Page 52 of The Wake-Up Call

“Do you feel like you don’t hold anything back now? That youreallygo full-out?”

She looks at me shrewdly. After a moment, she snorts. “Lose the trousers, Lucas. Don’t think you can distract me by Mrs. Hedgers–ing me.”

Remarkably, for a moment, I had almost forgotten I am sitting here topless.

“Mrs....”

“Mrs. Hedgers, the career-change coach in Sweet Pea? Has she not got you yet? She did a number on me and Poor Mandy. Told Mandy she’s not assertive enough.”

Izzy is breezy and bright again, as though we never spoke about her parents. I’d like to push and ask her more, but I know I’ll get nowhere.

“In the time I have known Mandy,” I say, “she has never once asserted herself.”

“I know, right?”

“What did Mrs. Hedgers say about you?”

Izzy shifts so her feet are tucked underneath her on the bed. Her socks are gone, lost when she played a bad hand at the start of the game.

“She said I don’t know how to switch off.”

Interesting.

“On Thursday, you’ll try some of the ways I unwind and switch off.”

“Oh, will I, now?”

I raise my eyebrows, lying back against the pillows with my hands behind my head.

“Have you forgotten? Thursday is my day. I’m in charge.”

“Oh, shit, yeah.” Something passes across her face. I wonder if it’s worry.

“I won’t... If you want to change your mind about the bet...”

“Are you kidding? Please. I’d never have given you that opportunity if I’d won.”

“But it’s different. I’m a man. We are always in charge, so...” This doesn’t come out the way I intended—she’s glaring at me. I grope around for the right words, remembering how succinctly Ana put it when she was explaining why it’s different for a woman to approach a man than the other way around. “No, I just mean, it’s not the same because of the way society always puts men in control anyway, so me telling you what to do, it just feels like it could be...”

“Oh.” Her face clears. “Yeah. A bit loaded. Well, actually, oddly enough I do trust you to be a gentleman about it. You want to have a safeword or something?” She laughs at my expression. “If I say,Fuck right off, Lucas, then you have to back off. Agreed?”

“It is a good safe phrase,” I say solemnly, and I can tell from her face that she doesn’t know whether I’m joking.

“Trousers,” she says, pointing at my knees.

“Ah. Yes.” I shift to the end of the bed and stand to take them off.

The atmosphere in the room shifts the moment I start unfastening my belt. Izzy is quiet, watching me as I unbutton my jeans, rolling her bottom lip between her finger and thumb. I thought stripping off would make her feel like she was in charge, but she’s not laughing or humiliating me, she’s just watching me, and I shiver under her gaze. It’s been a while since I’ve stripped down for a woman, but they’re normally touching me by this point. The distance between us should make this less intimate, but somehow it’s the opposite.

I lie down on my back again, my head on the pillow. Laid out for her, with the cards and that silly little heap of raisins between us. I hear her breath catch and the sound sends something turning over inside me.

“If I win the next hand, you’ll be naked,” Izzy says.

“Mm.”

“I was going to make you run out into the car park in the snow,” she says, “but now that feels kind of cruel.”

“How were you going to make me do that?” I ask, amused.

---