Текст книги "Asking for It"
Автор книги: Lilah Pace
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
Twenty
Every other time I’ve dressed for Jonah Marks, my main concern has been whether to wear underwear.
Tonight, I have new priorities.
He’s seen me in everything from the professional stuff I wear to teach in to trashy pink dresses to plain old T-shirts and jeans. Even though I’ve never actually been fully naked with Jonah, he’s seen every part of my body. So why am I trying on the entire contents of my closet in an attempt to find the perfect outfit tonight?
Makes no sense. But here I am.
After putting on and then rejecting at least ten other possibilities, I settle on something simple: a pleated black skirt, white button-up shirt with the sleeves cuffed, ballet flats, and a simple chain around my neck. It’s laid-back and pulled together, but not fancy, and, well, not that sexy.
I mean, I think I look good in this. I wouldn’t wear it if I didn’t. But this outfit doesn’t show off my legs, my ass, my cleavage, anything like that. This is the first night Jonah and I have ever spent together that isn’t totally about sex. Tonight we’ll . . . talk. Somehow that feels scarier than our role-playing.
For once I’m ready ahead of time, which means I have to find a way to wait that makes it seem like I’m not waiting. So I open Spotify and click on my contemporary jazz channel; Cassandra Wilson starts to croon, and her voice melts over me like caramel. I sink into my plush white sofa and take slow, deep breaths.
Just for tonight, I won’t ask where this is heading. I won’t try to reconcile our sexual fantasies with the kind of people we are. I won’t bring my enormous load of emotional baggage with me.
Tonight, I’m going to find out just what kind of person Jonah Marks really is.
The music keeps me from hearing the car’s approach, so I startle when I hear the bell. But the song and my new resolution calm me, and I smile as I open the door. “Hi.”
Jonah simply nods. This man isn’t big on hello. He doesn’t smile, either, but his voice is warm as he says, “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks.” So do you, I want to add, because he does. Simple black pants that nonetheless hug his taut waist and skim past muscular thighs—a midnight blue shirt turns his gray eyes the shade of a less stormy sky—and a heavy platinum watch around one wrist, the first sign of real wealth I’ve ever seen from him. But men never understand when you call them beautiful.
I see him glance past my shoulder, perhaps curious about the place where I live. Or maybe he’s figuring out how to get in, some night. He says only, “So—should we go?”
Jesus, he’s ripped the clothes off my body and we’ve fucked like animals, but suddenly neither of us knows what to say. I laugh a little, and when Jonah gives me a look, I explain, “I was smoother than this at my junior prom.”
“Same here.” A smile slowly dawns on his face. “Should I have brought a corsage?”
“Next time. Come on, let’s go.”
• • •
We go to a restaurant on Congress, not far from my place. Most Italian restaurants serve up the classic spaghetti and pizza, but here, the emphasis is on authentic northern Italian cuisine: roasted lemony chicken, pale white cheeses, and light, crisp Soave wine. Just inhaling the scent of the air is more delicious than most meals I’ve ever had.
That gives Jonah and me something to talk about for approximately twenty seconds. After that, we’re sitting across the table from each other, hardly knowing what to say.
What if I don’t like this guy at all? I wonder. What if we have nothing in common besides our kinky fantasies?
Just when the silence is about to go from awkward to pathetic, Jonah says, “What made you decide to draw that picture? The one in the print I bought. The man holding the dove.”
“I like to portray—contrasts. Duality. So I look for images that express two very different concepts at once.”
“The strength of the hands,” Jonah says. “And the fragility of the dove.”
“Exactly.” Should I ask this? Might as well. “You said you were drawn to the etching even before you knew I made it. Why?”
Jonah remains silent long enough that I wonder if he was lying about his interest in it. But then I realize he’s not stumped for an answer; he’s searching for the right words. “There’s so much tension there—you can sense the energy, even in the muscles. So I thought he’d imprisoned the dove in his hands. That he was on the verge of hurting it. But then I saw how careful he was—that his grasp is gentle. He wants to keep the bird alive. The drawing surprised me, and I liked that sense of surprise. A simple image turned out to mean more than I first thought.”
“Wow. Thanks.” Don’t get me wrong—it’s nice to be told that people think your work is beautiful, or lifelike, that kind of thing. But there’s no compliment an artist loves more than someone telling you your work made them think.
“When did you start drawing?”
“Well—first of all, I’ve always loved to draw. But the work you bought isn’t a drawing. It’s an etching.”
Jonah has relaxed slightly as we settle into conversation. So have I. He says, “What’s the difference?”
So I start explaining about etching—the processes, the materials, the history of it all. He’s genuinely interested, and every minute is easier than the last, and suddenly our evening together takes flight.
No, Jonah’s not hugely talkative. His explanation about why he liked my etching is the longest he talks about anything the entire dinner. But he listens well. Instead of planning the next anecdote he can share, he responds like someone who genuinely wants to know more about my work, and more about me.
Of course he’s naturally curious, I remind myself as we leave the restaurant. Instead of heading straight back to his car, we begin wandering along Congress, side by side. The guy’s a scientist. Curiosity is his fuel.
“Enough about me,” I say as the Thursday-night bustle flows around us—college kids heading to bars, stores open late to take advantage of the foot traffic, guitar music and drumbeats audible from the door of every club. “What about you? What made you decide to study earthquakes?”
“And volcanoes,” he adds.
“Can’t leave out the volcanoes,” I say, and am rewarded with a small smile.
“Well, when I was about ten years old, my mother and stepfather took the whole family to Hawaii.”
Stepfather, I note. Jonah could have no memory of his real father, and Carter Hale’s been married to Jonah’s mother for almost three decades. Most kids in that situation would wind up calling their stepfathers Dad. Not Jonah.
He continues, “Like most tourists in Hawaii, we went out to see the volcanoes. I hadn’t imagined you could get that close to the lava flow. When I saw it—glowing orange with heat, pure liquid stone—” To my surprise, he grins. “I was ten, so I thought it was totally cool.”
I laugh out loud. “So that’s how you picked your scientific specialty? Because it was cool?”
“Any scientist who tells you something different is lying. If you’re going to spend your entire life studying something, it needs to thrill you. Volcanoes and earthquakes thrilled me when I was a kid, and they still do. Even after all the studies and the dissertation and months of looking at nothing but seismograph readings. I get a charge out of it every time.”
“Hey, they always say that if you do what you love, it doesn’t feel like work,” I say.
“Which is a crock.” When I raise an eyebrow at Jonah, his smile regains some of the fierceness I know so well. “If you spend twelve hours in a row doing something—anything—it feels like work.”
Laughing, I admit, “Okay, yes. The studio’s my favorite place to be, but there are times when I feel like if I go in there one more time, I’ll tear my hair out. Still, I’d rather go crazy making art than do anything else.”
Jonah nods. “That’s it exactly.”
“So you get to spend your whole life chasing lava.”
“And you’ll spend yours making art.”
“Yes and no,” I say. “After graduation I’m hoping to go into museum work. Preserving old etchings, curating important pieces, even using original plates from centuries ago to make new prints.”
He gives me a look. “You should do your own work. Not worry about taking care of someone else’s.”
“It’s not either/or. I’ll never stop creating my own work. But even if I set the entire art world on fire, it’ll be years before I can support myself through my etchings alone—if ever. So there’s going to be a day job for a while, probably a long while. Should I do something boring that sucks my soul away one day at a time? Or should I surround myself with some of the greatest etchings of all time, and help other people understand how amazing they are?”
After a moment, Jonah nods. “When you put it that way, okay. I see it.”
Then his hand brushes against mine. At first I think he’s drawing me aside as we go past a group of college kids drunkenly weaving along the sidewalk. After they pass, though, he adjusts his grip, twining our fingers together.
Jonah Marks has screwed me hotter and dirtier than any other man ever has—and yet my heart flutters like a girl’s as he holds my hand for the first time.
We browse the various shops for a little while, mostly for the pleasure of remaining hand in hand. Cowboy boots are available in every color, every size; these days in Austin, college girls wear them more often than ranchers do. Other stores offer Mexican crafts—thick woven serapes, kitschy wrestler’s masks in red and gold satin, bins filled with beads painted like the skulls of Dia de los Muertos, tin hearts crowned with flame.
“These are called milagros, right?” he asks as he traces his finger around the sharp edge of one of the hearts. “Miracles?”
“Exactly.” An enameled image of the Virgin Mary is at the very center of the heart. “The flame symbolizes the Holy Spirit, touching hearts, making us change.”
Jonah gives me a look; I seem to have surprised him. “Are you a believer?”
“I think you’d have to call me a ‘hopeful agnostic.’”
“I’m less hopeful. But when I see things like this—the feeling in them—I envy that kind of faith. The world must look so different, through those eyes.”
I like this man. Once you break through his cool reserve, he’s . . . engaging. Intelligent. Even fascinating. He may be guarded, but it’s possible to get past his gates. I’ve only just begun learning who Jonah is, besides my ultimate sexual partner; now I realize I want to find out everything there is to know.
Finally the shops begin to close, and Jonah drives me the short distance home. We don’t speak. I suspect Jonah’s mind is full of many of the same questions now rushing through my mind about what happens with us later. Can two people so sensually connected by a very specific fantasy have any other kind of sex? Am I ready to find out? Strange though it seems after everything Jonah and I have done, making love as ourselves—not playing any roles—feels far more intimate, and even more scary.
But when Jonah walks to me to the door, he stops. “Aren’t you coming in?” I ask.
“Not on the first date.” At my surprise, he smiles that fierce, knowing grin that turns me to jelly. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
I squeeze his hand. “You’re right. Wouldn’t want to rush things.”
“Wouldn’t be proper,” Jonah murmurs as he draws me closer. Two of his fingers trace along the side of my face, painting my skin with the warmth of his touch.
“We couldn’t have that.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But what about kissing?” I tilt my face up toward his. “Do you kiss on the first date?”
“Not usually.” Jonah pulls me into his arms. “But sometimes I make an exception.”
He nuzzles my cheek, my chin. Tilts my head back slightly so he can brush his lips against my throat. I breathe out—a sigh that makes him tighten his embrace. My fingers stroke the back of his head, his short hair soft against my palms. Then I trace his neck and the broad planes of his back. I could worship this man’s body for hours. The powerful muscles I feel beneath my hands make him seem like he was created to give pleasure, or pain. Maybe both.
When Jonah’s mouth meets mine, his touch is feather-soft. My entire body reacts—flushing warm, getting wet, wanting more. I part my lips, and he kisses me again. Only the tips of our tongues touch, but it’s enough to make me reel.
But then he pulls away, his arms slipping to my sides, and I know he’s about to go. That’s all? I want to smack him. I want to kiss him again. And yet this is perfect. For our first date, we’re leaving each other wanting more.
Jonah’s voice is husky. “I enjoyed tonight.”
“Same here.”
“We can do this again sometime?”
“Sometime soon.”
He smiles, leans forward, and gently kisses my cheek. “Good night, Vivienne.”
“Good night.”
I don’t shut my door until he’s started his car. Once I’ve closed and locked it, I literally slide down to the floor. My laughter sounds giddy. What was erotic fascination has become infatuation—and I love it.
How long has it been since I felt this kind of elation after a date?
Never. Not unless you count the one kiss from that Barcelonan exchange student. This is about a thousand times better.
I’m still beaming when I lie down in bed and turn out the light. It feels like I could even smile in my sleep.
• • •
My subconscious has other ideas.
Someone’s knocking on the door. “I’m tired,” I moan. “I don’t want to come down for breakfast.”
The knocking continues. Gets harder and louder. It turns into pounding.
“Jonah?” I sit upright, unsurprised to find myself back in my childhood room. My bedspread is trimmed with eyelet lace. The stuffed lamb I loved as a baby, Woolly Bully, still sits on a bookshelf, ratty and gray and yet adorable. “What are you doing here?”
The next slam against the door makes the wall shake, and I hear someone roar, “Let me in!”
That wasn’t Jonah.
I scramble out of bed. In my haste I trip myself up in my own sheets and fall on the floor, so I try to crawl to the closet. If I hide in the closet he won’t find me—
The door breaks, pieces flying against the wall. I scoot to the back of my closet, hanging clothes swinging against my shoulders and head, thinking, please no please no please—
“You can’t hide from me,” Anthony says as he comes toward me. His fist closes around my wrist, and by now I’m screaming, but no one can hear. Nobody ever hears. “Come on. Get on the bed. Be a good girl.”
“I won’t,” I shriek. “I won’t—”
Then I’m awake, in my own bed, gasping for breath. I realize I woke myself up screaming in my sleep.
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?”
