Gagged (21 page)

“It’s not hard. I just don’t like it.”
 

But now he’s on the ropes. I shake my head.
 

“What’s the matter? Afraid of facing yourself in the mirror? Will you have trouble getting by tomorrow if you admit to being a human today?”

“It’s frivolous. Meaningless.”

I watch his profile. He’s still looking out across the playground, not really seeing any of it.
 

“Close your eyes,” I say.
 

“Why?”
 

“Close your eyes, or the bet’s off!” I bark, imitating yesterday’s command.

Slowly, he does.
 

“Now listen.”
 

“I’m listening.”
 

“Really listen. What do you hear?”
 

“Nothing. Kids. People.”
 

“What else?”
 

“You.”
 

I slap his arm. “What else, cowboy?”

“Why do you keep calling me cowboy?”
 

“Your boots.”

“They were all I could find.”
 

“Shh. Pay attention.”
 

I’m quiet for a minute. I let him listen.
 

“Okay,” he says. “I give up. What am I supposed to be hearing?”
 

“Your thoughts.”
 

“This is idiotic.”
 

“It’s not idiotic. I want to know what your brain is saying to you as I make you sit here around all these disorderly children, in your casual finery, wearing boots. Haven’t you ever heard of self-talk?”

“Jesus.”

“Why are you like this, Caspian? What’s going on in there?” I tap his head, and his eyes open.
 

“Why are you still a virgin?”
 

I roll my eyes. If he’d asked the same thing wearing his power suit in his usual dark and brooding way, I’d have felt examined and accused. But here in the sun he sounds like a big wimp deflecting to me so he doesn’t have to answer.
 

“You first.”
 

“My father. I guess I take after my father.”
 

“And?”
 

“He died recently.”
 

“I’m sorry.”
 

“Don’t be. He was a son of a bitch. But we had a bet, he and I. A lot like the bet I made with you.”
 

“I hope it wasn’t exactly the same,” I say.
 

“He bet me that I’d amount to nothing. I bet that I’d become bigger than he ever was.”
 

“I guess you won.”
 

“No,” Caspian says. “It was rigged. Impossible to win. In every measurable way, GameStorming — even before the LiveLyfe buyout — dwarfed his accomplishments. But he always had a reason that it wasn’t good enough. He said I’d lucked into what I had — a monkey could have stumbled across what I’d done. He gave me no credit for the work. And that’s when I realized: Everyone sees life through their own filter. My father would never see my accomplishments through any filter other than his own, and I couldn’t see life through any filter other than
mine.
”

“What’s that filter like?”

“My filter told me that in order to do anything worth doing, I had to please that son of a bitch. But then he died, and now I can never win.”
 

This is so hideously glib. I wonder if he realizes what he’s admitted.
 

“But it also made me strong. It taught me that life is a series of contests. I always had to win in business because given half a chance, my opponents would take what I’d built.”
 

“Your
opponents?
You don’t think of them as partners?”
 

“Everyone is only looking out for themselves. Ignore that, and you’ll lose everything.”
 

I wait. Finally his head turns, and he’s looking right at me.
 

“What about me?” I ask. “Am I your opponent? Is that what this bet is all about? Some need you feel to ‘defeat’ everyone and ‘beat’ me?”

“You’re just naive.”
 

“So? Let me be naive. Why is it any of your business?”
 

“If you don’t open your eyes, you’ll never accomplish anything.”

But this isn’t making any sense.
 

“Who am I to you? Why did you single me out? Was it ever about Jasmine? Or did you accept her interview request so you could get to me?”
 

He shifts on the bench.

“Do you know what I think?”
 

He looks at me.
 

“I think you’re so full of hate, you can’t stand for someone like me to exist. You have to crush me. Snub me out. Because if you don’t, you’ll have to admit that maybe you’ve been wrong all along — that maybe it is possible to live and love without plowing through everyone else like a bulldozer. I think you hate yourself, and this is how you get revenge. This is how you show your father that you
can
win: by eliminating ways of thinking that contradict yours.”

“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”
 

“Why not? You’ve done plenty of that to me. You think you know me so well. What’s wrong? Can’t take what you love to dish out?”
 

He shifts. Looks away.
 

“Do you know what else I think?”

“I think you’ll tell me whether I want to know or not,” he grunts.
 

“I think you’re afraid.”
 

“Of what?”
 

“That you might be wrong. That you might have been wrong all along. About your father. Your decisions. Your life. All of it.”
 

“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
 

“Maybe you’re afraid that I do.”
 

“Please. You’re a mess.”
 

“Pot. Kettle.”
 

His jaw hardens. He stands.
 

“Where are you going, cowboy?”
 

“We’re done here.”
 

I don’t stand. I just look up at him. “Getting to you, am I?”
 

“Give me my keys.” He holds out his hand.
 

“Fine. But don’t forget to take one of my business cards on the way out.”
 

“No. I meant
we’re done
. Bet’s off. Take the fucking money; I don’t care.”

“I don’t want to be done. Not now that I see I can win.”
 

He laughs. Then he turns, but I reach out and snatch his hand. He looks down, probably wondering if I mean to get amorous, but I didn’t grab his hand to hold it. I roll his arm slowly and trace the skin upward from his wrist with my eyes. Along the old white lines on his forearm.

“Where did you get those scars?”
I whisper.
 

He pulls his hand from mine.

“Scared?”
I say.
 

He looks at me. Hard.
 

“Tomorrow. Noon, my office. And then we’ll see who’s scared.”
 

He walks off across the grass, leaving me alone with my fluttering heart, wondering which rabbit hole I’m about to crawl into.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A
URORA

T
HAT
NIGHT
I
HAVE
A
dream.
 

I’m on a psychiatrist’s couch. A doctor I can’t see, as I stare at an anonymous popcorn ceiling, is asking me about my childhood, only all the questions seem to be about Caspian’s instead. I keep trying to straighten things out, but the psychiatrist won’t listen. It’s like one of those dreams where you’re trying to run away but your feet are stuck in mud, except that all the mud is mental instead of physical. I just can’t make the guy hear me — no matter how many times I try and explain that he has the wrong patient, the wrong file, the wrong set of dysfunctional parents.
 

Why did you feel you had to impress your father rather than living your life on your own terms?

And I say, I never tried to impress my father.
 

Is this why you won’t take GameStorming open source? Because you feel your father wouldn’t approve?

And I say, That’s not within my control. You’re thinking of Caspian White.

Did you ever consider that might be your problem? That you can’t stop pursuing things that ultimately hurt you
because
they hurt you? Is that the reason the gossip rags claim you’re into kinky sex, into leather and paddles and crops? Is it because as a child, you never felt yourself in control, and so began to think of control as a commodity to be bartered, bought, and sold?
 

It’s not me. That’s not me you’re talking about.
 

And the doctor says,
Are you absolutely sure? Are you saying you weren’t tied down? That you didn’t have a gag stuffed into your mouth? That you weren’t told who to be, when, how, and why? That you weren’t punished for being who you were, and didn’t grow deformed like a bound foot? Like a ribcage forced every day to mature within a too-tight corset — your true self set aside so you could grow into something that only pleased others?

Frustrated, I turn and say, You have the wrong patient. You’re thinking of Caspian White.
 

But when I turn, I see that the doctor
is
Caspian. And he says,
No, Aurora.
You
are.

He’s on me in a second.
 

With rough hands, he turns me over on the couch so I can no longer see him. He raises my nightdress. I feel the cool room air kiss my bare bottom. Every nerve ending is suddenly alive, adrenaline coursing through me.

His hand moves up my leg, and he grips a handful of my ass.

Then I wake to my screaming alarm.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

A
URORA

Y
ESTERDAY
I
FELT
CONFIDENT
. T
HIS
morning, with the strange dream’s sour aftertaste, I’m the opposite. It’s barely 9 a.m. by the time I’m caffeinated, dressed, and clean. I’m beginning to think I’ve made a huge mistake. I keep imagining that moment in a horror movie when some idiot enters the dark basement after a string of murders and — surprise, surprise — they get a knife in the belly for their efforts. Sometimes peril is so easy to avoid, but here I am walking right into it.
 

Caspian is messed up. Clearly. We knew that the first day, when he ignored Jasmine and eventually dismissed us both, laughing all the way. We’ve both heard the rumors, though his PR machine does a pretty good job of muffling them in favor of a more renegade executive image. And while those rumors are fun to giggle over from afar, I’m now so close. I’m the idiot who should see what’s coming yet is about to enter the dark basement where the psycho is waiting.
 

He admitted to stalking me. To invading my privacy, on GameStorming and LiveLyfe and God knows where else. He orchestrated our first meeting, admitting to the intricacies as if I should be flattered.
Invite Jasmine to his office, snub her, anger and eventually ensnare the predictable, temperamental friend.
Yes. That sounds like someone I should be playing with. And from things he’s said, I feel like Caspian’s eyes might have been on me for much longer than just last week. He seems to know me as well as I know myself. Maybe better.
 

And yet here I am, pouring my morning coffee with trembling hands, placing the cup on the counter because I’ll spill everywhere otherwise, making a list of classes I’ll need to blow off if I’m to make a downtown appointment at noon. I didn’t even try to reschedule for a more convenient time. I didn’t consider saying no, and now that daytime is here, I’m not considering staying away.
 

I didn’t take a shower this morning. Instead I took a bath so I could shave my legs. I paid a lot of attention to areas I usually only give a glancing pass. I even trimmed my bikini area, going so far as to give my pubic hair some shape. Normally, thanks to old scars both mental and physical, everything between my legs has always been utilitarian — an area that serves biological functions that are unpleasant but necessary. I don’t like to linger. I’ve never set one leg up on the porcelain so I could get in close with the razor, cleaning some of the hair from my pussy lips.
 

Everything down there feels too smooth, even now as I pour the coffee.
 

I’m wearing my best underwear — a matching red satin set that a past boyfriend bought me, when he still thought I might be malleable — a shy girl who could, with effort, be thawed. He was a nice enough guy, but I pushed him away. I certainly never dressed up for him. And when we broke up, I probably should have tossed the lingerie. But I didn’t, and now it’s against my skin, buried by a businesslike black skirt that’s a bit shorter than I normally prefer below a white button-up blouse.
 

I’ve blown out my hair then pulled it back in a way that’s still cute, that would make for a sexy reveal when I finally let it down.
 

I’ve put on more makeup than normal. Usually I go to class natural, but today it’s red lipstick, mascara, a bit of eyeshadow.
 

I look like I might be going to an interview.
 

With sexy red underwear, hidden like a secret.

I put the coffee pot back in the machine, but my hand is shaking so hard that the sound is like rattling castanets. When I hear the door open behind me, it slips and knocks the counter hard.
 

There’s a long, wait-to-see-what-happens beat, and then Jasmine says, “You okay? Did it break?”

I look back. She’s just woken up, her red hair mussed up like an eagle’s nest. The girl sleeps like a rock. I’ve been up for over two hours and haven’t been particularly quiet, and yet she has no idea how much effort I’ve put into pretending I’ve expended no effort at all.