Hardball (11 page)

He grabbed my hand, and I pulled him up. He clapped me on the back.

I drank a quart of water when he left. It took so long to drink that much water, and I had to stay still for it. Jack getting too old to play hurt me in places I didn’t poke too often. The place where I couldn’t play. The place where an injury took me off the lineup. The place where my life was turned upside down and death fell out.

I had a book to read. I’d stop thinking about Jack leaving and playing without Daria’s pin and the missing ports-of-call women if I buried myself in it.

Fifteen minutes in, when I laughed at a line so clever it seemed to twist on itself, I wondered if Vivian had read it.

I was sorry she hadn’t been able to let me finish the job at the same time as I was grateful she’d refused me before she went full psycho. I respected that. Admired it. She had a lot going for her. It was too bad about the circumstances.

Another line cracked me up, and I realized the book I was reading was by Dwayne F. Wright. The same guy who’d written
Eternal Joke
.

It didn’t all have to be about sex, did it?

We could be friends. That could be part of the New Rules.

I grabbed my phone.

Have you read The Underling?

Vivian

I don’t want you to think less of me. I don’t always read the opaque stuff. I read a lot of romance

I read the Story of O

What did you think?

(…)

(…)

Are you there?

Yes

(…)

I liked it. Eye-opening

How?

You’re curious, aren’t you?

About you? Yes.

(…)

(…)

I didn’t like that her first master shared and abandoned her

She was better off. Once you make a woman yours, there’s no sharing.

Make her yours how?

How?

Let me tell you, exactly

When you take a woman who has never been tied up before and you loop her wrists over the headboard and her legs to the footboard. And you blindfold her so she can’t see where your hands are. When you touch her body everywhere, suck her nipples hard, play with her until she’s so close to orgasm she’s begging for release. When you say, “You’re mine you beautiful thing, no one else will have you,” then there’s no turning back.

(…)

Have you ever done that before?

Everything through “release”

And I shouldn’t ask this. We’re just friends

But I have to

I haven’t

Done anything like that, I mean

I was going to ask if it turned you on

(…)

(…)

(…)

Vivian?

Was that inappropriate?

It was inappropriate