“Miss?”
I look up to see the doorman holding out a glass of water. “You look like you need this.”
“Thank you.”
I take a sip. The doorman steps past me, stiff in his movements. He takes a poker from the mantel, parts the fireplace gate, and turns over the bottom log. A shower of sparks lifts and then settles. My fingers rub one of the objects through the soft felt. It is thick, with sharp corners. The others all seem to be in cases of some kind. What was it Father used to say? We find the people we need to find. The doorman puts the poker back in the stand and then turns and lowers himself into the chair beside me.
“How do you know Jake?” he asks.
I pause.
“We work together.”
“And Elise?”
“I haven’t… met her yet.”
“A nice girl,” he says. “You’ll like her.” He sits with his hands crossed in his lap. I can see that one is steadying the other.
“You sound like you know Jake,” I say.
“I know Jake going back twenty years. He grew up in this building.”
I look at him.
“He grew up here?”
“Yes, he did. When he come back the other day, after all that time, don’t know who was more surprised.”
“Which apartment did he grow up in?” I ask, knowing the answer before he gives it.
“One you’re going to. Fifty-three.”
I hold the pouch to my knee now, feeling its weight through my dress, the sharp angle of something pressing into my skin. I cover the pouch with both hands, as if the doorman might somehow see right through the felt. We are quiet a few seconds.
“What was Jake like as a boy?” I ask.
He smiles and looks into the fire for a few seconds. He seems to search the flames for an answer.
“Kind,” he says.
The buzzer rings from outside, and the doorman stands quickly. “You gonna be okay?” he asks.
“Yes, thank you. I’ll go upstairs now.”
• • •
Memory is the cruelest sense.
I remember clearly our first evening together. The electrifying sound of her deadbolt, the soft clicks as her door opened and closed, and then through the speakers a sigh and her first words:
“What a day.”
I knew early that she would not be like the others. I knew the next morning, when she awoke and did not turn on the television. I heard the sound of the tea kettle, the toaster, and the rustle of the newspaper as she brought it in from her doorstep. She read it while she ate, and if she spotted an item of interest, one that intrigued her enough to set it aside, I heard the crisp sound of scissors on paper. After breakfast she dressed to the music of the classical station, and then stepped out her door at 8:20 for the walk to the subway and the ride to midtown and work. Thirty blocks away, I closed my eyes in thanks. I had found her.
And now one year later I sit in a car in Harlem, staring at the building Miss Lessing has just walked into. She stepped from the sidewalk onto the brick walkway like a child stepping alone into a dark forest, glancing back over her shoulder at the taxi that had brought her, her eyes tense and fearful. And yet she turned and walked into the building. Compelled, drawn forward. By what force?
I will know soon.
Two mornings ago I stood behind the newsstand on Eighty-sixth and Lexington, at the mouth of the subway entrance. When Miss Lessing walked past and headed down the stairs, I fell in just behind her, invisible in the morning crush. And as she reached into her handbag for her subway pass, I dropped the tiny Øre inside.
Where it lies now, listening. Listening inside the handbag Miss Lessing carried into 823 West 120th Street. Not thirty minutes after telling her fiancé that she had been called in to the office for work.
This far uptown, this far west, the Øre in her bag cannot reach the mother unit on the windowsill of my apartment. But it can reach the one in the backseat of this car. Which I have wired into the car stereo. And so I have listened these past few minutes, as Miss Lessing spoke with the doorman about Jake Teller. And I listen now as the grinding elevator carries her up to him.
• • •
She is crossing from desire into need.
“Please, Jake,” she says, her voice still strong, but drops of sweat have broken out on her neck, and as my climbing fingers reach the very edge of her black silk panties, only to lift away off her thighs yet again, she turns her face, for the first time, hard into the deep red covers.
Thirty minutes ago we sat on her couch, her bare leg tight against the knee of my gray corduroys. She touched my cheek, then the top of my shirt, then ran her fingers slowly down to my belt. I stopped them there, reached beside me into my jacket, took out the white silk tie, and placed it in her hand. She looked at it and up at me, and she unfolded it and laid it across her black dress.
“For me or for you?” she asked.
“For you,” I said. And then I nodded toward my jacket. “Both of them.”
She looked down again at the tie. She closed her fingers around each end and then rolled her wrists, once, winding the silk around them. She looked at me and smiled, her dark eyes steady.
“One strong drink first,” she said.
And now those white ties bind her delicate wrists to the metal bars of the bed that stands in the room I slept in as a child. Her lean, tanned arms are spread wide, defenseless, her black, flowing hair is pinned beneath her lithe body, and her belly and legs, freshly oiled, glisten in the hot spotlight I’ve rigged to the foot of her bed.
She has been a playful captive. She smiled as I secured her right wrist, her shining eyes looking from my face to my hands as I then took her left arm and slid six of the seven bracelets, one by one, down to her wrist and off. The seventh I slid the other way, up to her biceps. Then I wound the silk tie around her left wrist and tied it, too, to one of the thick metal bars of the bed frame.
“I’m yours now, Jake,” she murmured. “Do what you will.”
I walked across the room to her desk. In one of its drawers I found a pair of heavy scissors. “You wouldn’t,” she said, watching me as I returned with them, but she sighed languorously at the cold touch of the blade and trembled with pleasure as I cut the straps of her black dress, pulled it down off of her, and dropped it to the floor.
“You’re getting expensive,” she said.
I looked down the length of her, taking her in. Her tanned skin, set off against the black lace of her bra and panties and against the scarlet blanket beneath her. Her full breasts, bigger than I’d thought, her smooth, toned belly and taut thighs. She was no trick of fashion. I touched my hand to her knee. She smiled and closed her legs demurely, her black panties forming a perfect, alluring vee. I reached into my back pants pocket and pulled out the blindfold.
Her lips parted in surprise.
“My color,” she said, but with the first speck of caution in her voice. She let me slip it over her eyes, though, and moments later her caution dissolved when I took a bottle of body oil from her dresser, opened the cap, and released the exotic scent of papaya into the room. She offered me her ankle, toes pointed, sighing luxuriously as I moved up her legs, kicking her small heels in excitement as I worked her lower belly, dropping her head back in pleasure as I rubbed the warm lotion deep into her shoulders and slowly up her tethered arms.
When I finished, I walked to the desk and unscrewed the black, four-foot flexed-arm desk lamp. I brought it to the bed, clipped it to the metal frame at the foot, and then brought the arm down and toward her. I turned it on. I walked to the wall and switched off the overhead light. The effect was magical. The room lay in darkness while Elise, a trussed angel, lay in strong, hot light.
I turned and walked out of the room.
I walked through the quiet apartment to the kitchen. The refrigerator is where ours was, and the counter, too. On it stood a vase with fresh-cut roses. Twelve of them. I checked the note on the card. To the most beautiful girl
in the city. One more chance? Scott. Working quickly, I fixed myself an Absolut and tonic. Next to the limes in the crisper I found a cluster of mint leaves and broke off a few. I looked down the narrow room to the kitchen table at the end. It is just where ours was, in the small area by the window. I walked to it and sat down. Out the window I could see the side of the next building, the same three windowsills I remember from twenty years ago. Past them, only the black night. I picked up the phone and dialed.
It rang once, twice, three times. We hadn’t spoken since I left her at the river railing three days ago. Left her in her blue dress and white sweater, holding the black cell phone that I told her to throw into the river. It rang once more. And then again.
“Mimi Lessing.”
I closed my eyes. I gave her the address and told her we were ready. I hung up the phone and stayed at the kitchen table for a few moments, looking out the window. Then I stood and took a small dish towel, ran it under warm water, and wrung it out. I took the towel, my drink, the mint leaves, and a rose from the vase and walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to the front door. I unlocked the deadbolt, quietly, and opened the door a few inches. It held. I walked back down the hall to the living room, to the stereo. In the CD collection I found one labeled Spanish Strings with a picture on its cover of two acoustic guitars crossed at the neck. I walked back to the bedroom doorway. She was a sight, shimmering in the light of the lamp, her hands relaxed, one oiled leg moving sensually up the other.
“Jake?”
“Right here.”
I walked to the bed and put my hand on her knee.
“Don’t leave me again,” she whispered.
I put my finger to her lips, and she took it into her mouth. I touched the bottom of my glass to her forehead, and she gasped with pleasure. Then I placed the glass, the wet towel, the mint, and the rose on the nightstand. I took the chair from her desk and placed it a few feet from the bed. I moved the nightstand out from the wall, positioning it between the chair and the bed, catercorner to both. She listened as I worked, concentrating, following my movements around the room.
“What are you doing?” she asked finally.
“No questions,” I said, and she smiled. I walked to the small CD player on her dresser. I took the CD from its case, loaded it, and snapped the cover closed.
“Music,” she whispered dreamily.
“Soon,” I said.
I walked to the bed and sat down. I put my hand gently on her hip and looked down the shining length of her once more. She was ravishing.
“It’s time, Elise,” I said.
She breathed deeply, pressed her golden legs tight together, and smiled.
“I’m ready,” she said.
And then I started my passes.
Long, slow passes with the backs of my fingers, starting at her feet and ending at the tight line of silk that bound each wrist. She was in heaven, sighing more deeply the higher I rose, her every nerve alive to my touch. She parted her legs for me, gasping as I trailed up the inside of her thigh, again as I curved around her panties to her tight belly, and again as I reached the base of her bra, lingered, and drifted around it. When I finished the first pass, I started again. Again she lay in rapture, luxuriating in my slow climb, the lightness of my touch inflaming her. As I eased around her panties again, she turned her hips, hoping to guide my fingers into her swell, but I skirted it and pressed her back down with my free hand. Up to her bra my fingers climbed, lingering longer than before, my nails just grazing the black silk on their way by.
By the end of the third pass, her black panties were damp and she had gathered in her fingers the two inches of white silk that I’d left between wrist and post. By the end of the fourth pass, the ache was in her, deep in the swollen places that I wouldn’t touch. And now, three slow passes later, she says, “Please, Jake,” and turns her face, hard, into the deep red covers.
And I move back down to the bottom of the bed and start on her feet again.
“You can’t,” she whispers as I rise past her calves, pressing a little harder, watching the long, graceful muscles of her thighs tense like a sprinter’s. I’m a few inches from her panties when I feel it — a change in the air of the room. I stop, turn, and see Mimi Lessing in the doorway.
She holds on to the doorsill with one hand. In the other, I see it — the outline of the black felt pouch. Mimi stands in darkness, but I can see the white of her stockings. She has taken off her shoes. I can see that her hair is down, and I can see, too, despite the darkness, the shock in her beautiful eyes. I hold them with my own and raise my hand to her, warning her to wait.
And then I turn back to Elise.
One last time I trail my fingers past the soaked black silk of her panties. “You…,” she whispers, biting her lip now. One last time I climb to her bra and now past it, up near her shoulder, pressing down on the strap just hard enough that she feels the pressure on her nipples four inches below. I run my fingers up to her throat, up her right arm, and then slowly up her left, past the binds this time, stroking her fist until she opens it with a soft moan, then caressing her tiny palm, and finishing, finally, with the tips of her fingers. I stand and walk to the dresser.
I push the button on the CD player, and seconds later gentle guitar notes seep into the air, so low at first that Elise isn’t sure she hears them. Yes, now she does. Music. She curls her fingers, then relaxes them, and settles deeper into the bed. Her wait is over, she thinks. At last. I look to Mimi, still standing in the doorway, one hand holding on to the sill. I motion to the chair, and she walks carefully to it over the hardwood floor. She sits down, smoothing her dress nervously. I pass behind her, my hands inches from her shoulders, her pure neck. I sit down again on the bed. Elise feels it give and wets her lips, expectant. I reach down, lift the heavy scissors from the floor and touch them to her belly.
“Yes,” she gasps, certain of their destination. I move the cool blades up her stomach, passing them over the front of the bra and up to the straps on her shoulders. I cut through one, then the other. The straps fall away, revealing the creamy slope of her breasts, the body of the bra still covering the rest. I ease the scissors between her breasts, close them around the clasp of her bra, and lift the bra away, making sure the dangling strap brushes her nipples before I drop it to the floor. Her breasts are round and beautiful, a shade whiter than her belly, the nipples pink and crisp.
“Jake,” she says. “Touch me.”
I reach down next to the bed and come up with another white silk tie.
I touch it gently to her neck. “God,” she whispers, thinking the silk is the bra I’ve just cut off her. I trail it between her breasts, down her belly, down the inside of her thigh.
“Just wait,” she whispers, digging her heels into the covers.
Past her calf I take it, slowly, and then loop it suddenly around her ankle. She gasps and tries to bring her leg up, but I hold it firmly to the bed, knot the silk tight, and then take it hard to the far edge, pulling her body down toward me, snapping the silk she clutches in her fingers right out of them. Quickly I knot the new tie to the metal bar of the bed frame. She turns her left knee in toward her right leg, trying to keep them close, but I knot the final tie around her left ankle, straighten her leg, and take it hard the other way, parting her legs sharply. She gasps in shock, and then again as I yank her farther down the bed and tie the final silk tie tightly to the cold metal bar.
Just like that, Elise is spread-eagled.
She pulls hard against the new restraints, the muscles in her calves and thighs tensing, straining, beautiful. The silk doesn’t give. She wets her lips twice, three times, panic starting to rise in her. She surges again. The white silk ties dip and tremble, like power lines in the wind, but they hold firm. She collapses, her breathing quick, shallow. She tries to pull out with her wrists now, but there is no more slack, and her efforts only tighten the knots. She gasps in pain. I move my hand to her thigh. Again she surges, and again the ties hol
d. I close my eyes and let her struggle, her thigh pulsing against my palm as she fights, then collapses, fights, then collapses, fights, then collapses yet again.
For thirty seconds she struggles, desperate, and then she starts to quiet. I open my eyes. Her ribs still rise and fall, but her breathing slows, steadies. She lifts her face from the covers. “Okay,” she whispers to herself, almost inaudibly, the taut cords in her neck softening, her fingers, balled into fists a second ago, starting to uncurl. She seems to take in the room again, to breathe in the scented oil, feel the warmth of the lamp on her skin, hear, anew, the soothing music. “Okay,” she whispers again, testing the binds but lightly now, not fighting against them but gauging them, measuring them, and, yes, relaxing into them, as if the silk were caressing, not binding, her delicate wrists and ankles. I lean in and watch her closely.
She is surrendering.
Surrendering not just to the ties but to the idea of them. Surrendering because the true burn isn’t in her wrists or in her ankles, but in the places that I won’t touch. “Okay,” she says again, and I close my fists and rest them for a moment on the knees of my corduroys, because it hits me that she isn’t talking to herself but to me, and I know that she understands, for the first time, the promise in those strict, unrelenting white ties. It is the promise of release. Sweet, long, hard release, like none she’s ever imagined, and she knows now that fighting will only delay it, will only stoke the fires I’ve built deep inside her. And so she whispers, “Okay,” one more time, a soft plea, and takes a last deep breath and lets it out slowly. I put my hand back on her warm thigh, feel it flutter, flutter, and then go still. Her wrists, her ankles, her hips — everything is still. Still, and quiet, and completely submissive, and it’s my turn to steady myself against the tide inside me. I look down at the dark floor, and then again at her taut, shining body.
Tonight’s true journey can begin.
Mimi Lessing sits only a few feet away, but in the darkness she is a silhouette. I can see, though, the black felt pouch in her lap. I lean toward her and hold out my hand. She hesitates, then lifts the pouch with both hands and holds it out to me, like an offering. I take it from her and rest it on the bed, squarely in the light of the lamp.
Jake & Mimi Page 17
