Jackson
He had experienced pain before. When he left his homeland to move to a too-hot country halfway around the world. When his parents separated in a blaze of resentment, and he was sure he was responsible. When he was twenty-seven and realized he’d become the kind of sleazy asshole who got punched by the hero in a romantic comedy.
Those things had hurt him deeply, but they were nothing, nothing, compared to the white-hot panic he was feeling now.
He’d woken up with a red wine hangover. Negotiations with his mother the night before—trying to get her to acknowledge Elle’s humanity and leave for France in the understanding that he was going to marry and, god willing, have many angry children with her—had gone badly.
“I know what’s best for you, Jacque,” his mother insisted as they drained yet another bottle of merlot into the decanter. “That girl is rude and presumptuous, and nothing good will come of you two being together.”
“But it is already good! Maman, I have never been so happy.”
His mother sniffed. “You’re deluding yourself. She doesn’t care for you and she’s not worthy of you. If you’re at all intelligent, you’ll realize that before things go too far.”
But they had already gone too far. The tattoo hidden under his watch strap was proof of that. He gave up on negotiations and focused on getting drunk. Considering the state of his stress levels and what the Americans had so helpfully dubbed ‘blue balls,’ it was surprising he hadn’t picked up the decanter and just started pouring fermented grapes straight down his throat. He missed his Ellie, he missed her smile, her body, her mouth, and her pussy. He’d gone to bed horny and miserable and woken up feeling even worse.
Unwilling to recommence negotiations with his mother in such a sorry state, Jackson had gone down to the apartment swimming pool and worked out some of his frustration in the water. He’d returned two hours later to a blissfully empty apartment, his mother having gone out for a manicure. Feeling ridiculously optimistic about the day ahead, he showered off the chlorine, made himself a late breakfast, and sat down to continue reading The Kindness of Enemies. Then he saw he had a voicemail from Elle. Still feeling ridiculously optimistic, he’d played it. When he heard what she said, it almost stopped his heart. He’d tried to call her, his fingers fumbling with the buttons, but he couldn’t connect. Panic hit him like a freight train as he realized she’d probably blocked his number. He’d then tried Tory, but she didn’t answer either. He tried Ben, but all Ben could tell him was that Elle and Tory had gone out for coffee a few hours earlier and hadn’t yet returned.
“I’ll call Tory and get her to ring you,” Ben assured him. “We’ll work this out, mate. Don’t panic.”
“That’s very easy for you to say,” Jackson shouted. “The love of your life didn’t just call you ‘a narcissistic piece of shit.’”
Ben made a noise that might have been a snort.
“What are you laughing at?” Jackson demanded.
“Nothing,” Ben said quickly. “We’ll find her man, don’t worry.”
“Again, that’s very easy for you to say!”
They hung up and Jackson paced his apartment, his brain a whirl of bright chaos. When Tory called, he snatched up his phone so fast he almost flung it across the room. “Do you know where she is?”
“Hey Jackson.” Tory’s voice was light. Cautious. “Ben, um, said she broke up with you?”
Pain blared through his brain. Jackson pressed a hand to his forehead. “Don't say that, Tory. It has to be a misunderstanding. What does she think I’ve done?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Can you put her on the phone?”
“I can’t. She’s not with me anymore. After we left the shops she went off on her own—”
“Where?”
Tory sighed. “I think she got a hotel room somewhere.”
“What? Why?”
If Jackson had to predict where Elle would go in a crisis, it would be to the Conservation Centre where she worked, to be with the animals. Or she’d crash with friends who’d let her drink herself into oblivion without asking questions. Or she’d pack up her tent and go camping in the middle of the bush. Getting a hotel room was entirely out of character.
“Jackson…” Tory’s voice was low and urgent. “I think…look, Elle and I went to a lingerie shop this morning, and while we were trying on stuff she got invited to a party by the girl who works there.”
Jackson’s brain throbbed. “What kind of party?”
“I don’t know,” Tory admitted. “But I think it was for…you know, kinky people.”
Jackson swore. This was so much worse than he thought. “Look, Tory, can you get in contact with Ellie? Can you tell her to call me?”
“I can’t. I think she smashed her phone.”
“What?”
“She was angry, Jackson, I’ve never seen her so angry. She was shaking all over. She’s gone off on her own, and the only thing we can do is wait for her to calm down.”
“And if she fucks fifty guys at this party because she’s mad at me? What then?” Jackson shouted into the phone.
“Relax,” Tory said, with the practiced calm of someone whose family threw biannual tantrums. “Elle would never do that to you. Whatever you’ve done—”
“I’ve done nothing!”
“Whatever she thinks you’ve done,” Tory continued calmly. “She’ll get over it and come back to you. That aside, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you, anyway.”
“About what?”
“I know you think of Elle as this immoveable alpha female, but she’s a human being, Jackson. It hasn’t been easy having your mother around calling her names and telling her she’s not good enough for you. She’s tough as nails, but it would be hard for anyone to withstand that kind of criticism long term, and having you there, refusing to take her side, refusing to tell your mother to shut up…it hurt her.”
“Ellie told you this?”
Tory gave a small laugh. “No, but I’m her best friend, I know how she thinks, and I’ll deny it if you ever tell her I said this, but a small part of her does think she’s not good enough for you.”
“Why on earth would she think that?”
Tory exhaled, as though he were a petulant child demanding to know where the sun went at night. “How can you even ask that? Are you seriously that unobservant?”
“Please,” he said, feeling as though he would very much like to burst into tears. “Please tell me.”
“Fine, well you make more money than her, you come from more money than her, you own your place, you’ve traveled more, you have more friends, your job is fancier, you’re more conventionally good looking, that time you went to a rope tying workshop together and the demonstrator chose you as her demo model and kept rubbing herself all over your body—”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Jackson said. “I get it, I understand what you’re saying, just…what does that have to do with dumping me to go to a sex party?”
“We don’t know it’s a sex party,” Tory said reasonably. “And I don’t think Elle’s going to try and get laid even if it is.”
“Then why would she go at all?”
Tory sighed. “You know the assistant at the lingerie shop could tell what Elle was straight away.”
Jackson shifted his weight from foot to foot. Though they both knew what Elle was, he and Tory rarely discussed it, for obvious reasons. “A Domme, you mean?”
“Yeah. Margaret, the woman, was, I dunno, taken with her. Elle was hurting and feeling unworthy and then this stranger tells her she’s beautiful and invites her to some fancy party. It’s flattering. Maybe she just wants to go out and feel like she’s worth something.”
“She left my house!” Jackson said, unable to keep his resentment at bay any longer. “She left, I never asked her to leave.”
“But you didn’t ask her to stay either.” Tory’s usually amiable voice was sharp. “Not in front of your mum, anyway. And you called Elle crazy.”
“So?”
“So maybe you don’t deserve to have Elle back if you can’t realise how fucking disheartening it is to have men call you crazy whenever you point out something they don’t like,” Tory snarled. “Growing up that was all Elle heard, that she was a crazy unstable bitch who needed to get a grip and start acting like a normal girl. You don’t know what it did to her to have you throw that word in her face like her parents used to. It cut her up inside, I know it did. She endured so fucking much from you and your mother this past month, Jackson, but she wasn’t going to endure that.”
Jackson swallowed, his throat tightening, the backs of his eyes starting to burn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Tory said quietly. “It’s okay. You just need to apologise and everything will be fine.”
“How can I apologize when I don’t know where she is?” He blinked and a hot drop of water ran down his face. Cursing himself, he swiped a wrist over his cheek. “Does she hate me, Tory?”
“No. She could never, even when she wanted to. She’ll come back to you, Jackson, I promise. She loves you.”
“And I love her, more than I’ve ever loved anyone.” Jackson pulled off his watch and stared down at the tattoo he’d gotten as an engagement ring. The intricate pattern looked like an ornate handcuff around his wrist. Hidden within the spirals and whorls was the word ‘Ellie.’ His lover preferred rope bondage, but the first time she’d topped him and made him hers they’d used handcuffs. That was only one element of the design. As Elle’s submissive, Jackson liked the idea of a permanent mark of his devotion on his body. The handcuff also suggested he was chained to her, bound in love. He thought Elle would like him wearing the engagement ring, since she’d told him she wouldn’t accept a ring of her own. “Your inner Frenchman will force you to get something really expensive, and I’ll just lose it in bandicoot crap within a month and feel stupid for the rest of my life. If you really liked me, you wouldn’t make me go through that.”
“I understand, my little love,” Jackson had told her. “No diamond rings.”
“Jackson.” Tory’s voice was quiet. “Are you okay?”
He rubbed away another tear. “How can she…? She owns me, Tory. I’m hers. Not in a fucking sappy romance way. She’s…she’s everything. I can’t imagine life without her, and now she’s going to a fuck party without me…it can’t really be over. It just can’t be.”
“It’s not,” Tory assured him. “Give her some time. She’ll come back. I know she will. Everything will be okay. You guys are gonna be together forever, and one day all four of us will laugh about this over cheese.”
Jackson appreciated Tory’s attempts to console him, but he didn’t want platitudes about how it would all work out in the end. He wanted his Ellie at home and safe in his bed.
“Where was the shop you went to?” he demanded. “I’ll go there, I’ll ask the girl where she’s meeting Elle, then I’ll—”
“Jackson,” Tory said, cutting him off. “Don’t crash the party, man, just let it be. I know you want to find her, but trust me, you’ll only make it worse. Just stay home and try to relax, okay?”
“Okay,” Jackson lied and they hung up. In a state of complete mental absence, he made himself a pot of green tea with jasmine, sat down on his couch and listened to Elle’s recording again.
You’re dumped.
We’re over.
You are less than nothing to me.
He listened to it again. Then again. After about the tenth listen-through, something started to bother him. Most specifically the way she said ‘You wish I loved you enough to burn down your flat, you narcissistic piece of shit.’ Everything else could be understood out of context but that line implied he’d said something specific, and Elle had overheard it, or been told about it.
But that didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t been gossiping to anyone about their love life. The last thing he wanted was to discuss his troubles with his colleagues or casual friends. But then who would have told Elle he thought she would burn his flat down?
Well, he thought. Who has a motive?
The answer was obvious; his mother, but if she had called Elle and told her it was over between her and her son, Elle would have laughed in her face. She didn’t trust his mother any further than she could throw her. But nothing else made sense. He sat back on his couch, drumming his forehead and trying to recall that line about ‘whatever seems impossible, however improbable, is possible…or something.’
Then an idea came to him. He collected his laptop, opened it on the coffee table, and hit the Rescue app. The recent files synched from his phone, filtering through the air, and displaying themselves on his laptop. He scrolled through the day’s activities and there it was; a record showing he had texted Elle a video this morning when he was face down in the pool. The record also showed the message had been deleted a minute after it was sent. With trembling fingers, he hit the recovery button, and with a small pop, the video was reloaded and ready to play.
He clicked it, and his own voice filled the air. “I don’t know what to do. You know how stubborn Ellie is. I don’t think she’ll accept it. I swear she’ll just get angry and set the apartment on fire or something—”
Jackson paused the message, bile pooling in his mouth. He recognized the recording at once. He had been on the phone to Ben three nights ago, asking if he should propose to Elle. He’d been worried that if he did it, Elle would see it as an attempt to ‘grand gesture’ himself out of the doghouse. He and Ben had decided a proposal was better suited for when his mother finally left. They’d hung up and that was all there was to it. Or so he’d fucking thought.
Jackson stood up, clipping his laptop with his wrist and knocking it to the floor. “She…” he said to the empty living room. “She did this…”
If the voicemail had been left on his phone, Jackson could have believed it was a strange technical glitch, but the fact that it had been deleted pointed to only one thing. His mother had sent Elle the recording. She had done it while he was swimming, then removed the evidence afterward.
To do that, she must have installed spyware on his phone, recorded him, and edited the file so his conversation with Ben sounded completely different. Then she’d waited for him to leave the apartment without his phone, uploaded the video to his device, and sent it to Elle, making it seem as though he’d mistakenly recorded himself saying he wanted to dump her.
“Good lord,” he muttered. “She’s an evil fucking genius.”
He knew his mother was smart, smarter than anyone ever gave her credit for, but this was some America Lifetime TV, ‘my mom killed my girlfriend then buried her under the flowers and said she went on holiday’ bullshit.
But then where do you think those stories come from? he asked himself. Some people do that kind of crazy shit, and when the truth comes out, all anyone says is, ‘I can’t believe she did that!’
He collapsed onto the couch again, his hand pressed to his forehead. How was he going to fix this? What was he going to do?
What you have to do, came the answer, clear and calm. What you should have done weeks ago.
His mother returned three hours later to find him sitting at the dining table dressed as though headed into work. His best suit was freshly pressed, his oxfords gleamed, and his tie was perfectly knotted. “Jacqueson?” she said, eyeing him up and down. “Où allons-nous?”
“We are not going anywhere. You are leaving this apartment now, today.”
His mother blanched, but Jackson noticed her eyes narrow slightly. “Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?”
He held up his phone. “Did you use one of Amboise’s spyware programs to record me and then send the message to Elle?”
His mother placed her handbag on the floor, delaying her answer. Jackson watched her closely and swore he could see her consider lying, tears, and denial in turn. “Maman,” he said. “Answer me.”
His mother looked up, scanning her face for what he knew were signs of receptivity to manipulation. “What do you want me to say, Jacque? What do you wish to blame me for now?”
Jackson felt like he was looking at a stranger, a woman who wore helplessness as she wore Giorgio Armani foundation, spreading thin layers of vulnerability and victimhood over herself so she was always shielded by her perceived weakness.
In a flash it was so clear to him why she hated Elle. Elle who wielded fury like a longsword, and shouted ‘bullshit!’ whenever she saw it. Of course his mother felt threatened by her, exposed around her. Jackson set his jaw. “It doesn’t matter if you deny it. I know you sent Elle the message. I used a recovery program on my computer. I want to know why you did it.”
His mother winced, but continued to stand her ground. “I did it for you,” she said with a martyr’s smile. “I wanted to help you, Jacque.”
“No,” Jackson said. “You did it for yourself. You lied to me, and you hurt the person I love. Not unintentionally, out of ignorance, but maliciously, to suit yourself.”
His mother stamped her lambskin boot on the tiles. “I did it for you! All I care about is you!”
“Ellie was right, you are a liar.” Jackson stood up. “I have nothing more to say to you. Pack your belongings and leave this evening. If you refuse, I will call Papa and have him help me remove you by force.”
His mother went white. “You would do this to me?”
“Yes. I’ve given you too many chances to prove your goodness already.”
“Non!” She rushed forward, seizing his arm. “Jacque, she hurts you! She-she degrades you. I saw in your messages, what she calls you, the way she treats you! It’s unnatural. It’s not right.”
Jackson’s insides crawled. So she knew about their sex play, that was fucking uncomfortable. He shook off her clutching hand. “Maman, leaving aside that you have been spying on me, what Ellie and I do in bed has nothing to do with our love. It is a game, we play it for our own pleasure.”
“Liar,” his mother spat. “You are a man, and she should treat you like one! Not parade around as though she is the one with a cock!”
He cringed. “Maman, you don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Yes I do, I’ve seen your filthy tattoo.”
“Oh, you mean this?” Jackson held up a forearm. He hadn’t put his watch back on after his shower, there was nothing to conceal the symbol he’d gotten inked into his skin.
His mother let out a melodramatic shriek, backing away as though she were a vampire and he’d thrust garlic into her face. “Yes, that. I cannot believe you would mar your beautiful body for a woman like her.”
“I didn’t do this for Elle, I did it for me,” Jackson said quietly. “It reminds me where and to whom I belong.”
“Non.” His mother’s eyes, the exact shape and colour of his own began to shine with tears. “It’s degrading, the mark of a weak man, a slave.”
“It’s a symbol of commitment. Much like the ring you used to wear to show the world you were my father’s wife before you decided to leave him in this country all alone.”
His mother covered her ears, blocking out all talk of his father. “I do not wish to discuss this. Not when this girl has so unmanned you.”
Jackson shook his head. “Ellie has taught me more about being a man than anyone. Do you know what being a man is, Maman? Owning your mistakes, apologizing when you’ve done wrong. Being mature enough to accept criticism, not abandoning the people you love when things get hard. She taught me that.”
He swallowed, feeling close to tears again. “You can’t see what she brings to my life. I knew that from the start, and yet I hoped you would change your mind. I should not have been so foolish. I should have forced you to leave before it destroyed my relationship.”
“She doesn’t respect you—”
“No, you don’t respect me!” Jackson shouted. “Ellie loves me. She fucking loves me, she makes me feel safe and whole. And yes, sometimes she ties me up, and beats me, and treats me as her inferior in bed, and do you know what? I love it. I love being beaten and degraded. Sometimes I take it up the ass for her too. What do you think of that?”
His mother’s mouth went slack with shock. “Jackson!”
“It means nothing,” he continued. “Less than nothing to me that Ellie likes to do those things to me. I am a fucking man. I will always be a man, but you? You will no longer be my mother.”
He pointed at the door. “Leave. Gather up your things and leave.”
His mother must have read sincerity in his face, because the tears that had been welling in her eyes began to fall. “Jacque, no! Please no! Don’t do that. I’m sorry for what I said.”
Jackson looked away, unwilling to be swayed by her crying. “It’s too late for apologies, Maman. You violated my trust, and you hurt the woman I love. That I will not forgive you for. You will leave, tonight.”
His mother dropped the tortured nun act in a heartbeat. “And go where?” she snapped. “Are you throwing me out on the street?”
“No,” Jackson said. “You can go to a hotel, then you can book a flight home to Lyon. You are happier there, we both know that.”
“Will you come with—”
“No,” he said. “I will not be returning with you. It was stupid of you to even try to get me to leave this country.”
“But—”
“There will be no buts. I forgave you for leaving Papa in Australia, I have looked past your insecurities, and made excuses for your spitefulness, but there is no excusing what you have done to Ellie. You will leave, now.”
“But Jacque, you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like…”
He headed toward the door, checking his pockets for his keys, wallet, and phone. “I will not speak about this anymore. We have been talking for weeks and weeks, and nothing has changed.”
“Where are you going?” his mother asked, the desperation in her voice tangible.
“To a lingerie store to find where a sex party is being held. I’ll expect you gone when I return.”
She grasped his wrist, the one without the handcuff tattoo. “But I…I don’t know how to book the flights. At least help me with that?”
Jackson shook his head. “If you can figure out how to record me and send it in a message to my wife, you can book your own flight home, Maman.”
But his mother had only heard one word. “Wife? That girl is not your wife.”
“She will be,” Jackson said, opening his front door. “Take care of yourself, Valeraine.”