I let myself be distracted by the bite-sized serving of some kind of fish that had been crisped on the outside with a blowtorch but was still cool and raw on the inside, almost buttery to bite into. Delicious. But only a momentary distraction.
"Okay, where were we?" Sakura drank a bit more of the sake. "Last time I'm going to say this: if Axel did anything sketchy, beyond carrying you off for a lark, anything that violated the rules of consent, then his name is mud in the BDSM community and you definitely shouldn't be inviting him to join your club. But nothing you've told me so far really sounds all that sketchy. He carried you off, you willingly had some light role play and heavy sex; you played the submissive role and had, if I'm not mistaken, some of the best sex in your life. And that's why you're upset."
"Because the sex was good?"
"Because you discovered that letting someone else be in charge is a turn-on for you. Ricki, let me assure you, being submissive in the bedroom isn't the same thing as being subservient or second-class to the pushy men in your life."
I dug in my heels. "That's easy for you to say because you're dominant."
She sighed. "The other thing is, really, if something's going on in your head, it's probably got more to do with you than with him. The way to straighten it out is to talk it out with him. Axel may be fairly new to serious dom role play but I know for a fact that he knows about aftercare."
Aftercare. I huffed. He'd tried to take care of me and I'd kicked him out. Sakura was making sense but I couldn't quite put it all together in my mind. It was a lot to take in at once. "Okay, I confess. The thing is, when I'm near him? All common sense flies out the window, Sarah. I literally can't get together with him to talk about this without melting into a puddle."
"Ahhh." She seemed to think that explained a lot. "Well. Have you tried calling him?"
"Of course I haven't. I don't even have his number."
"Yes, you do." She gave me a sly, knowing smile. "I programmed it into your phone before I gave it back."
"You sneaky thing!" I pulled my phone out to see if what she said was true: sure enough, there was an Axel Hawke in my contacts now.
There was also a text from Paul. Schmitt's pressing me to schedule an appointment with you, his message read. Y/N?
"Tell him he can have an appointment with me after he gives me a slot to address the CTC board of directors," I said aloud.
Sakura sipped her tea. "Huh. Speaking of pushy men in your life. Schmitt?"
"How did you guess?" He couldn't want to talk about the upcoming kinky dungeon party. He'd want to meet with both me and Gwen for that. "I have no clue what he wants now. I guess I have to meet with him to find out."
"Don't be silly. Have Paul get an agenda from him. No agenda, no meeting. If the items are too sensitive to put on an agenda, well, that gives you the answer in another way."
"Right. Why didn't I think of that?"
"You've got to stop thinking of yourself as at the beck and call of these guys in suits, Rick'. Start thinking of yourself as the Queen of the Universe whom they all serve."
"What are you talking about? I'm already Queen Bitch of the Universe twenty-four-seven these days and I'm tired of it, Sarah."
"Tsk tsk. I didn't say bitch. You do pretty well with your staff; I've seen it. You're firm, fair, but very definitely in charge and demanding your due."
"But they're my employees. Of course I can be all leader-like with them."
"And I'm telling you, act like that with these executives and lawyers in the club or they're going to treat you like Cy's little girl forever." She set her sake cup down. "You're afraid that being a sub in the bedroom means you'll be submissive to these jerks, too? Don't let it happen. I don't care that they're three times your age. You can buy and sell every one of them. Act like it."
"I have a 'game face,' " I said in my defense. "Ice queen."
"Drop the ice and just think queen. Think: crown on your head." She pointed to the top of her own head where a tiara would go and I felt myself sitting up straighter without even trying. "Demand their respect and you'll get it, Ricki. Axel already respects you a hundred times more than these assholes."
"Does he?"
I tried to imagine what getting on the phone with him would be like. Part of me longed to hear his voice again. But what exactly did I want to say to him? Could I make him understand the reasons why I couldn't be with him? Could I make him understand what was going on in my life? "I just don't know, Sar'. What do you say to a guy who's turned your whole world upside down?"
The door slid aside and there was our waiter with a gigantic wooden tray shaped like a boat in his hands, well laden with a display of fish as colorful and gorgeous as a jewelry display at Tiffany's. He sailed it onto our table, gave us another smile, and then retreated again. The arrival of such a feast distracted us completely from the fact that Sarah never answered my question.
* * *
I finally got the chance to pitch my idea to David Meyers after the next development meeting, when I caught him by the sleeve and asked, flat out, if I could meet him later that day. I had been thinking a lot about what Sarah had said about how I was too deferential to the men in power, about how I needed to demand my due. Amazingly, it worked. He said he didn't have much time but if it was something quick to follow him down to his office right then. I hurried behind him and after stepping into his spacious corner office I closed the door behind us.
"Now, Ricki, what is it that is burning you up so much you had to come talk to me privately about it?" he asked as he went around to his side of the desk.
"Oh, nothing bad, I assure you. I just have an idea I've been wanting to suggest and I didn't want to bring it up in the meeting today after that debate about why Polly Girl is screening so badly."
"I noticed you were very quiet during that discussion." He gestured to a chair and I sat.
"I haven't seen the movie myself so I wanted to withhold judgment," I said. "But my proposal is relevant to these issues."
"I'm all ears." He reclined back slightly.
"I believe the reason there's the impression that 'women's movies' don't do well is that, well, Hollywood doesn't do movies for women."
"Romantic comedies aren't for women?" He looked puzzled.
"Too often, honestly, they're not. They're sometimes about a woman, but they tend to be packed with things that are there for their husbands and boyfriends to enjoy, not the woman who is the ticket buyer to begin with."
"Intriguing thought. What makes you say that?"
"Well, for example, the rom-com that Blue Star released last year, Evergreen Summer?"
"Yes? I thought that was a pretty good film."
"It was. And it was marketed toward the female audience, right?"
"Yes, of course, all romantic comedies are."
"Okay, if that's true, then why in the big sex scene do we get treated to long loving pans of the camera over Jolene Hingham's bare legs and back and shoulders, but all we see of Charlie Cameron's body is a shadowy shot of his saggy boxer shorts?"
"Well, that was the director's artistic decision. I would never presume we should interfere at that level," Meyers said, pointing his chin into his own chest and steepling his fingers as if marshaling his defenses. "Perhaps the camera was much kinder to Jolene's figure than to Cameron's."
"If that's so, then shouldn't we be casting male leads in so-called women's films who are attractive to women? Who look good on camera in their sex scenes? Or, for pete's sake, use a body double if Charlie Cameron needs to lay off the doughnuts or is some kind of prude."
Meyers looked surprised. "That might have been a body double for Jolene for all I know."
"Which is my point. You had a male director make a sex scene that is sexy to the men watching. Not to the women the movie is supposedly for."
"That's quite a good scene, though; mentioned often in the reviews as to how tastefully done it was."
"By male reviewers," I pointed out. "Of course they find it tasteful if the woman is the one artfully displayed for their eye."
"Whereas they would have called it pornographic if the scene had shown any more." Meyers sat up, putting his feet flat on the floor and trying to close the discussion. "I'm sorry, Ricki, but this-"
Demand my due. "You haven't even heard my idea yet."
"If your idea is to put more male nude scenes in our films I'm afraid you've been watching too much porn on the Internet."
"My idea is not to put more male nudes in!" What had Sakura said? Act like there was a crown on my head. I raised an eyebrow and put an imperious edge in my tone. "You haven't even given me a chance to tell you the idea yet. All you've done is argue with me."
He let out a long breath, his gaze flickering toward the closed door. "All right. Two minutes. Only because it's you asking."
It was working! Any other underling would have been tossed out at that point. "In the meeting, people were saying Polly Girl had screened terribly and they were baffled as to why."