victims
of Laos.”
Impressive. And yet this man that we speak
so highly of strip-searches his own son. Why? Does Max Devlin have
a torrid past outside the Initiation circles? Does his father?
“And your mother?” I say.
“She’s self-absorbed. Meaning she’s not a
philanthropist.” Max chortles at his own joke. “She runs a fashion
empire.”
Wow. It must be tough being Max, having to
live up to such an illustrious family.
“Any brothers and sisters?”
“What’s this? Twenty questions?”
“I just want to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what? We’re not the Addams
family, though sometimes I think we have blood ties.” He
smirks.
“Prepared for – ” I shrug. “Oh, you know.
Anything you think I should be prepared for.”
I let this trail. Max’s silence suggests an
ominous note. I meant it more as small talk, but now I’m getting
worried. Is the Devlin family all that bad? I mean . . . come on.
His father is a philanthropist. How bad can a philanthropist be?
Unless philanthropy isn’t all that it’s cut out to be.
Max finally replies, “Maybe I just want you
to be surprised.”
He leans over and kisses me on the lips to
shut me up. The Porsche swerves into the other lane. In front of
us, an oncoming car blares its horn. Max spins the steering wheel
before we can smash into the car. My heart and ears are pounding
with the near miss.
Being with Max Devlin is like riding the
crest of a major surf wave.
We continue for a little farther (in the
proper lane).
“OK,” Max announces, “maybe there’s a little
something you have to be prepared for.”
Alarm bells clang in my head. “Such as?”
“It’s more to do with me,” he hastily
says.
“You?”
“Yes, me.” He lowers his voice. “There’s
something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Gina.”
Uh oh. This is not ‘the talk’, is it? The
inevitable breakup? I mean, why would a man like Max Devlin want
someone like me, right, when he can have anyone else in the
world?
I’m nervous as hell, but I make myself say
lightly, “Go ahead.” Inside my chest, my heart is knocking against
my ribcage. So soon, so soon . . . but I didn’t have enough time
with him. I need more!
Of course, it had never occurred to me that
our relationship would last a hearts-and-flowers lifetime. People
like me don’t get guys like Max Devlin. It isn’t the natural order
of things. It just isn’t.
He seems almost afraid. Max Devlin – afraid
to ask me something!
“You remember, of course, what happened
during your initiation.”
Oh, he’s bringing that up. It’s my turn to
be guarded.
“Yes?”
“Did you like what happened to you?”
Well, that’s a difficult one. I endured some
of it, I enjoyed the rest. It was simultaneously pleasurable and
painful and humiliating and degrading and stimulating and
exhilarating. I had multiple orgasms. I was in unbearable pain.
What can I say?
“I liked most of it,” I finally tell him as
an appeasement. It’s true. I did like most of it.
His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows.
“Would you like to revisit some of it?”
He lets this hang between us for a
while.
“Revisit?” I say.
“Yes.”
“You mean . . . as a participant?”
“Yes. As a submissive.”
Of course it will be as a submissive. I can
never be a dominatrix, however much I try.
I lick my lips. “You mean the bondage?”
“I mean all of it. And more. Much more.”
The implications float ominously in the
stilted atmosphere of the car.
Dismay creeps into me. Dismay – because I
thought Max Devlin in his real life is a normal guy with (mostly)
normal vanilla tastes and desires. OK, he has the occasional
predilection for ornamentation. And everything that he does during
an Initiation is because he has been indoctrinated to do so as a
senior of Phi Kappa Omega.
Or so I would like to believe.
A lump comes to my throat.
“You don’t have to answer now, of course,”
he says. “You can sleep over it.”
“Yes. Thank
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