One Ring

  “What about him?”

  “What about him? I don’t think the man masturbates, unless he does it in the shower. And I doubt he is. He just has no desire.”

  “I really wish he’d go to the doctor,” Marcia said.

  “So do I, but he got almost as angry at that suggestion as he did when I asked about counselling. If he’s not willing to try, I’m done with the one-sided war. The fact that he refuses to admit there’s a problem, and is putting it all on me, that I’m the one with the problem, only seals the deal. It’s time for me to leave before I’m so angry with him that I hate his guts.”

  “Which is exactly what I was warning you about.”

  Once Mel got herself pulled together, Marcia led her back to the guest room that would be her temporary digs. She’d have to find out how much the divorce would set her back, get her paycheck set up for direct deposit into a different bank account…

  So much to do.

  “We haven’t even talked about rent,” Mel said. “How much do you want me to pay?”

  “Nothing. Chip in for groceries, if you’d like. Help out with chores. I’m guessing you won’t be here more than a couple of months before you figure out your next move. I know you. You are a take-charge kind of person who doesn’t like leaving things up in the air. And you like your freedom too much.”

  “Yeah, that is true. I’ve felt anything but free lately. Which is stupid.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because here I thought by staying home with him, it might fix things. I thought that by limiting what I did, it’d bring us closer. All it did was cut me off from people I never should have distanced myself from. He couldn’t give a shit where I go or what I do. Hell, he’d prefer it if I just went and did things and not ask him to go with me. I stopped being me somewhere along the way and tried to be half of a broken marriage.”

  “That never works.”

  “Boy, I learned that the hard way.”

  * * * *

  Mel still wasn’t sure how to get out of going home tomorrow night. She might just have to suck it up and deal with it.

  Maybe steal a page from Mike’s playbook and fall asleep on the sofa, spend the night out there, and claim oopsies.

  Her back probably wouldn’t tolerate her doing that more than two nights in a row before it started protesting, though.

  She grabbed a shower and changed into the black and purple dress she’d brought with her to wear tonight. She’d originally bought it on a whim a couple of years earlier, thinking it was pretty and had a flirty kind of vibe.

  Mike had, predictably, hated it.

  “Makes you look like one of those New Age witches or something,” he’d said.

  So no wonder it was the one piece of clothing she made sure to wear tonight. Loose and flowing, it would look perfectly in place at the restaurant or later, at the club.

  Not like she’d be playing at the club, anyway. Just watching.

  She wasn’t about to cheat on Mike, even if the marriage was effectively dead. All she wanted to do was feel alive for the night, like there were actually people out there who didn’t mind talking with her or spending time with her.

  All this started with a book club.

  She couldn’t even remember how that conversation had started with Marcia, but she’d ended up hooked up with Shayla—who turned out to be one of Marcia’s kinky friends in the lifestyle—and their book club group.

  Just being with people had made her feel lighter every week.

  And then she’d bought a Kindle and started buying recommended reads they’d already devoured.

  Wasn’t like she had any other hobbies at that point. Until she’d brought up her dissatisfaction with her marriage, Mike hadn’t had any problem with her going to book club meetings, or buying the Kindle, or any of that. It meant more time he could spend, in peace, in front of the TV.

  She was ready to leave for dinner when Derrick and Marcia were. “Do I look okay?”

  Marcia hugged her. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad someone thinks so.”

  Chapter Four

  Whereas the first time Mel had dinner with Marcia and Derrick and their friends a few weeks earlier, she’d been too busy listening and asking questions to really observe.

  Tonight, she almost felt like an outsider.

  And not by any of their doing. Everyone was very nice and trying to keep her pulled into the conversations. The last time she’d been so overwhelmed that there’d been no time for her to process. She’d been mentally body surfing through the tsunami of information and people and truths and realizations without any time to really process what was going on.

  But with the truth settling inside her, she realized these people might be the only friends she had left by the time Mike got done with her, if he made good on his threats to tell what few friends she still had about her “pervy” habits.

  And hell, that threat had come from when she’d mentioned to him books she’d read, and suggested they try spicing up their love life.

  If had Mike reacted like that over books, she had no clue how ballistic he’d go in real life if he found out she really was interested in pursuing this.

  Ed and his wife were there, even though they weren’t going to the club later. “Call my office first thing Monday morning,” he said. “I’ll leave a note for my receptionist to make sure to work you into the schedule early this week.”

  This made it real. It sealed it in her mind.

  Now, she just needed to make sure she followed through and didn’t back down.

  They left the restaurant before anyone else. As they headed to the club, Mel rode in the backseat and tried to make some sort of sense of her thoughts.

  “Are you doing okay?” Marcia asked her.

  “I don’t honestly know. Not that I didn’t have fun at dinner,” she quickly added. “Everyone has been wonderful. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Marcia assured her. “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

  Derrick chimed in. “If at any time tonight you feel overwhelmed and want to leave, just let us know,” he said. “I can always run you back to the house.”

  “I appreciate that. I’d rather stay and watch. Or, can I help out? Do you need any volunteers or anything?”

  Derrick chuckled. “Oh, boy. Another sacrificial lamb.”

  “What?”

  “We can always use volunteers,” Marcia assured her. “Out in the office and inside. Doing things like keeping an eye on the garbage cans, wiping tables down, making sure we have sodas and ice and all those kinds of non-kinky stuff.”

  Mel relaxed. “Oh. I’d be happy to do that for you.” That would easily keep her busy and doing something. She didn’t mind helping out. It was the least she could do considering her friends had taken her in—literally and metaphorically—to help her through this life transition.

  In fact, if it hadn’t been for the fortuitous timing of her arrival at Marcia’s house that one day, and if she hadn’t seen what was on Marcia’s laptop at the time, she might still be struggling to decide what to do with Mike. Might still be agonizing over a decision.

  Might be stuck there, letting him convince her she was “wrong” and “sick” for even thinking what she was thinking.

  Might have let him talk her into thinking she really did need counselling because he was the one who was “normal,” not her.

  There was already one car parked in the lot outside the club when they arrived.

  Derrick chuckled. “Good ole Jenny.”

  “Who’s she?” Mel asked.

  “She’s a gift from heaven,” Marcia said. “She’s our head volunteer, and she’s amazing. We couldn’t run this place as easily as we do without her. She can’t be here every weekend, but she helps organize all the volunteer schedules so we know we have plenty of help every week. And she helps out at several of the coffee times and munches as either a host or making
sure she goes to talk about the club and our events to help bring newbies into our 101 classes.”

  Derrick unlocked the office door. The lights were on, but no one was inside. He stayed behind in the office while Marcia led Mel inside. They found Jenny in the main space, in the kitchen area, organizing and arranging things for the evening.

  Marcia made the introductions. “Jenny, this is our friend, Mel. She’s going to be staying with us for a while, and she’s going to help out here, too. She’s completely new to the lifestyle.”

  Jenny brightened. “Nice to meet you!” Mel loved the collar the woman wore around her neck, a piece of iridescent, round metal rod with a ring in the front. “Has she filled out paperwork?”

  “She did the last time she was here. She sat in on my 101 class.”

  “Okay. So let’s go get you a volunteer badge and I’ll show you from the ground up.”

  “Jenny’s a taskmaster,” Marcia playfully called out behind them.

  “And you love it, ma’am,” Jenny called back.

  “Didn’t say I didn’t.”

  Mel chuckled. The playful, light, airy feel to their banter was such a relief from the heavy cloak of seriousness she normally felt at home.

  When was the last time she and Mike had joked around? About anything?

  Never.

  The rare occasion she could pry him out of the house to go out to eat, all he wanted to do was listen to the radio. When she tried to hold a conversation with him, she received one-word replies, if she was lucky.

  Holy crap, my life is fucked up.

  Jenny got Mel a volunteer badge and started showing her the computer system while Derrick shuffled a few chairs outside, presumably for smokers. Mel tried to focus on what Jenny was showing her, but one thought kept intruding.

  She was done waiting around for Mike. It was a quiet certainty inside her, not a still vaguely possible outcome.

  She knew she’d be filing for divorce, as soon as she could.

  She needed to make her life happen. And she was the only one who could do that. For too damn long, she’d let her life be dictated by what she thought a “good” wife “should” do.

  Those days were over. If Mike had even been willing to make a few small changes, she wouldn’t be at this point. If he made her feel like he still loved her.

  If he made her feel like she wasn’t alone.

  How long was she supposed to keep trying and beating her head against a stone wall of resistance, with a man who had outright said he had absolutely no desire to change and thought there was nothing wrong with their marriage?

  Life was too short.

  At dinner, Mel had learned about a past friend of Derrick and Marcia’s—and friend to many there at the table—who had passed away not too long ago. Basco had been young, only a couple of years older than her.

  She didn’t want to realize she was about to die and had wasted her precious time on the planet.

  Maybe eventually she’d find out BDSM wasn’t for her. She didn’t know. From Marcia’s class, she learned there was a wide variety of participation levels and types of play. It intrigued her, and she was done with not doing things because of Mike.

  She wanted to explore. She wanted to learn. She’d felt…stagnant for so long, she needed to free herself from the mental and emotional mire.

  If nothing else, she wanted some damn friends who liked to laugh, and these people fit the bill quite well.

  Fortunately, Jenny didn’t throw her to the wolves with the computer system. She showed Marcia how to run the tablet they used to process credit cards, and assigned her to that task, as well as making sure people signed in and got wristbands once they’d paid.

  That she could handle.

  The nice thing was she got to meet everyone as they came through the door and started learning their names. In the first hour, she’d met at least thirty new people, a few who’d been at dinner and some she remembered from her visit a few weeks earlier.

  And a couple of those people remembered her, too, which gave her a secret thrill.

  How stupid is it that I’m happy people remember me?

  That was something to stick in her mental process later inbox to deal with. Not right now.

  Not tonight.

  She decided she would shut off the comparisons, the self-pity, the slowly smoldering anger at Mike over what she’d let him do to her, and to them, over the past several years, and focus on being present, on the now.

  On what was shaping up to be one humdinger of a night.

  * * * *

  After the initial crush of new arrivals, Marcia had another volunteer switch off with Mel. She then took Mel inside and showed her the main tasks that would crop up throughout the night, easy stuff that was so vanilla it struck her funny bone from the irony.

  Substitute a church social for the kinky stuff, it’d be exactly the same.

  Except without a naked woman wrapped in a rope harness scooping herself a helping of balled melons onto a paper plate.

  “The other reason I wanted you in here,” Marcia said, “is to watch. Crawford is about to start a fire cupping demo.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Watch.” Marcia pointed to where a guy had a massage table set up in a corner near the bathrooms.

  Tall and willowy, he had brown eyes and long, black hair streaked with grey that he’d pulled back into a low ponytail with a piece of leather cord. He almost reminded her of a wizard, not from his manner of dress—jeans and a black, long-sleeved button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows—but from his manner.

  Several people had gathered around. On the table, a naked woman lay facedown. As Mel watched, Crawford used a lighter to light something inside small, rounded glass jars and stick them to her back.

  “It’s actually an old Chinese medicine technique,” Marcia told her. “There’s also cupping with suction cups, but the fire cupping adds heat to the mix and makes it feel even better.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “If you ever get really bad shoulder knots? It’s amazing. I’m such a fire cupping slut. There is a lot of stuff it supposedly helps. He also does acupuncture. He’s one of the few demonstrators who can legitimately say, ‘I’m a professional,’ when he does stuff like this.”

  “Can I go watch?”

  “Sure. That’s why he’s here. He’ll even do it to you, if you want.”

  Heat filled Mel’s face. “I don’t know if I could get naked in front of people.”

  “You’re wearing a bra, right?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s like a bikini. Unless you don’t have underwear on.” Marcia smiled.

  The heat in her face deepened. “I’m not going commando.”

  “It’s okay,” Marcia said. “You don’t have to try it if you don’t want to. And if you did, and want me or Derrick to stand right there, we can. You can wrap a towel around you, if you want. You’d be facedown on the table.”

  Actually, she did want to try it. “My neck and shoulders are really tight,” she said. “Stress. And being hunched over computers all week.”

  “Then it’s perfect. Want me to introduce you?”

  “But isn’t that like interrupting his scene?”

  “Normally, yes. But he’s doing a demo, and I know him, and I know that he doesn’t mind talking to people and answering questions. If I didn’t know all of that already, I’d say we’d wait to talk to him until after.”

  That being said, Marcia grabbed Mel’s hand and led her over and around the group, until they were standing at the head of the massage table and a couple of feet away.

  Crawford glanced their way. “Are you bringing me a fresh victim, Marcia?”

  In fact, the guy reminded Mel a little of Professor Snape, except with a playful smile and without the heavy British accent.

  “She’s a friend who’s really new to the lifestyle. A close personal friend. And she’s on a computer all week. I thought, what better way to dip her
toe into the kinky pool than to toss her at you?”

  His serene smile looked calm, relaxed, as he lit whatever it was inside another of those glass globes and quickly stuck it onto the woman’s back. There were now eight of them there, and Mel could see purple discolorations forming under some of them.

  “Ah, I get to pop a newbie’s fire cupping cherry. You know I can’t resist that. Why do you tempt me so?”

  “Because you’re evil in all the good ways, dude.” Marcia grabbed Mel by the shoulders and made her trade places with her. “You stay here. I’ll go grab you a couple of towels.”

  Mel nervously swallowed, but nodded.

  “So,” Crawford said. “What is your name, my dear?”

  “Amelia. Mel,” she quickly corrected. At work, she was Mel. She wanted to be Mel here, too.

  “Crawford.” His focus didn’t shift from the woman in front of him even as he kept talking to Mel. “Did Marcia tell you what I’m doing?”

  “Sort of.”

  He started to explain again. She suspected the people gathered around had already heard some of this. But as he prepared another cup with what turned out to be alcohol and lit it, quickly adhering it to the woman’s oiled back, he gave her a detailed step-by-step of what he was doing, and why.

  “So…there’s no sex?”

  A few people laughed, but it wasn’t the bad kind of laughter. Crawford’s smile widened. “There can be, but not usually. Too much risk of dislodging the cups and having them hit the floor and shatter. And sex isn’t allowed here anyway.”

  “Oh. So it’s just…this is what you do?”

  “One of the things. This is something therapeutic I do with my clients in my office. Where things can really get kinky here is with acupuncture and a violet wand.”

  “I don’t even know what that is.” She’d heard a couple of people talking about them.

  “I can demonstrate that later tonight,” he said. “They can be interesting.”

  “Does this hurt? What you’re doing to her?”

  The woman on the table turned her head to face Mel. “If I could tie him up and take him home with me, I would. It feels amazing.”