Discipline, p.1
Discipline, page 1
DISCIPLINE
Stella Rhys
Copyright © 2015 by Stella Rhys
Published at Smashwords
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Bonus Excerpt from In Too Deep
Other Titles by the Author
CHAPTER 1
I always know when I’m the last to arrive to a dinner with the Todos girls because the moment I step into the restaurant, the hostess gives me a half-grin, half-cringe. She’s been briefed on the penalty I face for being late – which I’m considered even if I arrive on time, as long as everyone else got there before me. Adriana, being hyper-punctual and a sadist, implemented this rule after too many of our reservations went to waste because our party was incomplete. The culprit is normally Linh because she’s compelled to Instagram every flower or flowy skirt on the sidewalk, but tonight, it was myself. So for the very first time, I was the one forced to drink the foulest available vodka at the bar – one shot for every five-minute increment that the girls were kept waiting.
I was thirteen minutes late tonight but Adriana rounds up, so I was promptly greeted with three shots of Georgi, which Em informed me the place didn’t actually carry – it was just staff party leftovers that the cute bartender had volunteered. Like so many others, he was charmed by our ruthless tradition.
“Bottoms up.” He winked at me, watching as I struggled to down each shot of coconut-flavored punishment. But underneath my heavy cringing, I felt the tingle of a thrill. It’d been years since I’d been able to really hang out with the girls and the shots made me feel like I was back. Out and alive again, not trapped and alone in Ben’s miserable, echoing penthouse.
“‘Kay,” I croaked when I was finished, taking a solid ten seconds to finish shuddering. It was only then that the girls began greeting me with kisses on the cheek and a few sympathetic coos – at least from Adriana and Linh, who hadn’t seen me since the breakup.
“You lost so much weight!” Adriana exclaimed as she pulled away from our hug. Cute Bartender and several patrons looked over at me despite having no prior frame of reference. I couldn’t blame them. No matter where we went, Adriana’s jubilant voice always demanded attention — especially at restaurants and bars, and mostly from the male population. If it wasn’t that, Em’s sports banter or Linh’s compulsive pixie flirting would do the trick. Once upon a time, I contributed to our collective charm. I think. But then a long-term relationship happened – more specifically one with Ben.
Tonight, to make up for three years of doing it his way, I wore something tight, white and crocheted that he would’ve punched a wall over.
“Girl, how?” Adriana held her arms out in awe, still gaping at my body. She paused and then gasped. “You’re depressed!” she guessed jovially.
“I’m not depressed, Ade,” I laughed, already tipsy as we got seated. Drunk, really. I’d lost any shred of tolerance in the last few years away from the girls. It was as if I’d been living in a cave. It did feel that way.
Linh studied me as she wound a lock of black hair around her finger. “But three years is forever,” she said in her wispy voice. “It would be normal to be depressed.”
“Guys, she’s really not though. The opposite, really,” Em spoke up for me while reading the menu. Being the only one of them left at Todos Santos, where I’d begun waitressing again, she’d had the most time to talk to me since the split. Plus, she’d been the one I could safely gripe to about Ben over the years. She was sarcastic but mellow and unlikely to round up all her bouncer friends to go and intimidate him, which I could actually see Adriana and Linh doing, though Linh would probably make them swear to only scare him. Adriana, on the other hand, would give them the go-ahead to throw punches, even use restraints if needed. For those reasons, I couldn’t tell her about my relationship. I had to tell Em.
And being that person, she knew the truth — that despite being technically dumped, I was beyond relieved to be out of what had felt like a twisted marriage. From the ages of eighteen to twenty-one, I’d essentially been Mrs. Benjamin Kingdon.
Adriana eyed me. “Guess I’ll believe Em since you tell her everything now,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. I tensed, but she relieved me by changing the subject and playfully pouting her full, berry lips. “Anyway, thank fucking God you’re back, honey. You were too young to be married!”
As far as she and the girls were concerned, I had been a wife for the past three years. While they were still starting their nights at 1AM and hooking up all over the city, I was tending to Ben’s every need in his TriBeCa loft and if not that, waiting for him to come home from work where he always stayed late. When I wasn’t at Todos or school, I was raising our child, Jack – the Akita puppy that he one day decided he wanted.
“Oh! Look at that,” Adriana feigned surprise when a complimentary round of drinks arrived at our table. I held back a laugh. I’d missed this act of hers. Half the reason she ever played our late-girl shots game was to amuse the staff and endear us to them. They’d always want to send a consolation drink to whichever one of us had to down the disgusting vodka, but then of course they’d feel the need to include the rest of the girls on the free round. And then once it was delivered, she and Linh would flirt with our server, be it a boy or girl, and this friendship for the night would ensure free dessert sent to our table at the end of the meal.
But tonight, Adriana had other orders of business. Sipping on her strawberry Caipirinha, she peeked mischievously at me. “So. Drunk enough to start talking about Ben? Since, apparently, I need to get you hammered for you to tell me things anymore?”
I frowned. “Ade.”
“I’m just kidding. I know it was because that prick was holding your silence hostage. Like a true fucker.”
“Ade, this is why I didn’t talk about him,” I protested with a laugh. “Because I don’t want to get you all riled up. I know you hated him.”
“We all hated him. Ade just talked about it more,” Linh said truthfully. She plucked a yellow flower from the table and tucked it into her wavy hair. “Probably because Ben hated her most.”
My lips pursed awkwardly. We never really talked about that, but leave it to Linh to casually say things that most people tiptoe around. “Let’s not talk about Ben,” I decided.
“Why not?” Adriana wore a sassy look as she let her cocktail straw hang from her lips like a cigarette. “Isn’t step one of recovery acknowledging the problem?”
Yes. She had me. Step one of getting past Ben was talking about him, but I didn’t know where to start. Despite the fact that we’d dated for so long, he was still a stranger to the girls. He’d hung out with Em the most because he thought she was “calm” and “civilized” compared to Adriana and Linh, but that still just meant on four brief occasions over the course of three years. Three years that I spent being tight-lipped about our relationship, too stubborn to admit that he was the reason for why I’d eventually left work, quit school and stopped seeing my closest friends, especially Adriana. To Ben, she meant danger. She was the best friend that every girl wanted — beautiful with a contagious sense of adventure and charisma that attracted men everywhere she went. Confident, good-looking men whom Ben figured would eventually start flirting with her friends. And so he resorted to calling her “trashy,” even “slutty” when she was actually neither.
Far worse, I let him.
Ugh. Thinking about what an asshole he was and what an idiot I’d been made me feel ready to spill about the failed relationship. As long as Adriana didn’t ask about the last straw – that final argument that I hadn’t told a soul about yet. It was too humiliating and I couldn’t stand the filthy, crawling feeling I got every time I remembered it.
“So?” Adriana’s challenge stirred me from my thoughts.
I heaved a sigh. “What do you want to know?”
She squealed. “Oh my God, Linh. Where do we start?”
Linh didn’t hesitate. “How much money did he give you for allowance?”
The table to our right quieted curiously. I cringed. Apparently no amount of drunkenness could ease my shame of ever having accepted an allowance from Ben. It sounded like fun to Linh, but she didn’t know what it bought. In the beginning, neither did I. All I knew was that it helped for when Mom asked to “borrow” money. The requests started out as just as a few hundred dollars for someone’s birthday gift, but it didn’t take long for them to become monthly deposits into her bank account, the numbers ranging from five hundred to five thousand dollars at a time. And after every deposit, I received an immediate text from her — not a thank you, but a reminder to keep these transactions a complete and utter secret, even from my father.
“Um.” I stirred my drink. “Don’t you guys want to talk about something else? Penis size, m aybe?” I laughed nervously. That would distract them. But the moment the suggestion left my mouth, I regretted it. Half because the only thing Adriana loves more than talking dirty is doing it in public, just to see how red my face will get. It’s a reminder of “what a Stepford wife” I’ve become since Ben. Before dating him, she and I had been inseparable, the ones who poured the staff shots and rallied everyone to go out after weekend closing shifts, which always ended past 2AM.
That was only half of my worry though. The other half was over the table to our left, which was being seated with a party of two men. From just the corner of my eye, I was sure that I recognized one – someone whom I probably shouldn’t be discussing this topic in front of. He seemed to be glancing at me too, but before I could look over and confirm, a server stepped between our tables to make our tableside guacamole. That didn’t stop Adriana from talking.
“Didn’t you say he would only do it reverse cowgirl?”
“Ade!” Judging from the “whoa” I picked up on my left, the guys next to us had heard. Oh God, he’s hearing all of this.
“What?” Adriana played innocent, twirling a platinum lock around her finger. “If Ben had anything right, that was it. Your ass to waist ratio was made for reverse cowgirl.” Her hazel eyes gleamed, absolutely delighting in my mortification. She plucked the strawberry off the side of her glass and licked the alcohol off its tip. “I’d do the same with you if I had a penis.”
“Ade! There are kids here.”
“No, there aren’t.”
It was worth a shot. “Well, can you pretend there are?” I asked, my fingers cold against my now burning cheeks. I quickly dropped them though when I remembered that visible embarrassment only ever fueled Adriana to up her ante. “Anyway, are we all okay with cilantro?” I asked brightly, trying to change the subject to our guacamole.
“I got a preview of you in reverse cowgirl before! Remember? At Linh’s lingerie party?”
No dice. The question prompted a hushed mutter from the next table. “This guy needs to move so I can see already,” a gruff voice said — probably his friend.
“The Halloween party, yes, I remember, but can we all look at the guacamole, please?” I asked hastily, desperate to shut Adriana up, especially if it really was the person I thought it was sitting next to me. He was from home and he wasn’t supposed to know that this side of me ever existed. At home, I was a poised, elegant and well-behaved girl from a poised, elegant and well-behaved family.
Em’s eyes widened as she recalled the party. “Oh my God, that party. How do you two remember any of it, honestly?”
“How could I forget? That was the night I discovered Nina’s secret talent.”
“What? Double fisting like a champ?” Em asked.
“No. Giving lapdances,” Adriana answered, nibbling her strawberry. “She’s almost as good a dancer as she is a kisser,” she added, winking at me. Once again, I felt my hands cover my face.
“Damn,” came the reaction from the guys to my left. Linh cooed.
“I remember that night.” She prodded me with a giggle. “Be nice to Ade. She had to be like your boyfriend that night because of all those guys harassing you. It was that costume you were wearing, with the little plaid skirt and the garters…”
No, no, no. Of all details right now.
“What were you again?”
Please don’t say it.
Adriana smirked. “A naughty schoolgirl.”
God.
And right on cue, the server sprinkled some cilantro and moved out of the way to confirm whom I’d seen. Him. The impossibly gorgeous man I had crushed on since the age of fourteen, who had just spent the past three minutes listening to the filthy details of my sex life.
“Hi,” he said quickly, interrupting the words he saw forming on my lips – Mr. Cole. It was still instinct. After all, he had been my high school English teacher. Though judging from the flicker in his eye, he didn’t want that fact revealed tonight. Despite a suddenly pounding heartbeat, my drunk lips twisted into a knowing smile.
“Hi,” I said slowly. Got it… we’ll just pretend we don’t know each other. I didn’t mind keeping the secret with him, Adriana being my top motivating factor. She and Linh were already flirting with Mr. Cole’s friend and describing the lingerie party to him, throwing in the detail of how I’d brought my actual assignment pad from high school to complete the outfit. Mr. Cole and I stared at each other in silence, trying to speak but too busy listening to Adriana despite trying desperately not to. Especially as she moved onto the topic of the guys who kept knocking that assignment pad from my hands, trying to get me to bend over in my skirt.
“Um.” Mr. Cole winced at himself as a sexy, almost dirty little grin curved the ends of his lips. He tried to bite it away, shaking his head as if attempting to clear his thoughts. Holy shit. Was he…? The idea of Mr. Cole imagining me in any sort of raunchy way made me want to writhe with both horror and excitement. Did that count as finally making him do something scandalous? If it didn’t, then the fact that I was seeing him out and decently drunk had to count for something. My God, Woodhill should give me a medal.
He was that teacher at the high school – the one everyone was completely fixated with, whom my cousin Kelsey called “inappropriately hot, even for the token hot teacher.” Because he wasn’t just charming and funny in class with nice eyes and a perfect jawline – he was also six foot three with the muscled build of an Olympic athlete and the most torturously strict sense of professionalism, despite the legions of lusty girls who made it their mission to get anything remotely personal or scandalous out of him. Every period, students hunted for rumor material as he dodged it at every turn, never once answering the questions about his relationship status or weekend plans. He famously loved his job. Teaching was a legacy in his family and he was serious enough about it that he guarded the details of his personal life as if they were CIA intel.
Which was why this moment felt surreal.
“I… sorry about my friends,” I murmured with a short laugh. “They get pretty loud with or without drinks.”
He eyed me for a second, probably because I sounded flirtatious. I didn’t mean to but I was drunk and equipped with the knowledge that he might’ve imagined me in lingerie, so I couldn’t help it. And he looked so damned good. Back in high school, he titillated girls in a blue button-up and slacks. Now, in dark jeans and a V-neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up, I was about ready to pass out with lust.
“Your friends?” He glanced at his plaid-shirted buddy, who was thunderously refusing to believe that Linh was single. “I think we both know they’re not the problem here,” he said with a quiet laugh. It was low and inadvertently sexy. The sound alone made me grip my chair to keep from falling off. I opened my mouth to respond but I was suddenly pulled into Plaid Guy’s conversation.
“Are you single?” he asked me. “Miss Ass-To-Waist Ratio?”
“Mike.” Mr. Cole grimaced. He shot me an apologetic look before squeezing his eyes shut for a second and massaging between them. I guessed that this was his nightmare. There were younger teachers who were still willing to curse or allude to sexual matter in class, but Mr. Cole never mentioned anything remotely inappropriate. His professionalism was unbreakable. Or supposed to be.
“Oh, like you don’t want to know if she’s single, you little shit.” Mike grinned. “You were staring at her through the window before,” he said before turning to me. “He was staring at you through the window before.”
My laugh was awkward as Mr. Cole covered his handsome face and shook his head. “I’m… sure he wasn’t,” I said, though I hoped the opposite. It was just my way of saying, Don’t worry, I get that you simply recognized me and weren’t checking me out.
“No, but he was,” Mike insisted. “You should’ve heard the shit he was saying to go with it.”
My eyebrows shot up, my curiosity more than piqued. What? Mr. Cole groaned into his palm before shooting Mike a sexier-than-it-should-be death look, which went ignored.
