The Willing (22 page)

I wanted to believe that Carrie and her inexhaustible patience could somehow find the key to fix this mess, but I wasn't so sure it was possible. We hung up and I almost considered lying on the couch for the rest of the day. There was nothing else on TV that could interest me besides the report on Madam's arrest. The more I watched the story develop and the less calm I became. How could Oliver have sold me out like that? I thought he—what? Cared? Hadn't I learned my lesson already? The only thing Oliver cared about was getting his own way.

He had manipulated me to perfection, from the moment he'd hired me up to and including this morning. I flashed back to the dining room, his body pressed against mine and his lips nipping at my throat. The way he smiled at me left no doubt that he was happy in my company. His mask hadn't slipped once.

My phone rang in my hand. Oliver's name flashed on screen.

I felt a flicker of anxiety take seed in my belly as I tapped the reject button. What I really wanted to do was grip Oliver by the neck and squeeze and squeeze. Carrie's advice was loud in my ears:
don't do anything stupid
, she'd said. Like so much of our relationship, she was the voice of reason and I was the whim. Rather than give in, I brought up my missed calls log again.

Michelle picked up as soon as the call connected. "Jo! Christ, have you heard?"

"Yeah, I'm watching the news now," I said, my mouth twisting as I contemplated lobbing my shoe at the TV screen. "How did you get out?"

"I left as soon as you did," Michelle confessed, gulping wetly. I wondered if she'd been crying. Her voice lacked its usually cheery cadences.

"Why?" My exit had been a thing of beauty, worthy of the record books, but it didn't call for Michelle to stage a protest on my behalf. She could have smoothed things over, made nice with the client and saved the party I'd almost ruined.

That, at least, was the way our working relationship usually seemed to go.

Michelle's answer threw me for a loop: "You looked really upset. I didn't know what happened, I've never seen you actually storm out of a party before."

I'd had tantrums before when clients behaved like assholes, but it was true I had never actually resorted to violence before. No one could claim I wasn't an innovator in my field. "Anyway," Michelle sighed, "it was lucky I left when I did. I must've been two blocks away when I saw the police cars."

"Did they arrest everyone?"

"No, just Madam Madrigal, from I've heard." That was good news, as far as these things went. Michelle cleared her throat. "Did you go make things right with your guy?"

I wondered if she wasn't using his name for fear that our conversation was being tapped. The thought spurred in me a sudden urge to spell out Oliver's name, just in case I could return even an inch of the trouble he'd caused for me and mine.

"I went to see him last night," I told Michelle. "If you want to call that making things right..."

Guilt swam in my gut. If not for me, Madam Madrigal wouldn't be sitting in a jail cell right now. Oliver would have had no reason to denounce her.

Michelle must not have heard the trace amounts of frustration in my voice. "Good," she breathed. "That's good. So you're okay?"

"I'm good, yeah. As good as can be expected."

"I know what you mean."

Despite years of trying to give up the habit, I couldn't help but want to chew my nails. "I'm thinking of getting a lawyer. Just in case."

Michelle said she wanted to do the same thing. She knew a few people, intended to ask around before this got any worse.

I had six new missed calls logged when I got off the phone with Michelle. All were from Oliver, along with six messages asking if I was okay, if I needed anything, if he could come over. I contemplated throwing the phone at the wall and watching it smash into pieces. It was a tempting proposition, but I wasn't so financially secure I could afford to throw money out the window.

Eventually, I shifted off the couch and plopped down in a beanbag chair on the floor, my laptop open on the coffee table before me. Another couple grand had been freshly deposited into my bank account last night. As per our arrangement, Oliver paid at the beginning of each week, in anticipation of the sessions to follow. I wondered if he blew a fuse because he thought he'd paid for a service I wouldn't deliver. That helped explain his shortness with me in the elevator, but what about the whole song and dance we'd done afterwards?

I opened my Inbox, determined to write him an email to say I wanted to put an end to our arrangement. I would take the money I'd earned and to hell with the sessions I'd failed to perform.

One unopened email among many caught my eye. I clicked and skimmed its contents with a fast racing heart. Someone had found my CV online and wanted to interview me for a receptionist job. It was the first—the only piece of good news I'd heard all day.

No wonder the dam beyond which I concealed my tears finally broke.

I cried in front of the computer, the TV still playing footage of Madam's arrest on a loop, and the more I tried to calm myself, the more I seemed to be sobbing. I ignored my phone when it began to ring. It went to voice mail twice and then shrilled with a message alert.

Finally, I drew it off the table.

I know you're home. I can hear you crying. Please let me in.

It was signed Oliver. My breath caught in my throat. Let him in? I wanted to rip his head off his shoulders.

I hit the return call button and listened as a jingle echoed from right outside my front door.

"How the fuck do you know where I live?" I thundered, jerking the door open. It was either that or
how dare you show your face here?

Oliver blinked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "You gave me your address when we signed the contract..."

"And that gives you a right to stalk me?" God, I wished my neighbors were home in the middle of the day so someone could peek outside and ask if I needed help. The sad reality, though, was that I'd moved to last floor of a building shared by young professionals, most of them single, and I was too new to know anyone who could jump to my aid.

Not that I needed help, but any excuse to make Oliver feel bad would do.

"Stalking you?" he repeated, scandalized. "I came to see if you were alright--I wouldn't have even done that, but you won't answer my calls... Jo, what's wrong? I'm trying to help you..."

"You're kidding me, right?"

Oliver fixed me with his blue eyes, concern transfiguring that pretty, blond face into a mask of earnestness. "What's gotten into you?"

I thrust my fist into his chest, but pulled the punch at the last minute. "You're what's gotten into me! You did this!" He had, and he was still the man I'd spent the night with. If I closed my eyes I could still see the rivulets of sweat running down his back, the way he grinned as he glanced at me over his shoulder.

I couldn't hate him. I wanted to, but I couldn't.

I was a bigger fool than I'd ever imagined. "Just—get away from me."

For once, Oliver didn't take an order. His hand seized mine, pressing my fist against the cage of his ribs. "Done what? I don't understand. Jo, please... talk to me."

"You sold me out! You turned Madam over to the cops, didn't you? Just try to deny it—"

"Of course, I deny it," Oliver growled. "Have you lost your mind? We were together all night. When would I have had the time to—" Even through the blur of my angry, frustrated tears, I could see the penny drop. "You honestly think I would do something like this just because you asked for a rain check?"

I thought that letting him trap my hands in his grip was the worst thing I could feel. I was wrong. The moment he let me go, I felt like I was spinning away, rudderless. I swayed against the doorframe. "You closed down the club," I said, my throat rough with pent-up sobs.

I told myself I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of breaking down right before his very eyes. I was stronger than that. He wanted a strong woman to call the shots in bed and whip him until he felt better about himself, right? I could be that.

I
was
that.

"You always get your way," I went on, my voice rising to a pitch. "And I get screwed every time. I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. This is worse: you made me fall in love with you, you
asshole
."

Or maybe I wasn't all that strong. My voice certainly shook like it was made of Jell-O. Never mind punching him, I wanted to rip his heart out like he'd done mine.

Oliver took a step back as if struck.
Here it comes
, I thought.
This is when he tells me how weak I am
. At least I could be sure that this time it would be the truth. "You think I closed that cesspool of sex club out of—what? Jealousy?" he asked, a whisper so low it was barely audible over the rushing of my frantic pulse.

I don't know if I believed that from the beginning, but I had convinced myself that was precisely what happened. That or someone he wanted had rejected him, prompting a chain of events that hurt dozens of people. It had to be a selfish act; I couldn't fathom he'd done it with sound justification.

Truth be told, the possibility had never crossed my mind. Even back then, when I didn't have a clue about the depth of his pockets, I'd had some inkling that
Shep
was one of those 'rich and slumming it' guys, who spent their evenings with degenerates and perverts like us even though they could easily get their kicks elsewhere.

Oliver covered the distance between us in two easy strides. "You must have a very short memory if you think what I did back then was some kind of-of adolescent snobbery. You
saw
. You know what I look like under this suit." I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat. "How do you think I got that way, hmm? What's your expert opinion,
domina
?

He practically spat the word in my face. I couldn't help recoil, though there was nowhere for me to go. I found myself suddenly prisoner to the memory of his anxious gaze last night as I'd drunk in the sight of his naked body. Never, in a million years, could I have imagined him so scarred. His welts changed nothing for me, but they were obviously something Oliver found revolting about himself.  

The thought of a link between the club and what had been done to him had completely eluded me—until now.

"You think everyone's like you," Oliver hissed. "Good and caring... Moral. You think that people stop when you're begging them to—or that safewords are sacrosanct. Well, let me tell you what
I
know. That club you worked in all those years ago? They
allowed
this kind of abuse to happen. And when I went to your colleagues for help, they laughed in my face. Said I shouldn't come into the kitchen if I couldn't handle the heat." Something like stale humiliation flashed in his eyes. "I did what I had to do to protect myself and others like me. I don't fucking regret it for a goddamn second—"

"Is there a problem here?"

At first I thought I was dreaming, but then over Oliver's broad shoulder I caught a glimpse of Hunter standing very still at the top of stairs. What was he doing here?

"I know you," Hunter growled, fists coiling tightly at his sides. "You're that guy…" His expression hardened. "Get away from her."

I couldn't see Oliver's face, but his voice seemed raw as he laughed. "Or what? You'll beat me up? Don't bother. I should have known... You two deserve each other."

Before I could gather my wits or muster indignation, Oliver turned heel and brushed past Hunter on his way down the stairs. Footsteps echoed for a long time, like gunshots or cannon fire, and then the building was plunged into silence. Just like that, Oliver was gone.

Hunter filled the space Oliver had vacated as best he could, cajoling me back into the apartment. With his help, I found my way to the couch and sat there with my head hanging between my legs. I hadn't even realized I was hyperventilating until he mentioned it.

"The Victorians believed in fainting spells," Hunter pointed out, "you're just doing it the modern way." He was quiet for a beat, his cool palm like a compress on the back of my neck. "Do you have any Xanax in the house?"

I shook my head.

"Okay. Don't worry. It'll still pass on its own," Hunter assured me. "They do for me."

"You have panic attacks?" I'd never known that about him: Hunter, my mentor, had been keeping secrets. At this point, I couldn't even find the strength to be shocked.

Hunter nodded. "Since I was a kid. They come and they go. Stress usually makes it worse... I'm guessing Shepherd had something to do with it?"

That was second on the list of things I hadn't known about my so-called mentor. "You know Oliver?" I panted. I felt ridiculous, sitting there bent over like I was going to heave. My face felt tight with drying tears, my eyes puffy. I was embarrassed and simultaneously too exhausted to feel any shame. Oliver's parting volley had left me reeling.

It took Hunter a moment to answer. He almost didn't, but I shook off his grip and glanced over, staring hard until he gave in. "We met," he said, "many, many years ago."

"At the club." My heart still felt like it was trying to crawl out of my chest, but I needed to hear this.

"Yeah," Hunter echoed.

"You never said."

He shrugged off my not-so-veiled accusation. "Why would I? You know what he did. I didn't want to dwell on the past."

"What happened?" I wondered how much he'd heard of Oliver's confession. Did he understand that I was suddenly privy to a whole new brand of truth? "Hunter," I urged, "what happened?"

I watched Hunter fold his hands together, visibly uncomfortable. "He pointed fingers at the staff. Apparently even went as far as calling us abusers. I remember being in the office when he came in one night, all wild-eyed and saying he'd been maltreated by one of our dommes. I can't remember who he was accusing... I'm pretty sure he'd been drinking."

"You laughed him out of the room," I murmured, borrowing Oliver's words.

Hunter pressed his lips together tightly. "I wouldn't call it that. Obviously there was not a lick of truth to the accusations. And when he brought up your name, I realized he was one those clients—you remember the ones who'd fixate? So I suggested he be banned. Next thing I hear, he's suing us and getting the club shut down."