He doesn’t screech the tires when he pulls away, but I can tell he’s angry with me.
I turn, my feet already soaked from the snow, my slippers already ruined, and wrap my arms around my body, hugging myself as I go back inside.
This hour’s classes are over, Chris is back at the desk, and the lobby is filled with the pre-ballet students in the half-day camp.
My students are at lunch. Our classes won’t begin again for another hour. So I go to the break room and sit with my new friends, pretend to eat the low-calorie lunch I brought from home, just like everyone else, and lose myself in my thoughts.
I don’t understand how I got here. All the parts that involve here are included. I don’t understand how I got this position, or the apartment I’m living in, or the man who just left.
I don’t understand any of it, but I can map it out quite clearly.
Matthew, one of the guys at my table, says something that makes everyone laugh, so I laugh with them before returning to my thoughts.
I am not a shoddy dancer. I am not undisciplined. I am not lazy, and I do not take anything for granted. I worked hard to get where I am. I worked hard to pay for ballet classes back in New York. I deserve this. This, meaning my career. I earned it.
But the offer to dance with Mountain Ballet was unexpected. I was rising in the corps back in New York. I would’ve made demi-soloist eventually if I had stayed. But it would’ve meant at least three more years of corps work. And three more years is a long time in the dance world. I would be twenty-six.
I’d rather be twenty-three. So I came. I was offered the position pretty much out of nowhere. And two weeks later I was living in a company apartment in Denver.
It was a whirlwind dream come true.
But there has to be a string. Everything requires payment. And even though Jordan has nothing to do with the ballet—hates it, in fact. Hasn’t even ever seen The Nutcracker, for fuck’s sake—he’s the condition. Fate or luck or whatever you want to call it always has a price and I think Jordan Wells is my price.
That’s why I put up with his bullshit. I just know—feel it in my heart—that if I walk away from him luck will walk away from me.
It’s stupid. I realize this. But I still believe it. So I stay.
But he’s dangerous, this man. He has rules, and expectations, and he insists on being in control.
Control is something I like as well. I’m in control of everything in my life if you take Jordan out of the equation. It’s why I told him I wasn’t submissive. I’m not. That wasn’t a lie. But I was hoping to dissuade him after his offer.
He called me a challenge. Like I’m a game. Like I’m just a piece of a puzzle he’s trying to put together.
And he wants us to play the game with Elias Bricman.
I’ve seen Elias around the Club. He’s the owner, or part-owner. Manager. One of those three. I have no idea. So last night, when Jordan came over to my apartment and ordered me to dress up in the clothes he brought me, tied a gift tag onto my wrist, and told me to go meet Mr. Bricman at his second-story bar inside the Club, I went.
He instructed me not to speak, so I didn’t.
But he never told me to have a good time.
I smile at that. Stupid asshole. He should know how to play his own game by now.
Of course, the joke’s on me. Because now he’s pissed off and I’m expected to satisfy his friend tonight. Again.
“What are you smiling about?” Matthew asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, chuckling to myself. “Just a guy.”
Matthew smiles back and winks. I don’t know him well, but well enough. I get up before he can pry into my personal life and he sings out after me, “I’ll get that story, Nadia. So don’t think walking away will help you escape.”
I’m really not trying to escape. Escaping is easy. I’m practically an escape artist. I never choose the easy way out.
I love a challenge.
I can take it. I can take anything the world throws at me. So if Jordan thinks his little game will break me? He’s wrong.
Many have tried.
He won’t succeed.
Classes end at four, so by the time I finish up everything at the school and walk through my apartment door, it’s almost five-thirty. I throw my keys down on a side table and I’m just walking over to the comfy chair I like so I can relax for a few minutes when I spy the present on the coffee table and stop in my tracks.
It’s a pretty box. Light pink with a white chiffon ribbon. There’s a single pink rose lying on top next to a card.
I allow myself a smirk as I walk over, drop my purse on the table, pick up the card, and open it.
Nadia,
Sorry about the shoes today.
Jordan
The ribbon falls off the present like water when I untie it, and then I lift off the lid.
Brand new pair of black ballet slippers.
See, this is the thing about this relationship I have going with Jordan. He’s a dick, but it’s an act. He’s actually a nice guy. I never said a word about having to walk out into the snow in my slippers. I never even looked down at my feet, so he didn’t pick up some subliminal clue from my expression.
He just knows. He knows because he cares enough to pay attention to me. This is a great quality in a dominant/submissive relationship. Like, number one on the list kind of quality.
But it’s going to be his downfall.
I pick up the rose and walk over to my big chair, sinking down into the cushions as I lift it to my nose and take in the sweet scent. My phone buzzes in my purse, so I lean over, fish it out, and tab accept. “Hello?”
“Can you be ready by six?”
“No,” I tell him. “I just got home. And I’m enjoying my rose at the moment. So no. Not by six.”
I can feel Jordan smile on the other side of the phone. “I’ll be there at six. And you will be ready.”
The call drops and now it’s my turn to smile. I like this game. A lot. I like the power play we’re doing. The push and the pull. The give and the take. Most men like Jordan like to take. Taking is easy. But giving in is a lot harder.
We both have trouble with that.
So it goes on like this. I’ve only been in this relationship a few weeks, but I’ve got him all figured out. He’s not the mystery he thinks he is. He’s a player, for sure. Not an amateur, but certainly not at a professional level yet.
I might not be at the top of my game either, but I’m farther along than he is.
Thirty seconds have gone by now and I’m on a timer. So I run to the bedroom, taking off my ballet skirt as I go, and when I get to the bathroom, I slip out of my shoes, my tights, and run the water for the shower.
I’m washed, dressed in a robe, hair still piled up on my head in a bun, two minutes after that. Make-up takes five minutes. Way too long. Then I unpin my hair, let it fall over my shoulders, and brush it out so the long waves are shiny and brilliant.
Five more minutes go by.