“Caleb.” I find strength. “I don’t want this, Caleb.”
Lips, on my skin, at my belly. Hair tickling my hip. “Yes, you do.”
The problem is, my hormones remember what those hands can do. The damp slit between my thighs remembers what those fingers can do, what the erection I know is ready and waiting can do. I remember, and I feel the contradiction. The lies, tangled and mixed. I lie. I do want it. I know what happened was a moment of anger, isolated. And I know, too, that it may perhaps not be so isolated. Perhaps, if I ask the wrong question, say the wrong thing, wish for the impossible, maybe those hands that can offer such pleasure will offer pain once more. Pain as punishment. Another accidental moment of strangulation, even a fist, or an open palm. Who knows?
I remember also a stolen moment in a men’s restroom, and the sensation of utter safety.
Who am I, and what do I want?
Does it even matter what I want?
“See? I can smell you, X.” A nose, nuzzling my thighs apart, inhalation. “I smell it. You want this. You want me. You’ve always wanted me, and you always will. You know it, and I know it.”
I squirm, heels dig into the mattress, feel my hips lift off the bed at the wet swipe of a tongue. A thrill, lancing through me. Such pleasure, the tongue tip tickling and twirling at the precise spot where I’ll feel the most pleasure, zeroing in, flicking.
But stronger than the pleasure is the self-loathing. The hatred of myself for succumbing, for being weak, for giving in, for letting pleasure dictate my actions. For letting pleasure take away what little freedom I have.
I reach down, tangle my fingers in thick hair . . . and shove. “No, Caleb.” I twist, roll away.
Slide off the bed. Find the light switch, flick it on. Dark eyes, squinting against the sudden light. Mussed, imperfect black hair. A smear of my essence around the expressive mouth. T-shirt, suit slacks—tented.
Barefoot. Beautiful. Brutal.
How did I never see the brutality, before?
“X . . . what’s going on with you?”
I’m breaking. The status quo is crumbling. “I can’t help wanting you, Caleb. But I can help giving in to it.”
“Giving in to it? Like it’s forbidden, or something? Like there’s something wrong with you and I having sex?” A step around the bed, closer to me. Crowding me into a corner.
“What are we, Caleb? Who am I? What am I, to you? Where is all this going? Why am I . . .” I swallow, let out a breath. “Sometimes, Caleb . . . sometimes I feel like a prisoner here. I feel like your captive.”
A breath, harsh and long and shuddering. A hand passing down from forehead to chin. “X . . . come on, don’t be like this. This isn’t you. Why are you asking me these questions?” I’m up against a wall, and big hands land on either side of my face, framing me, hemming me in, trapping me. “You died, X. You have no one. You knew nothing of yourself. I taught you to walk again. Taught you to speak again. I taught you how to be a fucking person again. I gave you a home. Gave you a skill set. Gave you a job. Gave you a life.”
“And in return, all I have to do is have sex with you? Suck you off whenever you feel like it? Never ask questions? Never want more?”
“That’s not how it is, X.”
“It certainly feels like it, sometimes.”
“You’re wrong. We have something.” A breath on my cheekbone.
Dark eyes fraught with indecipherable emotion. I cannot read this face, cannot read those espresso-brown eyes. This, the proximity, the honesty, it’s new and disorienting. It’s as if a vein in the mountain has been opened, revealing a fissure, letting out long-pent pressure.
“What do we have, Caleb? Explain it to me.” Silence. “You saved me, yes. You’ve provided for me, yes. I remember all that. I have not forgotten. But this?” I put my hands out, touch hard pectoral muscles, move my hands between my body and the one opposite me. “I don’t know what we are. What this is. What you really want from me. I saw you with another woman. You’ve got a lot of women, you said as much. You visit women all over the city and you fuck them? And then you return here, to me, whenever you feel like you want something different, and you fuck me, too? But I’m not allowed to question that? I’m not allowed to even take a walk outside?”
“You have a panic attack just going outside. You wouldn’t know what to do out there, X. We tried, remember? You get overwhelmed. You stop breathing. I’m not keeping you prisoner, I’m keeping you safe.”
I do remember. The early days, there would be walks outside, in the city, on the sidewalks, afternoon crowds rushing past us. I’d make it a block, and then the noise and the heat and the countless faces and the babel of voices, the sirens, the cars . . . it all crashed down on me, slammed me to the ground, made my lungs seize and my eyes go dizzy, made the world spin and my head throb and I would have to be carried back inside until I could breathe again, safe in my room, in the darkness, with the mantra whispered in my ear:
You are Madame X. I am Caleb Indigo. I saved you from a bad man. You’re safe here. I’ll keep you safe. You are Madame X. I’m Caleb Indigo. You’re safe with me. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again. It’s all just a bad dream now. You’re safe. You’re Madame X. I’m Caleb.
Suddenly it’s there, those words, that mantra, whispered in my ear, now, here and now, in my bedroom, in this moment. Reminding me, bringing me back to when the world was new, when I was being birthed into personhood. When I was relearning what language was, what it meant to speak and listen and walk and think and be alive.
“I am Madame X. You are Caleb.” I cannot help whispering it back. “You saved me. You taught me everything I am.”
“That’s right, X. You’re safe here.”
And, for the first time in six years, for the first time since the night of dreams and red-eyed monsters and blood, I feel a kiss pressed to my lips, soft and slow and hesitant, as if to kiss thus is as new both for the one kissing and for me.
I dare not even breathe until the lips pull away. Dare not. To breathe would be to inhale the poison of truth, mixed with confusion, laced with seduction.
I press palms to chest. Push.
“I have grown, Caleb. I have changed. I have learned new things. I am not at all sure of anything anymore. Least of all you and I.”
“Damn it, X.” This is hissed. “Don’t do this to me.”
A long, long silence. I do not move, for I cannot. The heavy, perfect body still hems me in, traps me against the wall of my bedroom, arms beside my ears, lips not quite touching mine.
“Don’t do this to me.” This is, very nearly, a plea.
I feel something sharp within me. I push again. Harder. Until the wall of chest and arms and thighs swivels away. I dart past heat and anger, slide into my bed, naked but for a thin cotton T-shirt whose hem just barely covers my backside. I turn away from the scrutinizing gaze. Breathe deeply, evenly.
“X?”
I do not answer.
A sigh. It sounds . . . sad. Forlorn. Lonely. Sharpness in me, something hard and callused. Something that remembers a moment in a men’s room, when I felt safe.
When a kiss made me feel . . .
Treasured.
I was changed in that stolen moment with a stranger.
And I cannot go back.
TWELVE
A full month passes.
I do my job, pretend to be aloof and untouchable, snap at and insult rich young boys and correct their grammar and their posture, push them to the edge of their tolerance. And then, just when they start to think ill of me, I allow them to guide the conversation, pretend to care when they speak, encourage them, let them test out their charm on me. Pretend to be charmed. Pretend to be almost seduced. Pretend to be flustered when they get too close. It’s all a game. It’s always been a game. But now, it seems even more a game. I am numb within, and the burden of playing pretend is heavy.
Alone, I wait. But my bedroom door is not darkened again. No deep-of-night visits.