Was this love? It certainly felt like love, but she couldn’t deny that her parents—when she spoke to them, which wasn’t very often—had a point: what would happen to her once the sex stopped? What would happen if he truly hurt her? What would happen if she did refuse him? “It’s only love until you say, ‘No’,” her mother had said over the phone, haughtily. But that was the thing—he’d never, not once, asked her to do something that she would refuse. There was no real way to talk about how safe he made her feel, even as he nearly exposed her in public, even as he made her writhe on the floor in a strange combination of agony and ecstasy, and so she never tried to defend him—not that she had to. Her smiling, beatific presence by his side at corporate gatherings, next to all those hawkish forty-something wives who’d spent years stifling their own desires and snuffing out those of their husbands, was enough. She was young and pretty and they were happy together. “They just can’t stand to see people happy,” Jack would murmur after those nights.
“My father was there,” she said after one such gathering. “He didn’t seem to approve.”
“So fuck him,” said Jack. “The people who want to tear us apart are the ones who can’t get what we have.”
But how do you know? She lay next to him, wondering if her parents had really been unhappy, and how they’d masqueraded such an appearance of bliss—and why they went to such lengths. “Truth be told, I feel bad for them,” he said, now. “They think that if they play by the rules, ‘work’ on their relationship, that makes happiness—but happiness is really just dumb luck, just like success—”
“Hey,” she said, turning to face him. “That’s funny, coming from a self-made guy like you.”
“If we’d been having this talk fifteen years ago, I’d have agreed,” he said, rolling onto his back, and she followed him, running her teeth over his nipple making him draw in a sharp breath and arch his back. “Ooh, you naughty little vixen,” he murmured, sliding his hand between her legs now, pressing on her until she quieted, becoming still. “Fifteen years ago, I’d have said that I did everything to get myself into the top law firm in the area, and that I was the one working my ass off to make partner. And that’s still true. But now I realize just how lucky I was: I got into and out of law school when it was still possible for lawyers to find a job, when going to a mediocre law school wasn’t a demerit on your resume but something that could be overcome with a shit-ton of hard work. I was lucky to be born into a race and gender which is universally favored by law firms. And above all, I was lucky enough to have had a summer job caddying for Jordan Wexler, the owner of the firm. We all get lucky,” he said, moving down to suck on her nipple. “Some of us just get luckier than others.”
“That’s a very—” she gasped, as he did that thing with his tongue again “—optimistic way to look at the world.”
“Optimism is the only way to see the world,” he said, his voice muffled by the blanket as he slithered down her body. “Hello, what have we here?”
He’d trained her to spread her legs and lie still, whenever she heard him say those words, and now, she could feel her body flush with glee as she waited for him to take her. Usually it would be with his hands first, stretching her even as her body clenched down on his fingers, but sometimes he’d surprise her with a vibrator and make her scream. But a minute, then two, passed, and he did nothing. “Do you want to use some toys?” she prompted. “Or would you like me to masturbate for you?”
“No,” he said, finally, pushing her legs together. “Neither. Just let me be with you for now. I want you to be fresh for tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” she asked.
“Well, I think you’re finally ready for the weighted clamps.”
“For my nipples?”
“And your labia,” he added, and she squealed with delight. She blushed and bit her lip, trying to hide how delighted she was, that he finally thought that she was ready for the weights.
“I do love to please you,” she whispered.
Which was why, the next morning, she was shocked to find out that she was, indeed, pregnant. She’d never really tracked her periods—but it had been a long time since her last one and she didn’t exactly know when she should have had it, but then last week on her way back from MontCo, while picking up some facial cleaner and cotton wipes and more lip gloss, she suddenly realized that it had been a long time. She’d picked up a pregnancy test, but after she put it away she’d forgotten about it for a while, until this morning when she was making her list of things to shop for and checked her stash of tampons.
Even as the lines appeared she didn’t really believe this could happen, even though what she could remember of sex was hazy. She just remembered that getting pregnant was unlikely—and she’d always thought that Jack would have asked her to use birth control if he thought that it would be likely. But that was one conversation that they’d never had.
She took the day off to ponder how to tell Jack. He would probably be delighted, but she couldn’t be sure. They were happy together, weren’t they? Wasn’t that enough? So why introduce a baby into this whole thing? Babies changed things—she could get back into shape, sure, with enough time at the gym, but there were parts that never felt quite the same, and tits would never be as perky or bouncy as they were now. She thought about her mother—as petite and as trim as she was, there were parts that sagged, a pooch that didn’t go away. Would he still love her after that? And how would they handle sleepless nights, endless diaper changes? Would they be able to swing child care, especially since they were so far away from anywhere else? And how would she make the kid realize that normal women did not wait in the basement every night for their husbands to spank them and make them scream?
She did the only thing she could think of: she went home, to her parents’. Her mother was home but her father was not, which was fortunate because she didn’t think her father would handle the news very well at all. It wouldn’t be easy to tell her but Max needed to tell someone. Her mother sat her down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. Here goes. “I’m pregnant,” Max said, after a moment.
“You’re—what?”
Max just nodded. Her mother’s eyes went wide, watery with tears, and she broke out in a huge smile. “Oh, my sweet—I’m so happy for you—”
Max had never felt more relieved in her life. Her mother dabbed at her eyes and said, “I suppose that means you and Jack will be getting married soon?”
“That’s the thing,” Max said. “I don’t know if he’ll take kindly to the news. A kid changes everything.”
“Well, yes, of course,” her mother said. “But your father wouldn’t be the man he is today without you, Max. And believe it or not he does miss you—”
“He has a funny way of showing it,” Max muttered, recalling how her father had told her that Jack would beat her. Which was true enough. Just not in the way he thought—and she wasn’t about to give him any ideas.
“Well, a grandchild would be a wonderful thing,” her mother said. “Leave your dad to me. I promise, when the child is born, your father will be the best grandfather in the world.”
“He always did like to sneak me candy,” Max said, laughing.
“He misses you,” her mother said, softly. “Give him a chance, will you?”
“Jack didn’t beat his ex-wife,” Max said.
“I think he’s finally gotten to accepting that.”
By the time she left her parents’ place it was already getting late in the day. Jack would be home soon—and there was no way not to tell him about it. She wasn’t normally out this late—he would know something was up. Simple, direct—just say so, she thought. Like the way she’d told her mother—
Except her mother was her mother, and Jack was—she didn’t want to call him her boyfriend, because he was so much more than that. But neither were they married, and while she might have been all right with being his sub forever had she not been pregnant, things were going to change, whether she wanted it or not.
Jack’s car was already in the drive when she pulled up. She gulped. He’d wanted to try the weighted nipple clamps tonight—she’d finally earned them—but she wasn’t naked and waiting for him in the basement, which meant that he would be displeased—and that meant that he would get rough.
She saw him sitting in the living room, waiting for her, through the window—holding the cat o’ nine. As soon as she came in, he raised his eyes and with a single look, commanded that she strip naked, “Please, let me speak—”
He stood up and swatted at her legs with the cat. “What excuse could you possibly have for being late?” he demanded. “You know the rules, you know where you need to be, and you know the consequences of disobedience.”
“I know,” she said, feeling his eyes on her breasts as she shimmied out of her dress and panties. “But I swear, I have a good reason—”