Familiar

by Roseau, Robin

  "So it doesn't stand for a foreign word."

  "Or if it does, it's a word everyone knows."

  She watched me closely. "I thought perhaps W stood for Witch." She paused, judging my reaction. "But that didn't mean anything to me."

  "I consider throwing out random W-words to see if I react a form of guessing." I lifted a bare foot into her lap. "Kiss it."

  She automatically looked down at my foot. Then, much to my surprise, she leaned down and gave me a very thorough kiss right on the instep. She looked up and saw my reaction.

  "I didn't think you would really do it," I told her. I took my foot away, flustered.

  "You didn't want me to?" she asked.

  "Yes, actually, I did, but I didn't think you would."

  "Why not?" she asked. "I enjoy your puzzles and games. I've told you that."

  "Well, because. It's submissive."

  "Is it?" she asked. "Give me the other one. You said I had to kiss your feet, not one foot."

  It was an order, and I immediately offered the second food. She bent down and kissed that one, just as nicely as she had the first.

  She laughed at my expression. "I don't fluster you very often."

  "You are always six steps ahead of me, Arianna," I said. "I thought I had the upper hand here- Oh. That's why." She was keeping me guessing and taking my game away from me, a little anyway.

  She smiled and released my foot.

  I sat down next to her on the sofa. "Are you really trying to guess?"

  "Yes. I've been through all the W- words I can think of. Some of them make sense as anniversaries, but none of them fit the context."

  "Future hints cost you a small gift," I said. "If you don't guess by one week before the date, then you owe me a big gift of my choice."

  "This seems like a very one-sided game, Moira," she said.

  "Anything you want from me, you already have," I said. "Or can make me give you."

  "There's something I wouldn't order you to do that I would like very much," she said.

  "You haven't exactly been shy about making me do whatever you want, Arianna."

  "Do you resent that?"

  "Sometimes," I said. "Not as much as I thought I would." She treated me much better than I thought she would, and the one thing she didn't do was treat me like a servant, at least not most of the time. That had surprised me.

  "Well, there is something I won't order, but I would like. I would like you to introduce me to your parents."

  "Mom is dead," I said. "You know that."

  "You have a father and a step-mother who raised you," she said.

  "They live in Florida, and they don't like to travel. And we can't. Dad would come if I could explain why we can't go to him, but I can't exactly explain that."

  She looked away, opening her mouth twice to say something, then closing it.

  "What?" I thought at her.

  "Are you ashamed to be with me? Or maybe still resent what I did? You told me you forgave me, but maybe you didn't."

  I reached up and pulled her chin back to me. I kissed her. "No, Arianna. The only thing I resent is that you don't love me. But I know you are at least fond of me, and I know that you won't be breaking up with me."

  She smiled weakly.

  "I suppose I don't know that last part. You could replace me in your bed and lock me in the basement, I suppose. But I don't think you're going to do that."

  "That won't happen," she said.

  "You'll get tired of me when my looks go," I told her.

  She laughed loudly.

  "Okay, when I get fat?"

  "I won't let you," she said. "There is no diet as effective as the Obedience Diet."

  "Oh my god! Do you know how much money we could make?"

  She laughed again. "I've thought about it, but I don't know how to explain it."

  "Hypnosis."

  "What?"

  "Disguise it with hypnosis. You could do weight loss and quit smoking. Five grand, results guaranteed."

  "Maybe if I get bored selling houses. So, about your father. If I win your game, you will do your best to get him to come visit."

  "Please don't order it that way."

  "I'm sorry. That wasn't an order. It was a proposal."

  "No," I said. "If you play to win, without cheating, then I will ask him whether you win or not."

  "What would constitute cheating?"

  "In some way making me tell you or manipulating me into giving you hints I didn't intend to give."

  "Anything else is fair game?"

  I thought about it, deciding if I had been clear. "Yes."

  "If I win, I still want to win something," she said.

  "All right, if you win, I'll let you cast any spell you want on me without complaint."

  "Ohhh," she said. "I'm going to have to think about that. I might have to turn your libido up, or your inhibitions down."

  "Insatiable," I accused her. "But I suppose it's fair. I can't do the things to you that you do to me."

  On the fourth day, she threw out three W-words at me, watching my reaction. None of them was "Wedding". She graciously kissed my feet each time. One of the times was at the office, and she did it in front of two other agents. Everyone was deeply amused.

  For her hint, I told her, "You are going to be upset with yourself for not figuring it out right away."

  "It's that obvious?" she asked immediately.

  "Yes. Damn it." I presented a foot to her, and she laughed before kissing it.

  "Sorry," she said. "It was an automatic response." She paused. "From now on, and strictly related to a game of this nature, if I ask you a question, you may ask if I really want you to answer before answering."

  I was obligated to obey her, and one of the rules was that I answer her questions, and I couldn't lie to her. I'd had to answer her question. But the adjusted rule eased the first rule.

  "Thank you, Arianna. Are you just tired of having to kiss my feet?"

  "No, but I don't want an accident on my part to ruin the games and surprises."

  "So, any guesses yet?"

  "No. All I can think of is Wedding, and that doesn't make any sense."

  I managed to control my reaction, and I gave her one foot to kiss, then the other, as she had thrown out a W-word.

  "Okay, now I am getting tired of kissing your feet," she said. "Lie down on the sofa, on your stomach."

  "Hey!" I said, protesting, but I lay down as she had ordered.

  "Put your feet in my lap," she ordered. "And make every muscle in your body go limp."

  "Oh god," I said. But my feet deposited themselves in her lap, and then my muscles went completely limp. I couldn't even talk.

  "Arianna, this isn't fair," I thought to her.

  "Remain completely limp," she said.

  And then, very gently, she began tickling the bottoms of my feet. They were actually nice tickles, tickles I could take for a long time. But tickles nevertheless.

  "Bully!" I thought at her. "Brute! Cheater!"

  "Each name you just called me is five minutes," she said. "Do you have more?"

  "Arianna, I don't like feeling this vulnerable."

  I actually didn't mind the tickles. I didn't like being reminded how completely she owned me. And that was why she was doing it; she was putting me in my place.

  She tickled my feet for the full fifteen minutes. I stopped talking to her, and when she released me, I walked out of the room without another word. I hid in the bedroom and read. Arianna came in about an hour later. When she moved into the bathroom to brush her teeth, I took my pillow and book and moved to the sofa, pulling a blanket around me.

  "Aren't you coming to bed?" she thought at me.

  "Not right now."

  She didn't push the issue, and I fell asleep on the sofa. Sometime later, she came looking for me. I woke with her bending over me, shaking me awake.

  "Hey," she said. "You fell asleep."

  I didn't have a reply to that, so I didn't say
anything.

  "Come to bed," she said, so of course, I was forced to comply. We climbed into bed, and she pulled me into her arms. I lay there stiffly for a while, then rolled over, away from her. Fifteen minutes later I slipped from the bed and returned to the sofa, going back to sleep.

  Arianna found me there in the morning. I woke with her crouching next to the sofa, looking at me. She was frowning.

  I sat up, blinking sleepily at her. I hadn't slept well, but I had to get up anyway. Work called. We had a closing this afternoon, and I needed to make sure all the ducks were in a row.

  I'd been providing the hints in the evening after work, but I didn't feel like waiting. "Your hint today is this: you have already guessed."

  Then I rose to my feet and stepped past her, heading for the shower.

  Arianna never said a word. I showered and dressed without any extra fuss; I had never been high maintenance, anyway. Some of the clients had been put off by my lack of excessive attention to the feminine arts, but most didn't notice, especially when Arianna was around. I was fine with that.

  Arianna was standing in the kitchen to the house we were renting, staring out the window into the small back yard.

  "We have a closing at two today," I reminded her. "It's at our office. We have conference room C reserved. I do not know the rest of your schedule today."

  "Is everything ready for closing?" she asked. "The Nelsons have been problem clients, and I am ready to be done with them."

  "I would have told you if anything was wrong, but you know the first thing I'll do when I arrive at the office is go over everything one last time. Katherine from Title More is handling everything."

  "Then it will be fine," Arianna said.

  "Yes."

  She turned around and faced me. "You're angry with me."

  "Figured that out, did you?" I turned on my heel and was gone before she replied.

  Later in the morning, she was conducting showings with a client. "Are you listening?" she thought at me. When we weren't in the same room, it could take an effort to get each other's attention that way.

  "Did you need something, Arianna?"

  "I can't remember Ms. Schaeffer's first name."

  I typed something on the computer and pulled up the client file for the Schaeffers.

  "Linda."

  "Thank you."

  "They have a small dog named Bungee."

  "Right, the one that bounces up and down. Thank you for reminding me."

  Clients sometimes wondered how Arianna could remember the tiniest details. She couldn't. I was why she seemed to know everything.

  A few minutes later, she said, "Mark is talking about the game last night. Give me something clever to say."

  A few key clicks later, I told her, "You would think with his batting average, Jameson could have done better last night. He sucks against southpaw pitchers."

  Later, when we were face to face for the Nelson closing, I was coolly professional. Once the closing was completed, I congratulated both the buyers and the sellers and returned to my office. I collected my things and was out the door before Arianna could confront me.

  She had given me a certain amount of freedom. It had started with the job and had grown. This would be the first time I would test it.

  I drove to a restaurant and bar on the opposite side of town from our house. We lived in the southwest portion of Madison, so I went to the northeast side. I picked an intentionally seedy place.

  I sat in the bar and had a bad hamburger with a beer.

  I felt her draw magic from me when she blessed the Nelsons' new home. I could feel right where she was; that never went away. And I knew she could tell where I was. Oh, she might not know the type of place I'd gone to, but she could have driven straight to me.

  A couple of hours later, I heard her "knocking" for attention, but I distracted myself by playing some pool. When my phone rang, I ignored it. Then she drew magic from me, which I couldn't ignore as successfully as I would have liked, and a second later, she thought at me, "If you're listening, answer me."

  "I'm listening," I said. She'd given me a direct order, which I had heard, so I couldn't ignore it.

  "Where are you?"

  "At a bar called the Iron Frog."

  "Is the place hopping?"

  "Did you want something, Arianna? I'm playing pool."

  "I would like to know what your plans are for the evening."

  "I intend to play pool and drink."

  "Until when?"

  "Until I decide to do something else. Do you have a problem with that?"

  "Yes," she said. "I have two problems with it. The first problem is that I do not want you driving when you've been drinking. Can we agree doing so is a bad idea?"

  I sighed. "Yes."

  "I would like to know what your plan is about that?"

  "I'll switch to soda after one more beer."

  She paused for a moment. "That's a reasonable plan, but I have another concern. You are too far away."

  "Not under your thumb?"

  "Too far for me to protect."

  "I don't need protecting."

  "There are dangers in the world of which you are ignorant," she told me. "I will offer a choice. You will find someplace within ten minutes of home, I am coming there where I can watch over you, or you are coming home. Let me know your decision within the next ten minutes."

  "Yes, Arianna," I said.

  "And Moira, if you ever ignore me again, I will see to it that you can't. I understand you're angry with me. I haven't figured out why. I am trying to give you space. But when I call or knock, I expect you to answer. Please do not make me turn it into an order."

  "You are assuming I heard you."

  "I am very carefully not asking about that, because if I do, and you confirm what we both know, I will fly off the handle."

  I didn't have an answer to that.

  "Ten minutes," she said.

  I finished the pool game and my beer then asked, "Are you listening?"

  "Yes," came the answer immediately.

  "I'll come home."

  "Are you fit to drive?"

  "I've only had two beers."

  "I'll see you soon."

  When I got home, she was doing paperwork at the dining room table.

  "Thank you," she said. "I was worried."

  I didn't respond, but went into the bedroom and changed into pajamas and a robe. While brushing my teeth, Arianna wandered into the bathroom. She waited until I was finished brushing and said, "I do not care for this behavior."

  I turned to face her but didn't respond.

  "I don't know what set this off, either. We were kidding around, teasing each other, and then suddenly you were vexed with me."

  "I wonder if there's a hint in there somewhere."

  "I tickled you. I thought you liked when I tickle you. I was gentle. I don't get it."

  "You humiliated me!" I screamed at her, losing it. "You just had to put me in my place. I was trying to give us a playful game. I was trying to pretend that I actually had a little say in my life, and maybe even a little in yours. And clearly I went too far, and you had to slap me down for it." I started hyperventilating. "I have spent the last year staying well within limits. I have made the best I knew how of a situation I never would have picked for myself, one you kidnapped me for and forced on me. If I could, if you allowed it, I would still kill myself rather than remain anyone's slave. Instead I've tried to make the best of it. But when I let my guard down, you made damned sure you reminded me of my position in the world. Thanks a lot, for making this a hell of a lot harder for me! It's not enough I wake up every day knowing I am your unwilling slave! You had to humiliate me to remind me, as if I could ever forget."

  She looked stunned. I stormed past her, trying not to sob, but hyperventilating with anger and humiliation.

  I ran downstairs. We keep a rack of wine in a basement closet. I found an inexpensive bottle and carried it to the kitchen, where I fumbled wi
th the opener, my hands trembling so badly I couldn't use it.

  Arianna stepped into the kitchen. She didn't say anything, but she took the bottle from me and opened it, then retrieved two glasses. She poured one for me and slid it across the counter to me, then poured one for herself.

  I slammed the first glass down, and she immediately filled my glass again.

  "I was trying to be playful."

  "Bull. Shit!" I screamed. "Bullshit. Bull. Shit! You were putting me in my place. Maybe you were being playful about it, but first and foremost, it was about reminding me the only choices I have are the ones you let me have. Well, message received, loud and clear!"

  She drank her own glass down, refilled her glass, and then poured the rest for me. "Are you going to want more?"

  I studied her. "You're granting me that choice?"

  "Do you want me to retrieve another bottle?"

  I stared at my glass and at hers. "Not for me," I responded quietly. "I don't want to pay for it in the morning."

  We each drank our last glass more slowly.

  "Why, Arianna? Why isn't it enough you got what you wanted? You got your familiar, and I gather it's a pretty darned good familiar at that. You got a playmate for your bed, and I thought I was giving you what you wanted there. You got a business underling, and I thought I was doing well there, too. Why did you have to humiliate me like that? Why wasn't it enough to have everything you wanted? Why did you have to make me hate you again?"

  She looked like I had slapped her.

  "May we go sit down?" she asked.

  I didn't answer, but I grabbed my glass and brushed past her, heading for the living room. I took a seat on one end of the couch, my feet consuming the space next to me, discouraging her from sitting too closely to me.

  She took the other end, not looking at me.

  "I wake up every morning knowing you control me completely," I told her. "It's not something I can forget. I know that every tiny choice I make is mine to make only because you allow it. Did you really think you needed to remind me? Because you don't. I might pretend I don't spend every waking minute with that in the back of my head, but I do."

  "I thought you forgave me," she said. "I thought that, even if you weren't happy with the situation, you accepted it, and maybe enjoyed it."

  "Enjoyed it?" My voice began to rise. "Enjoyed it?" That came out as a squeak. I began hyperventilating again. "Are you insane?" And then I was panting so hard I couldn't even speak.