The waitress writes it down on her pad, takes our menus, and walks away.
“Back in control then, are you?” Ash says with a crooked sideways grin.
“I was never out of control, Ashleigh. But I know when to give a person space and when to make my move.”
“Your move is breakfast?” She giggles again.
“This whole day is my move. Tomorrow you can let me know how I did.”
She looks away, a little embarrassed. “You just made my stomach flutter.”
“Just one of many flutters I’ll make you feel today, so get ready.”
This time she laughs out loud. Several people actually turn to look at us. “Oh, shit—”
“I’ll add that on to your count.”
“What?”
I tilt my head at her and wait for her fight, but she gives in and that gives me a little thrill.
“What’s my count up to anyway? Ten?”
“Ten? OK, if you say so.”
“No!” she laughs. “I was asking, not telling!”
“Ten it is. Ten good ones, Ashleigh. Ten spankings that will change your life. Are you ready?”
She does that unconscious gesture where she puts her hands between her legs. I can’t really see her do it, but I know from her posture and movement. I almost want to bend her over the table right now, that’s how much it turns me on. “I’ll just warn you. A night with me, my undivided attention, that’s not something you’ll ever forget. I might ruin you for life. I might make it impossible for you to ever be with another man again. I might—”
“Ford?”
“Yes, Ashleigh,” I answer, smiling.
“I can’t wait.”
I’m about to reach under the table and grab her, but the waitress returns with our coffee and by the time she leaves, I’m back in control.
“I like this part,” Ashleigh says as she takes a sip of her coffee.
“What part?”
“When everything is new and interesting. When you meet someone and you just have to know everything.”
“Then tell me something new, Ash.”
She takes another sip of her coffee. “You have to ask specifics, otherwise I don’t know where to start.”
Everyone likes guidance once in a while. And she basically just asked me to guide her. So I do. “Why did you go to Japan? Why did you run away?”
“Well, it’s not quite as dramatic as I made it out to be. I call it running away because for me, it was. But everyone knew I was going to Japan. I went for college. I have a nice trust fund for education, but not much else.”
I nod at this. My educational fund worked the same way. School was always paid for, but I only had so much discretionary income for expenses. I got the house in LA when my dad died. It was one of his last wishes. And I get money from another trust that matured when I turned twenty-five, so I’m far from broke now. But college wasn’t an endless stream of money like most people think.
“And I wanted to get as far away from my family as I could, so I chose a school in Japan. I knew Chinese, some anyway. And I took Japanese in school for a few years. Mostly to piss off my dad, who wanted me to be fluent in Chinese. So I picked a school in Japan and left.”
“Did you graduate?”
“Yeah, I graduated,” she says a little defensively. “I’m in grad school. Well”—she sighs—“I was in grad school. I’m sure they’ve kicked me out by now. I haven’t even bothered to call in and explain what the f**k—oops.” She covers her mouth with her hand and looks hesitantly at me. I smile and she continues. “I never told them what was going on, and then I was very pregnant and was put on bed rest last fall. Kate was born a little early, there were some complications, and they have very different ways of delivering babies compared to the US, so I had to stay in the hospital for almost a month. I had to stay another two weeks after Kate was born because they wanted to monitor her. There was this whole breastfeeding debacle. They were pro-formula in the little hospital I was at. And I’m not against that, I just really wanted to breastfeed. I just needed it, that… closeness with someone, you know? So I figured it out. But it was not easy and it was painful for a while. None of that was easy.” She stops to let out a long sad sigh. “In fact, I think looking back, even though I did get Kate out of all of it… the past six months have been hell for me. I’m not even sure why I’m still here.”
She takes a moment to steady herself and I try to imagine what it must’ve been like, to be all alone in another country and going through all this. “Did your family come? Your father or sister?”
Her head shakes out a no. “They never knew I was even pregnant. Not until I came home, and even then I never intended for my father to find out. It was an accident. I only wanted to come back, talk to Tony one last time, and then go home to Japan and be left alone.”
“Friends?”
“I have some friends, but I’m sort of a loner. My grad school friends were just co-workers, really. I was the only American in the program and even though I look a little bit Asian and I speak Japanese pretty well, I’m not Japanese. I enjoy the culture, I fit in, I guess. But Tony was my life. So when he was gone, I got very lonely.”
We’re both silent for a few seconds and then she huffs out a laugh. “I’m sorry for being such a downer. I bet I make your head spin with my mood swings.”