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I didn’t argue about the food.
“I’ll get dressed,” he said. “You go to the kitchen. Get your coffee. And food.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, turning his back to me, the one covered in scars I’d never know the origin of.
Breakfast was impressive. I don’t know what I had expected, but definitely not a huge spread of croissants, Danishes, fresh cut fruit, yogurt, granola. Everything spread artfully, aesthetically. Surely it wasn’t Jay who’d done this. If not him, who? There was no one else in the house. Not that I could see, at least. But this was a large house, with many places for an unseen housekeeper to slink about, arranging meals before disappearing. Something about that chilled me. The silence of this place did that too.
Luckily, I’d spotted a set of Bose speakers which I connected my phone to, selecting my morning playlist. Soft acoustics, folksy stuff that I was sure that Jay would not appreciate.
It wasn’t long after I’d poured myself a coffee and collected a selection of food from the outrageously large spread that Jay emerged from the hall. He was wearing a black tee and jeans. Bare feet.
That surprised me. I didn’t know why I’d expected to see Jay in a suit and loafers, but I had.
I did my best not to gawk at him while he poured his own coffee, grabbed some food to set on a plate. Though I did take note of how he took his coffee—black, two sugars—and what he picked up for breakfast—a banana, a croissant, an apple Danish and a bunch of fruit and granola. I was eager to suck up every small, personal detail of his life.
It was pathetic really, that I was sitting there, scrounging for emotional scraps, pieces of information. But I wouldn’t think of that now. Instead, I sipped my coffee, ate my breakfast and tried very hard to act normal when Jay sat down beside me. He didn’t comment on the music, didn’t make any conversation. We ate in absolute silence.
When we were done, I gathered the plates and took them to the sink, rinsing them before placing them in a dishwasher that looked like it could make the trip to Mars. Jay did not try to stop me from doing this or offer any kind of help.
“Do you have Tupperware?” I asked him as my eyes scanned the outrageous amount of cupboards and drawers.
He was sitting at the breakfast bar, watching me. No phone. No newspaper. Nothing in front of him. Just watching me.
“I can clear this up?” I clarified, waving my arm at the impressive and no doubt expensive spread in front of us, the one we’d barely made a dent in.
“Someone will take care of it,” Jay replied.
I frowned. “Who is someone?”
He peered at me intently, as if wondering whether he should remind me of the question rule or just ignore me. I peered right back at him. If I was going to be walking around this place in nothing but a robe, I had a right to know who I was going to be running into. Who might’ve heard how loud I’d cried out when Jay made me come for the third time.
“Felicity, my housekeeper,” Jay responded finally.
I hated that obtaining that single shred of information felt like a victory. “She’s here all the time?” I asked.
“No,” Jay answered again. “Not while I’m fucking you, if that’s what you’re wondering. No one will be in the house when I’m inside you.”
I swallowed at the casual way he spoke about being inside of me, as if we were discussing the price of milk. It elicited an immediate reaction in me, my nipples hardening underneath the thick fabric of the robe. And I’d already spent the entire meal turned on by seeing Jay sitting beside me in jeans, drinking coffee and eating breakfast. Simple acts. Simple clothing. Those somehow made this man all the more extraordinary.
“She will also provide meals. If you don’t enjoy them, we can have something ordered to your satisfaction,” Jay continued.
I blinked at the thought of some faceless woman preparing my meals for me, wondering if she cooked Jay’s every meal. What did she know about him? Did he treat her with the same cold indifference as he did me?
“I’m sure whatever she prepares will be wonderful,” I assured him, hating that I couldn’t offer to cook for us. That I couldn’t cook for him, without accidently making him sick. Growing up with a single father, most people expected me to have taken on all or most of the household duties that a mother might’ve been responsible for. Cooking. Cleaning. Especially in my home state where gender roles were usually concrete, and feminism hadn’t exactly reached all the households.
But it had reached mine. My father had had no problem cooking, cleaning and doing the jobs of mother and father in addition to working ten-hour days. He’d come home after his shift, shower then cook for us. Nothing midwestern, either. My father loved to cook and wasn’t afraid to experiment. He went through Julia Child’s cookbook, spending months cooking us French cuisine. Then he moved on to Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish. It always surprised people when my father had them over for dinner and served them glazed duck and lobster bisque.
