Curiosity Killed the Kat (2 page)

Kneeling over me, he roughly jerked me onto my stomach and bound my hands to my ankles. With his knee he pushed my legs apart and my arms strained with the awkwardly painful movement. I
felt something cold between my legs and instinctively jerked away. “Don’t move.” Steven ordered roughly. His voice clouded now with something that sounded closer to lust than his words did earlier. Thank god. It was working. He would be satisfied soon. The cold feeling came closer to my core and entered me slowly. What was it?

The feeling of being penetrated by an unknown object was
frightening and yet my body was starting to tingle. My own breath
was
coming faster and faster. Against my will, I could feel my body straining to open wider so he could insert this thing deeper and deeper. What was it? He started to pump the object in and out of me and my breathing fell into the same rhythm. I was
ashamed I was so wet. He could feel it too
as he moved his thumb around and around my slick
nub, “You like this don’t you, you slut,” He teased and kept pumping it in and out of me. My pleasure was acting as a lubricant and allowing it to go farther and farther inside of me with every thrust. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t see Steven. My head and back was arched painfully backwards but somehow all I could feel now was the sensation of being filled and stimulated.

He’d done this before, but he’d always used one of the many vibrators or dildos he kept handy for these moods; for some reason, not knowing was both frightening and exhilarating. Finally with a final thrust, Steven leaned over me and whispered in my ear, “
I just fucked you
with your perfume bottle, you slut.” Holding it in front of
my face so I could see he was telling the truth, m
y tall bottle of $200 an ounce perfume was covered in my juices
. I moaned and tried to turn my head away. “That’s alright
Katherine
, you did well. I’m going to buy you another, bigger bottle just to show you how much I love you.”

He got up to shower while I laid still hogtied on the bed. This was a favorite
habit
of Steven’s. He often made me lay tied or gagged while he cleaned up after sex. When he was done, he would come back into the bedroom and look at me lying there – sometimes he would take a photo before he untied me and told me to clean up. Tonight I heard the shower turn off and he returned to the bedroom, his perfectly chiseled body wrapped in a towel, and he untied me without a word, turning away as if I disgusted him. “Clean yourself up
.
C
hange the sheets on the bed. We have to meet one of the partners and his wife for dinner in two hours.”

Slowly I got up to do as he asked. Steven had been acting strangely lately. M
ore concerned about his role at his firm Bradenson & Arthur than he’d ever been in the past. I wasn’t sure why. It seemed strange. He had to be earning more money lately, he’d
recently
purchased a new car for himself and I’d overheard the dealer telling an associate that Steven had paid cash for the new Audi. I had been waiting in the lobby looking idly at the other cars on the showroom floor when I’d
over
heard that puzzling piece of information. Of course, Steven
didn’t confide
in me about our financial situation
,
nor would he tell me if he was worried about something
at work
; but,
that comment made me curious
.
Where had he gotten such a large amount of money?

My days were busy maintaining our stately, four-bedroom townhouse in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. We hadn’t always lived in such an elegant zip code. When we were first married and moved to Boston so Steven could attend Harvard Law School, we lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment over an Indian restaurant close to the campus.
I worked days as a waitress in the restaurant downstairs while Steven attended classes. I didn’t mind that I was the only English-speaking employee of the nice couple that owned the place, I had never wanted for a lot of friends and preferred to spend time alone, reading, if I wasn’t with Steven.

We lived like that for two years while Steven
finished school.
As soon as he graduated he was hired by Bradenson & Arthur and we
moved to a bigger apartment on the Hill
, although not the townhouse we have now. We’d only been in this large home for about a year. I was still getting used to its size and the emptiness of the rooms.

Steven worked long hours and traveled often. I
enjoyed my solitude, but lately I was feeling the pinch of loneliness like I never had before.
The
daily tasks that had always brought me such joy in the past were beginning to lose their appeal. Since he’d graduated, Steven hadn’t wanted me to work, and filling my days alone was taking their toll.
I’d never enjoyed spending time with Charlie Bradenson, one of the partner’s at Steven’s firm, but tonight I was almost excited at the idea of a night out.

“What are you
doing? I told you to get ready.
” Steven
came i
nto the room looking at me furiously
. I was running around trying to pull a brush through my long dark hair while at the same time attempting to step into a black dress. “Just what does it look like I’m doing Steven? I’m rushing as fast as I can.”
I retorted. He
gave
me a disgusted look and left
the room. With a sigh I kept going
: dress on, hair brushed, a quick swipe of simple make-up to highlight my large dark eyes and cover the dark circles underneath them. Steven hadn’t let me sleep mo
re than a few hours a night for the last week
. If he wasn’t keeping me up
to pleasure him, he was tossing and turning or demanding I get up with him and make him coffee or food since he couldn’t sleep.

I didn’t want to upset him further. I rushed out of the room, fastening my pearls around my neck as I did so. “What took you so long?” He demanded, “We’re going to be late!”

“I’m sorry Steven, I hurried as fast as I could. I know how you hate it when I don’t look my best in front of your boss.” I offered quietly, hoping to calm him down.

“Fine, you look nice. Now let’s go.” He grudgingly admitted. I took it as a victory.

When we got to the restaurant Charlie hadn’t yet arrived. We went to the bar to have a cocktail and wait for him. I ordered my usual glass of Cabernet, and Steven – out of character – decided on a Black Russian. “You never order
Black Russian’s,” I asked curiously, “what’s making you order that tonight?”

Steven gave me a cold look. “I don’t know. It just sounded good. Do I need to run my dinner choices by you as well?”

“No, of course not. I just wondered why you weren’t having a martini tonight. I know how much you enjoy them.” I should know how much he enjoyed a martini. It’d been my job to make sure he had one in his hand when he got home most nights.

“Look,” he said with forced patience. “Charlie e
njoys Black Russians and I’ve
developed a taste for them myself
. Okay? Satisfied?”

Before I could answer him
I saw Charlie
Bradenson
walk through the front door.

My first impression of Charlie when I’d met him five years ago was
that
of a sneaky, skinny man with untrustworthy eyes. He had thinning hair, an unattractive paunch and a tendency toward flashy jewelry. All in all, I thought he looked cheap and tacky, not at all what you would expect a partner in a respected Boston law firm to look like.

Steven seemed to admire him, which was a surprise to me because h
e was usually the first to openly resent someone who was as tasteless as Charlie always appeared. Instead,
if Steven
discussed anyone from
the office, it was
Charlie
and his impressive intelligence.
I
knew Charlie had been the one to recruit Steven at Harvard, and I assumed there was a sense of appreciation and a mentorship between the men for that reason.

Steven had been a prime candidate for the firm because of his gift for languages. His interest was in the practice of international law so he became fluent in Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish. Charlie Bradenson thought he was a genius and my husband thought the same about Charlie.

Bradenson and Arthur clients were spread across the globe. They had clients in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Lima, and of course here in Boston and New York. They represented companies and individuals that wanted to do business on foreign soil. I didn’t understand the specifics of what they did for their clients, but I knew that Steven and Charlie handled contracts, depositions, and litigation for a variety of industries.

My conversations with Steven centered on the house or our day to day activities, small stuff; he didn’t want to worry me or be concerned about issues he faced at work. When it came to our finances, our roles were clearly defined; I had a credit card that I used to make purchases or withdraw cash, and Steven paid it and our other bills each month. He never wanted me to worry about money.

Tonight Charlie looked as unkempt and gaudy as he ever did. He wore a suit that was undoubtedly expensive, but looked shiny and cheap on him. His gold Rolex and heavy gold chain only made him look even more like a small town pimp or a used car salesman, despite the fact that both pieces were probably worth many thousands of dollars.

By his own admission, Charlie was aggressively single, and usually had a different woman on his arm every time I’d seen him. Tonight was no exception, although his date was lovelier than most of the women I had seen him with.
She was tall, taller than Charlie, with long, b
lack
hair and clear, gray eyes. She was dressed in a short, black
,
strapless dress that showed miles of
olive skin
. I felt like a short, dumpy woman next to her. I shot a quick glance at Steven to see if he was appreciating her obvious beauty too.

“Charlie
,
my man!” With a
strange
look at
the woman by his side
, Steven greeted Charlie enthusiastically.

“Steven, you are looking dapper this evening. And your lovely wife too.” Charlie spared me a brief look before shaking Steven’s hand and moving over to the hostess stand to let them know we were ready to be seated.
Charlie and I had never had too much to say to each other. He knew that Steven preferred to keep his work life separate from me and we didn’t have much to talk about during the infrequent social occasions we found ourselves together.

When he stepped away I turned to introduce myself to his date since Charlie hadn’t bothered with introductions. As I held out my hand and looked into her eyes her expression was so
surprising
that
I instinctively dropped my hand and took a step back.
It was
stark fear
that
I had seen in her face
;
so raw that it scared me.
But as quickly as that
fear had flashed across her face, it was gone. Her lovely features were again composed in a frozen mask of politeness and she reached her hand out to me.

“Hello. I’m Sana. It’s nice to meet you,” she said in halting but clear English.

“Very nice to meet you too Sana,” I said carefully. “Where are you from?”

“I come from Riyadh. Saudi Arabia.”

Charlie and Steven were talking by the bar, waiting for the hostess to lead us to our table. They weren’t paying attention to us.

“
How nice,” I could feel my face filled with false cheer as I kept one eye on Charlie and Steven. I had an instinctive feeling that they wouldn’t want Sana and I chatting alone for too long.

“
How do you know Charlie
?” I needed to find out what was behind that fearful expression I had seen.

“
Charlie brought me here.”
Sana
explained
with another strange look on her face. But the way she said it seemed more like a question than a statement. “Charlie help me to come to America to be a model.”

I knew that one of the firm’s clients was an international modeling agency with offices in Boston, New York, and
Milan
. Steven had been assigned to their account about
six months ago
. I remembered it clearly because he’d come home bragging about how the girls at the agency had been flirting with him.

“Ok,” I
tried to assure her
, “I’m sure you will be a very successful model here. You’re very pretty.”

Suddenly she leaned in close to me and whispered, “Can you help me?”

I drew back quickly, “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

Just then Steven was standing next to me looking from Sana to me with a suspicious look.

“Our table is ready darling. Are you hungry?” I could tell that he knew something seemed off, but he couldn’t understand what was wrong.