Trust Me

by Annabel Joseph

  “Someday you’re going to figure out what an asshole I am,” I said.

  She laughed, but I wasn’t joking. I slid my fingers down over her welted ass cheeks. Even in the darkness, I could make out the pattern of whip marks by feel.

  “I’m proud of you.” I leaned closer to her, pressing my lips to her temple and the soft line of her hair. “I’m proud that you found a client, even if it only happened because you broke a rule. Sometimes shit works out that way. Sometimes bad things turn into good things.”

  “I think that’s true,” she said after a moment. Maybe she was remembering our first session at the W Hotel, which was bad and crazy and definitely sketchy in the area of consent. I’d still enjoyed it, and she had too, and here we were. Sometimes awful things could turn into wonderful things.

  Unfortunately, the opposite was also possible. Sometimes wonderful things could turn wrong and bad.

  Chapter Six: Clarity

  Chere rarely sulked, but there was always that time after a hard punishment when things felt tense between us. She spent the next couple days partly with Vinod and partly in the museums and artistic quarters of Paris, while I languished in conference meetings. I say I languished, but the truth was, I lived for international architecture, and appreciated the privilege of sitting on these panels and discussing ways to beautify the world. I attended this conference annually, but this year, Chere was with me and I missed her.

  It wasn’t only the sex, although I fucking loved the sex. No, it was some part of me that relaxed and unwound when she was near me. To put it simply: she made me happy. My past relationships had been full of anger and artifice, and disgust with everything to do with love. How did I feel about love now? Jesus.

  Fuck.

  The conference ended on Friday, but we didn’t fly out right away. I’d arranged a little extra time so we could walk around Paris together. Why not? We’d had so much fun exploring Oslo earlier in the year.

  We spent the first part of our free day in bed, grasping one another, fucking, struggling, kissing. Faint welts lingered on Chere’s ass, but the post-punishment distance between us had mostly melted.

  It was tempting to remain in bed, but she was happy and bright, and excited to walk around the city with me instead of being on her own. She was thrilled to spend time with me, an emotional shock I never got used to. She liked me, sadism and all. She loved me.

  I took off her collar and we left the hotel to stroll through the Tuileries Garden. Like so many things in Paris, the sculptures and statues were enough to make any designer’s head spin. Green lawn, fountains, flowers, and stately lines of trees...there were so many things to look at, and so many people.

  Chere didn’t point out the broad motifs—the grand circles and intricately planned walkways. No, as always she was drawn to things ninety-nine percent of people never noticed, things like minute etchings on the statues, or the berry bushes that were just starting to turn orange for fall. Orange was my least favorite color, but she made it seem beautiful.

  “Does this inspire you?” I asked as we gazed across the grounds.

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s so busy here.”

  I could take a hint. We left the Tuileries to explore some of Paris’s quieter streets, hidden avenues with narrow shop fronts and historical architecture. We proceeded at a snail’s pace, her avid eyes taking in everything as I attempted to teach her some French. Her accent was awful as she ordered our lunch at a corner bistro. I asked for wine, and we lingered for almost two hours talking about art and culture. She asked how I’d become interested in skyscrapers and bridges and I told her the truth. It was an ego thing.

  “An ego thing?” she repeated, laughing. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Maybe it was the wine.

  “An ego thing,” I retorted. “Don’t act like you’re surprised.”

  She asked me about my schooling, about my travels, about the most favorite thing I’d designed. I told her the truth about that too. There was no favorite thing. There were always regrets after the fact, when the pylons were sunk and the construction too far underway to make changes.

  “You don’t like your designs? Any of them?” she asked, as if this was the most tragic thing in the world.

  “Don’t you sometimes design things you don’t like once you’ve executed them?”

  “Yeah, but when that happens I melt them down and start over. I guess you can’t do that with a bridge.”

  “No. They’re a bit too permanent for that.”

  Everything about my life seemed permanent compared to Chere’s. We never talked about her family or childhood. She had melted that down and reused it, and transformed into this fascinating woman with freckles and curls and ridiculously kissable lips. I leaned across the table and yanked her toward me, and kissed her long and hard. That was probably the wine too.

  “Let’s walk some more,” I said.

  An afternoon storm was blowing in. I told myself that was why I took her to the apartment on Rue de Cambrai—to get out of the weather. The doorman greeted me and took us upstairs in the ancient elevator. Jean-Marc had been the doorman here since I was a child.

  “What is this place?” asked Chere, looking down the chandeliered hallway as I keyed in the code for the apartment.

  “One of my childhood homes.”

  “Oh, wow,” she breathed, as I struggled with the rustic knob and the decades-old wooden jamb. The door opened once I put my shoulder into it. As soon as it swung wide, I thought, What are you doing, Price? I tried to convince myself I only wanted to share the early nineteenth century architecture and decorative castings.

  “You used to live here?” She followed me inside, mouth agape. It was a grand apartment.

  “It’s one of my parents’ homes,” I said. “They still live here part of the year. Not this part, thank God.”

  “Your parents are alive?”

  I chuckled at her shock. “Does that surprise you? I’m not that old.”

  “It’s just...you never talk about them. I assumed they weren’t around anymore.”

  “They were never around.” The words bled out, clipped and bitter. I walked through the foyer and into the main rooms, flicking on lights to illuminate high ceilings and finely carved shelves. The sofas and tables were slipcovered, and I didn’t bother to uncover them. With the white, and the cold, bare surfaces, it felt like a mausoleum.

  Chere followed me, taking everything in. “Why didn’t we stay here instead of the hotel?” she asked.

  “I hate this place.” I softened my voice. “And the hotel’s nicer. Room service, housekeeping, Wi-Fi. The modern luxuries.” I led her to the window overlooking the street. We were six floors up, just as we were in New York. It never occurred to me until now.

  “Are those your parents?” she asked, eyeing a portrait in the adjacent room. After glancing at me for permission, she walked through the double doors to get a closer look at it. The portrait was ten years old at least, snapped at some society function, based on my father’s tuxedo and my mother’s diamond necklace and earrings. Chere turned back to me with a grin.

  “I never pictured you having parents. You know, being someone’s son.”

  “I was their only son. I had everything a child could wish for,” I said, and my breath slid through my lips in something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “We came here every year, for holidays, for vacations. Once we spent an entire summer.” I’d been a gawky adolescent then, not quite a teenager, but not a child. I stared around at the furniture, the walls, the grandness of everything which had barely changed over the years, then turned back to her. “I don’t know why I brought you here. This house depresses me.”

  “Why?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “My poor little rich boy problems. Daddy never loved me. Mommy was always drunk. The nannies hated me for being a spoiled, self-centered brat. But I had all this.” I waved my arm around the echoing, marble-floored chambers. My parents used to sit in one and shut me o
ff in the other, with my nanny. The Turkish carpets were as bright as the sofas would be under their canvas covers, but when I was a child, everything seemed sad and colorless. I’d had no love and no power.

  I didn’t say any of this to her. I didn’t know how to explain it, that early rejection that made me fear all rejection. If I didn’t want love, then it wouldn’t matter if I never got love. A captive in my dungeon was good enough. I used to dream of taking women captive. I dreamed of women who’d never want to leave.

  I startled when she touched me. She put her arms around me and laid her head against my shoulder. “Really? Your mother was always drunk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine was too.”

  I wove my fingers through her dark, glossy curls. “I can’t say I had a bad childhood, not compared to yours.”

  “But you did. It’s okay. You can be less than perfect around me. You can feel sad about things you didn’t have.”

  “I had nothing before you.”

  My teeth clenched against more words, like I was giving a confession under torture. She blinked at me, her pretty face a mixture of confused emotions. Why had I brought her here? Why was I saying all this? Why couldn’t I be normal and romantic, and just tell her how much I loved her? I started composing a poem in my mind. You stood with me in the bleak, black house. Don’t let the light fool you.

  Don’t leave me. What if you leave?

  “Is it still raining?” I moved away from her to look out the window. “Should we go back out?”

  “Do you want to go back out?”

  I could hear my heart beating in my ears. She stood very still with her hands clasped in front of her.

  “Why don’t you show me where you used to sleep?” she said. “Do you still have a room here?”

  I shook my head, grimacing. “It’s a guest room now. But you can see it if you like.”

  I showed her around the rest of the place, which was exactly what needed to happen so I could regain control of my shit. Not much had been done since I was here last. The place was protected as an estate of historical interest. They couldn’t gut it and remodel. Even something as trivial as new faucet handles had to be approved. I explained all this to Chere as she stared up at the ceilings and walls. When we got to the guest room—my old room—she walked over to the window.

  “I want to see your view. Did you look out here and daydream as a boy? Does everything look the same as it used to?”

  I joined her, standing close to her and breathing in her scent. I put my arms around her and looked out the window where I had indeed daydreamed as a tormented boy. Back then, I would have done anything for attention and approval. Once, in a really dark hour, I’d sat on the sill and considered jumping to make my parents sorry. I imagined them mourning over my twisted, broken body, but I hadn’t jumped, because I was too afraid of the pain.

  “I was a horrible kid,” I murmured against her ear. “I grew into a horrible adult.”

  “You’re not horrible,” she said, laughing softly. “Just a little rough around the edges.” She turned to me and took my face between her hands. “You’re wonderful. I love you.”

  And as I looked into her eyes, I realized everything I’d gone through was okay, because it had brought me here, to this moment, to her. I didn’t trust my voice, or I would have told her how desperately I loved her. Instead I kissed her, turning away from my boyhood view. The kiss deepened to a grasping embrace and then an attack. I love you, I love you, I love you.

  Don’t leave me.

  “Come here,” I said. “Come with me.”

  I led her out to the center of the living room where my parents had held court with their rich friends and their rich endeavors, and tugged her down with me to the floor.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as I slid a hand beneath her waistband.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to defile you on my parents’ living room floor.”

  I popped her button and slid down her zipper. She stared up at me and lifted her hips so I could yank down her jeans. I held her gaze for a moment as I shoved fingers into her pussy and found her wet and ready.

  “This floor is really…” She bit her lip. “It’s really hard.”

  “I’m really hard, too.”

  I tried to cradle her as I shoved down my pants and positioned myself between her thighs. I could tell she wasn’t comfortable, but when was she ever comfortable when we had sex? I groaned as I shoved inside her. Her warmth enveloped me and we were connected again. I was inside her and she was around me and Jesus Christ, I was so in love with her. This room was full of bad memories, but this would be a good one. I grasped her closer and wrapped my arms around her so I wouldn’t bruise her as I fucked her across the floor.

  “You’re mine,” I whispered. “I want you. I always want you.”

  “I want you too.”

  Her hips bucked up to meet my thrusts, and pretty soon the hard floor didn’t matter, or the slipcovered furniture, or the fact that this was the room where my parents had always come to get away from me.

  “Yes,” she cried. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “More?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I arched over her, driving in her hard, squeezing and pinching her, caressing her wherever I could reach. When she was close to orgasm, I grabbed her arms and yanked them over her head, and buried my face against her neck. I urged her on with dirty, filthy words until she came with a series of urgent gasps.

  I held off a little longer, because it was so delicious to hold her writhing body here on the floor of this awful place. It was weirdly necessary to take her here in this room, in this house with so much sadness. Maybe that was why I’d brought her here. I didn’t know, and by the time I started climbing toward orgasm, I didn’t care. I gazed down at her and thought about the poem I’d mentally composed earlier. I’d have to write it down for her. You trembled under me as I fucked you in that bleak, black house...

  When we finished, I helped her up and into the bathroom to put herself back to rights. It wasn’t even dinner time yet. “There’s more I want to show you,” I said. “Let’s get out of this tomb.”

  * * * * *

  I took her from the stark stillness of my parents’ pied-a-terre to the touristy squalor of the 18th Arrondissement. We skirted around the Moulin Rouge even though I thought Chere might enjoy it. Too many people, too campy, and honestly, Chere was a hundred times sexier than the topless burlesque dancers inside.

  Instead we walked the gritty streets and browsed the North African marketplace. I was blond and white enough to raise some eyebrows, but Chere fit in with her bronze skin and old New Orleans features. When I was a teenager, I came here to get away from my parents’ glittering world. I learned to scowl and be tough, and posture, and throw attitude. I wanted so badly to belong here, where life seemed real, where money changed hands in small, sweaty, wrinkled bills, where my parents would never dare go. Stay out of the Goutte d’Or, my mother would scold, but I knew Goutte d’Or meant Drop of Gold, and even before I used the name for my first bridge, I thought that was the most beautiful name for anything ever. I felt like a man in the Goutte d’Or, even if the ageless women behind the stalls would smile at me like I was a boy.

  They smiled at me now just as they had then, with curiosity and a quiet patience. We walked from the Maghreb areas into the Chinese district and then to a row of Indian shops with windows full of gold and silk.

  “There’s so much to see,” said Chere, gripping my hand as we moved through the crowds. “My eyes...”

  She wasn’t complaining. She was delighted. People crowded around us, working class men and women ready to celebrate the weekend. We ducked into a small, pungent cafe with a view of the Sacré Coeur, and shared a table with an elderly Indian couple who spoke over us in rat-a-tat Tamil. I looked around in sudden realization, watching time turn in on itself. I used to come to this cafe. I was sure of it. It was a different place then, with differe
nt decor and different food on the menu, but the view was the same.

  Chere caught my gaze and put a hand over mine. “Don’t you like the food?”

  “I like the food. I’m not that hungry.” I fed her banana and rice from my plate, and thought that I probably shouldn’t have fucked her on my parents’ living room floor. I suffered this sociopathic desire to possess her, to use her, to mark her as mine. The Indian woman at our table looked between us with a knowing smile.

  “You’re not from here,” she said in French. “You and your lady.” She gestured toward Chere.

  People were so bold in the 18th Arrondissement. “We’re not from here,” I admitted. “I’m showing her around. I used to stay nearby when I was young.”

  Chere didn’t understand a word of our conversation, for all her French name and her Creole heritage. She gave the woman a crooked smile and the woman gazed back with a curve to her thin lips. She had dozens of rings on her fingers, stacked all the way to her knuckles in a jumble of silver and gold. Chere stared at them, entranced.

  “She’d love to see your rings,” I told the woman, and she offered her hands for Chere’s perusal. While Chere bent over the bands and gemstones, I studied the woman’s bindi, the bright third eye within the wrinkles of her brow.

  “You seek clarity,” she murmured under the raucous noise of the cafe.

  “What?”

  “Clarté,” she repeated in French. “You’re drawn to my bindi because you have many questions. You seek a balance of your higher and lower selves.”

  “I’m perfectly in balance,” I lied. “I’m drawn to your bindi because I’ve visited India and Asia many times.”

  “You travel so much?” She nodded. “Of course. You seek. You search. But all answers come here.”

  She reached out, but she didn’t touch me. Instead she touched Chere’s brow, letting her fingertip linger atop some invisible bindi. Higher and lower selves. My low self was all over Chere all the time. We had no balance, as this complete stranger had so bluntly pointed out.