THE SOLDIER

Kimberly puts her hands on her hips. At five foot ten and in six-inch heels, she towers over me. I’m barely over five feet, but as my agent likes to say, I make up for the size in talent and hard work. That’s the pitch, anyway. “How long is this thing going to keep going?” she demands, and I bristle.

I’m usually the peace-maker around here. The one who makes sure everyone’s getting along, and there’s enough ice cream in the fridge when we all get our periods in the same week and are at each other’s throats.

“How long is my relationship going to keep going?”

She turns away, like she doesn’t want to show me the scorn on her face. “Right. Of course, you don’t know.” Her voice has softened. She pities me.

Now I’m really pissed.

“Kayla, we’re just worried about you,” she says in the new, soft tone, turning back to face me with big, sympathetic eyes.

“We?”

“Yeah, we,” Ashley says from behind me. She’s dressed in a matching outfit, only she’s cut the t-shirt up so it shows more skin. “We’re just concerned. I mean, I get you want to explore your fantasies, and this guy does that for you, but it seems like it’s consuming you.”

My chest and eyes get hot. I rewrap the towel around me to try to garner my thoughts.

Sheri, my third roommate, shows up in the kitchen wearing a similar kind, sympathetic expression. Jeez, it’s like a goddamn intervention.

“You, too?” I demand.

She shrugs. “I’m not judging-I mean, I’m the queen of bad relationships.”

Understatement. Sheri has a knack for finding guys who took off their wedding rings to get her in bed. Cheaters seem to look at her and know she’d be the perfect diversion.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“Who said this was a bad relationship?” My voice sounds shrill to my ears.

“You’re seeing a guy who gets off on hurting you. I get that it’s consensual, but it does raise some major red flags, don’t you think?” Kimberly doesn’t hold back.

“No. Why?”

“Well, is it just sex? I mean, what is it?” Ashley pulls out a chair and plops down at the kitchen table like we’re going to sit and talk about this.

Oh, hell no.

“It just seems like you’re investing a lot of your time into something that isn’t going anywhere,” Sheri agrees, also taking a seat.

“Right. I thought it was going to be over at the end of your free month at Black Light,” Kimberly says.

“Well, it wasn’t,” I say with false cheer. “It is going somewhere.” I shrug my shoulders, catching my towel when the action dislodges it, and sail from the kitchen to my room. I’m an actress, faking it is my game, not that they won’t see through it. You can’t live and work with three best friends without them knowing you inside and out.

Our relationship is deepening, but if he’s moving back to Moscow, I’m setting myself up for a heartbreak.

Sheri follows me into my bedroom and sits on the bed. I drop the towel and pull on a pair of panties because we aren’t shy around here.

“I’m sorry,” Sheri says. “That wasn’t supposed to feel like an ambush. Did it?”

“Kind of.” I stand in my closet, pulling out possible outfits for the audition.

“I’m just wondering… like, where do you want things to go with this guy?”

I throw a half-dozen choices of clothing on my bed and sigh, pretending to consider them, but really considering the question. “I want him,” I admit. “I want what Sasha has.”

Our former roommate, Sasha’s father ran the Russian mafia before he died last fall. In some medieval and backwards move, he arranged a marriage for Sasha to Maxim, one of his bratva men who lives in Chicago. We first met him when she ran away from her new husband and went out on the town with us.

I sort of got the bug for a dominant, powerful Russian man like him in my life. When she introduced me to Pavel later, I wanted him the moment I met him. The fact that he didn’t want me just made him all the more appealing.

“Well, Maxim is hot. But is that what Pavel wants? I mean, you guys don’t even live in the same city. Where is this thing going?”

She’s right. It can’t go much further. And yet it feels like it will.

“I just wonder how much of this is fantasy and how much is real,” Sheri says.

I want to flip my wet hair and say something glib and confident, but Sheri’s sifting through my shirts, helping me to pick the right one. She’s being a friend, and friends are honest with one another. Which means I have to be honest with myself.

“Me too,” I admit. I take one of the blouses she holds out to me and put it on, turning in a circle for her to see the full effect. “But I’m starting to get to know him-beyond just the master-dom role. I don’t know-I really like this guy.”

Sheri surveys me then shakes her head, wordlessly handing me a different top.

“The problem is more that I don’t think he can move here, and I’m not leaving L. A. So it can’t go anywhere.”

“Right. That’s my concern for you, too. It seems like you’re already in deep with this guy. You’re giving up all your work shifts to see him, and there’s no potential for a future. Also, you’re sad every Monday when the weekend is over. We hate seeing you that way.”

I hate that she’s right.

“I mean if you love the kinky sex, go for it. But do you have to see him every weekend? It seems a little intense. What if you just saw him once a month or something?”

It makes perfect sense. I do miss working the promotions with my friends. I’m not exercising as much as I should because I skip all weekend, and I’ve lost focus on my career. Pavel has become my focus.