“It means I liked you telling me to do it. I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t.”
He traced a pattern on my skin, his voice thoughtful. “And you’d do anything I told you to do?”
“Haven’t I, so far?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “How far will you go?”
I didn’t turn to look at him. Very carefully didn’t. “As far as you’ll take me.”
He was silent for another moment.
“You really do it, don’t you,” he said in a low voice. “Keep it separate.”
The sex had left me drowsy. I put my hand over his where it rested on my belly. “Yes.”
He kissed my closest shoulder blade. “Always?”
“Yes, Dan. Always.”
I waited for him to say more, but he said nothing. I listened to the sound of his breathing until I blinked and somehow the room had gone dark and he’d covered me with a blanket. He snored lightly beside me on the pillow, one hand still touching me as though to make certain I was there. I listened for a minute, the touch of his fingertips an anchor I didn’t expect to enjoy so much.
Then I got up and helped myself to a pair of his sweatpants and a button-down shirt. I might have been crazy enough to come across town in my underpants when it was barely night. I wasn’t going to tempt fate by doing it now.
I was not totally without heart, even back then. I did my best to hide it, but it was there. I did turn back to look once more at him sleeping before I slipped out the door.
Chapter 06
When asked the question “What are you thinking about,” many times the answer returned is “Nothing.” It’s a lie. Nobody ever really thinks of nothing. The human mind doesn’t stop. Doesn’t go blank. It’s a tricky thing, the mind, always working on some problem or idea, even when it seems to be quiet.
I never think of nothing. The closest I come to a blank mind is when I am counting, fucking or drinking. The rest of the time, my thoughts are like a hamster on a wheel, running endlessly but getting nowhere.Chad, the one person who knows me better than anyone else, understands this. It’s why he sends me care packages full of cartoons and expensive chocolate, and cards with inspirational sayings on them. He knows quotations and goodies won’t fix me, but he sends them anyway because it makes him feel good. I’ve never argued with it. I like expensive chocolate and cartoons that make me giggle. I gift him with designer fruit baskets and body lotion and restaurant gift cards. It’s the way we take care of each other since we don’t live close enough to do it in person.
“The guy left a package for you.” Gavin must have been waiting for me to get home from work, because his door opened as soon as I put my foot to my steps. “I signed for it. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure, Gav. Thanks. Want to bring it over?” I let us both inside and tossed my coat and my bag onto their hooks. The package from Chad was small and square. I set it on the kitchen table while I went to change my clothes.
Gavin had already begun cracking open the cans of paint I’d lined up along the wall. Plain white. Nothing fancy. The chair rail would be dark mahogany to match the furniture I’d bought at an auction. I watched him work as I opened up the package from my brother.
“How was the museum?”
He shrugged. “Sucked.”
I didn’t ask more. I slid out a box from its brown paper wrapping and shook it. Nothing rattled inside. I expected magazines. Chad liked to store up copies of celebrity gossip tabloids and ship them to me with hand-written comments in the margins.
A composition book slid into my hands. The hard black-and-white cover was scuffed and a little bent, but in good condition otherwise. My fingers rubbed cool cardboard. I laid it flat on my palms and watched it shudder with the shaking of my hands.
“The Adventures of Princess Pennywhistle.”
Once upon a time, there lived a princess named Princess Pennywhistle. Princess Pennywhistle had long, curly blond hair and eyes so blue they made the sky jealous. Princess Pennywhistle lived in a castle with her pet unicorn, Unique.
Princess Pennywhistle. I hadn’t thought of her in years. Now here she lay in my hands, time making her story unfamiliar to me.
Gavin wandered into the kitchen to help himself to a glass of water and saw me sitting with the book in my hands. “What did you get?”
I lifted it to show him. “‘Princess Pennywhistle.’ It’s a story my brothers and I wrote when we were kids.”
“You wrote stories?”
I wasn’t sure if I should be affronted at his expression of surprise. “This one. Yes.”
“Wow.” He looked impressed. “That’s cool, Miss Kavanagh.”
I traced the cover’s black-and-white swirls with one fingertip. “Princess Pennywhistle had lots of adventures with her pet unicorn, Unique. She never had to wait for a prince to rescue her, either.”
“She kicked ass, huh?”
I looked up to see one of Gavin’s rare grins. “She sure did.”
“How come you stopped writing about her?”
I set the book on the table. “Because I grew up.”
He reached to pick it up and flip through the pages. “Can I look at it?”
“It’s not The Little Prince,” I told him. “But…sure. If you want.”
He grinned again. “Thanks. I write stuff, too, sometimes.”
“Maybe you’ll let me read something you wrote.” I looked inside the package for a note or a card, but Chad hadn’t included anything but the composition book.
Gavin had flipped some more pages. “Maybe. Hey! Pictures!”
He held up the book to show me a drawing of the brave princess, done in colored pencils. Unique, looking a bit more like a mule with a deformed growth on its head than a unicorn, pranced beside her. My throat tightened at the sight of the illustration, done so long ago by childish hands.
“‘Princess Pennywhistle and the Garbage Monster,’” Gavin read, still turning pages. “‘Princess Pennywhistle and the Glass Tower.’”
She’d gotten out of that one with a hammer.
“‘Princess Pennywhistle and the Black Knight.’” Gavin had turned toward the back of the book.
Unfamiliar from the passage of time, but not forgotten entirely. I reached for the book. “I think…maybe we should get to painting, Gavin. You’ve got school in the morning, and I’ve got to go to work.”
I put the book back into the envelope without looking at his face. I knew my abruptness had startled him, maybe even made him feel bad, but I ignored it. I put the envelope with the imprisoned Pennywhistle inside it away in my desk drawer, and I went into the dining room.
Later, when Gavin had left and I’d showered to get rid of the paint on my hands, I pulled out “Princess Pennywhistle” again. She’d been brave, that blond princess with eyes that made the sky jealous. Brave and strong. She’d broken free of the Glass Tower, defeated the Garbage Monster, visited the Kingdom of the Rainbow People and freed them from the Evil Black-and-White Witch. She’d been full of color and joy and confidence, until the end. When she’d met up with the Black Knight, who’d stolen her smile.
Why had she become that girl without color and joy and confidence? The one who was afraid? That was not the real question.
The real question was, why had I?
When the phone rang, I didn’t leap to answer it. The movie on the television and the popcorn on my lap were more interesting. My mother could talk to the answering machine.
When the machine clicked on and a male voice began speaking, though, I dumped my popcorn on the floor and grabbed up the phone. I had a moment to realize I was acting like a girl who’d been waiting for that special boy to call. Probably because that’s exactly what I was.
“Hello?” I made my voice sound casual, though I felt anything but.
It had been a week since I’d shown up at his door in my underwear. A week since I’d left him sleeping. He hadn’t called. I hadn’t, either, though I’d dialed a number of times and hung up,
like a schoolgirl.
“What are you wearing?”
I looked down at my soft flannel pajamas. I’d washed them so many times the plaid pattern had faded mostly to grays and whites. “What do you want me to be wearing?”
Dan’s voice shifted a little. I imagined a smile. “Nothing.”
Such a small thing, that little bit of flirting, but all at once I felt as if air had rushed into my lungs, and I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. “Nothing but a smile.”
“Do you often sit around your apartment wearing nothing?”
“Do you often call up women out of the blue without identifying yourself and ask them what they’re wearing?”
“No.” I heard shuffling, as though he were switching the phone to the opposite ear. “But you knew who I was. Didn’t you?”
“You mean this isn’t Brad Pitt? I’m so disappointed.”
“Are you really wearing nothing, Elle?”
I laughed. “No. Why?”
“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
I looked at the mess of popcorn on my floor, my laugh fading away. “It seemed easier at the time.”
He made a noise of disbelief. “For you.”
“Yes, Dan.” I sighed. “For me.”
He was silent for a while, but he didn’t hang up. Neither did I. It would have been rude. The irony of that didn’t escape me; that I could leave without saying goodbye but not hang up the phone on him without doing the same.
“I want to take you someplace,” he said finally. “I need a date.”
I considered a moment before answering. “Is this an emergency?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
I started to clean up the popcorn as I spoke to him. “And you think I’ll…suit?”
“Elle,” Dan said, “you’ll be perfect.”
“Flattery doesn’t always get you everywhere, you know.”
“It’s a good start.” He shuffled some more, enough to make me wonder what he was doing. I could easily imagine him running his hand through his hair, his habits already familiar though I barely knew him. “You want to do this for me.”
I paused in gathering the kernels from my rug. “Do I?”
His voice shifted again, a little lower, a little huskier. “I think you do. Yes.”
“What, exactly, do I want to do?”
“You want to put on something stunning and come with me tomorrow night.”
“Where?” I had nothing stunning. I also had no plans for tomorrow night.
“A place I have to go. Dinner. Formal.”
“And you want to take me? In something…stunning.” I thought about it. “What do you consider stunning? I don’t have anything formal.”
“I’ll have it delivered to your office. You’ll wear what I choose. You’ll come with me to this dinner.”
He’d provide the dress and the dinner. I’d provide my company. There had to be a catch.
“And if I do this for you,” I asked, not because I necessarily wanted anything else but because the question seemed logical to ask, “what’s in it for me?”
“If you do this for me,” he said, “I’ll fuck you again.”
Crude. Yet it made stomach drop to hit my toes, and a little gasp eeked out of me. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“You said you’d go as far as I’d take you. Did you change your mind?”
As far as he’d take me. “No.”
“I thought you might have. When you left like you did.”
“No, I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t think—”
“Didn’t think what, Elle? That I’d give you what you want? That I’d take you where you want to go? Did you think I’d let you go after that night, just because you keep making it so hard for me?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know; that was the truth. I didn’t know what I wanted from him, only what I didn’t. What I couldn’t want.
“How many times have you touched yourself this week, thinking about me?”
Again he made me gasp. The heat in my face made me glad for the anonymity of phone conversation rather than face to face. “Every night.”
I heard the grin in his voice. “You thought about me, then.”
“Yes!” I swept popcorn back into the bowl. “I did.”
“Don’t frown. You’re prettier when you smile.”
“You can’t see my face, how do you now I’m frowning?”
“I can hear it in your voice,” he said. “You’re not as much of an enigma as you’d like to be, Elle.”
That annoyed me, and I stood with the full-again bowl to dump the poor wasted treat into the trash. “Are you always this arrogant?”
“Always,” Dan said. “I’ll send the dress tomorrow.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go with you tomorrow night.”
“You want to” was all he said, and then he hung up.
The package came the next day. I set it on my desk and stared at it the entire morning. I couldn’t work for looking at it. I calculated the length, width and depth. Figured the volume. Touched the brown paper around the outside.But I didn’t open it.
“What’s with the package?” Leave it to Marcy to bust in and demand to know my business.
“It’s a dress, I think.”
She settled on the edge of my desk. “You think? You don’t know?”
“It’s a dress.” I tapped my pencil on my tablet. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Yes. But I came to see your dress.”
“You didn’t even know,” I said, “that it was a dress.”
“But I knew you got a package.” She shifted my papers over to push the package in front of me. “Open it.”
“Do you make it a point to know everyone’s business, or just mine?” I picked at the edges of the paper wrapping the box. It had arrived by courier with my name on it. No return address. No indication of where it had come from.
“Silly question.”
I looked up at her. “Right. Everyone’s.”
“Where’d you order it from?” Marcy reached across to pull the scissors from their place in my pencil caddy. She handed them to me with as much ceremony as if I were at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“I didn’t order it. It’s a…gift.” I slit the paper carefully and pulled it off. The name on the box beneath made Marcy let out a low, impressed whistle. I just stared.
Kellerman’s is a very exclusive, very expensive boutique. I’d looked in the windows many times, but never gone inside. It’s the sort of store that sells “frocks.” Day frocks, evening frocks, clothes with purposes so specific you needed a guidebook to decipher their use.
“Wow.” For once Marcy seemed almost speechless. Not quite but almost. “Very nice.”
I touched the embossed lettering but hesitated to open the box. How had he known my size? What I liked? What I didn’t? What if the dress were red, the color I hated most of all and wouldn’t wear? What if it had big, poofy sleeves like some 1980s prom gown and made my ass look fat?
“Open it,” Marcy said, impatient. “I want to see.”
I lifted the lid and set it aside. Tissue paper cradled the garment within. I lifted the first piece. More paper.
“They wrap those things like mummies,” Marcy said. “C’mon, Elle. Let’s see.”
At last I lifted the dress from its shroud of paper and held it up. It was black. Long. Strapless.
Gorgeous.
Small, sparkly beads sprinkled the fitted bodice, boned for support, and down the skirt. A slit ran from the floor-length hem to so high on the thigh it might as well have been the waist. The skirt looked as if it would swirl around the wearer’s ankles when she danced.
“Very nice,” said Marcy. “Doesn’t look like you, I have to say. What made you pick it?”
“I didn’t.” I touched the material with tentative fingers. How could I wear such a thing? So lovely. So revealing.
As if a black vinyl raincoat over lace p
anties wasn’t revealing.
I never claimed not to be a dichotomy. I know very well the schism in me, and its source. I know why I hate being told what to do as much as I crave the freedom of having responsibility taken from me.
I looked at my work clothes—white shirt, black skirt, everything prim and proper and modest—and then back at the gown. It screamed, “Sex!” and that was only on the hanger.
“It will look absolutely fabulous on you, doll.” Marcy smiled. “Try it on.”
“Here? Now? No! I’ve got work to do. I couldn’t…”
She put up a hand. “Say no more. You didn’t buy this dress. Do I have to guess who did? Mr. Lover Boy from The Blue Swan?”
“Dan.”
“Dan bought you this dress?” Marcy said. “Just for fun?”
“No. He wants me to wear it tonight. He’s taking me out.”
“Very nice,” Marcy said, her subdued answer a sign she was more impressed than she’d admit.
I touched the material again, trying to imagine myself wearing such a creation in public. Worse. On a date.
“Look,” she said. “He got you shoes, too. Oh, and a wrap! And a bag…damn, girl! The man has taste, and obviously money. And—” Marcy reached inside and pulled out a strap, a wisp of lace, a garter belt “—he knows what he likes.”
“Put that back,” I said sharply. “I don’t even know if I’m going to wear any of this stuff.”
Marcy looked at me with a raised brow. “Sure you are. You’ll look beautiful.”
I frowned, shaking the dress but not quite willing to put it back in the box. “It’s very…”
“Sexy.”
“Yes.”
Marcy shrugged. “You don’t think you can be sexy, Elle?”
That wasn’t it. I knew very well I could be sexy. I could put on red lipstick, let down my hair, squeeze my breasts into a pushup bra and my ass into tight pants.
“I don’t think I need this to be sexy. This…this is a parody.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants.”
I thought she might be right, and could I blame him for wanting a parody when I had given him the cliché already? I stroked the dress’s fine, soft fabric, then looked into the box at the shoes. Hooker heels.