Debt Collection
"She paid for the wedding. The house. His wife's lifestyle. Now she's collecting on the debt—not in money, but in him. Weekly visits to her estate. Mandatory."
Caroline paid for everything.
The wedding—$200,000 at a vineyard in Napa. The house—a four-bedroom colonial in the best school district. The cars, the vacations, the lifestyle my wife grew up with and refuses to live without.
I knew marrying into money came with strings.
I didn't know the strings were attached to me.
She calls on a Thursday.
"Lunch tomorrow," she says. Not asks. Caroline never asks. "The estate. One o'clock."
"I have work—"
"You'll manage."
Click.
I stare at the phone. Three years of marriage, and I've never been summoned alone. Caroline tolerates me at family dinners, makes polite conversation at holidays, but she's never sought me out.
Something's wrong.
Or something's about to be.
Her estate is obscene.
Twelve acres, a main house bigger than most hotels, staff who appear and disappear like ghosts. I park in the circular drive and try to remember why I thought marrying Isabelle was a good idea.
Love, I remind myself. I did it for love.
Caroline meets me in the study.
She's sixty-two, widowed five years, and built like a woman who's never denied herself anything. Curvy in a way that suggests indulgence—full breasts, soft hips, a belly that speaks to long lunches and expensive wine. She wears silk like other women wear skin. Her hair is silver-blonde, her eyes ice blue, her smile a warning.
"Sit."
I sit.
She pours two glasses of scotch. Hands me one. Settles into the chair across from me, close enough that I can smell her perfume—something floral and expensive.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"You didn't say."
"No." She sips her scotch. "I didn't."
Silence. She lets it stretch. Power move.
"Isabelle's spending has become... problematic," she says finally. "The house renovations. The shopping. The lifestyle she insists on maintaining."
"I've tried to rein her in—"
"You've failed." No accusation. Just fact. "She's spent her trust fund. She's maxed the credit lines I guaranteed. She's dipping into accounts she shouldn't know exist."
My stomach drops. "How much?"
"Enough that I should cut her off." Caroline sets down her glass. "But I won't. Because I have a better idea."
"What kind of idea?"
She looks at me. Through me. That ice-blue gaze stripping away pretense.
"You."
I don't understand at first.
She explains it simply. Weekly visits. Every Friday. Three hours at her estate, during which I will do exactly what she says.
"In exchange, I continue funding your lifestyle. Your wife never knows how close she came to losing everything. And you—" Her smile sharpens. "—you learn to serve someone who actually appreciates it."
"You want me to—"
"I want you to belong to me." She says it like she's discussing stock portfolios. "One day a week. In exchange for everything else."
"That's prostitution."
"It's an arrangement." She stands. Crosses to me. Puts her hand on my cheek—soft, manicured, smelling of lotion. "Say no, and I cut Isabelle off by end of business. She'll divorce you within a month. You'll lose the house, the car, the life you've grown accustomed to."
"You'd do that to your own daughter?"
"I'd teach her consequences." Her hand slides to my jaw. Grips. "The question is whether you're smart enough to prevent that."
I should say no.
Should walk out, tell Isabelle everything, face the consequences together.
But I know Isabelle. I know how she'd react. I know I'd lose her—not to her mother's money, but to my inability to provide the life she expects.
"What would I have to do?"
Caroline smiles. Steps back. Unbuttons her blouse slowly.
"First? You'll learn your place."
She doesn't fuck me that first day.
She makes me watch. Makes me kneel at the foot of her bed while she touches herself—full breasts, soft belly, thick thighs spreading as her hand works between them.
"This is what I've been missing," she says. "A man who does as he's told. Gerald never did. And the men I've tried since—" She moans, fingers moving faster. "—they don't understand service."
"And I do?"
"You will." Her hips buck. She's close. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll live for Fridays."
She comes looking at me. Eyes locked on mine. Like she's claiming me with nothing but her gaze.
"Same time next week," she says afterward. "Don't be late."
Month One
Fridays become a ritual.
I arrive at one. She keeps me until four. What happens in between varies, but the dynamic doesn't: she commands, I obey.
Week two, I'm allowed to touch her. Massage her feet, her shoulders, her thighs. She comes from my hands alone.
Week three, my mouth. She tastes expensive—wine and perfume and something undeniably her.
Week four, she rides me for the first time. Slow, controlled, using my body like furniture. She comes three times. I'm not allowed to finish.
"Next week," she promises. "If you're good."
I'm good.
Month Two
She starts making demands outside Fridays.
Texts at odd hours. Photos she wants me to send. Calls where I describe what I'll do to her, what I want her to do to me.
"Isabelle doesn't know?" she asks one evening.
"No."
"Good." I can hear her smile through the phone. "Keep it that way."
Month Three
I realize I look forward to it.
The anticipation. The submission. The three hours where nothing matters except pleasing her.
Caroline is nothing like Isabelle. Where my wife is demanding, her mother is commanding. Where Isabelle takes, Caroline claims.
"You're getting attached," she observes one Friday. She's beneath me for once, letting me set the pace. "I can see it in your eyes."
"Is that bad?"
"It's expected." She pulls me deeper. "I'm very good at what I do."
"And what's that?"
"Making men mine." She arches, gasps, comes around me. "You've been mine since you said yes. You just didn't know it yet."
I know it now.
Year One
The arrangement continues.
Every Friday. Three hours. Sometimes more, if she wants. I've stopped pretending I'm doing this for Isabelle. I'm doing it because I need to.
"You love her," Caroline says one afternoon. We're in her bed, tangled together, both satisfied. "Still. Despite everything."
"She's my wife."
"She's a child." Caroline traces a finger down my chest. "I raised her to be that way. Gave her everything, taught her nothing. It's my greatest failure."
"Then why—"
"Why keep funding her?" She shrugs. "Because she's my daughter. Because I love her. Because—" A smile. "—because funding her keeps you coming back to me."
"You don't need the money for that anymore."
"No." She climbs on top of me. "But it started this. And I'm a sentimental woman."
She sinks down. Takes me inside. Starts to move.
"Same time next week?"
"Always," I say.
And I mean it.
For as long as she wants me.
Forever, if she'll have me.
She will.