I need perspective, and I had to call Isabella. But first, I went downstairs and got cleaned up. In the shower, I broke down crying. If this was all for nothing, if Jack had just used me like his plaything, how could I face my coworkers or my cousins again?
Is that why they were so worried about Jack and me? Did they know from the beginning that this was likely to happen? Would I get an uncomfortable phone call from William telling me they tried to warn me?
Oh, God. It was all coming together now in my head. It would be a humiliation I could never live down. I would quit the firm, get out of Manhattan, maybe start a new life for myself out in the Midwest. With my Manhattan experience, it wouldn’t be hard to get work in a city, say, like Minneapolis.
I’d wipe the slate clean and start over. In a few years, it would be all behind me. Even when my friends from New York came to visit, it would be all water under the bridge by then. Jack who? And career-wise, better to be a big fish in a small pond.
Getting out of the shower, I had barely dried myself when I dialed Bella.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Bella, I think I made a mistake,” I cried.
“Whoa, hey, what’s wrong? Tell me everything.”
I went through the last couple of weeks. Even as I was explaining it, it didn’t sound that bad. The sex had been mind-blowing, and I had learned so much from Jack. But tonight, just threw me for a loop. What did it mean?
“Why does he have a problem with kissing?” I demanded.
“You know it’s not about kissing,” she said. “It’s about intimacy. Kissing is the most intimate thing you can do.”
“Maybe I’ve just been lost in a haze of endless sex or something.”
“Ooo, cry me a river,” joked Bella. “I think I’m wearing off the finish on my vibrator. If this lockdown doesn’t end…”
“I’m serious. What am I doing here? I’ve risked everything by having sex with Jack. If my firm found out, my cousins, I’d have to leave Manhattan.”
“Now you’re talking crazy,” she dismissed. “You’re a New Yorker through and through, you can’t leave! When’s the last time you’ve driven a car?!”
“That’s true.”
“And things are dark here in the city,” she reported. “I don’t know if you’ve been following on the news. People are dying. There was a truck full of bodies down the street. I haven’t left the apartment in twelve days.”
“Oh, my God. Are you okay? Do you have enough food?”
“Yeah, I started ordering on Amazon. But it’s gotten weird. Everyone’s ordering food off of Amazon, so the pickings are getting slim. Plus, deliveries have been super uneven. I got a case of baby corn the other day. It’s not bad but gets redundant after three dinners of it.”
“Jack has a pretty good supply of food here. Big freezer in the garage full of food and a pretty decent one in the kitchen,” I relayed. “Guess I shouldn’t complain.”
“Well, relationships are complicated, and Jack sounds complicated,” she counseled. “No offense, but you don’t get into that lifestyle because you’re a simpleminded person. Maybe he’s working out some issues. Everyone has their thing.”
“I don’t know. I feel like I put myself out there and got slapped down.”
“No, don’t look at it that way,” said Bella. “Imagine if you had just been dating, ya know? Regular dating. Didn’t even have sex with him. Then you wanted a kiss, and he got weird. What would you say?”
“I’d ask him why he did that.”
“Yeah, right? And it would be no big deal. It would be the smart thing to do,” she suggested. “That’s what you need to do. Confront him. Get all the cards out on the table.”
“You make it sound so easy. What if he freaks out? He could kick me out of the house or tell my cousins some crazy story,” I worried.
“You’re just speculating some doom and gloom scenario, babe. You have to be more optimistic than that. Give Jack some credit. I’m sure he doesn’t just share the Japanese rope thing with just anybody.”
“You think?”
“I mean, the knots show an effort on his part, and he makes you feel good, right?”
“He does. Suspending me in the air like that, it was mind-blowing.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, yeah, he tied the ropes in a way that I was hanging in the air while he was railing me up the ass,” I told her. “Never thought I could orgasm from anal, but I did.”
“Wow, I have never done that!” Isabella said. “I mean, anal has always been a kind of reward I give out to a guy. Never really enjoyed it.”
“The butt plug ahead of time helped,” I told her. “And lots of lube. Lots of lube.”
“Maybe I’ll try the vibrator up there,” Isabella thought aloud. “Anyway, what’s the plan now? You feeling better about Jack?”