"Elise," I said. "Thanks for letting us in."
"We'll seat ourselves at a booth," Lucent said. "I'll inform Miss Tanner of the early menu items. I assume it shall take us a few minutes to finalize our order. Thank you."
Sam laughed and locked the door behind us, then went off behind the deli counter. Lucent led(or somewhat dragged) me over to an isolated booth far in the corner. We sat opposite one another and I glared at him.
"You can't order for me," I said.
He rolled his eyes. "Difficult as always, Miss Tanner. As you wish. Do whatever you like."
"Also, I'll pay for myself."
"No."
"Lucent, I have money."
"I don't care if you have money. I invited you to breakfast, you accepted, and as such, I'm paying."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Fine. If that's the way it is, this is a date, then."
"This isn't a date, Miss Tanner. I'm reluctantly interviewing you for a position that doesn't exist."
"You know what?" I said, huffy. "Mrs. Landseer said she could probably find me a job somewhere else besides with you if I wanted. Just because you won't hire me for some asinine reason doesn't mean I'm going to leave."
"Mrs. Landseer is meddlesome. Alternatively, if we're rating asses, I'd recommend yours as a ten, not a nine, Miss Tanner."
I stared at him, blinked, and sputtered on any future words I might have wanted to say.
He grinned, nonchalant, being a cocky, arrogant jerk.
"You can't say things like that," I said once I managed to control my shock. "It's sexual harassment."
To be honest, I kind of hoped he sexually harassed me more. I had no idea where it came from or why he changed so suddenly, but I liked it.
"The breakfast menu is non-existent in physical form," Lucent informed me, no longer speaking about my body, nor rating it openly. "The mainstay includes sandwiches, in breakfast form, with eggs, maple syrup, pancakes, and an assortment of other standard morning meals. Essentially, you can order whatever you like, and Sam will concoct it for you. Alternatively, you may order food outside of a sandwich, too."
"A pancake sandwich?" I asked. "Really?"
"Yes. It's not actually a pancake, but it tastes similar. He separates a sub roll and then soaks it quickly in pancake batter and creates a pancake with the bread. I find it especially enjoyable combined with syrup as a spread, and chopped fruit inside. You'd like it."
"Look, Lucent," I said. "Listen. You can't go making random jokes about my ass, then explain some menu to me, then tell me I'd like a pancake sandwich. You just can't."
"Jokes?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.
"The asinine, ass is a nine thing."
"Miss Tanner," he said. "As someone who has intimate knowledge of your backside, I assure you I wasn't joking when I made my previous statement."
"You're so confusing," I said. "You scream at me and berate me yesterday, and now you're flirting with me. I really don't understand you."
"We share that sentiment. You confront me in my office about applying for a job as my personal assistant after I leave you voicemail messages explaining specifically in exact detail all of the horrible things I've done, and then you refuse to leave and end up starving yourself and falling asleep on my couch."
"You started it," I said. "You can't just leave like that. You need to say something."
"I did say something. I left you a voicemail message. I intended on leaving before you woke up, but I changed my mind."
"It's a good thing you changed your mind because otherwise I would have hated you," I said.
He frowned, sighing. "Apparently I should've changed my mind, then."
The booths inside of Sam's were small, packed tightly together so as to accommodate more customers. During normal hours, I assumed they stayed busy. It made sense since it was a popular place. Currently, I very much appreciated the smaller size of the booths, because it made it easy to reach across the table and slap Lucent in the face.
He stared at me afterwards, dumbstruck, with the vaguest red imprint of my hand across his cheek. I slapped him good, too. He'd taught me how to properly spank him during our nicer times together, and a cheek was a cheek, no matter where it was.
"You just slapped me," he said, confused.
"I did," I said. "Now move over. I'm going to sit next to you."
"What?"
I didn't give him more time to think or protest or do anything. Sliding away from my side of the booth, I slipped in next to him and scooted him over. We sat close, side by side, possibly companionable except that he kept staring at me with the most confounded, odd expression.
I smiled sweetly at him, my expression unable to hide the acerbic tone of my voice. "Don't ever say something like that to me again, Lucent."
Lucent frowned at me and narrowed his eyes. He frowned, and narrowed, and then he laughed.
Now it was my turn to look at him with an odd expression. "What?" I asked.
"You're so peculiar," he said. "I must say, out of anyone I've met, you're probably the most interesting. A poor submissive, and probably an impossible slave, but you definitely intrigue me, Miss Tanner."
Did he just say that? In here? In front of... well, it was just Sam. But Lucent didn't even try to hide it. I hissed at him. "Do you really think you should be saying things like that in here?"
"What?" he asked. "Oh. Ah, right. You wouldn't know, would you. My apologies."
"What?" There were a lot of "what"s being passed between us, apparently. Not unexpected considering we both apparently confused each other far beyond what I thought was normal.
"Aside from owning a popular delicatessen, Sam is also the owner of one of those 'BDSM thing' clubs, as you might say. It's connected to this building on the opposite side, partly hidden in an alleyway. It's not a secret, per se, but many don't know about it. I'm a regular patron and attend most Wednesday nights for dinner and to see the shows. For those who Sam takes a liking to, he offers them an open invitation to this deli for breakfast. That's how we were able to enter when he's usually closed, as you noted earlier."
"Oh," I said.
Lucent nodded. "Nothing I say will sound overly peculiarity to anyone who comes in," he said. "Nor will anything you say sound odd, either. Someone might get the wrong idea about you, though."
"Oh," I said again. "So you've brought me to a BDSM place?"
"It's nothing more than a restaurant," Lucent said.
"A BDSM restaurant," I added. This interested me.
"No one does anything even remotely related to BDSM inside of Sam's Delicatessen, I can assure you."
"Except talk about it while they're closed, you mean?"
"Talking about 'BDSM things' is hardly the same as performing them."
"Why don't you like me?" I asked.
And, honestly, as out of the blue as the question seemed, I realized this was the root of our problem. Why didn't Lucent like me? Nothing else really mattered. If we figured this out, everything would be good. I vaguely understood why he didn't. His tirade yesterday about me being a poor submissive, and then again, mentioning it more recently, but was that really it?
Did people start out being good submissives? Were they born into it? I didn't think so, or else I didn't know how. Except, if that was it, then I must not be one, right? If I should just know, but I didn't know, then I couldn't. I hoped that wasn't it, and I hoped there was more to it, but I worried there wasn't.
Lucent frowned at me. "I do like you," he said. "It's not a matter of liking you or not, though. The issue is far more complicated than that. I'm controlling, Miss Tanner. I nearly hurt you before, if you'll take a moment to remember. In the library, when you wanted to leave, I restrained you. I squeezed your wrist once and I held you with excessive force."
"I didn't mind," I said.
"Miss Tanner, please understand. Do you remember our first discussion about these things after we played cards? You said it was mean and abusive, and I stated it wasn't. For the most part, this is true, except, as you should be well aware, I can be mean and I can be abusive. I don't intend to be, but it happens. I never want it to, but I can't say it won't ever. Does that make sense?"
"You're scared of hurting me?" I asked.
"Yes," he said with a nod. "Exactly."
"It hurt when you left, though. It hurt to listen to your messages. It hurt when you wouldn't interview me, Lucent. All of those things hurt more than anything else you did."
"For now," he said. "Yes. What happens if it continues, though? What happens when I become more upset, or scared, or frightened and I severely injure you as opposed to minor, fleeting pain? Do you expect me to accept that you'll accept that? I can't. It's better for us to consider our time together for what it was and part ways."
"Did you really stalk me?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"For how long?"
"I've watched you for close to six months now, Miss Tanner. Perhaps a little longer, but for about that long."
"Stop lying to me," I said, frowning at him. "Tell me."
"Do you really want to know?" he asked. "I wish you'd be more worried and concerned. Do you realize how upsetting it is to know that you don't treat this seriously? That you think it's not frightening?"
I stared hard at him and scooted closer to him and tucked my chin on his shoulder.
He let out a groan of a sigh. "Six months, three weeks, and three days. Unfortunately I didn't keep track of the exact hours, but I first saw you exiting the library at nine-twenty-four in the evening. You dropped your purse on the sidewalk and a man walked by and turned to look at you. I worried he might attempt to mug you and steal your belongings, but he may have simply found you attractive. You entered your car approximately three minutes later, having bumbled around on the sidewak to pick up a couple of items that fell from your purse."
"Thanks," I said, grinning. "Was that so hard?"
"You're supposed to find this unsettling, not amusing, Miss Tanner."
"Do you know what, Lucent? Usually when someone finds someone else interesting, they strike up a conversation far earlier than almost seven months after seeing them. You could have just come into the library regularly and talked to me."
It seemed like such a bold and brazen thing to say, and I doubted I would've usually said it, but it seemed right. Lucent was odd and strange in his own way, and perhaps a little shy. Not a usual shy, but a different sort. Important-person shy. And dominating, controlling, obsessive and possessive, needy and passionate, strong, stubborn, beautifully handsome and erotically arousing. He was a lot of things, and he thought some of them were bad things, but I thought most of them weren't.
He rolled his eyes at me. "Regardless, we can't do this, Miss Tanner."
"We can't do what?" I asked.
"You should know what I mean by now," he said.
"I'd like if you clarified exactly what we can't do."