Page 9 of T is for…

The first semester they knew one another, she’d dreamed of more.

Imagined them slowly starting to date.

Going to geographically adjacent, if not the same, grad school.

Getting married a few years later, when their well-paying jobs meant they’d have enough money to pay for their own wedding.

That had been a fantasy, born of her love for romantic movies and books.

They became friends, and she’d assumed it would turn in to more, until the night she caught him having sex with another girl. Kinky sex, with a girl he’d had blindfolded and tied down.

That had shocked her, and for a month she hadn’t exactly avoided him, but she hadn’t sought out his company. But the sight of him forcing the rope-wrapped woman to her knees, opening her mouth with his fingers, and then sliding his cock in, had more than shocked her. It had stayed with her. A seed planted that would take years to grow.

And in the meantime, she and Nathan had gone back to being friends, her crush smothered by the shock of what she’d seen, and the deep certainty that he wanted something she didn’t have.

Back then, she’d decided that their friendship was far better than the fantasy relationship.

Nathan appeared with a highball glass in one hand, a bottle of hard cider in the other. He passed her the glass. “They looked at me like I’d punched a kitten.”

She laughed at his disgruntled looked, accepting the kalimotxo. Equal parts Coke and dry red wine, it was like a carbonated sangria, and had been her drink of choice since college.

“You like sweet drinks too.” She pointed at the cider.

“Yes, but wine snobs don’t care about mine.”

“Did you tell them to use a cheap, dry red?”

“I did. If possible, she was more offended at the idea of cheap wine than at mixing it with pop.”

She always thought it was cute when he said the word “pop” rather than “soda.”

They sipped in silence for a few minutes, and if there was a thread of tension in their normally companionable quiet, she ignored it.

What she couldn’t seem to ignore was the memory of his hand on her back, or the way his gaze had skimmed down her body.

A year from now she wouldn’t be sitting in a bar with him—not here, not at a conference, not a local bar for after-work drinks. She’d wrestled with that, with understanding everything she’d lose, thanks to the choice she was making, but what she stood to gain outweighed the loss. She hoped not to lose her friendship with Nathan, but from everything she’d read, once she did this, all the relationships in her life would change.

Tara sat up, thoughts snapping and flowing as she pulled apart and reassembled a shocking idea.

“I know that look. Do we need a whiteboard?” Nathan looked around, as if he’d suddenly spot a whiteboard and dry-erase markers hiding in a corner of the sex club’s library/bar.

“They assigned us as partners for the game,” Tara stated.

Nathan’s shoulders tightened. “Yes. Like I said, I’ll?—”

“No, you won’t, because I’m resigning.”

Nathan leaned toward her, and his bulk seemed to loom over her. “Absolutely not, Tara.”

She had to swallow down her visceral reaction to both his physical nearness and the deep-voiced order. That was proof that her shocking idea was actually a good one.

“I was already planning to resign,” she explained. “It has nothing to do with the game.”

Slowly, Nathan retreated to his end of the couch, watching her carefully. “Do the overseers know?”

“No. I haven’t told them yet, but was planning to.” She had an entire plan in place, and coordinated both her life and work to ensure maximum success.

“Wait, wait. Why are you leaving? Are you not…into it…anymore?”

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