She let go of my hand and opened the paper, and looked down at the words I’d written early this morning, while she was asleep.
He strokes her, presses her palms, her arms,
Her lips, her body, her cool skin.
She wants to be hurt and held. He wants her to huddle
Inside his walls and sleep.
“He” was me, of course, and “she” was Chere, and the poem was part of what I felt last night, but not enough. They never expressed enough. My poems were clumsy sketches, not paintings, and I never managed to rhyme like the old school poets. There was no rhyme to us, no reasonable organization.
“I didn’t get to huddle with you last night,” she said when she finished. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I said, although that wasn’t what I meant by that line. I meant that I wanted her inside me forever, where no one else could get to her, or influence her, or lure her away. When I wrote sleep, I meant surrender, but she’d already done so much surrendering last night that I couldn’t bear to put that on the page.
“Thank you for writing this,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I love when you write things for me.” She scooted closer and rested her head on my shoulder as she had before. As she scanned the poem again, she asked, “What are you working on now?”
“What?”
“At work. You always ask what I’m working on, but we never talk about your work. What are you working on at Eriksen Architectural Design these days?”
“Everything, all the time.” At her small grimace, I added, “Right now, we’re concentrating on some skyscraper designs for Jakarta. There’s an engineering aspect to it because of the expense, and the earthquake systems that have to be in place. Not to mention the corruption in the local contracting companies.”
“Will you have to go to Indonesia?”
“Eventually. Not yet. I have people to do it for me, people who work for me,” I said, referencing our earlier conversation.
She looked down at the poem. The driver stopped hard at a light, shifting us in our seats. A horn blared behind us.
“Do you still want me?” she asked, turning her face up to mine.
“I always want you.”
“You know what I mean.” Her jaw went tight. “Are you tired of me yet? Tired of dealing with me in your house? In your life?”
I gave her an arch look and tapped the paper she held in her hand. “Didn’t you read the poem, starshine?”
“Sometimes I think you only write them for me because you feel guilty. You always give them to me after I’ve been punished for something.”
It was my turn to look away from her, out the window. “That’s because I’m impressed by your strength,” I said. And afraid of it. I live in terror of the day you discover you don’t need me after all. “To answer your question, I’m not tired of you yet.” I turned back to her. “Do you think it’s easy to write those things? I do it so you won’t leave. If I wanted you out of my house, I’d stop writing poems for you. Once that happens, I’d give it about a week.”
She did what I hoped she would do, which was laugh and smile at me, and touch my hand. After that she folded up the poem and put it into her work bag with all her other notes and journals and plans. She thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. What did I really give her, besides a lot of pain and control? She wouldn’t take my money and I couldn’t offer any romantic ideal of love. What did I provide to make her love me?
Poetry. A ride to work every day. A collar for her neck and her finger, and hopefully enough earth-shattering orgasms to make her stick around.
* * * * *
Time flew by, hours at work, hours in the dungeon, meetings and projects and a couple more trips for Price’s work. Fall turned to winter, and Price and I celebrated our first naked Christmas and New Year’s together. I wish I could say things had grown more comfortable between us by that point, but they hadn’t, not really.
A lot of the tension came from my work, the challenge of trying to remain a surrendered submissive while I built an ever-expanding brand. When Vinod Sushil mentioned my aesthetic in an article for Modern Art and Design, things blew up to an alarming degree. A hundred people contacted me within a week: design houses wanting to hire me, agents wanting to represent me, rich, famous people wanting me to design exclusively for them.
It was hard to believe sometimes that a few years ago I was a sex worker with no motivation and no future. How things had changed from the Miss Kitty years. Of course, the more popular I got, the more I worried that one of my old johns would recognize me and show up at my studio to harass me. I felt afraid when I remembered my old life. I worried about who would crawl out of my past and try to destroy me by denouncing me as a fake and a criminal. I worried about losing everything if and when my old career was revealed.
I didn’t share any of this with Price. The work alone had already brought so much stress to our dynamic, and talking about my past always made things even tenser between us. Instead, I pushed it out of my mind and concentrated on work and inspiration, and tried not to freak out at all the demands for a “Starshine Original.” This success was everything I’d worked for, right? Andrew was thrilled for me, and Price...
Well, Price was supportive. He was happy for me, but he never let me forget that our dynamic came first, and in a way, that kept me on an even keel. It was hard to get an inflated ego when you spent almost every night on your knees having some type of torture inflicted upon your body. It was hard to get a big head when your sexual orifices were no longer your own, and when you were often forced to sleep in a chastity belt so you couldn’t soothe your aching pussy.
The more my schedule blew up, the more his control tightened, and I tolerated it as best I could. Most days I felt happy, even in the dungeon. Even in the chastity belt. The harder he held me, the better I felt about myself and about my life, because he was worth every sacrifice. His smiles, his poetry, the way he touched me after he hurt me, like there was no one else besides me in the world. I felt surrounded and protected in a very powerful love, whatever he chose to call it. Slavery, ownership, our “dynamic.” It was all the same thing: my love for this complicated and deeply protective man.
I was existing in this calm and surrendered bliss, working in my studio on a cold day in early January, when an unexpected visitor came to my door. The visitor pushed it open slowly, which meant it wasn’t Price, because he always threw the door wide and strode in to greet me with an owner’s confidence. No, the door opened by increments, like this visitor wasn’t sure he’d be welcome to enter.
When he finally came in, I wished he hadn’t entered.
Simon Baldwin, tall and dark and frighteningly familiar, stared at me from across my studio.
I stared back, alarm bells going off in my brain. It wasn’t only that we had a traumatic past together, and that our most recent interaction had involved a trip to jail for Price. No, it was that I wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with him, and he was standing here in my studio, and oh, shit, Price’s head would fucking explode.
“Hi, Chere,” he said. “Nice studio.”
“What…what are you doing here? How did you get in the building?”
He shrugged. “My accountant’s office is on the eighth floor. So you’re in the jewelry business now, huh? How’ve you been?”
I blinked at him. He looked the same, perhaps a little heavier since he’d stopped the drugs. All I could think was that Price might show up anytime, and all hell would break loose.
“You have to go,” I blurted out, not even taking the time to return his greeting. “You have to leave right now.”
“Why?”
I was having a panic response. My breath literally felt tight in my chest. What had Price done to me, that I was so afraid to speak to men? But it wasn’t just any man. It was this man, the one who’d brought so much devastation to my life.
“You just... You have to go, Simon. I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
�
�Well, that sucks, because I was hoping to talk to you.” He sat in the chair by my desk, making himself comfortable.
“I’m not supposed to...” I began, but then I stopped, because I was a grown woman and it was weird that I wasn’t allowed to talk to people. With a brutal flash of lucidity, I realized that I was just as controlled by Price as I’d been controlled by Simon and his addictions. You use me for sex the same way Simon used me for money, I had screamed at Price once. To get your fix.
I thought I was finished questioning the validity of Price’s love for me, but within three minutes of seeing Simon and experiencing the feelings he evoked in me, I felt riddled with doubt.
“No,” I said, putting my head in my hands. I didn’t even know who I was talking to. “No, I can’t deal with this right now.”
“I know you’re busy,” Simon said. “I’ve been following your success in the design mags. Vinod Sushil, huh? Not bad.”
“Yeah, I’ve been really busy. That’s why I can’t talk to you. I’m sorry.”
“Chere—”
“You have to leave.”
“Look, I know I hurt you,” he said, speaking over me. “I know I’ve been an asshole to you hundreds of times. Thousands. But give me a chance to say what I need to say. I’ve changed, I promise. Every day is a battle to stay clean, but I’m trying.”
So he was still sober. There was that, at least, that he’d turned into a better person. Some quiet desperation in his features made me sit back in my chair and push Price’s glowering expression out of my mind for the moment.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked. “I don’t have a lot of time. Please, make it quick.”
“Can we start by talking about you?” He looked around my studio with a dazzled expression. “I mean, wow, Chere. It’s like you’ve reinvented yourself. You must be really proud. Are you proud?”
“Yes,” I said through my teeth. “I’m really proud.”
My curt tone registered, but the essence of Simon hadn’t really changed. Fucked up or sober, he was still incredibly self-centered. Despite the fact that I clearly wanted him to state his business and get out, he lounged back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other.
“I’m reinventing myself too,” he said. “Everything in my life is better. The art’s going well. Everyone said I wouldn’t be able to create good work now that I’m sober, but it’s just a different process. It still works. Everything’s good, but there are some issues I need to work through. Stresses.”
I glared at him. Sorry about your stresses, asshole. I also have stresses. Get to the point.
“So, part of getting sober is taking real and concrete steps to change your life. There are these twelve steps that are part of my rehab program. Step four is to take a ‘searching and fearless moral inventory’ of yourself, and I’ve been doing that, you know? As you progress through the program and take this inventory, one of the things you do is go back to the people in your life that you’ve hurt and talk with them, and try to make amends.”
I put my hands over my eyes. “Simon, I can’t.”
“Please, just hear me out. I need your help with this.”
When I looked up, he had his fingers steepled in front of him, pressed together like he was praying.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’m really haunted by a lot of things. I’m haunted by you, and I don’t want to be. I’d like to spend time with you now that I’m sober, so we have better memories. I’d like to talk to you, and apologize, and show you that I’m not that person I was when I was with you.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I just... I want to help you, but it’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m in a relationship with someone else now. A really intense relationship.”
“I don’t want to get back together with you or anything. I won’t make unwanted advances. I just want to talk through what happened in our relationship, and try to come to a place of peace.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I cried. “It took me a long time to get over you. Years of sadness and loneliness and wondering what the hell was wrong with me, that things went so bad. I’m in a different place now and I don’t want to revisit what we went through. I want to forget it. I want to forget you!”
“But I need your help! Every day—” His voice rose and broke off. He rubbed his forehead, this man who was so different from the strung out Simon I used to know. “Every day is a struggle,” he said in a quiet, tortured voice. “I’m trying to become a better person. Every day, I’m trying to get better.”
“Why do you need me for that?” I could feel myself softening toward him, even when I didn’t want to. Drugs had been his life. I couldn’t imagine how hard it had been to get off them, and stay off them this long.
“Really...the change has to come from yourself,” I said. “I don’t see what I can offer you.”
“No one knows me like you. I loved you. We were together for ten years.”
But we weren’t together for ten years. We were together maybe a third of that time before everything went haywire. I could still remember the sickening slide, watching him lose his shit little by little, day by day, until he was a completely different person. I wasn’t there for him then. I’d done nothing to stop him from disintegrating.
And now...if I did nothing to help him...what if he slid into that hell again?
“What exactly do you want from me?” I asked.
“I would like us to be friends.” He knotted his fingers together. I could see the ever-present paint flecks under his nails. “Can you come over for dinner sometimes?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Can we meet somewhere for lunch then?”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m in a relationship with someone. He wouldn’t like it.”
“It would just be friendly. A time to talk. Or I can come here. I think a friendship between us would keep me honest. It would remind me...” He paused and bit his lip. “It would remind me how easily I can hurt someone. How deeply I’ll hurt everyone if I fuck up and fall back into the drugs again.”
He was honestly, truly desperate. I could see that. I was beginning to feel a little desperate myself. “I can’t be your sober coach. I don’t know anything about drugs or rehab or sobriety. I can’t be responsible for helping you stay sober.”
“You don’t have to be. I’m responsible for staying sober,” he said forcefully, “just as I was responsible for my actions, and for the way my actions hurt you. Now I’m responsible for making things right. You were such a huge part of my life. I don’t want to hurt you by taking you back to those times, but I don’t know if I can get better without your support and forgiveness. I know that sounds selfish. I just want...” He unlaced his fingers and threw out his hands. “God, I want to move on.”
“I want to move on too.” That was the damn truth. I wanted all of this to be over, our past disappeared, but as Simon said, it wasn’t that easy. We’d been through things. We’d pretty much been through hell.
The rough part was that I could never explain this to Price in a way that would be okay with him. Even sitting here and talking to Simon this long...he would murder me for it, and probably stick me in the cage for hours afterward. He wouldn’t understand, perhaps could never be made to understand.
But did that mean I couldn’t help this man who’d been such a part of my life, who was here begging for a path to peace?
“Fuck,” I said. “This is really difficult.”
“I know. It took me forever to find the courage to come see you. But God, I’m taking all of this so seriously, Chere. I can’t go back there again. I can’t.”
“Can I have some time to think about it? Some time to talk to my partner?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, even as I thought to myself that there was no way in hell I could talk to my partner. There was no way in hell Price would allow me to help Simon in any way, shape, or form.
No, I was asking for time
so I could summon up my courage, and figure out if it was possible to elude Price’s control enough to give Simon the help and closure he needed. Was Simon’s sobriety worth it?
More to the point, could I stand by and let Simon ruin his life a second time? When I still carried such guilt that I’d let it happen the first time? Price said it wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t make peace with that opinion. Maybe this was my chance to find some peace too, even if I felt like my head was about to explode.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” he pressed. “Will that be enough time for you to think about it?”
“No. Don’t come back here.”
“Then how can I contact you?” He frowned. “Jesus, you’re acting kind of crazy. This guy you’re with, is it the same dude who attacked me at that gallery?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the deal with that?” He looked at me far too steadily, with too much knowledge of my weaknesses. “Chere, have you gotten yourself into another bad situation with your hotheaded star-chitect friend?”
He had a lot of balls to ask that, considering he’d been my first and most monumental bad situation. Price was nothing like him. Was he?
“He’s not my friend,” I said. “We’re together. He gave me a ring and everything.”
Simon stared at it when I showed him. “You’re engaged?” He sounded shocked.
“Not officially engaged,” I admitted. “But we’re pretty serious, and brutal honesty here, he hates your guts. He’s not going to want me to see you. He doesn’t want me to have anything to do with you.”
“If he doesn’t like it, tell him to fuck off.”
I pondered telling Price to fuck off, especially as it related to Simon. The idea was too ludicrous for words.
“I want to help you get over our past together,” I said. “I can understand how it haunts you, but I’m not going to damage my current relationship in the process. Just give me some time to figure things out.”
His skeptical regard unsettled me. “I guess we all have problems. Maybe we can help each other. Do you need help with this guy?”
Trust Me Page 10
