Fridays

Part One

I was at work on a Friday morning going through a brief when one of my colleagues at the firm peaked in my half open doorway. This particular woman, Sandra, has become more than a casual workplace friend; I would go so far as to say that she has crossed the no-man's land between water cooler buddy to actual friend.

"Go out with us tonight," she whispered conspiratorially.

"Us" is a group of single women from our firm who go out partying on a regular basis, cutting a path of sex and emotional upheaval (for themselves) throughout the Charlotte metropolitan area. I have been privy to the Monday morning recaps on several occasions, my status as a married (albeit separated) mother with a reputation for being able to keep her mouth shut making me a natural confessor, even for the women who don't really know me very well. I've listened to them cry over men that they met "out" on Friday, fucked in the wee hours of Saturday, and then never heard from again. Or for variety, they cried over married men who gave them stock stories of marital angst and then toyed with them for a few weeks or months before ultimately going back to their wives more or less full time or moving on to new prey. I've dried tears and given sisterly advice and never once felt the slightest desire to step into this singles scene morass.

"Ummm, I really need to get home early and spend some quality time with the kids -- besides, I don't have child care."

My girlfriend smirked at me. "You can only hide behind these excuses for so long..."

I started to counter, but she was already gone. I sighed and tried to concentrate on the brief in front of me. David had been gone for two months at that point, and I was beginning to get used to his absence in some ways, but in other ways, the void in my life was becoming impossible to ignore. I had been used to the rhythm of our life, the cadence, the rituals that make up the life of a couple whose public lives were impeccably professional and orderly, but whose private life held all of the dark secrets of Dominance and submission. I had broken loose of David when he broke my trust in ways that I found irrevocable, and the independent woman in me rose up and silenced the submissive. I had slipped off my collar and handed it to him, at the same time that I asked him to move out of our house, away from me, away from our children, away from our life. He had looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and sorrow, but his absolute dignity and self control allowed him no response other than to comply with my wishes, and to turn his back on this woman who dared to rise up against him and take a stand.

So now I was alone.

Alone with my thoughts, alone with my memories, and alone with my needs. I missed him more than I was willing to admit to myself, and the needs were growing more insistent each day. In spite of this, I couldn't bring myself to go out to a club with the girls and display myself like a prize heifer at a cattle show. Likewise, I had no interest in going to a "play party" and giving myself to faceless strangers just to keep from having to have my orgasms alone. I wanted...I wanted...I wanted my husband back. That was the truth of it. I wanted him back the way that it had been before all of the lies and betrayal, before he had broken my heart and destroyed my trust. I gave up on the brief and grabbed my purse. Of all the perks that exist as a partner in law firm, the most precious is the ability to leave when you like without answering to anyone. I rode down the elevator consumed with my thoughts of David and our past life. I missed a thousand little things, but lately, I missed the sex most of all. We had been so compatible it seemed, the perfect blend of Dominance and submission, his streak of sadism meshed perfectly with my streak of masochism. We always seemed to tango in step, our sexual moods seeming so synchronized, from the early days of our courtship in law school, up through the birth of our first child. Things had begun to change after that, my instinct to mother overriding my instinct to serve my Master. It became worse with the second baby, of course. The outcome was predictable, lies, betrayal, broken hearts; the trite wreckage of a fallen marriage. But through it all, the passion for each other never died, even though our last couplings were full of unspoken recriminations and hostilities. Finally, the danger became too great, anger is too dangerous in a relationship like ours; it is too easy for what was once love play to become violent or even deadly. So I sent him away, but the lust and love did not leave with him. They stayed with me to mock my nights and even, as now, my days.

I decided to go to the gym, with no other real outlet for my physical energies, I had become exercise obsessed. In the way of women who feel threatened and insecure, I found great comfort in the firmness of my flesh and the control of my weight; these things made me feel that I had some control in a world that seemed to have lost its point of orbit. I changed into my exercise clothes quickly and pulled my hair up into a knot, determined to concentrate on nothing but the disciplining of my flesh in the only way that seemed open to me now. The facility was nearly empty; the hour was too early for the lunch crowd, and the stay at home mothers were already gone by that time for the most part. I climbed on a treadmill, slipped in my headphones and began to run. I ran until sweat was starting to pour off me when I noticed a man across the gym staring at me, with a half smile on his face that seemed...familiar somehow. I looked away quickly; his look was unnerving, and it seemed to imply some private knowledge of me. I kept running for another ten minutes, longer than I wanted to, because it took him eight minutes to walk away to the men's locker room as I watched him covertly. He had never stopped looking at me with that half smile the entire time.

I got off the treadmill and went into the women's locker room feeling unsettled. The emotion seemed ridiculous, why was I reacting to a random man checking me out in the gym? It wasn't the first time that it had happened, but for some reason this man's look had been almost...as if he knew me, which was ridiculous as well, because I didn't feel that I knew his face at all. He was attractive and fit, but nothing about him stood out to me as familiar. I took a shower, washing my hair and letting it curl the way that it pleased after my shower, not caring if it looked wild, ignoring the voice that whispered to me that I left it that way because that was the way that David had always liked it; not restrained with clips and chignons that way that I usually wore it to the office. I dressed slowly, I had no intention of going back to the office that day, I had already worked more than 40 hours this week, and I wanted freedom, even if only for a few hours before my real life caught back up with me.

I wandered out of the locker room and into the lobby of the gym, the smell of something sautéing suddenly made me ravenous, and I decided to eat an early lunch in the gyms café, which was completely empty at this hour. I ordered my food and took a seat in the corner, losing myself in my salad and the fitness magazine that was tucked in the pocket of my gym bag.

"Now I know it's you."

I jumped slightly in my seat, almost spilling my bottle of water. I turned around and there was the same man, the one who had been staring at me, now dressed in a suit and tie with his hair still damp and combed back.

"Excuse me?" I recovered my composure enough to answer him, but I was ridiculously unsettled again, especially with his proximity, and my sudden realization that I found him attractive in a faintly sinister way. I tried to look nonchalant and slightly bored.

"I recognize you."

"From where?" I sounded defensive even to myself.

"I saw you with your Dom at a restaurant in the neighborhood a couple of months ago."

"My what??" I said incredulously, hoping that I had misunderstood him.

"Your Dominant, the nature of your relationship was obvious from your interaction; you were staring at him with naked adoration, and there was no semblance of equality in the way that you interacted with each other. I was eating alone at the next table, and the two of you fascinated me throughout the entire meal. He chose your food; he fed you the first few bites of your dessert when it came."

"He even gave you an almost imperceptible gesture of permission when you mentioned that you needed to visit the ladies room."

I felt myself blush at this last remark.

"And of course you were collared then...that pretty little collar with the ribbon closure that matched your green dress. Did you change the ribbon to match your clothes?"

He said all of this with the same slight smile on his face that he had had while he watched me run, as though I were standing there naked and he were appraising me.

"I, I, don't..."

"Don't lie about it; it's very unbecoming to a submissive to lie. I see that you're not wearing your collar any longer, I don't mean to be rude, but is that an oversight or is it a sign that you are free?"

I could not believe that we were having this conversation, it seemed surreal. I stood up and grabbed my things awkwardly. "I don't know what you mean; you must have me mistaken for someone else..." To my absolute shock he reached up and curled a ringlet around his finger gently and intimately, as though he had a right to touch me that way. Worse, I made no move to stop him. "It's your hair...everything else about you is so...pristine and orderly...your hair speaks of wildness and disorder...it speaks of sex. I watched you that day and imagined pulling your head back by this hair and seeing you look at me the way that you looked at him..."

This brazen statement snapped me out of my shock. "I repeat, I don't know what you're talking about, and I need to get back to work". I pushed my hair behind my ear and out of his hand. He smiled with amusement. I started toward the exit and he caught my hand, pressing a card into it. "I work out here at this time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'll expect to see you next week. Goodbye until then, submissive". And without another word, he slung his gym bag over his shoulder and left.

I stood staring after him, clutching his card in my clenched fist. The nerve of him! Talking to me like that, touching me...Of course, I knew that he had seen me with David, I could remember the day very well, it was one of our last pleasant meals out together before everything exploded. I was caught in the grip of several colliding emotions; embarrassment at having been "outed" by a stranger as a submissive, wistfulness at the memory, and unmistakable attraction for this complete stranger who had invaded my privacy with an almost --proprietary air.

I fled from the gym and rushed home. I ran through my empty house up the stairs to my bedroom and pulled off my clothes, filled with urge to wash this agitation away. I took my third shower of the day and scrubbed myself almost raw. When I got out, I felt calmer, and my agitation seemed silly in retrospect. So what this man had noticed the nature of our interaction? We were adults, it was our right to behave as we liked in the confines of our own relationship. I began to lotion myself and when I bent down my hair brushed my cheek as it fell forward, and I felt his hand in my hair again. Inexplicably, I felt myself go wet, a thing that never happened in relation to men who were not David; I had been too well trained. I reached down and touched myself slowly at first, and then faster as I remembered the firmness in his voice when he told me that he expected to see me the following week. It had been so long it seemed, since I had heard that particular tone in a man's voice, and it kindled me as surely as I he had been in the room with me, caressing me. I rubbed myself faster now, imagining his hands on me, the way he would look naked, the way he would feel. I lost myself in the fantasy, my fingers sliding in my wetness and I came with an intensity that I had not felt since David left. I lay on my bed in a daze for a few minutes, and then I began to rise up out of the haze. This was crazy! I was not going to consider meeting up with some stranger who had a notion that he was going to step into the role of dominant in my life. I picked up this card from the floor where it had fallen and tore it up.

Part 2

I spent an uneventful weekend with my children; their father and I were alternating our weekends with them at that point. The time flew by and before I knew it, it was Monday. I threw myself into my work with a vengeance. I worked out on Monday and Wednesday, but I went late in the day, so that I would be sure to avoid him.

By Friday morning, I was a nervous wreck.

I went to work as usual, with every intention of going through my day in a normal way. It didn't help that a court appearance that was scheduled for that morning was rescheduled by the Clerk of the Court, and my calendar was suddenly freed up for the remainder of the day. I sat at my desk in a near panic...I had other work that I could do...I didn't have to go to the gym; I would not go to the gym. Even as I thought it, I knew that I was lying to myself. I picked up my purse, told my secretary that I was gone for the rest of the day, and left the office.

The day was soft and lovely, the kind of day that makes you understand why people who live in the South often can't imagine leaving to live anywhere else. The air in April is still light and delicate, without the wet and oppressive heat that summer brings. The azaleas were in bloom in office gardens all over town as I made my way to the gym. I tried to look nonchalant as I walked in, planning to go through my regular routine normally, and if he was there, well...whatever. I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt a hand on the small of my back and a voice purring in my ear, "right on time."

He took my gym bag out of my hand and slung it over his shoulder. "I don't think you'll need this today." He kept the slight pressure on the small of my bag and guided me back out into the street. I suddenly became terrified. This was how women ended up in ditches, or with their heads cooling as trophies in some maniacs' freezer. "I don't, I can't, this is crazy". He stopped and turned to me.

"Look at me." I looked at him uncertainly, not at all sure why I wasn't running for my car. "I am not going to hurt you, and we will stay in public places today so that you can feel safe, understood?" I stared back at him, my instincts telling me that I could trust him...for now. I nodded. He smiled at me approvingly and said "Good girl." He turned to his right and started walking up the block. Wordlessly, I fell into step beside him. We walked along in silence, but interestingly, the silence was comfortable, as if we had already reached some sort of understanding. We walked two blocks to a small Italian restaurant which I had been to in the past, it was chic and trendy, but in spite of that, the food was very good, and the staff was accommodating and pleasant. He asked the hostess for a table in the back, and we settled in, still in silence. Now I felt the weight of the silence. As if sensing this, he began to engage me in small talk to put me at ease, the kind of light banter that two mutually attracted strangers might engage in at a cocktail party. I began to relax a bit, and we both glanced at the menus. He set his aside and looked at me quizzically. "Have you chosen something, or would you like me to choose for you?"

I immediately remembered his recounting of seeing me with David, and the intimacy of the scene that he had witnessed made me blush. He looked at me and smiled. "Do you always do that when you're...embarrassed?"

"What?"

"Blush."

Of course, I blushed all the more and stammered, "yes."

"I like that; it will be a nice indicator to go by as we...get to know each other. I think I'll enjoy making you blush."

I felt irritated by this; he was taking too much for granted. "What makes you think that we'll be getting to know each other that much better? " I bridled as I said this, annoyed.

He leaned toward me with that now familiar amusement in his eyes and said, "Tell me that you didn't make yourself cum thinking of me and of what I said to you last Friday." I was too startled to say anything, too startled to do anything but look down, my wretched tendency to blush betraying me yet again. He leaned back in his chair and laughed softly. "I'll bet you didn't wait even an hour..." I was trying to think of something to say when the waitress came to take our orders. I realized that I hadn't chosen anything. He glanced at me for an instant and then gave her both of our orders, unerringly selecting something that I might have chosen for myself. When she walked away, he said, "Do you want to know how I knew what to order for you?"

I felt uncomfortably exposed again. "Yes, I do."

"I told you that I studied you and your Master throughout the entire meal when I saw the two of you together. He had red meat, you had fish, he drank a full bodied red wine, and you drank a slightly fruity white. He had pecan pie for dessert, you had crème brulee. Even your food and beverage preferences are...feminine and delicate. You looked at him as trustingly as a child when he fed you that first spoonful of crème brulee. You sat up straight in your chair with your knees together and your legs crossed at the ankle. It was...lovely, so seemingly unstudied to the casual observer, but to one who could recognize it, it was obviously the result of years of training. Dance training first, I should think, or yoga perhaps accounts for the posture, but the rest of it, the ...attitude, speaks of the training of a sexual submissive." He finished this appraisal and looked at me to gauge my reaction. I looked down again; he was right, I had had years of dance training, and yoga training as well and of course, he was right about my training as a submissive as well. That particular course of study, although undertaken in private and with only two participants, had made the rigors of the other two look like nothing; even years of corps de ballet had nothing on David's "school of submission." I smiled at the memory in spite of myself, and found myself smiling at him.

"That's the first time you've smiled at me," he said, smiling back gently. "You see how well I know you already. " The waitress returned with our wine. We watched each other speculatively while we sipped our wine and ate our meal, speaking very little, only commenting on the food from time to time. When we left the restaurant he turned to me and smiled. "I'll walk you back to the gym now. I'd like to see you again next Friday evening in a more private setting." I looked at him for a long moment and smiled back.

"All right."

He left me at the entrance of the gym, smiled at me and squeezed my hand, then turned and walked way. I stood watching him go, and realized that I had wanted him to touch me today; compromise me, but he had been a gentleman, and I had to act the part of a lady now. I laughed at myself and shook my head, and went home.

I found myself thinking of him incessantly over the course of the weekend, his eyes staring down at me from the ceiling of my bedroom in the night, after I had made myself cum over and over again to the memory of the sound of his voice and the memory of the subtlety of his cologne. David came to the house early on Saturday morning to pick up the children, and for once, I was not agitated for hours after seeing him. I noticed a puzzled look in his eyes; he sensed the difference, or perhaps the indifference in me.

By Monday morning, I was appalled at the extent to which I appeared to be becoming obsessed with a stranger. I went to lunch with some of the women from the office, my bemusement increased by the fact that we ended up lunching at the same restaurant where I had gone with my new...friend ...the previous Friday. When we got back to the office, the receptionist stopped me and handed me a long flat gift wrapped box. "This was delivered while you were out," she chirped brightly. My lunch companions looked at each other and then at me, expectantly.