Chapter 5: Power Play
The click of the deadbolt was like a gunshot in the quiet room. Mayor Stacy Butterfield turned, her back against the solid oak door, and let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for a decade. The fluorescent lights of her office hummed overhead, reflecting off the polished brass plaque on her desk and the glass-covered portrait of the town’s founding fathers. It was a sanctum of order, of bureaucratic control.
Gunnar sat on the deep leather couch across from her desk, one boot propped on his opposite knee. He looked out of place among the filing cabinets and framed ordinances, like a wolf that had wandered into a library. The scent of her lavender air freshener couldn’t mask the trace of his own presence: leather, ink, and the clean, sharp smell of the antiseptic he’d used on the fresh scab on his knuckles.
“Gunnar,” she said, his name a statement. She didn’t move from the door.
“Madam Mayor,” he replied, his voice a low rumble. He nodded toward the window. “Saw your deputy parked down the block. Keeping an eye on the new business?”
“Keeping an eye on you,” she corrected, pushing off from the door. She walked with a purpose around the edge of her desk, her sensible heels silent on the carpet. “The Hicks brothers are singing a sad song to anyone who’ll listen. Claiming you assaulted them. Unprovoked.”
“Plywood’s up on my door,” Gunnar said, his eyes tracking her. “Unprovoked damage.”
Stacy stopped in front of him, not behind the desk. She was a handsome woman, 44 years of clean living and responsible decisions etched in fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Her blonde hair was in a severe, perfect bob. Her suit was navy and immaculate. But her eyes, a sharp hazel, held a frantic, caged light he recognized. It was the same look he saw in the mirror some mornings.
“I know they’re lying,” she said, her voice dropping. “I also know you dislocated Boyd Hicks’s shoulder and gave Grady a concussion that’ll have him seeing double for a week. Sheriff Moss likes a quiet town. So do I.”
“So give me a ticket for the door and we’re square,” Gunnar said, watching her carefully.
A faint, brittle smile touched her lips. “It’s not that simple.” She reached up, her hands surprisingly steady, and began to unbutton her suit jacket. “I need something from you.”
He didn’t speak. He just watched as she shed the jacket, draping it neatly over the back of her chair. Then her fingers went to the pearls at her throat, then the buttons of her cream-colored blouse. One, two, three. She parted the fabric, revealing a plain, practical bra and the smooth, pale skin of her stomach.
“My husband,” she said, the words clipped, “had a prostate surgery. Ten years ago. It didn’t go… as planned. The nerve damage was extensive.” She unfastened her skirt, let it drop to her ankles, and stepped out of it. She stood before him in her blouse, bra, and pantyhose, a bizarre portrait of semi-formal undress. “He’s a good man. A gentle man. He can’t… perform. Not in any way that matters.”
Gunnar remained still. “I’m not a doctor, Stacy.”
“No,” she said, her breath catching. “You’re the man who came back and didn’t ask permission. You’re the man who looked at this dying town and saw a canvas.” Her fingers hooked in the waistband of her pantyhose. “I need my first tattoo. Right where he can’t see it. Somewhere only the town’s new bad boy gets to ink.”
She peeled the pantyhose down, rolling them slowly over her hips, her thighs, her calves. She let them fall on top of the skirt. Then, with a decisive tug, she stripped off her plain white panties. She stood before him, completely exposed from the waist down, her blouse hanging open. A thatch of neatly trimmed blonde hair gleamed between her thighs.
“And after you ink it,” she said, her voice now a raw whisper, “I need you to fuck me. I need to feel like a woman again, Gunnar. Not a mayor. Not a caregiver. Just a woman. Before I completely calcify in this goddamn office.”
The room was silent except for the hum of the lights. Gunnar finally moved. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and studied her. There was no lust in his gaze, not yet. It was the assessing look of an artist, a tactician. “Where?”
She turned, presenting her back to him. Over her right hip, just above the curve of her buttock, was a patch of virgin skin. “Here. A tulip. Simple. Black lines only.”
He stood up. The couch creaked. He was a large man, and his presence seemed to swallow the remaining air in the room. He walked to her desk, opened the top drawer without asking, and found what he was looking for: a black, fine-tip Sharpie. He walked back to her.
His left hand, rough and warm, settled on her hip to steady her. She jumped at the contact, a sharp intake of breath. With his right hand, he uncapped the marker. He began to draw, freehand, the simple, elegant lines of a tulip in bloom. The tip of the marker was cool against her feverish skin.
“You heard about the other night,” he stated, not asked, as he worked. “The girl. The fight.”
“Yes,” she breathed, her eyes closed. The sensation was exquisite—the slight drag of the marker, the pressure of his hand.
“And you still came here. Locked the door.”
“I’ve been the mayor for eight years,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “I’ve negotiated sewer contracts and school budgets and watched this place slowly suffocate. I sign permits. You act. I wanted to feel what that was like.” She gasped as he added a final, flowing line for the stem. “Do you think I’m pathetic?”
He capped the marker and tossed it onto the couch. “I think you’re brave as hell,” he muttered. His hand left her hip. She heard the sound of his belt buckle clinking open, the rasp of his zipper.
She didn’t turn. She braced her hands on the back of the leather couch, widening her stance, offering herself. The drawing on her skin felt like a brand, a claim.
He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t undress. He simply guided himself to her entrance with one hand, finding her already slick, unbearably wet. She was tight, a shocking, clenching heat after so many years of nothing.
“Christ,” he growled, as he pushed into her, slow and relentless.
Stacy cried out, a sound that was part pain, part profound relief. It wasn’t gentle. It was necessary. He filled her, stretched her, a brutal and perfect occupation. She sobbed, her forehead pressing into the leather. “Don’t stop. God, don’t you dare stop.”
He didn’t. He set a punishing, rhythmic pace, each deep thrust shaking her whole body. His hands gripped her hips, fingers digging into her flesh, surely leaving bruises over the top of his fresh drawing. The slap of skin, the creak of the couch legs, her ragged, half-choked pleas—they were the only sounds in the sterile office.
“Is this what you wanted, Madam Mayor?” he grunted, driving into her harder. “To get fucked by the town menace? To feel something besides a fucking spreadsheet?”
“Yes!” she screamed, the word torn from her. “Yes! Fuck me! Ruin me! Make it so I can’t sit in this goddamn chair without remembering!”
Her climax hit her suddenly, a seismic wave that ripped through years of frustrated silence. She screamed, uncaring who might hear through the thick door, her body convulsing around him, milking him violently. The intensity triggered his own release. With a final, deep surge, he emptied himself into her, a hot, spurting flood that seemed to go on and on.
He stayed there, buried inside her, both of them panting, until he slowly softened and slipped out. The smell of sex, sharp and animal, now overpowered the lavender and lemon polish.
Stacy slumped forward, her strength gone. Gunnar straightened his clothes, fastening his jeans with blunt, efficient movements. He picked up the Sharpie from the couch.
Without a word, he bent and neatly wrote on the inside of her thigh, just below the tulip, in small, precise letters: GUNNY’S.
He capped the pen and placed it back on her desk. “The tattoo,” he said, his voice back to its normal flat tone. “Come to the shop at the end of the day. Wednesday. I’ll do it right. No one will see you.”
He walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack, checking the hall. It was empty.
He looked back at her. She was still leaning against the couch, his seed dripping down her thigh, his marks on her skin. She looked shattered, glorious, alive.
“And Stacy?” he said.
She turned her head, her eyes wide.
“Lock the door after I leave. And wipe my cum off your mayor’s chair.”
He slipped out, closing the door softly behind him. Stacy Butterfield listened to his retreating footsteps fade. Then, slowly, she pushed herself upright. Her legs trembled. She looked down at the crude, perfect tulip in black Sharpie, and the possessive script beneath it. A slow, real smile spread across her face for the first time in years.
She walked to her desk on unsteady legs, pulled a tissue from the box, and meticulously cleaned the leather couch. Then she picked up her phone, her hand steady now, and dialed.
“Deputy? It’s the Mayor. You can call off the watch on Mr. Bjornstad’s shop. I’m satisfied he’s… assimilating just fine.”