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“I’m concentrating.” I fold my hands and consider the board. Nothing’s viable.

Normally, my mother and I are equal opponents in a game of chess. She’s the one who taught me when I was a kid. I can still remember that summer before fourth grade when she was stuck in the house with a broken ankle. Most women with servants to keep a home clean and the family fed would spend their time reading, watching TV, or surfing the internet. Not my mother. She pulled me into the study and enthralled me with chess until I could beat her.

Today? I’m shit. My mind is way too preoccupied.

You know with what.

It’s been two days since I committed one of the biggest sexual faux pas known to man. There I was, deep in a gorgeous woman. Not any gorgeous woman. A hot actress that any person would kill to be connected with. And what did I do? Call her the wrong name when I came.

Suffice to say, Stephanie was not impressed. I haven’t heard from her since.

“Even for chess, you’re awfully quiet.” My mother taps her finger against her cheek while she waits for me to move. She’s not that much older than me, it feels like. Only twenty years. My mother and father were a classic story of a rich man screwing one of his secretaries until she stopped having her period. Nobody but my mother will openly admit to it being a shotgun wedding. Telling the world that I was born two months prematurely is better.

Don’t hold it against my mother, though. She’s smart and capable. Not only did she teach me chess, but she taught me almost everything I know. She taught me how to read, do basic math, and even how to change a tire and check oil – not that I ever do those things. She stayed married to my father for a whole twenty years. The length of time stipulated in the prenup said she would be viable for half of my father’s fortunes in a divorce. The man knew it was coming. Said he owed her that much for putting up with his ass for twenty years.

So now my mother is filthy rich. Most would have taken the money and ran, but after the divorce, she stayed with my father’s company as a key investor. She’s almost as rich as him now.

“Let me guess… girl problems?”

Lots of people are used to hearing their mothers say that. Except most people don’t have Carolyn Graham-Mathison for a mother. She doesn’t make a statement like that lightly. Not unless she’s sure what’s going on.

“I said I’m concentrating.” I’m always so full of shit around her. “I know how good you are at this game.”

“And I know how good you are. Your terrible playing speaks volumes right now.”

Not only does she end up taking my knight, but she’s got my king trapped in two different places. I’ve got one out, but she was probably banking on me being so scatterbrained today that I would never notice.

“You going to tell me what’s going on or not?”

I sigh. When my mother bites into something, she never lets go. Stubborn like that. Some would say I get it from her. “You’re absolutely convinced that a woman is involved…”

She looks at me with neither exasperation nor disbelief. “It’s you, dear. Anything you don’t tell me I’ll find out from the papers. Can you blame me for rather hearing it from your lips? And the truth, at that?”

I have to come up with something to placate her. So I tell her about Friday’s meeting. My mother is tangentially involved in The Ace project. Putting up some of the funds we’re using to buy the property and do the renovations. Oh, and she recommended that design firm we’re working with.

“That’s highly unlike Kathleen.” My mother studies the board, but I can tell she’s thinking about something else. “Or any of the Allens. They’re usually on top of things.” She shrugs. “I’m sure it was a fluke. Things will go swimmingly from here.”

My mother picks up her queen and decimates a pawn. A quick glance at the board tells me that she’s also set herself up to take another one. “You’re not the one who has to work with her,” I mumble.

“Hmm?” Those thin lips clad in thick, red lipstick intimidate me sometimes. My mother is the only woman who can legitimately make me shake in my boots. Probably because she’s the only one who knows me so damn well. “Do you have a problem with Kathleen? I wasn’t under the impression you two knew each other well.”

“We both went to Winslow Academy.”

“You’re older than her.”

“We know each other well enough.”

“Well enough to have a problem?”

My mother is treading dangerous waters. I can hear the end of that sentence right now. “You don’t usually have a problem with people. What did you do to Kathleen?”

I’m not sure how to tell my mom what’s “going on” with Kathleen. How we got to second base as teenagers before Carolyn’s golden child desecrated the table setting before sampling the main course. Or how I hooked up with a starlet two nights ago and called out Kathleen’s name when I was my most vulnerable.

“She brings out a side of me I’m not keen on.” The kind that majorly fucks up. Especially with her.

“You two butt heads because she’s a take-charge kind of woman. Like you. Well, you know what I mean…"

“I suppose you could say that.” Surely, that’s one way to put it. As long as she’s been in the kink scene, I’ve known about it. Dommes are public, no matter how much they try to keep it private… and Kathleen doesn’t keep it private. She’s very open in those clubs when she’s got someone by a leash and the genitals. Hey, it doesn’t bother me any. The world needs more femmes in that role. I just, you know, have no particular interest in other Dommes.