A Betty's Pledge: Volume One (25 page)

I felt my breath catch in my throat as memories of the night I’d met Carson came flooding
back into my mind.

“You’re not comfortable in your costume, are you Betty?” he asked as he began a small
circlet around my body, running his fingertips over my bare skin. “I’ll tell you what
I find sexy about this outfit. I like the fact that if I wanted to, I could flip that
cup down that’s barely covering your breasts in a flash and have your nipple between
my fingertips just as quickly. And that dress is so short that, if I wanted to, I
could palm your bare ass, feel the soft skin bend to my touch. I could even give you
an orgasm, right in the middle of the party, and I wouldn’t even have to take your
clothes off.”

Coming back to reality with a shuddered breath, I could feel my face heat against
the memory of his words. At the time, they’d set my body on fire, both from incredulity
and intense lust. It seemed Carson remembered them, too, making good on his promise
to show me the benefits of a woman’s scant attire.

Setting the invitation down on the desk where I’d found it, I picked up the second
one, holding it precariously in my hand. I knew who’d sent this one. Isaac had made
it pretty obvious that he wanted to have me first before any other Consort, so it
was safe to assume that he’d submitted an invitation to me fairly early in the game.

It didn’t change the fact that I was incredibly anxious holding the envelope, not
knowing the actual content. Taking a deep breath, I opened the edge of the envelope,
pulling a similar sized card out of its depths.

Mady ~

There’s a reason I asked to be your first.

You have something about you that I find incredibly intriguing.

You are mysterious, contradictory, stunningly beautiful . . .

And it would be my great pleasure to discover all of your deepest desires.

~ Isaac Wilson

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his words because I didn’t know when they were
written. Had this been his thought process before or after our confrontation last
night? If it was before, there were parts of his statement that made me somewhat pissy.
My greatest pleasure to discover all your deepest desires
. Really? How fucking clichéd. It sounded like something one of those damn frat boys
who’d pawed me in college would say: nothing original, always aiming to plant their
dick in something wet.

I read the letter again quickly, trying my hardest to let that chip on my shoulder
not affect my interpretation so I could make an honest assessment. There was another
part of it that had my interest piqued.

You have something about you that I find incredibly intriguing . . .

It didn’t escape my notice that Isaac had come to seek me out on more than one occasion.
At first, I thought that it was something he’d done with the other Betties as well,
that he was just a horny hound dog and I had just been lucky enough to be cornered
in the bathroom. Charming.

But last night, I detected how he seemed to ignore every other woman there, keeping
his gaze fixated on me throughout dinner. At first, I thought that it had been because
he found me distasteful, sharing Sonia’s opinion of me. But considering what happened
later in the evening, his glances and outright scrutiny took on a different meaning.
And the moment I’d escaped to get some fresh air, who was the one to follow me outside?
Isaac Wilson . . .

My thoughts traveled briefly to Keith and the odd encounter we’d shared out on the
veranda. I hadn’t thought about him since that exchange, but now the unnerving feeling
I’d experienced came back to me just as vividly. Pushing thoughts of him away, back
to the places in my brain where common sense seemed to camp out half the time, I returned
my focus to Isaac.

‘You have something about you that I find incredibly intriguing.
’

Maybe there was something more to him than just the ramblings of a typical frat boy.

“So which one?” Diane asked, her tone calming in the eye of my internal storm.

“I’m not sure.”

“I think you’re making this too hard for yourself, Mady. You can always choose one
for this weekend, and the other for the next weekend. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“But what if the other one doesn’t want to play next weekend?” Whomever I said no
to could consequently feel rejected, maybe feel somewhat bitter about my choice.

“Don’t worry about that, Mady.” Diane chuckled, placing her small hand on my lower
back in a comforting gesture. “We are all adults here. No one is going to be so petty
or take any of this personally. If you felt more of a connection to one of those men,
then go for it. This is the time to make your choices based on where your heart leads
you.”

“My heart?” I snorted. “Don’t you mean my overexcited ovaries?”

Diane laughed. “Well, we’ll see which one wins out in the end.”

“Speaking of petty, do you mind if I ask you about something? I need some advice.”

“Sure, come on.” She took my hand, leading me back to my bed. We both sat down, and
as we pushed ourselves back onto the plush headboard, I started having second thoughts
about my decision to broach this topic with her. After all, it was my impression that
the Dames were here to help us with our man issues, not with those trite little squabbles
with catty fellow Betties.

Sensing my hesitancy, Diane placed her palm on my thigh, bringing my attention back
to her kind expression. “You can tell me anything, Mady. We’re friends, and I want
you to feel able to bring anything up to me that you need to vent, or confide, anything
that you’re uncomfortable about. Okay?”

I nodded, relieved that I’d found a friend who seemed to be so in tune with me. Maybe
I should have slept with my girlfriends a long time ago, I mused jokingly. Just when
I’d been about to tell her my drama, the confrontation with Keith popped into my head.
Should I voice my concerns about him and how uneasy he’d made me feel? Or should I
just let it go and move on?

Deciding I was probably overreacting, I took a deep breath and laid out my squabble
with Sonia.

“I think there are a couple girls here who don’t seem to like me very much,” I said
in a small voice, hating that it made me seem vulnerable and insecure. I didn’t want
to be that way, but the truth of it was I’d always had a hard time dealing with how
other women saw me. Call it my competitive nature, but I didn’t like the fact that
someone like Sonia could feel superior to me in any way. It just rubbed me wrong.

“Anyone in particular?” Diane had that knowing tone of voice. I glanced at her, seeing
her quirked smile and shining eyes. Her kissable lips . . .

Focus, Mady.

“Sonia, actually. She makes me feel like I don’t belong here. And part of me agrees
with her.”

“Mady, there is no reason on this Earth you should feel less worthy of being here.
I mean, this isn’t the fucking Playboy Mansion or even the White House. You are just
as worthy of being here as anyone else, and I don’t understand how you could feel
that you’re not.”

“You know why I feel that way, Diane,” I said, not really wanting to bring up my financial
status once again, but it was the crux of the issue. I knew that Sonia saw me differently.
She may not know exactly how
lacking
I was in that area, or how humble my beginnings were, but I knew she had an inkling.
People of wealth had a way about them, how they carried themselves, how they dressed,
and even their attitudes were differed from mine. I was in no way able to pull off
that brand of demeanor, and I felt Sonia could see right through my charade.

“Listen, Mady, this program is not about financial status. Yes, the founders of the
program decided way back when to include only those individuals of a certain affluence
to protect their own status, but I promise you that this is way more than that.”

“I know that. It just seems like a prerequisite of being worthy to some people. And
honestly, I don’t give a fuck about what Sonia thinks of me, I’d just hate for there
to be bad blood between me and another woman here, especially when feelings can get
jumbled into the thick of it.”

“Feelings?”

“Come on, Diane. I’m not naïve to the fact that some of you have fallen in love with
one of the Consorts. And if that happens for me, I just don’t want there to be any
bitterness between me and another woman who may also fall just as hard. You know what
I mean?”

“I do.” Diane nodded in thought. “But I’m more interested in the part where you said
that you could potentially fall in love. I’m curious to see who my little Mady has
her eye on.”

“Oh, come on. You know I was just making a point,” I told her, trying my hardest to
keep my blush from shining through my blasé exterior. I wasn’t even close to having
any kind of those feelings. Everything was still so new and exciting. I was just trying
to make a point so she could see my concerns with Sonia.

She laughed. “Whatever, Mady. I’ll get the truth out of you at some point.”

“Believe me, if I fall for someone, you’ll probably be one of the first to know,”
I told her with a huge smile. “Actually, I’ll probably be at your doorstep crying
about how he was fucking some other floozy right under my nose . . . under the same
roof, no less.”

I meant my comment to be a joke, but Diane stiffened just slightly, her smile not
as genuine as before.

“Was it hard? Seeing Nate with other women?”

“I didn’t actually
see
him,” she said in a small voice, her eyes narrowed in thought, the edges of her mouth
tightened as she began. “The Betties aren’t allowed to watch playtime with Consorts
and other women for just that reason. Any educational training is done by a mated
pair.”

“Still, it had to have been hard knowing that he was with other women while he was
with you.”

“Yes and no,” Diane said, sighing as she looked up at me. “Nate and I have a very
deep sexual relationship, and a huge part of that is because of our time at the mansion.
It’d been hard accepting he was with other people, some of whom became my dearest
friends by the end of it all, but we both look at that time as our education and nothing
more. There were no feelings of love or commitment involved. Yes, we both became close
to the men and women we were involved with, but we only fell in love with each other,
and since we both knew about what the other was doing, there wasn’t any sense of betrayal
between us. As a result, though, we both know exactly what pleases the other, and
a part of that learning process was growing on a trial and error basis. I know it
sounds funny, but I don’t think we’d be as close as we are now without having gone
through the program.”

“When did you know that you’d fallen in love with him?”

“The first time I saw him dance,” she said, smiling as she remembered. “We’d decided
to go out to a club one night. At that point, I’d already held a very strong attraction
toward him. I was accepting an invitation from him every weekend, and sometimes we’d
sneak off to one of the pool houses on a weeknight. Nate just has this strong sexual
magnetism about him that I couldn’t ignore. But that night at the club, I knew it
was something more than lust.”

“Was he a good dancer?”

“No.” Diane laughed. “He’s awful. He has absolutely no rhythm, and he even does that
white-man overbite that is horrible. He reminded me of that scene in that Will Smith
movie where he tried to teach the fat guy to dance. It was exactly like that, except
Nate was way cuter and had a hot little ass he’d shake all around.”

I was in stitches of laughter at her description, being able to perfectly picture
Nate cutting a rug at some club in the middle of Los Angeles. His size alone was almost
a comical punch line, but add the awkwardness she described to the mix, and I was
in hysterics.

“And that made you fall for him?”

“Not quite.” She took a deep breath to calm her own guffaws. “It was the reason he
was out there in the first place. A person who’s that bad of a dancer has to know
how horrible they are, and Nate knew he was no Justin Timberlake, but one of the girls
had a thing about men rubbing their sweaty bodies on her at a club. She almost declined
going because of it, but it was coming close to the end of the program, so we all
talked her into it. Nate danced with her, despite her discomfort, to keep the men
away. He was so goofy that the both of them just laughed the entire night, making
her less anxious and able to enjoy our time out. I’ll never forget it . . .”

As she neared the end of her tale, her humor died off into a wistful expression filled
with love and admiration for her mate. She looked so in love in that moment as she
stared off into some unseen memory, and I wished for a brief second that I could someday
find what she had. If that was to happen here at the program I would be all for it,
but I didn’t see it in the cards for me. There was already enough drama surrounding
this place as it was, and I knew from experience that theatrics this early in the
game never amounted to anything good in the end.

“So tell me how the whole bisexual thing comes into play for you two.” I’d wondered
about it for a while now, ever since our afternoon together while Nate watched on.
He didn’t seem bothered by watching his woman please another girl at all, and I wondered
how that situation came about in their relationship.