“She has two weeks left on her rent—I wonder if she’s coming back?” the landlord said.
“I doubt it. But don’t touch anything for now. Maybe she’ll turn up.” He didn’t believe it himself.
He left and walked back to his car, his conscience doing a number on his brain. You fool! You bastard! What kind of man are you, anyway!?
He slipped in behind the wheel and sat, staring straight ahead. He pounded on the steering wheel.
Now what?
With nothing else to do, he drove back to the office. He found it hard to concentrate. Looking up his schedule, he noted he had several appointments outside the office that afternoon and didn’t feel like making any of them. He forced himself to go through the motions. He didn’t make a sale all day.
When he returned, Mrs. Dowd was waiting for him.
“Did you find her?”
“Uh, no. She wasn’t home,” he said, leaving out the part about her apparently moving in the middle of the night. “Does she have any family around?”
“She didn’t say. Why, do you think she went there?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to find her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.” Edward could hear the accusation in her voice.
“I don’t know why not. We still owe her for a week’s pay, don’t we?”
“Yes. I get the feeling she doesn’t care about that.” She crossed her arms. “What the hell happened, anyway?”
“How should I know?” he bluffed and hoped she’d let it go.
“Clearly she was upset about something, to quit like that out of the blue.”
“If I find her, I’ll ask her,” he said. “Um, can you give me her personnel file? Maybe I can find her.”
Her eyes grew suspicious. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you?”
“Well, uh, why not?”
“Because whatever is going on—and I’m sure I don’t want to know about it—but I’ll be damned if I’m going to help you find her if she wants to stay lost.”
With that, she turned on her heels and left, leaving Edward staring after her, his face red.
The days crept by. Edward tried Emily’s cell phone every day until one day, a mechanical voice informed him her service had been disconnected. In desperation, he phoned a private eye he knew and asked if he could track Emily down with just her name and last address. The PI, a shady character named Carpenter, said he could try.
“But Robinson’s a very common name,” he told him. “I really could use her Social Security number to narrow the search.”
Edward didn’t know how to get that without running afoul of Mrs. Dowd. “Do the best you can with that and I’ll see about getting more information about Emily.” It was just talk. No matter what schemes he cooked up, he came up empty with the stern-faced Mrs. Dowd.
Carpenter reported back a week later and said he was tracing several women named “Emily Robinson” but didn’t have anything nailed down. Edward felt very depressed. He had ruined everything by fumbling around on his own, trying to pretend he was an experienced Dom when he really was just winging it. He had scared her off and she probably wouldn’t ever be found.
Monday morning, more than two weeks after Emily had fled, a new young woman was seated at her desk. She had auburn hair and bright green eyes, which were focused on her computer at the moment. He stopped, startled. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Oh, hi! You must be Mr. Caudry!” she said brightly, flashing him a big smile.
Edward wasn’t in the mood for smiles—and certainly not for any new girl.
“I’m Diane! I’m your new administrative assistant! I’m so looking forward to this job!” She was so chipper, it set his teeth on edge. He wondered if she would be as chipper once he had her bent over his desk. Even that image failed to lift his dark mood because it wasn’t this girl he wanted in that position, it was Emily.
“Fine,” he said and went into his office. He didn’t have the heart to test her to see if she might be submissive. He just wanted to be left alone.
Diane, he soon found out, seemed to do everything wrong. She brought him coffee in a Styrofoam cup. She misspelled four words on her first letter for him and he didn’t have the energy to threaten to fire her. He simply told her to do it right.
Edward stayed out of the office as much as he could, hating to see this interloper taking the place of his lovely Emily. God, he thought, if she knew how much he missed her, she might want to come back!
But that nagging voice within him said, Come back to what? More abuse?
“Shit,” he muttered.
He knew what he needed to do and it rankled him to even think about it. It would be an admission of defeat and an opportunity for his hated rival to gloat. But he didn’t know where else to turn for advice in this delicate matter.
He turned his car around and headed home. It was only two-thirty, but he figured he deserved a small break. He parked in the driveway and went inside. He strode to his desk and began fumbling among the papers. He knew he had kept Paul’s number, not that he could easily explain why. Perhaps he thought he might one day call and check up on Adriana.
He found it and stared at the digits for a long time, trying to think of how to approach Paul. There was really no other way than directly. If the man wanted to gloat, so be it. He dialed.
“Hello? Mr. Antonelli’s residence,” came a soft voice that for one heart-wrenching moment Edward thought was Adriana.
“Uh, er, is Mr. Antonelli in?”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
No, it was definitely not her, he decided with relief. “Yes, this is Edward Caudry.”
“Will he know what this is about?”
“Probably not, but he knows me.” He didn’t elaborate.
“One moment, sir.”
The phone was put on hold and he listened to the silence as he tried to visualize Paul’s expression when he learned who was calling: A look of surprise, surely, and perhaps a sly smile—the beginning of a gloat?
“Hello, Edward? Is that you?”
“Yes, Paul. It’s me.”
“Look, if you’re calling to check on Adriana—”
“No,” he interrupted. “No, I’m not. It’s another matter.”
“Really?” Edward could hear the surprise in Paul’s voice. “What can I do for you?”
He sighed. This was the hard part, asking him for advice. “Uh, Paul, I need some help.” He went on to describe his desire to learn more about how to be a good Dom, although he couldn’t quite bring himself to explain why.
“Is this some kind of round-about attempt to try to steal Adriana away from me?”
Edward grew exasperated. “This has nothing to do with her!” He took a deep breath. “Look, you claim to be an expert in this. I’m clearly not, otherwise, I’d still be with her. But I’m past that now.... I have my eye on a wonderful submissive, but I fear I might, uh, do the wrong thing, scare her away. I was wondering if you might give me some advice.”
“Well, that’s very interesting,” Paul said. Edward tried to read the emotion behind the voice. He seemed to be stalling for time while he thought it through. “I’m not sure I can teach you everything you need to know.”
“I’m not asking for that. I just need some advice on how to gauge one’s control against a woman’s fear of losing herself. Or something like that.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m willing to pay you, if that’s what it takes.”
“No, no—I figure I owe you that at least. Just as long as this is an educational expedition and not anything else.”
“I told you, I’ve moved on from Adriana. But I admit, it has bothered me that she could so easily fall for you. You obviously offered her a life I could not. I figure if I learn more about how to do this stuff right, maybe I’ll have better luck with this new sub.”
“What’s her name?” Was he testing him?
“Emily.”
“Hmm. Tell you what. Why don’t we meet at the Riverdale Club on the west side? Say about five-thirty?”