Not a Butterfly

What I’d told Hemi was true. I nearly hadn’t come. I’d been half-convinced he’d appear to pick me up despite what I’d said. Nothing easier for him than to get my address, and I knew it. I’d told myself that if he did, that would be it. It would be over before it started. I didn’t need a man who wouldn’t respect my wishes.

And even though I’d known deep down that Hemi was exactly that man, I’d kissed Karen goodbye and taken the subway into Manhattan to meet him for dinner, feeling like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. Knowing he was advancing slowly, steadily, coming ever closer, watching as I struggled against my bonds, his eyes filled with dark satisfaction as I tried to free myself. 

A troubling image, and an uncomfortably exciting one. 

You are not a butterfly. The choice is yours.

Now, he gestured toward the red leather banquette along one wall. “Please,” he said, nothing but politeness in his tone. He certainly hadn’t pounced. Despite his earlier words, clearly uttered for shock value, he wasn’t a tiger, or a spider, either. He was a civilized, successful business executive living in New York City, and this was a fashionable restaurant, not any kind of trap. 

And all the same, when he’d come to greet me at the door, his big hand had felt as if it were burning right through the fragile mesh of my dress. I’d had a vision of him turning me, my back to his front, of him holding my shoulder firmly with one hand while he unzipped the dress with the other, until it fell at his feet to reveal my strapless pale-blue lace bra and matching thong. And, of course, the gorgeous shoes he’d bought me. However he felt about my last-year’s discount dress, I had a feeling he wouldn’t have had one single complaint about that picture. 

Which wasn’t going to happen, especially not in a restaurant. As long as I stayed out of his car, I was all good. 

Why was I going out with him? I shook my head to try to clear it, and as he slid into the chair opposite me, he asked, “What?”

I looked up at him, startled, and he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m asking myself,” I found myself saying, “why I’m going out with you, if I’m scared of you.”

The liquid brown eyes sharpened, focused hard on my face. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through my body, and I could tell he saw it. 

“Could be that what you’re frightened of,” he said, “is your reaction to me. Could be you’re wondering what you might do. What I might ask you to do.”

The shiver was harder this time. To distract myself, I took a drink of water, and Hemi sat and watched me do it, his impassive face giving nothing away. 

That was when the waiter appeared, and I realized belatedly that there was a menu in front of me that I’d never opened. 

“Would Madame et Monsieur care for an aperitif?” the man asked, and Hemi looked at me, his brows raised. 

“A cocktail?” he asked. “Or straight to the wine?”

“Wine would be good,” I said, barely knowing what I was saying.

Hemi turned to the waiter. “Send the sommelier in, please.” 

The man nodded and left, and Hemi was looking at me again. He reached for my left hand, which I realized was clutching the edge of the white tablecloth, and took it in his own.

“Hope,” he said gently. “It’s all good.”

I swallowed. “I—” I had to stop, breathe, and start again. His tenderness was more devastating than anything he’d showed me yet. “I don’t know how to—handle you.” 

“Ah.” It was a soft exhalation. “No. But you see, you don’t have to handle me.”

“Maybe I think,” I said, emboldened, “that you want to handle me.” 

“And you’d be exactly right. But only because you want me to.” 

My heart was rocketing a mile a minute, and he still had my hand. “Your pulse is racing,” he said as I sat transfixed. “Your pupils are so open, they’re covering nearly all that gorgeous color. And the rest of you is just that open. Just that aroused. Just that stimulated. Every time I touch you, it’s more intense. Because you want me as much as I want you.”

I couldn’t answer. I wrenched my hand from his in a convulsive movement and rose, my napkin falling from my lap onto the floor. I headed toward the door. A few steps, and gathering speed. 

He was standing, too. “Hope. No.”

I turned. “Too much,” I told him, hearing the unevenness of my breath. “Too fast.”

He didn’t touch me. Instead, he sighed and shook his head, running a hand over the back of his close-cropped head. “Start again,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t know how to do a first date, and that’s the truth.”

I couldn’t help a shocked little laugh. It was the most human he’d ever sounded. “You don’t?” 

“No.” His gaze was rueful now. “Please sit down and have dinner with me.”

I wasn’t moving yet, though. “Only if you’ll promise to slow down. And only if you’ll tell me why.” 

“Why what?”

“Why you don’t know how to do a first date.” 

“You don’t ask much, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I do. So will you?”

He sighed again. “Do my best.”

I came back, still moving warily, and sat down feeling a bit better. Not a butterfly. Not a deer. A grown woman. 

A distinguished gray-haired man in a dinner jacket appeared after a discreet cough at the door, and I was confused for a moment. Was somebody else joining us? Then he came into the room, Hemi picked up a huge leather-bound menu, and I realized the man was the wine steward.

Oh, man. I was so out of my depth.

Hemi shifted his considerable attention to the wine list, glanced at me, and asked, “Red or white? Or rather, what do you fancy to eat?”

“Um…fish?” Don’t add the question mark. “Fish,” I said with more decision. 

“The salmon, perhaps?” the wine steward suggested. “The chef is preparing it tonight with a light buerre blanc. A popular choice with many ladies.”

“Perfect,” I said. 

“May I suggest a Chardonnay, then, sir?”

More conferring, and Hemi made his selection, adding, “and bring the lady a clean serviette, please.” 

“Of course,” the man said, taking his leave, and I thought about how often I said “of course” in a single workday. How different Hemi’s life was from mine.

“Salmon, then,” the man himself was saying. “And a salad to start, eh.”

I couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to eat, but I said, “Fine.” 

He nodded, and when the waiter appeared, Hemi gave him both our orders. It should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Maybe because he’d asked me first. 

Another visit by the wine steward, more stylized gestures of offering the label for inspection, opening the bottle, Hemi swirling and sipping. An approving nod from the dark head, and the man was wrapping a linen napkin around the bottle and filling first my glass, then Hemi’s, finally placing the bottle carefully into a pewter ice bucket and making his soft-footed way from the room.

“Well, if the wine’s as impressive as the ceremony,” I said, “I’ll be blown away.”

Hemi’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he held up his glass and asked, “Shall we find out?”

He touched the rim of his glass lightly to mine, caught me in his gaze again, but merely said, “Cheers,” leaving me a bit disappointed.

I forgot that, though, in the next second, because the liquid I was sipping was as unlike anything I’d experienced before as the shoes on my feet were different from the ones in the closet at home. It didn’t even taste like the same beverage. As we drank in silence, the golden liquid sent its heavy, fragrant tendrils curling through me, making me melt a bit. Or maybe that was the music, the candles, the dark wooden walls, the light of the fire. Or, of course, the man opposite me. 

“Your face gives everything away,” he said. 

“Oh, really?” This time, I smiled at him, and could see him sitting up just a bit straighter. “Whereas yours gives away nothing. What am I saying now?”

“That you’re loving your wine. That it’s lingering on your tongue, sliding down your throat, humming in your veins. Making you relax in spite of yourself, because you’re letting go, surrendering to what you feel.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “I thought you were starting again. Not going to be pushing me.”

“What?” He took a sip of his own wine, but his gaze didn’t waver.

“That was totally pushing,” I informed him. “As if you didn’t know.”

He smiled a little at that. “Can’t help it, it seems.”

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” I said with a sigh. “Neither of us is that good at dating. But I suspect our reasons are different.” 

“I wouldn’t say you aren’t good at it,” he said. “If we’re measuring by effect, you’re going well.” 

“Uh-uh. You first. You promised.” I was loving this. Flirting, I could deal with.

“Ah. Me.” 

“You.”

“Right.” He sighed. “Bad idea, and I know it. But I’ll tell you. I’m rubbish at dates because I don’t do them. I don’t date. I don’t court. I don’t have relationships. I don’t have time or energy for them, and they’re pointless anyway. I have…arrangements.” 

“Arrangements.” A little trickle of ice water was making its freezing way down my back now, displacing the warm glow the wine had given me.

“Yes.” 

“We’re wasting our time, then,” I managed to say. “You don’t do relationships, and I don’t do arrangements.” 

“Could be I’m going to persuade you to change your mind.”

“And could be you’re dreaming, and I should leave right now. Or I’ll say that differently, and tell you that I’m not going to change my mind.” The disappointment pierced me, out of proportion to my investment in the evening. 

The waiter showed up with our salads at this most inconvenient of moments, setting them in front of us with more ceremony. They looked delicious, too, served on big, square, chunky plates.

“Butter lettuce with roasted-tomato vinaigrette,” he murmured. “Bon appetit.” 

I looked at Hemi again when the waiter had left, and he got the message. 

“Well,” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I. I’m doing this date. I may not be doing it well, but I’m doing it.” 

“Yes,” I said, feeling more cheerful. “You are, aren’t you?” I’d give it one more try, if he were going to try, too. 

The salad was exactly as good as the wine, and I focused on that, closing my eyes to taste the tang, to feel the contrast of crunchy and soft, sweet and sour.

I swallowed the bite, my eyelids floated open again, and I sighed. Yes. So worth it.

 Hemi wasn’t eating. He was watching me, and I could feel myself blushing. I touched my napkin to my mouth and took another sip of wine for confidence.

“Do you feel every experience so intensely?” he asked.

“Umm...doesn’t everybody, if it’s special? If it’s new, and it’s this good?”

“No.” A light smile touched his lips. “Only the lucky ones. And the luckier ones who get to watch them enjoy it. Who get to bring it to them.”

My heart was beating again, and he seemed to check himself. “But I’m forgetting. Or you’re distracting me. It’s your turn.”

“My turn what?” I couldn’t even object, because all that had been was…hot. 

“Why aren’t you good at dating?” he prompted.

So he was going to try. That was hopeful. I took another bite of salad while I thought, then took a breath and put myself out there. “My life’s been a little complicated.”

“Coming out of something bad?” He was frowning now. “Did somebody hurt you?”

“No. Not the way you mean. It was that I had so much else to do.” How much was I willing to share? I wasn’t sure.

“Shall I tell you what I think?”

What, instead of asking me what else I’d had to do? “Do I want to know what you think? Every time you’ve told me so far, it’s been fairly disastrous, hasn’t it?” Danger zone, I tried to tell him. I’m one step from gone.

“Could be, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I think that the kind of man you want scares you, and the kind of man you feel safe with bores you.”

How did he know? And, yes, he was doing it. He was going straight back to sex. Was that all he could talk about? All he could think about? All he was here for? Yes, and you knew it would be, and you came anyway. Because you kept hoping it could be more. Or, worse. Because you wanted it, too. Because part of you wants to be that butterfly.

The next words out of his mouth confirmed my fears. “I know that because I am the kind of man you want. And I scare you, because you haven’t had someone like me before. You know you want it, and you’re not sure you can take it.”

The room wasn’t comfortable anymore, because I didn’t have enough air. I couldn’t get my breath. 

Did he turn me on? You bet he did, like no man ever had. And he alarmed me and enraged me, too. You think all those things can’t be happening at the same time? Then you haven’t spent any time in my brain and body. And you haven’t spent any time with Hemi Te Mana.

The waiter reappeared, took away our salad plates, and made a production of setting down more chunky plates arranged with delicate fillets of salmon set on a pool of sauce, tender green beans, and fluffy mashed potatoes in a presentation as beautiful as a painting. 

I welcomed the interruption. Hemi was right about one thing. He was too much for me.

“Bloody hell,” Hemi muttered when the waiter had left again, and I felt another surge of foolish hope. “This is why I don’t date.”

“Why?” 

“All this—dancing.” 

“I know.” The relief made me nearly lightheaded. I hadn’t been wrong to come, and the joy was filling me that he really was trying. “I feel the same way,” I assured him. “But it’s normal, I guess. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s awkward, and it’s what you have to do.”

“Well, if it’s normal,” he said, “it’s stupid. It’s a bloody waste of time. Pretending it’s true love, that I want some forever that doesn’t exist. Why not just tell the truth? Why not just come to an agreement and move on?”

I’d lifted my fork to take a bit of salmon, but I paused with it halfway to my mouth. “What truth?” No. Don’t say it. Please step back. Please dance. I want to dance with you. Can’t you see?

But he didn’t dance. “This isn’t true love. There’s no forever,” he told me, and my head jerked back as if he’d slapped me. “There’s only now,” he went on, either not noticing my response or not caring. “And taking the pleasure that’s there for both of us for as long as it lasts. I know you’ve never been satisfied by a man. I know because I can see it in you. I know that you don’t date anymore because you haven’t found anyone who could give you what you needed, and that you’re scared of turning over power to a man who can give it to you like you need it. But it’s nothing to be scared of, because I want the same thing you do, and I’m not like those other blokes. I know how to do it, and I’ll treat you right. The way you need to be treated. I can start you off right, and I want to do it.”

My fork was back on my plate, I was sitting stiff and straight, but he ignored it all and went straight on.

“You know and I know,” he said, his eyes burning into me again, “that I should be over there with you right now, putting you in my lap, sliding my hand under that dress. You want me to pretend to be civilized, to ask you about yourself, to tell you about my bloody childhood, when all I want is your dress around your waist and you on your back, and that’s all you want, too. So let’s quit dancing. Let’s forget all this rubbish and do what we need to do.”

This time, I didn’t hesitate. I stood up and went for my coat.  

He was up, too. Of course he was. “Hope. You know it’s there between us. You know you want it. Why are you fighting it?”

“No,” I said, and if my voice were shaking, well, wouldn’t any woman’s have been? “No. This isn’t right. All evening, you haven’t been able to do anything but tell me how you want to…how you want to do me. For now. For a little while, until I’m…not new anymore. Not your shiny new toy. If that were all I needed, I could’ve stayed in Brooklyn. Men like you are the reason I’m a virgin. And, yes,” I said when I saw the shock widen his eyes, “you heard me right. I was little and scrawny and homely until I was almost eighteen, and once I wasn’t, I was overwhelmed by my life, the life you’re not the least bit interested in. And I knew exactly why all the guys who hadn’t given me the time of day before were suddenly asking me out. Why they were taking me to the movies and sticking their tongues down my throat and groping me without even knowing if I wanted to kiss them. Because I’m little, and I’m pretty. Now I am. But you know what?”

The hot tears were rising, but I went on despite them. Six years of this. Six years, and it was still the same exact thing. It didn’t matter if the man made twenty thousand dollars a year or twenty million, it was exactly the same. And this time, it mattered. He was the one man I’d really wanted, and everything he’d said was true. But not if that was all I was to him.  

“I am not a toy,” I told him. He wouldn’t care, but I was going to tell him anyway. I couldn’t make him listen, but I could make my voice heard. I could stand up and be counted. “I’m not any man’s doll. I’m a person, and you—” I blinked the tears back furiously, because I had to say this. “You’re exactly like all those other guys. You don’t want a person. You don’t want me. You don’t want to know me. You don’t want to share anything with me, not even a little bit of conversation. You can’t even pretend to care, and yet you think I should be lying down so you can…can screw me for as long as you want to, and that I should be fine with that, because I don’t deserve anything more.”

“Hope. Stop. Right now.” His face wasn’t impassive anymore. It was thunderous. “You’re going too far.”

“No.” I was trembling, but it didn’t matter. “You are. You’re the one who needs to stop. You got me hired to do a job under false pretenses. Stupid me, I thought somebody wanted me for my brains. For my work ethic. For my ability. All right, yes, I was stupid. I’ll own that. I should’ve known better than to think you’d really want me for anything but sex. I should’ve known better than to come out with you tonight, too. Not like you didn’t make it clear what this was about. I should’ve left a half hour ago, but I didn’t, because I was too attracted to you. I own that, too. But that doesn’t make you right. And it doesn’t make my position any better, or make you any less wrong for putting me into it.”

“I told you,” he said, his entire face set, grim. Dangerous. “That you could say no and keep your job. I don’t break my word.”

Time to face it. Exactly where I was. “Except for one thing. That I’m working for somebody who wouldn’t have hired me if you hadn’t told her to. Which leaves me two choices, doesn’t it? I can try to hang on and know I probably won’t be able to, or I can let you make her keep me on and know I’m there at your whim. And what I want to know is, why? Don’t you get how close to the edge I am? I had a job. It was a lousy one, but at least I wasn’t going to lose it. At least I could pay my bills. I quit it and took this job in good faith, and I need it to survive. I need it for my sister to survive. You really care that little if you wreck somebody’s life? If you’ve got anything at all in you except what you want to do to me, except how you want to use me—at least see that. At least see what you’ve done.” 

My voice had risen, was shaking hard by the time I’d finished. The waiter, I realized with horror, was outside the door, then retreating down the stairs, and Hemi was standing there immobile, his face betraying nothing. 

Because I was right. He didn’t care about me. He didn’t care what I said, or how I felt. And I was wasting my time.

I wrenched off the beautiful shoes, one at a time, and left them on the floor. “Keep your shoes,” I told him. “I am not for sale. And I’m sure as hell not for rent.”

I had my coat on, and I was down the stairs, rushing through the restaurant, hitting the street, and running for the subway as fast as I could in my bare feet. 

It hurt. Of course it did. It bruised, and it burned. But my heart and my pride hurt more.

Plus, I hadn’t even gotten to eat any salmon.