The Siren

“You left him,” Wesley finally said. Him…Søren.

“Yeah,” she said, biting her bottom lip, a habit Søren had been trying to break her of for eighteen years. “I did.”

“Are you happy without him?” Wesley turned his eyes back to her.

“Some days, yes. Then some days it’s like I just got my arm blown off. But this book isn’t about Søren.”

“Can I read it?”

“Not a chance. Maybe when it’s rewritten. Or maybe…”

Nora grinned at him, and Wesley suddenly looked nervous.

She got out of her chair and sat on the edge of her desk and put a foot on each arm of his chair.

“Let’s play a game,” she said leaning in close. Wesley sat up straight and pressed back into the chair. “I’ll trade you my book for your body.”

“I’m your intern. This counts as sexual harassment.”

“Being sexually harassed is in your job description, remember?”

Wesley shifted in the chair. She loved how jumpy she still made him even after over a year in the same house. A sandy-blond lock of hair fell over his forehead. She reached out to brush it back.

Wesley ducked under her leg before she could touch him and stood just out of reach.

“Coward,” she teased.

Wesley started to say something but they both froze at the blaring ring that echoed from the vicinity of her desk.

The smile that had been in Wesley’s eyes vanished as Nora dug out a sleek red cell phone from under a pile of papers.

“La Maîtresse speaking,” she answered.

“The book,” Wesley mouthed. His eyes pleaded with her.

With the phone still at her ear Nora walked up to Wesley. She moved so close he started stepping back. She took another step toward him, and he took another step back.

“Go do your homework, junior,” she said, and Wesley gave her the closest thing to a mean look he had.

“You have homework, too,” he reminded her.

“I’m not a biochemistry major at a f**king brutal liberal arts college. Scoot. The grown-ups are talking now.”

She shut the door in his face.

“Talk, Kingsley,” she said into the phone. “This better be good.”

* * *

“Working late as usual, I see.”

Zach glanced up from his notes on Nora’s book and found J.P. standing outside his office with a newspaper under his arm. He checked his watch.

“After eight already?” Zach asked, shocked by his sudden immunity to the passage of time. “Good Lord.”

“Must be reading something good.” J.P. entered Zach’s office and sat down.

“Possibly. Here—listen to this.” Zach opened her manuscript to a marked page and read aloud.

It is a pleasure to watch her work. From my desk in the office I need only to move my chair six inches to the right and I can see the kitchen’s reflection in the hall mirror with such clarity that I feel like a ghost in the room.

This is what I see—Caroline, who at twenty still retains the coltish legs of a much younger girl, pushes a stool to the counter. It wobbles nervously under her knees as she kneels on it with a steadying breath. She opens the cabinet that houses my wineglasses, my deliberately mismatched collection, all of which are older than her and one or two which are older than this adolescent country. She takes them one by one from the rack; their fragile stems shiver in her delicate fingers.

I brought her to this moment by design. I could have tortured her with tasks, with arduous acts of service. Instead, I chose to torture her with boredom, curious to see what the devil would do with her idle hands. Interesting that in my home it is the objects most easily broken that draw her attention first. With a soft, clean cloth she polishes every glass. She holds the bowl like a bird, strokes the stem like the back of a cat, wipes every old whisper off the lip. I see her eyes count the glasses. I count them with her. Thirteen. Last night I showed her the lash but did not use it on her. Thirteen…one lash for every glass she touched without my permission.

Thirteen…tonight I think I’ll whip her first and tell her why after.

Zach closed the manuscript and waited for J.P.’s reaction. J.P. whistled, and Zach raised his eyebrow at him.

“I think that rather turned me on. Should that worry me?” J.P. asked with a rakish grin.

“Since I’m the only other person in the room, I think it should probably worry me a great deal more,” Zach said. “It’s rather good, isn’t it? The content is slightly unsettling but the writing…”

“She’s got talent. I told you. I hope this means you are no longer planning on killing me.”

“Killing you?”

J.P. grinned. “Yes, for twisting your arm over Sutherlin.”

Zach laughed a little. “No, I’m not going to kill you anymore. But tell me—was I really the only editor who could or would work with her?”

“I suppose I could have dug up someone else. No one near as good as you, though. Anyway, Sutherlin requested you.”

Zach looked up in surprise.

“She did?”

“Well, not by name.” J.P. looked slightly sheepish. “She told me to give her to whichever editor would flog her the hardest. Yours was the first and quite honestly the only name that came to mind.”

“I’m hardly flogging her.”

“What would you call it?” J.P. had a dark twinkle in his eyes.