Edge Play X (21 page)

“I told you
I appreciate it, that I am grateful for what I have. Why don’t you believe me?
Does this meal make you feel guilty? This place? Is it just my presence? Or my
sheer existence?”

X stood up
and turned away from him, unsure what to say anymore.

Compton
came over to X and kneeled down in front of her,
bending over to kiss the tops of her shoes. She could see the back of his head,
the sharp line of his collar,
the
subtle age spots on
his neck. A man with more money than she could conceptualize was kissing her
shoes. Did he think that her forgiveness was the forgiveness of the world? She
wished that he would shed tears, make his gesture more like that of Mary
Magdalene washing Jesus’ feet.

Finally,
Compton
looked up at her and
said ever so meekly, “Punish me. I deserve it. I deserve to be punished. You
are the one to do it.”

Then, X
walked over to the phone, picked it up, and dialed the number that Steinberg
had given her. When he answered, she said, “Mr. Steinberg, please arrange for a
car to meet me in front of the hotel,” and then she put down the receiver.

Compton
came over to X.

“Don’t
leave,” he implored.

“Oh, you’re
coming with me,” she said as she put on her coat.

Compton
followed her outside where they were met with a
bodyguard and a private car. When they entered the vehicle, X told the driver,
“Take us to the best tattoo parlor in
Paris
.”

And when
they arrived, the car waited for them outside and the bodyguard entered along
with them.

After X had
said hello to the tattooed man at the counter, the man asked them in English
what he could do for them.

“This man
would like both his nipples pierced,” X replied, and within a few minutes, so
it was done.

4.

When they
returned to the hotel room,
Compton
took off his coat and
X could see the faint outline of the horseshoe shaped nipple rings under his
dress shirt. He looked down at his chest and then felt the fresh
piercings
under his garment, touching them ever so gently.
His nipples were sore and would remain so for some time.

“How am I
supposed to go to business meetings with these?” he asked her. “You can see the
outline of them under my shirt.”

“Who is
going to care if you have nipple rings or not? You’re rich. You’re allowed to
be eccentric.”

“Believe
me, some of them would care.”

“Then just
put band-aids over your nipples in the morning.”

Compton
went over to the small bar and began to pour
himself a drink. He brought one over to X as well.

She took it
from him and sipped it. “Take your clothes off,” she commanded.

“Why?”

“We aren’t
finished yet. Don’t argue with me.”

Compton
had asked her to come to
Paris
as his traveling
companion, but their interaction had turned into a play of submission and
dominance again. It could be no other way between them, something they both
understood.

Compton
took a drink and then set his glass on a table.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”

Compton
began unbuttoning his dress shirt, and when he was
finished he draped it over a chair. He kicked off his dress shoes and then removed
his pants and boxers and socks until he was naked.

X walked
over to him and touched his tender nipples. He flinched a little as the rings
moved.

“Come out
to the terrace with me,” she commanded

“X, I am
naked.”

“Don’t
argue with me.”

Compton
followed her out into the cold night, shielding
his little penis with his hands.

X pulled a
cigarette out of her pack and lit it.

“It’s
chilly out tonight, don’t you think?”

Compton
was lifting his feet up and down on the tile as if
jogging in place.

“Yes,
cold,” he said. The breath out of his mouth condensed into white mist as it
came out and then disappeared into the thin night air.

“Are you
enjoying your cigarette?”

“Yes,” she
replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Smoking is
a masochistic activity.”

X chose not
to respond. Beyond them,
Paris
stirred, all lights
and noise and electricity. As X watched
Compton
and saw him naked and
uncomfortable on the terrace, she was coming to a realization. X had fully
concluded that
Compton
was not a murderer,
had determined that the man didn’t have it in him. Maybe she was wrong, she
knew, but that was her assessment. The other realization, this one carrying
with it a tinge of dread, was that X was actually starting to like the man.

When she
finished her cigarette she crushed it out on the tile of the terrace.

“Go inside
and into the bathroom,” X said.

Immediately,
Compton
opened the doors and returned to the warmth of the
hotel suite. X followed him into a large bathroom that was next to the bedroom
that she had chosen as her own. The room had a large glass enclosure, a two
person steam shower with metallic seats on either side. X touched a cluster of
buttons which turned on a line of colored lights and caused the water to begin
raining down from the ceiling.

“Go into
the shower,” she commanded.

X checked
the water with her hand to make sure it was a comfortable temperature.
Compton
entered. As the water
hit him,
Compton
’s skin, rosy and
covered with goose bumps from being outside in the cold air, seemed to grow
redder under the barrage from the showerhead. He let out a moan, from pleasure
or pain X was unsure, but he had finally stopped shivering.

X found a
razor and a can of shave cream in her toiletries and handed them to
Compton
in the shower.

“Shave your
legs,” X said.

“What?”

“You heard
me. Shave them. Your whole leg, the whole way up. I want them nice and silky.”

Compton
gave her an uncertain look but then he squirted
some shaving cream into his hand and started to rub it over his lower leg. X
watched as he rolled the razor over his shin, cutting a line through the white
cream.

Then, X
left the room and entered the other bedroom where
Compton
’s suitcases sat on the
bed. Quickly, she unzipped one and looked for his laptop, jutting her hands
through socks and boxers and toiletries, but there was no laptop or laptop case
to be found, so she zipped the suitcase back up. X searched his other suitcases
but they also contained only clothing.

She went to
her purse and pulled out her cell phone and quickly called Simeon.
 

When he
answered, X told him, “I can’t find the laptop.”

“Did you
look through his bags?”

“Yes.”

“Check the
upstairs of the penthouse. He might have put it there for the meetings he’ll be
having tomorrow.”

“Hold on.”

X took the
phone and darted upstairs with the external drive Simeon had given her. On a
large conference table, a black laptop sat next to a notebook and pen. Once it
was open, X turned it on, but it sat still at a password screen.
 

“Do you
have his password?” she asked. “It’s asking for his password.”

“No, I
don’t have it. Try his safe word.”

X typed in
laissezfaire
.

“It didn’t
work. What should I do?”

“Turn off
the machine. Keep the
USB
plugged in. Now start
it back up and as soon as it is on, hit F10.”

“OK, I did
it.”

“You’ll need
to change to boot sequence to the
USB
.” Simeon walked her
through the steps. “There is software on it that will find the password.”

“How long
will it take?”

“Not long,
a few minutes.”

“I better
check on
Compton
. Hold on,” X said,
leaving the phone next to the computer and then running down the steps.

Back in the
bathroom, the glass shower doors had fogged, but X could see
Compton
inside busily shaving
his right leg. It looked like he had finished his lower leg and he was shaving
his knee in short strokes, flinging the shave cream off the razor every now and
then.

“How are
you doing in there, Terry?” she asked.

“Fine,” he
answered.

“When you
finish, just stay in the shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She darted
upstairs again and picked up the phone.

“It’s
done,” she told Simeon.

“Press
enter and it will give you his password.”

She did so
and the magic word appeared.
Laissez-faire
. She had neglected to add the
hyphen the first time around.

“Now you
need to reset the boot sequence and restart it.”

X followed
his directions and then entered the correct password when the screen appeared.

“It’s
open,” she told him.

Simeon told
her which software to run from the
USB
.
 
“It’s loading.”

“It will be
done in a few minutes. When it’s done, just turn off the computer and he won’t
be the wiser. Where is
Compton
? Do you have him tied
up?”

“He’s in
the shower. I told him to shave his legs.”

Simeon let
out a quick laugh before he told her that she was all set and said goodbye. X
nearly forgot the drive after she turned off the computer but she took it and
her cell phone downstairs. Once they were safely tucked into her purse she went
to check on
Compton
.

“I
finished,” he informed her and then turned off the water.

Compton
exited the enclosure and X threw a towel to him.
The man began to dry off, rubbing his head and then his body.

“Get
dressed,” she commanded, but the man only put on his boxer shorts. He followed
her into the bedroom.

“X, let me
sleep next to you tonight.”

“No,” X
said, “I don’t like to share my bed.”

“Please.
Not for sex, just for sleeping.”

X
considered his request. The truth of it was that it felt good to have
Compton
desire her so fully,
to have him long for her touch and attention so completely. An intimacy was
developing between them. They understood each other on a basic, intrinsic
level, one that they did not need to discuss or rationalize. X had seen parts
of him that his business associates and the world would never be aware of or
understand. They shared a particular and unique bond. The feelings that she had
when she first met Compton, X was coming to realize, were in part because she
had detested the idea of him more than the actuality of him.

“No,” X
said firmly. “That’s my answer.”

Compton
looked dejected.

“On the
floor then, next to the bed,” he said.

“You’re
always bargaining, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you
ever stop?”

“I can’t
seem to.”

“Fine,” X
said, throwing a pillow off from the bed and onto the plush carpet.
 
“You’ll have to get your own blanket.”

X took her
nightgown into the bathroom and dressed while
Compton
retrieved a woven
blanket from the closet and took this back to the side of the bed where he laid
down like a dog next to its master.

X entered
the room and saw him there on the floor, amazed that this man who valued
comfort and luxury so much, a man who had reserved a suite in the best hotel in
Paris
, was willing and eager to spend the night on the
floor just so he could be next to her.

X climbed
under the bed coverings and rested her head onto the pillow, listening to
Compton
’s breathing and the
faint sound of traffic from the street below. A few minutes after closing her
eyes, X had drifted off to sleep on the soft mattress.

5.

In the
morning when
Compton
awoke on the carpet
next to the bed, his back was aching from the unyielding plane of the floor,
his shoulders tense and uncomfortable,
the
pains a
bodily reminder of his increasing age. He laid there motionless for a few
moments, listening to the faint breaths X took as she slept on the bed above
him. And then, quietly, ever so quietly, he pushed himself up onto his knees
and put his elbows onto the downy mass of the bed. There, he watched X as she
slept, her face
so
relaxed and peaceful as to be
nearly angelic, her lips parted ever so slightly, her eyeballs moving quickly
under her delicate skin of her eyelids.