“Yes. I wish I didn’t. He doesn’t love me.”
Kyle chuckled, a soft exhalation of breath. “I don’t think he knows if he loves you or not. I don’t think he has a clue what he really feels.”
I looked up at Kyle. I let all our past fights and rivalry fall away. “Help me understand what he wants. Please help me figure this out!”
He looked back at me hard but didn’t answer. Instead he said, “I know your real name. We all keep our secrets. Sometimes it’s better that way, you know?” He handed me another tissue and headed for the kitchen. “Is ten in the morning too early for a glass of wine?”
We drank wine for a while and talked about things that felt safe. By the time he left to run some errands I was feeling better, but I still dreaded facing Jeremy when he came home.
I walked around the garden outside and tried to imprint the beauty and quiet of the surrounding woods on my mind. Serenity. Why couldn’t I find it?
When he finally got home, I was hiding in the bedroom. I hoped to hear him open the refrigerator for a beer, turn on the TV to watch some show.
But he didn’t. He came right to my room and stood in the door. I was sitting in the dark, waiting to hear those three awful words. You’re still here?
But he didn’t say anything for a long while, just stood and looked at me while I looked back at him. Finally he came in and tossed a book beside me on the bed.
“Penelope,” he said quietly. “The faithful one.”
I glanced down at the book, knowing what I’d see. Homer’s Odyssey. “Did Kyle tell you?”
“Yes. And you’re right. I should have figured it out long ago. I would have, if I hadn’t been so caught up in myself.”
I bit my lip. I refused to cry. I had cried enough tears over him. He stood against the wall, his face betraying nothing as I leafed absently through the pages. It was a beautiful edition in English and Greek.
“Dutiful, virtuous, prudent Penelope,” he said. “She waited twenty years for her husband to come home. She fended off one hundred and six suitors.”
“One hundred and eight.” I don’t know why I corrected him, why I sounded so surly. It was a thoughtful gift, and an apology, I was sure. His apologies were never the typical I’m sorry, but I understood them when they came. And now he knew my real name. I should have felt happy. I looked down at the embossed cover, ran my fingers across the intricate design. For a moment I let myself imagine Jeremy picking it out for me, although I knew Kyle would have done it. “Did you read this book?”
“No. I Wiki’d it.” He paused. “Why didn’t you leave today?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I’m the faithful one.”
He frowned. “Did you eat dinner yet?”
I shook my head.
“Come on.” He beckoned me out of bed and out into the main room. We crossed into the kitchen and began to pick through what was there, which wasn’t much.
“There’s some chicken,” I said. “Lots of fruit.”
“There are eggs,” mumbled Jeremy. “Maybe omelets? French toast?”
I picked up an apple and washed it, then looked in the drawer for a knife. He got out the eggs and put them on the counter, but then he stopped and looked down at the one in his hand, rolling it across his palm. I turned to reach for a bowl and stopped when I felt his hands around my neck.
Not hard. Not like he was choking me or trying to scare me. Just like he wanted to hold my neck in his hands. His careful grasp claimed possession. I stood still and accepted it. You’re mine. I turned to him, and the tears finally came. He kissed me hard, and I let myself be taken. I reveled in the sensation of his tongue ravaging my mouth. I clung to his solid bulk, and his hard abs felt like a rock wall against my chest.
When his lips left mine, he ran his tongue across each tearful cheek. His fingers loosened, then tightened around my windpipe again. “You’re right,” he said. “The ring is stupid. I want to put a fucking collar on you. I never understood until now, your collar thing, but now I understand.” His thumb caressed my pulse, then moved up under my jaw, across my throat. He tilted my head back and breathed down the side of my neck. “I want you to draw breath because I allow it. I want to own you inside and out.”
“You love me,” I whispered, the apple still clutched in one hand, the knife in the other.
“Yes, goddamn it. Maybe. I might.” He sighed. “Fine, I probably do.”
I laughed softly through tears. “You love me. I knew all along that you did.”
“Um, Nell. Put down the knife.” He pried it from my hand and laid it on the counter. “Take off your clothes.”
“Yes, Jeremy.”
We did it there on the kitchen floor. He made me kneel and then pushed me forward from the waist. He positioned himself behind me and grasped my hips in his rough hands. I clenched my pussy in anticipation, and he slid inside without preliminaries. “I want you. You’re mine.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m yours.”
He bit my neck, and I pushed back against him, wanting him closer, deeper. He claimed my pussy with long, urgent strokes. His hands caressed me, running up and down my back before closing around my shoulders. Again and again they returned to my neck. He grasped it, brushed his nails down it from beneath my jaw down to my nape. Each time he released it, I would moan low in my throat, wanting him to encircle it again.
I heard Kyle come home in the middle, heard a mumbled “oh, hi,” as he bypassed the kitchen and went into his room. Jeremy reached down to cup my pussy. He squeezed and growled in my ear. “You’re mine.” I bucked against his fingers. He swirled them around my clit, pinching it, flicking it as it swelled to life. He was coarse and insatiable, the same Jeremy I always knew, only there was a difference now.
He loved me.
He admitted it. He loved me, loved me as much as I loved him.
“Jeremy,” I cried. I reached back for him, reached for his hand.
He gripped it and wrapped his arms over mine. He held me clutched to him so tightly that for one strange moment I felt we were not two but one. I was so overcome that I collapsed onto my front, and he followed. As I fell, I skimmed my head on the cabinet. We both heard the dull thud. He hissed and I giggled, but I didn’t feel it.
He put one hand over my head where I’d bumped it and fucked me against the floor. My pelvis got hotter and tighter. I was rocked by a wave of pleasure so deep I felt I was falling. My clit contacted the cold tile. I pressed it into the smooth, slick surface, driven on by his cock filling my walls, and I came hard with a cry. When I felt his own organ start to pulsate inside me, I pulled his hand down from my bumped head and kissed his palm over and over until he told me to stop.
Later we sat side by side on the couch and watched the fire, the same fire I’d watched with tears in my eyes the night before. Now I watched it overcome with happiness, wrapped in Jeremy’s arms.
“God,” he said. “I’m so sorry about your books. I’ll find them all again for you. I’ll set Kyle on it. Give me a list.”
“I’ll subsist on The Odyssey for now.”
“Okay, Penelope.”
I laughed. “I hate that name.”
“I like it. I’m going to use it all the time.” He nuzzled me. “It suits you, faithful one.”
“I don’t know why I kept it from you for so long.”
“Probably the same reason I couldn’t admit that I loved you, even when I gave you a ring.”
I couldn’t help giggling. “You asked me to marry you before you could even admit how you felt about me.”
“I know. I’m a mess. Believe me, I know.”
Our laughter died down, and Jeremy took a sip of his beer. “Poor Kyle.”
“I know, having to track down all those books. The Colarusso took me forever to find.”
“No, not the books. He has the most pathetic crush on you. How did he take it, when you showed him the ring?”
I laughed again. “What are you drinking? He does not have a crush on me.”
/>
“He certainly does. He has for ages. But he’s too vanilla for you, in case you’re thinking about leaving me for him.”
“If I didn’t leave you after you burned all my favorite books, I don’t see myself leaving you for Kyle. He’s too young for me anyway.”
“He’s a good guy, though,” said Jeremy. “Don’t rub it in. Don’t tell him I told you how he feels.”
“I won’t.” Those glances at Jeremy I’d misunderstood as jealousy had been jealousy, I suppose—jealousy over me. How clueless I’d been. I know your real name. We all keep our secrets. Sometimes it’s better that way, you know?
“So that’s why you stopped inviting him to have sex with us?”
“Yeah. In a way. I’ll still like watching you with other people, though.”
“You’ll still share me, even after we’re married?”
He frowned and took another drink. “Yeah, if we get married.”
I was quiet a moment to see if he’d elaborate on that comment, but he didn’t. “So…you said if we get married, but maybe we won’t?”
“I don’t know, Nell. I just… I don’t know. Can’t it be enough for now that I told you I love you?”
“Yes, and you gave me a ring!”
“Jesus, you’re nuts about that ring. What, you have some crazy, girlish fantasies about a dream wedding? A train seventeen feet long, a big-ass wedding cake, and two thousand guests and roomfuls of flowers—”
“I know you sometimes forget that I am actually a girl, and that you actually gave me an engagement ring and told me you loved me. In that case, we do often begin to plan our weddings.”
“Nell, don’t flip out on me again.”
I pulled away from him. “Why don’t we just pretend we’re married? We’re great at pretend. We’ve had tons of practice.”
“We aren’t vanilla people, either one of us. Why do we have to get all vanilla now and plan some stupid Hollywood wedding—”
“Ooh! I know, we can throw a pretend wedding and invite the paparazzi. You can have Martin write up a contract first. The employee agrees to wear a white dress even though she’s been fucked more times by the groom in every orifice than any sane person would believe.”
“Nell—”
“The employee agrees to pretend to be married for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as this contract is in effect—”
“Nell! Enough. Listen, there are things going on you don’t understand. I’ve told you how I feel. You’ve told me how you feel. Now I want you to just shut the fuck up and go back to the way you used to be. My submissive little whore. God, don’t you see? I don’t want anything to change between us. I liked things the way they were.”
He pulled me back to him, but I kept my arms crossed over my chest. We stared into the fire, the romantic flame between us extinguished. I thought to myself: This man does not know how to love. This man does not know how to have a relationship that’s not outlined in black and white and signed and dated at the bottom.
And this was the man I loved.
*
I didn’t sleep well that night, my mind too full of frustrating questions. I tossed and turned until Jeremy threatened to make me leave the room. I made a groggy attempt to get up with him in the morning, but he took one look at me and ordered me to stay in bed and sleep. I sunk back under the covers gladly, not even hearing when he and Kyle left for the set.
I did fall back to sleep, but it was just as restive. An amalgamation of burning books, tightening collars, and a massive wedding ring that kept bumping me on the head. Bang, bang, bang. I put my hand up to shield myself from the irritating wedding bling, but it came at me again. Bang, bang, bang.
My eyes popped open. Bang, bang, bang! The banging wasn’t a dream. Someone was pounding on the door, and I was alone. I was also completely stark naked in bed.
I jumped up and ran to the closet, heart thumping. I threw on clothes and peeked out the bedroom door into the main room. Again someone banged on the door, even louder this time. I picked up my cell phone from the table and fled back into the bedroom. I locked the door and dialed Kyle.
“What is it?” He was always impatient when I called.
“Someone’s at the door. They keep knocking. They’re pounding now.”
“Who is it? What do they look like?” The alarm in his voice made my heart jump into a shaky rhythm again.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid to go look. I’m in the bedroom.”
“Don’t answer the door. I’m coming right now.”
He hung up, and a second later a fist pounded on my window. I screamed, then clamped my mouth shut. Now whoever it was knew I was here. An insistent male voice yelled in broken English. “Hello? Hello? Nell Ash-ton? Please to answer door! I have question, to ask for you!”
The urgency in his voice terrified me. I flattened myself against the wall. The blinds were closed, but I could see his shadow, and I was afraid he could see me through the cracks.
“Miss Ash-ton? Open please. I meet you. Very important to speak me!”
I hugged myself. Police? Landlord? Stalker? Some crazy murderer loose in the woods? Whoever it was, he knew my name and he knew I was here.
The pounding went on until I couldn’t stand it. I made sure the chain was on, then cracked the door.
“Please, go away!”
“Miss Ash-ton! I have only few questions—”
“Get away from the door! Leave her alone!” Jeremy’s voice boomed. Kyle and Jeremy were stalking across the driveway.
“I want ask only of wedding, en-gage-ment ring—”
“That is none of your motherfucking business. Turn that off!” He ripped the video camera out of the pap’s hand and gave it to Kyle, who calmly started pushing buttons.
The man protested, although in the face of Jeremy and Kyle’s fury—and muscles—he did it under his breath.
“You’re trespassing on private property,” Jeremy said. “And you’ve terrified my girlfriend—”
“Your fiancée, no?” the pap asked.
“Whatever the fuck she is, it’s no fucking business of yours, is it?”
Sirens blared as police vehicles came roaring down the lane. “We’ll see him off the property,” Kyle said to Jeremy. “Go inside with Nell.”
I stood aside, wide-eyed and jittery, to let Jeremy in.
“You okay?” he asked once he came inside the door. He took my face in his hands and brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. “You’re so pale. You’re shaking. I shouldn’t have left you here alone.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I don’t like worrying about whether you’re all right.”
I looked up at him. There was real relief in his eyes and lingering tension lines around his mouth. He had been scared.
“You thought it was her,” I said. “The stalker.”
“Nell…”
“You called the police.”
“Someone was pounding on the door. You were alone. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
I looked at the floor. I didn’t believe him. I wasn’t safe. I would never be safe now that I was with him.
He drew me into his arms and tucked my head under his chin. “I know it’s hard, putting up with all this. I promise you, I’ll keep you safe. I won’t leave you alone again like this. I’ll have Kyle stay here with you.”
“He’s your personal assistant. Don’t you need him?”
“For now he’s your bodyguard, until I can hire you one of your own.”
“A bodyguard? Jeremy!” I pulled away and looked up at him.
“You’ll need one at the very least, when we’re back in L.A.”
The words hovered between us, the unspoken question.
“You will come back to L.A. with me, won’t you?”
“I live in L.A.,” I reminded him. “I’ll go back either way.”
The employee shall return
to L.A. with her employer and continue to live in a state of constant agitation and confusion about what the true nature of their relationship is.
He let go of me abruptly. “Well. Okay. I have to get back to the set.”
Chapter Eighteen
Love
‡
The paparazzi overran our secluded villa by noon. The sparkly ring on my finger was a top-level news item. It comprised the lead story for hundreds of papers, and they wanted, they needed, pictures. They knocked, they cajoled, they pleaded, they begged until the police came and moved them back behind bright orange CAUTION tape, which they walked around as soon as the police left. I wanted to open the door and scream at all of them, You realize it’s all for fucking show! This entire relationship! It would have felt spectacularly cathartic to do that, but the truth was I didn’t know anything more about the nature of our relationship than they did.
No, the only one who seemed to know or understand what our relationship was by this point was Jeremy. He went on as if nothing were wrong, as if there were no blurry lines or unanswered questions between us, or rings of undetermined sentimental worth on my finger. So while the paparazzi grew in number and rudeness, I refrained from screaming anything out to them.
Instead I slumped on the couch and watched as Kyle and another staffer from the set packed everything up. By three we had checked into a high-security hotel in Lisbon. We left a couple of days later for Italy, for another posh hotel in central Rome. By that time I had a new Italian bodyguard, a short, burly, affable man named Arturo, who looked like he could crush a Hummer into a twisted chunk of scrap metal with his bare hands.
Arturo brought some much-needed comic relief to our uptight little family with his broad smile and endless supply of jokes. It didn’t seem to matter to him that we didn’t understand a word of them. Jeremy was a ball of stress as the end of the shoot neared, and Kyle and I continued to be awkward around each other since Jeremy had outed his crush on me. But Arturo was all goodness and light. He was fun and pure of both heart and soul.
Also, Arturo was in the dark about our true relationship. He assumed Jeremy and I were a typical loving couple, engaged to be married, just not yet choosing a date. Of course, since we didn’t speak Italian and he didn’t speak English, explaining what confused even us would have been hard.
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 181
