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It was just as much fun to see her model the dresses she was trying to narrow down. My mother had maintained a good figure all her life, and I even got her to try on something frilly and bouncy and completely out of character.

“You know, I’m the one who’s supposed to be forcing you to try on dresses, not the other way around,” she said, pretending not to love every single minute of the attention from both me and the salespeople on the floor gushing over her appearance.

“Well, you’re the one getting married, not me,” I told her, snapping photos of her striking a pose on my cellphone.

I sent one of the more flamboyant shots to Peter and captioned it “Mother’s day out” because I thought he might get a laugh at imagining her wearing that flouncy number on her wedding to his father. I sent a follow-up text: “She asked for the most expensive dress on the floor” along with a winking emoji face before turning my attention back to the belle of the ball.

“I’m not getting this one,” she said even as she turned around to coo at the lacing up the back. “I’m serious, Gemma. This is just for fun.”

“Your wedding should be fun,” I reminded her, shaking my head at the salesperson hiding a smile behind her hand. “I think I saw one with an even bigger skirt on one of the mannequins out front. Want me to see if they can tear it off her for you?”

“That’s only for display,” my mother scoffed. “And it’s couture. I’d never. I want something classic.”

“It would be an instant classic,” I opined.

“I can go enlist two or three girls to wrestle that dress down,” the salesperson added, playing along. “It won’t be any trouble at all, Ms. Ryan.”

“We’re just wasting time here, Gemma,” my mother complained, even with her eyes bright with mischief. “We need to be at the reception hall in half an hour. There’s no way we’ll get there in time.”

“The driver is excellent, and he’ll get us there on time,” I assured her. “It’s just been fun watching you model all of these dresses. We both know which one you’re going to get.”

“Do you really think I should?” my mother asked, locking eyes with my reflection in the mirror. “I said I wanted something classic, but that would be avant-garde.”

“You looked like a knockout in it,” I avowed. “You would be a fool not to get that one.”

The one I was pushing for was a simple white, floor-length sheath that somehow paired perfectly with a white tuxedo jacket. It was just perfect for my mother — in my opinion — because she’d fulfilled both the role of my father and mother growing up. It helped, of course, that she looked ravishing in the number, and that it didn’t offend her budgetary sensibilities. Frank would probably fuss at her for not spending more money on herself.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said. “I like that one, but I don’t think I’d have the courage to wear it in front of everyone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’d feel better if you had something similar to wear when you stood up beside me,” she said. “Perhaps not in white, though.”

“I’d never compete with the bride.”

“Let’s see if they have something in black.”

As the lights to all those magical buildings winked on one by one in the bourgeoning night, I had the driver drop my mother off at her hotel first.

“I can’t believe we got all that done,” she said, as out of breath at the notion as if she’d been running full tilt through the streets all afternoon.

“Well, it’s like you said earlier,” I pointed out. “You have to make the hard decisions now that we’re getting so close to the actual date. There’s no more hemming and hawing.”

“It was you,” my mother said. “You’re the one who made all the hard decisions for me. You’ve always gone after exactly what you wanted. That’s why you moved to the city in the first place. To pursue your dreams. And look. You’re living them — at twenty-three. Not many people can say that. I certainly couldn’t.”

I bit my lip and considered telling her the whole truth right then and there. That I hadn’t been honest. That I hadn’t immediately landed among my dreams in the Big Apple. That there had been some nights I was so unsure of myself it hurt like a stomach illness, and I’d tossed and turned instead of getting the sleep I so desperately needed for the energy to work at two awful jobs. That she shouldn’t feel bad because she hadn’t done well early on in her life, that happiness was slow to find her.

But I didn’t want to detract from the wonderful day we’d had. Who’d known how much fun I’d have with my mother in New York City? If I’d known, I wouldn’t have avoided her presence here for all of those months.

Of course, all of those months were months when I’d been living nearly in abject poverty. I doubted that I would’ve been able to relax and have fun with her…without Peter in my life.

I felt a rush of warmth toward him — love and gratefulness. Who knew where I would’ve been without him? I knew I had to find a way to thank him — even if I could never actually repay him monetarily for all he’d done for me.

“You know, I am expecting to be the one who’ll taste all your potential wedding cakes with you, when the time comes,” my mother said, cutting through my thoughts.

“Yes, and then you’ll force me to squeeze into wedding dresses,” I teased her.

“Well, now we know there’s a proper way to approach things,” she said, laughing at the memory we’d just made hours earlier.

“Do you think it’s Peter?”

“It’s awfully early to tell,” I scoffed, even as my face went hot.

“But what does your heart say?” she urged me, and I knew it was important to her.

“My heart says I love him,” I said simply. “I don’t know if marriage will follow, but right now, I really do love him. We love each other.”

“I’m very happy for you,” she said. “Would you think me old fashioned if I said I was more thrilled that you’re in a loving relationship than you are in your dream job?”

“That would be a little old fashioned,” I allowed, even though I understood why it was important to her.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she warned. “I’m very pleased about the job. Even more pleased that you’re working with someone you love. Peter seems like a wonderful catch.”

“Just like Frank.”

“Like father like son,” my mother mused. “Well, I’m off to bed, or else I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”

“It’s early,” I said, checking my phone, noticing all of a sudden that I didn’t have any new messages or missed calls from Peter. That was odd. We rarely got through an entire day of working in the same office without texting each other. He must’ve gotten just as busy with Frank as I had with my mother and couldn’t spare the time. I wondered, grinning, if he’d died of embarrassment at the prospect of watching my mother walk down the aisle in a dress more suited for a prom or a cotillion.

“Don’t laugh at me,” my mother sniffed, misconstruing my mirth for something different. “You’ll understand when you’re my age. We old folks covet our rest.”

“You’re not old.”

“You’d be surprised.”

I kissed her goodnight and had the driver point the car toward home. I took the opportunity to call Peter, but it rang until his voicemail came up.

“It’s me,” I said at the beep, out of practice for leaving a voicemail but unwilling to call without saying anything. “You know. Gemma. Your girlfriend.” I hit my forehead in frustration. Why was I such an idiot around him? It was as if I was some blushing schoolgirl fawning over a crush. Sure, Peter had me blushing all the time. But we were together. I didn’t have any reason to be nervous.

“Anyway, I just finished up with my mother,” I told him. “We actually got the majority of things done, so it seems we’re in the downhill slide to the wedding.”

I paused and checked my phone’s display, hoping that Peter would save me from myself and my awkward message, but there was no such luck. No incoming calls to interrupt this voicemail of shame. I’d have to see this through to the end, so I resigned myself to endless ridicule once he played this message for me over and over again. He was sure to.

“I don’t know why I’m saying all this when we both know I’ll be seeing you in just a few minutes,” I said, counting the buildings we passed by, knowing that my hotel was coming up. “I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess. We haven’t spoken since earlier, when our parents interrupted us. I missed you. Does that make me needy? I hope not. I wouldn’t like to think I’m needy. I just like being around you.”

I clenched my jaw and stupidly wished that another vehicle would T-bone this one and put me out of my misery. How hard was it to leave a message on someone’s voicemail? Why was I so ridiculous?

“Maybe it was just me being around my mother all day that made me realize how much I appreciate you,” I continued. “Don’t take that in a weird way. We had a really good time. Though that’s not to say when you and I spend time together we don’t. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m hanging up the phone. I love you!”

I ended the call and could’ve sworn I heard the driver laughing at me under his breath, but there was no time to call him out on it. We were just a block away from the hotel, and I had to retrieve everything of mine that had spread slowly across the backseat throughout the afternoon and evening. My mother and I had been so full of cake that neither of us thought we could manage a true dinner, but now I was feeling hungry. Maybe Peter would want to take a late meal somewhere, or I could find something to snack on in the refrigerator. I rarely bought food from grocery stores, but that behemoth always seemed to be fully stocked. I wondered whose job that was — to keep Gemma Ryan swimming in food at all times. I’d put on some weight during my tenure as Peter’s girlfriend, but it was the good kind — the kind that made my eyes not look so sunken, that gave me cute dimples instead of hollows in my cheeks.

“Thanks for taking us all around the city today,” I told the driver as I climbed out of the backseat with a foam box of leftover cake samples and a schedule I’d been filling out all day to make sure my mother was on track ahead of her big day.

“My pleasure,” the man said, tipping his hat at me, and I wondered if he really meant it. Was it entertaining to listen to me yammer all day or sit in silence and stare at my phone? Driving a person around all the time, ensuring they got to the places where they needed to go, seemed like it would be a somewhat thankless job. I resolved to show my gratitude more consistently.

I reached the penthouse with a smile on my face and a building pressure in my loins, remembering that Peter and I had unfinished business, but he wasn’t there when I let myself in.

“Really?” I called out to the open space. “Seriously? No one’s home but me?”

If I was really desperate, I knew a good hand or two to help relieve my frustrations, but I’d been really looking forward to debriefing with Peter about my day and getting the release I’d been denied earlier.

I refrigerated the cake, my appetite off again, and settled down on the couch in the sitting room for one of my favorite pastimes — watching the twinkling of the buildings that surrounded me. I liked to wonder just how many other people were doing the exact same thing as I was in the exact same moment, sitting around, idle, without a thing to do but ponder their fellow New Yorkers.

Where was Peter?

I woke up early — earlier than I would’ve normally gotten up for work, anyway — and checked my phone immediately. I would’ve understood if I had a message waiting for me explaining that Peter had been in a meeting until late last night with someone abroad, but there wasn’t a single notification on my phone — not even email. Maybe I needed to subscribe to more catalogs or junk mailings so I wouldn’t feel so lonely in the morning.

There wasn’t even a funny comment critiquing my awful voicemail.

I called Peter without even rolling out of bed, but this morning, it went straight to his voicemail without so much as ringing. Had his battery died? Had he even noticed that he was carrying around a dead phone? If work was keeping him so occupied, there was a fair chance he was too busy to be even listening to my rambling voicemails.

I got dressed in a leisurely fashion, taking my time with picking out one of my lovelier business casual outfits. Even taking the time to curl my hair, I smirked at my reflection in the mirror before slipping on a pair of crotch-less panties beneath my dress. Their presence would infuriate Peter until he realized that a key portion of the offending garment was absent, rendering them useless and little more than a party trick. Then, I was sure he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of me.

I got to work with five minutes to spare and spent them touching up my red lipstick — lacquered on to match my high heels — in the bathroom before taking my desk. There was a long list of things to get through, not to mention the final plans for Paris I was supposed to decide on. How could I choose the places to see in a city I’d never seen? Somehow, it was up to me, a complete Paris virgin, to plan our itinerary. I liked to imagine us there together — imagining a stereotypical France, the only one I’d ever seen in movies — on old streets, lounging on the banks of the river, eating fresh bread and letting the city lull us into loving each other even more. I imagined us christening each of the hotels Peter was planning on buying, asking the concierge and present owners to give us half an hour or so to inspect the penthouse and then going to town.

It was so easy to be in love with someone like Peter. I’d been so afraid that our relationship was going to be complicated by the wedding, but it seemed as if everything was falling into place — that it was all meant to be.

My desk phone chimed, and I looked at the display with some surprise. It was Peter, but he never called me, preferring to saunter over to my desk just to try and get an eyeful. Was this some new game he was playing? I felt a sexual thrill despite my unease, picturing Peter talking dirty to me, giving me explicit instructions while I was forced to keep a straight face for the benefit of all of my coworkers.

“Yes?” I purred, so sure I knew what we were playing.

“My office,” he said, his accent clipping the words even more than he was probably meaning to do. “Immediately.”

I frowned. That wasn’t very sexy at all. “Is everything all right?”

But he’d already hung up. There was nothing to do but to hang my receiver on the cradle and make my way over. One good sign as I approached — the window blinds were shuttered. Hopefully, that meant that he was ready and eager to continue our session from yesterday. My body ached for him, and I wondered if it was possible to have so much sex with a person that you got addicted to it. Surely not. Somebody would’ve warned me, wouldn’t they?

I opened the door and smiled, but Peter barely looked up from the spread of papers across his desk.

“I need copies of all of these,” he said, sweeping his hand over the papers. “Collated and stapled, too.”

“Glad to be of service,” I said cheekily. “Shall I gather those up for you as well, or are you capable of doing that yourself?”

“I’m capable of doing all of this myself,” he said. “You’re supposed to be here to make my life a little easier.”

I was stung by his tone — flat, almost irritable. But then I smiled again. Maybe there was something I could do to turn this day around for him. He was obviously having a miserable one.

“I thought I was here to make life a little…harder for you,” I said suggestively, raising an eyebrow as I took the paper he was looking at by the corner and dropping it on the floor in an extravagant gesture. “Oops. Look what I’ve done.”

Peter’s blue eyes were positively icy. “Pick that up immediately.”

“Right away,” I agreed, turning around and bending down slowly, exaggerating my movements, sticking my rear out much more than necessary, before retrieving the sheet of paper. “Here you are.”

His eyes had narrowed to slits. “I seem to have noticed something about your appearance today that bothers me greatly,” he said, his voice tight.

“Hot and bothered?” I smiled at him.

“You’re wearing panties.” His tone was both accusatory and petulant, and it made me laugh.

“That’s right.”

“I expressly told you not to while you were in this office.”

I leaned forward, over the rest of the pages I was supposed to be copying. “What are you going to do about it?”

That was all the encouragement he apparently needed. He grabbed me, scattering the various papers and blueprints and pens on his desk, and bent me over, my torso flat against the surface of his work station, my rump nearly at the level of his face. He worked the hem of my dress up my thighs and over my hips and stopped short.

I grinned and nearly laughed again, imagining just what his view was back there. I thought the crotch-less panties were pretty pornographic, myself, but I was certain Peter would get a laugh out of them.

“Do you like them?” I asked, trying to look over my shoulder at him to gauge his reaction. “I thought of you when I bought them.”

“These still qualify as panties,” he informed me after a beat, his voice rough with arousal.

“Then I am prepared to accept my punishment,” I said, grabbing the edge of the desk to steady myself, reminding myself that I was the one who’d instigated this, that I wanted to explore this darker side of my sexuality because I knew it would please Peter. He’d shown me just how intoxicating pain and pleasure could be. I was ready for more.

The ruler hit with a flat thwack, making me rock forward in discomfort as it slapped my bare rear. Before I could recover from that initial blow, another followed it, the metal whistling through the air before making contact. I winced and clutched the desk tighter, starting to regret provoking Peter like this. He was obviously in need of a release he wasn’t finding in me. Another thwack, and another, and I was nearly biting through my lip from the pain, the promise of pleasure long forgotten. I could only imagine the stripes that marred my flesh back there, cringing at the prospect of sitting on it for the rest of the workday, until, without warning, Peter bent forward and lapped at my pussy from behind, forcing my legs farther apart to accommodate his explorations.

I gasped at the reprieve, at the suddenness of his tongue against me, flicking against my clit before plunging into my entrance, making love to my body with that surprisingly mobile muscle until I was dripping wet and quivering over the surface of the desk.

He scissored his fingers into me, even though he should’ve known by now that I was ready for him — more than ready, and entered me doggy style, pressing my face on the cool wood of his desk, pumping mercilessly into me, not even grunting along with the thrusts. He had perfect control of himself even in the hardest push of his hips, the trousers he hadn't even bothered to let drop to his ankles chafing my sore butt.

Peter pulled out of me suddenly, and there was a hot splash of cream on my bare rear. He let out a breath he might’ve been holding the entire time.

“Don’t move,” he commanded, his voice low, as if he didn’t trust it. I tried to keep from pressing my crotch against his desk. I hadn’t come yet, but I was close. I bit my lip thinking about all the various manners in which Peter could bring me to completion, looking forward to a little release after all the tension that had been building up between us since yesterday.

I jumped at the next touch — a tissue, deployed across my aching backside with a clinical air, to catch the rapidly cooling evidence of Peter’s climax.

“There,” he said, tossing the crumpled tissue in the trashcan. “Now. The copies.”

I pushed myself up off the desk and tugged my skirt back down, not sure why my face was burning in shame. It was as if he’d embarrassed me on purpose, but I thought I knew him better than that. I was more upset that he’d come without me, without regard for my pleasure minus the abbreviated oral session that I was beginning to think was more about his comfort than mine. I refused to make eye contact with him as I scooped up an armful of papers I wasn’t even sure were the ones he wanted copied and charged out of his office, my rear still stinging from his dubious affections.

Sex wasn’t supposed to be about shaming the other partner. I’d asked to be punished, sure, but there was supposed to be a mutual benefit from it. Peter and I were supposed to explore our kinks together, and we were both supposed to derive pleasure from them. Wasn’t that the way it worked? I felt as if I’d done something wrong, as if I’d caused a mess and he’d rubbed my nose in it. Was this some element of a new game we were playing that I didn’t know the rules to? Would he even answer me if I asked him?

There was something bothering me about the way he was acting, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t some fetish he was putting out on display for me. I’d admitted that it was hot to be dominated in his office. Had Peter just taken it a little too far, a little past my comfort zone? Was it my fault that I hadn’t been open to the new experience? I’d enjoyed parts of it, but certainly not as much as Peter had enjoyed himself.

I returned both the master copy and the copies of the documents he’d requested, collated and stapled, to his office, but Peter wasn’t there. I didn’t know where he was. I checked his schedule — a document I kept saved on my computer’s desktop — but it didn’t give me any insight as to his whereabouts. He didn’t have a meeting scheduled until after lunch. Had he decided to take a long break? Why had he vanished without at least debriefing me on, if not our hookup, something actually related to work?

I tried to focus on the task at hand, but it was becoming more and more apparent to me that Peter and I had a problem — one that would only continue to grow if it wasn’t addressed. Something was the matter, but I couldn’t figure it out, no matter how hard I wracked my brain.

I went over all of our conversations that I could remember, trying to see if I’d slighted him in any way, but I drew blanks for every effort. Could it be that he’d been genuinely offended by my attempt to tease him with the crotch-less panties? I resolved to follow his rules to the T tomorrow.

At the end of the day, I stopped by his office to see if he wanted to grab some dinner, but he’d already left. No messages for me.

All I could do was creep back to the penthouse, nibble on something I found in the refrigerator, and see what I could do better the next day.

I risked scandal the next day, preparing myself for work slowly, pulling one of my nicest dresses out of the closet. I hadn't even worn this one yet — there hadn’t been an occasion to — and it was a little too sexy for the workplace, a slit working its way up the thigh. But I was at a loss. I was floundering, trying to wave to get Peter’s attention, but he hadn't thrown me a bone. I was working in the only medium I knew might catch his eye, one of lipsticks and bobby pins and pushup bras, sweeps of mascara and a stamp of a curler to make my eyes pop.

When I arrived at work that morning, very carefully ten minutes early, I knew that I looked more ready to go out for dinner and a show than to sit and be somebody’s secretary all day, but there it was. I was trying my best. I passed by his office all morning, back and forth, whenever the door was open, like a fool, waiting for him to glance up and invite me in, not daring to step over the threshold without an invitation in case that would somehow be another affront to him. He ignored me through the better part of the work day, even though I was almost sure he wasn’t working on anything particularly pressing, and I absorbed the blow as best I could.

What else was there to do? What else could I have done when I was neck deep in something I didn’t understand?

It wasn’t until that afternoon that he beckoned me into his office, his face unreadable.

“Close the door,” he nearly barked. I obeyed meekly, my compliance at odds with my empowered appearance.

“This is not appropriate dress for the workplace,” he said. “What was going through your mind when you dressed yourself like this in the morning? Are all your other outfits dirty? Do you need another shopping trip? Are you aware that you’re to use the laundering service provided by the hotel?”

I wasn’t aware of that last point, but it was useful to know. The rest of his words stung me.

“I thought you might like this outfit,” I said, walking back and forth in front of him as if I were on the world’s shortest catwalk, making sure he noticed the slit in the dress, how high it went up, the curve of my neck left exposed by my high bun and the cut of the neckline.

“I would appreciate the aesthetics of this outfit in a different setting — not the office.”

I swallowed my wounded ego and slowly dragged my eyes up his body. “Would you like me to take it off?”