Odalisque

“No, she’s...especially quiet. She’s deaf. So if you’re going to share her with me and everything...”

“She’s deaf, really? How do you talk to her? How do you tell her what you want?”

“She reads lips, and I’ve learned to sign a little.”

“You know sign language?”

“I do now. A little. I’m getting better. And she doesn’t like to talk, so she either writes things down or uses ASL.”

“ASL?”

“American Sign Language.”

Mason stared at him a moment. “So not only do you have a sex slave you can drill in any hole whenever you like, you don’t have to deal with any chit-chat either. You’re living the dream.”

Kai chuckled softly, but something unnerved him about Mason’s crass, objectifying language. He was past the point of thinking about Constance as some slave with holes to fill. It annoyed him to hear Mason talk about her that way.

“Anyway,” Kai said, “she’s really cool. She’s pretty and laid back and just...always in the mood.”

“Does she like your kinky stuff?”

Kai snorted. “What do you think? Would I have chosen her otherwise?”

“Ah,” Mason sighed.

Kai studied his friend. “I don’t get it. If you’re so into BDSM, why don’t you do scenes with Jess? I can get you guys into LoveSlave. Jeremy can too. All you’d have to do is drop your name at the front desk--”

“Jess isn’t into it. She’s into everything but that. And even if she was into it--”

“She’d be a domme.”

Mason’s shoulders slumped. “Exactly.”

“Sucks to be you. I’ll let you dom my odalisque. How about that?”

“More than I’m getting from Jess. Can I spank her? Mark her?”

“Within reason.” Kai got the distinct, uneasy feeling all was not well between his friend and his wife. He’d always considered them the strongest, most solid couple in town. “So, if Jess won’t do the kink stuff with you, why don’t you get it on your own? You have an open marriage, don’t you?”

“It’s not that simple. Jess can be very, very jealous. Insanely jealous.”

“And controlling,” Kai added quietly.

Mason met his gaze, then looked away. He clearly preferred not to talk about it. Kai would give him space, for now.

“Hey, Kai. If it comes up in conversation, don’t tell Jessamine you have an odalisque.”

Kai laughed. “Don’t want her to start nagging for her own again?”

But Mason didn’t laugh.

“Jesus, man,” said Kai. “You look awful. When do you want to come over? When are you free?”

Mason propped his head on his hand and blinked a couple times. “Meh. How about tonight?”

*** *** ***

“Lucy, I’m home!”

He always said it in his best Ricky Ricardo voice, even though he knew she couldn’t appreciate his cleverness. He left his briefcase in the foyer, dropped the takeout in the kitchen, and then loosened his tie, taking the stairs to her odella two at a time. She was lying on the bed with her usual notebook in her hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing,” she signed, sliding the notebook under her pillow. As usual. He wondered what was in there, why she was so secretive. Poetry, she’d said. Maybe she was planning some terrorist attack, or plotting to take over the world. Drawing diagrams of a build-at-home nuclear weapon. She was giving him that lustful, wide-eyed look, and he burst out laughing at the idea of her hatching world-domination plans from her odella.

“What?” she signed in the face of his mirth.

“Nothing,” he answered, waving his hands. “How was your day?”

She stretched and signed that she’d gone swimming. “It felt so warm, like swimming in a Jacuzzi.”

“It will get hotter before the end of summer. It’s almost July.”

Constance tilted her head at that, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. The months were going by too fast. “Time flies when you’re having fun,” she signed with a smile.

“Don’t I know it,” said Kai, already unzipping. After his daily “welcome home” blowjob, he lay down beside his nude odalisque, still fully dressed, his fly done up again. He knew it excited her when he was in his work clothes and she was naked. Sick little perv. He t

ugged lightly on one of her curls.

“Constance, do you know who Mason Cooke is?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Of course I do,” she signed. “Who doesn’t?”

“I know Mason pretty well. He’s a good friend of mine. He wants to meet you.”

Constance did a decent job of disguising her shock. She laughed and signed, “Wow. I thought you were going to ask me to the movies.”

“No. It’s more like asking you to have sex with Mason Cooke. Is it okay?”

She made a quick sign. “Of course.”

“He’s coming tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t give you more notice.”

“I don’t need notice. I’m always ready to please you in whatever way I can.”

In the last couple weeks, she’d been using an awful lot of what Kai thought of as “odalisque talk.” Pat phrases and rehearsed-sounding replies that he knew were meant to distance them, and remind him of her place in his life. It annoyed him, although he knew that was what she’d been trained to do.

“Speaking of advance notice,” he added, “we’re taking a two-week trip to New York in September. I’ll tell you more about it when it’s all ironed out, but you might need to buy some formal clothes, gowns and accessories. We’ll have parties to attend. Banquets and charity events, that kind of thing. I’ll have my driver take you downtown, and I’ll give you my credit card. You can buy whatever you like.”

Constance lounged across from him, looking skeptical.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked. “You’ll do anything I like sexually, but you balk when I ask you to buy clothes?”

“I don’t know how to buy clothes,” she signed. “And when they ask what I need, they won’t be able to understand me. And I won’t know what to buy anyway.” She dropped her hands, looking frustrated. Kai rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay. I can send someone out to shop for you. They’ll have to take your measurements. Does that work?”

She nodded and signed, “Thank you.”

It was really no big deal. He should have just done that in the first place. Somehow he’d imagined she might like going out with his credit card and buying whatever her heart desired. He’d pictured her sashaying down Rodeo Drive with fistfuls of boxes and bags with a big grin on her face, like in the movies, but instead she’d acted like he was asking her to do something distasteful.