Just One Night, Part 2: Exposed (12 page)

CHAPTER
14

T
HE SPELL FADES
slowly over the following days. It stays with me in low degrees as I extricate Dave’s life from mine. I put his things in boxes, making sure everything is neat and well folded. I leave it near the foyer but not in it. I don’t want it to look like I’m pushing him out the door. He can take those steps himself. I pull the pictures of us out of frames and put them into photo albums that will be stored in the back of a closet with the old yearbooks and neglected skeletons.

But my mind’s not fully engaged in the tasks. This was supposed to be a weekend for good-byes, the last nights for reminiscing, nights to indulge light tears and heavy thoughts.

But the last few nights haven’t been those things, and that bothers me. What bothers me even more is that I’ve worn Robert’s shirt each night. As soon as Los Angeles turns away from the sun, I slip it on. It’s Sunday night and I’m wearing it now. Why is that? Robert’s not calling to check up on me. He hasn’t even sent me a text. Did he ever really expect me to put it on in the first place?

Yes . . . yes, of course he did. And he knows I’m wearing it now. That’s why he hasn’t called or texted. He doesn’t have to.

So as I move from room to room in my lover’s shirt, Dave, the man I’ve spent the last six years with, disappears. Like a minor earthquake that briefly wakes you up at five in the morning. You know you felt something but you can’t quite figure out what that something was, or if it was real.

I don’t think I want to know what that says about me.

I eat a light meal, try to distract myself with a little TV, open that overpriced bottle of Merlot, and try to become accustomed to the scent of Robert’s cologne.

It’s almost ten when my phone rings. Something tells me that it’s not Robert even before I look at the screen. But I am surprised when I see Tom Love’s name.

Ten o’clock on a Sunday night is not an appropriate time for him to call. My eyes scan the room as if looking for a weapon that will reach through a phone line. It’s not until the last ring that I finally pick up.

“What,” I say in lieu of hello. Really, considering how angry I am with him, it could have been a lot worse.

“Relax.” Tom’s voice holds the air of bemusement but I don’t sense the smugness he had on Friday. “I’m calling to apologize.”

“I should have you fired for sexual harassment.”

“Probably. Look, I don’t always phrase things right. Ambition keeps me moving forward but it can also addle my brain. I get so focused on what’s to come, I don’t think about what I’m saying in the moment.”

I shift slightly in my seat, hold my tongue, wait for him to get to the point. I’ve worked with Tom long enough to know that if he’s apologizing, there’s something in it for him.

“It was wrong of me to ask you to continue your affair with Mr. Dade for the sake of the firm and it was ridiculous for me to suggest that you should do it for my sake. I know I could never pressure you into sleeping with someone you don’t want to sleep with, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

Again a rueful laugh. “I guess I deserve that. But I am sorry for the way I spoke to you. That kind of talk is only appropriate in locker rooms and strip clubs; I should know, I’ve apparently spent enough time in both.”

I sigh and pick up the remote, slowly scrolling through the news stations, watching with mild interest as they deftly interweave tragedy with entertainment. People die in the Middle East and a European prince wants to introduce an American-style Halloween celebration to the royal family. A man in New York kills his wife and children and Kim Kardashian gets another $600,000 appearance fee. The anchors slip from one story to the next with barely a pause, their smiles and frowns flickering off and on with the rapidity of blinking Christmas tree lights.

“I would like you to consider something, though,” Tom goes on, insisting on my attention. He’s been talking for a while now, bumbling through various forms of an apology, but nothing he’s said has been remotely as interesting as Kim’s $500 manicure.

“And what would that be?” I ask with a sigh.

“Don’t keep your relationship going for the sake of the firm, but don’t end it for the sake of pride. You like him, Kasie. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have risked so much to be with him.”

“I took care of Dave,” I say coolly. “Just like I said I would.”

“So he’s not going to go running to Freeland, crying about his girlfriend cheating on him with the big, bad Mr. Dade? Well done! I underestimated you.”

“Which is another thing you should apologize for.” I sip my wine. An awkward young anchorman is relaying true stories of Stranger Danger.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Tom says. “I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change the crux of what I’m saying. No one is making you do anything, but don’t throw an entire relationship away just to make a point.”

“You’re doing it again,” I say.

“Doing what?”

“Underestimating me. Do you really think I can’t see through this? You’re changing your wording, not the message. You want me to keep seeing Robert Dade because it benefits you. My heart is of no interest to you at all.”

“Now that’s not fair . . . at least it’s not entirely fair. I do want you to enjoy your romance because I like you. My apologies and advice are as legitimate as your accusations and anger. But at some point you’re going to have to accept that we have a symbiotic relationship. If I advise you to follow your heart and you
listen,
everyone wins. Yes, my motivations are mostly selfish but I don’t see how that changes anything.”

This is probably as PC as Tom gets. That’s not saying much, but the fact that he’s trying is telling. “You really want more Maned Wolf accounts, don’t you?”

“Well, aren’t you quick.”

I laugh despite myself. “I don’t want to ever hear about that night that you saw . . . I don’t want to talk about how that dress. . . .” I blush and grit my teeth, angry with my own embarrassment. “Just don’t ever mention it again, all right?” I finally manage.

“Never,” he says quickly. “That’s a promise.”

I wish I could make him promise not to think of it ever again, too. I could ask him to say he won’t, but I’m so tired of lies and false denials. I know Tom has relived that moment a thousand times. I know in his fantasies he was not so honorable. I know that when he looks at me now, that image leaps to the forefront of his mind. My humiliation prickles my skin, makes me squirm a bit, but at least my humiliation is real. And for the first time in my life I’m able to acknowledge what I’m really feeling rather than denying it and pretending to have neater emotions.

“I haven’t ended things with Mr. Dade. I have no plans to do so.”

“You’ll tell me if and when you do? Just so I can prepare myself and the firm?”

“That’s a promise,” I say, mimicking his words and tone.

I can almost hear Tom’s smile. “You’re a treasure, Kasie.”

“Good-bye, Tom.”

I hang up the phone.

On the television children are being tested. The journalist says that these tests prove that even the most responsible child will accept the invitation of a stranger if the incentive is strong and the lie is smooth. Children are impulsive, the journalist says. And when approached by a well-dressed, charming adult who speaks with authority, they will respond. They will forget what they’ve been taught, forget the warnings and follow the stranger to danger.

I look down at the shirt I wear as a nightgown, feeling like a child.

CHAPTER
15

T
HE NIGHT STRETCHES
ON
.
Around eleven I go to sleep restlessly. My dreams are jumbled and disquieting.

In one I’m in the back of a limo with Dave by my side . . . except he’s a ghost; I can only see his outline.

“Did I kill you?” I ask as the limo takes one sharp turn and then another.

He just smiles with transparent lips. “There’s so much to fear in this world,” he says with a laugh.

Except it’s not his laugh; he speaks with my sister’s voice. Panicked, I try to get out, scurry to the other side of the limo, and attempt to open the doors, but they’re locked.

“Silly.” Her voice murmurs in my ear even though Dave has not moved. “It’s not me that you have to be scared of! That would be like being scared of yourself!”

“I’m nothing like you,” I say to her, to Dave, to anyone who will listen.

“Really?” the voice says teasingly. “Tell it to Mr. Dade.”

The dreams go on like that. Nightmares and phantasms, clashes with invisible opponents. I wake up a few times, tangled in the sheets as if I had been combating the bed itself. It’s not until well after two that my mind finally escapes from the alarming images and lets me fall into a deep, continuous sleep.

When next I awake it’s to the sound of classical music. My alarm clock, of course. I find it easier to start the day with the slow build of a sonata than the sudden scream of an electric guitar. I keep my eyes closed and let myself be drawn into the music. It’s a Baroque piece of the seventeenth-century-master Tomaso Albinoni, a personal favorite. The sound is low and alluring, decadent to the point of being sinful. I become aware of the feeling of Robert’s shirt against my skin and let a small sound of pleasure hum through my closed lips, breathe in deep through my nose . . .

. . . and smell coffee.

Slowly, almost fearfully, I open my eyes. On my nightstand next to my alarm is a steaming cup of coffee.

And another is being held on the charcoal gray armchair of my bedroom, cupped between the hands of Robert Dade.

I don’t move, don’t sit up, don’t say a word. I think about the dreams and nightmares I had had only a few hours before. This doesn’t feel like a dream and yet it doesn’t make sense that he could be here, holding one of my ceramic cups filled with coffee.

“You know he’s a Venetian,” he says, gesturing to my clock radio.

“I’m sorry?”

“Albinoni. He was a Venetian. It seems appropriate when you consider where we met.”

I pull the sheets up to my chin. “How did you get in here?”

“As you may recall, I know how to pick a lock.”

“I have a security system.”

“I know. My company made it.”

“Robert, you can’t just—”

“You do remember that you told me I could come to you in a few days. It’s been a few days.” I turn my eyes to the clock.

“True,” I agree; “it’s also seven fifteen in the morning.”

He sighs, sips his coffee. “Do you know how hard it was for me to stay away this weekend? Knowing that he still has a key to this place? Knowing that he could come here and try to exact revenge at any time?”

The music has taken on a yearning quality. Its melody keeps me calm. “Dave isn’t a psychotic. He’s a man who was hurt. That’s all. He gave me back some of the pain I gave him and now he’s moving on.”

He studies his coffee, tilting it like a sommelier would tilt a glass of wine while looking for clues to its age and weight. “Putting you in that dress,” he says, “displaying you in front of Love as if you were a toy or a prostitute . . . perhaps it’s not psychotic but it does point to a . . . a demonic sensibility.” He looks up from his coffee, locks his eyes on mine. “You think you know what he’s capable of. You don’t.”

I groan and look up at my angled cream ceiling. It’s early; I’m not thinking straight. But for him to break into my home to warn me of what Dave might be capable of seems ironic.

“Those boxes downstairs, those are his things?”

I nod.

“When will he be picking them up?”

“Later this afternoon.” I turn on my side, flash him a pacifying smile. “I won’t be here.”

Robert nods his approval, walks to the bed, puts his coffee cup next to mine. “You won’t see him alone again. It’s not safe. If you need to meet him, you’ll call me first.”

“You don’t have the right to tell me how to handle this.”

“No?” He cocks his head to the side. “You’d risk your well-being just to be rebellious? Why do I doubt that?”

There’s a gentle but mocking lilt to his voice. I bite down on my lip. I should kick him out. This morning he is a criminal. My angel is incensed. But my devil has Hollywood tastes and seeks to glorify the crime.

Perhaps it’s I who has the demonic sensibility.

“Maybe you should take the day off,” he suggests. “Work from my house. Give Love another day to reassess his behavior.”

“No, I need to be at work. I can’t let my personal stressors keep me from my professional responsibilities.”

Robert doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls the sheet back, runs his eyes over his shirt that covers my body. “You did as I asked.”

Of all the things he’s said and done this morning, that one sentence is by far the most provoking. And yet it oddly thrills even as it alarms. The combination of emotions worries me. He needs to leave the room. I need to drink my coffee, get my bearings, find the good sense to chastise him for his magisterial behavior.

But I don’t move. My request for privacy dies before it ever reaches my lips. Instead I lie here and wait for his next move, knowing deep down that if he demands, I will want to give.

Therein lies the danger.

With a firm but gentle hand he pushes me from my side to my back. “You can go to work today if that’s truly what you want to do. But you’re going to be late.”

“I can’t—”

He puts a finger against my lips. “You can talk later. Right now you need to unbutton your shirt. Show yourself to me.”

It’s a power game. Pride kicks in, and I almost refuse.

But I don’t.

Something in the way he’s looking at me, something in his tone . . .

My fingers fumble with the buttons of the shirt. It had been so easy to refuse Dave, but Robert . . . it’s different.

The shirt is now undone, but it still covers me. A small strip of skin is revealed between my breasts.

He leans over, gently pulls the fabric back so that it lays on my shoulders and spreads out at my sides like the closed wing of a moth. He straightens his posture, stands over me as he studies the nuances of my figure. My breathing is irregular and I look away from him. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want to follow a man’s commands. Not after what I’ve been through with Dave.

And yet.

“Spread your legs, Kasie.”

I close my eyes. “I have to go to work,” I whisper.

“Later. Spread your legs.”

Is it because I know what it’s like to have this man inside me? Am I like any addict, willing to humble myself for one more fix? Or is there a part of me that really isn’t ready to face the music of the day? Am I using a convenient sense of subservience to justify this small procrastination?

Does it matter?

Slowly, I open my legs. I expect him to touch me but he doesn’t. Instead he circles the bed, wolfish in his movements.

“You want to handle things in your own way,” Robert says, his eyes moving up and down my body with an unapologetic appetite. “I respect that. I will allow that.”

Allow . . .
I open my mouth to object but again he leans over, puts his finger against my lips. “As I said, you can talk later. But right now, I want you to listen. And you will do what I want, won’t you, Kasie?”

My heart is pounding so loud, I wonder if he can hear it. He removes his finger and I remain silent.

Again his eyes roam over me, caressing my thighs and stopping there, right there between my legs.

“Are you wet, Kasie?”

I don’t answer, partially because I don’t know if he wants me to speak, partially because I’m embarrassed to admit that I am.

“Touch yourself,” he says; his tone leaves no room for negotiation. “Reach between your legs; tell me if you’re wet.”

My hand twitches at my side, almost as if it’s battling with itself, but my urge to yield is overwhelming. With an odd mixture of reluctance and anticipation I move my hand between my legs. My fingers slide over my clit and I jump, surprised by my own sensitivity. But I know he wants more. I slip one finger inside myself as he watches.

“Yes,” I say quietly, almost meekly, “I’m wet.”

He nods, satisfied with my answer. He reaches down, gently directs the movement of my hand. “Use two fingers,” he says; his voice is kinder now but the air of authority is still prominent, “and use your thumb to rub your clit. When I tell you to masturbate, this is what I want you to do, unless I tell you otherwise.”

And as he pulls his hand away, I do as I’ve been asked. My fingers plunging inside of myself as I further stimulate myself with my thumb.

“As I was saying before,” he says, his eyes glued to me as I being to writhe on the sheets beneath me, “I will
allow
it.” He puts special emphasis on the word he knows will get under my skin but I don’t think I have even the slightest ability to challenge him. I try to focus but my mind is clouded with confusion and ecstasy. Why am I doing this for him? Why does it incite me?

“However,” he continues, his voice still calm, “if he tries to hurt you, if he tries to lay a single hand on you, I will step in. I will take care of him and I will decide how to do that. If there are lines that can’t be crossed, I will erase those lines. I will keep you safe. You will not stand in the way of that.”

I’m coming dangerously close to an orgasm, and somehow the thought of coming in front of him while he is fully dressed, so calm and so commanding, intensifies my agitation. I look away but he reaches over, guides my chin back in his direction. “Do you understand, Kasie?”

I nod but it’s not enough.

“I need more than that. No, no, don’t come yet,” he says as I arch my back, the little control I have left slipping away. “I need you to answer me first. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand—” I gasp.

“. . . and you will not stand in my way.”

“I will not stand in your way,” I parrot. It’s all I can manage.

“That’s good.” He sits on the side of the bed; he watches the movement of my hand with almost scholarly interest. “How close are you to coming, Kasie?”

“Oh God!”

“That’s not an answer. How close are you?”

I try to look away again but again his fingers slip under my chin. “Answer me.”

“I’m very . . . very close . . . to . . .”

My voice gives out. I can feel the orgasm that sits on the verge of bursting through me, but just then Robert firmly but carefully grasps my hand, stills it, and then pulls it away from my body.

“Not yet,” he says.

My eyes widen in surprise. The shock of being denied when I’m so close is too much. Suddenly I don’t care about the consequence of my submission. I don’t care that he has taken command of me without having to fight me. I certainly don’t care about how late I’m going to be for work. I need the satisfaction my fingers had promised. I try to move my hand back between my thighs but his hold is too strong.

“Please,” I gasp.

“Please what, Kasie?”

I flush, my cheeks red with frustration and uncontainable longing. “Please let me come.”

He smiles and kisses my forehead protectively. “Don’t move; you’re not allowed to touch yourself, not right now. Just wait.”

He stands and again for reasons I’m not clear on I obey despite a growing desperation.

Slowly he takes off his shirt, then his pants. I watch him as I struggle to stay still. My body is on fire.

Finally he exposes his erection to me. I’m frantic to get it inside me, but instead he pulls me up so that I’m sitting back on my heels. He pulls my knees apart enough so he can see me completely and then pets my hair. “I know what you want. You want me to take you on this bed. You’re desperate to come. But the blowjob will be first, Kasie. Understand?”

Again I nod and he smiles before gently pressing my head forward. I wrap my lips around him, my hand slides over the base of his cock as my tongue finds the veins and ridges, toying with the tip before taking more of him in my mouth. I hear him moan and the sound encourages me, electrifies me. I move back and forth, preparing him, hoping that my success will be rewarded with something even better.

Again he moans and then quickly pulls my head away. “Now,” he says. And then he pushes me back on the bed and in an instant he gives me what I crave. He’s inside of me, answering my body’s pleas for release. My orgasm comes swiftly, tearing through my body like a tornado, making the room spin and my world buckle. He continues to move inside of me, grinding, biting my neck. I try to hold on to him but he holds my arms down and his strength is insurmountable.

“No one will touch you,” he says, his voice so low I have to struggle to hear him. “No one but me.”