Discipline

“Go ahead,” Adriana challenged him, but right then, Jenn called to her from the bar.

“Ade? Twenty-one wants their check!”

“Bye.” Ben grinned as he watched Adriana go, winking when she muttered, “Fuck you,” under her breath. By the time he turned back to me though, I was already on the move, trying to quickly follow her towards the bar.

“Get over here,” I heard him mutter as his hand wrapped around my wrist to pull me back. Despite the table seated near us, I violently flung him off.

“Leave me the hell alone, Ben.”

He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Nina, can’t we have a conversation like two adults here? We never had the time to talk about what happened. What I asked of you.”

I swallowed hard as I turned to him. “I don’t even want to think about what you asked me to do let alone talk about it.”

“We need to talk about it.”

“No we don’t,” I practically snarled, hating the fact that I felt dirty and cheap from just thinking about the favor he’d demanded of me. It was unfair. I hadn’t even done it and yet it haunted me, reminding me of the years I’d spent letting him groom me into his compliant little rag doll. My throat tightened at the memories of my life with him. “All I need to know, Ben, is that my suspicions about you were confirmed that night. You never loved me, you loved that you could treat me like property.” My voice lowered to a hiss. “You looked at me and you saw a doll that you could dress and show off at parties and then ignore for the rest of the week but fuck whenever you wanted. And apparently, lend to your friends if you felt like it.”

“I wasn’t trying to lend you, Nina, I was — ”

“Just stop. There is nothing for you to explain and nothing for you to gain from coming here. I don’t want you and I never will again. And if it helps to make you leave me alone, I stopped wanting you less than halfway into our relationship, so goodbye.”

Turning on my heel, I stalked off, several yards away when he decided to call out at me.

“You’re fucking your teacher, then, huh?”

I froze and so did the tables eating around me. The entire dining room was staring at me as if I’d been the one to interrupt their meals.

“Christ. See what happens when you spend a little time with a slut like Adriana?” Laughter danced in Ben’s voice as he continued to taunt me. “Everything I taught you gets reversed in a few weeks.”

He had no shame. And I had nowhere on the floor to hide. So I turned on my heel again and marched past him, straight into the kitchen.

My groan was something of fury and disbelief as Ben followed, drawing every pair of eyes from behind the line. The cooks looked at us and then each other, shrugging before half returned to work, the other half continuing to watch us.

“You’re not allowed in here!” I yelled, irritated by Ben’s audacity as well as the childlike frustration in my voice. But I couldn’t help it. I had already lost all patience for him at Jake’s party. My body no longer had the capacity to be composed around him for the sake of the people watching us. I was losing it, and it didn’t help that Ben was persisting with his question, his teeth gritted as he followed me.

“I need to know, Nina. No one should be touching you but me.”

“Oh my God, go away!”

“Tell me if you’re fucking him!”

My fingers tore at my hair. “I’m not! There’s your answer — happy? Now please stop texting me, following me and acting like I belong to you because I’d rather be alone than anywhere near you.”

A chortle came from behind the line. Ben eyed the cooks whom I could feel laughing at him behind my turned back. “Lower your voice,” he said between his teeth. “And calm the fuck down. All I did was come here to have dinner and ask you a simple question and look at you, you’re stomping around and screaming like a crazy bitch. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Fire burned in my cheeks. “You’re the one who’s embarrassed and it’s obvious to everyone in this room. But if you didn’t want these guys hearing about how badly I don’t want you, then you probably shouldn’t have followed me into the kitchen.”

His nostrils flared as he stared down at me. He rubbed his dimpled chin as his eyes darted back and forth between me and the kitchen guys. I glanced over my shoulder to see several of them murmuring to each other as they smirked at Ben. Todo bien? Marco, our faux-hawked expeditor, mouthed at me. I nodded as Ben scoffed.

“I doubt these fucks understand more than ten words of English.”

Instinct drove my hand to smack his chest though I preferred not to touch him. “They do! They’re pretending not to hear any of this for your sake.”

“Si, pendejo,” Marco’s voice came from behind me. “Chupa mi verga. Understand that?” he asked, prompting roaring laughter from the rest of the kitchen. I watched as Ben’s cheeks actually reddened. It was a worst case scenario for his ego. He didn’t know how to respond and he couldn’t even threaten to fight Marco — not with ten other guys ready to jump in and help.

“What’d he say,” he muttered to me, trying hard to be inaudible to them. I couldn’t help answering.

“Suck his dick.”