Aching to Submit Read Free

the farthest she’d come and to leave now would be more than a little humiliating.
    “ Goedenavond ,” she said to the girl at the desk who, just like the one at the coat check, looked her over from head to toe. Sophie smoothed her dress over her belly, noticing how her hands trembled, how her heart thudded against her chest. She’d worn a knee-length, sleeveless black dress with a plunging back along with high-heeled black boots that came to just above her knees. She wore no stockings and she’d piled her long dark hair on top of her head to accentuate the length of her slender neck and show off the curves of her naked back, her alabaster skin a stark contrast to the black of her dress. She stood a good 5′5″ in her heels, but compared to the average Dutch woman, she wasn’t tall.
    The girl said something and she had to ask her to repeat herself. If she paid attention, she could understand a lot of the time, but it was still work.
    The girl repeated her question, which Sophie translated to whether or not she’d been here before and if she had a membership.
    “No, it’s my first time,” she answered in English, both embarrassed she couldn’t carry on in Dutch and hoping the girl would continue in English. Most of the people she’d met here did speak English fluently or almost so. The feeling she got from this girl, however, was that she perhaps didn’t want to as she carried on in Dutch, asking for her identification.
    She handed her driver’s license over, assuming she was checking for age, but when she began to enter the information into her computer, Sophie panicked. She hadn’t expected this. She just wanted to pay the admission price and walk inside undetected, slip into the shadows, and simply observe.
    “Do you have to take my information? Can’t I just pay and go inside?” she asked.
    “You can’t enter if you’re not a member,” the girl said in perfect, unfriendly English, never once taking her eyes off the keyboard as she continued to enter information. Sophie didn’t know what to do, but before she could do anything, the girl handed her license back and told her the amount. She put her license back inside her wallet and withdrew the funds, but the girl shook he head.
    “Pin only,” she said.
    The Dutch had a banking system where people used a pin card—essentially a debit card—for almost everything. Some stores didn’t even take cash, but Sophie had not thought about that for this place. It hadn’t even occurred to her. If she used the pin card, Michael would see where she’d been on their bank statement. There was no way he’d miss it.
    “I don’t have a pin card yet. I’m new here and don’t have my BSN.” A BSN was the equivalent of a social security number. You needed that to do anything and as she said it, she realized the girl would know she was lying. She wouldn’t have been able to get her driver’s license without the BSN.
    “You know what, I’m just going to go,” she said, flustered, at a loss for what to do.
    The door behind the desk opened and a man stepped through. He looked at Sophie and she imagined her expression gave her away. “Is there a problem, Afke?” he asked the girl at the desk in English, breaking eye contact with Sophie.
    The girl answered in Dutch, but it was too fast for Sophie to pick it up. The man said something back, looked at the screen, and turned to Sophie.
    “American?” he asked, coming around the desk.
    She nodded, unable to speak. He stood just inches from her and extended his hand.
    “I’m Kyan van de Brink. I own the club,” he said.
    She took his hand. It was large and warm in contrast to hers, which was clammy now from what had just happened. In fact, she could feel sweat under her arms and her face was flushed. She wondered what she looked like to him, feeling like a fool, an inexperienced, naïve fool.
    “I’m Sophie,” she offered, leaving her last name out.
    He accepted that and shook her hand once. “Welcome to