Exposed (18 page)

I take the phone from you and stare at myself. The younger me. As if I could find clues to my past, to my former self in this digital photograph, nothing but pixels, nothing but ones and zeroes. I cannot. I do not see myself in this. I see a girl, a sixteen-year-old girl. Lost and alone, trying to be defiant. Staring up at a camera held by the man who’d saved me, unhappy but daring. Brave, but scared. I see this. Did I know then that my parents were dead? Did I even have a chance to mourn? Or did the bleeding in my brain steal that from me as well?

I cannot get over the way I appear in the photo. My head shaved, how it highlights my eyes and cheekbones, the delicate but somehow strong shape of my head. I look a little masculine, but I am yet somehow unmistakably female. Involuntarily, I run my hand over the top of my head, almost expecting to feel stubble.

Could I?

What would it feel like? To feel nothing but scratchy stubble and scalp? No hair, no long thick black tresses.

I could do it. Perhaps I will.

Perhaps to truly become Isabel, I must shave my head and regrow my hair once more. Cut away the coiffured, styled, curled, brushed, perfect locks of Madame X and become Isabel, a new woman, rebirthed and fresh and raw.

You turn in place. Take your phone back, shut it off, toss it aside carelessly. It lands on the seat of the armchair and bounces once. You are looking down at me. You take my braid in your hand, tug my head back. You are standing close, not quite touching. Towering over me. Blocking out all the world with your muscled bulk, and I smell you. Feel your heat.

Anger flushes through me. I push you away, but you do not let go of my hair, and I must return to you or suffer the pain. “Let
go
, Caleb.” I accept the pain and continue to push away.

You swell with an inbreath. “No,” you growl. “I know you’re angry. But you cannot deny that you feel this, Isabel.”

I do. Oh, I do. And that is the true source of my rage. That I cannot help but
feel
this. Somehow your proximity eradicates all that exists beyond you, all that exists outside of you and me. Your heat and your brutal strength occlude my ability to remember why I hate you, why I do not trust you.

This feels familiar.

I know when you will move next. You will wait a beat . . . a second . . . a third, and then—yes. Now. You cup the back of my neck, my own hair crushed against my neck, soft and silky against my skin, between my neck and your hand. And you lift me up thus, force me up to my tiptoes and your lips are insistent on mine. The kiss blasts me. Shadows of confusion contort and cavort with rays of truth, dance on the walls of my twisting mind like a puzzle of chiaroscuro. You kiss me dizzy and then release me. Abruptly, violently.

“Fuck,” you snarl. “
Fuck.
I taste him on you. I
smell
him.”

“You knew,” I say, wiping at my lips with the back of my wrist. “You knew where I was going, and who I’d be with.”

“That’s different than tasting it.”

“And how do you think I feel, watching you fuck Rachel?” I hiss. “How do you think that feels for me, knowing you leave me, still smelling of me, and go to her. Bed
her
 . . . taste
her
, fuck
her
. And then come back to me, and bed me, taste me, fuck me, and now both of us are on your skin. Or more, even? The other girls on that floor, too, maybe. Are there others? Other girls, in other buildings? Girlfriends elsewhere in the city, who know nothing of each other? Like that girl from the limo . . . what was her name, the Jewish one?”

“Isabel—” you begin.

“There is nothing you can say to me, Caleb. Nothing that will make it better. Nothing that will take away that betrayal. And then you did what you did to me, right there by that elevator. The way you
used
me.” I swallow hard against the rage and the hurt. “The way you’ve
always
used me. It’s never been about us. It’s been about me belonging to you. Being your
whore
. Only you do not pay me in money, you pay me in
life
. You pay me in things, in false memories and mantras in the night, old stories and half truths. You pay me in things far less useful or tangible than mere currency, Caleb. And I will not accept those forms of payment anymore.”

I turn then, and you let me go. Allow me to walk away. But then you’re behind me. Standing far too close. Breathing on me. Your front touching my back. I can feel your erection against my backside, and your hands clutch my hips. Your lips touch the curve of my neck, near my shoulder.

You murmur to me.

“Can you walk away from this, Isabel? How right we feel together? Yes, I use you. But you use me just the same. You accept what I give, and you take more from me. You do not stop me. You do not say no. You beg for more. Not in words, but sex is not about words, is it? You beg for more with the way you breathe, the way you tense when I draw closer to you, the way you arch back into me. The way you lift your hips when I touch you. The way you moan when I make you come, over and over and over. You come for me, Isabel.” Your large, powerful hands with your squared-off, manicured nails and rough calluses paw across my hips, one scraping up to cup my breast, the other down to my core. “Do you remember the first time I touched you?”

I cannot breathe. God, I remember. All too well, all too vividly. I remember. I’d felt it coming for so long. Weeks. Months. Years, even.
Tension building, heightening, mounting. The way you looked at me, didn’t quite touch me. Almost, but not quite. We were in my condo, which was new. Still smelling of fresh paint. I’d lived in a different apartment in that building until then, a smaller one. Much like it, but not as large, not as nice. But very similar. I was standing at the kitchen counter, looking at my new home. Admiring the dark hardwood floor and the bookshelves, daydreaming of all the books I’d put on them—
you’d
put on them. And you came up behind me, just like this. An inch away at first. I smelled your cologne, and felt you there. You put your hands on the counter to either side of me. Just stood there. Inhaling my scent. I wanted you. I wanted to touch you. I remember that. Needing to know how your muscles would feel. Needing . . . something. I wasn’t sure what, but something. And when you edged closer so your body was touching mine, I knew. I’d straightened, and you’d moved closer. I felt your chest against my back, and the thick ridge of your erection. I remember fighting it. Not knowing if it was right or wrong, nor understanding the potency of my desire.

But when your hands touched my waist and skated down to cup my hips, I had no choice but to let out the breath I’d been holding and melt into you.

Second by second, you seduced me with nothing but touch, and I let you. I ate it up, truth be told. Devoured every touch. Felt you remove my clothing, bit by bit, until I was naked in that kitchen and your hands were on my skin and you were tasting my flesh and I was moaning. You tasted me then. Buried your face between my thighs and made me come. And then you bent me over the counter and drove into me right there. It surprised me, but excited me. And when you were done, you carried me to the bedroom, set me in the bed. Touched my skin. My curves. And in not too many minutes, you were ready again and this time you rolled me to my hands and knees and took me once more, and you commanded me to keep quiet and told
me not to come until you instructed me to do so. It lasted for a time I could not measure. You allowed me to come close to climax, and stopped. Closer, and stop. Closer and closer, stop. And when you did let me come, I was ripped apart by an orgasm so potent I cried.

My skin is hot and my breathing falters, just remembering.

“You remember.” You pinch my nipple through dress and bra, and I gasp. “I waited so long to have you. Years, I waited. I wanted you every single day, but you weren’t ready. So I waited, and waited, and waited. When we moved you into that condo, I was planning to wait longer yet. But you were standing there, and you were just so fucking beautiful that I had to be closer to you. And the way you reacted, I knew you wanted me. I knew you were ready. Not before or since have I ever experienced anything so beautiful and erotic and incredible as that first time with you. You were so responsive. You knew what you wanted. You weren’t a virgin, Isabel. You had no more memory of yourself then than you do now, but I could tell. You knew what you were doing, and what you wanted, even if you didn’t know you knew.”

“Years?” Those early years are a blur. I remember your presence, always you, only you. I remember wanting you, wondering why you didn’t touch me, kiss me. And then you did, and I glutted on you.

“Every single day, every moment I was near you, I wanted you. Obviously, at first, you were barely able to function. But after you regained mobility and speech, it got so much harder to resist you. I taught you, educated you, trained you. Worked out with you, ate with you. And all that while, I craved you.” You drive a finger against my core, through my dress. “As I crave you now.”

My next words are foolish, daring, and so very, very stupid. But I cannot stop them. “And do you still crave me, knowing another man has touched me, Caleb? Do you still crave me, knowing another man has
tasted
me, touched me, kissed me?”

You spin away with a snarl so feral I wonder if perhaps you truly are an animal in human disguise. You scrape your hands through your hair, stalk away, glance at me with unbridled rage so fierce it frightens me. A rare look into your deepest emotions. You pace with angry, leonine steps to the table containing the decanter of scotch, pour a huge measure, and toss it back in one swallow, hissing at the burn.

“Do not test me, Isabel.”

“Or what?” I ask, my voice calm and quiet, filled with the venom you taught me so well. “Will you beat me? Kill me? Turn me out? What will you do if I continue to test you? You are a hypocrite and a liar, Caleb Indigo. If that’s even your name.” Rage suffuses me. “You crave me, but not me. Not
me
, Isabel. You crave
Madame X
, the nameless, identityless woman you created. I was your golem, Caleb. I know this. I see this. You formed me out of clay, baked me in the fires of your controlling and mysterious ways. But now—now the clay and the stone are cracking and falling away, and the true woman beneath the perfectly shaped skin of the golem is emerging, and you hate that. You
hate
it. Because I’m not the woman you thought I was. Because I am not so completely
yours
anymore.”

“Such poetry, Isabel. You are very eloquent in your anger.” Your voice is low, thinner and sharper than the blade of an electron splitter.

You move with the slow, precise gestures of a man in complete control of his rage. You are better than useless displays of anger, better than tantrums. You do not hurl the glass to smash on the floor or against the wall. Such a gesture would be satisfying, perhaps, but useless. Petty, and empty. No, you take a moment and merely breathe. I watch your chest swell and contract. I watch your fists clench and loosen. I watch your eyes pierce me, unblinking, staring, and you are utterly inscrutable. I do not know your thoughts. I do not know what moves beneath the surface of your carefully shuttered expression, coiling and diving and not quite breaching the surface.

You are leviathan.

And my rage is the callow fury of a young woman only now learning how to express her emotions.

You stand before me. Stare down at me. “You cannot deny me, Isabel. You walked away, and yet here you are once more. In
my
home. You tremble. With rage, yes.”

A step closer, and your chest brushes against the tips of my breasts, and even through the fabric of my dress and bra, my nipples respond to your proximity.

“But also, you tremble with desire.” Your lips brush my earlobe. “For
me
.”

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

You cup my core with a broad, hard hand. “Your pussy is wet.” You bite my earlobe, whisper dirty secret truth against the shell of my ear. “For me.”

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

Your words leach my lungs of air. Your proximity snarls my will and tangles it. You are a sorcerer, and you weave magic of singular purpose: to seduce me.

You slide your hands up my front, grasp my breasts.

Clutch the V of fabric between them.

Slowly, slowly, with exquisite control, you rip my dress open from top to bottom. Unclasp my bra with a single deft flick of your hands. Tear apart my underwear at the seam over my hip, and the scrap of lace tumbles to the floor.

I am gasping for breath, my breasts heaving. My blood thrums as I hunt vainly for the will to resist you.

I sob once, and then your lips are on mine and your hands are lifting me and somehow you’ve shed your sweatpants and shoes and
socks and you are utterly naked with me in this echoing space with dawn light battering blindingly upon us, illuminating us, leaving no shadows in which my weakness can be hidden, no darkness that can absorb the stain of my sin.

You press my spine to the coolness of the window glass. Your hands are large and rough and strong on my backside, holding me up, spreading me open for you.

I bite your shoulder as you thrust into me, taste blood as I am filled by you.

As Madame X I was owned by you.

As Isabel, I am fucked by you.

A thrust. A thrust. I sob, and you buck into me. My flesh squeals against the glass. This is agony, this is ecstasy. You move like a machine, hips driving you into me with pistonlike power.

But . . .

There is a void within me now. It was always there, perhaps, but now I feel it most keenly, as you fill me and fail to sate me.

I know your patterns. I know your needs.

You cannot stomach being face-to-face very long. I wait, but it isn’t long before you lower me to the floor, spin me in place and press me to the glass. Not just my hands, but all of me. Breasts smashed flat against the cold glass, thighs, stomach, cheek. Naked, I am pressed against the glass for all the world to see.