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She cringed, remembering the look on his face. Anything more than the mildest of BDSM play had been freak-flag territory for him, so she'd developed the discipline and willpower to stay the hell away from it before she lost him. And lost him anyway.
Through all her relationships, she'd played hopscotch with her sub cravings. Tried to make it work with one guy, completely shut it away in a box with another. She'd never been able to trust any of them enough to make the full leap. No matter what Alice said, that was why the failure rested with her.
She'd gotten so tangled up about it that, after her last relationship ended two years ago, she'd decided to quit all of it. Her heart was too battered, her mind too confused. Maybe she'd take up dating when she was past menopause. Sure she'd have to wait a couple decades, but women at that age seemed like they had stuff figured out. Maybe the hormones drove the stupid shit out of the brain and only left what was important.
Stop thinking about this.
She turned her attention back to the layout of the store, making inventory notes as she went. Clothing choices were in the front, but as a customer moved toward the back, Alice had tasteful displays of vibrators, a wall of erotica DVDs and novels catering to women and couples. Over that section a silver-framed, black-and-white print showed a couple in bed, the woman secure in the man's arms as she read to him. He cupped her bare breast, his palm discreetly concealing the nipple, his mouth on her throat. She had glasses perched on her nose.
Such quaint, erotic details were everywhere, making a stroll through the store a sensory experience. Alice had even done her own product presentation. She designed velvet display boxes, mesh bags and other containers, discarding tacky, porno-type packaging.
Steeling herself, Madison moved to the very back corner. The archway there led to the Dungeon Room. It held all the BDSM toys, furniture and more hardcore pieces related to fetish lifestyles. To help her customers explore their wilder side, Alice had strategically placed a refreshment kiosk in this room. As Madison looked at the empty table, a hard lump formed in her throat. She could almost smell the freshly brewed coffee, tea, and the homemade baked goods Alice had served her customers.
Why was seeing a mundane reminder of someone's existence almost harder to bear than other, more dramatic events surrounding her loss? Probably because it felt like a mockery, God's cruel game. Look, she was here, just yesterday, baking a cake, and now, poof, she's gone. Forever.
Troy. Now she remembered. Alice had mentioned him in the handwritten letters she sent at least every couple of weeks. Madison wished she'd kept them all.
Troy, a treasure and treat who works next door, regularly comes in to pilfer lemon muffins. Mom's recipes never fail to attract men, lol.
Madison had no doubt plenty of women would let Troy devour their muffins. She tried to log the room's inventory with her peripheral vision, thinking of them as nameless objects. Not padded cuffs, spreader bars, soft floggers, bamboo canes and blindfolds. Framed photos on the walls showed both Masters and Mistresses in various poses with their submissives. One of them took the window display to its natural conclusion. A severe, darkly handsome Victorian gentleman clamped his hand over his maid's wrist as she flailed on his lap, his other palm raised to give her bottom a disciplinary slap. The young woman's lips were parted. Though she was struggling, the aroused expression on her face was unmistakable.
Madison breathed in through her nose, released it through her mouth. Alice had taught her the stress technique years ago, to manage panic attacks during college finals. You are way too type A, MadGirl. Yes, success matters, but what matters more is why excelling is so important to you. You're not responsible for running the whole world. It won't fall apart if you have some fun or think about what you want once in a while.
Maybe you think you understand, Alice, but you don't get it.
She was a control freak who had one wish--to lose control. The contradiction of that was enough to tear a soul apart and leave the heart forever aching. Alice had wanted Madison to unleash her submissive desires. She'd never realized Madison wanted nothing more than to hand over control to someone and trust that everything wouldn't be lost or fall apart. But to do that, she had to believe he wanted to be that safety net, as much as she wanted to be wrapped up in it and care for him like no one else ever would. From her painful relationship experience, finding a man who wanted to step into that role--and that she trusted to do so--was more of a fantasy than any of her lurid imaginings.
She didn't want to be the discarded Barbie strung out on Prozac her mother had become. So yeah, the parent thing was part of it, she didn't deny it, but it was merely icing to the dysfunction cake. 0-7 stats didn't lie, right? She'd researched enough about submissives to know her need for it was nature not nurture, something that had always been a part of her. It wasn't just a manageable spice-up-the-relationship kind of urge. Based on that, she supposed that it shouldn't surprise her Alice had realized how deep it ran for her sister.
Sighing, she returned to the cash register. If she was going to give running Naughty Bits a try, she needed to get rid of the Dungeon Room, for her own sanity. But that was something Alice would never do, and since this still felt like Alice's store, Madison was reluctant to make such a big change.
At a loss, she looked down to find her hand resting on the letter. She also noticed she'd missed a postscript on the back of the last page.
P.S. You can trust Logan with anything. Don't forget that, MadGirl. You can trust him like you trust me, like fam
ily. No, even more. Like a soul mate. He took care of me until you came.
Who the hell was Logan? Alice had never mentioned him.
Madison was all alone now, a quicksand feeling she tried to keep at bay whenever it crossed her mind. Mom, the Prozac zombie, had crashed her car into a tree when Madison was in college. Dad now lived in Ecuador with wife number three, even younger than the last one. Alice had been her family, and yet she was saying Madison could trust this invisible Logan person more than she'd trusted her sister, the only person she'd ever trusted?
Her sister was probably on really heavy meds when she wrote that part. With another sigh, Madison set the paper down. As she shifted, she bumped that heavy package, a reminder that it was still there. Squatting to take a closer look, she let out a mildly irritated oath. It wasn't hers. It was supposed to go next door, to A Different Time Hardware. Damn it, she'd had Troy right here.
Well, she could use the break. The quiet of the place was getting to her. It was as though Alice was standing there, waiting, watching, yet separated from her by a veil that couldn't be penetrated. Madison's head hurt.
She also hadn't brought a soda, and she bet they had some over there. With the times-gone-by theme, maybe an orange-cream one. And a Mallo Cup. She'd pass out from sugar shock and discover this was all a bad, crazy dream, her sister gone, leaving Madison to run Naughty Bits.
When the store had been in its planning stages, Madison had been the first to call it that. "My sister, selling naughty bits . . ." Next thing she knew, "Naughty Bits" had its Christmas grand opening, with the catch phrase "Where naughty is nice . . ." She'd helped Alice decorate a tree, giggling as they adorned it with everything from filmy, sparkly thong panties to crystal snowflakes and tiny bullet vibrators in gleaming colors of blue and silver. At the top, they'd put a porcelain angel dressed as a dominatrix, complete with wings that looked like two fanned-out floggers, tipped with gold. Alice had teased Madison when she caught her experimenting with it, thwapping her arm with their ineffectual length.
Hey, when we were little, you could have used Barbie dolls as floggers, all that long hair. Ooh, remember the Tiffany doll? The one with ten inches of reversible blonde or black hair? The black hair could be her evil pain side, braided with beads and sharp stuff, and the blond . . .
Madison shook her head, biting back a painful smile, and picked up the package. Given the weight, the clanking she'd mistaken for chain was probably nails or some kind of fastener. Exiting the front door of her store and locking it behind her, she walked down the sidewalk. According to the hours printed on the hardware store window, they opened at seven a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, explaining why Troy had been able to show up in her store so early.
The humid air suggested it was building toward a hot June day, but enough of a breeze stirred the crepe myrtles planted along the sidewalk to keep things pleasant. Around the entrance to the hardware store, hanging baskets spilled out lush falls of petunias, tempting pedestrians to buy.
The door was already propped open with an iron boot brush. A chalkboard sandwich sign had been placed beside it with the day's specials: TOMATO PLANTS, $3, ALL GARDEN TOOLS 20% OFF, FRESH BAKED APPLE PIE AND COFFEE, $1.50.
Heated apple pie was one of her favorite breakfast foods, and she smelled it as she stepped into the shop, past the fan that was angled at the open door to minimize its negative effect on the air conditioning. The next refreshing thing to hit her senses was Troy.
