Page 14 of Obedience

As she stared at the worn office floor, a spark of defiance flickered. Shame? Absolutely not. Too many years had been spent being shamed for her sexuality to let desire become a weapon now. She wouldn’t allow anyone to make those needs seem small or wrong again. Even so, the sight of Dylan was overwhelming. Beautiful, but so impossibly young.

Remembering exactly who the fuck she was, Greta exhaled a sharp breath through her nose. Looking up she squared her shoulders. ‘Dylan. This is not happening. You will do as I am asking and leave. I can’t—’

‘Do you really want me to leave, Doctor Vincent?’ Dylan interrupted, her voice soft and measured. Dipping her head she snagged Greta’s gaze, which had been severed by Greta’s dismissive eye roll. Then, as though arriving at a decision, Dylan took another unbidden step toward her, closing the gap between them even more. ‘Doctor Vincent?’

Greta’s breathing quickened at hearing her name again from Dylan’s perfect mouth. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be there. She couldn’t see her. Not now and not ever. Anger, anxiety and disbelief melded into one fierce emotion that thrummed in her chest.

‘I am not going to repeat myself—’

‘You don’t want me to leave,’ Dylan boldly interrupted. Another short step. ‘Do you?’

Blinking frantically, Greta dragged her gaze from Dylan’s full lips, to her unbelievable green eyes, over the soft brown curls—that she had held in her hands just last week—and back again. The material of her blouse moved up and down as her chest heaved uncomfortably. As Dylan dared to shorten the gap even further, Greta’s heart battered against her sternum. The entire world narrowing to the few inches of static-charged air between them.

Dylan canted her head and drew in a slow breath. ‘Do you?’

Nostrils flared, Greta fought for a voice that wouldn't come. The words were trapped behind a lump in her throat that felt like a physical obstruction, narrowing her airway. She felt weak; the nearness of Dylan, her smell, the proximity of her incredible mouth and body was overpowering her logic.

Sucking both lips into her mouth, Greta dropped her head as she drew in a slow, calming breath. She looked up. ‘Please. Miss St John.’ Her voice treasonously quivered despite her best efforts to steel herself. ‘The next request I make will be to security to have you removed.’

Stepping back, Dylan exhaled a long, shaky breath, finally giving Greta the air she’d been desperate for. Greta’s gaze hit the floor, her shoulders dropping in a visible wave of relief at the restored distance. The awareness of Dylan’s eyes watching her as she remained still, crawled over her, suffusing every inch of the flesh she wanted Dylan to touch and taste.

‘Okay…I’m sorry. I’ll go,’ Dylan breathed, the words heavy with reluctance.

Bending to retrieve her rucksack from the floor, Dylan didn’t immediately turn away. Greta’s stomach roiled with the power of Dylan’s gaze. The tiny office unable to contain the raw emotion thrumming from her chest.

‘I’ll email Doctor McClure and request that she allocates you a new mentor,’ Greta said, struggling to maintain her ultra-professional facade that was now fractured and dangerously close to slipping away completely. She swallowed. ‘We need never see each other again.’

‘But…can I—can I at least give you my number—'

‘Goodbye, Miss St John,’ Greta interrupted coldly.

Without giving Greta her back and her eye contact unwavering, Dylan reached for the door handle, pausing when her hand found the cold metal. Greta set her jaw. Desperate not to show any emotion, Greta’s glare was unwavering. As Dylan’s fingers curled around the handle the loud click pierced the sound of their breaths.

‘Goodbye, Greta,’ Dylan sighed.

Silence displaced the oxygen in the room as Greta just stood there, chest heaving, fingers pushed deep into her hips. After the door had closed, Greta stared at the strip of glass as Dylan hovered for a moment, her head tipped backwards, resting against the wood.

‘Go, please go.’ A repeated mutter spilled from her, chewing on the inside of her lip until the taste of copper flooded her mouth. Pulling her weight off the door, Dylan finally walked away, head bowed, rucksack hanging at her side. Dropping back into her chair, Greta covered her face with her hands and heaved a loud, ‘Fuck!’

Chapter six

Are the rules the same?

Rocking with the tram’s momentum Dylan pressed her forehead against the window, the glass fogging with every exhale. Disbelief thrummed in her chest like the engine of a plane. The noise of the other passengers was drowned out almost completely by a piercing tinnitus from the aftershock of the bomb detonated in Greta’s office. She had kept the details of what she did outside of escorting to a minimum when applying at Scortare; she couldn’t afford or risk a rejection. A connection between her and Greta didn’t seem possible. This was really fucking bad. One phone call and it was over.

To Dylan’s shock, the risk of losing her position at the agency wasn’t her main concern. Despite the pressure pushing down on her within the tiny space, she had wanted so desperately to stay in that room. Seeing Greta at work, fully dressed, was more captivating than any scenario they had shared in the two years they had been meeting. Dylan had never once considered that Greta could be a doctor, least of all one in the very field she’d always dreamed of working in. For some reason, she’d always assumed Greta was a businesswoman. Normally, pragmatism and quick thinking came easily. Right now, though, she hadn’t the faintest idea what the fuck to do.

***

The Friday evening traffic had only sharpened Greta’s anger by the time she finally got home. After pouring a very large glass of wine she sat at the kitchen island, her eyes fixed on the view beyond the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, dusk was descending on Manchester. This time of day was Greta’s favourite. The short stretch of time where Canal Street almost paused but never quite stilled. The day’s business had ended, but the night’s hadn’t quite begun. It was almost an interval, neither busy, nor quiet. The canal carried the reflection of the last of the daylight along with the festoon lights glowing to life. The sun was setting over the city, the sky ablaze with a stunning display of reds and oranges.

Tipping her wine glass to her lips, Greta took a slow sip, swallowing hard while she recollected Muriel’s love for sunsets. These windows were the reason they lived here. Greta would have been happy in a semi-detached house in the greener suburbs, with a driveway and garden, but Muriel had bigger ideas. As the architect and designer, Muriel was the one who saw art in brutalism and lived for clean, modern lines. She wanted the pulsing energy of the city and the prime view of the annual Pride celebrations from their very own living room.

Their lifestyle was funded in large part by Muriel’s career; Greta’s earnings as a junior doctor were barely a fraction of Muriel’s six-figure salary and gratuitous bonuses. They had viewed the apartment on a day in winter when the low setting sun turned the skyline purple, and the city lights began to twinkle over the commuters below. Since then, the apartment had become a gallery of Muriel’s taste. Polished Venetian plastered walls, poured concrete, mid-century modern teak alongside carefully sourced antiques and pieces of art that Greta just lived among.

Although Greta was long past bargaining with the higher powers for one more chance to hold Muriel. For one more kiss from her exquisite mouth and one more chance to say “I love you, M” and hear back “I love you, Grets”, she missed Muriel more than ever. It had taken her years to realise that just one more of anything would never be enough. She had cycled through the stages of grief a thousand times, yet on days like this, the weight of it settled beneath her diaphragm like a jagged rock. It stabbed at her organs and splinted her lungs, refusing to allow a full breath in. The resulting hypoxia left her brain starved, making her dizzy and nauseous. Even now, five years on, the sheer physicality of the emotion was often a destabilising shock to her system. On some days it still had the power to completely take her legs from under her.

Caught between two versions of herself, Greta stared at her phone. Professional Greta would report the breach and have Dylan fired but the memory of Dylan was interfering with her thought processes and decision-making. The way she looked in her casual clothes, her soft voice, the desperate need to stay etched on every inch of her beautiful face. Greta had felt that same pull, which was a recognition that was as absurd as it was out of the question. It was an impossibility. Turning the stem of her wine glass over and over, her shoulders knotted with a tension that pushed them toward her ears, she listened to the relentless cycle of questions she couldn't answer.