Just One Night, Part 2: Exposed (6 page)

“I don’t think love can just disappear,” he says, as much to himself as to me. “And yet what you did . . . we had something . . . it was big. How can you be so cavalier with something that had so much substance?”

I don’t have an answer.

“You think I’m trying to torture you,” he says quietly. “Maybe I am. Maybe I want you to experience a tenth of the pain you’ve caused me. But I don’t believe the love we had just disappeared. I don’t believe that the woman I love has evaporated.”

“I’m here, Dave. I didn’t evaporate.”

“No, it’s not you. A whore in sheep’s clothing . . . in
her
clothing. It’s like a split personality or . . . or a mental breakdown.”

“You think I’ve gone crazy?”

“I think you need to be saved.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to do that. I’m going to be your hero whether you want one or not.”

And like that, he’s going from tragic to insane. He’s still the captor asking his prisoner to sing his praises, but maybe all captors are a little insane. What does it matter if someone is fanatical about religion, politics, or love? Fanaticism is what it is: crazy, misguided, and, in a weird way, honest. Fanatics believe their own bullshit.

“I understand now,” he continues. “You have . . . needs . . . things you have to get out of your system. I’m going to help you do that. We’re going to use the depravity that’s infecting you to our advantage. I’m going to bring you back to the woman you were, the one I want to marry. By the time I’m done, that’s who you’ll
want
to be. You’ll see how your current path only leads to degradation. You’ll crave purity.”

I shake my head. I didn’t know an affair could push someone over the edge like this. It’s like he thinks he can turn our lives into a modern-day version of
The Taming Of the Shrew
.

“Tonight,” he continues. “We’ll start tonight.”

I don’t know exactly what that means but I know what it
might
mean. The idea of being with Dave now, having him touch me, having him push his dick inside of me, looking at me smugly as I squirm underneath him . . . I can’t do it.

“You are so angry with me right now,” I say softly. “I don’t want to . . . to be with you until you feel some degree of kindness toward me.”

“You don’t think I do?” he asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. We both know I’m right.

“Then we’ll start slow,” he says. “A dinner at home. Cook me dinner the way you used to do. Dress up for me. Show me that you’re at least willing to make an effort.”

I turn toward the window. I’m tired. I don’t have the energy for any of this. But Dave had been making a point when he lied to me about telling my parents. He was letting me know what he could do. If I don’t make an effort, why should he hold his tongue? Why should he do anything for me at all?

“I’ll cook dinner,” I say quietly.

“And you’ll let me select something pretty for you to wear while you serve me?”

While I serve him
. I have to tell myself that he’s only talking about dinner . . . but of course the wording was more carefully crafted than that. I’ve given my confession and this is the penance he has chosen for me. Instead of appealing to God, I’m meant to appeal to him.

So I nod. It’s only dinner, only a dress. I’d rather recite the Rosary a few hundred times, but perhaps that wouldn’t be appropriate. It’s seems silly to try to bring something sacred into hell.

CHAPTER
7

W
HEN WE ENTER
his house I head straight for the kitchen. Dave probably thinks this is submission but really I just want to get away from him. I’m not a spectacular cook but I’m not horrible. I pull out the ingredients necessary to make a quick-and-easy stir-fry and try to forget the day. The counter is covered with fresh vegetables and two small frozen lamb loin chops when Dave walks in. He stares at the meat, seeing an insult there. He doesn’t much like red meat but had bought the lamb in an attempt to please me. Months ago, a lifetime ago, he had tried to surprise me with a meal . . . which he mangled terribly. We had laughed about it and I had ended up making us pasta.

But he hadn’t thrown away the remaining uncooked loin chops and I
do
like red meat . . . and I’m the one cooking this time. I pull out a large chopping knife and lay it carefully on a cutting board.

“The dress is on my bed. Go ahead and change.”

“I’ll change after I make dinner,” I say as I reach for some extra-virgin olive oil and a microwave-safe plate for the defrosting.

“No, change now. It will make me happy.”

He’s a million miles from happy. If he was happy, I’d have the man I once cared for, even if I don’t love him.

I suck in a sharp breath. And like that I finally admit the evil truth. I never loved the man I agreed to marry.

I only wanted the life he provided, the orderliness, the structure, the predictability. That had all seemed so important. Funny how those “attributes” have lost so much of their appeal. Perhaps it wasn’t the betrayal that turned him inside out. Maybe it’s the lack of love that’s transformative. Maybe it’s the distance between what we want and what we have that sculpts our behavior.

A dress won’t fix anything, it certainly won’t make either of us happy but since I don’t know what will, I do as asked and go up to his room to change.

The dress makes me laugh. It’s ridiculously provocative and clearly something he picked up today. It’s black and off the shoulder. A strip of solid fabric covers my breasts but below is sheer black mesh, which will reveal my full midriff before meeting another band of solid fabric that forms the micro-mini skirt. I saw a photograph of a pop star wearing a similar dress to the VMAs or something like that, but I doubt Dave knows this is a knockoff of a piece just slightly less tacky. For Dave, this probably constitutes lingerie.

I squeeze into the dress. It’s skintight and oddly flattering but it’s also a little slutty. Much more so than the Herve Leger dress I wore in Vegas the night I met Robert Dade. One glance in the mirror tells me that I’m going to need to change out of the bikini panties I’m wearing and into a thong.

I fish through the few items of clothing I have stored here to see if I can find one.

“You won’t be able to wear underwear with that,” Dave says.

I whirl around to see him standing in the doorway.

I smile slightly. “Are you trying to humiliate me?” I ask.

He shrugs, giving away the answer in his silence.

I won’t give him the satisfaction. Not over a dress worn within a private residence. “Why would I be embarrassed? Only yesterday you saw me in less.”

I let my hand slide over my exposed stomach and then up my skirt. It takes effort to wriggle out of my panties without flashing him, but I manage it and then throw them at Dave, who catches them in one hand. He looks mildly embarrassed and slightly aroused.

I walk up to him, lean in, and say with a singsong whisper, “If you touch me, I’ll kill you.”

And then I walk past him to make dinner, leaving him with an erection he’s going to have to take care of all by himself.

It’s a struggle to prepare the lamb with my movements restricted by the unforgiving fabric. My guilt over what I’ve done is slowly dissipating with each one of Dave’s pathetic attempts to debase me. While Asha’s attacks are polished and executed with a vicious grace, Dave’s moves are clumsy, only hitting his mark by the occasional stroke of luck. The single advantage he has is that, unlike with Asha, I’m still not clear I fully understand what motivates him.

And what does he have to lose by calling my parents or his godfather right now? Is he stringing me along until he does? Am I playing for salvation or time?

The oil in the frying pan pops and sizzles as I sprinkle in bits of bloody red meat. I turn the knife on the vegetables, slicing through them with precise and violent movements.

I’ve been fighting like a civilian, wildly swinging at anything that resembles an enemy. I need to be the soldier. I need a battle plan.

As I wield the blade across the cutting board, I wonder if the violence will remain in the form of metaphor. How far can I be pushed before I snap?

Twenty-five minutes later dinner is nearly ready but before I can reach for a single plate, the doorbell rings.

I hesitate. This doesn’t feel like coincidence. I look down at my dress. It was one thing to wear this in front of Dave but someone else?

And then an odd thought crawls into my brain.
What if it’s Robert Dade?

I imagine Robert bursting though the door. He doesn’t see Dave, only me. “You don’t need to do this for me,” he says. And just like that I realize that it’s always been about us. Dave isn’t important. I turn my eyes to Dave and watch as he fades away, like an apparition or a shadow destroyed by the light.

It’s an indulgent fantasy, one I don’t allow myself to entertain for more that a minute but it’s long enough to excite me. My heart beats a little faster; I feel a small ache of yearning. . . .

It’s pathetic, really. The chances of it being him at the door are slim to none. He doesn’t even know where Dave lives. He’s not here, so why am I feeling these things?

I know you, Kasie. I know that even when I’m nowhere near you I’m inside of you. I can touch you with a thought.

The doorbell rings again, pulling me out of my fantasies and reminiscences. But by now I already feel a slight moisture between my legs.

I shouldn’t have removed my underwear. Self-consciously I walk to the entryway of the kitchen as Dave approaches the door.

“Who is it, Dave?” I ask.

He looks over his shoulder with a smirk. There’s malice in his eyes as he flings the door open.

Tom Love stands there, a bottle of wine in his hand and a puzzled look on his face. “I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to bring something,” he says to Dave, speaking hesitantly as if he’s unsure of what he’s walking into. “I didn’t expect the invitation.”

And then Tom’s eyes dart to me. He takes in the dress and his mouth goes slack, his eyes wide . . . and then a devious smile.

“What exactly am I being invited to?”

I feel the embarrassment start at my toes and then crawl up my legs through my very core until it wraps around my lungs and squeezes with the crushing power of a snake.

“Remember I said your boss would be joining us?” Dave asks. He approaches me; each footstep has the hallow echo of spite. “When I put together our engagement party, the only people from your firm who you even knew well enough to invite were my godfather and Asha. Afterwards, I realized that most of your superiors don’t know anything about what you’re like outside of the office. I thought we should give Mr. Love a glimpse.” With this his eyes fall to my hem. I’m tempted to pull on it, try somehow to make the dress longer but it would be useless. If anything, pulling it would bring the top a little too low, exposing the pink areoles that surround my nipples. I’m hyperconscious of the wetness between my legs, I can feel it trickling down and I squirm slightly wondering how to best make my retreat.

“I won’t be joining you,” I say quietly. The declaration is met by a sharp look from Dave and a surprised one from Tom.

“You’re not?” Tom asks, stepping in and closing the door behind him. His eyes move from me to Dave, then back to me. He takes in the dress appreciatively, but the leer is gone now that he’s beginning to understand what this is and what this isn’t. “You didn’t know Dave invited me.”

I shake my head, but Dave drapes a heavy arm over my bare shoulders. “No matter; she made enough for three. Kasie’s not a big eater.”

I imagine scratching his face with the ring he forces me to wear. Red blood on a red stone.

“I won’t be joining you,” I say again, but suddenly Dave’s arm gets tight as he pulls me to him.

“But you must join us, Kasie,” he says. Again the image of a snake leaps to mind. Dave speaks with the serpent’s voice. “What will Tom and I talk about without you? It will all just be business, like that account you’ve been working on or something. Maned Wolf, right—Mr.
Robert
Dade?”

“Ah,” this from Tom as he gently places the burgundy wine on the table. I sense the dawning of understanding, but not surprise. He keeps his eyes on the table, perhaps studying the metaphorical puzzle pieces that have just been exposed to him.

“We’ll need three plates,” Dave says definitively. The role of master was not tailored for him. It’s a size too big and he seems more vulnerable within the fabric of the character. Like a boy wearing his father’s clothes.

And yet this bullet has hit its mark. I report to Tom, and although I respect his professional abilities, I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he molds ethics and morality to support his ambitions. I don’t want him to see me dressed like this, the skirt barely covering my hips, the neckline exposing the curve of my breast . . . this was never meant for Tom’s eyes.

And Dave’s threats were not subtle. Tom understood the nuance as well as I did. He had figured out that my relationship with Robert was more than platonic long before he arrived for dinner. But that doesn’t mean I want to discuss it with him. It doesn’t mean that I want to be faced with the shame of his knowing . . . and judging me. Was he like Dave? Did he, too, think I was a whore?

“The plates,” Dave says.

I turn and walk into the kitchen. The reverberations of my pounding heart are so powerful it makes my whole body shake. How could I have done this to my life? And for what? Sex with a stranger? An illicit affair? Had I actually thought it was worth the risk?

Had it been? The memories flicker in front of my eyes in rapid succession: flirting over scotch, energetically talking business at a restaurant, playfully hitting him with a pillow while he laughs, being in his bed, his weight on top of me, his hands on my hips, gently lifting them so he can plunge deeper into me, his hand slipping to my clit; he toys with me as he continues to move inside me. I can’t catch my breath . . . I don’t want to. . . .

What am I doing?

I have a crisis on my hands. My fiancé is treating me like a tramp in front of my boss and I’m fantasizing about my lover?

No,
my devil answers,
you’re just remembering why it was worth it.

I try to shake the thoughts out of my head and split the stir-fry into three portions.

Robert’s hands are on my breasts, gently pinching my nipples

I pull out three wineglasses.

I feel Robert’s kisses forging a path across my shoulders.

I hear the low murmur of male voices coming from the dining room as I carefully select the utensils. My nipples are hard and pressing against the fabric of this hateful dress.

I take a deep breath and center myself. I’ll take my time in here. Let the fantasy run its course, let it fortify me. When I make love to Robert I always begin by feeling vulnerable and end by feeling strong. I need to reach that point of strength tonight.

“Kasie.”

I turn swiftly, surprised by the sound of Tom’s voice so close. His eyes immediately go to my chest and I cross my arms over my breasts in hopes of hiding the evidence of my train of thought. But the action only pulls the dress higher, and I quickly lower them, hoping he didn’t notice that I exposed everything in a moment.

He turns his head away, his eyes on the floor.

“Where’s Dave?” I ask.

“I just got a new Porsche, told him he should go and take a look at it.”

“You didn’t go out with him?

“No. I locked him out.”

The admission shakes me out of my embarrassment and into something that resembles shock and awe . . . and admiration. “You locked him out of his own house?”

“I did.” He’s still looking at the floor but I can see the smile.

Maybe I like Tom after all.

Unless . . . I look down at my silhouette, feeling self-conscious once again.

“Why did you lock him out?” I ask. “If you think something’s going to happen between you and me—”

“What, are you telling me that I can’t have sex with you in your fiancé’s house while he’s locked out on the front porch banging on the door?”

I don’t want to show my amusement, but it’s hard to hide it.

“Look, sex with you under those circumstances, under
any
circumstances, would be awesome, but it’s not going to happen. I know you don’t want me here,” he says.

I swallow but don’t answer.

He shifts, suddenly gangly and awkward. “I also can’t sleep with you because you’re engaged to my boss’s godson. I don’t think he’s going to squeal on me for locking him out; he’s gotta have some level of pride, but sleeping with his fiancé while she’s cooking him dinner? Yeah, that might get him to make a phone call.”