Twenty-one

After that nightmare, sleep doesn’t come easy. I give up around six A.M. If I have to be awake this early, I might as well get in some more studio time.

Carmen texts me around eight, supposedly just to see what’s up—but I know she wants to hear about my night with Jonah. I’m reluctant to explain, for a few reasons, but I’ve admitted he’s in my life. Besides, if I can talk Carmen into swinging by the studio to chat, I might be able to persuade her to pick up coffee on the way.

“One café au lait,” she announces as she comes in the door. “So spill. Good date or bad date? Not a great date, I’m guessing, since you’re here instead of at his place.”

“Oh, come on. I don’t usually move that fast.” Jonah doesn’t figure into the equation; he’s an outlier. “Just faster than you.”

“I can’t help it if I’m an old-fashioned girl.”

Carmen smiles as she says it, but it’s only half a joke. She dated the same guy throughout high school, and another guy through most of our undergrad years, so she has almost zero experience with sex outside a committed relationship. Not for lack of chances, though: Carmen gets more male attention than any other woman I’ve ever known. Cute as she is, she’d be the first to admit she’s not any kind of supermodel—but she radiates warmth and fun, which is more attractive than anything else.

“Out with it,” she says as she perches at a drafting table in one corner. “What did you guys do? Were you able to get more than two words out of him?”

“We went to dinner. It took the conversation a while to get rolling, but soon it was fine. Better than fine. Great. Jonah’s not cold or unfriendly. He’s guarded until he gets to know people, that’s all.”

Not really. Something else lies behind Jonah’s silences, his darkness—something that began at Redgrave House in Chicago. But I wouldn’t talk about that part of Jonah’s life even if I understood more about it. His troubled relationship with his family is none of my business, and even less of Carmen’s.

“Who knew? I guess everybody has, I don’t know, hidden depths.” She blows a bit of her cappuccino’s foam out of the way. “When did you get interested in him, anyway?”

I’m torn. Carmen is my best friend; I don’t make a habit of lying to her, beyond the occasional fib like, You look fine, nobody’s going to notice you spilled coffee on your skirt. But how can I possibly explain the whole truth about this? The only two human beings who come anywhere close to understanding are Doreen and Jonah himself—and even those two don’t have the whole picture.

Finally I decide to start at the beginning and see how far I get. “Well, you remember that I met Jonah when he changed a flat for me—”

“Chivalry’s not dead!” Carmen chirps.

I remember Jonah forcing me to my knees, growling, Look at me when you suck my cock. Even that quick flash of memory gets me hot. “Then he was at your party, thanks to Shay, and—” Maybe I can lead into the truth like this. “—after Geordie, uh, embarrassed me out on the deck, I was pretty freaked out. Then Jonah talked with me. Distracted me.”

“Oh, right. Arturo said Geordie started oversharing about your relationship. What did he say?” Carmen’s eyes widen. “Did Geordie talk about your sex life?”

Dammit. I thought every single person at that party knew! That was the reason I hid out at the far end of the yard in the first place. When so many people heard Geordie drunkenly apologize for not fulfilling my rape fantasy—well, I thought that was the kind of gossip that flowed through a party even faster than sangria. Arturo heard it, I know. But apparently nobody told Carmen.

I ought to be grateful. Instead, I’m chagrined. If someone had told her the truth then, I wouldn’t have as much to explain now. I say, “Yeah. Geordie got seriously personal, and I was pretty embarrassed.”

Carmen shrugs. “Come on. You guys went out for more than six months. It’s not like people didn’t know you two were sleeping together.”

“That’s not the point. Geordie, um, gave specifics.”

“Oh, my God. Was he talking about your body? I would die.” She gives me a look. “Do you think that’s why Jonah got interested in you? Because that would weird me out.”

I can’t tell her. I can’t. Carmen’s so far from realizing what I’m talking about, and I don’t want to bridge the gulf between her relative innocence and the kind of kink Jonah and I have indulged. Explaining feels impossible . . . or, at least, uncomfortable. “Not quite like that,” I say, not meeting her eyes. “Jonah didn’t want me to feel embarrassed. So we wound up, uhh, talking when we saw each other at the charity benefit. And guess what? At the silent auction, he actually bought my etching.”

“No way! Really?”

I smile back. “Even better, he decided to bid on it before he knew it was mine.”

Then Carmen and I are talking easily about the fact that Jonah’s interested in my art, and how cool that is, plus it’s pretty hot for a guy to be flying all around the world to study volcanoes, and so on. I ask her whether she’s made a move on her latest crush, but she claims she’s too busy with schoolwork. Has she suddenly turned shy? Maybe this particular guy brings out her bashful side. Our conversation widens as we spiral further away from the dark truth I’d rather not tell.

Doreen’s voice echoes in my memories. Pay attention to the secrets that you keep. You don’t have to share everything with everyone—but sometimes the very things you hide are the things you least need to keep locked inside.

The secret Jonah and I share is different. Surely it belongs to us alone.

•   •   •

Carmen has a ten A.M. class, so before long she’s headed to campus, as blissfully ignorant of my warped sex life as ever. I need to get into the departmental office soon, so I should follow her, but I linger awhile, restless and unable to focus.

Instead I pace the length of the studio. People will start coming in soon, but for another few minutes, the space is mine alone. My footsteps on the concrete floor echo in the empty space. The air smells like paint. I’m surrounded by drafting tables, a potter’s wheel, easels, X-Acto knives, pots of ink. A few long poles stretch from floor to ceiling, lingering evidence of the spiral staircases that were here back when this was a warehouse. Masking-tape labels proclaim this brush or that canvas to be the property of one of the artists who pays for the studio’s use.

I wish the studio belonged to me. Only me.

Because then I could ask Jonah to meet me here.

He would rip open my work shirt. Cover my mouth with his hand. Thrust against me so that I felt the length and hardness of his erection against my belly. I imagine him using the ragged remains of my shirt to tie me to one of the poles—pulling so tight I can almost feel the pressure. My breaths quicken as I imagine him taking one of the artists’ knives and cutting away my jeans and panties. Then he could force my legs apart and—

“Hey!”

Startled, I spin around to see Marvin—a painter, one of my fellow TAs at the UT department of art, and the guy who told me about this studio in the first place. “Oh! Hi. Hi there. How’s it going?”

“Fine.” Marvin gives me a look as he hangs his messenger bag on one of the wall hooks. “You okay?”

“Sure! Of course.”

“You look a little flushed, that’s all.”

“Just got done working hard.” Wow, that could not have sounded less convincing if I’d tried. Hastily I head for my own bag. “Heading out. Anything you need me to take care of at the office?”

Marvin shakes his head, bemused. “It’s all good.”

Honestly, I think as I drive to campus. You went out with Jonah. You’ve told your friends. The two of you are—normalizing this.

He’s not your mystery lover anymore.

But the whole day, I can’t stop thinking about Jonah. Not the conversation we shared—not the tender kiss at my front door—but endless fantasies, overlapping each other and blurring every other thought I have. Over and over, I imagine him taking me as roughly and brutally as possible.

Concentrate! I tell myself, as I sit through a department meeting, as I grade papers, as I talk to Geordie on the phone about a mutual friend’s birthday dinner. It doesn’t help. My erotic imagination has taken over, and there’s no room left in my head for anything else. Even when I guest-lecture in the Renaissance Sculpture class, I linger too long on the slide of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. It’s as if I’m drinking in her fear, his lust, and her hands reaching skyward for escape.

I want Jonah to chase me. To catch me. I want it now.

As I walk back to my office after class, my phone vibrates in my hand. I’m expecting Geordie to call back with the final word on the restaurant, so—for once—I don’t look at the screen before I answer. “Hello.”

“Oh. Vivienne.” Chloe sounds dismayed to have gotten me instead of my voice mail. That makes two of us. “How are you?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Very well, as it happens.” As if you care remains unspoken. “Mom’s decided to get rid of the armoire on the second floor. You know, the one that used to belong to Aunt Mignon? It would look just perfect in my guest room . . . but of course I’ve taken the last few heirlooms. So I thought I ought to ask you whether you were interested before I became greedy.”

Sounds generous, doesn’t it? Of course, Chloe’s fully aware that I live in a two-room house that barely has room for my books, much less more furniture. “You should have it,” I say. “Besides, then the armoire will be Libby’s someday.”

“Of course. Well.” A silence falls. She wants to know about Thanksgiving, but she doesn’t want to ask.

I’m so, so tired of jumping through hoops—but if I don’t visit Libby this Thanksgiving, how long will it be before I see her again? Chloe couldn’t keep me from her forever, but she could separate us for a long time. So I stifle a sigh. “I’m planning on coming home for the holidays. For Thanksgiving and Christmas.” That last is only partly true. Christmas day with my family, I can endure. The entire break? No way in hell.

“It’s good to know how many to plan for,” she says primly. But then, with what seems like genuine interest, she says, “I don’t suppose you’ll be bringing anyone? Are you still seeing that adorable Scotsman?”

“Geordie and I decided we were better off as friends. But I’ll tell him you said he was adorable. It’ll make his day.” The one time Geordie and Chloe met, they hit it off. Of course, Geordie hits it off with nearly everyone.

“A pity you two broke up. He suited you, I thought. There’s no one else on the horizon?”

I let the silence go on too long before I say, “I’m not bringing anyone to Thanksgiving.” Jonah and I might be trying to find our way back to normal, but I doubt he’s the holiday-dinners type.

“Sounds like there’s a story there,” Chloe says, but she doesn’t ask further. That would come too close to having a meaningful conversation. “Well, be sure to let us know what night you’ll come in from Austin.”

“Will do. And tell Libby hi.”

“Of course.” In her voice, there’s not even a hint that she recently threatened to keep Libby away from me permanently. “Thanks for being so understanding about the armoire.”

“Don’t mention it,” I say, knowing she won’t.

This makes for a solid three minutes I’ve spent thinking about something besides Jonah Marks. But I don’t make it to four, because as soon as I open my e-mail, there’s a note from Jonah.

The subject reads, Complete Disclosure.

My pulse quickens as I click, wondering if I’m about to read some confession—the truth about Jonah’s fantasy, whatever dark place it comes from, all his inner secrets. The answer proves to be more prosaic than that.

We said we would exchange these. I feel strange sending them after our evening out together, but you need to know now more than ever.

I can’t stop thinking about the way you kiss.

My heart does a dizzy little flip when I read the last line, which softens the moment when I open the attachment to see a lab report—Jonah confirming that he’s free of any STD.

Ah, modern love.

Well, I asked. And I need to get my own records to send to him too. Then we can stop with the condoms. Our fantasies can be even freer—our scenes more spontaneous. More savage.

I remember what I imagined he whispered to me the night of the charity benefit. Next time I’m going to come in your mouth.

Next time can’t come fast enough.

•   •   •

It’s Doreen’s job to be a wet blanket sometimes. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.

“You’re being obstinate,” I say during our next session. “You were all, ooooh, be scared, this date is going to be the worst date in the history of dating—”

“You know full well those words never came out of my mouth.” But Doreen is laughing.

“No, but I bet you were thinking them. Instead, Jonah and I went out and had a really good time! He’s smart, Doreen. He’s—insightful, and patient, and interesting.” I hug my knees to my chest. “Plus he has great taste in art.”

“I believe you about the art,” she says. Doreen has another of my etchings, one I gave her as a Christmas gift last year. It hangs in her foyer; I walk by it every time I come to a session. “The rest, I’ll take your word for. I’m glad to hear that he’s a person you’re drawn to on levels beside the physical.”

Gloating is too much fun to stop so soon. “You’re glad to hear you were proven wrong?”

“No, I’m glad to hear that you’re having the most honest sexual relationship of your life.”

That stops me short. I hadn’t thought of it that way—but she’s right. “Jonah knows what I want. What I need. It’s what he needs too.”

“Do you still feel guilty about the fantasy? Like it’s something bad you should be ashamed of?”

I listen to her clock for a few moments, the slow tick-tock punctuating the silence. “Less.”

“Less means yes.”

“It also means less.” I readjust myself on the sofa, so I’m sitting up like an adult instead of hugging myself like a girl on her best friend’s floor. “The fantasy feels different when—when it’s shared.”

“Then why do you think you continue to feel some shame?”

We go over this, and over this. I’m so fucking tired of answering this question. “Because I’m getting my rocks off on something horrible. Something criminal. There are women who get raped—even men who get raped—who never want to have sex again after that. I don’t know why it wasn’t like that for me, or why it was the exact opposite. It just is, and now—now I get turned on by the same thing I hate Anthony for.” I have to swallow hard. “If I hate Anthony for raping me, but I keep putting myself through all these fantasy rapes in my mind—and finding Jonah, going into this arrangement we have—maybe I should hate myself too. Because I do it to myself.”

That’s the first time I’ve uttered those words. The first time I’ve even allowed myself to think them. Doreen’s endless patient questions finally connected and broke me open.

“There’s a world of difference between your fantasies and what Anthony did, because he raped you,” Doreen says. “You choose your partner in the fantasy—whether that’s a figment of your imagination or a willing lover like Jonah. You didn’t choose Anthony. He took that choice away from you.”

“I know. I know.” Tears have started to well.

That’s Doreen’s cue to tell me that I shouldn’t beat myself up over my fantasies, but today she goes in a different direction. “You still haven’t told Jonah about your rape?”

“God, no.”

“Do you think keeping this secret from Jonah is different than keeping it secret from others?”

“Jonah’s the last person I could tell.”

“And why is that?”

The answer is obvious, but Doreen wants me to say it out loud. Fine, then. “I’m scared he’d get off on it.”

Doreen sits back in her chair. “Vivienne, I want you to think about what this says about the trust between you and Jonah. You’ve given him a great deal of power over you; so far he hasn’t abused that. But how much trust can there be when you’re afraid he would enjoy hearing about your real-life rape?”

I have no answer for her. The clock ticks on, measuring the silence.

•   •   •

Those words of caution linger in my mind, but they don’t make me stop wanting Jonah.

No, I’m even more turned on than before. That’s how fucked up I am.

But Doreen reminded me that, on some level—one that goes deeper than a nice dinner out, or his admiration for my artwork—I’m still a little bit frightened of Jonah Marks.

The fear is what makes it so good.

I get home just at sunset. As soon as I’ve shut and locked the door behind me, I call Jonah.

“Are you all right?” he says. Still no hello.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Is this about my e-mail earlier? Maybe that was—abrupt.”

“No, it’s good that you sent it. I’m glad, really. My records will be headed your way as soon as I can scan them.” I run one hand through my hair, restless as I pace my floor. “Are you free tonight?”

“. . . I can be.”

“Do you want to play?”

He knows what I mean. I can tell by the long silence that follows, and the huskiness of his voice as he finally answers, “Yes.”

Tonight, I’m going to test my limits.

I’m going to prove how far I can trust Jonah Marks, and how far I can’t.