Chapter Eight
Lydia
I pulled away from Gabriel, slipping around to the front of the desk to get away from the warmth of his body behind me and turned to face him.
“This isn’t a conversation I’m having with you,” I said. “My job is to do the coding. Yours is to model and speak for the simulation. That doesn’t require any type of personal input between us.”
I didn’t know how I was expecting Gabriel to react, but part of me was surprised when he took a step back from me, nodded, and walked out of my office. When he closed the door behind him, I felt my body sag and a long breath stream out of me. The impact of what had just happened was washing over me in waves, bringing with it new thoughts and emotions. I tried to process all that he had said, but it was as though my mind couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t allow him to get that close to me, to even consider the thought of exploring what he was offering me.
I stood in silence for several minutes before I shook myself back into reality and walked around my desk to sit down. I jotted the time down on my calendar and pulled out the slimmed-down collection of notes that I had compiled from all that the original programmer had left behind. I needed to review them again, to go over the ideas that I was forming so that I could start bringing them into implementation.
That night as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the sound of the clock beside me ticking the seconds by reminding me of the sleep that I wasn’t getting. I couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriel. I hadn’t been immediately impressed by him, and I wondered if that bothered him in some way, as if the very thought that a plain, unworldly woman wasn’t instantly enamored with him somehow threatened his perception of himself. On the other hand, he didn’t seem bothered or annoyed. It didn’t seem as though my actions had offended him. Instead, they only seemed to intrigue him, as though he now saw me as a challenge.
I couldn’t help but contemplate that as I continued to will myself to sleep. He had extoled the virtues of giving up total control and allowing someone to guide you through your own personal discovery and pleasure, but did I believe him? Had what he said actually made sense to me, or was I trying to convince myself that it did so that I could justify the image of his enticing face and firm, built body continuing to course through my mind with every breath. I forced myself to close my eyes and sleep, but my dreams were filled with flashes of Gabriel going to the wall in the chamber and the shivering feeling of the flogger, very real and very much in his hand, gliding along my skin.
The next morning my mind was still so distracted that it guided my feet into the front door of the building and along my usual path without me even realizing what it was doing. I didn’t recognize that I had fallen back into my predictable morning routine until I was standing in the breakroom with breakfast in my hands, looking for a seat with my coworkers.
“Lydia!” Charlene exclaimed, breaking me out of my fog and bringing me into the reality that I was, in fact, standing there. “Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been working a ton the last few days.”
Skylar hadn’t specifically told me not to tell anyone that I was working on this chamber, but since she had waited until everyone else left the conference room to talk to me about it, I felt the compulsion to keep it to myself.
“Me, too,” the bubbly, round blonde said, rolling her eyes with a sigh. “What do you think the chances are that we’ll get a massive earthquake that’s not enough to damage any of the program, but just enough to delay the opening of the facility by a week or two?”
I laughed.
“I don’t think that’s looking good.”
She nodded and dropped down into a chair at our usual table. We caught up as we ate breakfast and then headed toward our offices. When I reached mine, I checked my inbox, looked for messages even though it was first thing in the morning, and then picked up a pen. I was etching the time onto the date on my desk calendar when the gesture struck me, and I let my pen fall back to the surface of the desk. I was doing exactly what Gabriel had said that I did. I was following the pattern that I had set for myself and then had proceeded to use to grind a well-worn path through every day of my life.
My fingers tingled as I reached for my phone, then let them drop to the table. Skylar had emailed me the night before with a heads-up about Gabriel coming, including his phone number, and I had only just been able to resist sending back a message that said, “too late”. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to call him. What was I going to say?
Finally, I stood and headed out of the office. A few minutes later I was standing in the middle of the bedroom, the same strange sense of starting over settling onto me as I looked around at the pristine, untouched space. As I stepped into the second room, though, I realized that it had changed. Gabriel was standing in the center of the room, the flogger in his hands again. I chastised myself for not noticing that the second set of equipment was gone, or that I hadn’t needed to pull down the handle to open the chamber, only approach the doors. My mind had been somewhere else, and I hadn’t been paying enough attention.
Gabriel turned to look at me and I had the uncomfortable question in my mind of whether this was actually Gabriel, or if he had done some of the modeling for the program and Skylar had already integrated him into this scene for me to see. There was really no way to tell but to take off my helmet, but before I could, he stepped toward me. He said nothing, but reached out and took my arm. I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine and knew for certain that this was actually Gabriel touching me. He took the flogger and ran it down the inside of my arm from the bend of my elbow to my wrist, and then across my palm and to my fingertips. I felt a shiver roll through me and didn’t know if it was excitement or fear that was creating the chill.
He moved the flogger over to the other arm, letting me feel the cool surface of the leather tips. They were gentle now, soft and compliant, but there was potential there, built up within each of them, and I knew that Gabriel was waiting, controlling himself, biding his time until he learned if I was willing to accept what it could really do.
When he finished outlining my arm and hand with the flogger, Gabriel returned it to its position on the wall. I was expecting him to continue on with what he had done the night before and take down the ball gag, but he didn’t. Instead, he walked over to me and touched my cheek with his fingertips. It was unnerving to look through the visor and see the computerized version of him in front of me as I felt his fingers on my face, and I wondered if he was experiencing the same thing. His fingers traveled down my cheek and onto the side of my neck, then along the curve to the soft dip between my shoulder blades. It was all of the skin that was visible above the high neckline of my shirt, but even just that slight amount of contact made me feel unsure. He seemed to sense my hesitation, but instead of taking his hand away, he applied a slight amount of pressure.
“You aren’t comfortable with your body,” he whispered, finally breaking the silence that had been maintained between us since I had walked into the simulator. “You aren’t comfortable being touched.”
It wasn’t something that I had ever thought about. I didn’t consciously avoid being touched, but the more I considered his words, the more I realized that I wasn’t fully comfortable or confident in my own skin, and being touched, if even just in the ways that he had, amplified that uncertainty. I didn’t know how to respond or even if I should. Gabriel leaned forward, and I felt his lips brush across the front of my throat. It was less a kiss than a beginning, a starting touch as though to lay the foundation for more. He said nothing else, but walked away. I heard the doors to the simulator open and close, and knew that he had left. Feeling breathless, I stayed where I was for several seconds to gather my thoughts before walking out again. I expected to find Gabriel waiting in the office for me, but he wasn’t. My fingers tingled again with the thought of calling him, but I couldn’t bring myself to. In the brighter light of reality outside of the chamber what he was doing and saying seemed foreign and out of place, and I didn’t know how I truly felt about them.
I didn’t see Gabriel for the rest of the day. Part of me wanted to ask Skylar if she knew where he was, but I was still uncertain of the relationship that they had and was also concerned that if she found out that I had lost him, she would lose faith in me. With the end of this project so close at hand, I couldn’t afford to risk her being mad at me or not believing in me anymore and me potentially not having a job after the facility opened. Instead, I told myself that he was preparing for his body motion capture sessions that would be performed in another area of the facility before the data was sent to me to integrate into my program. I tried to focus on my own planning, coming up with ideas for each stage of the simulation and little ways that I could change the existing program to put my own personal stamp on it. No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn’t force my mind to stay on the work.
That evening I didn’t stay at work beyond business hours. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had left as soon as my official shift was over and there was something somewhat disorienting about driving out of the parking deck while there was still some sunlight in the sky. I had popped the breath mint into my mouth as I always did, but it didn’t feel necessary. Instead of giving me the much-needed perk to get me through the drive, it just briefly sharpened my sense of smell and cooled my throat.
I took a shower and slipped into my pajamas, but with a longer stretch between getting home and needing to go to bed, I found myself with the unusual luxury of being able to relax. I took the book from the side table and carried it into the living room where I curled onto the couch. Some of the research from a few nights before was still stacked on the table. I didn’t know what to do with it. Though the original programmer had been completely disgraced within the company and had no hold on the chamber or the facility, those files still represented time and effort, and it somehow felt disrespectful to just toss them away.
I had been reading for nearly an hour when my phone rang. I scooped it off of the table and, assuming that it was my mother calling for her bi-weekly check-in, I answered without bothering to look at the screen.
“Hello?”
“Go to your window.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was smoky and low, and it took me several seconds to realize that it was Gabriel.
“Excuse me?”
“Go to your window,” he repeated. “Stand in front of it.”
I felt my heart starting to beat faster in my chest. I thought back to the moment of us standing in the simulator, and then further back to writing the time on the calendar. Placing my book on the couch beside me, I stood and made my way toward the large picture window at the end of my living room. It was one of the features that had drawn me to the apartment, but now it seemed almost intimidating. I stood in front of the window and stared at the curtains.
“Open the curtains,” he said.
There was a flicker of concern in the back of my mind. Was he there? Could he see my apartment?
I took a breath and did as he asked, nervous but intrigued, unsure of what was going to happen, and yet wanting to know.
With the curtains moved aside I could see the field that acted almost like a courtyard nestled among the buildings of the apartment complex. The evening had fully settled in and it was dark enough outside that I couldn’t see any details, but I felt like eyes were on me.
“Step out of your slippers.”
I drew in a breath. He could see me.
“How did you find out where I live?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell you to speak,” Gabriel said. “I told you to step out of your slippers.”
I silenced and did as he instructed, pushing the fuzzy blue slippers away with my foot.
“Good. Now take off your robe and lay it across the table.”
My defenses were starting to kick in, telling me to stop, to pull away, to close the curtains and tell Skylar that I wasn’t going to work with Gabriel, but I couldn’t. I was drawn to him. The longer that I spent with him, the more intense the pull felt, and I couldn’t resist the small taste of dominance that he was showing. I slipped my robe off and carefully draped it over the table before returning to the window. I didn’t know where Gabriel was, and I scanned the dark outside, wondering if he was close enough to see my eyes.
“Put the phone down beside you and take off your pajamas, one piece at a time.”
My breath caught in my throat and I felt my voice hitch as I started to protest, but then fell silent. I knew from experience that the picture windows on the apartments on this floor of each of the buildings was readily visible to anyone who might be crossing the courtyard at night, especially when the lights were on inside the apartment. From the vantage point of where I was standing in that moment I could see that they were also easily visible from the windows themselves, meaning that if any of my neighbors happened to come to their windows while I was standing there, they would get full view of me.
“What are you waiting for?” Gabriel asked. “I told you to do something.”
There was strength in his voice, but not aggression. I didn’t feel threatened or afraid, but compelled. I remembered what he had said about the control in my life, and then my mind wandered back to the moment in the simulator when he questioned my discomfort in my body. I felt like maybe, if even in the slightest way, I was beginning to understand what he was doing. I set the phone on the end table beside the couch then returned to the window. My fingers were trembling as I reached up and started to release the buttons along the front of my pajama shirt. When it was open, I let it fall from my shoulders and drop to the floor. The cooler air around me swept over my breasts, causing my nipples to harden, and I felt a tingle across my skin as I thought of Gabriel seeing me standing there that way.
But I wasn’t finished.
Drawing in a breath, I hooked my thumbs over the waistband of my pajama pants and eased them down over my hips. This didn’t expose me fully, as I wore soft cotton panties under the pants. When I had moved the pants aside, I straightened, my arms coming up instinctively to cover my breasts.
“The rest.”
Gabriel’s voice came through the speaker phone on the table and I shivered. I shook my head. As strong as the compulsion was to follow his commands, I couldn’t break through the nervousness. He gave me the command again and my hands shook, twitching as if preparing to move down to the waistband of my panties, but I couldn’t move them. I couldn’t expose my breasts and remove my panties in front of Gabriel, in front of the apartment complex. I shook my head again and heard the phone deaden.
“Gabriel?”
No voice came through the phone again and I realized that he had hung up. I closed the curtains and slowly dressed again, trying to process what had just happened and how I felt about it. I hated that I had made him angry, yet I couldn’t help but feel reassured that I had stood up for myself and not allowed him to force me into something that I didn’t want to do.
My eyes wouldn’t focus on the words in the book for another fifteen minutes as I tried to continue reading, and finally I gave up and headed back to bed. I lay in the bed as I had two nights before, staring at the ceiling, wondering where Gabriel was, wondering what he was thinking. I felt a tension in my belly, a tingling through my hips, and I wriggled against the mattress to try to will it away, not wanting to think about what it meant. Finally, the feeling subsided enough that I was able to flip over onto my belly, bury my head beneath my pillow, and fall into a dull, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, I woke early and walked out into the courtyard. I looked around for any signs that Gabriel had been there the night before, but didn’t see anything. I glanced up at my apartment and took in the full view, trying to envision what I had looked like standing up there with him standing here beneath me. I ducked my head against the chill of the morning and rushed to my car. The days were slipping by and I had accomplished next to nothing in the simulation. Gabriel was only authorized to enter that section of the facility for the next three weeks, which gave me very little time to gather everything that I needed from him and start to piece it together before the final push leading up to the opening.