Текст книги "Asking for It"

Автор книги: Lilah Pace

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

On Monday morning, I’m still sore. I don’t even care. Already I want to know when Jonah and I can play out our roles again.

“Look at you,” Kip says when I walk into the department office. “What’s got you so aglow?”

How is he so perceptive? It’s like a superpower. I try to act nonchalant. “I went to the day spa. Had a facial.”

“Likely story.” Kip’s phone rings, saving me from further questions.

I dart into my office and quickly type an e-mail to Jonah.

Subject line: Take Two.

Body: Should we talk sometime soon? Work out another night?

Only a split second after I hit send, my inbox chimes with a new e-mail. The bolded subject line is Out of Office Notification. Frowning, I click on it. The automatic reply text reads:

Dr. Jonah Marks is currently away from the office and will not be checking e-mail. Any questions should be directed to the earth sciences department.

Luckily there’s a phone number for a secretary’s direct line. I wouldn’t want to call the office and get Shay. The less any of my friends know about my connection to Jonah, the better.

I hesitate one moment before dialing. Jonah did say he’d get in touch with me—which might mean he wants to make the next move. At this point, though, what’s the point of being coy? Finally I decide I’ll just find out when he’s going to be back, whether it’s tomorrow or three days from now, whatever. That way I won’t drive myself crazy wondering if he’s about to contact me. He can take charge when he returns. I smile, thinking about how good he is at taking charge.

Then my smile fades as the earth sciences secretary says, “Dr. Marks won’t be returning to the university for some time. Can another professor assist you?”

“What do you mean, ‘some time’?”

“Several weeks, I should think.”

Weeks? Before I can catch myself, I blurt out, “He didn’t say anything about being gone for weeks.”

“He only alerted the department this morning.”

So, a day or two after we acted out the most intimate sexual fantasy imaginable, Jonah got the hell out of town. He walked away from the university—away from his job—away from me.

I thought I’d found the perfect arrangement. The perfect sex partner. Instead I’ve been blown off and left behind.

Nine

The first couple of days, I can’t fully believe it. I keep opening the e-mail with his out-of-office message, like I think it will say something different this time. It just seems impossible. How do you share something that intimate—demand that level of trust—and then walk off without even a word?

I don’t let people in much. Seems like Jonah doesn’t either. So I would have thought that what we shared—a connection, no matter how fucked up it is—I would’ve thought it would matter more to him.

Apparently not.

By the end of the week, I’m moody. Angry. For long hours I sit in my cramped office, grading papers without mercy, bearing down so hard with the red pen that occasionally I scratch through the paper. Nobody says anything to me about it, but Marvin and Keiko seem to give me more space in there than usual, and one afternoon Kip brings me a macchiato, placing it on my desk without a word.

Carmen calls, tempting me with a night of Tex-Mex and beer, but I tell her I don’t feel like going out. I give the same answer to Shay and Arturo when they ask me over for a movie night, and to Geordie when he tries to get me to accompany him to a wine tasting at Apothecary. For now I want the peace and quiet of my house. I want my walls around me, lined with books I can escape into, and no reminders whatsoever of Jonah Marks.

The following Monday, Doreen has returned from Florida, and it’s time for me to face the music—in therapy terms. I don’t hide things from Doreen; what would be the point of going to a counselor if I did? Although I don’t describe the sex in detail, I go through everything else: Jonah’s audacious offer, our erotic negotiation, and the night itself. Doreen must be in shock, because she keeps saying, “I see,” over and over, which is how psychologists bunt. I have a feeling we’ll be unpacking this for a while.

Two weeks after my night with Jonah, it all changes. The emotion I least wanted to feel creeps in, takes over.

Shame.

I let a near stranger pretend to rape me. I play-acted something so horrifying, so violent, that it ruins people’s lives; I ought to know. Jonah came to me with the most indecent proposal of all, yet within a week I was in a hotel room, at his mercy.

A connection—is that what I thought we had? Now our encounter seems like nothing more than a sick joke. Maybe that’s Jonah’s game. He figures out what women want, whatever fantasy they’re into, and uses it to get some no-strings sex. Then he walks off, looking for his next target.

(It’s hard for me to really believe that. Whatever else Jonah might be, I don’t think he’s a player. But I don’t trust my judgment these days.)

Besides, as outrageous as Jonah’s behavior might be, as angry as I am with him. . . . I’m angrier with myself. For someone who’s spent a lot of her life being guarded, I folded pretty fast when the right temptation came along. And that temptation is repellent. Wrong. I should have kept fighting it instead of instantly surrendering.

Every memory I have of that night with Jonah changes within my mind. At first it seemed so perfect. So liberating. So fucking hot.

Now I can only think I made a fool of myself.

About three weeks afterward, I finally decide to stop moping. Back to reality. I pick up an extra macchiato for Kip one morning, to return the favor. “I see your evil twin has finally left the premises,” he says between sips.

“Yeah, she has a time-share in the Florida Keys. She tries to make the most of it.”

“Good riddance.” He smiles. “Welcome back, darling.”

And maybe it’s just that simple. I walk on, and I hold my head high. Nobody except me, Jonah, and Doreen will ever know what happened that night, so I can pretend it was just a really disturbing wet dream. Things would be easier that way.

Saturday night, I even go out.

“Oh, come on. It’s almost sunset,” Geordie says as he glances out at the bridge. “When are they going to get started?”

“Patience,” Carmen says between sips of her wine. We’re sitting on the grassy bank of the lake, a bottle of wine in the open ice chest at the center of our blanket—the perfect vantage point for the best free show in town. It always begins around the time darkness falls, but there’s no predicting the exact moment.

My wineglass is cool against my palm; the sauvignon blanc gleams the color of candlelight. I’m wearing gray leggings, a long boho top, and more jewelry than I usually bother with. It feels like a special occasion, not that I can explain why to Carmen and Geordie. But I don’t have to explain. I can simply enjoy the moment.

“So, how was your meeting with Dr. Ji?” I ask Carmen. The graduate program in mathematics is dramatically different from the art department—understandably—and I still don’t quite get how it works. All I know is, Dr. Ji has a lot of say over whether Carmen gets to go on for her PhD.

She folds her arms in front of her, and her fingers tug at the sleeve of her peasant blouse. When Carmen fiddles with her clothes, it’s a sure sign she’s nervous. “Okay, I guess. He’s so hard to read.”

“But your paper is solid.” Not that I’m a great judge of higher mathematics. Still, I know Carmen—how thorough she is, how bright. There’s no way she would ever turn in anything less than top-notch.

“The work has to be more than solid,” Carmen says. “It has to be brilliant.”

“It’s not like you’ve got to win a Fields Medal to get your PhD,” Geordie says. When Carmen gives him a look, he laughs. “Yes, some of us math civilians know what the Fields Medal is.”

I have no idea what that is, but it doesn’t matter. “Come on,” I say to her. “You’ve got this. You always do.”

Carmen hesitates. In that moment, Geordie gulps down his wine and points to the bridge. “Here they go!”

At first we only see a couple of black shapes fluttering upward. Then a few more. Then a dozen. And then an enormous wave, dark, chaotic, and swirling like a tornado rising from the river—a hundred feet high at least, and spiraling outward, wider every second.

Geordie lifts his glass. “To the bats.”

“To the bats,” Carmen and I repeat, and we clink our plastic wineglasses together.

Years ago, when the bridge across Lake Austin was built, nobody realized that something about it would really, really appeal to bats. Now we have one of the largest bat colonies in the world. Sometimes their nighttime rush from the bridge results in guano raining down on the unwary. (We’re sitting beneath a shady, broad-leafed tree for a reason.) But everybody loves the bats anyway. For one, they eat the mosquitoes that would otherwise bite all summer, which is definitely a public service. Mostly, though, they’re just an essential part of the overall bizarreness of this town—one more reason our unofficial slogan is “Keep Austin Weird.”

I always wish I could show Libby the bats. She would love that. But that would require a family visit to Austin, which means it’s probably never going to happen.

The bats disperse for the evening’s hunt. Geordie tells us a funny story about some court case where a house was somehow declared haunted as a matter of law. By the time I’ve finished my glass of wine, this actually feels like a good night.

“Thanks for the lift home. I know it’s a hassle. Tell me, does anyone remember why I decided to live across the lake?” Geordie says as we head out onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” I say. My keys are in my palm, and I’m grateful that I’m the one driving. One glass of wine followed by dinner, and I’m okay to get behind the wheel. Geordie had three glasses, and he’s weaving on his feet. “This time of day, I can get you guys home in . . .”

I’m parked in front of the bank. As we walk toward my car, someone steps out after a night run to the ATM.

And it’s Jonah Marks.

“. . . half an hour,” I finish, without thinking. It’s like my voice has decided to operate independently of my brain.

He’s wearing jeans that hug his ass, outline his powerful thighs. His white T-shirt is cut in a deep V down his chest. Every ridge of his muscles shows through, reminding me of how powerful he is. How I turned myself over to him, completely.

I stop in my tracks. Geordie bumps into me from behind. He laughs and says something I don’t even hear. At the sound, Jonah turns his head and sees me too.

He smiles. He smiles at me, like nothing ever happened. As if he’s glad to see me.

But only for an instant.

I don’t smile back. Jonah stiffens. His gray eyes turn stormy, and he turns away, stalking past us without a word.

“Earth to Vivienne,” Geordie laughs. “Are you all right?”

“. . . yeah. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure you should drive?” Carmen gives me a worried look, then glances after Jonah. “Isn’t that the professor Shay invited to my party?”

No way am I answering that question. “I’m fine. Let’s go, okay?” I want to get as far away from this place—from Jonah—as possible.

•   •   •

“How could he act like nothing happened? I mean, was it that meaningless to him? That irrelevant?”

Doreen puts her hands up in the time-out sign. “I want you to take a deep breath, okay? Pause. Just for a moment.”

I realize I haven’t stopped ranting since my session began fifteen minutes ago. My cheeks are hot with pent-up anger and embarrassment. So I force myself to lean back on the sofa. Relaxing is out of the question, but at least I can calm myself.

When I know I can speak more rationally, I say, “I know you don’t approve of what I did with Jonah. You probably think I deserve this. Getting blown off.”

“Hey.” She leans forward. The tagua-nut necklace she wears dangles from her neck, turquoise and brown. “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove of your life. You get to make your own choices, Vivienne. All I do is try to help you see things clear.”

“I let a near-stranger pretend to rape me. You can’t tell me that’s not fucked up.”

“Honey, I spend all day, every day, listening to fucked-up. You’re not even in my top ten. All right?”

I laugh despite myself. Although I suspect Doreen is lying—rape role-play with a guy who’s practically a stranger has to make the top five, at least—I realize that she’s telling me to stop beating myself up.

The worst part of the past three weeks hasn’t been Jonah’s rejection. It’s been my own self-loathing. Maybe that’s what Doreen is trying to get me to see.

She says, “It upset you, seeing him.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’ve been at UT for years without ever running into him before. So there’s no reason to assume this is going to be a problem, going forward.”

Now that I think of it, Jonah and I must have crossed paths several times before we met. Maybe we walked by each other on campus, or went to Whole Foods on the same afternoon. Although it’s hard to believe I wouldn’t have noticed a guy like Jonah anytime, anywhere, maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m going to see him all the time from now on.

“I want to talk to him again,” I say.

“What do you want to tell him?”

“I just want to ask why.”

“In my experience, the answers to questions like that usually fail to satisfy.”

Jonah could say that he didn’t want me enough to do this again. That I disappointed him that night. Or he could have met someone else, somebody he wants more than me. But I keep thinking of the look in his eyes when he first recognized me. I keep thinking about his smile.

And about the way he laughed that night, as he thrust deeper inside me. The way he claimed me.

“There are valid reasons he could have gone off the grid,” I say. This is the first time I’ve admitted this to myself; as usual, Doreen gets me to see the truth. “I worried that the fantasy would be . . . too intense, too much. It wasn’t for me, but it might have been for him.”

The dark, powerful figure he became that night—how he dominated me so brutally—that could have frightened Jonah. Maybe he’s scared that’s the person he really is, down deep.

I ought to be scared of that too.

“He may have his own limits,” Doreen agrees. “Isn’t it possible that what you’re seeing is his reaction to the fantasy, and its place in his life, rather than his reaction to you?”

I nod, because I know that could be true. Still, though, I feel sure that’s not the whole story.

Something else is going on in Jonah’s head. Something I haven’t even guessed at. And I want to know.

•   •   •

In the afternoon, I head onto campus. The undergrads have an essay due on Wednesday, which means my inbox is due to swell with requests for extensions, not to mention the reported deaths of a statistically unlikely number of grandmothers. As I walk in, Kip is on the phone, bartering what sounds like a deal to get our department a new copier. He gives me a wave—complete with blueberry-colored fingernails—which I return before going into my cramped little office. At least I’ve got it to myself for a while. I sign in to my university e-mail to see some of the expected excuses, a couple of campus announcements—

–and an e-mail from Jonah.

The subject line reads Re: Take Two.

He’s answering the e-mail I sent three weeks ago, like nothing ever happened.

His reply contains only two words: What changed?

Between my sending this e-mail and our encounter Saturday—that’s what he means. I know that much. But I don’t understand anything else.

I know what Doreen would tell me to do. What Carmen or Shay would tell me to do, if I’d confided in either of them about this. Any sane, rational person would say, Write back, tell him you’ve thought better of it, and leave it there.

Walk away.

My fingers tap out the message on the keyboard, and I hit send before I can think better of it. My reply: We need to talk.

I don’t know what happens next. But I’m going to see Jonah Marks again.

Ten

Three days later, just after sundown, I’m back in the same wine bar where Jonah and I first met for “negotiations.” I guess this is round two.

Tonight, however, the bar is less sultry, more rowdy. This is a home-game weekend, which means Longhorns football fans and UT alumni are already swarming into town. I didn’t put on anything special this time—I’m wearing the same fawn-colored cotton dress I put on this morning. Yet I feel overdressed anyway, because I’m surrounded by a sea of orange T-shirts and football jerseys. It’s like being trapped in a can of Fanta.

Somehow I know the moment Jonah walks in. I turn my head toward him even before he’s fully through the door. His shirt and jeans are black, his gaze sharp as he instantly focuses on me. He doesn’t smile as he comes closer, cutting through this raucous crowd like a knife.

“We can’t talk like this,” he says as he reaches me.

“Hello to you too.”

But Jonah’s right. Having an intimate conversation here is impossible. We’d have to shout to hear each other. Bad idea. “I think this place has a patio in back.”

It does. Of course, the patio is crowded too—but it’s not as awful, and at least here the talking and laughter around us isn’t deafening. I can even hear soft Spanish guitar music playing. The heat that lingers even after nightfall curls around me; my skin is already moist, and strands of hair that have escaped my ponytail stick to the nape of my neck.

Jonah reaches toward me, like he’s going to take me by the arm, but I don’t let him lead me. It’s not like I don’t see where we’re headed—the one empty corner. Strings of multicolored lights overhead sway in the breeze as we walk there together, to a small dark passage near the back door that leads into the alley. When I stop, Jonah does too, still a few steps between us.

“Let me repeat my question,” he says. “What changed?”

“You took off without a word! That’s what changed. How is that not obvious?”

I can see the muscles tense in his shoulders, his jaw. He’s so built, so aggressively masculine, that I first think he’s barely holding himself back from biting my head off. Yet his voice is steady, not angry. “I wasn’t aware we had to check in with each other about our daily schedule.”

“I didn’t ask for hourly reports. You left for weeks, and you never even told me you were going anywhere.”

“The point was to remain strangers. Wasn’t it? To keep it . . . raw.”

Something about the way he says that—raw—makes my breath catch in my chest. As angry as I am with Jonah, I can’t forget the way his touch makes me feel.

I can’t stop wanting him.

Jonah must sense my weakness. A slow smile begins to dawn on his face. Almost a smirk. “You can have neat, tidy, and safe. You can have tame. Or you can have what you really want. But you can’t have both, Vivienne. And I think we both know which one you’re going to choose.”

Somehow I still have a scrap of pride left. “Where were you, that you couldn’t send an e-mail or text or make a phone call even once in three weeks?”

“Antarctica.”

Smart-ass. I could slap him. Then I realize—he’s serious. Completely.

I repeat, “Antarctica?”

“Yes.” Then his expression softens slightly, becomes less savage, more . . . human. “Well, Patagonia mostly. I was based in Punta Arenas, Chile. But from there I was able to charter a plane south for some flyover photography.”

“Of Antarctica.”

Jonah smiles, and it’s not a smirk this time. “We discovered a dormant volcano beneath the Antarctic ice sheet a couple of years ago. I’m a research professor—I only teach a class once every two years or so. Mostly I analyze findings from all around the world, and sometimes I collect data myself. Like any other scientist. My data happens to be found near fault lines and volcanoes.”

The one place in the entire world that’s completely off the grid: That’s where he was. I tuck another loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I have to admit, that’s . . . a pretty solid excuse.”

He leans against the nearby brick wall as he studies me. After a long moment he says, “I should have let you know.”

“No, no, you’re right. I’m not your girlfriend; you’re not my boyfriend. You don’t owe me explanations.”

“No, I don’t. But I owe it to you to protect you. After that night, you were vulnerable. I should’ve realized.”

Just like that, Jonah’s no longer the remote figure I imagined rejecting me with contempt. He’s once again the man who asked how to make me feel safe, the one who brought me a glass of water afterward and kissed me as tenderly as any man ever has. I say, “You didn’t abuse my trust. We had—a failure of communication.”

“We’ll have to do better,” Jonah says. The smirk returns. “Besides, I had no idea you’d want to go again so soon. That e-mail came not even seventy-two hours after I left you.”

The wounds to my pride are still healing, so I’m not going to let him get away with that so easily. I lift my chin. “Didn’t you want it too?”

He laughs, low and rough. It’s just the way he laughed when he was inside me, glorying in having thrown me down. Wetness wells between my legs, and I want him to touch me so badly it makes me weak.

“I thought about you every night,” Jonah murmurs. “Most of the days. I dream about tearing that dress off your body. When I close my eyes I see you the way you were afterward. Wrecked. And what I want more than anything else is to wreck you all over again.”

So much for Jonah “having limits.”

Maybe I should feel powerful at this moment, when I realize that I affect him as much as he intoxicates me. Instead it’s all I can do to keep from trembling. I brace my hand against the fence behind me, the one that marks the boundary between this loud, brightly lit place and the darker alleys of the city beyond.

This is when a particularly enterprising member of the waitstaff appears. “What will you two be having tonight?”

“Whatever the lady wants.” Jonah’s eyes meet mine as he smiles. “It’s up to her.”

Not fair, Jonah. I manage to answer, “We’re still making up our minds.”

Within another second we’re alone again, and Jonah raises an eyebrow. “That just means he’s going to come back.”

“If I told him we weren’t drinking tonight, he’d have asked us to leave.” Sometimes it’s hard to remember this is actually a place of business, not just a venue for indecent proposals.

“Maybe we should leave,” Jonah murmurs. “Don’t we have better things to do?”

Tonight? Now? He can’t mean that. We’re supposed to plan these nights in advance. Sane and safe.

But what’s happening between us—that’s not safe at all.

“We—we can’t,” I manage to say. “I want us to choose a night, a time, but not now—”

“What if I made it now?”

Jonah steps forward. With one hand he grips my chin, holding my face still as he leans closer. He’s so tall that he seems to loom over me; the rest of the noise around us seems to fade away.

Yet as his eyes meet mine, I know . . . if I say the word silver, this will end in an instant.

I don’t say it.

“I could back you into that alleyway,” he whispers. “Just a few feet away. Five steps and we’d be in the dark, where nobody could see you, and nobody could stop me.”

“I’d scream.”

Jonah’s eyes darken. He likes it when I play along. “I wouldn’t let you,” he says, as two of his fingers slide up to cover my lips. “I could cover your mouth while I pinned you against the wall. That would leave me one hand free. So I could reach up under that little dress of yours. Pull your panties down.”

I’m completely caught in the spell he’s weaving with his words. The low tone of his voice is like a hypnotic, drugging me. “I’d be so scared,” I whisper. My lips brush against his fingers. “Too scared to scream, or to fight.”

He breathes out sharply, as though I’d struck him. So dirty talk turns him on too. “I’d be able to get my cock out. It’s already so hard for you. All I’d have to do is push your thighs apart—lift one leg up—”

“I couldn’t stop you.”

“But you’d push back.”

“I would. But I wouldn’t be strong enough to get away. I’d be helpless.”

“And you’d be pushing against me the whole time I fucked you.”

“Yes.”

By now I’m dizzy. If Jonah pulls me into that alley for real, I don’t care about the nearby crowd. I don’t care how shameless it would be. I’m his.

Instead, though, Jonah slowly leans back and takes a deep breath. His knowing smile returns. “We’ll choose a night sometime soon. Extremely soon.”

He got me this keyed up and he’s just walking away? I can see—just from the quickest downward glance—Jonah’s as aroused as I am, so much it’s indecent for him to be seen in public. “We—you and I aren’t going to—”

Jonah shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

“Oh, you son of a bitch.” But I smile as I say it.

“It’s a treat for you.” He untucks his shirt. That’s twice I’ve made him hide his erection in public. I should start putting notches on my lipstick case à la Pat Benatar. “I put you through three weeks of unnecessary confusion. So I’m making it up to you with a few days of suspense.”

Suspense as a treat? Yes. Now that I know how good Jonah and I are together, the anticipation will drive me crazy.

(My shame has faded to a shadow next to Jonah, but it’s still there. Waiting.)

The waiter reappears, eyebrows raised, eager to hear our drink orders. I want to wave him off again, but Jonah says, “A glass of pinot noir for the lady.” He drops a twenty on the waiter’s tray, and instantly the guy disappears, leaving us alone once more.

“Thanks,” I say. “But aren’t you getting anything?” I could remain here all night listening to him talk dirty.

Instead Jonah says, “I have to go.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Nope.”

I want to ask why he’s going, and I sense Jonah might tell me, but that’s one step over the line. We need to be totally open about our expectations and our limits. Our lives? Those, we don’t share. Otherwise we’ll stop being strangers. The fantasy will stop being what we wanted it to be. It would become . . .

I don’t know what it would become, and I don’t want to know. This is the arrangement, and we’re sticking to it.

“So you’ll pick the night?” I say.

Jonah nods. “And this time you get to pick the setting. The mood. When I call you, you tell me what you want. Be clear. Because once we meet each other—”

“—you’re back in control. Completely.”

Slowly he lifts his hand to my mouth. His thumb brushes the corner of my lips. Then he pulls back. “Good-bye, Vivienne.”

After he walks away, I walk back into the noise and the hubbub of the bar to find the nearest empty chair. My heart is still racing, and I hardly trust myself to remain on my feet. How could I have gone from suspicion and hurt to exhilaration so quickly? But Jonah took me there.

Jonah takes me so many interesting places, I think, and I laugh to myself.

By now the sky overhead is dark, and the heat has faded to pleasant warmth. The waiter manages to find me; the red wine Jonah chose for me tastes earthy and rich. I indulge myself by hanging out on the patio for thirty minutes or so, drinking about half my glass. Once a guy comes over in hopes of hitting on me, but I wave him off. Happily he’s a gentleman who can take no for an answer. All I want is to sit here luxuriating in the memories of Jonah’s touch, and his words. In the promise of what’s to come.

My phone buzzes from within my purse. Who would be texting me? Maybe it’s Jonah, determined to keep me hot and bothered all night long. I bet he’s as good at sexting as he is at everything else.

A sly smile spreads across my face as I fish out my phone. Turns out it’s not a text, just a voice mail. The name of the sender glows on the screen. My smile fades.

All the shame comes flooding back.