“I’m sorry, that’s my fault. Look, your parents are waiting and we haven’t got much time, so I’ll give you the shorthand version now. I like you. You’re sweet as hell, Abby. I want to be your dom, I want you to call me daddy, but most of all I just want you to be yourself. All right? Now, I know that’s a lot to take in,” he says, going over to his desk and pulling a tissue out of the box, “so I don’t want you to say anything now.” He wipes the tears from my face, then puts the tissue over my nose. “Blow.” I blow. “Good girl.” He tosses the tissue in the wastepaper basket and turns back to me. “But let’s talk about this soon, okay?”
The shaking has stopped. I’m not crying. I wonder if it’s shock. Partly I feel disbelief that I have just burst into his office and been so rude to him and he’s not angry with me. I almost feel like crowing about it, but tamp the impulse down. And partly it’s such a relief to hear him tell me what he wants after so much uncertainty, even if I have no idea what him being my dom actually means. There’s something reassuringly weighty about the phrase, though. “Okay.”
He holds out his hands. “Do you want a hug?”
I do, so much. I step into his embrace and he folds me in his arms. I fit right under his chin. He smells like pine trees and safety, and I melt into him.
He kisses my hair and whispers, “How about for now you call me Rufus?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, enjoy your evening. Have a glass of champagne. You deserve it.”
I smile up at him, hoping he’ll kiss me, but he just releases me and steps back. My eyes linger on his face, drinking him in. “Good night, Rufus.”
“Night night.”
Downstairs I sail past my parent’s questioning faces. “Rufus just wanted to give me his congratulations,” I say, but as I pass them I see the saucy, told-you-so look my mother gives my father when she hears me call him Rufus.
It’s past midnight and I’m in bed when my phone buzzes. I’m lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, far from sleep. The relief I felt hearing Rufus tell me that he likes me and what he wants from me has been replaced by a combination of terror and arousal. I want to be your dom has to be the most erotically charged phrase in the English language.
I take my phone off the nightstand and see that I have a text message.
Have dinner with me tomorrow night.
It’s a number I don’t recognize but I know who it is. He must have got my number from the employee records.
Ask nicely, I text back.
Please.
Please what?
Don’t push your luck, little girl.
I laugh quietly to myself. It’s a yes, of course it’s a yes.
Thank you. Now go to sleep.
* * *
Dinner is late because of course we have a show first. The other girls I share my dressing room with all start quizzing me about who I’m going out with when they see me take off my stage makeup and start to apply my own.
“Oh, um, this man. You know. A guy.”
“What’s he like?” Vee asks. “Is he cute?”
I can’t help but grin at them. “Very cute, and tall. I don’t know him that well yet, but...”
Vee, Dionne and Alice all smile at me, waiting for me to go on.
“But I like him,” I finish in a rush, my cheeks going pink. I don’t feel like I can tell them it’s Mr. Kingsolver I’m going on a date with, not when I don’t know what’s happening between us, but it’s so good to be the one with news to share for a change. I usually keep my head down and listen to the other girls talk about their nights out, their dates, feeling awkward and out of place.
Dionne finishes applying her lipstick and bumps her hip against mine. “Nice, girl. Who asked who out?”
I think for a second. “We were sort of fooling around, and then I got annoyed with him and demanded to know what was going on. And so now we’re going on a date.”
The girls cackle with glee.