Free Coda by Liza Gaines Page B

my
breasts off to their best advantage.
    Todd will enjoy the view. I’ve assumed his
favorite pose of submission, my bottom resting on my heels, my
palms flat on my thighs, and my head bowed. I’m careful to keep my
long black hair over one shoulder so my body isn’t obscured behind
a curtain of it. He likes to touch my hair, but he’d rather look at
my body.
    “Get up, come on in the bathroom with me.”
Todd sounds amused. Sort of smug, actually, which means I’m
probably not going to like whatever he has planned. He’s always
been creative and takes it as a personal challenge to push my
boundaries.
    His condo is older and small, so while it
does have a master bathroom it’s not very large. I’m a little
squished against the vanity once we’re standing there together.
Todd tosses a quart-sized Ziploc bag and a paring knife on the
counter next to the sink and looks at me expectantly.
    It doesn’t take much guesswork to figure out
what he intends and he’s overly optimistic if he expects a little
ginger to send me running from the room. We’d done it before and,
while it isn’t my favorite thing, it doesn’t warrant the wicked
glint he has in his eyes now.
    “I’m going to jump in the shower.” Todd
points to the paring knife as he adds, “You get the ginger
ready.”
    I nod, uncertain. It’s the only response I
can manage and the only one he’d accept, anyway. I’ve never
prepared ginger for figging before and it’s a bit of a fine art.
Peeling it is easy enough, but you also have to carve a notch in
it. That’s the part that makes me nervous. If I carve the notch too
deep, it could become fragile and break. If it isn’t deep enough,
it won’t hold the ginger in place. Either scenario is not good and
I start to freak out a little, my palms sweating and my heart
racing. He wants me to do this?
    “You’ll be fine.” Todd takes a step away from
me, which isn’t very far in the confines of the close room, and
tugs the blood stained T-shirt over his head. I gape at him
because, well, he’s got a damn fine body and watching him undress
is a hell of a lot easier than tackling the chore he’s just
assigned. Todd’s a retired Army Ranger, though from the looks of
him, you’d never guess he isn’t active duty. He keeps his brown
hair buzz cut and his body in peak shape, always ready for action.
Head to toe, he’s a military stereotype. Until he looks you in the
eye, anyway. His warm, chocolate brown eyes belie the softy hiding
under the hardass image he works so hard to maintain. But I don’t
have time to contemplate that now because he turns his back to me,
reaching into the shower to turn the nozzle on and adjust the
temperature, and says, “Now, get busy. I don’t plan to be in here
long and you’d better be finished when I am.”
    With a deep, bracing breath I remove the
ginger from the bag and turn it over. A big piece like this is
called a hand of ginger and each of the protrusions a finger.
Concentrating on choosing the right one, and doing my level best to
ignore the sight of Todd in my peripheral vision as he finishes
undressing, is doing a fairly decent job of distracting me from my
worry about messing this up.
    I pick the largest finger. I know you want a
good-sized piece and if I start with the largest one it gives me
more room for error. I pick up the knife, my hand trembling a
little, and with one decisive cut sever it from the larger root. I
turn the water in the sink on cold, give it a good rinse, then
start peeling. Ginger is tough, woody almost, and it’s hard to
leave a nice, smooth surface when peeling it. I keep rinsing it
under the running water, almost obsessively, after every two or
three cuts and carefully feeling it to look for uneven spots.
    I’m not doing so well distracting myself now
because all I can think about while I work is that I am getting the
ginger ready for him to use on me. I had so underestimated him.
Preparing the instrument of my own torture was