“No, you’re right. You’re right. Mick said the same thing. That he felt like I forgot he was a person who would like, want to get a job someday, and not just my personal sexual property.”

  Griffin parked the car behind Mistress Nora’s house in the alleyway. He turned off the car but didn’t get out.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Fucking Brad Wolfe.”

  Sheridan sat up. “What? He’s here?”

  Griffin smiled. “Not here. Thank God. I’d probably punch him in the fangs. It’s just… He said something to me a year ago, and it’s still pissing me off.”

  “What did he say that made you want to punch him?” Sheridan asked. Griffin wasn’t usually violent. Sure, he’d flog you and spank you and all that good stuff, but randomly punching men for saying something he didn’t like wasn’t his style.

  “It wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it.”

  “Which was?”

  “Out loud.”

  “Griffin.”

  “Okay, fine. So about a year ago, we ran into Wolfe—God, I hate that stupid name—”

  Good thing Sheridan was an actress and had been trained to play dumb.

  “When was this?” she asked. Brad had told her he’d talked to Griffin about his relationship with Michael, but he never said where.

  “Student art show at Mick’s school. Brad Wolfe’s girlfriend is an art professor at Mick’s school, I guess.”

  Girlfriend? Must have been the ex-fiancée.

  “So Wolfe was there,” he continued, “and I made the mistake of letting Mick talk to him.”

  Sheridan gave Griffin her best side-eye. “You let Michael talk to him?”

  He exhaled loudly. Very loudly. “Right. I’m doing it again. Sorry. Anyway, he took me aside after talking to Mick and said…well, a lot.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I’d talked Mick out of doing a study abroad semester in Italy. I didn’t want him to be gone for four months, you know? Sue me, right? I promised him I would take him to Italy over the summer, just the two of us. Wolfe was like, ‘Griffin, I know it’s none of my business, but Michael mentioned you talked him out of doing a study abroad semester. As a father, that concerns me. If it were my child and their partner tried to stop them…yadda yadda.’ You get it.”

  Sheridan could hear Brad’s voice in her ear, like he was standing next to her. Minus the yadda yadda.

  “Then he goes on and says that when I lost him—and yeah, he said ‘when’ not ‘if’ like some kind of evil oracle—that I better let him go because if I tried to make him stay, I’d never see him again. I’d never see him, and I wouldn’t deserve to see him again. And you know what really pisses me off?”

  “What?” Sheridan asked. She was shaking inside. Just talking about Brad made her feel half-sick with longing.

  Griffin didn’t answer. He got out of the car, walked to her side, and opened the door. He held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

  “He was fucking right,” Griffin said.

  They went into the house. Her beautiful Mistress Nora was sitting at her kitchen table. Of course Mistress Nora wasn’t in the kitchen for any normal reason like cooking or making tea. No, she was blacking her boots on the table over a pile of newspapers.

  “There’s my Little Miss. I’d hug you but you don’t want shoe polish on your cardigan. Come kiss me instead.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Sheridan went over to her Mistress and carefully leaned in, lips puckered. Mistress Nora gave her a quick kiss on her lips and then on the tip of her nose.

  “Miss me?” she asked.

  Sheridan smiled. “Every single day.”

  “Liar. Now sit and talk to me. Griffin, shoo. We need girl talk.”

  Griffin had a bottle of water half-way to his mouth when Nora told him to leave. His eyes went wide. He slowly lowered the water bottle. “Nora, you’ve never participated in ‘girl talk’ in your entire fucking life.”

  “First time for everything,” Nora said. “Go on. We need to decide on our Halloween costume, and it’s going to be a surprise.”

  Griffin started for the door, but he squeezed Sheridan’s shoulder gently as he passed her, kissed Nora on her cheek as he left.

  Alone now, Mistress Nora gave her a long look. “On a scale of one to ten?”

  Sheridan glared at her. For a split second. She wasn’t good at glaring at Mistress Nora. “I thought we were going to talk about our Halloween costume, Mistress.”

  “Fuck that. We’ll go as nudists. Now answer my question. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it this month?”

  Sheridan sat back in her chair and sighed. “Eleven? Twelve?”

  Mistress Nora smiled as she dipped her polishing cloth into the tub of black polish.

  “It was nine two months ago,” Nora said as she made small circular motions on her boots, turning them from a dull gray to a glossy deep black. “So it’s getting worse. I almost regret introducing you to Mr. Wolfe. Except not because it is really fun watching you lose your mind over him.”

  “Glad you’re having fun.” Sheridan said, shaking her head. “Meanwhile I’ve had a wolf living rent-free in my brain since January.”

  “You can’t expect a wolf to pay rent.”

  Sheridan took her phone from her bag and showed Brad’s latest text message to her.

  Mistress Nora looked at it, grinned. “A picture really is worth a thousand words.”

  Once a month, every month, Brad would send Sheridan a photograph. And the photograph was the same picture every single month. It was the pale pink collar and the matching wrist and ankle cuffs sitting on top of his dresser where she left them. She didn’t have to be psychic to know what Brad was saying to her every time he sent that picture.

  When you’re ready to be with me, kitten, I’m ready to be with you.

  After the photo, he would send another text that said, Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.

  Although she never replied to his texts, she always put a heart on them. And she never told him to stop.

  “I knew you’d like him,” Mistress Nora said.

  “Did you know I’d go crazy for him? Because I wish you’d warned me, Mistress.”

  Her mistress gave an evil chuckle as if she’d planned it all along. “No. I didn’t know you’d both completely go nuts for each other. He’s…what? Eighteen years older than you?”

  “Seventeen. But so? I love older men. Always have.”

  “That I know, but he’s never been into younger women. His last girlfriend was his age. And the one before that, too. For him to be into you this bad… Wow. You must give even better head than I do.”

  “Mistress? Rude. True, but rude.”

  Mistress Nora looked up from her boot blacking and met her eyes. “Sheridan, you know he’s dead serious about you, right? Sending you that pic every single month? That’s not the Brad I know. He doesn’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring. He’s one of about ten single men in New York to start with. Throw in kinky, money, a great body, and a cock that still works like it’s attached to a twenty-four year-old, not a forty-four-year old? The man is the most eligible bachelor in the state.”

  “Better not let Griffin hear you say that,” Sheridan said.

  “Griffin’s left the state of New York for the state of denial. And no deflecting.” Mistress Nora wagged her finger at her. “It’s time to do something about Brad. This can’t go on much longer. He’s like one of those miserable dogs that sits on the grave of their dead owner for ten years. You put a dom on his knees, Sheridan. Congrats. But for God’s sake, either throw the man a bone or tell him to stop texting you his Still Life with Kink and Sadness pics and move on.”

  “But I don’t want him to move on…” She pretended to cry so she wouldn’t actually cry.

  “Pitiful.” Mistress Nora shook her head and clucked her tongue.

  “I know, I know. Ten months…I should be over him after ten months, right? We spent one night together.” She rubbed her aching temples. Just thinking about Brad hurt.

  Mistress Nora spun her boot around, then went to work polishing the toes.

  “Oh, please. Nobody these days has any respect for love at first sight.”

  “Because it’s stupid,” Sheridan reminded her. “You can’t fall in love with someone after one night with them.”

  “Says who?”

  “Well…everyone.”

  “Everyone is wrong. I am right. Listen.” Mistress Nora set the boot down and wiped off her hands with a clean towel. “If you’d gone to Brad’s house that night, and he’d tried to kill you, and you’d run screaming to the police, nobody in their right mind would expect you to be over it by now. They’d consider almost being killed a life-altering traumatic event. Yes? Obviously.”

  “Of course.”

  “One definition of trauma is ‘the emotional response to a terrible event.’ And trauma can last for months and years, yes?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Falling in love is a… It’s like a reverse trauma. Why do we accept it’s normal to be traumatized for months or years after one bad event, but we can’t let people be, I don’t know, revitalized for months or years after one good one? Revitalized? Renewed? Invigorated? Whatever you want to call it, Little Miss, you met the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. There has to be a word for ‘an emotional response to a life affirming event.’”

  “There is. Trauma. Because I can’t be with him. For all the reasons I have told you many, many, many times. Reasons I can’t remember right now, but when I’m on set, I remember them, and they’re really important.”

  With a groan, Sheridan dropped her head back and sunk into her chair. “God, I want him so bad,” she said. “I want him. I want him. I want him.”

  Mistress Nora sighed heavily, dramatically. “I have a sad-sack sub and a depressed dom under one roof. This Halloween party’s gonna be a blast. I better buy more alcohol.”

  FOURTEEN

  After dinner, they decamped to Mistress Nora’s bedroom with a bottle of wine.

  Sheridan stood in the walk-in closet, digging through all the clothes. It seemed her Mistress had three types of outfits—kinky, pretending-to-be-grown-up-and-vanilla, and vintage concert T-shirts.

  “Maybe we can dress as boring vanilla people,” Sheridan said. “Like we can dress as real estate agents or something.”

  “You dress like a boring vanilla person every day,” Mistress Nora reminded her. She was lying on a pile of pillows with her phone, putting together a party playlist. “Aren’t you tired of that?”

  “Good point.” She was tired of it. More than she could say. So she didn’t say it, only sighed softly. “Got any flapper outfits? We can be Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly.”

  “Is that a thing women usually keep in their closets?”

  “I keep them in mine,” Sheridan said. “But I’ve been dying to play Roxie Hart since I was twelve years old.”

  “Go do it then. Isn’t Chicago touring right now? Bunch of newbies and no names? They’d probably kill to have the Sheridan Stratford in the cast.”

  Sheridan turned around and faced her Mistress. “I can’t just quit my show to join the touring cast of a musical.”

  “Why not? Contract got you?”

  “Well, no. I mean, we’re currently renegotiating, so—”

  “Negotiate time off. Or quit. If you’re free, go have fun. Not like you need the money.”

  “My agent does. My manager does. My—”

  “Yeah, and Kingsley always said he needed the money when I worked for him, and he was taking fifteen percent of everything I earned, too. Guess what? He didn’t need my money. He just wanted it.”

  “You sound just like Brad. He tried to tell me I should quit my show, too.”

  “He told me I should quit working for Kingsley and go out on my own. And he was right about that, and he’s probably right about you, too.”

  “Why? Why is he right? He doesn’t even know—”

  “He’s a service top, Little Miss. You know what that means, right?”

  “It means he does kink to make subs happy.”

  “No, it means he only does kink that is in the best interest of the sub. If he told you to quit your TV show and go follow your Broadway dreams, he said it because he thinks it’s in your best interest.”

  “I’m not here to talk about my stupid career, Mistress. No offense.”

  “Then stop talking about it, Little Miss.”

  Sometimes Sheridan forgot she was a submissive. This was one of those times.

  “I want to slap you with a slapper, Mistress,” Sheridan said.

  “They’re called paddles, not slappers, but go for it. I’m all for cathartic violence in small doses.”

  Sheridan ignored that as she pulled a black leather catsuit out of the closet. “I guess we could go as a cat and a kitten. You can be the cat, Mistress, and I’ll be the kitten.” She didn’t tell her Mistress that Brad had called her “kitten.” That was between them.

  “I don’t know if I can fit into that catsuit anymore,” Mistress Nora said from the bed. “You live in New Orleans five minutes, and you put on fifteen pounds. Even Søren gained weight. I didn’t think that was possible. Of course, he lost it in a week by going on two extra runs. God, I hate men and their metabolisms. Any song requests for the party?”

  Sheridan always had to pay attention when in conversation with her Mistress. She always liked to tack on questions entirely unrelated to the topic right at the end of her speeches. This was a test, of course, to ensure she was paying attention.

  Sheridan flipped through the rack of Nora’s old concert tees. Pearl Jam. The Runaways. Queen. The Go-Gos. Guns N’ Roses.

  “Guns N’ Roses,” Sheridan said. “‘Sweet Child o’ Mine.’”

  “Adding,” Nora said. “Any particular reason?”

  “Brad likes that song, and I’m a pathetic fool in love?”

  “Good reason.”

  Sheridan smiled as Slash’s guitar began blaring through speakers on Mistress Nora’s bedside tables. Those opening bars took Sheridan right back to December, lying in Brad’s bed, against his chest, laughing and singing along.

  When the song hit the chorus, Sheridan started swaying her hips like Axl Rose. He’d been so impressed by her singing. If only he’d gotten to see her dance. She wished he was here, hanging out with them, helping them decide on their Halloween costumes. He’d probably offer to help Mistress Nora shimmy into her catsuit. And Sheridan could easily picture him painting whiskers onto her face. This was her life now. Her whole life, every waking moment—imagining Brad pouring their coffee in the morning, imagining him telling her about his night at the club, imagining him in a black suit, her in a little black dress as they went out for dinner and to see Wicked on Broadway. Or maybe An American in Paris? Imagining coming back to his house in Westchester and before he took off his suit—God, she loved men in suits—he’d take her into the dungeon and use her for an hour or two. Flogging and spanking. Some delicious forced cock-sucking. And then he’d drag her to his bedroom, cuff her to the bed, and make love to her until she came so hard she left claw marks in his back worthy of a wolf.

  “Shh… It’s all right,” Mistress Nora said as she pulled Sheridan into her arms. She’d started crying. It just happened sometimes when she let her guard down. Mistress Nora held her tightly, rubbing her back. “I know you miss him. I’ve been in your shoes, baby girl. I know how bad it is.”

  “They’d kill me in the tabloids,” Sheridan said. “And they’ll do it to him, too. You know that. You know famous people don’t get to have private lives. I mean, what if you found out that, I don’t know, Jennifer Aniston sold drugs? Or Tom Hanks did gay porn?”

  “If Tom Hanks did gay porn, I would watch it with Kingsley.”

  “Mistress…”

  “Forrest Hump? You’ve Got Nailed? Sex Toy Story? I mean, Big is the obvious one. Wouldn’t have to change the title—oh, maybe Very Big? Too Big?”

  Sheridan put her hands on Mistress Nora’s shoulders and looked her in the eye.

  “Brad has a daughter.”

  “He’s a grown man, Sheridan,” Mistress Nora said. “And he’s been in the business for a long time. At any point, some dissatisfied client could have figured out where he lived, shown up at his house, and threatened his kid. That’s the risk I take every day, that King takes every day, that Brad takes every day. And don’t even get me started on the risk Søren takes every single day.” Her voice was tender but chiding. “He puts us to shame, right? If anyone has more to lose than you, it’s him. Right?”

  Sheridan nodded. “Right.”

  “If Brad is willing to take that risk to be with you, that’s his choice. The only thing for you to figure out is…do you want to take that risk?”

  “Do I want people to know all about me being kinky? No.”

  “Do you want that more than you want him?”

  Sheridan groaned, then dropped her head onto Mistress Nora’s shoulder. She didn’t answer. She didn’t answer because the answer was obvious. Of course, she wanted Brad more than she wanted…well, everything. Only she couldn’t bring herself to call her agent and manager and say, Guess what? I’m kinky. I’m in love with a man old enough to be my father who is not just kinky but famously kinky, and I’m going to throw myself at his feet as soon as I hang up. Also, I want to quit Hollywood and go back to Broadway. Oh, and Happy Halloween.

  “I didn’t do the dance for him,” Sheridan said as she pulled back and took a deep breath.

  Mistress Nora grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and wiped her face for her. “What dance, baby?”

  “I told him I could do Axl Rose’s snake hips dance? He said he wanted to see it, but I was too sleepy, and I said I’d do it tomorrow. But tomorrow came, and I was leaving him, and I forgot to show him.”

  Mistress Nora only shook her head and smiled. “You got it bad, kid. Big Bad Love for the Big Brad Wolfe. Well, I can’t tell you how to live your life, but I can tell you this—when you were engaged to that vanilla guy five years ago, you were miserable. When I talked you into breaking up with him, you were happy. When you stopped pretending to be someone you weren’t, your life got better. Maybe try that again. Just a thought. Okay?”