Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

  “I need to be deep in you,” he said. “And I want to see you.” He pulled the mask from her face.

  She had not been this close to his face since he returned from the war. When he came to her bed at night, he was always careful to keep himself behind her. She had longed to make love to him face to face, and at last it was happening. He covered her lips with his as he thrust his cock inside her. He moaned into her mouth as he took her slow and deep, and she moaned right back. This was better than she had ever imagined, the heavy weight of his body on hers, the way he filled every inch of her. With every hard thrust, he seemed to touch something more inside her. Another part of her heart.

  His pace quickened and she recognized from his irregular breathing that he was close to his pleasure now.

  “Charles, my love,” she whispered against his cheek.

  “Yes. Yes.” His hips were slamming against hers and she felt her own pleasure peaking again. “I love you, Erica. More than …” His words were interrupted by a shout as he unleashed his orgasm into her, but she didn’t need the words. The kisses he showered on her face and neck as his body shuddered and shook against her were enough.

  When his breathing returned to normal, he pulled out of her and untied her wrists. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. He allowed it for a minute, then unwound her arms and rolled her over onto his lap.

  “I don’t believe we’re finished yet,” he said. He ran his palm over her ass. “Don’t you dare come this time. This is punishment, not pleasure.” His voice was low and stern, but she could hear amusement in it as well.

  “I’m not given to obedience, my lord.” She moaned as his hand slapped her bottom sharply.

  “Unfortunately, neither am I, sweetheart. Neither am I.”

  55

  Alaric

  “Take whatever you want,” Kristin says as she unlocks the storage unit. “You’re more sentimental than I am.”

  It’s hard to be sentimental about anything when you’re standing in a small metal locker in a bleak industrial park in the middle of nowhere. But at least my sister had the forethought to spirit things away from our father’s house—our mother’s jewelry, photographs, family heirlooms she had inherited—that he would surely have thrown away at some point in a fit of pique. Or that one of his mistresses would have appropriated for herself.

  “Here’s the key.” Kristin hands over a small key ring. “Just lock up when you leave.”

  I look over the stacks of boxes, their contents all neatly labeled in black marker and organized by type. I head straight for the stack labeled “jewelry.”

  It’s true—I am more sentimental than my twin sister. More sentimental than most people, surprisingly. I portray myself as a heartless bastard most of the time but it’s a front, and I know it. After my mother died, being a heartless bastard was the only thing that got me through the long months of grief.

  No heart, no heartache.

  But in truth I miss my mother every single damn day. She had deserved better in life than my father. I wish she’d had had the courage to leave him and go after that better life. But she hadn’t.

  She also wouldn’t have wanted her son and daughter to repeat her mistakes, or the bad behavior of their father. She would have been appalled by the way I’ve been living, hiring women to perform sex acts in front of me so I can watch and write about them. She would have been appalled by the way Kristin does nothing but work twenty-four-seven, all in the service of selling chocolate.

  I can’t control what my sister does, but I can control the direction my own life takes. And my life is about to make an abrupt U-turn.

  My mother would have liked Caterine. Her education, her independence, her ability to think for herself. Her willingness to take risks. I know I’m a bad risk—on paper a very bad risk. But I hope I can get Caterine to take one more on my behalf.

  I won’t let her down.

  It takes me the better part of two hours to find the two things I’m looking for. Then I lock up the storage unit and get back in my car. I find a small roadside diner and order lunch. I pull from a shopping bag the packet of expensive writing paper I purchased in Virginia. I have one very important piece of writing to complete.

  I haven’t responded to Caterine’s email with the last scene. The book is finished. She had done it, completed it, written the final scene. I could write the spanking scene but I think it would be overkill. Readers can use their imaginations. I’m content to let Caterine have the last word on Erica and Charles. She deserves it, really.

  Of course, that has left me wondering what to do next. Where does that leave me? Us? Is there even an “us” that exists beyond my hopeful imagination? I want there to be, want a Caterine and Alaric that live beyond the confines of the book, beyond a nice neat “The End.”

  But can Caterine find it in herself to let me start afresh, to give me a blank sheet of paper to write a new story on—a story for the two of us?

  I don’t know. But I have to try.

  56

  Caterine

  I stand at the kitchen sink, washing up dinner dishes, and ruminating. Or pondering. Or maybe just despairing

  It’s been a week and still I haven’t heard back from Alaric. Usually he at least acknowledges receipt of my emails. Maybe the new scene has gotten stuck in his spam filter? Though that has never happened before.

  I contemplate contacting him. That would be the simplest thing. But then he might say the book is done, and that we are done. The scene did have a certain finality to it. It had closure for Erica and Charles. Maybe he’s pissed about that. Likely he wanted to write the last scene himself. Maybe my scene isn’t the way he wanted the book to end.

  The questions are endless. But they all lead to the most important one, one I didn’t want to even entertain just a few weeks ago.

  Are we finished, too?

  I hear the scratch and turn of Zoe’s key in the apartment door, then a rush of chilly evening air as the door opens and closes. The snow from the blizzard is gone, but spring still hasn’t quite arrived. The coat closet opens and closes before Zoe appears in the kitchen, looking beat. She collapses into a chair at their small dining table.

  “Did you eat after your shift?” I ask, feeling bad for the pity party I’d been throwing myself just a minute earlier. “I can fix you something.”

  “I’m good.” Zoe rubs her eyes, smearing black mascara on her cheeks.

  I pour a glass of water for her anyway and set it on the table.

  “Thanks. Say, Sim wants to come down this weekend to visit. Is that okay?”

  I’m surprised by this news—and not sure whether to be glad or not for Zoe. Sim isn’t a relationship kind of guy. But Zoe is a big girl.

  “That’s fine. I’m thinking of driving up to Pennsylvania on Saturday anyway, just for the day. I want to visit the cemetery.”

  “Are you okay going by yourself?” Zoe sits up, more alert now. “I can ask Sim to come another weekend if you need company.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. I just want to put some flowers on it, that’s all. I haven’t been up there recently.”

  “Well okay, but if you change your mind … I won’t be with Sim all weekend. He’s coming down mostly to check on Alaric.”

  “Oh? Isn’t he in Maine too?” I had assumed Alaric was at home. According to his web site, he doesn’t have any upcoming book signings.

  “No. He’s been at his mother’s old house in Middleburg. Renovating it, I believe. You haven’t heard from him?”

  “No, I think the book is finished.”

  “Well then, we should celebrate. The four of us could go out this weekend.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to celebrate that way. Maybe I should just send him a bottle of champagne or something. Can you ask Sim for the Middleburg address?”

  Well, that answers every one of my questions. He’s in Middleburg—a mere half an hour away from my apartment—and I haven’t he
ard from him. The book is definitely done.

  We are definitely done.

  It’s no surprise, really. He’d been entirely upfront about my scope of employment from the very beginning. I had wanted it to be more. Just because it felt at times like it had been more, didn’t mean it really was.

  I rinse my dinner plate and turn off the water. I’m going to miss Charles and Erica.

  Saturday dawns sunny and clear, the warmest day of the year so far. I crank up the music on the hour and twenty minute drive to Pennsylvania, determined to put thoughts of Alaric White completely out of my mind. I deposited all of his checks into my bank account yesterday after work. I had earned the money. He was right about that.

  When I stopped by the upscale florist in the shopping center that morning, I splurged on a large bouquet of bird of paradise. My mother’s favorite flower.

  The cemetery is busier than I expected. Apparently I’m not the only person who wants to take advantage of a warm spring day to bring flowers, do a little post-winter cleanup, meditate on a loved one.

  I park my car in the small lot and walk up the hill to where my mother is buried. Fifty feet away, an older gentleman kneels before a marble headstone, his head bowed, his fist stuffed in his mouth as if to hold in the grief.

  I gaze down at my mother’s stone. Deborah Schwartz had never found a man to love her, not for very long anyway, and there would be none coming here to mourn her life.

  Only me.

  I lay the flowers on top of the wide flat gravestone. As I do, I spot a small box nestled against the back of the stone. I walk around and pick it up. Someone must have lost it or left it at the wrong site. It’s an expensive looking box, a dark wood with a lid that’s inlaid with an intricate design of some lighter wood that I can’t identify.

  The lid is unlocked and the tiny gold latch falls open as I stand. I peek inside. Perhaps there is some identification that would help the cemetery office return it to its proper owner. The box contains just a sheet of heavy writing paper, folded in quarters. Curiosity gets the better of me and I pull it out. I unfold it halfway, scanning the handwriting for a name.

  My breath catches.

  I recognize the handwriting. It’s Alaric’s. I know it from the checks he had written me, from the notes he’d made on his manuscript back in Maine. But that can’t be. Why would Alaric leave anything at my mother’s grave?

  I unfold the paper all the way. It’s heavy stationery, the kind you don’t see anymore, with a serious texture to it. It’s a letter.

  Dear Ms. Schwartz; We never met in life but I wish we had. I would have liked to have known the woman who raised such a remarkable woman as your daughter, Caterine. I love her. I want you to know that. I don’t know whether she loves me back but regardless I will look out for her for you. I lost my own mother when I was a few years younger than Caterine. I miss her every day, as I know Caterine must miss you.

  Weston White died recently, as well. Sadly, I am his son and I apologize for what he did to you. However, I like to think that I am more my mother’s son and, if Caterine will have me, I will spend the rest of my days atoning for his sins.

  Faithfully yours, Alaric White

  I run for my car.

  57

  Alaric

  I’m in an upstairs bedroom scraping another layer of paint off a window sill when I hear the sound of a car’s tires crunching down the gravel lane to the house.

  Shit. Sim is early. Way early. Granted, I tend to lose track of time when I’m working on the house—and I’m not at the moment exactly sure what time it is—but it’s definitely nowhere near seven in the evening. Which is when Sim and Zoe are supposed to arrive to go to dinner.

  With Caterine in tow. Maybe. If they end up successfully persuading her to come. Sim warned that she had said no, but he and Zoe promised to keep trying. I’m trying not to get my hopes up. In fact, that Sim is here early almost surely means that Caterine held firm in her refusal to see me again.

  I shouldn’t be surprised, really. How many times has she said no? No to all my messages and emails, no to quitting her job and moving back to Maine with me, no to the idea that I love her.

  No, you don’t. Her exact words.

  I turn my attention back to the stubborn paint. The windows in the house have been painted over and over without anyone properly stripping the wood in between. I could hire someone to do it but I need the work to occupy my hands. And my mind.

  There’s a certain peace in the tedium of it. Stripping paint. Peeling wallpaper. Hacking through thickets of overgrown weeds. At the end of each day, my body is sore and my spirit exhausted.

  I’m punishing myself. I’m self-aware enough to know that’s what I’m doing. But maybe, at the end of the punishment, I will be clean. I will have a new home in which to start fresh, begin a new life. A home in which I had spent many happy hours as a child.

  Was I ever really happy at the Maine estate? I thought I was but I’m not able to actually put my finger on any specific happy moments. Except the ones with Caterine.

  Love sneaks up on you.

  Love finds you when you least expect it.

  You meet “the one” when you’re not looking for them.

  All those silly cliches I had shoehorned into my books, never believing for an instant that any of them were true.

  Outside a car door slams shut. I ignore it. Sim is my best friend but I’d rather not see him today. Sim is infatuated with Caterine’s friend, Zoe, and honestly I don’t have the stomach for it. I’m happy for him—in the abstract—but all Sim’s happy talk does is draw into sharper contrast my own misery.

  I hear a sharp rapping on the front door. It makes the ancient glass in the door’s window pane rattle.

  “Just come on in!” I shout. Since when has Sim ever knocked on a door? Mi casa es su casa. My house is your house. That had ever been the case between Sim and me. Maybe I’ll just gift the Maine house to Sim.

  I bend my head closer to the window sill and scrape harder at the paint. There are footsteps on the stairs.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I snap when the footsteps stop outside the bedroom door.

  There’s a long silence while I wait for Sim to snap back. Then a sniffle and a hiccup, and I look just in time to see a figure far too small to be Sim Toro turning away from the doorjamb.

  Shit.

  I drop the paint scraper onto the floor and run down the steps.

  “Caterine!”

  The ancient glass panes in the front door rattle again as the door closes behind her.

  “Stop!”

  I hit the bottom tread of the stairs and throw open the door. The ancient glass panes shatter. I ignore it.

  “I thought you were Sim!” I call out to her.

  But she is in her car already, behind the wheel, staring at me through the windshield, pain and hurt written all over her face. I tear at my hair, trying to cause myself pain, trying to call back her pain, trying to cancel it out … fuck, she’s leaving.

  58

  Caterine

  I’m back in the car. It was so stupid of me to come here. All because of a letter he left at my mother’s grave. It occurs to me now—too late—that the letter was probably just connected to his father’s will. Another stipulation to be fulfilled to protect his family’s fortune.

  I lean my head against the steering wheel. I’m too tired to drive anymore. I just drove like a bat out of hell from Pennsylvania, not stopping even once. I’m lucky I didn’t get pulled over for speeding.

  Suddenly the car door opens and he is there.

  “Caterine, please. I’m sorry. I thought it was Sim. I didn’t mean to say that to you.” His words dissolve into sobs. “Please. Give me another chance.”

  His hand touches my hair lightly, tentatively, and I look up at him. The dust on his face is streaked with tears. I’ve never witnessed a man cry before, but his tears seem genuine.

  “I found the letter,” I say. “The one you wrote my mom.�
��

  “You did?”

  “You love me?”

  He is on his knees in the gravel now. He cups my face gently in his dusty palms. “I told you before that I love you.” He drops his hands to my arms and tugs me from the car. He wipes his face on his shirt sleeve. “If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned up.”

  It touches me—the idea that he would have cleaned up for me, that he wanted to be presentable to me. But he has always been sexier to me when he’s a little rough around the edges, and he was looking very sexy right now.

  “I like dirty men,” I paraphrase Erica.

  A smile breaks through his tears. “You like a dirty man. Singular,” he paraphrases right back.

  “Actually, I love a dirty man. This dirty man.”

  I wrap my arms around him and pull his head down to meet mine. The kiss starts out slow, just my lips exploring his, tasting the salt of his tears and the sweetness of his love. But when he opens his mouth to me, I let my tongue promise all the wicked, extremely dirty things I want to do to him. The hardness pressing against my stomach says he wants me to do those things, too.

  “God, Caterine. Those scenes you sent me.” He groans against my lips. “And not having you around … I have carpal tunnel now, I’ll have you know.”

  My laughter breaks our kiss. “Poor baby. So sue me.”

  His hands slide around to my ass. “I was thinking of another word that starts with ‘s.’”

  He hikes my legs up around his waist and carries me to the house. Broken glass crunches beneath his boots but he hurries past and carries me to a tiny room at the back of the house. There is nothing but a twin bed and a small table with a laptop on it. He lowers me onto the bed, then covers my body with his.

  “So you’re going to spank me?” I grin wickedly at him.

  “Later.” He grins back. “If you want me to.” Then his expression grows serious again. “Caterine, I want a second chance with you. A chance to do things the way I should have done them in the first place.”