Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Now, I sit in my car down the street from her self-defense classes, watching on my phone as she is called to the front of the room. Her hands are wrapped in the end of her sweatshirt sleeves, her posture unsure. But she comes forward and gets into the defensive stance as instructed. For most of the class, she has been standing back and watching, but now she performs the moves they were taught—striking the instructor—and she kills it.
“Fuck yeah, Jolie,” I shout in my car, startling a woman passing with a stroller.
My eyes zip back to the screen in time to witness her shy smile, the way she hugs herself afterwards and I want to hold her so bad in that moment, my throat burns.
When she calls my phone ten minutes later, she has no idea I’m watching her exit the building in my rearview mirror. It’s a challenge to keep my voice even. “Hey, angel eyes. How’d it go?”
“Amazing,” she breathes. “All the other women were so nice and non-judgy. And I just…I-I kicked the instructor and it felt really good. Like I was…I don’t know. Taking control. I want to go back. I’m so glad you bullied me into it.”
“Bullied you?” I laugh.
“Fine.” She smiles into the word. “You finessed me.”
“Much better.” I hold the phone so tight, I’m risking snapping it in half. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m…proud of me, too.” She blows out a breath and climbs into her car, so I can’t see her anymore and I subdue a note of panic. After all, I know where she’s going next. “I love you so much, Christopher.”
A swallow gets caught in my throat. “I love you more.”
Trust me.
We hang up a moment later and I follow her to the next destination. Therapy.
Truthfully, I felt conflicted about taping the microphone beneath her therapist’s desk two months ago, but it was too tempting to have full access to Jolie’s hopes, fears, musings. Since I started listening, they’ve mainly talked about her kidnapping. I’ve been discussed, too, and there have been no complaints. Although her therapist, Elmira, did question Jolie’s rush to get married.
I didn’t like that.
Thankfully, the issue wasn’t pressed and they went back to dealing with what happened to Jolie at the hands of Joseph Hynes.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop across the street from her therapist’s office, listening through an earbud as Elmira greets Jolie. The husky warmth of my wife’s voice makes me immediately stiff under the table and I check my cell for the time. Four more hours until we’re home and I can be inside of her. The only time I can let this obsession run wild is when we’re fucking and it’s like letting suppressed air out of a valve. Four more hours. Four more.
“I was wondering if we could talk about something different today,” Jolie says—and I wish I’d installed a camera, too, because I know she’s tucking hair into her ponytail. I love it when she does that. It reminds me of the day we met.
“Of course,” Elmira says smoothly. “This is your time.”
Jolie exhales. “It’s about Christopher.”
My hand tightens around my coffee mug, my pulse starting to sprint. She can’t be unhappy with me so soon, can she? What have I done wrong?
I’ll fix it.
I’ll listen to every single word and I’ll repair myself to suit her better.
“Okay,” the therapist prompts. “What about him?”
Jolie laughs quietly. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“There’s no judgment here. Only truth.”
My wife is silent another moment. “The first night Christopher and I were…intimate…he called himself Daddy. He hasn’t done it since that night. And, um, I liked it. A lot. I don’t know how to tell him I liked it and that I want more.”
More.
More.
That word bashes around in my skull. I haven’t been giving her enough?
Unacceptable.
“What do you mean by ‘more’?” Elmira asks, not a hint of censure in her tone.
I lean forward in my chair.
“I mean…my husband is the first man I slept with, so sex is kind of new to me. Still, I’m not naïve. I know our sex life is…” She releases a shaky sound. “Incredible. But ever since he said that word—Daddy—I’ve had fantasies about pushing that boundary.”
“Role playing?”
“Yes. Is there something wrong with me?”
“No.”
“Even if I daydream about taking it…far?”
“Define ‘far’.”
It’s a moment before Jolie answers. “I don’t have daddy issues or anything. I have a perfectly normal relationship with mine, even if we’re not super close. It’s warm. So there’s no underlying problems. Christopher is the only one…inspiring this.” Her pitch deepens. “He has this way of building me up, encouraging me outside the bedroom. But in the bedroom, he’s dominant. Extremely so. I hand over my will and he takes it.” She pauses. “You see, he’s all these things at once. Everything. Filling every need. And it just puts me on my proverbial knees. I want him to have that ultimate power role…because I trust him.”