by Vivien Vale
Shit, there it goes. I’ve threaded the fucking needle fucking finally.
I fit the two pieces together and try to push the needle through.
Nothing happens.
What the fuck? Instead of piercing the material with ease, the needle keeps bending, nearly breaking in two.
I push harder, stabbing myself with the blunt end. I push and push until, at last, some of it’s sticking out the other side. Relieved, I grab the pointy end and pull. It takes great effort to bring the needle through two layers of material.
Sewing’s a lot harder than I’d thought. No wonder clothes cost so much.
By the time I’ve sewn halfway around, I realize I forgot to leave an opening for my legs to go through.
Fuck.
The door opens. A cold gust of wind comes in before it is shut again.
Seconds later, Dylan appears in the doorway.
Any words of triumph die on my lips when I see his expression. Thunderclouds appear friendly compared to the way Dylan is looking at me right now.
I wish I hadn’t done this in the living room. How am I supposed to work without any privacy?
Chapter 13
Dylan
I know what my lifestyle looks like to contemporary, genteel people, especially folks used to living in gentrified cities. But, fuck, it’s not like I’m living raw out here.
I’ve got my own electrical grid, for crying out loud. I’ve got my own goddamn motherfucking helicopter that I make my own fuel for.
I’d like to see some of those motherfuckers buying up the condos at 57 West try living out here and see how they do.
Fuck, I can’t blame them for not wanting that. After all, it’s not like I wanted that.
I’ve made the most of it by making my wild Vermont fortress as civilized as I could. Over the past five years, I’ve done everything in my considerable power to avoid the dreaded ‘p’ word and all the preconceived notions that go with it.
Five years, and I was doing pretty well, until I went outside and began smashing apart a tree with my bare hands.
It’s pretty fucking primitive. That’s what I’m feeling right now, and it feels o-fucking-kay.
Primitive.
I can’t hide from that shit at the moment. No, sir.
Emma’s feeling it, too. It’s like I’m radio-fucking-active, full of isotopes spewing out...primitiveness—r something.
I look at my cabin from the outside and see a light shine through one of the front windows.
If the whole point of civilization is shared human experience, why is it that the presence of another human being is making me less civilized than I have in years?
Is it because the other human being is a woman, and not just any woman—but her?
I walk towards the cabin, giving myself some time to think before bounding through the front door. Seeing that light from the outside is weird—I would never have a light on, sucking up energy, unless I was inside and using it.
It actually makes sense that I’m feeling so primitive, so primal. I’ve been isolated from other people for so long that being in such close proximity to someone—to Emma, of all people—is dredging up all kinds of shit.
The past is catching up with me.
And it’s not like being around people automatically makes one civilized. It took humans hundreds of thousands of years on Earth before we finally eked out a few thousand measly years of civilization—and even that’s been a pretty bumpy road.
I stop a few yards short of the front door.
This situation’s challenging, but what situation isn’t? What’s more, I like a fucking challenge.
How the hell we move forward is something that I don’t know.
What I do know is that we need to figure it out starting right now, because we’re facing some shit that’s much bigger than our little feelings and discomforts.
I open the door and step inside my cabin with a mild yet growing eagerness to find out what’s next.
What’s next is Emma, sitting on my floor and staring up at me with an inscrutable expression. I’m not sure what she’s trying to communicate, but I don’t care anymore.
To be clear, I was concerned with it. Emma’s wearing one of my flannels, but she hasn’t put some pants on. The way she’s sitting could be enough to drive me completely nuts.
I was interested in trying to read her expression, just so I could discern what the hell she’s trying to tell to me.
That all changes, however, when I notice what looks like my living room curtains, on the floor and mutilated beyond any fucking use. Emma’s sitting right in the middle of this wanton destruction, looking at me with that unchanging, impenetrable expression.
“Emma, what the fuck? What did you do?”
Emma takes a quick look around at the shreds of fabric surrounding her.
“What? You mean this?” Emma waves her arms over my dead curtains with a weird, theatrical flourish.
A thunderous expression clouds my face. “What do you think?”
Emma’s face drops, and she pulls a torn rag of curtain fabric over her lower half. How could she be surprised I’m upset about this?
“I was just trying to make something nice to wear,” she pouts.
“Nice to wear? Emma, those were my curtains. They served an important purpose...” I try to keep my voice calm, but it’s not easy.
Emma stands up, holding what’s left of my curtains around her legs like it’s a petticoat.
“Oh? And you know what’s important to me?”
Her voice and expression are starting to match my intensity—exceeding it, even. I wasn’t expecting that.
“What, Emma? What could possibly be so important that you just need to ruin my shit?”
“Finding some clothes that don’t look like fucking garbage!”
After hearing that, the last thing I want to do is look down at what I’m wearing with a self-conscious expression on my face. But that’s exactly what I do—for a full second or more—before I can stop myself.
“What’s wrong with the clothes?” I can’t help saying, a frown on my face.
“You mean all the flannel? Because all your shit is flannel.”
“Yeah, it’s all fucking flannel. So? What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s tacky, and I hate it!”
I look over the remains of my living room curtains on the ground because I honestly can’t think of a response. Emma had brought out one of my sewing needles and some spools of thread.
She’s seriously trying to go Gone with the Wind on this shit.
“I haven’t been down to the Armani Exchange in a while,” I growl, resisting the temptation to kick the pieces of fabric from here to eternity.
“Well, no kidding.” Emma lets go of the scrap of curtain she’s holding, and it falls to her feet. “Where did you go?”
“You mean when you I used to go shopping in...”
“No. I mean why did you go? When you left? Now I know where you went, because we’re here now. But, why?”
Any anger I thought I had was gone, because it was never really there.
“You know, I could stand to diversify my wardrobe a bit.”
“Why, Dylan?”
“Like you just said, it’s tacky...”
“Cut the shit. Why did you leave?”
The flannel shirt Emma’s wearing goes just a couple of inches past her waist. It leaves an ideal amount to the imagination—to my tortured fucking imagination—and her legs are just...
“Perfect.”
“What’s perfect, Dylan? Are you being cryptic? Are you at least trying to answer my question?”
At least I know now, consciously, that what I thought was irritation—and anger—is really just frustration in disguise.
“Goddamnit,” Emma grumbles, and tries to kick the curtain fabric with her right foot. She lifts her leg as the cloth slides gradually from her ankle.
“The ideas for a new wardrobe I’m thinking of right now. Th
ey’re perfect. That’s what I meant.”
“What?” Emma asks in confusion and annoyance.
The frustration works both ways with Emma and me.
I’m still thinking about her leg lingering in the air, the fabric sliding down slowly...damn, I think it was worth losing my curtains just for that, even if that image is going to haunt me for the foreseeable future.
But Emma wants answers, and I understand that, but there really isn’t much I can do for her there.
I gather myself and my thoughts as Emma glares at me with her arms crossed. With her glowering face and her impatient stance, Emma just looks so...over the top, I guess.
I totally respect her being upset that I won’t answer her questions, but if it were any other woman besides Emma, I would almost suspect that she was being, I don’t know...
Playful?
I don’t know where that idea comes from, and it’s wrong of me to think that about Emma. And if it were any other woman...well, there’s no other woman who’s as ravishingly fucking hot.
That fact alone will continue to drive me fucking insane—maybe in perpetuity—or at least as long as Emma’s here. I’m gonna have to get used to the insanity.
I step warily over towards the pile of curtain fabric to Emma’s left, where the needle and thread are sitting on the floor. I give Emma a wide berth, like she’s surrounded by a force field.
“And now what are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m just gathering some supplies.”
“Supplies?”
I lean over to collect the needle and spool of thread.
“Supplies to put some of my fashion ideas into practice.”
Emma looks down at the shirt she’s wearing, puzzled.
“I’d like to start with that flannel, if you don’t mind,” I continue.
“This flannel?” Emma points to her chest, wide-eyed.
“Of course. I want to make it into something acceptable, or at least something that doesn’t look like fucking garbage, as you put it.”
Emma shrugs, which is enough of a surprise, but, in an instant, she’s stark naked in my living room, handing me the flannel shirt.
I’m rendered incapable of speech, so I simply nod as I accept the shirt. My jaw is still hanging open as I carry the flannel, the needle, and the thread into the other room so I can get to work.
The image of her naked body haunts me as I leave. And it will do so for a long fucking time, I’m sure. I’ll need more than a cold shower; I’ll need a fucking ice bath.
Chapter 14
Emma
Is there something wrong with my body, or is it him?
Holy shit, maybe he left because of some medical problem?
I mean, look at me—I’m standing here, in the middle of Dylan’s living room with no blasted curtains on the window, completely exposed to the world.
Yet he still does not get the hint.
He just walks into the other room, leaving me standing here like a naked idiot. He even takes the one goddamn thing I’m wearing.
Seriously, is there something wrong with him, or do I disgust him that much?
It can’t be me. I saw the way he kept looking at me during that whole conversation, the way he watched my leg as the fabric fell off my foot in slow motion.
When I dangled it in the air, he was glued to it like a sixteenth-century religious pilgrim making a trip to the Vatican and looking at the freshly painted Sistine Chapel ceiling for the first time.
And now he just leaves me.
“What the fuck?” I say under my breath, barely keeping myself from just shouting it at the top of my lungs.
Well, shit.
Here I am, naked as the day I came into the world, in the goddamn living room of a goddamn cabin in the goddamn middle of nowhere—in fucking Vermont!
And the only man within hundreds of miles of me feigns disinterest.
Why am I here? What kind of game is he playing?
I stay planted where I am, looking at the great outdoors through the window, naked as a jaybird. It’s not a moment I’m relishing, but I know I’m not going to have too many more like this.
Eventually, I pick up the remnants of my dressmaking attempt. I wrap myself in the warm fabric and collapse into a cross-legged position on the floor. Millions of random thoughts buzz around my head like bees in a bottle.
Why did he leave five years ago? And why the hell does he keep leaving me?
Even in this cabin, he abandons me—like the way he just left me here in the living room.
Heck, this hurts like hell. And it’s confusing the shit out of me.
Shit, my thoughts are all over the place. I can’t make sense of any of them.
I recall the events of eight years ago. Back then, I wasn’t ready to give myself to Dylan, to let him take my innocence.
But holy shit, that was then; this is now. I’m ready to take the plunge.
I’m making it so damn obvious, to the point that I’m standing unclothed in his living room. And Dylan can’t take what must be the hint of the century, the hint of the goddamn millennium.
What do I have to do? Nail myself to the cross and yell, ‘Take me’?
Instead, he’s upstairs designing clothes or some shit, and I’m here all alone once again.
And since I’m in the middle of freaking nowhere, I don’t even have the comforts of home.
I’m not back in New York, although I wish I could be.
I’m not back in my apartment; there’s no lemon sorbet in the freezer, no Valentino and Chanel dresses, no cornucopia of breathtaking fashions waiting for me in the walk-in closet.
No view of Central Park South and the park itself through my living room window—a window into the changing seasons, year after year, as I just get older.
As I wait for someone.
For Dylan, I guess. It’s not like I’ve carefully chosen him. This shit is not fucking rational.
I know what draws me to him. It’s the same thing that draws him to me—or drew him to me, at least, when we were still working for that awful company.
He wanted me, and he did not give up. Well, he did eventually, when he left. But now, he’s so goddamn aloof, even when I’m finally willing to give in to my animal desires.
We’re all animals, and that desire is part of being a person; it’s part of being alive, and I’m ready to finally embrace it.
But why isn’t he? Especially now, after flying me up here for some bizarre reason known only to him.
It’s all very strange to me. Before my apartment was on fire, the threats were getting worse, getting creepier and more frequent.
Is there more going on that Dylan knows about? If so, why isn’t he telling me?
I don’t know, and, frankly, I don’t care anymore. I just care about what I want, because that want is taking over everything. It’s consuming me.
Is Dylan motivated by the same thing? He’s been stewing all this time, that’s for sure, and if he wants to set up some shit like this, then he most certainly can.
That’s what it feels like with the menacing threats, creepy messages, weird caller ID shit, and even with my concierge starting to act sketchy.
And now, suddenly, I wake up in a cabin, and this motherfucker’s playing hard to get. I don’t know what’s really going on. I don’t know what my rational opinion is or would be.
I just know what I want, but I’m not sure how to get it.
I have an idea where to start, though.
I keep my newly fashioned curtain-dress wrapped around me with my hands as I make my way to the bottom of the stairs.
It’s time to poke the grizzly bear.
“Yo, Tom Ford, you still up there?”
“What?” he grunts down at me. The deep, bass-heavy power of his voice sends little vibrations through the floorboards.
Those vibrations urge me to keep poking.
“You ever hear of mixed signals? Because you’re giving me a prime fucking example today.”
“You come to abduct me, just take me from my home, without any goddamn clothes, bring my naked ass here, you sick perv, and then you just go upstairs?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I bet—hell, I know—you set all this shit up. You’re the one sending all the threats. You did all this just so you could fuck me, you piece of shit!”
I wait for another growl, a grunted question, or maybe the sound of heavy footsteps starting down the stairs. I listen hard, but I don’t hear anything at all.
Maybe I’m not poking hard enough.
“You’re so fucking horny all by yourself up here that you needed to kidnap me, huh? Well?”
I keep the curtain fabric wrapped tight around me, and I listen so intently that I almost stop breathing for a second.
I think I hear something up there, not footsteps, but some kind of noise—fabric or something?
What the hell is he doing? Really? I’m down here for the picking, overripe and all, and he’s hiding?
“Can’t even respond now? Can’t even bring yourself to talk, you coward! How do you think you’re gonna fuck me? You’re not going to, are you? I know you’re chicken shit!”
I hear...are those footsteps? I think so.
What is that, a chair squeaking? What is he doing up there, jerking off by himself?
“You went through all this trouble,” I roar with all my might. “Why don’t you just take me, huh? Why don’t you just fuck me already, you perv?”
Oh my god, those are some footsteps, and they’re coming towards the stairs. The sounds are getting louder and closer—hefty footfalls coming down the stairs with speed.
I see his face first, his eyes on mine, before I notice anything else. And that is all I can see, all I can sense until his face is close enough that we’re almost touching.
Then, I smell his scent. It’s the type of scent that corporations spend millions on, researching and developing, so they can bottle it and sell it at Bloomingdales for hundreds or thousands of dollars an ounce.
It’s a tough thing to describe with a single, marketable word.
Musky?
Manly?
None of those words do it justice.
