Her First Time, Their Power Game novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The List
Elise puts her sealed list on the card table and asks the four men to teach her; Dominique kisses her and slides his key across the felt.
The day after I turned eighteen, I walked into the back room of the wine bar where I worked, at midnight, and put an envelope on the card table.
The four of them looked up from their hands.
Those four friends had played cards in that room every Thursday for thirty years.
I had poured their wine since June, and all four were fifty.
Nobody interrupted their game. I had never once seen anyone try.
"Elise," said the biggest one. He owned the bar, and he was my boss. "The bar is closed. Go home, chérie."
"I'm not done working," I said. "Please read this."
My voice came out steadier than I felt.
I had practiced it in the mirror for three months.
The one who never smiled picked up the envelope first.
He had a cold stare, a grey beard and a dark coat he never took off.
Auguste turned the envelope over, saw nothing written on it, and slit it open with a thumbnail.
Inside were four sheets of paper, folded in thirds.
He read the first one alone.
He took his time, and nobody in the room made a sound.
Then he passed it to Armand, who read it slowly, with his lips pressed together.
Armand was the doctor, a man with precise hands, and he passed it to Léon without a word.
Léon, the bar's owner, read it, put his glass down, and looked at me for a long moment.
Dominique got it last.
He was the notary, tall and bearded, with a low voice and a way of looking at you that made you want to stand up straighter.
He read the page twice.
"This is a joke," Armand said.
"It isn't."
"You're eighteen."
"I turned eighteen yesterday," I said. "I have my card. Do you want to see it?"
I took my identity card out of my apron pocket and laid it in the middle of the table.
Nobody picked it up.
"I am a virgin," I said. "I've never been touched by anyone. I know exactly what I want, and I wrote it all down so I wouldn't lose my nerve."
My face was burning, but I kept my eyes on theirs.
"I want you four to teach me. All of you, one at a time. I want to be told what to do, and I want to be made to do it."
"Elise," Dominique said.
"Page two is what I want you to call me. Page three is the things I want done to me. I'm not asking you to guess."
Auguste laid the sheets flat on the felt with two fingers.
"You wrote that you want to be hit."
"Yes."
"You wrote that you want to be called a whore."
"Yes."
"You wrote that you want a man to take you by force." His voice didn't change. "While you fight him."
"And that I'm agreeing to it," I said. "Read the next line. I say no. I fight. That is the game. If I really want it to stop, I slap my hand on anything three times, and you all stop. Everyone."
The back room was very quiet.
I could hear the fridge humming in the bar next door.
"Page four has my rules," I said. "I pick the order. I pick the days. Nothing happens that I haven't written down or asked for in my own voice. No marks above my collar, because I have to work. And none of you keeps secrets from the others. You're friends. You'll know everything."
Armand laughed once, short, and shook his head.
"You've thought of everything."
"I've thought about it for a year."
"Why us?"
"Because you're the only men I trust who aren't boys," I said.
That was the truth. I had watched them every Thursday since June.
I knew how each of them looked at a waiter, at a bill, at a woman who walked past the window.
I knew none of them looked at me.
I wanted that to change tonight.
Léon cleared his throat. He was big, with thick forearms and a warm voice that had never raised itself at me.
"And if we say no?"
"Then I'll take my list to someone I don't know," I said. "And I'd rather it was you."
Nobody moved.
Then Auguste pushed his chair back and stood.
He walked around the table slowly and stopped in front of me, so close I had to tip my head back.
He was a head taller than me.
He smelled of cold air and tobacco.
"Turn around," he said.
My heart was going so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
I turned around.
He put one hand flat between my shoulder blades and pushed.
I went forward until my hands hit the edge of the card table, bent over it, my apron riding up.
"Stay," he said.
I stayed.
His palm came down on my ass, once, through my skirt.
It wasn't hard. It was a test.
The sound cracked through the quiet room, and heat spread under the cloth.
I gasped.
I did not move.
"She stayed," Auguste said over my back.
"She asked for it," Armand said, and his voice was rougher than before.
I turned my head and saw him staring at my ass, which he had never done in three months.
"Elise," Dominique said. "Come here."
Auguste stepped away without argument.
I straightened, tugged my skirt down, and walked around the table to Dominique's chair.
He didn't stand.
He took my wrist and turned my hand over, and he pressed his thumb into the center of my palm.
"You're shaking."
"Yes."
"Is it fear?"
"No," I said. "It's wanting."
He looked up at me for a long second, and something in his face changed.
He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me down.
He kissed me.
It was my first kiss, and it was slow and deep, his beard rough on my chin, his tongue moving into my mouth and taking its time.
My knees went.
His other hand slid up the back of my thigh under my skirt and gripped the bare skin there, hard enough to leave a mark.
I moaned into his mouth.
I heard it, and I heard Léon let out a breath, and I heard Armand's chair creak.
Dominique pulled back an inch.
"Louder than that, when I'm finished," he said.
I couldn't speak.
He let go of my neck, and my whole body leaned after him.
Behind me, Armand said quietly, "God help us."
"Yes," Léon said. "I think we're doing this."
Dominique reached into his jacket and took out a key.
He laid it on the felt in front of me.
"Saturday," he said. "Nine o'clock. Quai Saint-Vincent, the top floor. I'll write the number."
"Yes."
"Wear your coat. Nothing under it."
I picked up the key.
It was warm from his pocket.
I tucked it into my apron next to the small black notebook I wrote in at the end of every shift.
I wrote one line in it right there, with all four of them watching, and I didn't let anyone see the page.
"What did you write?" Auguste asked.
"My first note," I said.
Then I walked out, and I did not look back, because if I had, I would have taken my clothes off in the middle of the room.
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