Chapter 2

Cameron sat perfectly still. He didn’t swivel in his chair, and he didn’t say a word. How did he worm that confession out of her with so many pointed questions? How did he know? He didn’t know. That was the thing. No one could weasel his way into a person’s brain like Cameron. He aimed for the heart of everything, and he hit it.

Sonya glanced up at him. “I guess cheating on me isn’t the right word for it since we never had a conversation about being monogamous. I never minded being non-monogamous, as long as I knew that’s what we were. I just wanted to know that’s what we were. I wanted everything to be out in the open, above board, with no secret agendas. You know?”

“What does he do?”

“He doesn’t do anything. He just lives his normal life. He loves me and cares about me and takes me out on the weekends and everything. I just suspected for a long time he was seeing other people on the side. ‘Seeing them’ isn’t the right way to put it, either. He just shags other women when the opportunity arises, whenever he feels like it. For all I know, he’s still using OKCupid to find people.”

“Are you satisfied with your relationship with him?”

“I’m satisfied with everything except that. I wouldn’t even mind him screwing around, as long as he was upfront with me about what he was doing.”

His eyes drilled into her being. “Would you like to screw around on him? Would you like to shag other men on the side, whenever you felt like it?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m a one-man woman.”

“Are you? Do you really think Liam deserves that?”

“I deserve it. I don’t want to screw around. I never have, and I never will.”

He swiveled sideways then. He was Cameron O’Toole, the world famous psychoanalyst analyzing the weak and helpless unsatisfied housewife. “How often do you have sex?”

She brushed her bangs off her forehead. “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a difference if you’re not satisfied.”

“I am satisfied. I just told you I was satisfied.”

“Just tell me. How often do you have sex?”

“Maybe twice a week, sometimes three.”

“Is that enough for you?”

“It’s more than enough. I don’t want any more.”

“Does Liam want more?”

“He doesn’t say he does. He just leaves it as it is.”

“Is that what makes you think he’s screwing around?”

“Not really.”

“Then what makes you think he’s screwing around?”

“Nothing in particular. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s that he never says anything about us doing it more or less or anything. He just accepts the relationship as it is.”

“And that strikes you as unusual? You think he shouldn’t accept it.”

“I find it hard to believe he would accept it without a word, without any discussion at all. He would only do that if he had something else going.”

“I see. And what about you? Do you accept the situation as it is, with no discussion or anything?”

“I just said I did. What am I talking to you about this for? It’s none of your business.”

“You’re my business, Sonya. If you’re unhappy, I want to fix it. That’s my business.”

“I’m not one of your clients. I’m your secretary, nothing more.”

“You’re a human being. I can’t live in the world without trying to help the person in front of me. That’s just the way I’m made.”

“Well, I don’t need your help. I’m just fine the way I am. I’m perfectly happy with my life and my job and my relationship, so we can work on your speech now.”

“If you’re perfectly happy, why can’t you smile when you talk about Liam screwing around whenever he feels like it? Look at you, Sonya. You’re miserable.”

“I’m not miserable. I might not be happy about it, but I’m not miserable.”

“Then there’s only one thing for you to do. You have to screw around with another man and not tell Liam about it.”

Sonya snorted. “And I suppose you think I should screw around with you. Well, forget it, and this conversation is over. I quit. I’m not your secretary anymore. I don’t screw around with my boss. I have some scruples, you know.”

“If you quit and you’re not my secretary, then you won’t be screwing around with your boss. You quit, so I’m just Joe Blow from down the block. There’s nothing in your scruples to stop you screwing around with me. What do you say now?”

“I say you’re soft in the head.”

“Does Liam satisfy you sexually? Tell the truth, Sonya. Does he light your fire and leave you breathless, or is the sex just sort of so-so?”

“Go jump off a cliff.”

She threw her notepad and pen on the desk, but for some reason, she didn’t get up and walk out of the room.

“Does Liam get you all hot and wet two or three times a week in between nailing his secretary in the toilet stall of his office building? Do you lie naked on your bed waiting for him to come home in the afternoon in breathless anticipation of him doing it with you? Do you crave him more than anything?”

She stared at him with saucer eyes. His eyes glittered with a knowing spark. How did he know? How did he read the situation with such unerring accuracy, just from the little she told him about it?

Did she get hot and wet waiting for Liam to come home from work in the afternoons? She didn’t even have to ask. Sex with Liam meant as little to her as it did to him, so why did she call herself a one-man woman? That was a joke. That was her way of avoiding finding someone she did crave more than anything.

She didn’t have time to crave anyone. She never let herself have time for it. She wasted her time with the Liams of the world so she could tell herself she wasn’t avoiding relationships.

Cameron knew it all. He put the puzzle pieces together and knew. That was his job. He judged people and sized up their problems for a living. Why did she think she could work for a man like that and get away with not being sized up along with the rest of the human race?

She ought to run out of that room, leave town, and get herself another temp job in a city on the other side of the world. She ought to leave Liam behind and find herself another OKCupid to shack up with. She’d done it dozens of times, and she could do it again.

So why didn’t she run? Why did she sit there like a deer in the headlights and let Cameron O'Toole hypnotize her with his snake eyes? Why did she let him continue to interrogate her about her personal life when she had no intention of baring her soul to him?

He didn’t swivel back and forth in his seat anymore. He sat still and returned her stare with his direct gaze. “Would you do it with another man if you knew he could satisfy you the way Liam doesn’t?”

She had to swallow hard before she got the words out. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“What would it take to get you to sleep with another man?”

“I don’t think I would ever sleep with another man—ever.”

“Never? Not even if it meant you could feel the pleasure and fulfillment of a satisfying sexual experience?”

“I don’t associate fulfillment with sex.”

“You don’t? Now I know you’re not satisfied with your sex life. That’s what sex is. It’s all about being fulfilled and complete, not just in the other person, but in yourself, in receiving pleasure and satisfying your needs and desires.”

Sonya blushed. She didn’t have her notepad and pen to look down at, so she studied the cuticles of her fingernails instead. “I’ve never had sex like that.”

“Would you like to?”

She couldn’t help but smirk at him. “That’s what this whole conversation has been leading up to, hasn’t it? That’s the whole reason you brought me in here, so you could proposition me for sex.”

“If you want it, there’s no reason you shouldn’t get it. If you haven’t had fulfilling and satisfying sex, what’s to stop you having it now, with me?”

“I just told you I don’t screw around. I would never do it with another man as long as I was with Liam. I would have to break up with him before I did it with anyone else, and I wouldn’t do it with you, anyway. I would do it with someone else.”

“You wouldn’t have to do it with me. I could give it to you without ever touching you.”

Her eyes popped open. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t believe me because you haven’t experienced it before, but it’s not about doing it with someone else. It’s about you and your desires. You could experience it simply by giving in to your desires.”

“I don’t desire you.”

“Do you desire?”

“What do you mean? Do I desire what?”

“Do you desire fulfillment and pleasure and satisfaction? Forget Liam and me and every other guy in the world. Just think about yourself.”

She tried to say she wasn’t thinking about sex in some horny executive’s office, but she couldn’t say anything. He worked his magic on her so she had to think about what he told her to think about. She couldn’t think about anything but her own hidden desires. What did she really want? What would really satisfy her and please her?

No guy had ever asked her those questions in her life, and here was her boss, asking them from behind his desk. What harm could come from just talking about it? As long as he stayed over there in his chair, with both of them fully dressed, she wasn’t actually cheating on Liam, was she? They were just talking.

His voice rumbled low in his chest. She could barely hear him, but the deep vibrations worked through her skin to the muscle and bone hidden underneath. His voice made her flesh creep and the tiny hairs stand up along her spine. “Do you want to experience sexual pleasure, Sonya? Do you want to experience more sexual fulfillment than you’ve ever experienced in your life?”

Her lips formed the word, “Yes,” but no sound came out.

“Are you hot right now, Sonya? Are you wet right now?”

She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but that bubbly mixture of toxic juices seethed between her legs. What did he do to make her burst into flame like that?

“Do you like me talking to you like this, Sonya? Does this turn you on?”

She looked around in confusion. Did she like it? She couldn’t say she exactly liked it. She didn’t like it at all, but it did turn her on. It turned her on more than anything Liam ever did.

Her cheeks burned, and her lips pouted open, but she couldn’t move. She could only stare at Cameron. Even then, she couldn’t see any of him but his burning eyes. “I asked you a question, Sonya. Does this turn you on?”

“Yes.”

“I want to hear you say it. Say it turns you on.”

“It turns me on.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Sonya. Make me believe it turns you on. Make me believe you’re not just saying that for something to say.”

She swallowed hard. She had no idea what he wanted her to do. What could she do to make him believe it?

“Spread your legs for me.”

She blinked. What did he just say?

He purred under his breath. His voice stroked down her skin from her eyelids to her knees. “That’s it. You can do it. Lean back in the chair and spread your legs. Let me look up your skirt to your panties. Let me see how wet you are.”

His voice commanded her. She saw him work this trick on his audiences until he held them in the palm of his hand. She leaned back until her head touched the chair back. When she did that, her legs stuck out in front of her so she couldn’t keep them together. They groaned apart to stretch her short skirt against her thighs. Her knees pointed straight at Cameron.

His eyes darted down to her crotch and back up to her face. “You’re not wearing any underwear.”

“I never wear it.”

He shook his head, and his jaw muscle clenched once. “Now I know you’re dying for it. I thought you were a repressed little secretary who needed a good fuck, but I can see now you’re raging horny. How did you ever stand to spend the last three years of your life with out-of-touch Liam?”

How had she stood it? She told herself she never wore underwear because it was more comfortable. She told herself she never thought about sex when, all the time, something monstrous and horrible lurked beneath the surface, just waiting to rear its ugly head and devour her.

One time, five years ago before she ever met Liam, she rode the New York subway on a drowsy summer afternoon. People packed the car so she could barely find space to squeeze in. The door closed against her back, and the train lurched away when a hand slid up her skirt to find her raw, vivid pussy bare and open to the world.

Those fingers delved and explored her engorged slit for half an hour before the man sitting next to her got up and left at a wayside station. He left her aching and hungry for more, but what could she do? She didn’t take the next train downtown to pick up a man to peg her in an alley behind a bar. She didn’t call up one of the guys from work who constantly hit on her and asked her out. She could have gotten laid then and there without further ado.

She didn’t do any of that. She went home and changed into her pyjamas. She curled up on the couch in front of the TV and watched the latest episode of Hard to Hold. She didn’t even touch herself when she went to bed. She left herself completely unsatisfied.  

What was wrong with her? What kind of disease prevented her from seizing the pleasure and happiness she craved in her deepest soul? Was she completely beyond redemption, that she didn’t even try to make herself happy? If she didn’t care enough to win her own happiness, she must not deserve it at all.

Cameron’s chair creaked, but she never moved her eyes away from his face. He told her to do this, so she did it. He wanted to see, and he was going to see. He would see how disgusting and unholy she was. Then maybe he would leave her alone.