With or Without You (25 page)

‘Are you?’ he asked in a tone of voice that was not unkind, but firm nevertheless. Instead of looking at him, I looked down at the floor – he had a sand-coloured rug beneath the surfboard table. I tried to lose myself in the golden strands.

‘Eleanor.’

I wasn’t sure how I should answer. If I said ‘yes’, what
exactly was I admitting to being ready for? Anthony has an aptitude for confusing me, rather seems to enjoy this fact. Knowing this, I remained silent. It was my best bet.

‘I made pasta primavera.’

I breathed in, smelling the spices, oregano, fresh basil. I could definitely say ‘yes’ to that. I was ready to eat. Agreeing to dinner couldn’t get me into any trouble, could it? But then Anthony suddenly moved around the sofa, coming to sit by my side. Without a word, he handed me two additional pages, creased from being kept in his back pocket. The pages were typed just as neatly as the others, but the names had been changed: Elena was now Eleanor; Marcus was Anthony. The scenario unfolded entirely in the modern day, modern time. In the very room in which I was sitting.

I read the words describing the room – the cool ocean walls, the surfboard table, the ping-pong paddle there, waiting. Waiting for what? I knew exactly what. Waiting to meet my hindquarters, to make them as red as the crimson side of that two-toned paddle. I read the first sentence of dialogue while Anthony watched me. I understood the meaning. These words meant one thing. They meant only this: he knew about Marcia.

‘Why didn’t you trust me?’

‘I had to be sure.’

‘You should already have been sure.’

I felt the touch of his fingertips on my bare shoulder as he watched me read. I was aware of how close he sat by me on the sofa, his knees brushing against mine. Subtly. Casually. As if the heat between us didn’t exist. But when I looked up, looked straight at him, I saw his eyes had gone darker than I’d ever seen them. They were no longer green. They were black.

‘Are you ready, Eleanor?’

Answering was torture. Like the girl in the story, in the ancient memoirs, I could not make my lips work.
Could not make my voice come out, at first, and when it did I sounded unnatural, not like my voice at all. ‘Ready?’ I whispered, my fingers twisting together in my lap. I couldn’t still them. They gave away my nervousness. But Anthony didn’t seem to mind. He motioned for me to read on, smiling at me in that soft way of his. As if he understood. As if he knew everything I’d ever wanted. As if he knew things that I did not realise about myself.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t say that. I don’t need to hear the word.’

‘But I am.’

‘Not yet. You will be.’

‘I had to know for a fact. I had to see the words on paper, translated by somebody else.’

‘Behind my back. I know that Serina told you a lot about me. Did she leave out the part about my honour?’

I met his eyes again, feeling my heart jump into my throat. It hadn’t been about honour. Couldn’t he understand that? I had to know if he were playing with me. I wanted to tell him this. But I couldn’t speak.

‘Read,’ he insisted. I gave him my most pleading look, then went back to the page.

I shook my head. No, of course not. That had been the first thing Serina had said.

‘If you want to be with me, you’ll need to play by my rules.’

‘Your rules?’

‘My world is made up of rules. Power and rules. At least, in the bedroom. When you’re good, you’ll be rewarded. When you’re bad, you’re going to be punished. When you’ve been very good, your reward might be punishment.’

I looked up and saw him smile. Whose world had I fallen into? Nora’s? The club kids who go to the Pink Fedora?
This wasn’t my world. I didn’t belong here at all. My world is all about research and studying. My quiet world is about learning everything I possibly can about a situation before taking the first step forwards.

Anthony said nothing. He simply looked at me, and I could tell that he was waiting for me to behave as he wanted me to, act the part of the naughty schoolgirl, caught cheating on a test. If I could do as he asked, would everything be forgiven? But before contemplating that,
could
I even do what he wanted me to? Was I capable of behaving in this manner?

His black shirt revealed his strong arms. When he moved to grab the paddle, I could see the lines of his muscles, and I wanted to lean forwards, to run my tongue along that naked flesh, to kiss and lick everywhere, ripping through the T-shirt, revealing the tender skin, the golden-hued flesh that would make me whole if I felt it. Just my fingertips on it, running up and down, would make me complete.

But Anthony didn’t want to start like that. He wanted to start with me over his lap, his paddle slamming against my upturned ass. He wanted to start where all my fears hid, instead of working in slowly, as I always want to do. He wanted to start at the top, which, in this case, was my bottom.

I watched as Anthony played with the paddle between his hands, motioning with a nod for me to read the rest of what was written on the page. The flagellation scene. What had I started? Here was my world crumbling around me. Words were letting me down again, making me shake and tremble.

‘Keep reading,’ Anthony insisted.

And I read on to find my heroine, the sweet girl in the story, poised on the brink of endurance. I read of her being tied face down, ass bared and ready, to Anthony’s four-poster bed. I knew that when I reached the end, when I reached the point in which the girl in the story and the man in the story came together, it would be my
cue to strip my clothes off, to bend over Anthony’s lap and take the punishment he was poised to mete out.

I deserved the punishment, didn’t I? I’d cheated, I’d gone behind his back. If I’d been up front with him, if I’d at least told him what I was doing – getting a second opinion, as it were – I could have explained myself ahead of time to ward off exactly this type of scenario.

I read further. Read exactly what it was Anthony planned to do to me, my body, my naked ass. Read on to find out what would happen afterwards, when tears ran down my face – tears of embarrassment more than of pain – and he stood me up before his bedroom mirror and had me stare at my reddened ass cheeks, had me take in the look visibly, as if I were some work of art and he the commissioned artist.

He played with the paddle in his hand. He slapped it against his palm, slapped it hard enough to make a solid jarring sound, a noise that made me jump. There was a second page to his story that I hadn’t yet finished reading. I found it difficult to concentrate with the steady rhythm of his paddle smacking against the naked skin of his hand. I had a hard time making my mind dance around the words that spoke brightly to me from the paper: exposed, spanked, punished, then having all the guilt erased with more pleasure than I’d ever known.

That
was the final promise in the last line of the page. Explain myself. Explain and apologise for my cheating heart, and then experience a lifetime of pleasure in one single night.

I wanted what was on those pages. Desperately, I wanted what was in the journal. Tie me down. Cut my clothes loose with a knife. Turn me loose inside and out. Your touch could set me free; it could. I know it. Make me burn for not trusting you, for not believing in you. Then wash it all away with pleasures that I have never possessed, never let myself experience outside the privacy of my mind.

Anthony didn’t speak. He was playing me, playing
with
me. That’s all there was to it. He was tormenting me because he liked to do so, because he could. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had known all along.

Maybe I didn’t need to say anything.
There
was a happy thought. Maybe I didn’t need to explain myself. Perhaps, I could get by with just staring into his eyes and
thinking
about what needed to be said. Nora says that soulmates,
true
soulmates, don’t need to talk. That’s what she says, although she also admits she’s never found a true soulmate, just a true ‘fuck mate’. If Anthony and I were actually meant for each other, we wouldn’t have to discuss the past because it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he knew.

The paddle hit the palm of his palm. Once. Hard. Then again.

From his expression, I learned even more about him. I learned that he was patient, that he could wait and that he was cruel. The way his eyes picked up the flame of the candles on the coffee table. The golden glow of fire in his eyes told me secrets, made me promises.

‘Read it again at Nora’s,’ Anthony said suddenly, not mentioning dinner. Not explaining. Without changing his expression from one of patience and understanding, he set the paddle down on the table – red side up this time – picked up my coat, and helped me slide into it. While I watched in stunned silence, he scooped up the rest of the translated pages, shuffled them together and handed them to me. I felt numb. Confused.

‘You’re not ready yet,’ he said as we walked outside, as he led me towards my own car. He didn’t sound angry. As I replayed the words in my head, I realised that he didn’t sound anything except resigned. If this were Byron speaking, he’d have been furious. I had to get used to this new way of talking, of thinking.

My head felt heavy, as if it were filled with sand. I felt trapped, moving in slow motion, unable to defend myself, unsure what I needed to defend.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to disagree emphatically,
shake my head and stamp my feet. Throw a tantrum right there in the middle of the street, so that he would be forced to deal with me. I knew somehow what Anthony would do if I pitched a fit. He would throw me over his shoulder and carry me back into the apartment. He would treat me like a bratty child. But he was right. If I
were
truly ready, I’d have done what his story told me to do. I would have followed each step precisely, fully giving myself over to him. Anthony had spelled everything out for me.

What the fuck was I waiting for?

I let him walk me to my car. I had parked across from his building, and when we got to my siren-red Prius, he leaned against the side of the car and looked at me. Looked me over, the way a lover would, up and down my body, in the most sexual way I’d every imagined. He had an expression on his face as if he were adding up a long list of numbers – numbers of ways we could fuck, numbers of ways he could take me. There was total silence as he gazed at me. Nora would have been bold. She would have copped the same attitude, returning his stare without flinching.

I’m not Nora. I wanted to run and hide.

With his arms folded across his chest, he continued to take me in. As if he were measuring me for future fittings. Then he nodded his silent approval and moved aside so that I could unlock the passenger door.

For one wild moment, I thought he would climb into the car, thought he might let me drive him home with me. Home. I had no home. Back to Nora’s house, then. But that wasn’t a sane person’s thought. Where would he and I go for privacy? What if Nora walked in on us? Would she join us as I’d joined her and Dean? What would Anthony say if I told him about that night?

I thought about the things we might do together. And then I thought maybe he would go to Nora’s club with me, that we would christen the Cinéma Vérité room for ourselves. Or perhaps venture down the hall to the
black-walled Slave to Love. Clearly, that was more Anthony’s speed. I could just picture him putting the fuchsia cuffs on me, positioning me exactly as he wanted me, taking charge.

But no, he stepped away and watched as I took off my coat and put it inside, put my purse on the floor, then he stepped back and closed the passenger door for me. It was the move, somehow, of a gentleman. Chivalrous.

Aside from everything else, he had manners.

Anthony smiled at me, his head cocked, as I walked to the other side of the car and unlocked the driver’s side door. I thought he’d say something. I thought he’d
have
to say something. But he didn’t. He watched me get in. He let me drive away, into a darkened city without him.

Because he knew.

‘People don’t fucking behave like that.’

Anger coloured Nora’s normally pale cheeks a dusky rose. Nora always gets upset for me when she thinks someone is doing me wrong. It’s great to have a friend who is so intensely loyal, but I couldn’t bask in this outrage. For once, I didn’t agree with her. ‘Come on, Eli,’ she insisted. ‘People don’t invite you to dinner and then give you the silent treatment. Not people who like you.’

‘You’re wrong. Anthony does like me.’ No,
like
wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t that he
liked
me. It was that he
wanted
me. But on his terms. This was his way of testing me, the way I’d gone to Marcia behind his back to test him. Nora shook her head fiercely, looking as if she were going to launch into a counter-argument, but I continued, ‘He felt that I’d challenged his integrity.’

‘You mean his ego. His huge ginormous inflated ego. You don’t need another man like that, do you? Not after Byron. What you need is someone who
adores
you. Check out the line-up of my new male bartenders. They’re all young, all gorgeous. Any one of them would bend over backwards to please you. In fact, one of them is a practitioner of that really difficult type of yoga. He did this thing on the bar earlier that shocked us all, bending backwards in order to deliver the drink. He would definitely be a man to consider. He could probably blow himself if you asked him to.’

‘Why would I ask him to do that?’

‘I mean, just to show you how flexible he is.’

‘He’d bend over to please
you
,’ I corrected her. ‘I have
no say as to how long these contestants stay or go. There’s no reason for these hopefuls to try to please me.’

‘There is while you’re dressed like that.’

It was Halloween. Finally, Halloween. And I’d given in to Nora’s begging and dressed how she wanted me.

‘I’m not going to fuck someone just because he thinks I could help his career.’