“A safe word?”
“Think of a word that is unique to you.”
“How about two? Tracy Benn.”
“Fine. You say that and whatever I am doing, I stop.”
“What are you likely to be doing?”
“That’s where this journey comes in.”
“In what way?”
He goes quiet for a moment, like he’s trying to decide how to word things. “I need to see if you are capable of being trained in the ways of submission.”
I look at him closely but he’s giving nothing away. “Trained, how?”
“We are going to one of my country houses. Once there, I will train you. If it goes well, the wedding will be organized promptly.”
“And if it goes badly?”
“I pay you a hundred thousand for wasting your time. You sign an NDA and no one knows anything about our time together.”
“So I can’t lose. I get a hundred thousand or a million either way, right?”
“Precisely.”
“This training? What are we talking about exactly?”
“I told you it would be easier to show you than tell you. That remains the case. Wait until we get there.”
“How long will that take? I’m dying of curiosity here.”
“No more than an hour. In the glove box is the NDA for you to sign. Feel free to read through it.”
I take the paperwork out and scan through it. A lot of legal terms I don’t really understand. I sign it at the end, putting it back and not really caring. It’s only a piece of paper, after all. How much harm can it do?
It’s not like he could sue me. I haven’t got anything he could take. I doubt he’d bother anyway. The court case would bring him into the light in a way I’m guessing he doesn’t want.
I sit back in my seat and stare out of the window for a while, thinking hard. Should I do this?
I’ll call Cathy when we get there, get her opinion. She always gives good advice.
I could just do a crappy job at whatever this training thing is that he’s planning. I still get a hundred thousand. That’s more money than I ever expected to see in my lifetime. Almost enough for a house of my own, a goal I never thought I’d ever achieve.
But if I succeed? In a month’s time, I get a million. That’s an insane amount of money. The way he said it, he made it sound like it was small change to him but to me, it’s definitely life altering.
“Would there need to be anything intimate?” I ask, looking across at him a couple of minutes later. “You know? Do we have to act in private like we do in public? Like husband and wife, I mean.”
“That depends,” he replies.
“On what?”
“On whether or not you want me to fuck you.”
Sixteen
Vincenzo