The Revelation (13 page)

“A
sword
fight?”

“Yeah, my fantasy kind of toggles between present
day and a kind of historical-fiction-locked-in-a-dungeon kind of
thing.”

“Interesting.”

“Anyway, when the second bad guy is finally dead, my
original captor unties me and says I can go, because now he cares
about me too much to keep me as his prisoner. It’s like if you love
something, set it free, you know? But I don’t want to go—in fact,
all I want to do is stay and fuck him for hours and hours—so that’s
what we do, only this time, without the bondage, because now it’s
my
choice
to stay and that’s what makes it so sexy.”

I’m in a daze listening to her, completely
shocked.

There’s a beat.

I suddenly realize she’s not talking anymore.

“So, that’s it,” she declares, filling the
silence.

“Wow,” I say. “That was quite a bit more... detailed
than I was expecting.”

She shrugs. “I fantasize in Technicolor—what can I
say?”

I laugh. “It’s like a mini-porno.”

“
Exactly
. Yes. A mini-porno starring
me
.”

“And you’ve got more of these mini-pornos bouncing
around in your head?”

“Tons.”

“And who are the guys who play opposite you in these
pornos?”

“Well, depending on the mini-porno-fantasy, it could
be any number of fantasy-guys—Channing Tatum gets cast a lot;
Charlie Hunman makes appearances quite frequently; this hot married
guy who works at the bank.” She blushes. “But that was all before I
saw you standing in that hallway in your wet briefs. Lately,
there’s only one star of all my imaginary-mini-pornos: Joshua
William Faraday.”

I smile and so does she.

“So you think my captor-fantasy would work with your
saving-the-girl fantasy?” she asks. “Or is it too weird to mix and
match?”

“I think that would work just fine.” I shift again.
My cock is throbbing in my pants. “And what about the bodyguard
fantasy? Is it pretty detailed, too?”

She smiles from ear-to-ear, clearly excited by what
she’s about to say. “Okay, so in
this
one, I’m a
world-famous singer and my life is in serious danger because some
stalker is after me. So a gorgeous bodyguard has been hired to
protect me—a really serious, no-nonsense kind of guy, like a former
Secret Service agent. And, one night, I’m performing a concert in a
beautiful, sparkly outfit, like a kind of space-age-y-looking
thing? Or maybe I’ve got a beautiful headscarf around my head and
I’m looking really somber, sitting on a chair. It just depends what
song I’m performing. But either way my bodyguard gets spooked by
something he sees in the crowd and he rushes onstage and swoops me
up to protect me from an assassin and he literally carries me away
from harm, and even though we’re not supposed to do it—because my
bodyguard’s a true professional and takes his job really
seriously—we just can’t resist our off-the-charts attraction and we
totally get it on.”

There’s a long beat before I’m able to speak without
laughing. “So you’re saying you’ve got a porno-version of
The
Bodyguard
that plays inside your head?” I say evenly, trying my
damnedest not to laugh.

She makes a face. “You’re making fun of me? I’m
telling you my deepest, darkest, hottest fantasies and you’re
laughing
at me?”

I can’t contain myself anymore. I burst out
laughing. “No, I’m not making fun of you, I swear. I’m sorry, babe.
Continue. I’m loving this.”

“I’ve seen
The Bodyguard
like twenty times,
okay? And I’ve always wanted to be Whitney. Stop laughing at
me.”

I bite my lip, trying to stop laughing. “It sounds
amazing. What else?”

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you now.” She crosses her
arms over her chest in a huff. “You’re supposed to be making me
feel safe enough to disclose my innermost thoughts, Josh—you know,
luring me into some kind of
emotional intimacy—
not making me
feel like a complete
weirdo.
”

I laugh. “I should have warned you—I suck at
emotional intimacy.”

“
Obviously
,” she says. But there’s a gleam in
her eye.

I touch her chin again. “I’m sorry, PG. Please
forgive me. I’m a dick.”

She pouts.

“Tell me more, babe. Tell me every last thing that
turns you on. I wanna know. Don’t hold back.”

“No. You’re just gonna laugh at me.” She sticks out
her lower lip.

“Never. Well, okay, I might laugh. But that doesn’t
mean anything. I laugh at everything. That’s just who I am. I love
hearing your fantasies, I swear.”

“I have a lot of ’em, you know,” she sniffs. “
A
lot
.”

“Are they all as elaborate as the ones you just told
me about?”

She considers. “Yeah, pretty much. I have an
extremely active imagination.”

“Come on, babe. Tell me everything. I might laugh,
but only because I think you’re so fucking adorable.”

“I’ll tell you if you answer one honesty-game
question for me.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“Why did Emma call you a sick fuck?”

My stomach instantly clenches.

“I don’t get it,” Kat continues. “Did you ask her to
do something beyond what you wrote in your application? Because the
stuff you wrote is kinky, sure, but not enough to make a girl call
you names and run off with a guy wearing an ascot.”

I exhale. “It’s complicated.”

There’s a long beat.

“What’s complicated about it?” she finally asks.

“I’d really rather talk about you and your
mini-pornos. I’ve totally moved on from Emma. I really have.”

“But I want to understand. Just answer this and I
won’t beat a dead horse, I promise. Did you ask her for something
beyond what you wrote about in your application? Is there something
else you fantasize about that you didn’t write about—something you
haven’t told me yet? Because I want to know it all.”

I shake my head. “What I put in my application is
pretty much it. And it’s what I told her about—well, actually, just
the savior thing. I never even told her about the threesome thing.
I’d planned to tell her that, too, but once I’d told her about the
bondage-savior fantasy, it became clear there was no point in
telling her anything else.”

She twists her mouth. “But why? I don’t understand.
Was she really conservative or something? Was she a virgin?”

I take a long time, figuring out what to say. I
breathe deeply and finally decide there’s no way, other than to
just say it. “Emma’s sexuality was complicated.” I exhale.
“Everything about Emma was complicated, actually. She’d been
brutally raped as a teenager and she was deeply traumatized by the
experience.” My stomach is turning over. “Understandably. So she
needed a lot of extra tenderness... I mean, sex was just really
tricky for her because she was really... you know, like I said,
traumatized. So... yeah.” I exhale. “I was always really patient
and gentle with her and... we were together a really long time, and
I wanted to try to help her, and then I just started to... you
know... the reality was I started to have needs and she wasn’t
meeting them. And I felt really guilty about that, considering what
she’d been through... But she kept pushing me to be honest with
her... accusing me of wanting more than she could give me... and
when I finally decided to open up and tell her everything about my
past, and my mother, and about my fantasies, and I finally told her
what I wanted to try, just to see if maybe the experience would
maybe somehow quiet the raging voices in my head. Well, that shit
didn’t fly with her. In fact, nothing about me worked for her in
the end.
Nothing.
” I run my hands through my hair. “I’ve
thought about it a lot—why I was so attracted to her when we were
obviously such a mismatch. Being with her was like banging my head
into a brick wall, day after day. But I just wanted so badly to
take care of her.” I pause, thinking. “I sometimes sit and think
about why the fuck I get turned on by certain things other guys
probably don’t. And when I analyze myself, I realize, yeah, I
really
am
a sick fuck. I mean, getting off on the shit I do,
when you think about what happened to my mom, it’s pretty
demented.” I stop myself. My face is hot. I put my hands over my
face, collecting myself.
Fuck
.

There’s a long beat.

“I really am a sick fuck, Kat,” I say simply. “I
know I am. After what happened to my mom, I have no business
incorporating bondage into my sexual fantasies. That’s just sick.
Emma was right. There’s something deeply wrong with me. And telling
a girl who’d been raped about it and asking her to try it with me
to help me was also deeply fucked up. But what she didn’t get was I
was all about
saving
the girl, you understand? That’s what
gets me off. I just want to be the savior.” I’ve got a lump in my
throat. “Just once.”

Kat nods.

I exhale. There’s a goddamned lump in my throat that
won’t go away. “It’s still sick, though,” I say, pushing through my
emotion. “Not to mention obvious and stupid.” I swallow hard and
the lump recedes. “It’s some sort of twisted... I dunno. I guess I
don’t have the best imagination.” I take a deep breath. “And, shit,
I guess I should tell you something else, as long as I’m telling
you the whole truth.” I exhale and roll my eyes. “You might as well
know just how obvious and stupid and deeply disturbed I really
am.”

Kat’s sitting on the edge of her seat, her blue eyes
fixed on me without blinking.

“My mom was blonde,” I say. “Just like you. Just
like Emma. Just like all the girls in my Sick Fuck folder. And she
was gorgeous, too. Everyone always said she looked just like Grace
Kelly.”

Kat grabs my hand. “I figured.”

“You did?”

She nods. “What did your dad look like?”

“Like me, pretty much. I have his dark hair.” I
squeeze her hand, grateful for her reassuring touch. “I look like
my dad and Jonas looks like my mom.”

Kat chuckles. “But you and your brother look so much
alike, other than your hair.”

“No, Jonas is the one who looks like my mom, and I’m
the one who looks like my dad. My dad always said so. Maybe that’s
why my dad could never even stand to look at Jonas.”

She blanches.

There’s a long beat.

“If Jonas looks like your mom, then you do, too,
Josh,” she says softly. “Just with darker hair. You two look so
much alike.”

I shrug.

Kat strokes my arm with her free hand. “So. Okay.
Fine. You’re a sick fuck, Josh. Your mom made an indelible
impression on you. You’re obviously deeply traumatized by what
happened to her. And you probably feel all kinds of guilt—totally
misplaced, by the way—that Jonas was there and you weren’t.”

“But, Kat. It’s pretty fucked up that all I wanna do
is fuck beautiful blondes and my mom was a beautiful blonde. Emma
thought that was really sick.”

“Fuck Emma. You were
seven
when she died.
Where else were you gonna get your idea of female beauty other than
from your mom—especially if she happened to look like Grace Kelly?
Growing up, that standard of beauty must have gotten reinforced for
you everywhere you looked. Magazines, movies. It’s everywhere.”

I stare at her for a long minute, not saying
anything. I’m too blown away to speak. I’ve never had a
conversation even resembling this one before. Not even with my
childhood therapists.

“Josh, the bottom line for me is that the stuff you
wrote in your application turned me on.” She squeezes my hand.
“Look, I totally get what you’re saying—and I agree you’ve
obviously got some deep-seated issues that have influenced your
sexual fantasies—you’ve definitely got some sort of complex
relating to what happened to your mom and you’re searching for some
sort of therapeutic release, some sort of... what’s that word?” She
snaps her fingers and scrunches her face.

“Catharsis?” I offer.

“
Yes
. Catharsis. Exactly. As an adult, you’re
using sex as some sort of
catharsis
or redemption or
whatever. Okay, I get it. But so what? We’re all perverts in one
way or another, if we’re being honest—it’s just that people are so
rarely honest when it comes to what they like behind closed doors.
Well, I say let the doctors figure out your diagnosis if ever
you’re in danger of harming someone or yourself—but until then, who
cares? All I know is that you make me soak my panties every time
I’m near you and when I read your application, I started dripping
down my thighs.”

My breath catches in my throat. “Oh,” I manage to
say, but it’s all I can muster.

The subtlest of smirks dances on her lips. “All I
know is that whatever you did to those women in The Club, I’m
turned on by the idea of you doing it to me, too, exactly the way
you did it to them.” The smirk she’s been suppressing takes over
her mouth. “I want you to pretend I’m one of the women in The Club
and show me exactly what you like, without treating me any
differently than you treated them.” She lowers her voice to barely
above a whisper. “I want you to treat me like your high-priced
whore.”

I’m rock hard right now.

Her eyes are blazing. “Actually, that happens to be
one of my top fantasies.”

My heart is absolutely racing. I swallow hard.
“Well, but...” I sputter. “Kat, as it turns out, the women in The
Club actually were paid
hookers
. I didn’t know it at the
time, of course, but in retrospect, there’s a very good reason they
were all so ‘uncannily compatible’ with me and eager to
please.”

She makes a face like I’m saying something
nonsensical.

“So,” I say, feeling the need to explain myself
further, “unlike them, you might have, you know...
limits
.”

Her eyes darken. “Don’t piss on me. Don’t crap on
me. Don’t hurt me. That’s it.”