Just One Night, Part 3: Binding Agreement (9 page)

Again Dave bows his head. I think I see a tear. “What if they push the embezzlement charge?”

“You just said they wouldn’t if you left.”

“But they
could
. Don’t you get it? I’m completely at their mercy and they’re following his directives. I know it, Kasie. I don’t know if he’s bribed people or threatened them or what, but they’re letting him decide my fate. And he wants to destroy me, Kasie.”

“He would never take it that far.”

Dave looks up at me, bewildered. I don’t blame him; it was a stupid thing to say. I don’t
think
Robert would take it that far, but then again I didn’t think he’d do this, either. Any of it. It never even occurred to me.

I’ve let Robert Dade change my entire life . . . and I don’t even know who he is.

“Do you think I would survive in prison, Kasie?” he asks. “Do you see me getting through a single day in jail?”

No, I didn’t. Dave was too soft, too vulnerable. Even the tattooed skateboarders on the road along Venice Beach made him nervous. He wouldn’t be able to cope with living among drug dealers and pimps.

Another tear slips down Dave’s cheek and I wonder if any painter has ever been able to capture the essence of desperation the way Dave’s expression does now.

“Help me,” he says.

CHAPTER 11

T
HIS TIME IT’S
me who waits for Robert. I sit in his leather armchair. In my glass there is only water, nothing to soften my edge or dull my intellect. I don’t light candles; there is no fire in the fireplace, no velvet dresses or leather ties. Tonight I reject the fantasy. Tonight I want the truth.

When he returns home, he senses it. It takes less than two seconds for him to register that the mood is one of confrontation and not romance, two more seconds for him to adjust.

How does he do that? Make these sharp emotional turns with the agility of a sports car? How can any human being do that?

But then Robert has always been a little more than human. A little more and, oddly, a little less.

“You didn’t have to hurt Dave. He wasn’t hurting us.”

He studies me for a moment as if extracting from my words and the hard line of my mouth the extent of what I know. “He hurt you before,” he finally says, calm, unperturbed. “Eventually he would have done it again. All I did was launch a necessary preemptive strike.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Not everything can be measured in terms of war. We’re not fighting a battle.”

He smiles ruefully, takes off his coat. “Don’t kid yourself. Everybody’s always fighting one battle or another. The battlefield changes—the enemies, the allies, even the weapons—but the war wages on.”

“I’m not going to live that way.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He sits down on the ottoman, takes my hand. “None of us do. Your only choice is to decide whether you’re going to be a victor or a casualty. A foot solider or a commander. These are the choices. I’ve made mine; I thought you made yours, too.”

“Very well, have it your way. Dave and I had a cease-fire, a peace treaty even. We didn’t need to be allies. We just needed to leave each other alone. Why did you have to mess with that?” Each one of my words comes out a little faster, a little louder; I feel that I’m close to being hysterical but I suppress it. I have to stay calm.

“Don’t tell me you’re sentimental about Dave,” he says, his tone dangerously close to patronizing.

Robert has never been patronizing. I don’t stop to think about what this shift means. All I know is that it pisses me off.

“Sentimentality will get you nowhere in this world,” Robert reminds me.

“Right,” I say, dragging the word out so my sarcasm shapes it into a different meaning. “You don’t like sentimentality. We shouldn’t be sentimental about anything. We should just all be vehicles of our own ambitions. We should never lay down our arms, never compromise, never look back.”

“It’s not a bad way to live,” he says softly. “You know that. You’ve been living by those rules for the last—”

“
Paradise Lost
.”

And there it is. That glimpse of emotion that Robert doesn’t like to show. It flies by so fast, I can’t read exactly what the emotion is but it was there, and it was something other than ambition.

“I don’t understand you,” he says slowly. “What does a book have to do with any of this?”

“Not just a book,” I correct. “Your mother’s book. It’s there, on your bookshelf. Why do you have it?”

His jaw tightens; he drops my hand. “I see no reason to throw it out.”

“Really?” I stand up, pull the book off the shelf. “It’s just a book, Robert. No need to be sentimental about it.” I walk to the fireplace. “Shall we burn it?”

Another flash of emotion, but this one I recognize. It doesn’t take long to identify anger. “I don’t burn books.”

“Paper and cardboard. That’s all it is. And it’s not like we’re burning every copy. Just this one, your mother’s copy. Come now, Robert. Be a fighter. We’re at war after all. In war there is fire, things are destroyed, books burn.” I hold the book inside the grate, over a heap of ash.

“Give me the damn book.”

“Your mother was a casualty. She and your father, they lost to more capable opponents. They lost to men like you. You learned so much from those men, those men who set fire to the life your parents had built for themselves, a life they built for
you
. And your takeaway from all of it was to learn to justify evil.”

His movements are so quick I barely see him before he’s by my side, pulling me away from the fireplace, throwing the book across the room, pulling me to him roughly, his grip so tight it’s suffocating. With one hand still around my back he grabs the collar of my blouse, stretching it toward him; the top button pops off, flies across the room.

For the first time ever he reminds me of Dave.

“It’s all right,” I say. “I understand. This is war. In war women get raped.”

Immediately he lets go of me, takes three steps back. “You think I would do that? You think I would hurt you?”

“Oh Robert, you’ve done so much more than hurt me. You’ve destroyed Kasie Fitzgerald. My parents’ daughter, she’s gone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I helped you discover your true nature!”

I shake my head. “My whole
life
I’ve been afraid of the kind of rejection that makes a person become invisible. I thought you were protecting me from that,” I say, my voice faltering ever so slightly. “But now when I look in the mirror I don’t see a woman at all. I see something powerful, merciless, dangerous; something whose moods and actions are determined by the winds, the vibrations of the earth, and the pull of the moon. I see something that has no mind of its own! So I guess . . . I guess there’s more than one way to be erased.”

“No, these choices you’ve made, they’ve been
your
choices. No one forced you to make them.”

“My choice was to be obedient. My choice was to be led. But now?” I take another step back from him. “I’m making another choice.”

“Kasie . . .” but his voice trails off. For once he doesn’t know what to say.

I’ve already packed up the few things I had here. They wait for me in the trunk of my car. All that’s left is for me to gather my purse and coat, both waiting for me on the sofa. I put on the coat, taking my time with each button. I know that if I do it slowly, I’ll do it right, I won’t fumble. He won’t be able to see how shaken I am. If I keep my focus, I might be able to keep the pain behind the mask.

“You have a choice to make, too,” I say mildly. “You can take me down the way you took down Tom and Dave. It would be easy to do. You wouldn’t even have to lie this time. All you’d have to do is shine a light on the footsteps I’ve left behind, let them know that the demon who led me no longer offers his protection. Throw me to the wolves. Make me a casualty.”

“I would never do that, Kasie.”

“No?” The tremor in my voice grows more pronounced. I approach him, stand with less than a foot separating us. I raise my hand, let it graze his cheek. “You’ve always known how to move me,” I whisper. “But I know you now, Robert. I know your nature. It’s the nature of a predator.”

And then I turn and leave. Nothing else needs to be said. I can’t be here. I no longer want to make up the rules as we go. I don’t want my waves to crash over my enemies. I want to make another choice.

I want to live like a woman, not an ocean.

CHAPTER 12

I
GET THROUGH THE
night, back at my house, alone . . . but, God, it’s hard. I want to help Dave. I even want to help Tom now. But I don’t know if I can. I certainly can’t do it tonight. But I suppose that if Robert has taught me one thing, it’s that, when all else fails, help yourself. It’s just that now I think that helping myself means making myself better, not through wealth or power, but through the effort of rediscovering my own humanity.

And then the pain . . . in my gut, in my heart, it’s overwhelming and keeps me up until dawn. I lost something extraordinary, something that I’ve come to think of as essential. I lost the moon.

And now it’s morning and I’m at work trying to see my coworkers with new eyes. I notice that Barbara is more deferential than she has been in years past, more so than even a month ago. She no longer tries to gossip with me, no longer rolls her eyes when one of the other employees says something silly, not in front of me anyway. I always thought Barbara was a little too familiar anyway but now I find that I miss her casual demeanor. Maybe she respects me more now . . . or maybe she’s just scared.

Other people in the office behave similarly. Everyone is polite; many of them go out of their way for me. I’ve asked for reports from various people and they’ve all been delivered a day early. Robert would be so proud. I’ve learned to make fear work for me.

It’s fairly rare that we respect the individual who has that power over us.

Simone’s words. But if I believe them, if I actually buy in to her whole philosophy on this topic, then I have to accept that I represent the status quo, the norm. I have to accept that despite Robert’s influence I’m not exceptional at all.

I sit at my desk, sift through my e-mails. One of the consultants writes to inform me of the three new companies they’ll be approaching this month; another reports on the retention rate of the clients we have. The e-mails are so neat and clean. What’s being said in the rooms where those e-mails are being written? What are they saying about the woman they address in these messages as Miss Fitzgerald?

. . . when someone has power over us we go out of our way to look for that person’s flaws. We exaggerate them in our minds and in our gossip.

Well really, how much exaggeration would be necessary?
She picked him up in Vegas, while playing blackjack, while sipping scotch, while wearing a dress that revealed all her secrets. She went to his room where he dabbled the scotch on her skin, where he tasted her. She called him Mr. Dade.

All this while her lover of six years waited for her at home. While he trusted her, while he boasted of her modesty.

No, no elaboration was needed. Any details they might imagine could not be more salacious than the truth. Barbara buzzes my office, tells me in a polite, clipped voice that a package has arrived. Unreported profits and losses of a client who wouldn’t dare risk sending an electronic file out into the wild-robber-ridden-west that is our cyberworld.

We convince ourselves that they’re not really deserving. That they’re not better than us.

But I’m not deserving. I’m not better than any of them. Maybe I have the talent and intelligence necessary for the job but I haven’t paid the dues. I’m here because I slept with the right men. Everyone knows that.

More e-mails light up my in-box. More reports, more requests for permission to pursue one account or another. All addressed to Miss Fitzgerald, all written with practiced caution.

We still respect the
power
and we will still bend to it regardless of how we may feel about the hands that hold it.

I look down at my hands, remember how they feel when they’re against Robert’s naked skin. I remember the pleasure and the excitement.

I remember how it felt when I first wrapped my hand around his erection, how the ridges rubbed against my palm as I moved my hand up and down.

And I remember how it felt to slip that same hand into Dave’s grasp less than a week later when he gently led me to the jeweler where we could shop for a ring.

I close my hand into a fist, turn my head away in disgust. I know how people feel about the hands that hold my power. They’re the hands of a slut.

But then again that’s not really true, is it? Because it’s Robert who holds my power. That’s common knowledge. All this time I’ve fooled myself into believing that people fear and respect the ocean but in the tradition of all the great ancient societies, it’s the moon they worship. It’s the moon they respect and pay homage to, pray to. The ocean? That’s nothing more than a consequence of the greater gods.

This fear I’m banking on, it’s fear Robert has loaned me. Once they all find out that Robert is no longer part of my life, what holds it all together?

And how do I live knowing that I will no longer be able to lay my hands on him? How can I breathe without the promise of that sin?

The thought makes me feel slightly ill. I try to focus on other things—the reports, the files, the balance sheets—but in the end my thoughts keep going back to him. I need his guidance, the comfort of his voice.

I look down at the file open in front of me before slamming it closed. Numbers can be comforting but right now I need the distraction of antagonism.

I go down to Asha’s office. I don’t call ahead first although I should. Her assistant doesn’t stop me as I walk to her door, open it without knocking. She’s sitting at her desk, poring over a file. Draped over her chair is a fox-fur–trimmed coat, the kind of coat you could never justify a need for here in LA. She looks up at me with her eyes without moving her head, her dark hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. Her lips curl into a slow, sinister smile.

Ah Asha, I can always count on you to reject fear in favor of hate. I step inside, close the door behind me.

Leisurely, she straightens her posture. “Have you come up with some fresh torture for me today?”

“I could have you fired,” I say blandly. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“We’ve had this conversation, right here in this office. Why retread old ground?” When I don’t answer, she presses further. “Why are you here, Kasie?”

I sigh, let my eyes run over her white walls, her dark wood desk. Like me she doesn’t have any photos of loved ones and I remark on it.

“I don’t take my personal life into work with me,” she says simply.

“Do you have a personal life?”

Again she smiles. “Ask me during my personal time.”

I nod although I doubt that she’ll ever answer a question she doesn’t want to answer regardless of what time it is. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you lead the Maned Wolf project,” I say, gesturing to the file. “Daemon didn’t earn the privilege.”

“Don’t apologize; it won’t do you any good.”

The comment takes me by surprise. “You act like you’re the one with the upper hand here.”

Asha leans back in her chair, swivels back and forth, half thoughtful, half bored. “As you’ve pointed out a few times, you could have me fired and for a little while there I thought you would. When you gave Daemon the authority that should be mine, I thought you had plans to bring me down slowly, painfully; at least that’s what I thought for a second.”

“For a second?”

“You know, when you asked me to acknowledge him as my superior. That was quite a move on your part, way up there on the evil scale. Except as soon as you got me to say what you wanted me to say, as soon as I had humiliated myself in front of my coworkers, you got this look on your face—”

“What look?”

“The look of guilt of course,” she laughs. “You really want to be bad, you just can’t quite carry it off.” She stands up, walks around her desk, and props herself on top of it. “I think that’s why you’re with Mr. Dade. I used to think you were using him to get ahead. But now? Now I think you like him because he gives you permission to be bad, and when you don’t take him up on it, he’s bad
for
you. He does all your dirty work, pulls you into doing what you want to do but don’t dare to initiate. That way you can avoid the guilt . . . or least that’s the theory.”

“Your theory?”

“No, no, it’s
yours
. My theory is that your theory isn’t working out for you. You let him take control, do the things he tells you to do, let him touch you in ways and places you think you should be ashamed of all in the hope that you’ll be able to enjoy it without the guilt. But your guilt is a little more tenacious than that. It enslaves you, like it always does.”

“
I’m
a slave to my guilt?” I snap. Somehow this accusation more than all the others pisses me off. “Tom is gone. I haven’t campaigned for him to get his job back. I haven’t let Mr. Costin shame me. I haven’t apologized to anyone—”

“You just apologized to me.”

I stand there with my mouth slightly open. She’s got me there.

And she knows it. She stands up, crosses to me, takes her hands and pulls my hair back off my shoulders. “Why the fascination with me? Is it because you want to be me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Because I live without guilt. I know what I want, and I don’t agonize over it. Sometimes I don’t get it right away, sometimes it takes a while, but I can be patient and when I need to be, I can be ruthless while smiling.” She drops my hair, steps back, and lets her eyes move up and down my body until I cross my arms over my chest protectively. “If I had been in your position during our last meeting, I would have made you call Daemon your superior, too. But I wouldn’t have felt bad about it. Then I would have found a way to arrange yet another meeting, just the three of us.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I’d want Daemon to see what I could do to you.” She reaches out again, lets her fingers rest against my throat, slide down to the curve of my breast. I step back.

I step back . . . but not away. I’m not shouting at her or threatening her. I simply step back. If fear is my lover, then here in Asha’s office it masters me, makes my heart race, keeps me there with its dark allure.

“Can you imagine it?” Asha asks. “If Daemon was sitting right there”—she looks back at her desk and seems to make eye contact with eyes that aren’t there—“imagine how he’d react if he saw you jump when I do this.” Her hand moves forward again, between my legs; again I jump and step back.

“Imagine if he saw that,” she says again. “He’d never leave you alone, not your superior, Daemon. He’d be calling you into his own office every day, just to test you, touching you in a different place each time. Sometimes he’d brush his hand against your breast, seemingly by accident. That’s probably where he’d start. Then he’d give you a pat on the butt on the way out, maybe even give it a little squeeze. The next meeting would be worse. He’d see your nipples get hard under your blouse as you anticipate his next move, just as they’re growing hard now as you imagine it.”

“They’re not—”

“And he’d ask you to take off your blazer, you know, just to make yourself comfortable. He’d insist . . . as your superior. He’d walk around the chair, massage your shoulders until his hands slipped a little lower, still massaging but now the top of your breasts, then his hands would slip inside your blouse, play with those hard nipples while his other hand slipped between your legs. You’d start to protest and he’d stop you, tell you to call him sir. And you would because this is what you want, isn’t it, Kasie? To be led to debauchery? To be fondled in public places without the guilt? And really, what could you do? He’s your superior. You would have already fessed up to that much, in front of me, in front of everyone you work with. I bet just thinking about it is making you wet. I bet he’d slide his hand into your panties, feel the wetness before slipping a finger or two into your pussy while his thumb played with your clit. I bet he’d make you come right in that chair as you squirmed and called him sir.”

“Why are you saying these things? I could—”

“Fire me. Yeah, yeah, I know. But you’re not.” This last part she sings. “You’re not going to fire me because you need to study me. I’m the woman you want to be. Or perhaps more importantly, I’m the woman Mr. Dade wants you to be, the woman he’s training you to be. If he only knew there was a premade version right here in this office . . . well what
would
he do, Kasie? Would he toss you aside? The missionary’s path is hard and riddled with rejection and setbacks. Why not take the easy route and preach to believers?” She leans in, whispers in my ear. “Like me. I’m a believer. I walk the walk, I’ve embraced this gospel. I’m the real thing, and you?” She laughs lightly, shakes her head before walking to her desk.

“You never will be.”

There’s some truth to what she’s saying, but what bothers me is not that I’ll never be like Asha; it’s that I ever wanted to be. What bothers me is that if I stay at this firm, my future will be riddled with these kinds of conversations. I do have options, just not here.

Later that day I go into Mr. Costin’s office and hand in my notice.