“Good evening, Miranda. May I take your wrap?”
She nodded and eased her coat into his waiting arms.
His old-fashioned courtesy made her want to laugh. Then again he’d always been the perfect gentleman-pervert. Back in college, he’d squired her to the town’s best restaurants for weeks, apparently desiring nothing more than a good night kiss. When he finally invited her back to his dorm room, the first thing he did was tie her hands to his bunk bed with her own panty hose. Then he fucked her with the lights on and made her gaze into his eyes when she came.
For the six months they were together, he could get her sopping wet just by giving her that same penetrating stare.
Tonight Sam’s expression was impassive as he took in her tailored gray business suit and crisp white blouse. When his eyes settled on the large bag she carried, he smiled again.
“We have eight tonight,” he said. “You’re getting quite the reputation, Miranda.”
“Thanks to you.”
“On the contrary. I’m merely the discreet host.”
“You have the paperwork for the new ones?”
“You can always trust me to have everything in proper order.”
Miranda pursed her lips. The words men and trust weren’t exactly a happy couple in her mind these days. She had to admit, however, that Sam had managed everything flawlessly from the very beginning. She inclined her head, ever so slightly, and said, “I’ll go get ready now.”
“Do you need any help?” His eyes glittered.
“I’ll call you when it’s time to put on the blindfold,” she said over her shoulder.
The guest room was much the same as she’d left it the week before. A single bed occupied the center of the room like a raft floating on a lake. Today it was fitted out in deep red satin. The sheet was clean but the glossy shine was already fading. She wondered, with a flicker of a smile, how many times it had been washed in the last month.
Miranda undressed, hanging her suit carefully in the closet and arranging her underwear over hangers as well. Next she emptied the bag on the bed: a peach satin Christian Dior negligee, a box of dental dams, a pearl necklace, the scarf she’d use as her blindfold.
She could feel her breath coming faster.
Trying her best to keep her hands steady, she draped the pearls around her neck and fastened the clasp. They were a wedding gift from Tom’s mother. As she shimmied into the floor-length negligee, slit to the thighs on each side, she remembered the leer on Tom’s face when he gave it to her. She forgot exactly when, probably some Valentine’s Day back when he made more money than she did. Both items were expensive. At one time she’d even treasured them.
They’d be all too easy to let go of now.
Miranda glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. Again she felt as if she were observing a stranger’s body. The woman standing before her was thin, a melancholy Modigliani rather than a winsome Botticelli. Yet her breasts were still perky and her skin had a rosy glow in the golden lamplight. All in all, she wasn’t too bad for thirty-eight. It helped, no doubt, that she worked out regularly and had never had kids.
Sometimes disappointments work out for the best in the end.
Miranda pushed open the guest room door. “Sam?”
“Be right there,” he called from the kitchen. She thought she caught the clink of ice in a tumbler. She suspected they all enjoyed a cocktail or two to loosen up beforehand. She, on the other hand, liked to stay sharp so she could drink in every last sensation.
She sat on the bed, the scarf in her lap. Sam walked in purposefully and sat down next to her. Sliding the silk from her hands, he tied it around her eyes with expert skill.
Everything was blank now. The way she liked it.
Sam lingered at her side. She could smell the whisky on his breath.
“Any special requests tonight?” he asked.
“I’m quite satisfied with the usual.”
“I noticed.” He leaned in closer. “You know, Miranda, you’ve always been lovely, but since you started coming here for your…treatments…you’ve positively blossomed.”
Miranda stiffened. It wasn’t that she didn’t love hearing men’s compliments, their intimate confessions of desire. It was one of the reasons she was here tonight. But this was too early, too sweet.
“I’ve learned a few things since college,” he continued, resting a warm hand on her shoulder. “Can you stay tonight?”
She swallowed, fighting the urge to shrug him away. Yet deep in her belly, her secret muscles contracted almost painfully, hungry for a taste of him and his new tricks.
She hadn’t expected the evening to get so sticky this soon.