Saving Sunni (17 page)

“Yes, Sir,” I said dreamily and went out to fix his breakfast. I tried not to think about what Geri would say to all of these instructions. She might think he was talking down to me, but I didn’t really care. I was too happy at the thought of being able to go back to the store. And I knew Randy. It had been a long time since I had been with him, but I knew he didn’t have the will to pursue anything for very long. It was too bad that I couldn’t convince Sir of that.

After Sir left for work, I put on the outfit I had bought while shopping with Debi. It was a pair of patterned tights, a tank top, and a flannel shirt that reached midway down my thigh. I put a wide belt on over the shirt and wound a narrow scarf around my neck. I considered myself in the mirror and was pleased with what I saw. I might not have been able to pass for a high school student, but I felt like one.

sage came out of the bathroom as I was watching my reflection. She stopped and stared, not really knowing what to say about the new look.

“Well?” I said, twirling a little to give her the full effect. “What do you think about my new image? Think I’ll fit in at The Fringe?”

She shook her head. “Maybe for today, but Sir is going to kill you.”

“Why? Doesn’t it look good?”

She laughed a little. “Yes, it’s actually a very sexy look. But I don’t think he’s going to appreciate it.”

I watched her get ready for school, feeling resentful. Just because she didn’t have the nerve to be different didn’t give her the right to criticize me. I debated how to wear my hair; I really needed a cool hat with this outfit. There were a few at the store and wondered what our employee discount was like. Had Geri had mentioned it? I had been concentrating on not spending money then, but today I felt a bit defiant. I didn’t know if it was sage’s criticism or Sir’s apparent distrust of my common sense, but I went to work in a frame of mind that definitely wasn’t very slave-like.

Geri was overjoyed to see me, hugging me and bouncing up and down for what seemed like an hour but was probably a minute or two. She insisted on showing me everything new in the store, including several things that I had unpacked myself the last time I was there. She chattered on about Debi and Tina, her thoughts about the few suggestions I had made, and how the place simply hadn’t felt right without me there.

I debated for an hour whether I should ask about her daughter. She seemed so happy and content just prattling on about the store that I didn’t want to pull down her mood, but it seemed rude not to ask about the problems she’d been having.

I finally got up the nerve to bring it up. “So how are you doing? Have the picketers been back?”

Her face instantly darkened. “Not for a few days,” she said, developing a sudden fascination for a display of bumper stickers.

“What about Melissa? Have you talked to her? What’s going on with that?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t seen her for a while. I hope her group has forgotten about us. Being on television has actually brought in some more business, so I guess I can’t complain too much.” She smiled wryly.

“Well, that’s good, at least,” I said, trying to smile back. I didn’t want to say anything negative about her daughter, but I couldn’t think of anything positive to say about the situation. You just never knew how people were going to react when it came to their kids. They might disapprove of everything about their child, but still get ferociously angry if anyone else dared criticize them.

So I just shrugged. “I’m glad things are settling down.”

She nodded and pulled me toward the break room. “Let’s have a nice quiet cup of tea.”

Just like Geri. I turned on the electric kettle while she got out the mugs and a selection of flavors. She could ignore all of the problems in the world as long as she had a cup of tea and someone to chat with.

Debi came in at noon and gave me a hug as well. Nothing like having something terrible happen to make people finally be friendly to you.

Geri disappeared into her office then, as if she had been afraid to leave me alone before, but was content that Debi was there for protection.

Debi gave the new outfit a quick, appraising look and smiled. “Nice,” she said. “Now I have to talk to you.”

She pulled me over to the cash register where Geri wouldn’t be able to overhear our conversation.

“You know how I’m taking two classes this semester?”

“Okay,” I said, confused. She hadn’t ever been willing to talk about school before.

She didn’t pay any attention to my perplexed look.

“Well,” she went on, “one of them is a women’s studies class, and the professor was talking this morning about your news story!”

“Really?” I didn’t know whether I should be mortified or excited by that. I leaned toward mortified.

“Yes!” She seemed to think I should be thrilled. “And—” She stopped suddenly, possibly realizing I didn’t share her elation.

“And?”

“And I sort of told the professor that I knew you.” Now she looked a little abashed. My apprehension about this conversation must have been showing on my face.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “What happened then?”

“Well, she asked if I knew anything about your…lifestyle.” She was definitely hesitant now. “I…I kind of told her I’d ask if you would come in and talk to the class. You did so well at explaining it to me when we went to lunch, and I would never be able to repeat all of that.”

My heart plummeted into my stomach. Go into a college classroom—a women’s studies class, no less—and be grilled by a professor about why I allowed myself to be tied up and beaten?

“Did you talk mostly about the play or the power exchange?”

She got a little excited again. “We watched the interview with your sir and talked about the play thing a little. But I think it was mostly the power exchange that she was interested in. Do you think you can come in?”

I would have loved to say, “No, I’m sure Sir would never allow that,” but I remembered Charlie saying that public exposure would help generate more acceptance of the lifestyle, and I sighed.

“I’ll ask,” I promised. “Does it have to be just me or can I bring my partners?”

“Oh, sure—at least I think so,” Debi enthused. I half expected her to jump up and down and clap her hands. “This will be so cool! Oh, I almost forgot. My dad says for your sir to give him a call. He does some kind of immigration stuff. He might be able to help.”

She held out a business card, and I took it, wondering how her father could possibly help Sir. When I read it, my eyebrows shot up in amazement. “Kevin Thomasson, Esq. Attorney at Law, Thomasson and Kempler, P.C.”

“Your dad is a lawyer?” I asked her in disbelief.

“Yeah.” She shrugged, as if she didn’t know anyone whose father wasn’t.

The school interview was set up for that Wednesday at nine. At first Sir insisted on going, but sage pointed out that the professor might consider that as an attempt to control what I would say. That didn’t necessarily sound like a terrible thing to me, but I had to concede that having a man there to talk for me might be frowned upon in a women’s studies class.

“Can you at least go with me?” I asked sage. Sir’s apprehensive frown lifted immediately.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” he agreed. “sage, you don’t have a class at that time, do you?”

sage was stunned. “No, but why do I have to go?”

“Because I told you to,” Sir said sternly, and sage flushed.

“No, I mean why does sunni need me there?” she stammered. “She’s much better at talking to people than I am.”

“Then you had better get more practice, since you’re going to make a career out of talking to people about this relationship style,” Sir said, putting his hand on the back of her neck and squeezing slightly.

I wondered what the problem was. She had already had to present two papers this semester. While she had been nervous about them, she agreed that it was important for her to get more comfortable with public speaking, and had practiced in front of us until she could do it without turning bright red and rushing through her notes like she was studying to be an auctioneer.

“It’s just—” she mumbled.

“Just what?” Sir prompted, squeezing her neck a little more.

She pushed her head back into his hand and scrunched her eyes shut.

“Just that I hate talking about my personal life to strangers,” she admitted.

“Well then, this is exactly the kind of thing you need to be doing,” Sir said, ignoring her exasperated sigh. She opened her eyes and fixed them on me accusingly.

“You don’t need me there. Think about when you were explaining the lifestyle to me last year.” It was obviously her last-ditch effort to escape the torment. “You did a great job. And you will probably feel freer to talk about the relationship without me listening in.”

Sir let go of her neck and lightly swatted her head. “sage,” he said warningly, “I told you that you are going to the class with sunni, and I expect you to participate fully in the discussion. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” she muttered, and this was one more strike against me in sage’s book. First I had brought this whole disaster on myself by not getting a divorce when I should have. Next I brought it on Sir by having an ex who was out to prove that my lifestyle was immoral, or unhealthy, or illegal. Now I was dragging her to a public venue to talk about her personal life. I was sure she wondered what I was going to do next to ruin her life.

Chapter 17

We showed up early to the class. sage was still acting tragically, as if I was trying to humiliate her in every way I could. I was nervous, too, but I tried to make her a little more comfortable by joking with her all the way to school. sage, however, was morosely silent, answering with little more than monosyllables whenever I asked her a question. I hoped she wasn’t going to embarrass me by acting like a timid deaf-mute.

Debi got there a little early too, looking as if she had her own share of stomach butterflies. She gave me a quick hug, then gave sage an embarrassed glance, obviously wondering if she was breaking some kind of protocol by touching me and if sage was going to yell at her for it. They regarded each other somewhat sheepishly until I realized they had never met, so I introduced them. That didn’t seem to help the awkwardness much; they shook hands quickly and returned to their own apprehensive musings.

“So,” I said to Debi, amazed that I seemed to be the calmest one there. “Any idea how this is going to go?”

“Not a clue,” she said, leading us into the classroom. At first she started to walk to her normal seat, but then changed her mind and went to the back of the room.

“Dr. Carter doesn’t like anyone to sit in the back row,” she explained, “so we won’t be taking anyone’s seats here. I’m sure she’ll bring you up to the front of the class right away.”

“Are you going to go up with us?” I asked.

She shook her head rapidly. “I don’t think so. Do you want me to?” She looked as if I had asked her to accompany me into a mine field.

“I guess not. Unless you want to.”

She didn’t answer that, although she was willing to sit with us in the back of the room until we were led to the slaughter.

sage looked nauseous. I imagined her racing up and down the hallways, hand clamped over her mouth, looking for a bathroom. To solve that potential issue while killing some time, I asked Debi to point us toward the restroom and dragged sage along with me.

When we got back, the professor was there and students were filing in. Most of them gave us curious glances, but no one spoke to us except Dr. Carter. A heavy-set woman in her late forties, she looked like she would be more at home teaching kindergarten than discussing women’s rights. But she bustled over to introduce herself and tell us how happy she was that we were willing to come and speak to her class. I desperately wanted to ask her what kind of questions she had, but couldn’t think of a tactful way of doing it.

sage, however, calmed down in the presence of the instructor.

“We’re very pleased to be here,” sage said politely, holding out her hand.

Dr. Carter started the class by reminding the students of the discussion they’d had on Monday about the change in the women’s rights movement, and how some women were choosing to return to a more traditional role. She mentioned Sir’s television interview and said that Mr. Wulfgar’s partners had come to answer their questions about this lifestyle choice.

sage’s face was almost completely white as we went to the two chairs that Dr. Carter set out for us at the front of the classroom. But I didn’t detect any hesitation or desire for escape in her movements. We sat down and smiled nervously around the room. There were two males in the class who looked almost as out of place as I felt. I imagined having to sit in classrooms all week, debating topics that I wasn’t interested in and fervently hoped that Sir wouldn’t decide that I, like sage, needed to go back to school and get a degree.

“So, thank you ladies again for agreeing to be here,” the professor said when we sat down facing the sea of staring faces. sage smiled at her, pale but composed. “Let’s begin with the television interview,” Dr. Carter continued. “I believe you are both in a relationship with Mr. Wulfgar?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” I said.