Daddy's First Lesson novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Six Saturdays

Abram sets his rules, Joss says what she wants out loud for the first time, and kneels. Lise will be watching from the bar.

Inside, the old print shop smelled of leather and warm wood.

The presses were still bolted to the floor along one wall, black and enormous, and the lights were low and amber.

Beyond them were leather chairs, a long bar, and a room with a curtain across it.

Lise stood behind the bar with a rag in her hand.

She had changed out of the gallery vest, and she lifted her chin at me and went back to polishing a glass.

"Coat," Abram said.

I gave it to him, and he hung it on a hook without looking at it.

He put my three drawings on the bar and stood in front of me.

"First rule," he said. "Everything in this room is a yes, or it's nothing. If you say stop, it stops. Not wait. Not sorry. Stop."

"Okay."

"Say it."

"Stop," I said. "It stops."

"Good."

That one word went straight down my spine, and I hated how badly I wanted another.

"You came here because a man called you cold in front of a crowd," Abram said. "That's not a reason to stay. So tell me a true thing you want, and I'll answer one question."

My mouth was dry.

I had drawn the answer for a year, and never once said it out loud.

"I want to stop apologizing," I said.

"That's one."

"I want someone to hold my wrists and not let go until I stop saying sorry."

His eyes did not move off my face.

"Ask," he said.

"How do you know Sheldon?"

"He was here once. Our paths crossed."

I stared at him.

"Sheldon came to a place like this?"

"That's a second question," Abram said. "Another want first."

The floor tilted under me.

Three years, and Sheldon had never touched me with anything but the lights off.

He had told me I was too gentle for him.

He had been coming to a place like this.

"I want to kneel," I said, and my voice cracked on the last word. "I want to kneel and be told I did it right."

Abram took a step toward me.

He put two fingers under my chin and lifted my face, and his thumb rested on my bottom lip.

I forgot how to breathe.

"Rules," he said quietly. "Six Saturdays. You come, you learn, and on the seventh you decide whether you ever come back. I don't touch you outside these walls. I don't take anyone else while you're my student. You don't have to call me anything yet."

"Why only six?"

"Because six is enough to find out if you're telling the truth."

His thumb dragged across my lip once and fell away.

My whole mouth felt like it was burning.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes," I said. "It's a yes."

"Then take your shoes off and kneel there."

He pointed to the floor beside a leather chair.

I looked at it, and then at the bar, where Lise was watching me over the rim of her glass.

She didn't look away, and she didn't smile, but she nodded once.

I took off my shoes.

The wooden floor was cold through my tights.

I knelt on the rug beside his chair, and my knees complained, and my heart was going so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

He sat down and didn't say anything.

I waited for him to tell me I looked ridiculous.

I waited for the lights to come on and for someone to laugh.

Instead his hand came down on top of my head, large and warm, and stayed there.

"Breathe out," he said.

I did.

His fingers moved slowly through my hair, from my forehead back to my neck, and all the tight places in my shoulders came loose at once.

"You're doing it right," he said.

I made a sound I didn't know I could make.

"Again," he said. "Say what you want."

"I want to be told I did it right."

"You did it right, Joss."

My thighs pressed together on the rug, and I knew he could see it.

His hand slid down to the back of my neck and held me there, not hard, just certain.

"Don't hide your face," he said. "Look at me."

I looked up.

His eyes were dark and steady, and he was not laughing at all.

"Next Saturday," he said, "I'll take the blindfold out of that drawer. Tonight you go home and sleep. Text me when you're inside."

"That's all?"

"For the first night, that's all."

He helped me up by the wrists.

His thumbs lay over my pulse, and he held me there for a moment longer than he needed to, long enough for both of us to know it.

He let go.

I put on my shoes and my coat, and he gave me back my three drawings.

At the door, Lise stepped out from behind the bar.

She said it quietly, so he wouldn't hear.

"Don't let him tell you this is only teaching."

I turned to ask what she meant, but Abram was already looking at us from across the room, and she went back to her glasses.

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