Laughing hysterically, I shut off the pitiful water and reached for a towel. I'd never wanted anything more than to just go home, back to my cozy apartment where I paid half as much for twice the square footage. Where I knew everyone, and everyone knew me.
Where all of my dreams would go to die.
I wouldn't. I couldn't.
I just wanted my life to be simple again.
Well, that was basically impossible at this point. After I'd dried off and dressed, I picked up the phone and called Maddy. I didn't know what else to do.
Pick up the phone, pick up the phone, pick up the phone.
"Hello?" She sounded breathless.
"Hey, um, could you..." I swallowed hard. "I was hoping we could talk. I kind of wanted to...run something by you. Is this a bad time?"
There was rustling in the background, and a series of more abstract sounds that basically answered my question for me. "Yeah, it kind of is, sorry," she said, sounding incredibly distracted. "But, you want to get coffee later? Like in um...an hour?"
"Two hours." Daniel's voice cut in, sounding very close.
Maddy made a little scoffing noise. "An hour," she said, before turning her mouth away from the phone slightly to address her husband. "If you think that kid of yours is actually going to nap for longer than an hour, you're delusional."
"Forty-five minutes for us," I heard him murmur, faintly, in the background. "Forty-five minutes for you to recover, and half an hour to get cleaned up, get dressed, and get yourself to the coffee shop." A moment of silence. "Any arguments? Tick tock, Ms. Wainright."
I heard her soft, indulgent laugh. "I'm so sorry," she said, into the phone. "Two hours, okay? Same place as before. I'll try not to be late -"
The phone cut off abruptly, and I was left to think in silence.
I should probably feel a little embarrassed that I'd clearly interrupted something intimate, but instead, I was vaguely fascinated. He called her by her maiden name, like they were playing some kind of game. Maybe enacting old workplace fantasies they'd never had the chance to fulfill, when she actually did work for him.
That, I could wrap my head around.
There was something about Daniel's voice. His tone. It was completely unlike the way he usually spoke to her, when other people were around. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd witnessed, but even over the phone, I could feel the electricity between them.
I wondered what any of this had to do with spankings, and corrections, and being...taken in hand.
I spent the next few hours wondering.
***
Maddy was late.
She burst into the coffee shop with a furtive smile that she couldn't quite seem to hold back. Her hair had clearly been hastily blow-dried, and she was wearing a silk scarf around her neck in the way women only do when they're hiding love bites. It was impossible not to smile.
"Sorry," she breathed, sitting down across from me. She was glowing, as if she'd just finished laughing at some secret joke I couldn't possibly understand. "And, uh, you know, I'm sorry about earlier. He's usually a lot more, uh...discreet. I probably shouldn't have answered, but..."
"No, I'm glad you did," I said. "Really." A moment later, I realized how that sounded. "Not in a creepy way."
She laughed. "No, I get it. So what's going on?"
I'd been so anxious to tell someone, and now, I realized I didn't even know where to start. We hadn't finalized our story. If I said the wrong thing, I could screw this whole thing up.
The hell with it. I'd wing it, and screw the consequences.
"I spent last night at Ben's place," I confessed. Maddy's eyebrows shot up. "Not like that," I hurriedly added. "I just - look, okay, I'd tell you if I slept with him."
She was smiling like the cat that got the cream.
"I'm serious," I said, trying to mold my facial expression into something like sincerity. Already, I was starting to lie to her - I didn't know how long I could keep this up. "They were doing work on my street, there was a gas leak. I couldn't go home. He invited me to stay at his place, so I wouldn't have to spend money on a shitty motel. I just happened to run into him after I got back from my audition from hell."
"Audition from hell?" she repeated, clearly wanting to know the whole story.
I made a vague gesture. "I'll get to that later. The point is, I did it. I followed him home. I don't know why. I wasn't sure what was going to happen."
Once again, she broke into a smile, this time with a little accompanying giggle.
"Turns out, nothing much," I went on. "Just cards. Lots and lots of cards. And...we talked."
"You talked," she echoed, meaningfully.
"Yes," I emphasized. "Just talked. But it was..." I cleared my throat. "I don't know, it was...surprisingly nice."
"Huh." Maddy shifted in her seat, watching me closely. She could tell I was holding something back, but with any luck, she wouldn't be able to tell what. "I got the feeling you couldn't stand him."
"Well. He sort of grows on you. Like a fungus." I was no longer sure if I was lying. "It's weird. I've been...I don't know. I've been running into him a lot lately, and every time we talk, he makes me smile." I shrugged. "That's something, right?"
"It is something," Maddy agreed. "Jen, are you sure you're not just...nervous, or lonely, or something? I just don't think you should jump into anything you're going to regret."
Excellent advice. How could I deflect it? "I know, I know. I'm not exactly rushing into something serious. I just wanted to..." Taking a deep breath, I tried to gather my thoughts. "I wanted to ask you about something. As one woman to another. It's not exactly something I can run by my mom."
Her eyes lit up. "Okay, that sounds juicy."
"It is fairly..." I laughed a little. "...juicy. I guess. So, okay, let's not get into the details of how I found this out. All right? Because that's just a distraction. It's not important. What is important, though, is how I'm supposed to react to it."
"Wait, wait, wait." Maddy held up her hands, a smile playing on her lips. "Okay. You can't just gloss over that. Were you snooping?"
"Maybe a little," I admitted. "But not really. He wasn't making an effort to hide anything. I mean, who just lets somebody use their computer without at least logging them into a guest account first? Obviously he wasn't really trying to hide anything."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Maddy set her drink down so abruptly that it sloshed over the edge of the glass. "Hold on. What did you find on his computer?"