for everyone. I’ll even drive so you can get tipsy,” Tina teased. “No husbands or boyfriends allowed. Especially no kids.” She bumped Jenny with her hip.
Jenny forced a smile. “Sounds good.”
At lunch, Jenny retreated to her car with her Kindle. She’d been in the middle of reading a sexy contemporary BDSM story. In the middle of one scene, where the male Dominant was working with his submissive, Jenny burst into tears.
She had to set the e-reader aside and dig a tissue out of her purse.
I want that. I want that so badly.
She knew she couldn’t force Mike to do it. That wouldn’t be fair to him at all. And she also understood books were not real life. It was the connection she longed for, the control, the chance to escape her brain and her life for a little while and hand herself over to Mike to have a mental vacation.
To feel like she didn’t have to be in charge for once. There was no one in the world she trusted like her husband. Which was why she wanted to give him that control over her.
Not even the sexual component of that kind of dynamic.
Well, okay, maybe a little of the sexual component. Not the crazy, “hanging upside down from the ceiling while fucking” sexy kind of stuff.
Just…
Dominance.
She’d seen glimpses of it in him before. Especially early on in their relationship, when he’d take charge in bed and totally melt her panties right off her body.
And then…life.
And then…Mikey.
And then…their sex life became a series of nice but predictable encounters between them in bed that left her feeling loved and physically sated, but missing that little…something. That little spark. Something she not only wanted back, but wanted to nurture, encourage, expand upon.
One time in college, they’d been alone in the laundry room of her apartment complex, and she’d been wearing a long skirt. Mike had stood behind her while she removed clothes from the washer, stuck his hand up her skirt and under her panties, and fingered her to climax.
That kind of thing.
When she’d worried someone might come in and see them, he’d gently shushed her and told her to let him handle it.
That had been one of the hottest sex sessions of their life. Well, that, and then immediately following that, up in her apartment, where he’d knelt over her, pinning her to the bed while she’d sucked his cock.
That.
She pulled herself together and returned to the office a few minutes later, slipping into the bathroom before anyone saw her so she could splash water on her face.
Maybe I need to talk to Shayla at book club this week.
The woman had given Jenny her cell phone number at the munch and told her to text or call with any questions. Jenny hadn’t wanted to intrude. And then there was still the weird thing about Shayla’s husband being Mike’s boss.
She definitely did not want to tip the apple cart there.
Before leaving the bathroom, she texted Shayla.
Can we get together before book club this week and talk?
Before Jenny had even reached the door, her phone buzzed in her hand.
Sure. When and where? I’m free tonight.
Jenny thought about it, named a restaurant and a time, and sent it. A moment later, Shayla replied again.
See you there. :)
At the munch Sunday night, several women had related their personal tales about how they’d discovered this aspect of themselves and then had to approach their partners about it. Some had success, some ended up nuking their relationship as a result, whether because their partner reacted poorly or simply couldn’t give them what they needed.
Jenny did not want to do that. It would devastate her to lose her marriage.
Even if it meant she ended up having to back off this and continue their status quo, she would. But maybe Shayla could give her some pointers on where to go from there.
I hope.
* * * *
That afternoon, just after lunch, Mike checked his personal e-mail on his phone and saw Tony had sent him a link from a private e-mail account. The sig line tagged it as being from Tony’s phone, and the time stamp showed his boss had sent it while out at lunch.
Heart racing, he put his phone away. He couldn’t read that now. Not on the job.
Especially not on the job. It did, however, touch him that his boss had taken time out of his lunch to look the information up and send it.
It also reassured him that Tony really wasn’t going to use this against him.
But as soon as Mike clocked out for the day, he sat in his car with the AC running and pulled up the link on his phone. Jenny had texted him that she was going to meet with Shayla after work to eat. That meant he’d fend for himself for dinner.
It also meant, hopefully, that he’d have time to read through at least some of the articles before Jenny got home.
Traffic frustrated him more than usual that afternoon. All he could think about were the precious minutes he could be reading before Jenny returned home being eked away at by every damn slow driver blocking his path.
Finally, after what felt like forever but actually got him home about five minutes earlier than normal, he pulled into their driveway and shut the car off.
Rushing inside, he powered up his personal laptop and went to change clothes while waiting for it. He carried it with him into the kitchen, where he pulled some leftovers from the fridge, dished himself a plateful, and nuked them.
Then he sat at the kitchen table and read while he
ate.
The series of articles were apparently written before Shayla married Tony, based on her different last name and the events recounted therein. They started out with her honestly stating her feelings about BDSM and her caution that she would be on a voyage of discovery along with her readers.
The plate of food went cold in front of him, forgotten as he immersed himself in her writings. Now that he knew Tony was the Dom Shayla talked about in the articles, and that Shayla had told him about Loren and Ross being the couple who’d first met with her and talked to her about the lifestyle, these people had faces and names in his mind.
While he still couldn’t understand some of the mindsets, he admitted it humanized the process, erased a level of disconnect he knew he might otherwise feel while reading about it.
These people were real. What Shayla had experienced had really happened. He suspected that what she detailed in these articles only scratched the surface of what had occurred in her weeks of training with Tony.
In no way did Shayla come off sounding weak in these articles, either. Plenty of times she expressed her own disbelief, her attempts to wrap her mind around certain aspects of things she learned or saw while still trying to give it a fairly objective treatment so the reader could form their own opinions.
It didn’t cure his confusion. If anything, it added to it. Halfway through the articles, he took a break and reheated his plate of food. He knew he would have to sit down with Jenny and talk to her.
It would feel really uncomfortable. It would be difficult for him not to be judgmental. Not about his wife specifically, but about the lifestyle as a whole. Yes, he got the whole scuba diving analogy Shayla had written about. He understood that, like anything else, it was a spectrum. From playing around in bed to a full-time high-protocol lifestyle.
Just like he thought people who willingly jumped out of perfectly good airplanes for fun with flimsy pieces of fabric to stop them from dying were batcrap crazy, he also understood it was a matter of perspective. One person’s “normal” was another person’s “you have got to be out of your fucking mind” standard.