I stared at the menu, even though I already knew what I wanted. Nell would arrive for work any minute now. I was sitting in her section, and I'd purposely come at a slow time. Of course, she'd be far from overjoyed to find me here. Oh well. I'd deal with her displeasure when it came.
I picked at the sugar packets on the table and rearranged the salt and pepper shakers. Guillermo brought me a drink and thanked me for the fiftieth time for my patronage. I asked if he wouldn't mind sending Nell my way when she arrived.
“Oh yes,” he answered with a wink. “I will happily do this for you.”
Well, at least someone would be happy about it. I felt sorry for Nell, I really did, but she wasn't taking into consideration the positives of what I proposed. Hot sex. A great income for her. World travel, elegant dinners. The many trappings of fame and success. Who wouldn't be happy with that life? You aren't, came a voice in my head.
Okay, maybe I wasn't completely happy, but that's why I needed someone like Nell. Someone fresh and pretty. Someone to sit beside me while I flew around the world on interminable flights. A woman to talk intelligently with when I was in the mood to talk. A soft, available receptacle for my cock when I wasn't.
Ah, here was the receptacle now. She crossed behind the bar. I watched her put her apron over her sensible black work slacks, pulling the long strings around from the back to the front. I thought of corsets. I thought of cinching her wrists in those long apron strings.
She greeted Guillermo with a smile. The smile faded as he pointed over to me. They had a short exchange, Nell protesting, Guillermo urging her my way. I looked down. I knew Guillermo would take care of it. And sure enough, a moment later, there she was. She pursed her full pink lips as she flipped open her order pad. Lovely pique of temper. Well, she was a redhead after all.
“The usual?” she muttered to a spot over my shoulder. Her clear green eyes stared off into space. I'd never win her over if she wouldn't look at me.
“Nell.”
She didn't want to look, but she did. That told me something. It told me that she listened, however doubtful she was. It showed me that some part of her felt
compelled
to listen, even though her pretty face was screwed into a scowl.
“Why are you here?” Her peevish tone prodded me. I wanted to pull her over my lap.
Don't spank her. Talk to her.
“You know why I'm here, Nell. What you probably don't know is that I won't stop coming here until I get my way.”
“Well, I hope you like Italian food, then,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What do you want to eat, Mr. Gray? Because I'm not going to listen to anything you have to say. I'm just going to bring you your food.”
“Chicken parmigiana. Raspberry-walnut vinaigrette.”
She turned on her heel and retreated to the kitchen. A moment later she returned with my salad and placed it before me on the table with a bang. I figured she'd probably spit in it.
“Do you mind?” I asked, tapping my half-filled glass. She sucked her teeth and swiped my glass off the table. I watched her stalk to the bar to refill it. Guillermo looked over at her and threw an exaggerated wink my way.
“Nell!” Guillermo said in a jovial voice that carried across the room. “Why not go keep Mr. Gray company? The restaurant's empty.” Nell cringed and made a frantic hand gesture to quiet him, but Guillermo did not possess the ability to speak quietly. “Go, go! I'll call you when the order is up.” She shot a look at me and grimaced.
“Go on. He is a good customer. You make him feel at home for me. Look at him sitting there, so lonely—”
Again she tried to quiet him, leaning close to speak in his ear.
“So what? We are family here. And you know, I think he likes you,” Guillermo added in a deafening stage whisper. “Go!”
Nell dragged herself across the bistro to my table. I stood when she arrived. “Yes, make me feel at home, Nell.” I pulled out the other chair, gestured for her to sit. I didn't touch her, but she was so close for a moment, I could smell the fresh, flowery scent of her hair.
I returned to my chair, leaned back, and looked over at her.
“I sense that you have not yet calmed down from our conversation last night.”
“You sense that? How intuitive.”
“It's too bad. I really hoped we might talk reasonably. Well.” I sighed, stirring my salad. “Maybe later tonight.”
“I'm working tonight,” she said.
“Guillermo already told me when you get off.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted so darkly that I chuckled under my breath.
“This isn't funny,” she said. “What are you doing here? You enjoy this? Chasing me?”
“No, I don't enjoy the chase,” I said. “Not at all. That's why I need you to just say yes.” I tried to read her face. I needed to find a way to break down her walls, if I was going to get her. “Believe me, I wish you no ill will. I'm disappointed with myself for going about this the wrong way. But I can't go back now, Nell. I can only say what I feel.”
“Mr. Gray, I mean this in the most literal way.” She spoke slowly, enunciating every word. “I will never be willing to talk. I will never talk to you about this. That is all.”
Her eyes were hard; her mouth was set. If some small part of her was willing to consider my offer, that part was buried away.
“Okay,” I said.
She waited for me to say something else, but I knew anything I said to her would fall on deaf ears. A moment later, some other customers arrived, and she bolted with a sigh of relief. I ate slowly, watching her, looking for those subtle signals that would tell me how to proceed. To my frustration, I just didn't know her well enough. Not yet anyway.
But I had a plan B. It wasn't a nice plan, and it wasn't a fair plan, but it was my last chance to make her consider what I'd asked. After I left the bistro, I made some phone calls to my assistant, and later, to her landlord.
I thought maybe, just maybe, this next step was going a little far. I felt guilty, sure, and somewhat evil. But I'd always been a firm believer in the cult of “the end justifies the means.”
* * *
I was huddled beside my things on the stairs when he found me. He didn't say anything, and I didn't acknowledge him. He leaned down to pick up the eviction notice, holding it between his perfect fingers and scanning it with a frown.
“I'm sorry, Nell,” he said. “Just think of it as tough love.”
“You're a sociopath.”
He sat down beside me, taking off his sunglasses and holding them loosely in his hand. “I'm not a sociopath, just desperate. I'm supposed to leave in four days. And I really, really want you to come.”
I breathed deeply, considering my next step. Punch him? Call the police? Gouge out his eyeballs?
Listen to what he has to say…
“There are a million girls in LA,” I said, hugging my knees more tightly to my chest. “A million girls who would probably jump at this opportunity. So why me?”
“Because I want you,” he said. “There may be a million girls, but I want you. Kyle told me…” His voice trailed off as he thought better of it. “I heard that you were different. That you were smarter, deeper. That you were tough. That you were petite and beautiful. When I met you, I saw it was all true. I want you, not anyone else. If there's someone better out there, I don't know where she is and I don't care. My mind's made up.”
“I'm a person, Jeremy. I have a life. I have the right to self-determination.”
“I do too. If I want you, I can do whatever is in my power to attain you, within the law.”
“Within the law? You used slander and entrapment to get me fired from my job. Then you had me wrongfully evicted from my apartment! Now I'm homeless, and I can't even… I can't even…”
God, I needed my mom, but we hadn't spoken in years. I was estranged from my whole family. I could call my friends, but they wouldn't believe the story of what was going on with me, even if I could make it make sense in the retelling. And I'd signed his stupid confidentiality contract, on top of everything else. I hugged myself, feeling powerless and confused. Why was I even sitting with him? Why, even now, did some part of me want to insinuate myself into his arms?
“The thing is,” Jeremy said quietly, “I really just want to help you. I think you and I could have a lot of fun together. I think this could be mutually beneficial, this arrangement I'm proposing. The only reason you can't see that is because you're so angry and afraid of how I went about making it happen—”
“It's not happening! I hate you so much, I can't even explain how much I hate you right now—”
“It's okay to hate me, to be afraid of me, to despise me. I don't care. Just know that I won't do anything to hurt you, really hurt you, no matter what it seems like. Come with me, Nell, and belong to me for a while. Relax into it. Don't think about it so much.”
“You're a psycho,” I muttered, burying my head in my knees.
We sat there for a few moments, and then he reached over and put his hand on the back of my neck. He threaded his fingers into the wavy curls of my shoulder-length hair and started to rub my scalp and nape. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I couldn't. It felt so good, so comforting. My mother used to caress me that way to soothe me when I was tired or afraid.
“Listen, Nell, what do you want more than anything else in the world?” he asked quietly, when I was reduced to putty in his hands.
I didn't answer.
“Because you know what I want? I want you to come traveling with me these next four months. That's all I want. A partnership with you. Simple and erotic and enjoyable and exciting and fun. That's what I want most on earth. Now, what do you want more than anything else? Something I can do for you. Tell me.”
I shouldn't have answered, but I did.
“I want to go to college. I want to finish my degree.”
“Finish?” he asked in surprise. “What degree have you already started? Medical school? Law school?”
“Comparative cultural mythology.”
He laughed. “I see now why you turned to waitressing and sex work.”