Anita Blake 22.6 - Shutdown (3 page)

She blushed. “I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.” She stood up.

Richard caught her hand. “Ellen, please.”

“No, Richard, she’s deliberately trying to make me feel stupid and rude, and just . . . I can’t do this.”

“For the love of God, Ellen, if you don’t tell us what upset you we can’t fix it,” I said.

She shook her head. “I thought I could do this, Richard, I really did. I thought meeting Anita and seeing her with someone else she loved would make me feel more secure about it all, but it doesn’t. It just doesn’t help at all.”

“Ellen, please sit back down and talk to us,” Richard said. He still had her hand in his.

She pulled on his hand for a moment and then, as she stared down at him, her face softened. Looking at how yummy he was always made it hard for me to be mad at him, too, or had once. Being in love with someone gives them a lot of extra clout. She finally let him ease her back into her chair.

She looked at us; her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, but her voice was calm when it came. “I thought I could do this, but I don’t think I can. I love you, and you are everything I want, all I want, Richard. I was willing to believe that you needed rougher things in the bedroom than I was comfortable with, so I thought I could accept you needed someone for that and for bondage, but now I see her and you have to stop lying to me, Richard. It’s not needing to be rough, or needing bondage, it’s just her. You want to keep her in your bed, and that’s that.” The first hard tear started down her cheek.

Micah hugged me tighter, and said, “Trust me, Ellen, it is rough sex that they do together. Rougher than anything I enjoy. I accept that Anita needs some things in the bedroom that I just do not want to do.”

She stared at him and again there was that soft horror on her face. “You’ve watched . . .”

“No,” he said, very firmly, “but I’ve seen the marks on her body afterwards. Anita and Richard are not a couple in the way that you and Richard are, Ellen. He loves you, is in love with you, just like I’m in love with Anita.”

“Marks,” Ellen said softly, “what kind of marks?”

Micah looked at Richard. “I don’t think that’s my question to answer.”

Richard hugged her close and said, “Bruises sometimes.”

She looked stricken. “You beat her?”

“No,” he and I said together.

“I would never let anyone beat me, Ellen,” I said.

“Then I don’t understand,” she said looking from one to the other of us.

I looked at Richard, because I got bruised from struggling pitting my strength against his. I didn’t fight as hard as I could, and neither did he. We didn’t want to really hurt each other, but we liked seeing how far we could push it sometimes in our little rape fantasies. But there was no way I was saying the phrase, “rape fantasy,” to Ellen. That either came from Richard, or no one; besides, honestly, it still embarrassed me a little. It seemed so anti-feminist to enjoy being overpowered in the bedroom, but under the right circumstances, with the right people I loved it. I was tired of pretending about the things that made me happy in my life; I’d decided I’d rather just be happy.

“I would never allow Richard to abuse me, or any man for that matter,” she said.

“I am not an abuse victim, Ellen. I’m not a victim at all. I own my sexuality in every sense, and I top some of the men in my life. It’s not just me on the receiving end of the rough.”

“You abuse some of the men?”

“It’s not abuse.” I was getting pissed and trying not to be.

“You hurt each other. How is that not abuse?” she asked.

“This is my sexuality; it’s what makes me happy. You saying that it’s abuse is insulting; it would be like me saying that your idea of sex is boring.”

“How do you know what kind of sex I enjoy?” She looked at Richard.

“I didn’t say anything about our sex life to anyone,” he said.

“I’m assuming some things from your reaction, Ellen, that’s all. I hope I’m wrong for your sake and Richard’s.”

“Wrong about what?” she asked.

“Your idea of sex.”

She squirmed in her seat, and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

That was it for me. “You sit there and demand that we tell you intimate things about our sex life, our relationships, but you share nothing. You get all embarrassed, why can’t we be embarrassed, too?”

She looked startled. “I just thought . . .”

“Thought what, that because we like kinky sex we can’t be embarrassed?”

She glanced at Richard, then back at me. “I guess I assumed that if you were this open it didn’t bother you to talk about it.”

“It doesn’t bother me to talk to my sweeties, but to someone who I’ve just met and who is judging every word I say, yeah, it bothers me.”

“I’m not judging you,” she said.

“Aren’t you?”

Micah hugged me a little harder. “It’s okay,” he said.

“No,” I said, “it’s not.” I looked at Richard. We had a moment of looking deep into each other’s brown eyes, but it wasn’t a love look, it was a soul-searching one. The look you give someone that you know well, or did at one time, as you’re wondering what the hell they’re doing to their lives. Richard had finally worked through his issues so it was nice to have him in our lives again, and part of me wondered if Ellen was his new way of denying himself. It was a nice way of setting himself up to withdraw from the bondage and the rough sex without admitting that he was conflicted. He wouldn’t be conflicted, he’d be giving it all up so he could be married and have that white picket fence dream. Was it possible to lie to yourself so well that you didn’t realize you were doing it? Hell, yes. I’d done it myself for years.

“There,” she said, “that look, how can I not feel threatened when the two of you have such a strong connection?”

“We weren’t looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, trust me on that,” I said and cuddled in against Micah. I just wanted to leave. I was so done with this conversation.

“Then what did that look mean?”

I shook my head.

Richard answered, “Anita is wondering why I want someone who is so uncomfortable with so much of my life, right?”

“Yes,” I said and looked at them both.

“It’s just sex, not his whole life,” she said.

I gave Richard very direct eye contact, and raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” she asked, “What is that look you’re giving each other?”

“If you believe that sex isn’t that important to you, that’s your choice, but . . .” I stopped without finishing the sentence.

“But what?” she asked.

I looked at Richard.

“Just say it, Anita,” he said.

I sighed, Micah squeezed my hand. “But if you believe that sex isn’t important to Richard . . . that would be a mistake and not true.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Richard took her hand in his, and gazed into her eyes. “I love you, I want to spend my life with you and have children with you. I want to go to PTA meetings and Boy Scout meetings, and do all of it with you.”

She wrapped her smaller hands around his. “Oh, Richard, I want that too, so much.”

“But to have all that with you, and be happy, I need certain things that you don’t want to do.”

“Why is it wrong that I don’t want you to tie me up and hurt me?”

“It’s not wrong,” he said, “but it’s also not wrong that I want and need to do that with someone.”

“I don’t understand that,” she said.

“I know you don’t, honey, but can you accept that it’s true for me?”

“You’re asking me to let you have sex with Anita and then come home to me as if it’s all normal.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”

“You selfish bastard,” she said, and she was crying again. She took her hands out of his and this time he let her do it. She stood up and gave him a look of rage and disgust that must have been like a knife through his heart. “Are you honestly saying, that if I don’t say yes to all this perverted sex that you won’t marry me?”

The tables near us were beginning to notice the show, and trying to act as if they hadn’t heard that oh, so, provocative sentence.

We had Richard’s face in profile. He swallowed hard enough that we heard it, and then he said, “I’ve worked too hard to accept who I really am. Ellen, I can’t go back to hiding. I can’t go back to lying to myself.”

“So you are choosing her over me,” Ellen said.

“No, I’m choosing myself,” he said.

She aimed that rage at me. “You must be incredible in bed for him to throw everything away. I guess I can’t compete with a fur banging, blood whore.”

Micah pressed his arm against my shoulders, holding me in my chair, because I had started to stand. “No,” he said.

He was right, because if I stood up I wasn’t sure what I was going to do -- nothing good.

Richard stood up. “That was an ugly thing to say.”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“If she’s Jean-Claude’s blood whore, then so am I,” he said.

Ellen stared at him; her face didn’t seem to know what expression it wanted to have, as if so many thoughts were chasing around her mind that she didn’t know what to do.

“You don’t have sex with him. You told me you don’t have sex with either of the vampires.”

He leaned in and spoke low, so the other people around wouldn’t hear. Some of the people at the nearest tables were trying not to stare; others were openly watching. He bent closer to her, and said, “Just because no one sticks their dicks in each other doesn’t mean it’s not sex.”

She slapped him, hard enough for it to echo in the suddenly silent restaurant. Everyone was looking now; it was too good a show to look away. Richard hadn’t done anything to protect himself, he’d just let her hit him. If a man had done the same thing to a woman someone would have been calling the police.

Richard stood up straighter, taking his face out of her reach. “I love you, Ellen.”

“I hate you, Richard Zeeman, I hate you for making me love you, and for this . . .” she gestured at me and Micah, though I think we were just representative of the problem.

She started to sob, put her hands over her face and then ran towards the archway and the door beyond. I honestly expected Richard to follow her, but he just stood there with his cheek reddened from her slap. She was outside in the sunlight now, hesitating on the sidewalk, looking behind her. She kept looking back, and I realized she was expecting him to run after her. When he didn’t appear there, she turned toward the window. Richard didn’t turn around. He didn’t see her on the sidewalk. He didn’t see her look in through the windows at him. Ellen had expected him to follow her. I think she’d seen running out as an escalation, but not an end, and if he’d gone after her, she’d have been right. The look on her face as she realized he wasn’t going to follow was one of raw pain.

Micah touched my arm, which made me look at him. He looked at me and I knew the look. I was supposed to do something.

I said, “Richard, if you don’t follow her . . .”

“It’s over,” Richard said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I know,” Richard said.

I looked at his very straight, very still back, and then turned to the window. Ellen was looking at him, as if willing him to turn around, but he didn’t. She walked out of sight, fresh tears streaming down her face. Richard didn’t follow her.

THE END