Nervous

by SM Johnson

  “I have to pee,” I squeaked.

  He jutted his chin, indicating the door that was painted to blend into the walls. “Go ahead.”

  I scrambled from my chair and yanked at the doorknob, my stomach tense. Relax, Julian, I told myself. It’s just a bathroom.

  The knob gave way all of a sudden, and I almost fell into the private bath.

  It smelled like Avery.

  It was a full bathroom, with a shower, toilet, and sink. White fixtures and gleaming chrome faucets. Light gray tile. Stark and severe, like winter.

  I was breathing too fast, felt like I might have to vomit as well as urinate. Thought about it, and decided, no, my stomach would be okay. Definitely had to pee, though.

  I flushed the commode and washed my hands. Washed them again, the water and soap stinging my wounded fingertips.

  I stepped out of the bathroom just as Stephanie entered Avery’s office, a blue-on-black pinstriped tie dangling from one hand.

  “You didn’t knock,” Avery said.

  “Weren’t you expecting me? You asked me to bring – ”

  “Always knock. And wait for permission.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Avery. Are we starting this again? I can’t be your PA if I don’t have access to you.”

  “It’s common courtesy,” he said. But his eyes said something more. She made some gesture at him that I didn’t quite catch, not so blatant as flipping him the bird, but still something that came across as defiant. Then she dropped the tie on his desk.

  “What do you need an extra tie for?” she asked.

  “No special reason,” he said. “You can go.”

  She stood still for a second, blinking at him, then stalked out the door.

  “She doesn’t seem to like you,” I said, and felt myself blush. Why had I said that? What a stupid, insulting thing to say. Who was I to say anything to him at all? The embarrassment rushed through me, made me feel nauseated all over again. “Sorry. Sir.”

  He laughed, like he’d laughed at my statement that I didn’t like being around people. “She acts like she doesn’t like me, but she does.” He was tugging at the muted rust colored tie at his neck, loosening the knot. “She’s been my assistant for ten months and hasn’t walked out yet. I think it’s a record.”

  He pulled one end of the tie, and it slithered free from under his collar. “I think she’d like for me to have prettier manners.”

  “Oh,” I said, watching his hands smooth over the tie, fingers caressing it as if it were silk. Maybe it was. I wouldn’t know.

  He gestured to my chair, and when I sat down, he stalked across the space between his desk and mine. He reached for my left hand and I watched him take it, watched him knot the wider end of the rust-colored fabric around my wrist. An impatient gesture had me lifting my right arm without a word of protest.

  I wondered, idly, if I was still in the bathroom, dreaming this up, or if this was actually happening. It didn’t feel like something that could be real. Avery tied the ends of each tie to the knobs on the legs of my desk.

  People didn’t do things like this, did they? People didn’t just tie someone up in an office, where other people came and went during their regular workday. Despite these thoughts, I didn’t feel the least bit nervous. I wasn’t shaking. I had no words of argument roaming in my head pushing to burst out my mouth. I felt an unreal sense of calm.

  “Put your hands on your keyboard,” Avery ordered, and I did. “Try to raise them to your mouth.”

  I lifted my hands, but the restraints stopped them just a few inches above my keyboard. I could drop my head and curl my torso forward and manage to bite my nails, but the ties would stop me from doing it without thinking. I could reach my mouse. I could reach the mug of coffee he’d given me earlier and probably manage to take a drink.

  “Good?” he asked, and it was an actual question, not a command, not a quiet, self-congratulatory statement. A question.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. It was the first thing I said since I realized he was tying my wrists to the desk. It was the only thing I said about it at all. Yes, it was good. It was okay. I was okay with him doing this to me. I was… granting him this authority over me. Even more so than when I agreed – agreed? – to work in his office, instead of demanding the next flight back to my quiet, safe life.

  I doubt anyone demanded anything of Avery Phoenix, though I suppose I could have politely requested a return ticket. I imagined that, remembering his quirked eyebrow, what he’d said about being unable to resist a challenge. So even if I demanded or requested, I suspect there would not have been a return ticket.

  What was wrong with me? Did I like this?

  I sighed, quietly.

  I did. I liked that he didn’t leave me drowning in my anxiety, he told me what to do, simply and directly. It made him one of the easiest people I’ve ever been around.

  The thought was so ridiculous that my breath chuffed out of me, not quite a laugh, but almost. The dreaded dragon was one of the easiest people I’ve ever been around.

  Avery had returned to his own desk. “Find something good?” he asked, perhaps in response to the sound I made.

  I looked at my laptop screen.

  Every since I was a littler girl, I was intriged by one particular house on my block, the house with the red door, and I fantasized that the whole inside was red, red like the blood that flowed out of my girl-gina every month, declaring my body to be that of a woman’s body, prepared to bear fruit and plums to the man of my dreams. It’s hard to decribe what it feels like to menstrate, the feeling of blood dropping from between my legs, proclaiming me a fertile woman. I felt sexy and powerful, powerful enough to bring even the Christ child into the world.

  Ugh. What was this, a memoir? Some kind of church erotica?

  “Nope,” I said, switching to my email. ‘Dear author, while your imagery is quite effective, it might be helpful for you to use a spell-check program, proof-read a bit more carefully, and learn how to avoid run-on sentences. I’m sorry to say we cannot accept your manuscript at this time, but good luck to you in all your endeavors.’ ~Phoenix & Phoenix Literary Agency.

  “I thought perhaps you were laughing.”

  I just shook my head. I wasn’t going to tell him they called him the dragon.

  Working at the library had been pretty easy. If I was overwhelmed, I’d just take a cart of books and go shelve them. Fiction was divided by genre, for the most part. Mysteries, Westerns, Romance, with a large section for General. Alphabetical by author. Non-fiction was even better, all books shelved by a series of numbers, decimal points, and letters.

  On the rare occasion someone called out sick and I was forced to work the counter, that was straight-forward, too. ‘Do you have this book? Where can I find it?’ The answers were at my fingertips, simple and clear. No or yes, alphabetical by author, or in numerical order.

  I was devastated when the city cut the hours of library operation, therefore cutting my hours to less than part time. I didn’t make enough money to feed myself, and could barely afford my small, rented room. The research librarian saw the job of Submissions Reader posted on-line somewhere, and pushed me to apply. “You get paid by how much you read and how many letters you send out. A bonus if you find something the agency wants to shop around.”

  I’d contracted to read at least one hundred submissions per month, but read closer to two hundred, as I got faster at identifying writing that wasn’t publication ready.

  The person I initially reported to, Susan, was impressed with my ability to find reasonable submissions, and to write quick, friendly rejection letters. After just one month, she cut me free of close supervision. She told me in a later email that the first hundred submissions she gave me to read contained thirty published novels, and I had identified every one of them as worthy of publication. I have an eye for good story-telling, I guess. It makes perfect sense, because for most of my life I’d read books to entertain myself. Falling into someone else’s lif
e was one of my favorite things to do.

  I was awkward and fearful and uncomfortable around people. I’d put off growing up for as long as I possibly could, and even in on-line forums, observed more than participated. And yet… it occurred to me, sitting in this office with Avery, that I was lonely.

  I worked hard to ignore the lonely. I filled my time examining the lives of fictional others, which is why I loved this job so much. It was easy for me, and sometimes delightful.

  I caught my left hand straining toward my mouth, fighting the restraint, as I continued reading unsolicited manuscripts. Avery Phoenix was brilliant.

  His voice came like a bullet. “Now what are you doing?”

  “Um.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. I wasn’t doing anything.

  Well. I might have been using my teeth to tear tiny strips from the inside of my lip.

  “That was a question, Jules.”

  “N-n-nothing. Reading. Writing l-letters.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He was standing next to my desk, and he took my head in his hands and turned it toward him. He studied my face, and, keeping the fingers of both hands beneath my jaw, he used his thumbs to roll my lower lip inside out.

  Tears came to my eyes.

  “I can’t help it,” I tried to say, but he was still holding my lip, and it came out muffled.

  “You little vampire. It’s bleeding.”

  I tried to pull my head away, mortified, but his fingers held me harder.

  “Julian. Jules. What am I going to do with you? You’ve got to stop eating yourself.”

  I was helpless, utterly humiliated, and more so when the tears slid from my eyes. I could feel them sliding down my cheeks. They were going to get his hands wet. I wished he would stop staring at me, shaking his head in disapproval. If he were anyone else, I would be terrified, wondering what they were thinking, but him, I could see what he was thinking. He was thinking I was some kind of pathetic child who couldn’t follow directions. A pathetic child who had to be tied down to keep from chewing his nails.

  I’d been through this with my mother and step-father. From the bad-tasting oil they spread on my fingers to standing in the corner for hours with my hands in my back pockets. Even mittens they made me wear for over two years. Mittens they made me wear to school. But Avery’s expression was more thoughtful than disappointed.

  He untied the knots at my wrists, leaving the ties attached to my desk.

  “Get up, it’s time to go.”

  He was giving up on me? Already?

  “I’ll do better, I swear. I promise.”

  I could hear the desperate plea in my voice, and I wasn’t even sure what I was pleading for. Surely it would be better if he sent me home and forgot all about me.

  “Of course you will. I’m not firing you or sending you away, little idiot. I’m releasing you for lunch.”

  Oh. It was lunchtime.

  I saved my place in the current manuscript.

  “Go. Explore a little and eat something. Be back in half an hour.”

  The afternoon was a lot like the morning. I did my work, Avery did his, and every once in a while he asked me what I was doing, or what I was reading. I was surprised when he told me it was time to pack up for the day

  “So. I go back to the hotel, and come back in the morning?” I asked. “Every day?”

  “For now, yes. I suppose I’ll have to find you other accommodations if we decide you’re staying indefinitely.”

  I nodded. I imagined the hotel was very expensive.

  “I’ll walk you out and get you a cab.”

  He was carrying the manila envelope. The one with my blood on it. I’d been surreptitiously watching for him to open it, cringing at what he would read when he did, worried about what that particular manuscript said about me.

  At the curb, he handed me three twenty dollar bills. “For the cab. And eat some food, for God’s sake. If there’s not enough cash, order room service and charge it to the room.”

  I felt guilty all evening about the cost of the cab, because Avery’s office was well within walking distance from my hotel. I found a hot dog cart before going up to my room, and wolfed the hot dog down in three bites. It was much better than the pre-packaged sandwich I’d had for lunch.

  I picked a up my work where I left off at the office, and had to sit with my hands tucked under my thighs to remind myself not to bite my nails or fingers. Later, I tried to find something to watch on television.

  By nine o’clock I could feel myself falling asleep, so I crawled under the covers, shivering a little. I liked to think it was because the air conditioner was too cold, but even if it was nerves, who could blame me? It had been a weird day. And the weirdness would be repeated tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that.

  I woke up once before the wake-up call, my dick hard because I was dreaming something like the story Avery had probably read by now. I spent a moment feeling embarrassed, then fell asleep again.

  chapter three

  hold it… 1…2…3…4

  The ties remained attached to my desk all week. As I got my laptop out of its bag, and then the power cord, and my headphones, my eyes strayed to the ties, over and over. I looked at my hands, my pathetic fingernails. I knew this arrangement was bizarre. I shouldn’t let him tie me up. And the fact that he left the ties here meant he intended to keep doing it. Which meant I had to decide if I was going to keep letting him do it. It wasn’t much of a self-argument. Obeying Avery was easy. He didn’t ask permission, didn’t make me have to think about it, or talk about it, or decide. He just… took charge.

  “Let me see the inside of your lip.”

  He was standing right next to me again. How did he do that?

  I pushed my lip out, an exaggerated pout.

  He took my head in his hands, the exact same way he had before, and used his thumbs to expose the inside of my bottom lip. For some reason I can’t even explain, I curled each of my hands around each of his forearms, like we were holding onto each other.

  “If I catch you making yourself bleed, even one time, I’m taking away your coffee. And if I catch you doing it after that, I’ll think of something worse.”

  “I should have better clothes,” I blurted, which made no sense to the current conversation. “I m-mean, you’re so well-dressed, and I’m, well, me. What will people think?”

  He was wearing a beautiful suit, as usual. This one light gray with a dark gray shirt. His tie was black, with tiny delicate pink swirls. Elegant. I was in baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt. I probably should have got a haircut before coming to New York, but I always put haircuts off for way too long.

  “I don’t give a fuck what people think. You look fine. You look like you. I assume what you’re wearing is comfortable?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you prefer to wear suits?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I’d never had occasion to wear a suit. It didn’t look comfortable, but it looked good.

  “How about from now on, you let me do all the worrying. Just give up that chore. If I think you should wear a suit for some reason, I’ll put you in a suit. For now, you look perfect. Comfortable. I’m catching on to you, you know.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. You worry yourself to death over everything, and there’s no reason for it.”

  He was still holding my face, although he’d let go of my lip.

  “I’ve always been this way.”

  It was true, and sometimes I hated being myself, being the way I am. It was exhausting and unsettling, and, honestly, I felt like too many new experiences all at once might kill me. My quiet little life in Minnesota was okay, except for being lonely. I had a good routine, so good that I rarely had panic attacks. I felt calm most of the time. A little bored once in a while, but I had no idea how else to live without flying apart.

  I looked into Avery’s blue eyes. They had so much depth. His lashes were almost feminine, a dark fringe t
hat made his eyes look deeper. Bluer. Not light blue, not the intimidating color of chipped ice, but more like the rolling deep blue of the ocean. Or at least a picture of the ocean I’d seen once, where the water looked placid, but you could tell there was a whole lot going on under the surface that you couldn’t see.

  This intense eye-contact was unsettling, uncomfortable, but I realized I wasn’t at all nervous in this moment. And I’d only stuttered on one word so far, when I’d ignored his threat of punishment in favor of risking the question about my clothes.

  I licked my lips, fighting the urge to ease my discomfort by creating that little tearing pain on the inside of my lower lip. He’d take away my coffee, and then something even worse.

  “If you keep doing that, your lips will get chapped.”

  “I have balm in my computer bag.”

  “May God help you if you get your lips all slick and shiny, Jules,” he said, and something about his voice was breathless.

  Like maybe he was going to kiss me.

  But he didn’t.

  He looked at me for a long moment, then tied my hands and told me to get to work.

  He went back to his own desk, and barked into his phone for coffee to be delivered. I felt a little sorry for Stephanie, but when she walked in without knocking, her body language and facial expression screaming her defiance, I figured she deserved what she was going to get.

  She set two paper cups on Avery’s desk and flashed me a look that clearly said, come get it yourself.

  “The one with sugar is for Jules. Bring it over to him,” Avery said, without looking up from his computer screen. And even though her back was to me, I could feel her glare.

  She didn’t move. “I’m not Julian’s assistant. He can get his own coffee. In fact, I’ll gladly show him where the coffee maker is and he can be the coffee boy.”

  Avery hadn’t asked Stephanie to bring the coffee since that first morning. In fact, now that I thought about it, she hadn’t come in at all since bringing the extra tie.

  Avery turned his head toward her, and when he spoke, he emphasized the word ‘you’, but otherwise his tone was flat. “Did you discover ‘This Terrible Juncture’? Did you send a dozen emails begging Submissions to ignore the adverbs and concentrate on the story? Did you recently net this agency tens of thousands of dollars?” Emphasis on that last part.