Odalisque (13 page)

Goddamn period.

Well, there would only be eleven more of them to endure. Unless he renewed her contract for another year. And another year. Six fucking years. He’d sign on for all of them, the way he was feeling tonight.

But he had to find some kind of restraint and self-discipline for the rest of the evening. For tonight, they would just hang out and talk. He was determined on that account. No blowjobs, no hand jobs, no masturbating, no giving or receiving of any kind except him cooking her dinner and pouring her a glass of wine.

He made some stir-fry and then went to the odella to get her. Constance was curled up on the bed, writing in a notebook. She’d showered, and her hair was still a little wet, dark-shiny against her pale skin.

“Come have dinner with me,” he signed. He had to start signing to her at least some of the time if he ever hoped to get fluent. She nodded and smiled. She also raked her eyes over his body. Head to toe. She did it a lot. It made all those hours on the treadmill seem worthwhile, but she was going to turn him into a narcissist if she wasn’t careful. Even though he only had on some sweats and a faded UCLA tee shirt, she seemed pretty pleased with what she saw.

Hopeless narcissist. Yep.

“You might want to bring that notebook.” He was talking again now, too brain fried from her eye-raping to make coherent signs.

She shoved the one she had under the pillow and got a different one from the desk, then preceded him down the hall. His eyes were riveted to her ass as she sauntered down the steps ahead of him. It fascinated him, how comfortable she was in her nudity. He wanted to get nude too, just to see if he could be as nonchalant about it, but then he liked the power imbalance of being dressed while she was naked.

At the bottom of the stairs he took her hand and kissed it, and led her to the café table in the kitchen, beside the picture window with the view. The veggie stir fry was still steaming. He sprinkled some sesame seeds on top and served it with basmati rice. She took a few bites and then picked up the notebook.

This tastes awesome. How long have you been a vegetarian?

He read her loopy, scrawled hand and smiled over at her. “I don’t do it for any philosophical reasons. I just don’t like the taste of meat. My mother never made it for me when I was a child. She was from India. A lot of vegetarians there.”

Is Kai an Indian name?

He finished chewing a snow pea and picked up the pen.
My real name is Kaivalyan.
He wrote the name out. He would never have attempted to fingerspell it. He put the pen down and propped his head on his hand. “It means isolation, or aloneness. My mother picked the name out and told my father it meant ‘victorious.’ He was angry later. They were always doing passive-aggressive shit like that to each other. My mother was a very lonely and bitter woman.”

Constance picked up the pen.
So was mine. Is your mother still alive?

Kai grimaced. “No. Cancer. My father remarried. He’s...somewhere.”

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

“One sister. Satya. See, she got a great name. Satya means truth. And my sister is very truthful. If you ever meet her, you’ll see what I mean. She’s very...in your face sometimes.”

“Is she older or younger?” Constance asked, signing now.

“Younger. What about you? Any brothers? Sisters?”

She signed, “Too many to count.”

“What do you mean?”

She grabbed the pen again, and heaved a sigh.
My mother married nine times. I have eight half-siblings and God knows how many step-siblings. I’ve long since lost count. She died--
Constance paused in her writing, such a short pause he almost didn’t catch it
--in an accident. She overdosed on prescription medicine. And alcohol.

Kai rubbed his fist in a circle on his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Constance shrugged and signed, “She was a mess.” She grabbed the pen again and wrote furiously for a minute.

My mom was a piece of work. She only ever married soldiers. I’ve lived on fifteen military bases. She told me it was the smart thing to do. That if you were a soldier’s wife, you would always have something to eat, medical care and a roof over your head. But even soldiers don’t like to be used. One would dump her, divorce her, and a couple months later she’d have a new one. She’d either get to them with sex, or get knocked up somehow. Anything to secure another military husband. Another roof over her head.

She stopped a moment and rubbed her chin.

She was like an odalisque, only a lot more lowbrow and sordid.

Constance hadn’t had an easy childhood. That was clear from her words and her beleaguered expression. Kai winked at her to lighten the mood. “So it’s a family legacy, this odalisque thing.”

She laughed softly and went back to broccoli and carrots, dragging the slivers through sauce. She didn’t seem to have much appetite.

He waited until she looked up at him. “You’ll have to tell me what you like to eat. I’ll buy it for you. Whatever. It doesn’t matter that I’m a vegetarian. Like I said, it’s not an idealism thing. You can eat meat if you want.” She shrugged, and he worked hard to sublimate the suggestive joke in his head about “eating” and “meat.”

He leaned back, nearly finished, and took a sip of wine. “My voice sounds so loud in here. It feels weird sometimes, like I’m talking to myself.”

Kai knew at once from her expression that his comment didn’t sit well with her. She wrinkled her nose and made a blunt sentence with her hands. “Sign, then.” She turned away with a frown. He nudged her head back, forcing her to look at him.

“Don’t get angry. You don’t understand how silent it is here. All I hear is my own voice. I’m not used to it echoing off the walls.”

She pursed her lips and signed, “Put something on the walls then. Or put on some music.” She looked away, her version of ignoring him. She ate a few more bites and put her fork down. Her signs were still curt. “I’m sorry I can’t hear you. I’m sorry I can’t talk to you. I sound stupid when I try to talk.”

He shook his head. “Stop. You need to understand, I don’t know all the right things to say. Okay? I didn’t mean anything by what I said. And Jesus fuck, don’t apologize for something you have no control over.” He flushed with misplaced frustration and anger. He was angry at himself for making her feel shitty, making her feel like she had to apologize. And he was angry at her for apologizing when he knew she was pissed.

“Look,” he said, waving a hand in her face so he knew she was listening. “I like you just as you are. Deaf or hearing, I’m pretty damn sure I’d like you the same. I think the way you deal with it is amazing and...inspiring. But I’m the jackass here. I can’t sign worth a fuck. I can’t help you hear all the things I wish you could hear. It makes me feel fucking helpless sometimes, and fucking irate.”

Constance rolled her eyes and made a sign it took him a moment to decipher.
Potty mouth.

She started to fingerspell, but he stopped her. “I got it. Potty mouth.”

“You curse too much.”

The sign for
curse
was new, but he figured it out pretty easily in context. He shrugged and raked his eyes over her full, pretty breasts and her trim waist. He reached out, running a thumb over one pink nipple and watching them both draw up tight. “Did we just have an argument, Constance?”

She signed
maybe
with so much petulant attitude he started to laugh. She cracked a smile too. He squeezed her breasts and enjoyed watching her squirm in her chair. “You’re a very bad girl, aren’t you? To argue with Master?”

She raised one eyebrow, and gave what could only be construed as a smartass look. He had her over his lap in an instant. She peered back at him as he landed a glancing blow over the lingering light bruises. “Are there any rules about spanking an odalisque at this time of the month?”

She signed awkwardly, her arms raised in front of her. “Didn’t you read the contract?”

He went off on an unheard rant about disrespectful odalisques, the slap of his hand clearly audible over the music of her laughter. It was a play spanking, but it was a real spanking. Her legs started to kick after the tenth or twelfth blow, and her ass cheeks gained a new rosy red glow.

She was beautiful to spank, her wiggles and moans as arousing as her hourglass figure, and his cock hardened against her hip. She gazed up at him, begging with her eyes for respite. He pushed her down on the floor and freed himself, thrusting inside her welcoming mouth.

You’ll wear her out. You’re asking too much of her.
But she was a cockslave. She was his slave to use as he wished. It was just getting a little confusing, who was enslaved to whom.

Afterward, she rested her head in his lap, sitting back on her ankles. She was very still. He thought she must be tired, and was going to send her to bed for the night. But then she looked up at him and asked if he played the piano. The sign was unmistakable, the nimble running of fingers along a keyboard.

He nodded. “Yes, I play. Music is one of my passions.”
You are quickly becoming another one of my passions.

“Will you play for me?”

Kai hesitated a moment. Was it a trick question? She gave a half smile.

“I mean, I would like to watch you play. I think you would look really sexy doing it.”

She accompanied the sign for
sexy
with a little wink. Well, he couldn’t argue her wishes, especially after she’d given him the second mind-blowing hummer of the night.

He nodded toward the living room and they crossed together to the piano on the other side. She leaned against it like some kind of sultry songstress. He asked, “What do you want me to play?”

She shrugged. “Anything you like.”

“I like classical music. Booming concertos and lilting sonatas.” He thought he lost her on the word
lilting
. He slid a hand up the keyboard. “Do you have a favorite composer?”

Stupid, stupid,
stupid
. How long was he going to make these stupid, annoying comments to her? He grimaced. “I’m sorry. Of course you don’t.”

“I like Mozart,” she said. She spelled out
Mozart
with a kind of reverence. “I’ve read about what his music sounds like. And he seemed like a really interesting guy.”

“He was sort of crazy,” Kai muttered. He smiled up at her. “Okay, Mozart it is.” He played a few notes of a familiar sonata, then lifted his fingers from the keys.

“Do you know Debussy?” Kai had to spell it for her twice. He sucked at fingerspelling. When she finally got it, she shook her head.

Kai lifted up the piano bench and went rooting through the music. “Debussy didn’t so much write songs as stories--”

He stopped as her face appeared before him. “I can’t hear you,” she signed.

He looked up at her so she could read his lips. “He didn’t write songs so much as feelings, moods, scenes. Stories. Watch this.”

Kai closed the bench and sat down to pluck out a fast-moving tune. “He called this
Golliwog’s Cakewalk
.” He hunched his shoulders and hammed up the rollicking opening stanzas of the piece. “It looks like what it is, huh?”

Constance nodded, her eyes meeting his. He jumped up, suddenly animated. He started riffling in the piano bench again, remembering to look up at her to talk. “There’s this other song by him. One of my favorite songs to play.” He found the songbook he sought and leafed through, holding up the page when he found it. “
La Cathédrale Engloutie
. The Sunken Cathedral. The way he wrote the piece--”

Kai sat down, opening the sheet music in front of him.

“It’s written to be visual. It’s based on the legend of this grand cathedral sunken in the deep. It rises up out of the water on mornings when the sky and sea are clear. The composition starts out slow...” Kai began to play, touching the keys lightly. “It paints a picture of quiet, peace. Imagine the dawn, the morning sun just starting to shine over the water. Then, a chime begins to sound.” He played the chimes with careful, deliberate fingering. “I guess the chimes are bells tolling in the distance. Morning bells. Then it starts to pick up.”

He looked at Constance. She was watching him, spellbound.

Encouraged, he started into the rolling, wave-like chords of the cathedral’s majestic ascension. He made sure to face her so she could see what he was saying. “At this point, it grows louder. The chords are more complex.” He shifted his shoulders to give emphasis to a peaking phrase. “And then--”

He played the crashing chorus of chords that made the piece one of his favorites. “So, it’s really loud here. Majestic. Climactic. You can really picture this huge, dripping wet, ornate cathedral standing out against the sky.” Kai fell silent and just played, doing the runs and raising his left hand in a dramatic flourish to bang against the lower register keys. “And then...”

He drew back and played the dissonantly soft, rhythmic chimes. “Then, suddenly, the crashing music calms to near silence, and the bells toll again. It’s time for the cathedral to sink down into the depths. This part sounds quiet and melancholy. It’s the same music as earlier, only calmer, more wistful. It’s meant to sound as if the music is muted by water, and then finally sinks into only the silence of the distant chimes.” Kai caressed the final plinking notes with a light touch, and lifted his fingers from the keyboard.

He looked over at Constance, still standing motionless beside his piano. She stared at him, her gaze moving to his hands resting now in his lap, and back to his eyes again. Some jolt of connection or emotion passed between them, powerful but fleeting, before she blinked and looked away.

*** *** ***

Constance tried to act casual. Tried to act like he didn’t affect her the way he affected her.

But fucking
come on
.

Why did he have to be so gorgeous and kind and talented and…amazing? He wasn’t playing fair.

Constance was resigned to the fact that she was deaf. She really was. Like many deaf people, she didn’t consider herself disabled or less than anyone else. But there were times, like now, when she would have given anything on earth to be able to hear. Just for one minute. Ten seconds. Five seconds. If she got to hear his voice, even for five seconds, then she would know. She would know that mystery. She would never forget it once she heard it, she was certain.