CHAPTER 10
Zach was relieved to find almost fifteen thousand new words from Nora in his email when he arrived at work two days after finding her half-unconscious in his office. Apparently she was working out her nervous energy from not having Wesley at home by writing five breathlessly intense chapters. He read through them and jotted down notes as he went. He was thrilled with what she was doing with the book. But he needed to steer her in a new direction before she wrote any more. The whole book couldn’t be a sprint. She needed to stop and let the reader breathe for a chapter or two before kicking into high gear again.
Zach read through his notes again and dialed her office number.
“Sophocles’s House of Patricide and Incest,” Nora answered. “How may I blind you?”
Zach bit the inside of his cheek to keep her from hearing him laugh.
“Nora.”
“Zachary,” she said breathlessly.
“You’re in a chipper mood, I see.”
“You can see me? Where are you? Are you in my house?”
This time Zach let her hear him laugh.
“From this excessive display of mirth and jubilance, I assume your intern’s come home.”
“Yes, thank God. With a little subterfuge I managed to smuggle him back under my roof where he belongs. He is resting comfortably right now, and I am on cloud ten because cloud nine was full of pompous Englishmen. Wasn’t my scene.”
Zach cleared his throat. “Speaking of scenes—”
“Oh, God, the book. You know what, Zach, I am in a great mood. Nothing you can say or do will ruin it. Shred the chapters. Do your worst. Make it hurt. I’m ready.”
Zach took a deep breath.
“They’re fabulous.”
He heard Nora snort a most unladylike laugh on the other end of the line.
“You’re terrible at this game.”
“I’m quite in earnest, Nora. They’re excellent. Needs some minor cleaning up but spot-on all the way through. Now you just need to slow the pace down a little.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Three words. Show—don’t tell.”
“How much are they paying you for this?”
Zach chuckled and gave Nora some concrete suggestions for where to take the next two or three chapters.
“And I want five more chapters by tomorrow morning,” Zach said even though he knew that was an almost impossible challenge.
“Slave-driver,” she said.
“Nora, we’ve lost a lot of time—”
“Zach,” she said and he heard the smile in her voice. “Relax. It’s me. Slave-driver’s a compliment.”
They said their goodbyes and Zach hung up the phone. He looked up and saw his assistant standing in the doorway of his office holding a box in her hands.
“Oh, God. Another one?” he asked.
“Afraid so, boss.” Mary came inside his office. She put a book-size flat box on his desk.
“Have we figured out who is sending this nonsense yet?”
Zach picked up the box and warily tore off the plain brown paper wrapping.
“I think I know who it is,” Mary said. “Wonder what it is this time.”
“It was, what, anal beads two days ago. And a blindfold before that. And what was it last week?”
“Lube,” Mary supplied. “K-Y Jelly specifically, I believe.” Zach eyed Mary and suppressed a grin. Mary was his second favorite woman he’d met since coming to New York. “If you keep working with Nora Sutherlin, you’ll be able to start your own sex shop.”
“Anything would be preferable to this. I thought only adults were allowed to work in publishing,” he said. Turning the box over in his hands, Zach considered just tossing it in the trash. Ever since he’d started working with Nora, a new “gift” would arrive in his office mailbox or on his desk every couple of days.
“Come on, you know better than that. I’ll bet you anything it’s Thomas Finley. He thought he’d get the job in L.A since he’s been here the longest. He’s been pretty pissed ever since J.P. promised it to you. But everyone knows he’s still here only because he sucks up so much to the big bosses. He’s doesn’t edit books. He just spit-shines shit.”
Zach laughed and decided Nora and Mary needed to meet if they hadn’t already.
“I appreciate the loyalty as well as the imagery. But let’s get this over with, shall we? Lovely,” Zach said as he pulled out a pair of bright silver handcuffs with a set of tiny keys hanging off the middle link.
“Nice. Very shiny.” Mary took them from him and examined them closely. “You have the right to remain silent,” Mary began and slapped the cuffs on his left wrist. Zach gave her a dirty look. “Sorry. Too many Law & Order marathons, I think.”
“Far too many.”
Mary took the key and slipped it in the lock. She turned it but the cuffs didn’t pop open.
“Shit,” she breathed in shock. “The key doesn’t work.”
“Surely not.” Zach took the key and tried it himself. Nothing happened. “Bloody hell.”
“Boss, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I’ll call a locksmith right now.”
“That bastard. If it’s Finley, I’ll kill him. Whoever it was wanted this to happen.”
She raced from his office and headed to her own. He could only imagine how long it would take to get a locksmith here during the lunch rush hour.
He glanced down and saw Nora’s manuscript in front of him. And then he looked at his door. He picked up his phone again.
“Ian McEwan’s Cement and Incest Emporium—”
“Nora, really.”
“I love caller ID. What can I do you for?”
“I have a small problem involving handcuffs,” Zach said, glancing down at his wrist. “Do you know anything about locks?”
“If you knew how much of my life I’ve spent chained up, you wouldn’t ask that question.”
Zach paused a moment and said five words that were surprisingly difficult to get out.
“I need your help, Nora.”
Zach waited for her to laugh or tease him. Instead, she gave him a small piece of advice that he decided to take and hung up the phone.
“I called the locksmith,” Mary said, coming back into his office. “He said he’d be here in a couple of hours.”
“Cancel him. I called Nora. She gave me a suggestion.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Three words—come to me.’”
Zach stood up and pulled on his long gray coat; he stuffed his hands into his pockets so no one could see the cuffs dangling off his left wrist.
“And I think I will.”
Walking toward the elevator, Zach stiffened in fury as Thomas Finley strolled past him wearing an oily smirk on his face.
“Your jokes are not amusing, Finley,” Zach said as he continued toward the elevators.
“That’s because they’re not jokes, Easton.” Finley ducked into his office and Zach resisted the infantile urge to personally show Finley what was and was not amusing. Finley on the floor coughing up blood—that would be amusing.
Still fuming, Zach momentarily forgot about the handcuffs on his left hand when he stuck his hand out to hit the down button on the elevator. He heard a throat clearing and looked to the right.
J.P. stood at the receptionist’s desk with his eyebrow arched in disapproval.
“Long story,” Zach said. As much as he wanted to rant to J.P. about Finley’s torments, he was no schoolyard tattletale. He’d handle it himself when the time came.
“Might I ask where you are going thusly attired?” J.P. asked.
“Jail. Obviously.” The elevator door opened and Zach stepped inside. He smiled at J.P. knowing full well that’s exactly what Nora would have done. “It’s just about the book.”
If it was possible, J.P.’s eyebrow seemed to arch even higher.
“It’s never just about the book, Easton.”
* * *
When he put her in the handcuffs, she knew she was in trouble. The third time they ever saw each other she was wearing handcuffs. She wore them not for reasons of kink but of law enforcement. It was raining that night when she got caught for the first and last time. When she arrived at the police station and the cop pulled her out of the squad car, he was standing there just behind her mother. What was he doing here? she asked herself and then realized her mother must have called him out of fear and desperation. What a sight she was that night—soaked to the skin, bedraggled, wearing her school uniform with her hands cuffed behind her back. She’d glared at him from behind the veil of her wet hair, and he looked back at her with ironic amusement. But that wasn’t the only look in his eyes. There was something else there, something it would take years before she fully understood.
She understood it now.
She sat on the floor gagged and handcuffed to the bedpost. In forced silence, she leaned back and watched him. A young woman with pink and blue hair was strapped spread-eagle to a St. Andrew’s cross. With a cat-o’-nine-tails he tattooed the girl’s back bright red with welts. The girl squirmed and cried out. She begged him to stop. He didn’t stop.
After a few minutes the beating ceased. He laid the cat aside and strode over to where she sat on the floor. He knelt in front of her and ordered her to meet his eyes.
“Are you ready to apologize now?” he asked her. “Or shall I continue beating Simone?”
The only thing worse than one of his beatings was being forced to watch while someone else took the punishment that was rightfully hers. She slowly nodded her head.
“Good girl,” he said. He stood up and walked over to the girl on the cross. He unbound her wrists and ankles. Simone stepped gingerly off the platform and knelt on the floor. She kissed the top of his bare feet and rose up again. He bent his head and in a voice too low to overhear, whispered something in her ear. The girl blushed and smiled. She asked for permission to kiss his hand. He granted it.
Simone kissed the center of his palm, gathered her clothes and left the room. They were alone again.
He walked back to her and squatted in front of her. He untied the gag and waited.
“You have something to say to me?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” She took a ragged breath. “I’m sorry I forgot to call, sir. I apologize for worrying you. I was so tired when I got home I went straight to bed.”
“It takes mere seconds to call and let me know you arrived home. You are my most treasured possession. Your value to me is beyond what you can conceive. It is my duty to protect you. You know my rules. And you know better than to flout them.”
She hated when she disappointed him. But
it wasn’t her fault she was so tired. He’d kept her up until
3:00 a.m.
beating her and fucking her over and over again. It had taken everything she
had to just make it to her bed that night. She knew she’d worried him when
she hadn’t called. But it was galling to be treated like a teenager with a
curfew. She’d refused to apologize at first. She was twenty-six years old,
for God’s sake.
“Forgive me, please. I’ll do anything.”
He raised his eyebrow and she knew she’d made a mistake.
“Anything?”
Her stomach fell through the floor.
An antique black rotary phone sat on a table in his private quarters. He only ever used it for one purpose. He used it for that purpose now.
She didn’t look up when the door opened. She knew from the shoes who it was who’d entered. Black riding boots. Men’s riding boots.
She shouldn’t have said “anything.”
He returned to her and released her from the floor. He didn’t remove the handcuffs, though. He kept her hands cuffed behind her back. He’d made her wear her old school uniform tonight in honor of the first time he’d seen her in handcuffs.
He unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it roughly off her shoulders. His mouth crashed onto hers and he kissed her until her lips were sore and swollen. He kissed his way down her neck and across her shoulders and breasts, leaving a trail of bite marks and bruises. He pushed her onto her back on the bed and wrenched her skirt up to her hips. He yanked her white cotton panties down her legs, over her white knee socks and saddle shoes. His fingers pushed inside her and spread her wide for him. He gripped her arm and shoved her onto her stomach. She felt his hands between her legs again separating her, prying her open. She braced herself and groaned as he pushed inside her. He rode her with fierce thrusts that left her gasping. She didn’t want to moan or cry out. Not with an audience standing at the foot of the bed smiling and watching everything he did to her. But he wrenched the cries from her. She pressed her face into the bed and bit the coverlet trying to stifle the sound of her climax.
He kept thrusting and she was close to her second humiliating orgasm when he came inside her with a ferocious final thrust. She whimpered as he pulled out of her. She rolled onto her side and brought her legs up to her chest. Now they were both looking at her.
The man in the riding boots strolled toward her. He crawled onto the bed.
“Sir, please,” she begged.
“You did say anything.”
She swallowed and nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
The man in the riding boots took her by the ankle and dragged her toward him.
“C’est à moi,” the man said as he opened his pants. He pushed inside her and she raised her hips to take him deeper.
My turn.
Nora turned her head and checked the clock. Zach would probably be here soon. She laughed to herself at the thought of Zach getting stuck in handcuffs. How or why he’d been playing with handcuffs she could only begin to imagine. But knowing that sexy stuffed shirt of an Englishman there was no way he ended up in them for any of the reasons she ever had.
She stared at the words on her screen—C’est à moi, she read again and sighed. She exited from the document without saving it then stood up and headed to the living room.
Wesley lay stretched out on the couch with a chemistry textbook balanced on his chest and a highlighter between his teeth. He looked so warm and comfortable in his battered jeans and bleached-white socks and the double layer of T-shirts that she just wanted to stretch out on top of him and fall asleep on his chest. She was deliriously relieved he was home. But as happy as she was to have him back, she worried he was going to make himself sick again. He was supposed to start giving himself his insulin shots in his stomach, but he hadn’t been able to make himself do it yet.
“You catching up on your homework?” she asked.
Wesley spit the highlighter out.
“Yeah. I’ve got three days of make-up work. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.”
“Don’t work too hard. I want to see nothing but decadent laziness on your part.”
“I think I can handle that. Where are you going?” he asked as she pulled her coat on.
“Across the street. Zach’s coming over. When you’re done laughing at him, just send him over. Tell him to go in and look up.”
Wesley eyed her suspiciously.
“Why would I laugh at Zach?”
She bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
“You’ll see.”
* * *
Zach hopped the train and headed north to Nora’s. But when he knocked on the door it was Wesley who answered.
“Feeling better?” Zach asked.
“Much. Puking your guts out then fainting in a library bathroom is no way to spend a Monday night.”
“Agreed. Nora seems quite pleased to have you back. You gave her quite the scare.”
“It’s only fair. She scares me half to death at least once a week.” Zach laughed but Wesley’s eyes showed no mirth.
“You’re looking mostly restored.” Zach envied the boy his youth. Three days in the hospital and Wesley still looked hearty and hale.
“Nora said I looked ‘fit to be tied up.’ I’m hoping she didn’t mean it literally.”
“Apparently someone meant it literally with me,” Zach said, pulling his hand out of his pocket and showing Wesley the handcuffs dangling from his wrist.
Wesley laughed at him and Zach couldn’t help but join in. It really was quite embarrassing and ridiculous.
“Don’t feel bad, Zach,” Wesley said when he was done laughing. “Nora made me help her with a scene once. I ended up hog-tied on the living-room floor for half an hour.”
Now it was Zach’s turn to laugh. Was there any woman in the world quite like Nora? He was so glad she existed; even more glad there was only one of her.
“Where is Nora, by the way? She’s going to try to help get these things off me.”
“If anyone can, it’s her. She wants you to meet her at church.”
“Church?”
Wesley stood on the threshold of Nora’s house with his arms crossed over his chest. He reached out and pointed to a building on the corner of the block.
“There. Go in. Look up. You’ll find her.”
Wesley shut the door and Zach crossed the street and reached the end of the block. Zach read the sign out in front of the church. St. Luke’s Catholic Church, it said with the mass schedule underneath.
With trepidation, Zach slipped through the front doors of the small neo-Renaissance church. Apart from attending the weddings of a few friends he’d rarely stepped inside a church before. And he was certain this was his first time in a Catholic sanctuary. He glanced at the dripping candles and the stained-glass scenes of violence. In this setting the imagery in Nora’s books made more sense.
Go in, look up, Wesley had instructed.
Zach strode to the center of the sanctuary and looked up.
“I’m up here, Zach.”
Zach glanced up and found Nora at the back of the church leaning over the ledge of a small balcony section.
“What are you doing up there?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low. The acoustics were so good he felt as if he shouted every word.
“Choir practice. Show me the damage.” Zach pulled his hand out of his pocket and held up his wrist to show her the dangling handcuffs.
“My, my, my…” She sighed, affecting a Southern drawl she no doubt stole from Wesley. “I see temptation has come a knockin’ and you have answered the door…”
“Hardly, Blanche DuBois. I have a rather irksome prankster at my office. This was his pathetic attempt at a joke.”
“Well, come on up. Let’s see what we can do.”
Zach found the tiny stairwell that led to the loft. In the loft he found smaller versions of the church’s pews and an ancient-looking sound system. Nora sat on the balcony ledge and pointed to the pew in front of her.
“Come here, Kinky Easton.” She beckoned. “Amateur. You know you should always do an equipment check before you play.”
Today Nora wore jeans and a white blouse. With her hair down and loose about her shoulders, Zach was drawn to her despite himself. She reached for his hand and he felt a current go through him when her fingers touched his wrist.
“So what do you think?” he asked, trying to ignore the pleasant sensation of his hand in hers. “Some sort of wire cutters? Or can you pick the lock?”
“I can pick it. But I don’t have to.”
Nora reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her keys. She flipped through a couple of them, stuck one in the lock and turned it. The cuffs popped open and fell off his wrist.
“Wonderful,” he breathed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She stuffed the keys back in her pocket and picked up the cuffs. “These are police issue cuffs. The key on them should have worked.”
“It didn’t. Both Mary and I tried.”
“Your prankster was really trying to cause trouble then. Handcuffs are mostly standardized in America and Canada. He wanted one or both of you to get stuck.”
“You know your stuff, don’t you?” he asked, impressed despite himself.
“I strive for authenticity in my work.”
“So that’s why you keep a handcuff key with you?”
She smiled slyly.
“Gotta be prepared. We guttersnipes are always ending up in trouble with the coppers.”
“You know, I should apologize for being so rude about you. The work is going rather well.”
The tiredness temporarily disappeared from her eyes.
“Thanks, Zach. I appreciate that.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We aren’t even close to the finish line.”
“I know. That’s why I came here. This is a good place for praying and meditating.”
“Praying? Really?”
“I grew up in the Catholic Church, believe it or not. Cradle Catholic, they call us. I was probably born in a pew. Knowing my father I was probably conceived in one, as well. I don’t attend Mass much these days, but I do get homesick now and then.”
“They must stand in line to hear your confessions.”
Nora released a hollow, joyless laugh.
“No,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “I don’t go to confession anymore.”
“So what brings you here then if you’re no longer practicing? Faith or just nostalgia?”
“Maybe it’s nostalgia for my faith.” She shrugged and laughed again. “I still believe. I do. My life has been too blessed not to believe. Faith just isn’t as easy as it used to be. Not since I left Søren anyway.”
“Was it easier with him?”
Nora nodded. “It’s easy to believe in God when you wake up every morning knowing you are completely and unconditionally loved. Søren gave me that.”
“But still you left him. Why?”
“There are only two reasons why you leave someone you’re still in love with—either it’s the right thing to do, or it’s the only thing to do.”
“Which was it?”
Nora exhaled slowly. “The right thing. I think. You?”
Zach turned his head and saw an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus in her arms.
“The only thing. I think. Suffice it to say Grace and I never should have been together to start with.”
“Sounds like me and Søren. We definitely shouldn’t have been together.”
“Why?” Maybe if he could find out why Nora left the man she loved so deeply, he could begin to understand why Grace had pulled away from him.
“He had—” Nora paused and seemed to search for the right word “—other obligations.”
“Is he married?”
She raised her hand and touched her neck. He followed her eyes. She gazed at a small iron Jesus impaled on his cross.
“Something like that.” She shook herself from her reverie and met Zach’s eyes again. “Come on. Let’s get back to the house. You can look over my new chapters.” Nora gave Zach her hand and he let her pull him up. But she didn’t stop with up. She pulled him straight to her.
Face-to-face, their bodies were only separated by a hairbreadth. Nora looked down and back up again.
“Oh, dear. No room for the Holy Ghost.”
“You are incorrigible, Ms. Sutherlin.” Zach’s smile died as he noticed the dark circles under Nora’s eyes. “You look exhausted. Are you not sleeping?”
“I’m fine. But last night I kept waking up every hour and going in to check on Wes. You know, I got an IUD so I would never have to do the ‘is junior still breathing?’ thing. This is very unfair.”
“IUD—you are a bad Catholic, aren’t you?”
“The birth control is the least of my worries if I ever have to answer to the pope,” she said, taking a step back. “I do as Martin Luther instructed—I sin boldly.”
He followed her down the steps and along the rows of pews to a side entrance he hadn’t seen when he came in. Inside the door was a foyer where Nora had left her coat.
“Do they make the sinners use the side door?” he asked.
“We’d all have to use the side door then. ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’ Romans 3:23.”
“A Bible-quoting erotica writer—you are quite the oxymoron,” Zach said.
“And a Moxie Whore-On sometimes.” Nora winked at him. “If it helps, Søren used to say Catholicism was the perfect faith for someone into S&M.”
“Why?”
Nora opened her mouth and closed it again as if she started to say something and then thought better of it.
“Show, don’t tell,” she said, taking his arm.
Together they walked back into the sanctuary taking another doorway on the opposite side that opened up to a long corridor. The walls of the corridor were adorned with framed prints of biblical scenes. Scenes from the Hebrew Bible were on his right—images that he remembered from his childhood in Hebrew school; he recognized Ruth and Naomi, Jacob’s Ladder, the Crossing of the Red Sea, among others. On his left were scenes from the New Testament—images far less familiar to him. Nora brought him to the end of the hall and stopped in front of the third print from the end.
“This one’s my favorite,” she said, still holding his arm. “Antonio Ciseri’s Ecce Homo. That’s ‘Behold the Man’ if you aren’t up on your Latin.”
“A tad rusty. Is this from the Crucifixion?”
“From the Passion. This is when Christ is being presented to the angry mob.”
“Ah, yes. When we bloodthirsty Jews killed Jesus, right?”
Nora smiled and shook her head. “You kidding? Jesus died for the sins of the world. Everyone who ever lived killed Jesus.” She paused and smiled sadly. “I killed Him.”
Zach said nothing as he studied the painting, struck by the artist’s choice of bright colors to paint such a dark scene.
“Søren has this impressively twisted theology of the Trinity, you know. God the Father inflicted the suffering and humiliation, God the Son submitted to it willingly and God the Holy Spirit gave Christ the grace to endure it.”
“Your Søren sounds…interesting,” Zach said, attempting to be diplomatic.
“He was never my Søren. That’s the one thing about being a collared submissive. I was his. He never was mine. But yes, he is interesting. The most caring sadist you could ever hope to meet.”
“But you loved him?”
“And I loved him,” she corrected. “Søren said Jesus was the only man who ever made him feel humble. He makes me feel humble, too.”
“Søren or Jesus?”
But Nora didn’t answer. Instead, she released Zach’s arm and stepped toward the print.
“Just look at it. Look at Him. Isn’t He the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, Zach?” She’d said his name but from the ethereal tone of her voice, it seemed as if she were talking to herself instead. “It’s the Praetorium. Pilate was a kind of Roman overseer of Jerusalem. He was trying to keep a very fragile peace so instead of immediately sentencing Christ to die, he orders Him to be scourged. Scourging meant a near fatal beating with a whip that had glass and bone and rocks embedded in the lashes. It was a serious punishment. He hoped that would satisfy the mob’s bloodlust. But look at the painting—no wounds. The skin of his back looks perfect. But supposedly He’s just been brutally, viciously whipped. Ciseri is emphasizing Christ’s beauty, not His beating. He’s showing Christ’s feminine side. Admittedly it’s very inaccurate, I know. Almost all depictions of the crucifixion are inaccurate. That little loincloth they always show Jesus wearing? Didn’t exist. Victims of crucifixion were stripped completely naked to add to their shame and humiliation. Artists can’t bring themselves to show just how fully human Jesus was.”
Zach said nothing, strangely spellbound by Nora’s words.
“Just imagine what this was like for Him, Zach.” Nora shook her head as if she couldn’t imagine it herself. “We talk about the Virgin Mary, but Jesus never married. He was a virgin, too. And there He was completely naked on display for the whole world to see, and right in front of Him is Mary Magdalene, who was his best friend, and His poor mother. His mother, Zach. He must have been so embarrassed, so humiliated. See these two women here. They get it.”
Zach glanced at the painting and then at Nora.
“Look how Ciseri painted Jesus. See the curve of His back and shoulders. It is a classic feminine posture. His hands are tied behind His back and His robe is falling over His hips. And all the men are just pointing and staring and gawking. But the women—see them?—they can’t bear it. One’s looking down and she—” Nora pointed at a female figure who was turned completely away from the horrible scene unfolding behind her “—she can’t even look. She has to hold on to the other woman just to keep from collapsing. And of all of them, she’s the only one whose whole face we can see.”
Nora fell into silent contemplation again and Zach watched her eyes. They were fixed on the two women in the foreground, huddled together in palpable distress. “They know what He’s feeling. The women always know. They know it isn’t just a beating or a murder they’re being forced to witness. It wasn’t even just a crucifixion. It was a sexual assault, Zach. It was a rape.”
Nora took a deep breath and Zach felt his own breath catch in his chest. He wanted to say something but didn’t trust himself to speak yet.
“That’s why I believe, Zach,” Nora continued. “Because of all gods, Jesus alone understands. He understands the purpose of pain and shame and humiliation.”
“What is the purpose?” Zach asked, truly wanting to know.
Nora’s eyes returned to the two women in the foreground clinging to each other in sympathy and horror.
“For salvation, of course. For love.”