We get all the way to his most recent show and I ask him what comes next.
“Well, you see, I have this rather sweet young thing on my sofa and I intend to get my hands on her as soon as possible.”
I tap my pen against the notepad. “Work, Frederic. What are your plans for the future?”
He scrubs his hands over his face and groans. “I don’t know. This is not going in the book, but I don’t know.” Something glum has settled over him, and I watch as he runs his thumbnail along a seam in the sofa. “It sounds like I’m having a midlife crisis, doesn’t it? Existential angst; chasing after younger women. I promise you that’s not it. I have no problem getting older and it’s not your age I’m attracted to.”
I put down the notepad, feeling uncertain faced with his sudden change of mood.
“Singers my age usually work for another ten or twenty years.” He stares at me a long time, so long I begin to wonder if he’s about to confess something terrible. Does he not enjoy his career anymore? Maybe he’s thinking about quitting but isn’t sure whether he can make the break, or if he’ll be disappointing people like Sabine if he
does.
But he suddenly stands up and looks at his watch. “We’ve been talking for two and a half hours. That’s enough. Come on, I know a Spanish bar near here that has a rooftop terrace and serves very good sangria.”
He holds out his hand to me and, sensing that I’m not going to get anything more out of him today, I let him help me to my feet. We can come back to his thoughts about the future in another interview. It’s become very hot in the apartment as the sun has started to lower and drinking a glass of fruity iced wine in the fresh air sounds too delicious to refuse.
I turn toward my room but his hand tightens around mine and I’m pulled up short.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m just going to...” I turn back and gesture over my shoulder, but then I see the look on his face. I was going to say to put some underwear on but I’ve just realized he’s decided on the consequences for my little provocation.
He gives me a withering look. “I don’t think so. Out. As you are.”
“But it’s windy out there and this is a circle skirt!” I protest as he shepherds me toward the door. He makes a mock-concerned sound, grabs his keys with his free hand and locks the door behind us.
Out on the street he keeps holding on to my hand, and I’d be enjoying the intimacy of it if I didn’t know he had an ulterior motive. “At least let me have my hand back,” I say, clutching my skirt one-handed in case the breeze gets frisky. I’ve never been out of doors without underwear before and it’s a very strange sensation. Even though my skirt is knee-length I feel exposed. That Frederic knows I’m naked under my skirt only ratchets up the sensation.
He takes a firmer grip on my hand, smiling down at me. “Hand-holding is nice.”
While we wait on the pavement for a car to pass, he finally lets go of me and his arm snakes around my waist, pulling me close. He murmurs in my ear, “Are you testing my limits to see what I might do, little one?”
The sound of his low voice sends shivers through me, and I lean into him. “Maybe.”
“Does that mean you’ve decided you would like what I’m offering you?” His face is very close to mine and his green eyes are gleaming with dark invitation.
What he’s offering. The acknowledgment that I crave his voice, his strictness and his dominance as much as his touch. It’s testing my limits, this agreement, but I feel the intoxicating rush of knowing I’m standing at the edge of something unknown. I don’t know what’s on the other side except that Frederic will be there.
Five months of Frederic. Five months of being called a pretty angel and minette and being petted and cuddled on his lap while he worries about what makes me feel good. Five months of his demands, his fierceness, his domination. It’s a good thing we’re limited to five months as this sort of arrangement doesn’t sound fulfilling or healthy in the long term, like eating ice cream for breakfast every day. But, every now and then, shouldn’t you have ice cream for breakfast if you really want it?
I look up into Frederic’s green eyes. Five months of Frederic looking at you like that. What else can you say?
Chapter Nine
Frederic
“Yes, please,” Evie whispers.
There’s something very special about the glow on her face as she looks up at me. It’s excited, shy and apprehensive all at once. I pull her closer to me and her hands rest on my chest. “You want to submit to me, knowing that I will be strict, severe if displeased, demanding of your obedience, for the rest of the time that we will be together? That I will want you to be my minette, my princesse, my sweet little girl who only wants to please me and let me make her happy?”
“Yes, please,” she says in that soft, pliant voice.
Oh, Evie, you are too good, too precious. How did I even find you? “Say, yes, Frederic.”
“Yes, Frederic.”
I crook a finger under her chin and study her face a moment, drinking in the gentle, trusting look in her eyes. This is the resolution of the moment we first met, when I took her hand as she was sprawled in the middle of the road, gazing up at me, her knees skinned, her mouth parted in surprise. Don’t be afraid, little one. Let me make it better.