Excerpt of I Command You by Megan Ziese

Chapter One

YOUR DESIRES WILL EITHER SET YOU FREE OR CONSUME YOU.

Sherry mulled over the cryptic sentence on the card one last time before she got ready to leave the office for the day. She traced the outline of it with her fingers, letting them linger over the printed words. It was a simple card, discreet in nature. At first glance it appeared to be just like the hundred other off-white ordinary business cards she had accumulated over the years in her personal organizer, except there was one integral difference. This card had absolutely nothing to do with work and, in fact, gave her insider access to a society she had never known existed, let alone heard of, until today.

If the circumstances of her life had been different, she might never have known of its existence at all. She might never have discovered that deep within her hometown of Atlanta, and other large cities like it, there were dark and mysterious activities underground, that beneath the hum-drum bustle exterior there thrived an entirely different nightlife from the one that most citizens enjoyed.

An anticipatory wave of gooseflesh snaked down Sherry’s back beneath the cream colored silk blouse of her tailored suit as she cautiously slipped the non-assuming card into a small pocket in her purse. She snapped the purse closed and swallowed past a nervous knot that had suddenly formed in her now dry throat, biting her lower lip subconsciously. As the full implications of what the card represented struck her, she felt her stomach swim, but she couldn’t quite convince herself that it was naïve innocence that was the culprit.

When her best and only friend Beth had relived her most recent exhilarating conquest on their lunch break earlier, Sherry had simply sat down and politely put on her most sincere listening face. In all actuality, she had been internalizing her feelings. She didn’t mean to half-heartedly pay attention, but that was all she had to offer at the time being. She was happy that her dear friend was not the least bit troubled with inhibitions and was enjoying life. Beth was truly a good person and well-deserving of happiness wherever she found it. But a small part of her couldn’t help envying the wild abandon her friend showed when it came to her love life. Sure there was quite a difference in age between the two of them, but even when she had been Beth’s age, she had never shown such boldness in the pursuit of her own sexual gratification. She had always been too focused on making the grade, getting ahead at college until graduation, and then she had always been trying to get ahead at work, always a breath away from that big promotion they had been stringing her along with for years.

When it came right down to it, though, Sherry couldn’t lay the blame for her own unrest anywhere but at her own feet. She had let this happen, in fact, encouraged it. No one made her work weekends or told her not to date. She had just let her unrelenting desire for excellence in her career set her adrift in a vast sea of loneliness. And, until yesterday, her thirty-fifth birthday, it had all gone on seemingly unnoticed. She was afraid to admit that she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had sex. That one thought brought all the emotional turmoil of her birthday back with a vengeance. She swallowed hard past a lump of emotion that suddenly made it difficult to breathe.

Dutifully taking one more look around her office to make sure that everything was ready for work on Monday, Sherry felt satisfied that she had not neglected any tasks and turned off the monitor on her computer before pushing in her keyboard at her desk and getting up to leave.

After today, she would forever look at her computer in a wholly different light. She had never used it for anything except for work, had never even thought about using it for personal reasons . . . until now. But that was the thing about catalysts . . . they made shit happen. She had emailed her profile, including all of her important personal and medical information that Beth had informed her was necessary to process her ‘membership’, to the email address typed in small letters on the back of the card. In only a few hours she had received a response. It was unlike anything she could have anticipated. She felt her cheeks blush and a tingling warmth creep through her sex as she recalled the details of the email she had received.

Sherry. I command you to meet me at the diner on the corner of 4th and Main. Wear only an ankle-length coat and nothing else. Sit at booth three at 7:00 and wait for me.

Sherry picked up the pace as she made her way to her small car in the company parking garage. She would have to hurry home to get freshened up and to be able to get there before 7:00. She smiled as she thought about how her supervisor would be thoroughly surprised not to see her working diligently this weekend, but she had put in her dues. She deserved to have a little fun, if for only one night.

After battling rush hour traffic for an hour, Sherry parked in front of her small apartment and quickly went in. She had less than two hours to get ready. That sounded like a lot of time at first, but as the time drew closer to her rendezvous, and she became more and more anxious, the less she got accomplished. She did, however, manage get in a great shower, making sure to shave everything bald. That alone had her feeling like an entirely different person.

When she finally exited the shower and made her way into her bedroom to towel off, she heard the pitter-patter of rain on her window. She listened to the soothing sound as it ensued. She had always loved the rain. There was something very comforting about it. She supposed that it was something that had been passed down because her mother had confessed of a similar affection for the element and her grandfather before her. It stood to reason that she would feel such a connection to it.

Of course, today it was rather convenient as well. She wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb in her long rain coat at the diner if other people were bundled up against the weather. She wondered briefly if the man who had emailed her had known about the possibility of rain. Could he have planned their rendezvous around it? She didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts as she pulled her light tan raincoat from her closet and pushed her arms into it, noticing that the large red digital numbers on her clock read 6:40. She would have to leave to make it by 7:00. Feeling that warm tingling of anticipation thrum through her core again now that the time to go through with this plan was so near, she made haste to her front door, taking one last look in the mirror by her door before grabbing her keys off of the key ring and heading for the car.

Fifteen minutes later, Sherry had managed to not break any speed limits or her neck as she reached the parking lot of Bingham’s Diner. She took a moment to steady herself, holding the steering wheel with both hands as she took a few deep calming breaths. “You can do this,” she assured herself. She closed her eyes, trying to will her heart beat to slow down. She didn’t want to make a complete fool of herself. She was a grown woman for god’s sake. She could handle a fling. If men could do it and not blink an eye, she could do it. There was nothing to it. Both parties were consenting, no strings attached. What was there to worry about? She licked her lips and bit her lower lip, trying to see through the rain into the diner. There weren’t a whole lot of cars, and there were less people inside. She supposed that was a good thing. Less people to watch her make a complete ass of herself while she tried to talk to someone she didn’t know who she planned to have sex with. Her stomach flip-flopped again at that thought, but the only thing she could do to get over the feeling was go through with it or leave, and she damn sure wasn’t going to leave. She wasn’t a quitter. She had set out to do something, and she was damn well going to finish it, despite the fact that she was on entirely new ground here.

And fighting panic because the unknown was almost as scary as it was exciting!

She took the keys out of the ignition and pulled the hood of her raincoat around her straight blonde hair, making sure as much of it was tucked inside as possible. She checked the buttons of her coat, hoping to god none of them came undone as she tried to dash inside. She looked nervously down at her lap, at the last button which only came to her hip, but she felt certain that there was enough material that it wouldn’t gape as she ran and expose her. Opening her car door, she jumped out and slammed the door, making a quick walk to the door of the diner only a few feet away.

Sherry jumped as the bell at the top of the door announced her arrival.