“Better.”
“Thank you. Who’s on deck?” Lance asked as they turned into a residential neighborhood.
“First up today is the right Honorable Judge Melvin P. Bollingen.”
“A judge?”
“Sixty-two years old. Foot fetishist. Absolutely adorable. He looks like a wizard when he has his robes on.”
“Where are you meeting Gandalf?”
“His house. Every Saturday at noon. Standing appointment. Not literally. I sit down so he can play with my feet.”
“What kind of judge is he? Retired, I guess?”
Nora turned down the judge’s street.
“Nope. Still active. He’s some family court bigwig.”
“Family court?” Lance repeated the words with some interest. “Does he—”
“Hold that thought. I have to run,” she said, parking on a side street two houses down from his brownstone. She started to open the car door but Lance grabbed her arm.
“Whoa there. You can’t go without me. I’m not being paid to stay in the car.”
“Lance...listen to me. I have scary clients, and I have not-scary clients. Judge B. is of the not-scary variety. There are day-old kittens more threatening than he is. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to do my job and my job is to stick by you.”
“I’m in too much of a hurry to argue with you or make the obvious ‘stick’ joke. Come on. You can hang with Mrs. B. while I’m working.” Nora walked briskly to the front door, Lance right behind her.
“That’s fine,” Lance said as Nora rang the bell. “Wait...Mrs. B.?”
The door opened before Nora could answer. A sweet older lady in an apron greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, Mrs. B. I’m sorry if I’m late. Rough weekend.”
“It’s fine, dear,” she said. “We aren’t doing anything special today. Who’s your friend?”
“This is Lance. Be nice to him. He’s a veteran,” she said in a stage whisper and Mrs. B. gave Lance an approving look. “He’s babysitting me today. Would you mind babysitting him while I’m upstairs with the judge?”
“What branch of the service, young man?” Mrs. B. asked Lance.
“The Navy, ma’am.”
“Oh, he called me ‘ma’am,’” Mrs. B. said to Nora. “I like him already. He can help with my cookies any day.”
Nora slapped Lance on the arm. “Go on with Mrs. B. there, seaman. Those cookies won’t bake themselves.”
Before Lance could protest, Nora skipped up the stairs to the guest bedroom where she and the judge always played together. Mrs. B., his wife of forty years, was one of the rare understanding types. She’d been the object of his foot fetishism from day one of their marriage. She could hardly complain about getting weekly foot rubs even if they did culminate in him ejaculating on her ankles. Not knowing any differently, the virginal new bride had assumed this was what all husbands liked to do and had gamely played along. It seemed to work as they had four children and nine grandchildren and were still very much in love. In the past few years, however, Mrs. B. had been stricken with bunions and arthritis and hated having her aching feet touched. Hiring Nora had been Mrs. B.’s idea, not the judge’s, although the right Honorable Melvin P. Bollingen hadn’t put up much of a fight, especially after seeing Nora in her short skirt and her strappy stiletto heels.
She knocked on the guest bedroom door and didn’t wait for answer before entering.
“Have you missed me?” she asked as she let the judge give her a kiss on the cheek.
“I have. I even got you a present, Miss Nora.” Judge Bollingen squeezed her hand with avuncular affection as Nora took a seat in the large burgundy armchair. She never made the judge call her Mistress, and the Miss Nora rolled off his tongue so naturally, she’d never dreamt of correcting him. The judge had no desire to be dominated in the way Lance did and certainly had no interest in pain. His foot fetish he’d described as a “brain itch” he needed to scratch once a week. Once scratched, it disappeared for days at a time and let him go about his life.
“It’s not even my birthday,” she said as she extended her leg and put her right foot on his thigh. The judge ran his hands down the top of her foot to her toes and all over her high heel. With the utmost care, he unbuckled the many straps on her elaborately laced shoes.
“I couldn’t resist when I saw it in the store. Made me think of you the moment I set eyes on it. I think it’s supposed to be for equestrians.” The white-haired and smiling judge pulled a long velvet box out from under the chair and handed it to Nora. She opened it and found a silver ankle bracelet inside with a riding crop charm attached.
Laughing, she pulled it from the box.
“It’s lovely. I adore it. Will you put it on me?” She gave the bracelet to the judge who raised her foot and kissed the top of it.
“Of course, my dear. With pleasure.”
Usually Nora would have been cautious about accepting gifts from clients. Kingsley warned all his employees that clients often engaged in transference. It didn’t matter if one was a Dominatrix or a submissive, a therapist or a prostitute; any woman who gave a troubled man ego-boosting attention could be rewarded with the client’s unhealthy and sometimes obsessive interest. But the judge had long ago proven himself nothing more than a kind older man who loved his wife, loved his life and simply enjoyed giving gifts to everyone who touched his heart.
As the judge played with her feet, first washing them in a basin of warm water and then giving them a long, thorough massage, Nora relaxed into the chair, closed her eyes, and thought of last night with Lance. She’d had so much fun with him it almost scared her. He’d looked so strong and sexy up on her cross, had made her laugh and made her come—twice. She remembered his desperate labored breaths as she rode him, sounds that made her weak even now as she heard the echo of them in her ears. Men couldn’t even begin to fathom how erotic those little sounds could be to a woman. They were admissions of vulnerability, of being so lost in the pleasure of the moment he couldn’t control himself no matter how hard he tried. And she couldn’t help but smile at the thought that the entire time he’d been going down on her, the entire time they’d been having sex, he’d been covered in her welts and bruises and had even sported a Snoopy Band-Aid on his back. She found his comfort with his sexuality so masculine, so erotic. Nothing could minimize his manhood or his strength. Even his submission to her added to his power. He did it so naturally and without shame or embarrassment. She’d rarely met a kinky guy so totally comfortable with what he was. Søren alone had that same air of “this is me, take it or leave it” that she’d seen in Lance. But she knew Søren’s sense of self was hard-won whereas Lance’s seemed entirely innate.
No denying it, she wanted another night with Lance. Another week of nights. Another month of nights. She wanted to make him feel everything—pain, pleasure, candle wax, crops and kisses on every part of him. She wanted to know his body better than he himself knew it. She wanted to take him to the limits of his endurance and let him find new strengths he didn’t even know he had. And she wanted to feel him inside her again but only after he’d earned the privilege.
Nora felt something warm and wet on her feet and she smiled as she opened her eyes. Looking down at the panting judge, she asked, “Was that as good for you as it was for me, Judge?”
“Even better, my dear,” he said, zipping his trousers back up.
He cleaned her feet off and with great care slid her shoes on again, careful as Prince Charming to Cinderella.
Nora gave the judge a hug goodbye after he’d given her his usual fee plus a hundred-dollar tip. She almost felt guilty charging him for the sessions. She knew women who paid good money to get a decent foot massage.
Down in the kitchen, Nora found Lance sitting at Mrs. B.’s kitchen table with a glass of milk in front of him and plate of cookies.
“How are they?” Mrs. B asked as she wiped her hands on a towel.
“Perfect.” Lance took a bite from one of the cookies. “I love them with nuts.”
“So do I, but my grandchildren hate the nuts. I have to make one batch for the judge and me, and another batch for the kids.”
“My daughter hates nuts in anything, too. Nuts and raisins, they might as well be poison to her the way she acts when you try to get her to eat them.”
“You have a daughter?” Nora asked, coming into the kitchen. For some reason the idea that Lance had children never occurred to her.
“I do,” he said, and said nothing else. “Are you ready?”
“My next appointment’s about half an hour away. We should head out.”
“Take cookies,” Mrs. B. said. “Lord knows we don’t need to eat all of them.”
No one had to tell Nora twice to take cookies with her. With a brown bag full of chocolate chip cookies, they left the judge’s house and returned to her car.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a kid?” Nora asked once they were back in her car.
“Does it matter?”
“I think it matters.”
“Well, let’s see. We talked for all of five minutes last night before going to your dungeon and none of that conversation included you saying, ‘By the way, do you have any children?’”
“Fine. By the way, do you have any children?” she asked as she headed toward East 76th Street.
“I do. One daughter, age six.”
“What’s her name?”
“Maya.”
“Where is she?”
“With her mother.”
“Why isn’t she with you?”
“Because I’m working.”
“You’re not going to give me anything here, are you? I’m fully capable and willing to torture you to get the answers I want. You realize that, yes?”
“The situation with my ex-wife and my daughter is...let’s call it my sore spot. A sore spot and a long story.”
Nora growled in frustration. Usually only Søren could inspire such aggravation on her part. She started to open her mouth to give him some verbal abuse, but felt something vibrating in her jacket pocket. Pulling out her phone, she handed it to Lance.
“Answer that for me. It’s the boss.”
Lance answered and had a brief conversation, which Nora heard only one side of. A “Yes” followed by a clipped “Understood.”
He handed the phone back to her and sighed.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Your next appointment’s been canceled. Your client is trapped on the tarmac in Toronto. He wants to reschedule for Monday.”
“Isn’t that a happy coincidence?” Nora said, pulling over to park by a café. “Sounds like we have plenty of time now for a long story.”
They ordered coffee and sat at table in the corner of the café by the windows. Nora kept her coat on. A woman in a black leather bustier got more attention than she’d prefer right now.
“So what’s the story with you and the kid?” She blew on her coffee as she studied Lance over the brim.
“Can I ask why you want to know?” Lance took a sip of the coffee, apparently not bothered by its temperature. Masochists. Such show-offs.
“I like you. I want to know everything about you, especially the stuff you don’t want me to know.”
“There might be a good reason I don’t want you to know.”
Nora didn’t back down. “I’m not asking to meet her and audition for the role of wicked stepmother. I just want to know about her, about you and her.”
“The situation...it’s not something I’m particularly proud of.”
“Don’t care. You think you’re the only person at this table with a past? You realize you’re talking to a Dominatrix here, right?”
“Right. Good point.”
“So tell me about Maya.”
Lance took a deep breath.
“I can’t start with Maya. I have to start with her mother, Amber. I was on a short leave eight years ago in Vermont and met this beautiful woman. Smart, sexy...love and lust at first sight. One of those whirlwind courtship things. We kept in touch after I shipped out, we got married on my very next leave. I shipped out again right after the honeymoon. Amber told me a month later I was going to be a father.”
“Happy news?”
“Very happy. I had a new wife I thought I was in love with and a new baby on the way. Magic. But a few months later I had metal in my back and it’s no more Navy, no more career. So I go home, and we start living together for the first time since we got married. She has Maya, I have surgeries. Once she’s healed up from the delivery, and I’m healed up from the IED, I think, ‘Great, we can start having sex again.’ But apparently that was not to be.”
Nora narrowed her eyes at him.
“Why not?”
“Amber threw herself into motherhood. I don’t know what happened but being a mom changed her. There were good changes. She adored our daughter and gave her everything, all her love and attention and affection. But it was a bad change, too.”
“Because she gave your daughter all her love and attention and affection?”
“Right. Breasts were for breast-feeding only. Her body had given birth to our daughter so Amber didn’t consider herself a sexual being anymore. I talked to some guys who have children and they say this is normal, give her a year. So I gave her a year. Then two years. I ask if we can go to couple’s therapy. She says I’m obsessed with sex and it’s my issue, not hers. I say that I think a married couple not having any sort of sex for two entire years is not normal. She accuses me of being an insensitive sex-obsessed pervert. I start to realize that we made a huge mistake getting married so quickly. We barely knew each other. Looking back I don’t even know why she married me. The uniform? The prestige of being an officer’s wife? Maybe she just wanted to be a mom and thought I’d make a good sperm donor.”
“I wouldn’t mind having your DNA inside me,” Nora said, trying to make him smile. It worked but only for a second.
“Amber never expected she’d have to deal with an injured homebound husband. I never expected to be an injured homebound husband. And God knows I never expected my wife to lose all interest in sex after having a baby.”
“This sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Nora said, feeling nothing but sympathy for Lance. She couldn’t wrap her mind or any other part of her body around the concept of not being interested in sex. And she knew lots of women with children in the kink scene who had libidos to match her own.
“It was. I didn’t want a divorce. I thought eventually Amber would go to a doctor, go to a therapist. Something. I tried flowers and compliments and cuddling. Everything. Nothing worked. She simply decided she would never have sex again. But Maya was, is the light of my life. Amber threw herself into motherhood so I threw myself into fatherhood. Pretty soon Maya was the only reason Amber and I were together. We didn’t even speak unless it was about our daughter. I had to have an outlet, though. I have a strong sex drive and was going nuts in that house.”
“You had an affair?”
“No. Unless you consider porn an affair.”
“Depends on how much porn we’re talking about.”
“A lot,” he said without hesitation. “I moved into the guest room-slash-office, found S&M porn, and just got lost in it. I didn’t think about Amber caring. She didn’t want to have sex with me. Why would she care I watched internet porn? But when she used the computer one day and found some of the stuff, she went off the deep end.”
“I would think she’d prefer porn to you sleeping around.”
Lance shrugged. “Me, too. Seemed harmless. She didn’t think so. She kicked me out of the house—the house I’d paid for—filed for divorce, and sought full custody of Maya. The judge allowed the porn into evidence. I lost custody.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Nora put her empty coffee cup down so hard a tiny piece chipped off the bottom. “For porn? You weren’t cheating, you weren’t abusing anyone.”
“If it had been normal vanilla porn, I might have at least gotten visitation. Amber’s lawyer argued I was a porn addict who had abusive, violent, anti-women proclivities.”
“What? Because it was kinky?”
“The sites I visited were all BDSM-related. I only watched the male submissive-women Dominant stuff, but that didn’t factor in. That I’d visited websites that had videos of women being whipped and play-raped killed my defense. No one even cared I’d never watched that stuff. Guilt by association.”
“Son of a bitch...”
Nora knew she shouldn’t be surprised. The world didn’t understand anything about their community, their culture. Søren was