Page 79 of Games We Play
“You were attracted to that?”
Sloan shrugged off that question. “Like I said. I was dumb. He gave me a sexual thrill I hadn’t felt in forever. He wasn’t the first man I had slept with, but at that point I was fairly solidified in my identity as a lesbian. I guess it also meant I felt like such a baaad girl.” She rolled her eyes. “Christ. This is why I don’t talk about this out loud.”
It’s true, though.After their first date, Sloan returned home with tingles she couldn’t account. Aaron hadn’t even touched her, except to take her hand to help her down from her barstool. An electric storm that would rage for years ignited that night.
His gaze, the aura he carried… those had been enough to turn Sloan into a woman she no longer recognized. It was the adage,“Now the songs on the radio make sense,”only perverted. She heard heterosexual anthems and realized they had come for her. Cupid thought it a cosmic joke to prick her heart and loins with love and lust for only one person – aman.Maybe sexuality was fluid, after all. Maybe she had encountered her one glorious exception. A word she now hated more than when she first identified as a lesbian.
She refused to describe the first night she slept with Aaron, but the memory dwelled in the back of her mind.He took me to his hotel room, and I knew exactly what we would do.Sloan had wanted it, of course. If nothing else, she would get this man out of her system and go back to her life, but when he fucked her like he hadn’t been with a woman in years, it hit her: this wasn’t a fluke. This was some corrupted form of destiny bringing them together.
“He’s the one who jumpstarted my career. He’s also the one who really got me into BDSM.” That was the aura that had attracted Sloan. An alpha male. She was used to those types in business school and beyond, but Aaron was the first one she met who truly embodied what she respected most of the type. He knew when to defer to those who knew more than him. He wasn’t afraid to ask for a woman’s advice – and follow up on it. He also took the time to patiently show her what it meant to be in a relationship with a man like him.
Sloan often wished he hadn’t. If he had tried to jump right into the collars, the leashes, the going commando to business lunches so she was always aware of the sexual nature of their relationship, then she could have run away before she was in too deep. The Margaret Sloan who first met Aaron Giles was savvy enough to recognize a creep, but he also knew that she was. Once Aaron decided he wanted more than Sloan’s body, it was only a matter of reeling her in and manipulating her until she no longer knew who she was.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been into kinky stuff. I had already tied up my fair share of women before I met him.” Leah didn’t look impressed when Sloan said that, so she continued, “But he was the first one to do it to me, and you know what? I already trusted him by that point. I didn’t worry that he was going to hurt me, or leave me there to embarrass me. He knew how to wear me down. It started with handcuffs and stamina play. When I finally left his bedroom for the final time, we had doneeverything.Some of it I still dream about, because it had been amazing at the time.” More like had nightmares. Sometimes Sloan woke up, convinced she was tied up to the banister in the foyer and enjoying anal sex for the millionth time.
Leah looked down at her own wrists.Christ. She’s starting to get it.What really, truly made Margaret Sloan the most fucked up woman any other could call her girlfriend.
“I can’t describe…” Sloan jammed her cigarette into the ashtray on the table and closed her eyes. “There are no words for how he changed me. I went from being the most outspoken, aggressive, and take-no-fucks woman I knew. He transformed me into his ideal, submissive wife. I spent almost seven, eight years doing his bidding and going along with everything he wanted. The only time I exerted my mind and independence was when we worked. He made me an equal partner right after we got married. Wewereequals in the boardroom. It was in private that we reverted to our agreed-upon roles.” He got off on it, didn’t he? Men came up to him and asked how he could marry such a ball-busting feminist. Then he had the honors of taking her into their bedroom and fucking whatever hole he pleased while she begged for more and called himsir.“I both loathed him and admired him for how good he was. The admiration, my love for him completely overrode my common sense. Love is blind, you know. It says you love this man, so you love him. You go along with it. You trust him. You give your heart and soul to someone who doesn’t deserve it. You stop wondering if you love the way he spanks you because it’s your nature, or because he’s convinced you that punishments are better than rewards.”
She couldn’t look at Leah while a second cigarette alit with life.I don’t want to see that look in her eyes.Disgust. Disbelief. Awareness that everything they had done in the bedroom somehow mimicked the shit Aaron had put Sloan through in their marriage.
Pull up her skirt and fuck her over the edge of the couch. Yup. Sounds like a regular Thursday night back in the day.Sloan needed to smoke faster.
“So… what made you leave the relationship?”
“God, I haven’t gottenthereyet, huh?”
“You’re painting a picture, that’s for sure.” Leah held her arms closer to her torso. She had never removed the bracelet sporting the diamonds from Sloan’s old wedding ring. “Did you finally realize what an asshole he was?”
“Yes. In one of the most traumatizing ways possible.”
Leah shuddered.
“Not like that. He never… did something like that.” They had done a lot of roleplaying in the bedroom, but Sloan never believed her husband was like thatoutsideof her consenting to it. “No. Something else happened, and I saw his true colors.” Sloan took her time with the next drag of her cigarette. “I got pregnant.”
An icy atmosphere settled upon the room. Leah looked like she wanted to throw up.
“Story as old as time.” Sloan kicked back in her chair and pretended she told a silly anecdote instead of one of the most horrifying moments of her life. “Woman diligently takes birth control, still gets pregnant.”
“You don’t have kids though, do you?”
Sloan stared at the antique chandelier hanging above them. “No. I’ve never wanted them, and he knew that.” Leah remained silent. What else could Sloan do but explain? “As soon as I found out, I told my doctor I wanted it gone. I didn’t tell my husband until later. I didn’t expect him to tell me I couldn’t.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a jovial cackle breaking the ice that had settled a few moments before. It was pure insanity. Those memories, every time they came flooding back at least once a day, were enough to destroy the last bit of Sloan’s fragile sanity.
“Aaron had the fucking balls to tell me I couldn’t do what I wanted with my body. We fought for days. He attempted to cancel my appointments. He sent people to my office, to our own home to pump me full of bullshit stories about how having a baby would extend my life and give me meaning I never knew possible. Then he pulled out the big guns and told me that heforbademe. He didn’t use religion, which would’ve been rich, because I don’t think he’s believed in God a single day of his life. Nope. He told me that he was my Master, and it was my job as his wife to submit to him.”
“Sounds pretty religious to me.”
“I wish. I knew how to deal with that level of extremism.”Hello, extended family on my mother’s side.There was more than one reason Sloan didn’t have contact with her family. “He was using our lifestyle and all the manipulation he had performed on me over the years to make me do something I didn’t want.”
“So what did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I left in the middle of the night and got what I wanted. I didn’t need his permission, his money,orhis body by my side. I went alone. I learned that day that I was best off doing everything on my own, because I’m the only person I can truly trust.” Ashes landed on Sloan’s pants. Cursing, she brushed them off and extinguished her second cigarette. “I lay there in that doctor’s office going over my whole marriage. Everything started making sense. I left that office with my blinders off. He could send a hitman after me for all I cared. I was still telling him that day that our relationship was over. He would never have that hold on me again.”
“But you’re… you’re still married to him!”
“Yes. That happened almost seven years ago, if you can believe it. I’m still married to him. Because after I told him I was leaving, he struck me a deal – he knew I couldn’t turn down a good business deal, you know.”
