Chapter 5: The Bedroom Negotiation
The lamp on the nightstand cast a low, honeyed glow, painting the rumpled landscape of their bed in soft shadows. Lacy lay on her side, tracing idle circles on Mark’s bare chest. His skin was damp, his breathing just settling into a steady rhythm.
Her mind, however, was ticking, precise and cold as a metronome.
“Baby?” she whispered, her voice a little raspy, perfectly post-coital.
“Hmm?” He kissed the top of her head, his arm tightening around her.
“Something weird happened at work today.” She let a tremor enter the words. She felt him shift, attention focusing.
“What’s wrong?”
“It was that guy, Derek. The junior partner? He cornered me by the supply closet.” She propped herself up on an elbow, letting the sheet fall to her waist. In the lamplight, her wide blue eyes looked enormous, vulnerable. She watched his face, cataloging the minute shifts. “He knew someone from college. Steve Rossi.”
Mark’s brow furrowed. “The linebacker guy? The one you… told me about?” The ‘told me about’ was heavy, loaded with the memories of their own dark, whispered confessions in this very bed. His voice had thickened slightly.
“Yeah. Him.” Lacy looked down, playing with a loose thread on the comforter. “Derek said Steve told him stories. And then he invited me to drinks with him and some of the other guys from the firm this Friday. At The Gilded Anchor.”
Silence. Then Mark cleared his throat. “Okay. So don’t go.”
“It’s not that simple, Mark.” She turned her pleading gaze back to him. “If I don’t go, it looks like I’m hiding something. It makes Steve’s stories seem true, and it makes me look stuck-up to the junior partners. It’s for networking. It’s basically a work thing.” She let a calculated beat hang. “Maybe… maybe you could come? Get invited? Then you could keep an eye on me. No big deal.”
She saw the conflict warp his features. He wanted to protect her. He also wanted to be accepted, to be one of the guys at the firm he was still trying to climb. “I don’t really hang out with Derek’s crowd, Lace. They’re in a different tier. I can’t just invite myself.”
Lacy nodded, as if absorbing a great tragedy. She laid her head back on his chest, her voice dropping to a whisper, barely audible over the distant city sounds filtering through the window. “What do I do, then? He was so… insistent. He basically said the only reason a girl like me would say no is if I was taken.” She felt his heartbeat pick up under her ear. “If I go, and I act all prim and just sip a drink… they’ll know. They’ll think I’m some lying girl with a secret boyfriend, and I'll get fired for lying on my application.”
She let the implication hang, a poisonous cloud in the warm room.
“Know what?” Mark’s question was a rough whisper.
Lacy lifted her head again. She looked directly into his eyes, her expression a masterpiece of conflicted innocence. “What if… I just let them think the stories are true? What if I just… play along? Just a little?” Her gaze dipped, then returned, holding his. “I could just… be the girl Steve said I was. For one night. Then it’s done. The rumor is confirmed, but it’s old news, and it has nothing to do with you. My job is safe.”
Mark’s eyes had darkened. The familiar, conflicted arousal was there, swimming beneath a layer of genuine distress. She’d seen it before when she’d recounted her college “adventures.” The part of him that was thrilled by the explicit image, battling the part that was supposed to be outraged.
“Play along how?” The question was strained.
Lacy shrugged a bare shoulder, the movement casual, but her voice was a feather-light, devastating tool. “You know. If they get handsy, I laugh it off. If they make a comment, I blush. If one of them… gets pushy about it…” She paused, letting the scenario crystallize in the silent room. “Maybe I just… do what they expect. Once. Just to sell it. To make it stop.”
She saw the muscles in his jaw clench. He looked away, staring at the ceiling. The amber whiskey in the glass on the nightstand seemed to glow. “Lacy… that’s… I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“I know you don’t, baby.” She cooed, soothing him, her hand stroking his stomach. “I don’t want to either. It’s not a big deal. But it’s like… damage control. It’s one stupid thing to protect everything we’re building. For our future.” She emphasized the last three words, nailing them home.
He was quiet for a long time. The arousal was winning; she could see it in the tightness of his body beside hers, in the rapid flutter of his pulse in his throat. The stories had always been a dark fantasy for him, a secret thrill. Now she was offering to make it real, and framing it as a sacrifice for him.
“Do you… think you’d have to?” The question was choked.
“I hope not,” she breathed, her lips close to his ear. “But if Derek corners me again… if he calls my bluff… what should I do? Should I just… take care of it? Quickly. Like pulling off a band-aid. Then it’s done. He wins, he gets his story, and he leaves us alone.”
Mark finally turned his head to look at her. His eyes were clouded with lust and a desperate, gullible need to believe her narrative. He didn’t say yes. He couldn’t form the word.
He also didn’t say no.