CHAPTER 11
“You think I’m so damn obedient,” Caroline said as she pulled away from William. She stood at the window looking out on their backyard where just yesterday they had sat and talked until dusk. If only there were more yesterdays instead of so many todays.
“You’ve never given me cause for complaint.” She heard the confusion in his voice.
“It’s always ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and ‘as you wish, sir.’ But it’s not out of obedience.”
“Then what is it, Caroline?”
She didn’t want to answer. But she knew she couldn’t keep lying to him with her every breath.
“Fear.”
“Of what?”
“Of this…game you make us play. It isn’t a game to you, though, is it?”
He came to stand behind her. She braced herself but he didn’t touch her.
“No, it isn’t. For me this is very real.”
“I want it to be a game…so much,” Caroline admitted. “Games can be won. You win the game and the game’s over. And I want it to end.”
“It can end,” William said, his voice soft with sadness. “If you stop playing.”
“But I can’t. If I quit playing…” She didn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t bring herself to finish it.
“Then neither of us will ever win.” William said what she’d been afraid to say.
“So what’s the consolation prize?” she asked, trying and failing to find a smile for him.
William bent and rested his chin on the top of her head. He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into him and closed her eyes. This game had an hourglass for a timer and she saw the sand running out.
“I don’t think there is one.”
* * *
God, it was wrenching. Zach minimized the document and pushed back from his computer. He stood and walked around his office. Stopping at the window, he stared out at the city and the sky. Today was a gray day, cold and windy. It had been windy the day he’d left England: a sea wind, warm and fierce, and Zach recalled waiting at the airport almost hoping his flight would be canceled or even just delayed long enough for Grace to realize he really was going. But the wind had failed him that day. It had carried him aloft instead of forcing him aground. Sailors’ wives once had little balconies on their roofs. What were they called? Widow’s walks. That was it. Yes, the widow’s walk, the place where they could go alone and stare out to sea and watch and wait. He envied them their macabre station. At least they could see the ship coming in. At least they had a place to hide their grief every day it didn’t.
Zach stared at the sky and wished he could see all the way across the gray ocean. Gray was Grace’s favorite color. She joked it was “like silver only sadder,” and he’d tease her about all the gray sweaters in her closet, the dozens of gray woolen socks. Grace would have loved a morning like this. She would have opened the curtains, opened the blinds and dragged him back to bed with her to make hasty love before the sun intruded and changed the color of the day.
Tearing his eyes from the sky, he looked down at the gray streets below. Supposedly from this height everyone was supposed to look like ants. But they didn’t look like ants to him at all. They still looked like people. He leaned his head against the glass and watched their progress. He was afraid for them and didn’t know why.
Nora…was she why? When he’d made her cut the more graphic scenes of sexual violence from her book she’d replaced them with emotional violence. Now everywhere he looked he saw people as fragile as paper.
Nora’s book had impressed him more than he wanted to admit. Most impressively she had turned the romance novel formula on its head. One of the cardinal rules of classic romance was that at no point, no matter how infuriating the heroine was and no matter how much the hero wanted to throttle her, he could never, would never raise his hand to her. But William was a sadist and used pain to prove his love. And where the romance novel began with the two characters trying to come together against forces both internal and external, Nora’s novel began with them together and then let the forces slowly, torturously tear them apart. She was writing the antiromance novel.
Zach let his eyes focus on one of the small figures below him on the street. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. He or she bustled across the street in a great hurry. He wondered if this was why Nora was drawn to religion despite herself. The Pagan gods sat on high and played with their subjects like pieces on a chessboard. Nora’s god turned Himself into a pawn and let Himself be captured. He could see the attraction. Zach wanted to run down to the street below and follow whoever it was until he was certain he or she made it on time. He wanted to know everything turned out fine for at least one person in the gray city today.
Zach pulled away from the window and faced his desk again. As he returned to his computer he remembered Nora’s original first line from the first draft of her novel—“I don’t want to write this story any more than you want to read it.” He realized it wasn’t just William speaking to Caroline. It was Nora talking to him.
He sat down and opened Nora’s revisions again. He made himself keep reading. As much as it hurt, he had to know what happened next.
* * *
Nora sat at her kitchen table writing furiously in her notebook. She’d given up on her computer a few hours ago. Her wrists were aching from typing, but she still had another chapter in her head she wanted to get on paper. After her long talk with Zach yesterday at church, she’d come home newly inspired. She had made a terrible mistake with her characters in her first draft. In the original ending of her book, Caroline was no longer able to bear William’s darkness. In the original ending, Caroline left him. But Nora realized she’d done Caroline a great wrong. She was no sexual masochist; she was an emotional masochist and never would she leave the man she loved, the man she was certain needed her help. No, in the new ending William, out of love for her, would send her away. It was beautiful and brutal and how it had to end. William had told her that and she knew better than to cross him.
Wesley had spent the past two hours with her at the kitchen table catching up on more make-up work while she wrote. She wasn’t worried about his homework. Wesley had a shockingly keen mind under that mess of blond hair and had made Dean’s List all three semesters he’d been at Yorke. She’d made Dean’s List once when she was in college. Søren had ordered her to just to annoy her. Just to annoy him, she’d done it. Wesley was a natural hard worker, however, and didn’t need anyone telling him to do his homework or study. She told him once he could never be a writer like she was. He wasn’t nearly lazy enough.
Wesley… Nora looked up and around the kitchen. Wesley had left over twenty minutes ago to check his blood sugar and take his insulin—something that usually took less than a minute—before he started cooking dinner. Nora went looking for him and found him leaning over the downstairs’ bathroom sink.
“You okay, Wes?” she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
Wesley laughed and shook his head.
“You know, I have ridden some of the biggest, meanest, scariest stallions on the planet. You wouldn’t think a little needle in my stomach would bother me this much.”
Relieved that he wasn’t sick again, Nora exhaled and entered the bathroom. Wesley stood up straight and she hopped up on the counter next to the sink.
“Still can’t do it?”
“Nope. I think I have a mental block.”
“I can help with mental blocks.”
Wesley shook his head. “I have to do it myself, or I’ll never get over this.”
“You will do it yourself. You handle the needle. I’ll handle the mental block. What’s our target?”
Wesley pointed to a spot on the center of his stomach a hand’s span beneath the bottom of his rib cage.
“Dr. Singh said I’m supposed to think of my stomach like a clock face when I rotate my injections. I start at noon for the first one and then move an inch for the second one. That way I’m not going to hit the same spot over and over again.”
Nora nodded. “Clock face, huh?” She reached out and lifted the bottom of Wesley’s T-shirt. He’d lost weight in the hospital so now his four-pack abdomen was a stark six-pack. He had nothing left on his frame but muscle. She let loose a wolf-whistle. “Sexiest clock I’ve ever seen.”
“Nora,” Wesley said and pulled his shirt back down. He was blushing. “Stop it.”
“Wesley, you walk around the house without a shirt on all the time. Proof that you’re a secret sadist, I think.”
Wesley grimaced and Nora laughed.
“I am not a sadist. I’m nothing like him.”
“You are a lot like him.” She thought it was cute how Wesley tried to never say Søren’s name. “You both worry about me too much.”
“Anyone who’s ever met you worries about you,” Wesley countered.
“And you’re both blonds. Except you’ve got dark blond hair and his is light blond.”
“Well, he’s Swedish or whatever.”
“Danish. His mother was Danish and his father was English. Between the two of them, he’s the least American American I’ve ever met. Another thing you two have in common—you’re both musicians.”
Wesley eyed her suspiciously. “Does he play guitar, too?”
“Piano. He could have been a concert pianist, but now he just plays for fun.”
“He’s one of those perfect guys, right?” Wesley asked, crossing his arms. “His hair’s never messed up, he never spills anything, never trips.”
Nora nodded. “If that’s your definition of perfect, he does qualify. I’ve lost track of the number of languages he speaks. And he can be very witty and charming when he wants to be. And he’s ludicrously handsome. He’s also pretentious and conceited.”
Wesley grinned at her. “Keep going.”
“And he’s never ridden a horse in his life much less some of the biggest, meanest, scariest stallions on the planet. And,” she said, reaching out for Wesley’s T-shirt again, “he doesn’t make me laugh and smile every single day like a certain someone I know.”
Wesley raised his arms and Nora pulled his T-shirt off. Just to make it fair she unbuttoned her blouse and let it join Wesley’s shirt on the floor. Wesley seemed to be trying very hard not to stare at her wearing just her jeans and bra.
“So we’re shooting for here?” she asked and touched a spot on his stomach a few inches above Wesley’s belly button.
“Yeah. That’s noon.”
“Gotcha.” She flicked noon with her fingers hard enough Wesley flinched.
“Ouch!” He laughed. Nora flicked again.
“What are you doing?”
“In S&M, if you’re about to give someone a beating, you start off soft to desensitize the skin. A little pain at first can prevent a lot of pain later.” She kept flicking until their target spot had turned bright red.
“This might be worse than the needle.”
Nora looked at him and raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, I see what you did there,” Wesley said and Nora finally stopped flicking him. “Now what?”
“Take this and turn around,” she ordered, handing him his insulin pen. “Lean back against me.”
Wesley turned his back to her and Nora wrapped her arms around him. His young skin was smooth and warm, and when the swell of her breasts made contact with his back, she sensed him shiver. She reminded herself she was trying to help him, not seduce him.
“Okay, look down at my hands.” Her hands were on his rib cage. “Breathe in so deeply that you inflate your lungs like a balloon and my fingers spread apart.”
Wesley took a deep breath as instructed and Nora felt her hands open up.
“Now exhale slowly for five seconds and then breathe in again.”
Wesley obeyed, taking another breath in and then exhaling one more time.
“This time,” she said, “breathe in just as deeply but when you exhale, pop the air out hard and stick the needle in. I’ll count to five and then you pull it out.”
One more time Wesley pulled in air. “Now blow it out hard,” Nora said.
Wesley pushed the air from his lungs and from the tiny flinch she felt she knew he’d stuck himself.
She counted to five slowly and dropped a small kiss on his back between each number. At five he pulled the needle out.
He turned around and beamed at her.
“That’s my boy,” she said, and Wesley hugged her.
“That wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.”
“It’s a good trick,” Nora said as Wesley released her. “Works if you get a body piercing, too. I speak from experience.” Wesley had never seen where she was pierced.
“No, thanks. The tattoo was enough for me.”
Nora’s eyes widened with shock.
“What? You have a tattoo?”
Wesley groaned.
“Yes, I have a tattoo. A little one.”
“Wesley—you’re telling me that you had a mental block over injecting insulin in your stomach but you got a tattoo?”
“I didn’t have to give myself the tattoo. And believe me, I didn’t watch.”
Nora pursed her lips and looked him up and down.
“Well, I’ve seen you shirtless and I’ve seen you in boxers so it’s got be somewhere in this area.” She pointed at his pelvic region and Wesley blushed again. Caught. “I knew it. Show me, show me.”
“I am not going to show you. It’s stupid.”
“I’ll show you my piercing.”
“How about I show you my tattoo and you don’t show me your piercing. Deal?”
“My idea was better but whatever. Show me.”
Wesley exhaled loudly through his nose and started unbuttoning his jeans. Nora applauded. Rolling his eyes at her, Wesley pulled down his jeans and boxers just enough to reveal a small tattoo on his right hip. Nora leaned over and looked at it.
“It’s a trumpet,” she said, surprised by the strange image.
“It’s the bugle from the call to post at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. One of the horses Dad worked with did really well at the Derby a couple of years ago. He got the horse’s name tattooed on his shoulder. When I turned eighteen, I got the bugle. I only got it on my hip so Mom wouldn’t see it.”
“It’s very sexy.” Nora reached out and traced the tattoo with the tip of her finger. Wesley inhaled as her finger touched the sensitive skin. He was so responsive to everything she did that she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be like in bed. But she didn’t kid herself. She knew his responsiveness had very little to do with her and a lot to do with his being nineteen and still a virgin.
“It’s not supposed to be sexy. It’s a tribute to the most important horse race in the world.”
Wesley pulled his boxers back up and buttoned his jeans.
“So the Kentucky Derby’s a big deal?” Nora asked. “Must be if I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s the most exciting two minutes in sports.”
“Two minutes?” she scoffed. “I better get a dozen roses and a big apology if all I get is two minutes.”
“It’s a very long two minutes if you have a horse in the race. It’s not just that race, though. The whole thing lasts all day. There are races before and then all the people watching and the women in their crazy hats and everybody’s drunk on mint juleps, which are disgusting if you ask me, but don’t tell anyone I said that.” Wesley looked at her and took a quick little breath. “You should come with me this year.”
Nora raised her chin and studied Wesley. He didn’t quite meet her gaze.
“Did you just ask me out on a date, Wes Railey?”
“Nora, we live together. Asking you on a date would kind of be a step backward.”
“Yes, but we’re roommates. We don’t live together. And don’t you think it’ll be a little hard to keep the erotica-writer-roommate thing a secret if I show up with you wearing a sombrero at the Kentucky Derby?”
Wesley reached down and picked up their shirts off the floor. He pulled his T-shirt on, but Nora was in no hurry to get dressed. She enjoyed watching Wesley trying not to watch her too much.
“I sort of told Dad about you.”
“You’re kidding. Did he freak out?”
“I didn’t go into detail. I just sort of let him think I had a girlfriend so he’d really back me up about not moving home. He was starting to get worried his son was, you know—”
“A stallion not interested in mares?”
Wesley laughed. “Right. He was thrilled.”
“I never figured you for a liar. I’m impressed.”
“I didn’t lie. You’re a girl who’s a friend ergo—”
“Girlfriend. Well, if I’m going to be your girlfriend, this virginity thing has got to go. But after dinner,” she said and finally pulled her blouse back on.
She started to leave the bathroom but Wesley grabbed her hand.
“You didn’t say if you’d go with me or not.”
Nora smiled up at him. She couldn’t believe how serious Wesley was being.
“Yes, Wes. I will go with you to the most exciting two minutes in sports. When is it?”
“First Saturday in May.”
“I’ll book the flight. You get the tickets.”
“I already have the tickets. I go every year. My family would cancel Christmas before they missed the Derby. I only missed last year because of finals. No school in Central Kentucky would ever hold a final on Derby Day.”
“We’re all damned Yankees up here, aren’t we?”
“I like you Yankees. Y’all talk funny.”
Nora twined her fingers in his and studied him. Since getting out of the hospital, he’d seemed older, calmer, more sure of himself. And he also seemed more intent on spending time with her. He read in her office while she wrote. When she moved from her office to the kitchen, he went with her. She liked having him as a shadow. Since getting him back home she’d wished more than a few times that they were lovers so they could sleep in the same bed. As much as he shadowed her by day, she shadowed him at night. Ever since he came home from the hospital, she found herself waking up several times a night to make sure he was okay. She’d half considered getting a baby monitor and hiding it under his bed.
Nora took a step toward him and heard the devil on her shoulder telling her to kiss him, really kiss him for the first time. She tried to hear the angel on her shoulder but she remembered her angel had long ago turned in his letter of resignation. She wrapped an arm around Wesley’s neck and rose on tiptoes.
From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of her hotline phone blaring its Klaxon ringtone at her. Wesley sighed and rested his chin on top of her head.
“It’s okay,” Nora said and kissed him quick on the cheek. She still had a lot of writing to do for Zach, and it would take a whole team of stallions to drag her away from Wesley tonight. She leaned into Wesley’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Just let it ring.”