The Agreement

THE AGREEMENT

S. E. LUND

Copyright © 2013 S. E.
LUND

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Agreeing to wear the shoes was a mistake.

Although I worked as a cocktail waitress during
my undergrad and wore heels for years, once I started my Masters degree and
worked as a teaching assistant instead, I'd been dressing casual and was out of
practice.

My best friend Dawn ignored my protests,
insisting on choosing my outfit for the fundraiser my father was hosting for
Doctors Without Borders, his favorite charity. I went to her apartment before
the event so she could style me. After she did my makeup, she selected a dress
from her collection instead of my own sorry closet, choosing a little black
wrap dress that only made my already-slightly-too-ample chest more obvious. I
even wore real nylons with a seam up the back and her garter belt instead of
pantyhose because the only pair I had ripped as I pulled them on, a fingernail
snagging them along the calf and all she had were nurse's white stockings.

"Use these," she said, pulling them
out of a drawer. "They're Brenda's."

"I can't wear those," I said, making a
face. Brenda was Dawn's sister, who moved out to get married a few months
earlier, leaving Dawn with the clothes she no longer wanted.

"Why not? It's all women used to wear. I
think they're pretty."

"What if I had to go to the ER and the
nurses and doctors saw them?"

She laughed. "They'd think you were a sexy
little thing. Listen," she said, handing them to me. "In the middle
of a trauma, the last thing the ER doctors and nurses are thinking of is your
clothes except how to cut them off as quickly as possible."

I sighed and put them on. They did look nice. I
felt a bit like Greta Garbo as I turned back and forth in the mirror. Then, she
fixed my hair, straightening it with a flatiron so that it hung long and
straight down my back. But it was the shoes that did it.

Super high and sexy.

With four-inch stiletto heels and black leather
straps, they were a tiny bit too big and I wobbled when I walked.

"I don't know about these," I said in
meek protest as I walked across her hardwood floors, feeling like I was walking
a tightrope. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror, adjusting the
neckline. "I haven't worn high heels since I quit waitressing at
O'Hanlan's."

"Doc Martens and lumberjack shirts won't
get you and Nigel donations, Kate. Those shoes and that dress will."

I pulled down the hem of the dress, feeling like
it could spring up at any moment and reveal my garters. "I'm not so sure
I'm appropriately dressed for a charity fundraiser."

"Nonsense," she said and gave me the
once-over, her head tilted to one side. "You look marvelous. I feel like
Professor Higgins in
My Fair Lady
. The stuffed suits will want to donate
money just to get next to you so it's all for a great cause."

I sighed, giving myself over to her as she did
her best to transform me from an ordinary twenty-four year old woman into
someone who belonged at a Manhattan fundraiser.

Going to a local pub before the fundraiser was
another mistake. Located in the Upper East Side, it was a few blocks from NY
Presbyterian and a lot of staff went after their shifts for a drink. Not too
far from my father's brownstone on Park Avenue where the fundraiser was being
held, it would be a quick cab ride once I was ready. I needed a drink or two
before seeing my father. We'd been at odds because I changed focus for my
Master's thesis from politics to pop-culture. We didn't argue openly but he had
a way of letting his displeasure be known.

Since I'd changed my focus, I'd kept under his
radar, being a good girl, not making waves. When he specifically invited me to
the fundraiser, I couldn't say no. Going was my chance to mend fences. Dawn
agreed to come to the pub with me and help me loosen up. Then, I'd face him and
his crowd of philanthropic doctors and Wall Street money managers.

So add two strawberry daiquiris to
overly-high-heels and you have a train wreck in the making.

On our second round of drinks, we scoped out the
men in the pub, rating them, deciding which ones we'd hook up with, given the
chance. Except of course, that we were both total geeks and didn't do that kind
of thing. I had
The Hangin' Judge
as a dad and she was a mostly-good
Catholic and had just spent six months in Calcutta volunteering for Mother
Theresa's charity. But it was fun and a way to let off a bit of steam. With
deadlines looming on several papers I was working on, and Dawn with nursing clinical
exams coming up, we both needed some fun.

"He's trouble." Dawn leaned down to
whisper in my ear, her frizzy blonde curls poking my face. "Stay away from
him
."

"Oh, oh," I said, glancing over at the
bar. "You know those are the wrong words to say to me." I checked out
the man she pointed to. "Why is
he
trouble?"

"The OR nurses call him either Dr. Delish
or Dr. Dangerous, depending on who you talk to.
Look
at him." Her
brown eyes twinkled. She waved her cocktail towards him. "He's gorgeous
with those blue eyes and dark hair. And that jaw…" She smacked her lips.
"Definitely dangerous." She glanced at me and shot the rest of her
drink down in one gulp. "He," she said and pointed her finger.
"He's a lady killer and a bona fide bad boy."

"Who
is
he? How do you know
him?"

"Some surgeon at NY Presbyterian. I saw him
during orientation when I volunteered there. He was playing 60s Brit Invasion
music in his O.R. during surgery. Can you believe it? The Yardbirds,
Heart
Full of Soul
or something. The nurses say he's a bit of a controlling
bastard."

I glanced at him. He
was
gorgeous. Dr.
Gorgeous-but-Dangerous leaned against the bar facing the room, one arm
outstretched as if he owned the place, a martini in his hand. Dressed in a very
expensive suit, his tie loosened, his top button undone, he looked like an
executive out for a drink during happy hour. Next to him, a man leaned forward
against the bar, his back to us. He moved in close, speaking to Dr. Delish as
if whatever he said was confidential.

Dr. Delish surveyed the bar crowd, nodding at
what his drinking partner said.

"He's a doctor. How could he be
dangerous?"

"I don't mean dangerous in the
slit your
throat in your sleep
way, silly." Dawn rolled her eyes. "You read
too many crime novels. I mean dangerous in the
steal your heart and never
give it back
variety."

"Oh," I said, somewhat disappointed.
"That's too bad. You know me. I love a good thriller."

"You are confirmed nuts. Didn’t flyboy
convince you to lay off the bad boys?"

I thought he had. Kurt was a former Marine pilot
who my father dubbed 'flyboy'. He only made me want a bad boy even more.
Despite his desire for kink – or maybe because of it – he was
exciting. Looking back on our disastrous relationship, I realized he actually
made me feel something for a change – the first time I felt anything
after my trip to Africa. Until Kurt, I'd been numb.

"I'm so over Kurt."

"You cried like a baby when you two broke
up."

"Really over him," I said, as much to
myself as to Dawn. "No more bad boys for me." Of course, I was so
full of it, considering that I just got off the phone a few hours earlier with
"Mistress Lara" – a Domme in Manhattan's BDSM community –
about my upcoming meeting with a
real
Dominant. I told myself it was no
big deal – just research for an investigative article I was thinking of
writing for a journalism class
but I couldn't lie to myself. I was so
damn curious. I couldn't tell Dawn anything about it and it was killing me.
Unlike me, she hated 'those books' and thought they were practically the product
of the Devil's spawn. I knew she'd only freak and try to stop me from going
through with the interview so I neglected to tell her on purpose.

That was another mistake.

I
should
have confessed everything so
Dawn could keep me on the straight and narrow. She would have talked me out of
doing the interview. Instead, I swallowed my urge to tell her and kept my mouth
shut.

"I'll believe you're over him when you hook
up with someone new. It's been almost a year, Kate, since Greg. You're allowed
to date again. Give up Big and find someone real."

Greg
was Dawn's antidote to Kurt. Mr. Master of Fine
Arts in English Lit, Greg couldn't say
fuck
even when he was doing it.
He was nice, but I had to make all the moves, and that made me so…
insecure
.

Big
, as we called it, was the gag gift we all got
at a friend's bachelorette party a year earlier. A dildo ten inches long and
six inches in girth, Big was a monster. All of us joked about Big as if he were
our collective boyfriend.

How's Big doing? Got any action from Big lately?
Want to come out for a drink or are you busy with Big tonight?

"He
is
handsome, though," I
said of Dr. Delish, trying to change the subject.

"You told me to warn you off the next time
you even
thought
about someone who wouldn't be good for you. So here's
me, warning you off. Stick with Big.
That
man is trouble. Just
look
at him." She leaned over to me. "He's examining the women in the bar
as if we're all his to take and he's just deciding which one he wants. I think
he's found his next target, by the way he's staring so intently at her."

I watched him from over the top of my glass as I
took a sip. He surveyed the bar crowd as if judging, but his eyes continually
returned to someone he watched very closely.  I craned my neck to see
which woman he'd chosen.

The television – a weather report on the
Nor'easter brewing off in the Atlantic.

"He's watching the weather channel, you
nut
."

Dawn glanced back to the television in the
corner.

"Oh," she said, only somewhat
chastised. "Well, he
looks
dangerous."

"For all we know, he might be the sweetest
man." I examined Mr. Not-So-Dangerous-After-All.  Suddenly, he wasn't
quite as titillating as he had been only moments before when I thought he was
really looking for his next victim. "I'd still go out with him," I said.

"You and practically every woman who lays
eyes on him. Just think of the power. He has to be a dick because of it."

"That's prejudiced," I said, frowning.

"But probably true. Take my word for
it."

I put down my drink and picked up my bag,
needing to visit the restroom. "I'll be right back. Gotta hit the head, as
my father calls it."

Dawn nodded and turned her focus back to her own
drink.

As I made my way through the cluster of tables
to the back where the restrooms were located, I thought of my father. A former
Marine who fought in Vietnam during the last two years of the war, he still
wore his gray hair in whitewalls, almost shaved on the sides of his head, brush
cut on top. At fifty-nine, he was a current Justice of the Supreme Court of New
York. Defense lawyers referred to him as 'The Hangin' Judge' even though we
didn't have a death penalty in the state. After the war ended and he returned
Stateside, he finished his law degree and began his career, following a long
line of lawyers in our family stretching back to the 19
th
Century.

Now, he was seriously considering a run at the
House seat coming vacant due to the incumbent's illness. Growing up, my brother
and I called him
The Drill Sergeant
in secret,
Father
in public.
I still called him Daddy when I was in his good books, which I wasn't
currently.