“I don’t know.”
She was lying to him. Mephisto stood abruptly, feeling rage which he could not, could not give voice to. “Help me clean up the kitchen, please. It’s almost time for the club to open.” It took everything he had to keep the words calm and casual.
“Yes, sir.”
They cleaned up in silence. Mephisto was glad. He didn’t want to think of chatty things to say when he was all tied in knots. He should be happy for her. If she met some vanilla delivery guy who bought her pie, and that kind of stuff made her happy now, that’s what Mephisto wanted for her. It just wasn’t what he wanted for himself. Why did relationships have to be about two people? Why couldn’t he just force Molly to be his slave? Make her kneel at his feet, serve him, suck his cock and do whatever other perverse sexual acts he desired? The necessity of consent made everything so goddamn complicated. He chuckled softly at that thought.
“What?” Molly asked, turning to him. “What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing,” Mephisto said. “What kind of pie was it?”
Molly gave him a look. “Cherry.”
Cherry. Of course.
*** *** ***
Molly tried to put Eliot out of her mind, but he crept back in at the least opportune moments. She was being so stupid. It was so stupid to get obsessed over someone just because she liked his looks. Because he was nice to her. Still, she took twice as long to get dressed and ready on Friday as she usually did, to the point where the other volunteers at the Family Center noticed and asked if she had a hot date. They were teasing her, sweet natured teasing, but she felt mortified. If they noticed, then Eliot would, and he would know...
Know what? That she was interested in him? Why was that so bad? Why was she so scared?
She dragged her feet all the way down the street to the diner, thinking every moment that she still had time to turn around and flee. She also thought he might not show up at all. That would be embarrassing after the way she’d built this up in her head. It wasn’t like they’d set up an official date. She thought back to their parting conversation. I’m usually here on Fridays. Around noon.
Cool. Maybe I’ll see you then.
Oh God, maybe he’d be there but not actually talk to her. He’d nudge his work buddies. “Look, she actually came back.” All of them would give her the side eye and snicker and she’d feel that shame again, kicking her, punching her. She stopped on the sidewalk a few steps from the door, her hands in fists. She couldn’t bear something like that. She was too afraid to even try this, this friendly, nice relationship, because a betrayal from a nice person was so much worse than a betrayal from someone you knew you couldn’t trust.
Molly spun and fled headfirst into a brick wall. No, not a brick wall. A solid, smiling man in a brown UPS uniform. He steadied her with his hands.
“Good golly, Miss Molly. How are you?”
She ducked her head, trying to pull herself together. Act normal. She stepped back and forced a laugh. “I’m fine. Sorry. I thought maybe I forgot something back at—where I work—but now I remember I didn’t.”
“Oh, you got a job!” He looked overjoyed for her. “Where?”
“The Family Center around the corner. I work there part time.” It wasn’t a total lie. She pointed at his uniform. “I guess you still work for UPS.”
“Packages gotta get delivered. You know how it is.” There was the smile, radiant and miraculously free of judgment. “You want to get some lunch? Do you have time?”
She nodded and walked with him into the diner. “So, where are your friends?”
He made a face. “They’re not my friends, exactly. I work with them. They didn’t want to come here today and I didn’t argue. It’s nice to have a break from them, not that they aren’t great guys. They just... When you’re around the same people all the time, they start to grate on you.”
They sat at a table in the corner, amidst the usual mixed crowd. He leaned close as she stared down at her menu. “You look nice.”
They were just casual words, a polite comment, but she felt ridiculously pleased.
“So what do you do at the Family Center? Are you a counselor? A nurse?”
“Oh, God, no. I just help with filing and talk to the people who come in. A lot of them are...nervous.” A lot of them were desperate and borderline hysterical, but it seemed too dramatic to tell him that. Just that morning, she’d sat with a bruised and battered woman while the people at the Center helped her get a restraining order against her husband. What was the most dramatic thing that happened down at the UPS hub? A misdirected package? Molly shrugged and made little rips in the edges of her napkin. “Actually, I’m only volunteering there for now. I’ve been volunteering at a lot of different places, trying to figure out where I belong. What I want to do now.” God, why did she keep repeating that like an idiot?
“Well, what did you do before he died?” Eliot asked.
“I stayed at home. I guess I really didn’t do anything.” Except wear his collar for eight years, and try to be perfect for him.
“So, you were one of those trophy wives, huh?” Eliot raised a brow and smiled at her over his menu.
Molly coughed. “Uh. Not exactly. Sort of. My M— My husband was older, yes.” She’d come so close to slipping up and calling him her Master in front of Eliot. “He was older, but I didn’t marry him for money or security or anything. I loved him. I didn’t just shop and soak in the tub and eat bon bons.”
“You just described my dream life.”
Molly burst out laughing as the waitress came by to take their orders. They both ordered BLTs, and Eliot asked for extra tomato, winking at Molly, so she laughed again as the waitress bustled away. He ran a hand through his chestnut mop of hair and flashed her another of his wonderful smiles.
“I would make a great trophy husband for some rich woman. What do you think? Know any rich old ladies looking for some young lovin’?”
Molly almost choked on her sandwich. “If I meet any rich old ladies I’ll be sure to put in a word for you. But we don’t get a lot of them at the Family Center.”
They talked and laughed for almost an hour over BLTs and sodas and cherry pie. Eliot kept her in stitches telling stories about his oddball co-workers and his large, hilariously dysfunctional family. She found out he was twenty-four, and that he was working to earn money to finish a law degree he’d started a couple years back. She could see him as a lawyer. He had the charisma for it, and he seemed really sharp.
“I have an Environmental Studies degree,” she blurted out. “A lot of my friends moved into Environmental Law in college.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a big area now. Where’d you go to school?”
“Indiana University. They have some great programs.”
Eliot folded his arms and leaned on the table, looking confused. “So why don’t you get back into that? If that’s what you have a degree in?”
“That was another lifetime. It feels like it anyway. I’m not that person anymore.”
“Well, what person are you?”
Molly paused, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know...” She looked up at Eliot with a shy smile. “I just know the pie here is really good. And the conversation.”
His gaze met hers and held it. “Next Friday then? Or...maybe I could call you sometime this week. Maybe we could do something else. Dinner and a movie?”
Molly blinked. “I— Well—”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out. We get along though, don’t we?” His voice dropped a half-octave. “And I am getting kind of addicted to your laughter.”
“It’s just that I’m not an old, rich sugar mama.”
Eliot chuckled. “See? I must really like you then.”
Molly gave him her number, feeling excitement but surprise too. Dinner and a movie? It had only been a few months since Clayton died, since she thought her life was over. In a thousand years, she wouldn’t have foreseen this. A chance meeting at a diner, and now dinner and a movie.
But Mephisto...
Why did it feel like she was cheating on two men? Her late Master, and Mephisto too? She could tell Mephisto had been less than thrilled to learn about Eliot. She wondered what her Master would have made of him. Was Eliot someone he would have chosen for Molly to be with next?
No, your Master would have chosen Mephisto. Mephisto, who wasn’t at all the dinner-and-a-movie type.