“Thanks.”
We all stood, me and the two other women Milo had “scened” with. I thanked them again at the door, for their candor, and for their clarification of Milo’s issues. I understood now why he’d never confide the extent of his BDSM life to me. Because yes, I would have tried anything to win his heart. I would have put on the sexy uniform and collar and given myself to other men if that’s what he required to make things work. I might not have liked it, but I would have done it. He wasn’t only protecting me from him, when he shot down our continuing relationship.
He was protecting me from myself.
Chapter Thirteen: Milo
I was working late when my phone rang, flashing Fort’s name. I put down the delicate body of Alice’s violin, only recently assembled and glued. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Hey, Milo. Are you on speaker?”
“No.”
“So…” He paused. I could hear a soft female whine over the connection. “I have a bad little subbie here beside me, confessing that she tried to make things better between you and Alice, and may have ended up making things worse.”
I imagined him twisting her nipple, drawing out those whining cries. “You’d better start at the beginning,” I said.
“I guess Juliet overheard some of our conversation the other night.”
Fuck. The conversation we’d had over two bottles of wine, while I was feeling emo as shit?
“She knows she’s not supposed to eavesdrop.” He paused as the whine rose to a cry. “But she was worried about you, and she thought if she spoke to Alice, she could help her understand…what was it you said, darling?”
“Help her understand about Milo,” said a soft voice.
“What about Milo?”
I didn’t hear anything else for a moment, only crying. “Fort, don’t torment her,” I said. “I’m sure she meant well.”
“Maybe, but I beat her little tail anyway. She and Ella paid a visit to Alice to tell her the reason you were resisting a relationship, and I’m afraid they told her too much.”
“Too much?” I asked.
“Too much. Everything. You. Me. Them. Your kinks. The Gallery.”
I sucked in a breath. “They told Alice about The Gallery?”
“She said they didn’t mean to, but the name slipped out. They were in the process of telling her the rules—”
“Fuck. That’s not okay.”
“I know, I know. If you want, you can come over and punish her too.”
I was tempted. The Gallery’s members were sworn to discretion. But I doubted there was much left of her “little tail” to punish, judging by her whimpers in the background. “I don’t want to punish her any more, but I need to speak to her. Will you put her on the phone?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry, Milo,” she wailed a moment later. I held the phone a little farther from my ear as she apologized two more times. “We didn’t mean to say so much to Alice. It just came out. We were trying to help her understand you better.”
“It sounds like you did a bang up job of that.” I softened the edge in my voice. “I know you were trying to help, but I didn’t want her to know those things about me.”
“She didn’t react badly. Well, I mean, she was surprised.” Juliet sniffled. “It was a lot for her to take in.”
“You must have known it would be,” I scolded. “And it was my private business. My choice whether to tell her or not.”
“I know. We only wanted to help. When we got there, Ella and I could tell she’s been feeling sad without you. Her eyes had that look, you know?”
Her words stabbed into my heart. Yes, I knew that look. I remembered it from the days after the Michelin building caught fire, and she lost everything.
“So…what did she say?” I wanted to know, even though I dreaded knowing. “Did she look scared? Disgusted?”
Juliet’s pause told me everything I needed to know. “I think it was just a shock, Milo. And then Ella spilled about the time you were slapping her, and Dev beat you up, and it came out that you’d played with the two of us, also.”
“Ah,” I said, anger flaring along my nerves. “So you told her absolutely everything. I might come punish you after all.”
“You can if you want,” she said, breaking up in sobs. “I deserve it, but maybe wait until tomorrow.”
I heard a yelp, probably Fort pinching one of the welts he’d deposited on her ass, to make her cry so hard.
“If he wants to punish you, he can do it anytime,” Fort said sternly.
“Tell your Sir to give you some corner time with clamps on,” I said, “while you think about discretion and privacy. Put him back on the phone.”
She apologized once more and handed it over. While I waited for Fort to come back on, I thought of ways I might put a positive spin on what had happened. I couldn’t think of one.
“I’m back,” he said. “And she’s in the corner. She’s really sorry, Milo.”
“At least she told you what she did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know that Alice knows.”
“Jules meant well, but Jesus, she rarely fucks up this bad. We haven’t had a punishment session in a while. I’m sure Ella’s also feeling Devin’s wrath right about now.”
“Which she deserves.”
He chuckled at my irritated response. “Look, this is life, man. Try not to be too torn up about it all.”
I thought a moment before I spoke. “I would have preferred to keep that part of my life away from her, but if she knows, she knows. At least she understands now. I guess that’s what Juliet and Ella were aiming for. Anyway, I’d better go.” I looked down at the violin I was making for Alice. “Give your naughty sub a hug when she’s done with her corner time. Tell her I forgive her.”
“Will do. Talk to you soon.”
We hung up, and I was left with silence and spiraling thoughts. Would it have been better to tell her on my own, rather than having her learn about The Gallery from someone else? Too late to do anything about that now.
I’d have to see Alice soon, to make final adjustments to her violin before I assembled it for good. Stronger glue, more varnish, and tighter strings so she could make any tone she wanted. I traced the small heart I’d hidden in this instrument’s wood grain. Still in the same place on the back, but less obvious this time, because I was better at hiding things than I’d been when I was a younger man.
Maybe I could catch her after one of her Met Orchestra concerts, and make her play a few notes so I could see how my earlier measurements had fared. I wasn’t looking forward to the awkwardness, but I still loved her, and I was making her a violin with my heart on it and in it, whether she wanted the damn thing or not.
*
I bought a ticket to her Met concert the following night, and worked myself up all day to see her. So she knew about me and The Gallery, and whatever else Jules and Ella had told her in some effort to “fix things” between us. Okay. There was no way to go back.
But we were still longtime friends, and fellow musicians. My mind wandered as I watched her play. I tried to read the set of her shoulders and the way she pursed her lips. Her hair looked braided to the point of painful tightness, and she wasn’t happy with the violin she was playing. I could tell by the way she overplayed notes that ought to have been light and carefree. They were doing Mozart tonight. Poor thing.
After the show, it was easy to get backstage. The Fierro name counted for a lot in the music world, especially when I was carrying a violin case under my arm. I asked around until I found Alice in a mostly deserted corridor, chatting with a couple other violinists. One of the two men wanted to sleep with her, or had already slept with her, based on his body language. I gritted my teeth and leaned against the wall where she would see me and the violin case. I didn’t want to join her conversation, but I also wouldn’t let her leave without talking to me. When she tried to slip away, pretending not to see me, I called out her name.
“Lilly-Alice!”
Then I wondered why I’d used her full name. To show her I meant business? To remind her that I’d known her during her Lala years?
“Hi,” she said, turning to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to watch you play.”
She couldn’t hold my gaze. “I didn’t think you liked Mozart.”
“I don’t. Not my favorite. But I wanted to see you, and I wanted to bring you this.”