“Your Søren sounds…interesting,” Zach said, attempting to be diplomatic.
“He was never
my Søren
. That’s the one thing about being a collared submissive. I was his. He never was mine. But yes, he is interesting. The most caring sadist you could ever hope to meet.”
“But you loved him?”
“And I loved him,” she corrected. “Søren said Jesus was the only man who ever made him feel humble. He makes me feel humble, too.”
“Søren or Jesus?”
But Nora didn’t answer. Instead, she released Zach’s arm and stepped toward the print.
“Just look at it. Look at Him. Isn’t He the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, Zach?” She’d said his name but from the ethereal tone of her voice, it seemed as if she were talking to herself instead. “It’s the Praetorium. Pilate was a kind of Roman overseer of Jerusalem. He was trying to keep a very fragile peace so instead of immediately sentencing Christ to die, he orders Him to be scourged. Scourging meant a near fatal beating with a whip that had glass and bone and rocks embedded in the lashes. It was a serious punishment. He hoped that would satisfy the mob’s bloodlust. But look at the painting—no wounds. The skin of his back looks perfect. But supposedly He’s just been brutally, viciously whipped. Ciseri is emphasizing Christ’s beauty, not His beating. He’s showing Christ’s feminine side. Admittedly it’s very inaccurate, I know. Almost all depictions of the crucifixion are inaccurate. That little loincloth they always show Jesus wearing? Didn’t exist. Victims of crucifixion were stripped completely naked to add to their shame and humiliation. Artists can’t bring themselves to show just how fully human Jesus was.”
Zach said nothing, strangely spellbound by Nora’s words.
“Just imagine what this was like for Him, Zach.” Nora shook her head as if she couldn’t imagine it herself. “We talk about the Virgin Mary, but Jesus never married. He was a virgin, too. And there He was completely naked on display for the whole world to see, and right in front of Him is Mary Magdalene, who was his best friend, and His poor mother. His mother, Zach. He must have been so embarrassed, so humiliated. See these two women here. They get it.”
Zach glanced at the painting and then at Nora.
“Look how Ciseri painted Jesus. See the curve of His back and shoulders. It is a classic feminine posture. His hands are tied behind His back and His robe is falling over His hips. And all the men are just pointing and staring and gawking. But the women—see them?—they can’t bear it. One’s looking down and she—” Nora pointed at a female figure who was turned completely away from the horrible scene unfolding behind her “—she can’t even look. She has to hold on to the other woman just to keep from collapsing. And of all of them, she’s the only one whose whole face we can see.”
Nora fell into silent contemplation again and Zach watched her eyes. They were fixed on the two women in the foreground, huddled together in palpable distress. “They know what He’s feeling. The women always know. They know it isn’t just a beating or a murder they’re being forced to witness. It wasn’t even just a crucifixion. It was a sexual assault, Zach. It was a rape.”
Nora took a deep breath and Zach felt his own breath catch in his chest. He wanted to say something but didn’t trust himself to speak yet.
“That’s why I believe, Zach,” Nora continued. “Because of all gods, Jesus alone understands. He understands the purpose of pain and shame and humiliation.”
“What is the purpose?” Zach asked, truly wanting to know.
Nora’s eyes returned to the two women in the foreground clinging to each other in sympathy and horror.
“For salvation, of course. For love.”
11
“Y
ou think I’m so damn obedient,” Caroline said as she pulled away from William. She stood at the window looking out on their backyard where just yesterday they had sat and talked until dusk. If only there were more yesterdays instead of so many todays.
“You’ve never given me cause for complaint.” She heard the confusion in his voice.
“It’s always ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and ‘as you wish, sir.’ But it’s not out of obedience.”
“Then what is it, Caroline?”
She didn’t want to answer. But she knew she couldn’t keep lying to him with her every breath.
“Fear.”
“Of what?”
“Of this…game you make us play. It isn’t a game to you, though, is it?”
He came to stand behind her. She braced herself but he didn’t touch her.
“No, it isn’t. For me this is very real.”
“I want it to be a game…so much,” Caroline admitted. “Games can be won. You win the game and the game’s over. And I want it to end.”
“It can end,” William said, his voice soft with sadness. “If you stop playing.”
“But I can’t. If I quit playing…” She didn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t bring herself to finish it.
“Then neither of us will ever win.” William said what she’d been afraid to say.
“So what’s the consolation prize?” she asked, trying and failing to find a smile for him.
William bent and rested his chin on the top of her head. He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into him and closed her eyes. This game had an hourglass for a timer and she saw the sand running out.
“I don’t think there is one.”
* * *
God, it was wrenching. Zach minimized the document and pushed back from his computer. He stood and walked around his office. Stopping at the window, he stared out at the city and the sky. Today was a gray day, cold and windy. It had been windy the day he’d left England: a sea wind, warm and fierce, and Zach recalled waiting at the airport almost hoping his flight would be canceled or even just delayed long enough for Grace to realize he really was going. But the wind had failed him that day. It had carried him aloft instead of forcing him aground. Sailors’ wives once had little balconies on their roofs. What were they called? Widow’s walks. That was it. Yes, the widow’s walk, the place where they could go alone and stare out to sea and watch and wait. He envied them their macabre station. At least they could see the ship coming in. At least they had a place to hide their grief every day it didn’t.
Zach stared at the sky and wished he could see all the way across the gray ocean. Gray was Grace’s favorite color. She joked it was “like silver only sadder,” and he’d tease her about all the gray sweaters in her closet, the dozens of gray woolen socks. Grace would have loved a morning like this. She would have opened the curtains, opened the blinds and dragged him back to bed with her to make hasty love before the sun intruded and changed the color of the day.
Tearing his eyes from the sky, he looked down at the gray streets below. Supposedly from this height everyone was supposed to look like ants. But they didn’t look like ants to him at all. They still looked like people. He leaned his head against the glass and watched their progress. He was afraid for them and didn’t know why.
Nora…was she why? When he’d made her cut the more graphic scenes of sexual violence from her book she’d replaced them with emotional violence. Now everywhere he looked he saw people as fragile as paper.
Nora’s book had impressed him more than he wanted to admit. Most impressively she had turned the romance novel formula on its head. One of the cardinal rules of classic romance was that at no point, no matter how infuriating the heroine was and no matter how much the hero wanted to throttle her, he could never, would never raise his hand to her. But William was a sadist and used pain to prove his love. And where the romance novel began with the two characters trying to come together against forces both internal and external, Nora’s novel began with them together and then let the forces slowly, torturously tear them apart. She was writing the antiromance novel.
Zach let his eyes focus on one of the small figures below him on the street. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. He or she bustled across the street in a great hurry. He wondered if this was why Nora was drawn to religion despite herself. The Pagan gods sat on high and played with their subjects like pieces on a chessboard. Nora’s god turned Himself into a pawn and let Himself be captured. He could see the attraction. Zach wanted to run down to the street below and follow whoever it was until he was certain he or she made it on time. He wanted to know everything turned out fine for at least one person in the gray city today.
Zach pulled away from the window and faced his desk again. As he returned to his computer he remembered Nora’s original first line from the first draft of her novel—“I don’t want to write this story any more than you want to read it.” He realized it wasn’t just William speaking to Caroline. It was Nora talking to him.
He sat down and opened Nora’s revisions again. He made himself keep reading. As much as it hurt, he had to know what happened next.
* * *
Nora sat at her kitchen table writing furiously in her notebook. She’d given up on her computer a few hours ago. Her wrists were aching from typing, but she still had another chapter in her head she wanted to get on paper. After her long talk with Zach yesterday at church, she’d come home newly inspired. She had made a terrible mistake with her characters in her first draft. In the original ending of her book, Caroline was no longer able to bear William’s darkness. In the original ending, Caroline left him. But Nora realized she’d done Caroline a great wrong. She was no sexual masochist; she was an emotional masochist and never would she leave the man she loved, the man she was certain needed her help. No, in the new ending William, out of love for her, would send her away. It was beautiful and brutal and how it had to end. William had told her that and she knew better than to cross him.
Wesley had spent the past two hours with her at the kitchen table catching up on more make-up work while she wrote. She wasn’t worried about his homework. Wesley had a shockingly keen mind under that mess of blond hair and had made Dean’s List all three semesters he’d been at Yorke. She’d made Dean’s List once when she was in college. Søren had ordered her to just to annoy her. Just to annoy him, she’d done it. Wesley was a natural hard worker, however, and didn’t need anyone telling him to do his homework or study. She told him once he could never be a writer like she was. He wasn’t nearly lazy enough.
Wesley… Nora looked up and around the kitchen. Wesley had left over twenty minutes ago to check his blood sugar and take his insulin—something that usually took less than a minute—before he started cooking dinner. Nora went looking for him and found him leaning over the downstairs’ bathroom sink.
“You okay, Wes?” she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
Wesley laughed and shook his head.
“You know, I have ridden some of the biggest, meanest, scariest stallions on the planet. You wouldn’t think a little needle in my stomach would bother me this much.”
Relieved that he wasn’t sick again, Nora exhaled and entered the bathroom. Wesley stood up straight and she hopped up on the counter next to the sink.
“Still can’t do it?”
“Nope. I think I have a mental block.”
“I can help with mental blocks.”
Wesley shook his head. “I have to do it myself, or I’ll never get over this.”
“You will do it yourself. You handle the needle. I’ll handle the mental block. What’s our target?”
Wesley pointed to a spot on the center of his stomach a hand’s span beneath the bottom of his rib cage.
“Dr. Singh said I’m supposed to think of my stomach like a clock face when I rotate my injections. I start at noon for the first one and then move an inch for the second one. That way I’m not going to hit the same spot over and over again.”
Nora nodded. “Clock face, huh?” She reached out and lifted the bottom of Wesley’s T-shirt. He’d lost weight in the hospital so now his four-pack abdomen was a stark six-pack. He had nothing left on his frame but muscle. She let loose a wolf-whistle. “Sexiest clock I’ve ever seen.”
“Nora,” Wesley said and pulled his shirt back down. He was blushing. “Stop it.”
“Wesley, you walk around the house without a shirt on all the time. Proof that you’re a secret sadist, I think.”
Wesley grimaced and Nora laughed.
“I am not a sadist. I’m nothing like him.”
“You are a lot like him.” She thought it was cute how Wesley tried to never say Søren’s name. “You both worry about me too much.”
“Anyone who’s ever met you worries about you,” Wesley countered.
“And you’re both blonds. Except you’ve got dark blond hair and his is light blond.”
“Well, he’s Swedish or whatever.”
“Danish. His mother was Danish and his father was English. Between the two of them, he’s the least American American I’ve ever met. Another thing you two have in common—you’re both musicians.”
Wesley eyed her suspiciously. “Does he play guitar, too?”
“Piano. He could have been a concert pianist, but now he just plays for fun.”
“He’s one of those perfect guys, right?” Wesley asked, crossing his arms. “His hair’s never messed up, he never spills anything, never trips.”
Nora nodded. “If that’s your definition of
perfect,
he does qualify. I’ve lost track of the number of languages he speaks. And he can be very witty and charming when he wants to be. And he’s ludicrously handsome. He’s also pretentious and conceited.”
Wesley grinned at her. “Keep going.”
“And he’s never ridden a horse in his life much less some of the biggest, meanest, scariest stallions on the planet. And,” she said, reaching out for Wesley’s T-shirt again, “he doesn’t make me laugh and smile every single day like a certain someone I know.”
Wesley raised his arms and Nora pulled his T-shirt off. Just to make it fair she unbuttoned her blouse and let it join Wesley’s shirt on the floor. Wesley seemed to be trying very hard not to stare at her wearing just her jeans and bra.
“So we’re shooting for here?” she asked and touched a spot on his stomach a few inches above Wesley’s belly button.