The Final Fitting

Conrad had been waiting on that phone call for three months, and that was exactly the problem. You don't owe a woman four thousand dollars and then get to feel easy about anything.

Here was how it went down. Three months back, a corporate party at the Marlow Building, big clients, open bar, and the catering outfit Conrad subbed through botched the payment processing. Card declines across the board. Milton Connors, who ran the catering, got his wires crossed with the client's office, and somehow the whole thing landed on Conrad's tab in the client's eyes. Four grand short, due that night, and Milton sweating through his shirt in the kitchen while the client's assistant started asking loud questions.

It was Gayle Ferris who walked over from the bridal table, pulled out her checkbook, and covered it. No speech. No fuss. She just wrote the check, handed it to Milton, and told Conrad, "We'll sort this out later, honey."

They never had sorted it out. She kept waving him off every time he brought it up. He'd been dreading the day she finally called it in, and on a Tuesday afternoon in October the call came.

"Conrad." Gayle's voice, brisk as always. "You busy Thursday evening?"

"Not after six. Why, what do you need?"

"I need a second pair of hands at the shop. Last-minute fitting for the Ayers wedding, Saturday. The dress needs a final pin and the maid of honor's dress needs taking in, and my assistant called out. It's simple labor, Conrad. Pins and a steamer. You've steadied ladders for me before."

That was true. He'd done odd jobs for her events for three years, hauling chairs, tending bar at her trunk shows. Simple labor sounded like a mercy. After three months of imagining she'd ask him for the money back, which he did not have, pins and a steamer sounded like a gift.

"I'll be there," he said. "Six sharp."

"Five thirty. Lock your car well, downtown gets dicey."

Thursday, five thirty, he pulled up outside Ferris Bridal in the old brick building on Chandler Street. The place had tall windows and heavy doors, and inside it was all soft light and white fabric. Gayle was fifty-one, silver at her temples, kept herself sharp in a black blazer even on a Thursday evening. She'd built that shop from nothing, everybody knew that. Conrad was forty-four and he'd tended bar around the city for fifteen years and he'd never owed anybody a dime until her.

"You came," she said, like she'd had doubts.

"You called. I came."

"Good man." She looked him over. "You eat?"

"Not since noon."

"There's sandwiches in the back room. Eat while you work."

He worked. She had him hold a hem while she pinned, and she had him run the steamer over the maid of honor's dress, and it was all exactly as simple as she'd promised. He started to feel like maybe the debt was getting paid down the honest way, sweat instead of cash. He should have known better. Gayle Ferris didn't drag a man across town for a steamer.

Around seven she sent the dresses back on their hangers, walked to the front door, and turned the deadbolt. The click of it was loud in the empty shop.

"Closing time already?" he asked.

"Been closed since six. It's just us now." She came back toward him, past the mirrors, and stopped an arm's length away. "Conrad, we need to talk about the favor. The real one."

"Miss Ferris, if this is about the money, I can start paying it back, I just can't do it all at once."

"It's not about the money. Sit down a minute."

There was a stool by the alterations table and he sat on it. She stayed standing, arms folded, looking at him the way she looked at a dress that needed serious work.

"Four thousand dollars is nothing to me and it was everything to you that night, and I paid it because you're the only man in this business I've never once seen cut a corner. Fifteen years behind a bar and your reputation is clean. That's worth four grand to me. So the debt's forgiven. Done. I tore up my note of it this afternoon, before I ever picked up the phone, and nothing you say in the next five minutes changes that. What I want now is something else entirely, and I want you to hear the whole thing before you answer."

"Okay," he said slowly.

"I want you to submit to me. Tonight. Completely. You do what I tell you, when I tell you, and I take care of everything else. It's a fantasy I've held a long time and I have never had a man I trusted enough to hold it with. You're that man. If you say no, we pour a drink, we laugh about it, and you're still the only man in this business I trust. Nothing changes."

Conrad stared at her. The shop was quiet. A floor-length mirror showed him the whole scene, him on the stool, her standing there in the black blazer.

"You mean," he said, and had to start over. "You mean like, bedroom stuff. Control stuff."

"I mean exactly that. You'd be giving me the night, your body included, and I'd be giving you my full attention from the moment you say yes. Nobody has ever done that for me. Nobody has ever just followed my orders and trusted where they lead. I've watched you follow orders at dozens of events, Conrad, and you do it clean, no sulking, no showing off. That's rare."

"Kinda wild thing to ask a guy out of nowhere."

"It's not out of nowhere. I've been thinking about it for two years. The check just reminded me how much I trust you." She uncrossed her arms. "Ask me anything before you decide. Take your time."

He rubbed his jaw. "Why me? Really."

"Really. You keep your mouth shut, you do what you're told, and you don't scare easy. I've watched you handle drunks twice your size without raising your voice. I need a man who can take instruction without turning it into a fight."

"And what's in it for me?"

"You'll find out, if you say yes. I'm not promising you'll like everything. I'm promising you'll be taken care of."

He sat there a while. Three months of dreading this call, and the thing she wanted wasn't money at all. The thing she wanted was him, kneeling, and God help him, something in his gut turned over at the idea. Forty-four years old and no wife, no kids, nothing waiting at home but a TV dinner. Gratitude was in there somewhere, he couldn't pretend otherwise, but she'd taken the debt off the table before she asked, and what was left when he looked was curiosity, and want.

"If I say yes," he said, "I need a way out. A word or something."

"Good. That's exactly right and I'm glad you asked. The word is threshold. You say it, everything stops, no questions, no hard feelings, we're done right there. And if I ask you something and you want to answer plain, no word needed, you just talk to me."

"Threshold," he repeated.

"Threshold." She smiled a little, first time all evening. "Well?"

He let out a breath. "Yes. Okay. Yes, Gayle. Tonight I'm yours."

"Thank you." She said it simply, like it mattered, and he believed it did. "Then let's start. Stand up."

He stood.

"Jacket on the hook. Shoes and socks. Shirt. Trousers. Down to your boxers, then come stand on the padded mat by the alterations table."

He'd figured the words would be harder to obey than they were. His fingers went to the buttons almost before she finished talking. Jacket on the hook. Shoes. Shirt over his head, folded, set on the chair because his hands wanted something to do. Belt, trousers. He stood in his boxer briefs on the gray padded mat, arms at his sides, and the mirrors caught him from two directions and he caught himself in both.

"Warm in here?" she asked.

"Yeah. Kinda."

"Good. That's a good place to start." She walked a slow half circle around him, heels ticking on the wood, and he felt his skin prickle under her eyes. "Now kneel for me, Conrad. Right there in the middle of the mat. Knees together, hands on your thighs."

He knelt. The mat took his weight, and looking up at her from down there was a different country entirely. Fifty-one years old and she stood over him like she'd been born to it.

"There he is," she said. "Now we begin. Say threshold any time, any reason."

"Understood."

"First thing, then." She reached behind her and unzipped the blazer. "I want you to watch every piece come off, and I want you to keep those hands on your thighs the whole time. Can you do that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good boy," said Gayle Ferris, and began.

The blazer came off her shoulders slow. She hung it on the back of a chair, folded her white blouse over it, and stood there in a black camisole and slacks while he watched with his hands flat on his thighs. No rush anywhere in her. Fifteen years of bartending and he'd never seen a woman undress like it was part of a job, done at her own pace, because the pace was the point.

"Up," she said.

He stood. She came around behind him and laid both hands on his shoulders. Her palms were warm and dry, and she pressed down once, like she was testing a rack for level.

"Good shoulders. Fifteen years of hauling ice did this, I'd guess."

"Something like that."

Her hands walked down his arms, elbow to wrist, then back up. Across his back, both palms flat, tracing the shape of him like she was reading it. Over his ribs. Around front, up his chest, and she paused over his heart a second, feeling it go.

"Fast," she said.

"A little, yeah."

"Good. You're allowed to be nervous. Nervous and willing is fine. Only the word stops me." She worked her thumbs along his collarbone. "You keep yourself in shape, Conrad. Better than most men your age. I've thought about this chest more times than I should probably admit out loud."

"Admit it anyway."

"I just did." She laughed, low. Then she stepped back. "Wait here. Don't move."

She went to the back corner where a long trunk sat under a rack of gowns. She knelt in front of it, lifted the lid, and dug for a minute while he stood in the mirror and watched her silver hair bend over the box. When she turned around she had leather cuffs in one hand, black, with brass buckles, and a coil of soft rope.

"These," she said, holding them up. "Wrist cuffs. Padded. I've had them two years and they've never been on a man. You're the first thing they're for."

"That a fact."