by Olga Menson
"You shouldn't eat while you're angry," Isa said, sipping some of her own.
"Then I'd starve. Because I'm always finding new reasons to be angry. New provocations from my own family."
Isa sighed. I had expected a fight, but she looked too tired for one. I didn't care.
"Reuben, please understand..."
"Understand what? That you and Sarah have been filming me without my permission?"
"Yes."
"I can't understand it. Because Sarah wouldn't explain it to me."
"She's bad at lying but good at keeping secrets. She hated deceiving you, but she won't betray me. That's why she wouldn't tell you what the cameras were for."
Isa stopped talking and ate a small bite of fruit. Others might have thought that she was the same cold and controlled woman that they were used to, but not me. I saw the slight twitch of the eye and the tremor in her hand. She was worried. Afraid even.
"What are they for, Isa? It's not like you to be this...this underhanded. Or coy when you're caught."
"Things didn't go so well when you were gone, Reuben."
"And?"
"And... I'm not...I can't..."
Isa stopped and stared at her plate. For the first time since discovering the cameras, I wasn't full of self-righteous anger.
"You can't what?"
"I can't be with men. Not like I want to be. So...sometimes...I film Sarah with men, and watch her. Then...I can be with them, by proxy."
"So you share Sarah with any man who drops by, is that it? So you can get off?"
"No! I love her!"
"Is this why you pushed her on me? So I could be your entertainment? So I could get you off like the old days but without any of that oh-so-inconvenient emotion and affection?"
Isa was crying now. I heard the door close behind us. Sarah walked by me without looking and then knelt next to Isa. I wondered how long she had been standing in the doorway. She whispered something, and Isa nodded. Then Sarah said something else, and Isa shook her head violently. Sarah sighed, rose, and sat at the table. I looked at both of them, confused.
"I expected a certain amount of intrusion into my privacy, Isa," I started, much calmer than I was before if not actually relaxed, "but this is too much. If I can't even have a room to myself...or a partner...I can't live here. You have to know that. I care about you. I care about Sarah, too. But I can't deal with this kind of betrayal anymore. Not from people who are close to me. I'm going to have to leave. You take whatever action that you feel is necessary."
Sarah looked at Isa, ignoring me. I waited. There was a tense feeling of expectation in the air. Something was on the cusp of happening.
"If you don't tell him," Sarah said, with more conviction than I had ever heard from her, "then I will. He's not just leaving you. He's going to leave us."
"Sarah," Isa said, suddenly quiet and vulnerable, "Don't. Please."
"Reuben," Sarah said softly, turning to face me, "Isa doesn't share me with just anyone. She's filming us because she wants to watch me...us having sex and being happy. Isa has to trust that whoever I sleep with will care for me and not do anything that I don't want. She trusts you, Reuben."
I blinked. I wasn't expecting that. All I had from Isa was coldness with moments of occasional warmth. There was no indication of the old flame that had been there, or the close affection or adoration.
Sarah reached out and took Isa's hand in hers. The two shared a small, sad smile, and looked at me.
"This is more complicated than it seems, Reuben," Sarah said, "and I can't just explain everything and make it all go away. Some of it isn't mine to tell. I don't really even know all of it, but I do know that Isa cares a great deal for you. I do as well. I want you to stay. I want...I want to be with you. I never lied about how I felt, or how good you made me feel, or anything else. Some of the things I did were for the camera, it was true, but I wanted to be there...and I do love you, Reuben. I won't deceive you again."
"I'm sorry," Isa said, finally, "I'm sorry that I'm like this. I just... I'll take the cameras down. No more monitoring. Just please don't leave again."
I looked at them, my face stony, but my heartbreaking. Sarah was telling the truth. I knew that. Isa was holding something back from me, but she wasn't lying about the essential facts. She still loved me, even if she didn't want to be with me like we were when we were young. Part of me wanted to revive our old forbidden romance, it was true. Even if that could never happen, it felt good to know that my sister still cared for me. I worried about her, too. I didn't hate either of them. I couldn't.
"I'll think about it," I said, standing and leaving the room. For the first day, since I'd been back, I canceled my meetings and simply spent the day in thought, wandering the grounds, reading in the library, calming my mind. How was I supposed to feel about all of this? How was I supposed to react?
I suppose that I do have at least two voices within me. One is reasonable and measured, maybe even cold, although caring. That one comes from my mother. The voice that comes from my father, on the other hand, told me to hurt Isa through Sarah. It told me to make the lesson slow and painful and memorable. I decided not to listen to it this time.
There wasn't exactly a self-help book on how to figure out why your sister secretly films you having sex with her lover. If there was, I would definitely have read it.
* *
I stayed, of course, in the end. Part of me worried that this was some kind of manipulation, but that part was just my natural paranoia. I sent a rather formal email to Sarah and Isa, informing them of my intent to stay and "work through our disagreements." I sent a private note to the former that stated that for the time being I only wanted our meetings to be about business. I didn't trust myself with confronting them directly. I feared losing my temper and demanding the entire truth from Isa. I'd seen her vulnerable before, maybe more than any other person ever had. Certainly more than any other man had. But for the first time, I realized that she was genuinely fragile. Broken, even.
If she had asked to film me having sex with Sarah, for her own use, I would probably have agreed. It would have made the experience more arousing. I would have tried to seduce Isa through it. As perverted as it made me sound, I would have relished the opportunity. It was the deception that I despised. It was very similar to the way Father would keep us in the dark, and never entirely lie but withhold enough of the truth to make real understanding of a situation impossible. Knowledge was power, and he never wanted anyone to have more power than he did.
I decided that at some point soon, I would need to have a longer conversation with Isa. I believed that she was sorry, and I wanted to forgive her. I couldn't do it yet, though, not without a better understanding of what my sister was truly going through and what she was keeping from me.
That being said, more pressing matters soon took up most of our attention, and I set this drama aside. All of it would come to a head soon enough.
* * *
The Brigantine, Revisited
* * *
"You want me to go back? Have you lost your mind?"
Isa laughed at me.
"Aren't you being a bit dramatic?" She asked. She was leaning on the side of her desk while I looked out the window. It was already dark. I turned to look at her.
"Maybe. But I told you I didn't like what I had to do last time."
"Not even with Tonya?" The way my sister pronounced her name was odd, as if she was rolling a particularly tasty morsel around her mouth.
"It was the conflict in advance of Tonya that I have issues with. I have no complaints about the time I spent with her. I even felt...something like a connection. Not that it matters, I suppose."
"Well," Isa said, in a voice I could almost swear was teasing, "that's interesting. But yes. I need you to make another appearance. And maybe one more after that. You need to be seen, but this time you don't have to interact with others."
"So, I'm just going straight upstairs, spending time with Tonya, an
d leaving?"
"Exactly," Isa said.
I sighed. I knew that her logic was sound. It always was.
"Fine. I'll be ready. Tonight?"
"No. I have you booked for tomorrow night. Is that all right?"
"That would be fine."
It seemed so business-like and straightforward. I liked Tonya from the brief time we had spent together, and Isa seemed to approve of her too. It was a lot like sharing Sarah, except more straightforward and open. But things were about to get a great deal more complicated.
* *
This time things started more smoothly. I got ready faster, Isa was waiting at the door with a new mask for me, this time something leonine in brass. Rachel held the SUV door open for me, passenger side front this time. It was black and looked vaguely sinister in the evening light.
"No limo tonight?" I asked as Rachel got in.
"Not unless you really want it. We can be a little more subtle tonight than last time. No need to be ostentatious."
This is fine by me. We could take something even simpler if you wanted."
Rachel shook her head.
"It might be unlikely, but this beast is actually safer than the limo. She's armored up. Bullets up to fifty cal would have trouble getting through her. A grenade would cause some concern. An RPG would be bad, but still probably survivable."
I chuckled.
"We're going to the Brigantine, not Syria."
She smiled back at me.
"You pay me to be prepared, Reuben."
* *
This trip passed much more amicably. We'd chatted quite a bit before, even flirted a little, like the old days. Still, for the first time, I felt like I was seeing the real her again, the woman who used to open up to me after an afternoon quickie in her rooms.
"I'm not going to lie," she said at one point, offhandedly, "I wasn't unhappy when your father died."
I wasn't sure how to take that.
"He must have been difficult to work for," I noted diplomatically. He was a beast to me, but I was never entirely sure how he treated others. I was reasonably confident that he'd bedded Rachel, and that wasn't something that I was eager to bring up.
Rachel laughed bitterly.
"That's one way to put it. He got worse after you left. Not right away, but the last year or so, he wasn't the same. He treated me...well, everyone really, like his property. Something to be used and disposed of."
"Isa has been dancing around the subject for some time, but I never want to press her for details. Or you, for that matter."
"It was probably worse for her than for me, but I won't put words in her mouth. I'll just say that he got more demanding. More graphic. More...ugh. You don't have to hear this if you don't want to."
"I don't want to hear it, but I want to listen to you. You were important to me. You still are. Leaving you with him is one of my few regrets."
Rachel turned slightly towards me and raised an eyebrow.
"I wouldn't have left. You know that. I was so fucking loyal and stupid to him. I thought that he saved me. You, Isa, and your mother did more than he ever did just by caring. I mean, you've all done more than that, but you get the idea."
"I do. I don't mean to pry, but a few times I've gotten the idea that there's something you've wanted to tell me. You know that I'm not going to think less of you for anything you need to say."
Rachel smiled, but her eyes were sad. The mask of the capable professional had slipped. Without thinking, I reached out and tucked some of her shortish auburn hair back behind her ear. I felt like I had crossed a boundary, but she just leaned into my hand briefly, then kissed it. I felt a flutter in my chest. It was such a small gesture on both of our parts, but I had to believe that she felt the same charge.
"I wish I could believe that. I do have things I want to tell you. I'm ashamed, Reuben, of what I was and what I became while you were away. To tell you the truth, I think I only really started to recover in the last few months of your mother's life. I hate to put it like that, but I was numb for a...a long time. Isa and I spent time together, and that helped."
"Have you become friends?"
"Something like that. We talk now, usually about once a week. It doesn't get too deep, and we don't talk about a lot of the bad stuff, but we both understand each other. We connect now, more than we did before. Even before you returned, I realized that Isa deserved my loyalty far more than your father ever did. When she started speaking about you returning I...I..."
Rachel's voice hitched unexpectedly. I looked over and saw tears rolling down her cheek. She wasn't afraid to show her emotions under the right circumstances, but she never did so while she was working, even if she was with someone that she could be informal around. She wiped the tears away offhandedly and continued.
"I felt something open up in me. Something raw."
"I...I'm sorry," I said, not really sure what else I could say. She shook her head.
"Don't be. It was that connection that we have. That we've always had. I tried to deny it, to justify it as you having some puppy love and me having a little illicit fun with the boss's son."
"I was very much in love with you," I said, quietly hurt at her probably accurate description of my maturity level.
"I know. And I would have done a lot for you. More than you know. Now, though, you're back. It's wonderful, but it's also kind of frightening. That's why I haven't been very forward with you. I've been hot and cold. I'm sorry for it. I shouldn't flirt with you and then pretend like it's nothing."
"It's been an odd homecoming for me, too."
Rachel laughed.
"Well, lord knows you've got enough on your hands with Sarah. And then there's this Tonya."
It was my turn to laugh.
"Does everyone know about her? I've only seen her once and..."
"Apparently, you each made quite an impression on each other. Isa talks about her pretty often. I think whoever she is, this Tonya is going to want to meet with you soon, outside of here. What do you think of that?"
She wasn't teasing but merely asking. What did I think of that?
"I think I'd do that. There's something about her. I don't know. It's deeper than just sex, but I can't place it. I feel the same for you, though. How would you feel about seeing me outside of being my bodyguard?"
Rachel didn't show surprise at my turnaround, but I could feel it from her. I knew that my words weren't unwelcome. Her jaw clenched slightly, and she gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
"I...fuck, that's not fair, you know? Ambushing me like this."
"You're right. You can tell me to fuck off. You have before."
"I don't want to. I want to say that yes, I'm very interested, but no, I don't know if I'm ready. I don't know if I ever will be. The truth is, I don't deserve you."
"What the hell does that mean? I'm not an innocent boy anymore. I'm flawed."
"Maybe, but not like me."
She said it with such finality, it stunned me for a moment. I didn't even notice that she'd turned onto the drive of the Brigantine. Soon she'd pulled into a spot and parked. Now wasn't the time, and I wouldn't push, but I made a promise to myself to be ready to listen to Rachel when and if she was prepared to tell me what was hurting her so much. I decided to listen and be forgiving, no matter what she said. She was, in essence, family. Even if nothing romantic ever rekindled between us, I wanted her in my life, and I wanted her to be happy. I wondered if that alone made me a better man than my father.
Rachel was quiet, and I didn't want to disturb her. I followed the procedure, got out a gun and a watch, checked both, and put them on. With a slight nod to her, I got out and approached the Brigantine.
I had no idea what I was in for.
* *
I was aware of the milling crowd in the casino area, and the impromptu orgy that was happening in one of the rooms right off of the main hall, but my mind was on one person: Tonya.
I didn't understand ho
w she could have such power over me after a single straightforward encounter. I didn't even know what her face looked like, or her voice sounded like. In my mind, I had built up an identity for her, where she was intelligent, funny, and creative. Maybe she'd grown up in a quiet suburb somewhere and needed an escape from a life too plain. I wanted to find out. I realized the dangers of such things, but something in me reacted instinctually to her, and I had learned that such attractions often overrode my common sense.
I took the stairs two at a time, as eager as a teenaged boy who thought he was going to feel a girl's body for the first time. I couldn't explain it, but there was a certain elation associated with it, so I just rode the wave.
The girl at the top of the stairs was silver today and had I not had an appointment, I would most certainly have been interested in getting to know her. She led me again to a room in the back, a different one this time. The layout of these rooms was probably intentionally strange, to ensure that most people would be confused if they tried to wander where they shouldn't. Wealthy people could feel that they were entitled to access that they didn't deserve.
There was another note on the door this time. It read:
Please.
Tonya
She fit a lot of intent in that one word. I understood exactly what she needed at that moment, just as I had before. I didn't question it. I just opened the door and stepped inside. The plush red carpet and rich, inlaid wood walls were familiar and expected now. The first thing that was different was the light.
On my last visit, it had been dim, that was true, but this time there was no electric light of any kind. Two candelabras, one on each of the small end tables on either side of the bed, provided the only light. What they revealed made me sigh.
Tonya was almost totally nude this time, her skin appearing honeyed in the flickering firelight. She lay supine, every curve was exposed to me, and all of it was enchanting. I loved the way her legs moved, and her thighs squeezed together when she saw me. Her breasts, heavy and natural, spread out on her chest, her nipples hard as pebbles. The only thing she wore was a porcelain demi-mask, painted like a doll. Her blonde hair cascaded across the pillow. Her lips were exposed, but I could tell that she had been heavily made up with dark lipstick and shadow around her eyes.
