Ex-husband. Get fucking used to saying that. Amelia maneuvered through the crowd, aware that half the people around her stared at her ass as it stuck out of her lingerie and peered down her hefty cleavage. She was barely five feet and some change. All it took was a woman in heels or an average-sized man to see right down her negligee. Once upon a time, it gave her such a thrill that she would throw herself at the first person to have her. Now?
It was like she had forgotten how to be seductive.
This was her first night out since the divorce. After ensuring Roger had moved to Chicago and wouldn’t be frequenting Hellfire again, she gathered the courage to go out on her own as a lauded unicorn. That’s how we met. I was a unicorn in the club, and he and his buddies came up to me after I finished twirling on the stripper pole. I was so juiced up on vodka that I told them whichever one caught me as I fell down from dizziness could take me home that night.
Roger had caught her. Ten months later, they were married.
For five years they painted the world with their sordid lifestyle. Back then, Amelia had been more outgoing when it came to the kinkier side of sex. She had trusted her future husband from the moment he carried her across the threshold of his hotel room and planted her on the floor for a dance. A dance! Other men would have dumped me on the bed, and that would have been it. Amelia would have still enjoyed it, but it was that half-drunk dance that made her fall for the man she would one day call more than her husband.
They were regulars at Hellfire all five years they were together. From the first date when he wanted to show her off to his buddies, both married and single, to the night when she finally realized that her marriage was in shambles. She had never been without Roger. Walking through Hellfire now, alone, almost felt like treason to her old life. It’s over. When are you going to accept that? Amelia knew why people stared at her. Wasn’t she supposed to be with her Dom? Her husband? The man who held the fuzzy handcuffs and knew how to string her up on the cross just the way she liked? He understood my thirst for exhibition. Amelia used to spin on poles because it got her attention. That’s all that mattered when she was in the club.
Yet that was years ago. A different life. She was no longer the carefree woman just out of college, who blew kisses to strangers and gave them free peeks of her underwear. She didn’t care who watched, either. Sometimes, a female stranger was as enamoring as a man.
She liked both, didn’t she? Another thing she fully explored with Roger, who was more than happy to lend his wife out to a lucky lady if he was in the right mood.
If only I had known what he was doing while my back was turned… He swore it started innocently. A coworker had taken him out for dinner one night after they toiled all week on a project. “One thing led to another…” he explained when Amelia finally had the balls to confront him. “You know how I am, Ames. I fall in love easily. I fell in love with you after one night, didn’t I? Hey, what’s the problem? You get to sleep with other women. Why can’t I?”
So it had continued, until one night when Roger did the unspeakable in their arrangement.
Even now, seeing women wearing handcuffs and strung along on leashes made Amelia look the other way. She used to love that shit. Now? She couldn’t breathe.
That’s why she had to get a drink and sit down as soon as possible. The drink was for strength. Sitting down helped her reorient her thoughts. Guilt crept into her heart. Amelia hadn’t been with anyone, man or woman, since the divorce. Roger had gone off to not only have an affair with his coworker, but a woman barely old enough to drink. It was like he didn’t care. Probably because California was a 50/50 state and he was boned already. The only good thing to come out of the divorce was Amelia’s bank account. If she made some smart investments and didn’t live beyond her means, she would be somewhat comfortable for life. Just as well. She was in no position to run out and get a job right now. It was hard enough to volunteer once a week at a pit bull shelter and twice a week at the neighborhood library. Such family-friendly occupancies for a woman who was far, far from family-friendly behind closed doors.
Although she had a condo by the beach and her time was wholly hers, it still felt wrong to be at Hellfire on a Saturday night, looking for someone to pop her post-divorce cherry. What’s wrong with me? I was never like this before Roger. Amelia wasn’t necessarily discerning in who she partnered with once she was having a good time, but she wanted there to be some connection. It could be purely physical. It could be someone who promised her the kind of good time she liked. It could even be hilarious conversation that ran deep into the night and ran the gamut of pop culture and religion. Amelia had graduated with honors from UCLA. She had taken full advantage of her liberal arts education to check out every field of study the college offered. In a heated argument after the end of their love, Roger had thrown that against her. “Bitch of all trades, mistress of none.” He was exceptionally mean when he was drunk.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. A fucking key party. The email advertising the monthly key party was what made Amelia decide to get back into the dating game. It wouldn’t be her first party, but it was the first since her divorce. We went to a couple of key parties as a couple… It was one of the only times Amelia had slept with another man in her marriage, and the only time she had signed off on her husband fooling around with another woman. It had been fun enough to make Amelia consider a future as swingers once they were more secure with Roger’s career trajectory and what she wanted from her own independence.
They never got the chance to explore that, however. Roger had broken her trust.
Amelia only wanted three things. Love, respect, and honesty. Why were they so hard to find together? Why must it be a holy grail?
She patted her clutch, not only to make sure it was there, but to remind herself that once the key was out of her hands, that was it. She was committed. No matter who came into her room later that night, she would belong to them. Maybe only for an hour. Maybe the whole night. I don’t dare hope beyond that. She wasn’t looking for love, anyway. Her heart was still raw, and her wounds far from scarring. Roger hadn’t only been her first marriage, he had been her first “true love,” whatever that meant now. One day she might write him off as a great mistake of her twenties, but right now, at the tender age of twenty-eight, she swore her whole life was over and nothing mattered anymore. Not what she did with her Saturday nights, and sure as hell not what she did with her body on those nights.
“Miss?”
That saccharin-coated voice perked Amelia’s interest. She was soon face-to-face with one of the staff members carrying a tablet and hiding behind a mask much like Amelia’s. Only this woman wore it as part of a uniform meant to add to the mystique of the club and help her blend into the scenery. Amelia wore it because it was supposed to arouse her.
It used to, anyway.
“Yes?” Amelia asked.
“Are you aware of tonight’s key party?”
The time had come. Amelia fished out her key and passed it to the woman, who cheerily brought up a menu on her tablet and handed it to one of the club’s foremost guests. Amelia faced a list of choices and hard limits. A part of her wanted to say anything and everything was okay. The one logical part of her remaining after her divorce reminded her that this was about healing and moving on, not punishment.