Exposed (4 page)

Bare from the waist up, wearing only slacks. Your chest glistens with sweat. Your hair is in disarray. You are furious.

Your hands stop the door from closing, and panic seizes me. But instead of freezing me, this time, it spurs me to action.

“Why do you never treat me the way you treat her?” I hear my voice say, breathless, shrill, nearly sobbing. “Why don’t you fuck me the way you do her?”

“She’s an apprentice—” you start.

I see Rachel behind you, peeking around the corner. Shamelessly naked, still. Curious.

“So?”

“You’re worth more than she is. She’ll only ever be a Bride. You’re . . . You are Madame X.”

Rachel, behind you, is livid. Tears fill brown eyes. “You
bastard
.” This is hissed.

You whirl. “Rachel, wait.”

You seem almost human, suddenly. Caught between Rachel and me.

“But I’m not worth being naked with. Not worth behaving as if you
want
to be with me. As if you enjoy
fucking
me, like you obviously do her.” I cannot stop the words. It is an avalanche. “I am just a possession to you, Caleb. You keep me because you like owning me, not because you
like
me. Not because you
enjoy
me.”

None of this makes any sense. I am jealous, but I hate you. Yet I also need you, want you, desire to be treated by you the way you treat Rachel. I want—

I do not know.

Nothing I want makes any damned sense.

I do not understand myself.

What do I want?

Freedom.

I shove you. Hard. Surprised, you stumble backward, and I hear Rachel gasp in surprise.

The elevator door closes.

“God fucking damn it!” I hear you shout this louder than I’ve ever heard you speak before.

I am cognizant of nothing but my own gasping, ragged breath as I cross the lobby, and I know I’m sobbing, but I don’t care.

For once, the noise of Manhattan does not paralyze me.

In four-inch Gucci heels, I run.

In a custom couture dress, I flee.

There is only one place in this city that I know, and somehow I find it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I have no money for the admission fee. But when I arrive at the ticket counter, there is a little old black woman behind the desk.

She recognizes me. “Oh, it’s you! I haven’t seen you in . . . oh, years!”

“Hi . . .” I don’t know her name. But I know her, it feels like. “It has been a long time.”

“Where’s Mr. Indigo?”

“I . . . I came without him.”

A look crosses her face. “Oh.” She tilts her head sideways. “Honey, you all right?”

I shake my head, unable to summon a lie. “No. No. I need . . . I need to go in, but I forgot money. I don’t have any money. And I need—I
need
to go in.”

“It’s pay what you want here,” she says. “Even if you got a dollar I can let you in.”

“I have nothing. Not a penny.”

A moment of hesitation. Then she reaches into her back pocket, withdraws some crumpled green bills, stuffs two into her register drawer, and hands me a ticket. “On me today, sweetie. You used to love this place. You was here all the time, back then. Every day.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

She waves her hand. “Ain’t nothin’.”

“You don’t know what this means to me.”

Neither do I, I don’t think. But I go in, and discover that I know the way. My feet carry me to the painting.

There is a bench, low lighting. White walls. My painting is not prominently displayed, just one of many, and not an important one. I take a seat on the bench, ankles crossed beneath me.

I stare at her.

Portrait of Madame X.

She possesses such poise, such effortless strength. The curve of her neck, the strength in her arm, the calm expression on her face.

I stare for a long, long time. Find calm in the painting, finding some measure of strength.

There is one more to see. I wander the halls, and somehow cannot find it.

There is a guard, tall, black skin so dark it glistens. “Excuse me, sir,” I ask. “Where is the
Starry Night
?”

I receive a blank stare. A shrug.

A nearby visitor glances at me, a middle-aged woman. “Honey, you’re at the Met.
Starry Night
is at the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art. Just down the road a bit, in Midtown.”

I thank the woman and return to the bench in front of the Sargent.

Thinking.

I have memories, distinct memories of being here with you, and you wheeled me from this to the
Starry Night
.

But how can that be? They aren’t at the same museum.

I’ve distracted myself well enough, thankfully. I am no longer seeing over and over Rachel with you, your eyes on mine, no longer feeling my arousal and disgust and sense of betrayal.

I have pushed those emotions down, deep down where I won’t have to deal with them just yet.

And then I feel you.

“I knew I’d find you here.” Your voice is quiet, like the rumble of a subway train below the streets.

“I have nothing to say to you.” I do not look at you. Scoot to my left so there is a foot of space between us.

“Too bad. I have a lot to say to you.”

“That would be new.”

A sigh. “X, you don’t understand—”

“If you say that to me
one
more
fucking
time, I will scream,” I hiss.

I like cursing. It makes me feel powerful and free.

“Why did you spy on me?”

“I do not know. I wish I hadn’t, yet also I am glad I did.” I struggle to breathe past the subtle power of your cologne and your presence. “I understand now what I mean to you.”

“You mean more to me than you can possibly comprehend, X.”

“Which is why you never even bother to take off your clothes when you’re with me? Why you never stay with me, afterward? Why you treat me like I’m . . . delicate?”

“What, X? You want me to do that shit to you?” You say this a little too loud, glance around, and lower your voice so it is barely audible. “You want me to treat you like I treat the girls? You want me to come on your face? You want me to pull your hair and hurt you? Is that what you want, X?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want that. I don’t know, Caleb! I just know, watching you with her, I felt jealous.
And angry. I felt . . . as if you enjoy her more than you do me. I don’t want to be just another girl among many for you.”

“I can’t give you what you’re asking for, X. You don’t—I know you hate it when I say this, and I’m sorry, but you really don’t understand.”

I groan in frustration, loudly enough that other visitors stop and stare at me. “Then help me understand!”

“How, X? What am I supposed to say to you?”

“The truth?”

“What is the truth? The truth about what?”

“About me? About us? Why you keep me locked up in that fucking tower like . . . like Rapunzel.”

You do not answer for a long time, staring at the Sargent painting for which I am named. “How many hours have we both sat in this spot, staring at this painting?”

Apropos of nothing, that. But also . . . relevant. I am here of my own volition.

“Many indeed.” I hesitate, and then continue. “My memories are faulty, it seems. I distinctly remember being here, in the wheelchair, with you. Looking at the Sargent, and then you’d push me through the museum and we’d look at the Van Gogh together. I
remember
this, Caleb. As clearly as I am standing here, I can feel it, see it. But now that I’m actually here, I’ve discovered that what I remember isn’t possible. Because the Van Gogh is at a different museum entirely. And I . . . I don’t understand. How can I remember something falsely?”

You breathe out through pursed lips. “I did some research on memory, while you were in rehab, learning to walk and talk again. The storage and recall of memory is a subject we understand very little about. But one thing I remember reading was that most of our memories, from childhood and things like that, we aren’t actually remembering the event itself, we’re remembering a memory of a memory. Make sense? And the farther we are away from the core
event, the more distorted the actual memory becomes, so what we are remembering might actually be very inaccurate when compared to what really happened.”

This rocks me. I have to remember to breathe, remember to stay upright. “So . . . the few memories I do have, they may not even be real?”

I cannot trust my own memories? How is this possible? Yet what you say makes far too much sense.

“That’s what scientists say, at least.” A shrug, as if it’s inconsequential.

“I have so few memories. You, Logan, Rachel and the other apprentices, Len . . . you all have lifetimes of memories. A linear identity that you can hold on to. I do not have this. I have six years of memories. That is all. My identity is not . . . linear. It is . . . fractal. It is disrupted. False. Created. I am not me. I am a me that you created.”

“X, that’s not fair—”

“It
is
fair, Caleb. It is the truth. You created me. You gave me my name. You gave me my home, my apartment on the thirteenth floor. You bought all my books, and if I have any identity of my own, it is in those pages. You taught me manners and poise, bearing and comportment. You asserted upon me my identity as Madame X, the woman who schools idle, entitled rich boys. What have I chosen for myself, Caleb? Nothing. You buy my clothes. You buy my food. You structured my exercise routine. I exist entirely within the sphere of your influence.”

“What are you saying?” You speak carefully, slowly.

“I’m saying you created my identity. And I’m beginning to feel as if it doesn’t fit. As I’m wearing a dress that is either too tight or too loose. Too tight in one place and too loose in another.” I pause to breathe, and it is a difficult task. “I am . . . unraveling, Caleb.”

A long silence.

And then: “You are Madame X. I am Caleb Indigo. I saved you. You’re safe with me.”

My outbreath becomes a tremor. “Damn you, Caleb Indigo.”

“I saved you from a bad man. I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.” Your hand twines into mine. There is sorcery in your touch and in your voice, weaving a palpable spell over me.

You pull me to my feet and lead me out of the museum.

Into your Maybach. Classical music plays softly, a cello solo wavering gently. I focus on the strains of music, seize it like a lifeline as Len slithers the long car through the sludge of traffic, taking us back to your tower.

Your hand rests on my lower back as we stand in the elevator. You twist the key to the
P
, for
penthouse
. We rise, rise, and I can’t breathe. The higher we go, the more constricted become my lungs.

At the penthouse, I am greeted by the black couch, upon which and over which you have fucked me so impersonally, more than once, and I am panicking, gagging on my trapped, rotten breath, on the slamming knot of my pulse in my throat.

You step out, expecting me to follow, but I spin the key abruptly. Not for the lobby or the garage or the third floor or the thirteenth floor. Any floor, at random. You sigh and watch me, let me go. One hand in the hip pocket of your perfect suit, the other passing through your thick black hair. A gesture of frustration, irritation, resignation.

I do not even know which floor I get off on. I find a staircase leading up, and I climb. Climb. Until my legs ache and I’m sweating in my three-thousand-dollar dress, I climb. A door appears where the stairs finally end. I can climb no more, my legs turned to jelly. I twist the silver knob, push. The door sticks, unused to being opened, and then suddenly flies ajar. I stumble, lurch out onto the roof of the tower.

My breath is stolen, and I take a few slow, awed steps farther out onto the roof.

The city is spread out around me in the darkness of night. Squares of light glow from high-rises across the street and across the city. The sky above is dark, charcoal gray, a crescent moon shining low on the horizon.

When did it become night?

How long was I at the museum, alone, staring at the portrait? That long? I have no memory of the car ride back here, only the sensation of movement and blurred faces passing and cars, yellow taxis and black SUVs, and the cello playing quietly.

I move to the edge of the building, a long walk across white stones scattered on the roof. A silver dome twists off to my right, and to my left a fan spins in a large concrete block, roaring loudly.

Stare down, fifty-nine stories down at the sidewalk. The people are specks, the cars like toys. Vertigo grips me and shakes me until I’m dizzy, and I back away.

Collapse to my bottom, knees splayed out, unladylike.

I weep.

Uncontrollably, endlessly.

Until I pass out, until my eyes slide closed and sobs shake me like the aftershocks of an earthquake, I cry and cry and cry, and I do not even know truly what I weep for.

Except,

perhaps,

everything.

I
am drowning in an ocean of darkness. The sky is the sea, dark masses of roiling clouds like waves, spreading in every direction and weighing heavily on me like the titanic bulk of Homer’s wine-dark seas. I lie on my back on the rooftop, leftover heat from the previous day still leaching out of the rough concrete and into my skin through the thin fabric of my dress.

I sense a presence as I wake up, but I don’t open my eyes. Perhaps you found me. There are only so many places I can be. I feel you sit beside me, and your finger touches my hair, smooths it off my forehead.

But then I smell cinnamon, and cigarettes.

I crack my eyes open, and it isn’t you.

“Logan.” I whisper it, surprised. “How are you here?”

“Bribes, distraction, it wasn’t hard.” He shrugs. “You weren’t in your apartment. I don’t know. I just felt . . . pulled up here. Like I knew I’d find you up here.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He fits a cigarette to his mouth, cups his hands around it, and I hear a scrape and a click. Flame bursts orange, briefly, and then the smell of cigarette smoke is pungent and acrid. His cheeks go concave, his chest expands, and then he blows out a white plume from his nostrils. “No, I shouldn’t.”

“Then why are you?” I sit up, and I’m self-conscious of the fact that my dress is dirty and wrinkled and has hiked up to nearly my hips, baring far more of me than is proper.

“I had to talk to you.”

“What is there to say?”

Your eyes flick shamelessly over me. A breeze kicks up, and my nipples harden, my skin pebbles. Perhaps it isn’t the wind so much as Logan, though. His eyes, that strange and vivid blue, his proximity, his sudden and unexpected and inexplicable presence on this rooftop, in my life.

“There’s a lot I could say, actually.” His eyes, certainly speak volumes.

“Then say it,” I say, and it is a challenge.

Smoke curls up from the cigarette between his fingers. “Caleb, he’s not who you think he is.”

“This is not the first time you’ve said that,” I say. “And you know, do you? Who he really is?”

“Certain things, yes.” He takes a long drag on the cigarette, holds it in, blows it out through his nose again.

“You sneaked in here to tell me Caleb’s secrets?”

He shakes his head, almost angrily, blond hair waving around his shoulders. “No, I didn’t,” he confesses. “You made the wrong choice. You should have stayed with me. We could have had something amazing.”

“There was never a choice, Logan.” It feels a little like a lie.

“Yes, there was.” Another long inhalation, exhaling smoke through
nostrils like a dragon. “Whatever. Not gonna argue with you about that. What I came here to tell you was that I did some digging.”

“What do you mean, digging?” I need something to do with my hands, somewhere to look that isn’t Logan.

“I looked around for information on you.” He says it quietly, flicking his thumb across the butt of the cigarette, ash dropping away and scattering in the breeze.

“Did you find anything?” I almost don’t want to ask.

I pluck the lighter from his hand, and it is warm from his palm. Translucent green plastic, a centimeter or two of liquid sloshing at the bottom. Black tab, silver wheel, and a mouth for the flame. I roll my thumb over the wheel, creating sparks. Do it again while pressing down on the black tab, watch flame spurt to life. The pack of cigarettes is on the rooftop by the toe of his boot. He sits cross-legged beside me, shamelessly, openly eyeing my body, my cleavage, my thighs, the black sliver of silk over my core. I reach over, take the pack of cigarettes. He watches me, but does nothing. I withdraw one of the cylinders and fit the tan, speckled end to my lips, as I watched him do. Spark flame, touch the flame tip to the end of the cigarette. When smoke rises, I inhale.

“You’re going to cough your brains out,” Logan warns.

Smoke fills my lungs, too much, too hot, thick and burning. I hack and hack and hack, eyes watering.

“Why do you do this?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Habit, one I can’t quite quit. Not that I’ve really tried, though, I guess.” He takes a drag. “Try pulling it into your mouth first, and then inhaling. Or just don’t inhale. It’s a shitty habit, absolutely horrible for you. I feel a responsibility to tell you that you shouldn’t start smoking.”

He doesn’t try to stop me, though, doesn’t take the cigarette from me. Just watches as I do as he suggested, and though I still
cough, it’s not as bad as the first time. I become dizzy, faint; it is a heady feeling, and I think I understand the attraction of this habit.

“What did you find out, Logan?” I ask, after a few minutes of silence.

He doesn’t answer right away. Not for more long minutes of thick, tense silence, smoke rising in a thin curl, an occasional drag for him, for me. I let the silence hang, let it weigh as heavily as the clouds.

I like smoking. It gives me something to do to fill the silence, the taut space between my words and his.

“Information is power.” He stabs out his cigarette with a short, angry twist of his wrist. “I want to blackmail you with this, what I found out. Not tell you unless you come with me. But then I’d be no better than Caleb.”

I digest what he’s insinuating. “You think Caleb knows who I am and isn’t telling me?”

“I think he knows more than he’s told you, yes.” He stands up, unfolding his lean frame, and strides away from me across the rooftop, stopping to put his hands on the waist-high wall separating him from the tumble into space. “Do you remember that day in my house, in the hallway? When I got back from walking Cocoa?”

I swallow hard. “Yes, Logan. I remember.”

This is the second time he’s brought this up. I remember it all too well. It recurs, a dream, a fantasy, memories assaulting me as I bathe, as I try to sleep, lost details of hands and mouths when I wake up.

To get away from the renewal of the memory, I look up. At the sky. Dark with clouds, hazed with smog and light pollution.

I wish I could see the stars. I wonder what they look like, how I would feel looking up and seeing sky full of scintillating diamond points of light.

His words echo in my soul, throb in my ear, and I am pulled back down by the ache of need in his voice. “You were naked. Every inch
of your fucking incredible skin, bare for me. I had you in my arms. I
had
you, X. I had my hands on you, had you on my lips, on my tongue. But I let you go. I . . . made you walk away.” He turns, glances at me. As if he can smell me, as if he can see what lies beneath the fabric of my dress. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how much that cost me, to walk away from you. How much self-control that took.”

I shake all over. “Logan, I—”

He turns away, resumes staring out at the skyline, speaks over me. “I am haunted by that. I had you, and I let you go. I’m not haunted by the fact that you’re gone, though, that I let you get away. It’s more the fact that I still know it was the right thing to do. As much as I hate it, as much as it hurts . . . you aren’t ready for me.”

“That again? What does that mean, Logan?” I stand up now, tug the hem of the dress down. Seven strides, and I’m standing a few feet behind him. “I thought you said you found something out about me.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Never mind.”

Logan reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a square of folded paper. Holds it, stares at it. The wind plucks at the paper, fluttering the corners, as if it wants to rip it away, keep it from me, whatever is written there. He pivots so he faces me. Steps closer. I stop breathing. I tingle all over. My skin remembers the feel of his skin, the taste of his tongue. I shouldn’t. That is not the choice I made. But . . . I can’t forget it. And deep down, I don’t want to.

“X, when I said there’s so much I could say? I don’t know how to say it all. I want to take you away, again. Run off with you, make you mine. But that wouldn’t be enough for me. I’m a proud man, X. I want you to
choose
me. And . . . I think you will, someday.”

He presses his body against mine, and I feel every inch of him, hard, taut, warm. My breasts flatten against his chest, my hips bump against his. Something in me throbs, aches. Recognizes him, feels
pulled by him. I forget everything, in these moments, except how utterly stolen away and carried off into the wild wind I feel, with him.

The paper crinkles against my bicep as he grips me, a hand on my arm, a palm to my cheek.

No . . . don’t
; I try to form the words.

“
Don’t, Logan
,” I whisper, but maybe the words are only a breath, only a sigh, only the minuscule brush of my eyelashes fluttering against my cheek, the sweep of lips against lips.

He does.

He kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

And I don’t stop him. My traitorous body wants to writhe and meld to his, wants to wrap itself around him. My hands sneak up to his hair, bury in the blond waves, and my throat utters a sigh, and maybe a moan, a feverish, desperate sound.

It is but a moment that we kiss, a single moment.

A fortieth of an hour.

But it is one in which I feel utterly changed, as if some too-loose skin draped over my skeleton is snatched away and my true form is revealed, as if his touch as if his kiss as if his very presence can make me more truly
me
.

I want to weep.

I want to sag against him and beg him to keep kissing me until I cannot bear any longer the soft and tender intensity.

He backs away, wiping his wrist across his mouth, chest heaving as if desperately battling some inner demon. “Here.” He hands me the square of folded paper. “It’s your real name.”

I feel struck by lightning, wired, surging with too much of everything, too much heat, too much fear, too much doubt, too much need.

He puts a hand to the half wall, as if supporting himself, as if about to leap over and fly away.

“Logan . . .” I don’t have anything else I can say.

“You have to decide if you want to know,” he says. “Because once you know . . . you can’t take it back. Once you start questioning, there’s no stopping it.”

“I have to know now, don’t I?” I ask, almost angry at him. “You posed the question, and now I have to have the answer.”

“True.” He lets out a breath, moves to walk past me, but stops a breath and a touch away. His indigo eyes meet mine. “You can come with me. We can leave New York.” He glances up at the cloud-shrouded sky. “I can take you somewhere far away, and show you the stars.”

Could he have heard that wish? Can he see into my mind, read my thoughts? Sometimes I wonder if he can.

“But . . . you won’t.” He wipes a thumb across my lips. “Not yet, anyway.”

He almost seems about to kiss me again, and I’m not entirely sure I would survive another stolen kiss, another breathless moment far too close to a man who seems to see far too much of me.

“If you ask the questions, X . . . you can’t shy away from the answers when you find them.”

I don’t watch him leave. I can’t. I won’t.

I don’t dare.

A long, long, painful silence, stretching like a rubber band about to snap. When I’m sure I’m alone, I finally look away from the skyline, from the dark shapes of skyscrapers and apartment blocks, away from the clouds and the dim distant lights. The rooftop is empty once more, but for me and the ghost of Logan’s kiss.

I unfold the square of paper.

My cigarette smolders on the white rocks beside me, forgotten.

There on the wrinkled, off-white scrap of paper is a scrawl of messy male handwriting, in all slanting capital letters.

The letters form a name.

My name.

If I could prevent myself from reading it, I almost would. But I don’t.

Logan has given me my name.

I both love him for it, and hate him for it.