He didn’t sleep at all. After packing, he tried to lie down for a nap and gave up. Sleep wouldn’t come. All he could see were Shay’s hazel eyes and the lost look on her face when he uncollared her.
She hadn’t protested, though. She hadn’t asked him not to.
She didn’t beg him to stay, or to at least talk about it.
She didn’t ask him to extend their time together. He would have gladly and readily agreed to that without further discussion. It would have bought him more time with her.
It’s not like she doesn’t know how to ask for what she wants. His mind refused to release that point, chewing on it. She’d asked to include oral sex as part of their agreement. That was a pretty big step. If she’d wanted more from him, surely she would have asked for it before now.
His thoughts kept returning to that, that she could have asked.
That he wished she’d asked.
That he wished she’d told him she loved him, the way he knew he loved her.
If she doesn’t want to end things, we can talk about it when I get back. I’d rather sit down and have a long talk with her than rush it and fuck it up.
She’s worth waiting for, if it’s really meant to be. It’s only two weeks.
He forced it out of his mind as he drove to Tampa and parked in the airport’s long-term parking lot. As he stood in line to board his flight to Denver, he fingered his cell phone.
Maybe I should text her.
But she would likely be asleep until later in the afternoon. Then there was the fact that he would have to hit the ground running and head over to the construction site as soon as he got a rental car to find the manager. They were going to meet to go over the next day’s schedule.
With a sigh he turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. I’ll text her later.
Shayla stretched out on her bed and cried herself to sleep after Tony left. In the morning, with a throbbing headache and a sick stomach, she curled into a ball and stared at the clock. 11:17 in the morning.
He’s in the air already.
And then he would be in Denver, overseeing the installation of the new equipment, for at least two weeks.
I can do this.
The next morning, she burst into tears when she caught herself picking up her phone to text him before leaving the apartment. The thought of calling in sick to work appealed greatly to her, but she had to get the last article finished and turned in.
After washing her face again and forgoing makeup that would run and smear and make her look even worse, she forced herself to drive to work. It wasn’t until she was there that she realized she wore her amulet necklace.
She didn’t have the heart to take it off.
Loren texted her while she was in the Monday morning editorial meeting, and she ignored it. Until after lunch, when she realized she had three more texts and four voice mails from Loren, each one sounding increasingly worried, along with additional texts from Leah, Tilly, and Clarisse, all asking if she was okay.
She locked herself in the bathroom to cry and respond to her friends. They all got the same generic message courtesy of copy and paste.
I’m okay. Busy day. Will text later.
She pulled herself together. Barely.
With her headphones on and her music turned up as loud as she could tolerate it, she opened a fresh document file on her computer.
When I first started on this journey I genuinely wanted to learn, as both a journalist and as a woman, what appeal the BDSM lifestyle held for so many.
She caught herself fingering the amulet.
Closing her eyes to squeeze the tears back, she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Then her index fingers came to rest on F and J on her keyboard as she opened her eyes to type some more.
Popular fiction leaves many with a completely erroneous impression of the people who participate in this admittedly alternative lifestyle. I consider it the utmost honor to now call many of the people I met while writing this piece my friends.
I wanted to experience firsthand the things many go through on their journey. If nothing else, so I could accurately write about it.
I never expected to learn so much about myself in the process, or fall in love with it along the way.
Sobbing as quietly as she could, she continued to type and prayed no one came up behind her and spotted her like this.
They say as journalists we’re supposed to stay as objective as possible when reporting a story. BDSM is an issue already charged with controversy. It’s fine to say that mental health professionals understand consensual sexual acts are normal and healthy behavior for those who willingly choose to participate, even if it is a minority of people.
But the truth isn’t nearly as clinical as that. And learning about BDSM changed my life for the better. I learned how to let go and trust and feel things I never before dreamed I would ever experience, much less enjoy…
Shayla’s fingers flew across the keys. She refused to censor herself and knew she’d completely sailed into the realm of commentary and editorial instead of a feature news story.
She didn’t care.
When she finished the story several hours later, a little after five o’clock in the afternoon, she copied and pasted the text into an e-mail to Loren. She included a brief note at the top of the e-mail.
This is a rough draft so please excuse any typos. Please let me know what you think.
S.
She hit send without reading any of it.
Then she went into the bathroom, locked herself in, and threw up before heading home for the day.
She somehow made it in to work Tuesday morning despite the horrible headache pounding in her temples. She hadn’t checked her inbox at all after sending Loren the e-mail.
But she’d spent hours cradling her cell phone in her hands and praying Tony would text her.
She couldn’t bring herself to send him a text Monday night. Before she went to bed, she wanted to say Good night, Sir. Or, Sweet dreams, Sir.
Or even, I love You, Sir. Get it out in the open.
Her heart ached, empty over the silence from Tony.
No How are you, pet?
No How’s My pet?
Nothing.
Worse, she knew, would be the pain if she texted him and received no reply.
Or worse still, confirmation that it was truly over between them.
I will not be clingy.
Grateful there wasn’t an editorial meeting Tuesday morning, she stuck to her cubicle and kept her headphones on as she began work on another story due Wednesday afternoon. She checked her e-mail but didn’t see a response from Loren.
At eleven that morning, a tap on her shoulders startled her. She wheeled around to see Loren, Leah, and Tilly standing in the entrance to her cubicle. She pulled her headphones off and started to speak, to ask them what they were doing there.
Instead, her tears flowed.
Loren was the closest and enveloped her in her arms as the other two women also surrounded her. “You’re okay,” she whispered to Shayla. “It’ll be okay.”
That only made her cry harder.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Loren asked.
She shook her head. Someone pressed a tissue into her hand. She blew her nose and tried to pull herself together even though her soul felt ripped loose and adrift.