I tried. As soon as things settled down again, I tried to resume sex with Ian, but my brain was officially filled with anxious thoughts. Why was my mother in Paris? Why did she want to see me? Was she dying? Was she finally divorcing my father and wanted to tell me for herself? Did she meet a guy in Germany, where she’s currently living?
Why does she want to see me?
Suffice to say, there was no sex. My libido had jumped into the Seine and was doggy-paddling away. Dry as the Sahara. As interested in sex as a 90-year-old nun. Ian would take a distracted handjob and be grateful.
Yeah, right. Halfway through he told me to rest while he went to take a shower. Without me. Like I don’t know what he was doing in the shower! Unfortunately, I was too moody to surprise him in there.
“Kathryn? Kathryn Alison?”
That airy yet masculine voice snaps me out of my stupor. I look up from my phone and into the pleasantly surprised face of…
Oh my God!
“Martin?” My phone plops on my bistro table. “Martin Charles? No way.”
The man standing in front of my table looks like any other rich guy out for a holiday in Paris. Collared shirt. Linen pants. Obnoxiously cute but spoiled haircut. It’s the same damn haircut he had when we dated a long time ago.
I hold my hand out with a smile. He shakes it, also grinning at this crazy happenstance. “What are the odds?” he asks. “Are you staying in this hotel?”
“Yeah!” It’s popular with the social circles back home. If you announce you’re going to Paris, half the room asks if you’re staying here. I didn’t book the room, but my assistant did, and my assistant belongs to a society for young women who are, well, assistants to rich assholes like me. They share locations like this in their monthly newsletter. “You?”
“Been here three days already. Only staying a few more, though.”
“What are you doing here?” I gesture to the empty chair in front of me. When he says he doesn’t want to disrupt anyone I’m with, I glibly say I’m alone for breakfast. That gets his ass hovering in the chair. “Seeing some of my girlfriend’s family. They’re from Paris.” He lets out a pent-up breath. “They’re a handful of French people, but at least we don’t have to stay at their house.”
Martin and I broke up ages ago, but hearing he has a girlfriend makes me tense. It’s probably leftovers from my mother barging back into my life, like she belongs there, or something. “Girlfriend, huh? Who you playing with now?”
“It’s not just play,” he assures me. A server asks if he would like something, and in flawless French he says that water with lemon would be fine. He won’t be staying long. “It’s the whole package.”
“Oh.” What’s he trying to say? Besides the obvious – we were never anything more than a Domme and her obedient toy.
Martin doesn’t look it, but he’s as submissive as a good dog. Like most men of his standing, however, he’s very good at hiding his sexual inclinations in public. He’s the second heir to a lumber fortune in Canada. We met when he moved to my hometown for grad school and started frequenting The Dark Hour, the only place to go when you’re filthy rich and into kink (or at least voyeurism.) Didn’t take long for me to pick up that he was the kind of guy I usually looked for. That first night we met I had him licking my boots. Second night? I rode those rosy cheeks until I couldn’t come anymore.
What is up with Paris, anyway? First the hottest one-night stand of my life, and now Martin, the last boyfriend I had before Ian? This is getting crazy. It’s a parade of the most memorable guys I slept with in the year before I gave Ian Mathers all my time and free access to my body.
“Anyway, since you asked… I’m with Solange now.”
Solange. So. Lange. I rack my brain trying to remember where I know that name from. Naturally, I start thinking of Dommes.
It hits me.
The French Solange, of course. A tall, lean mean machine who even made me quiver in my boots when I was hanging out in those groups a lot. I don’t hang out as much with them anymore, unless we were already good friends. I’m a lot busier now. And, well, a good half of them don’t like the fact that I’m with Ian. Things get awkward when you go from identifying as a full-time Domme to a switch who mostly subs for her Dom boyfriend.
“Congratulations,” I say. “She has to make you happy.”
“Well, you know…”
Uh huh. I know. Like how Solange once left a naked man all red on stage at The Dark Hour. Minus the purple cock that was begging for release, of course. Two things Martin loves. No wonder he’s in Paris.