"Jesus. Did she flee after this
faux pas
of yours?"
"No. She was sweet, affectionate. She fell asleep in my arms. We made love in the morning, and I thought everything was going to be fine."
"But now she’s avoiding you."
"Right. We did have a bit of a tense conversation before she left. She was asking if giving up BDSM would be possible for me."
"And you said…?"
"I admitted it would be hard. Still, everything seemed fine when we said goodbye. We made a plan to get together again this weekend. But now she's all 'I need some time.' But that’s bullshit. The bottom line is, something scary happened, and it happened while we were in bed. That should be fixable, right?"
Jeff snorted. "You have it bad for this girl, don’t you? Maybe you rushed things?"
"Probably," Stephen said gloomily. "I tried to go slow. I wasn't even going to show her the dungeon. But I come a little unhinged when I’m with her. I get so caught up. There's this intense connection, this perfect storm of lust that sweeps everything from its path. It makes me feel that I can do anything, say anything, be anything…because everything’s allowed."
"Listen to yourself. You do sound like Bart, a law unto himself."
After a long silence, Stephen said, "That’s what’s worrying me. How big a part of me
is
Bartholomew Giles? Why do I enjoy writing about murder and torture? Am I some kind of violent psychopath?"
"Stephen. I’ve known you since we were 18. Like all artists, you are one fucked-up dude, but psychopathic you’re not."
"So what’s your sage advice? You love to solve everybody’s problems. How the hell am I going to smooth this over?"
"She didn’t actually dump you, did she? She told you she needed some time to think things through."
"Yeah, but I'm worried she's gonna cut me off."
"Let me think about this."
For several minutes, Jeff was silent. Stephen paced, asking himself if there was any point to this. It wasn’t as though Jeff was in a stable romantic relationship. Could he possibly have any advice that Stephen hadn’t already considered himself?
"Ever since I've known you," Jeff said at last, "you've been looking for your true love."
"The fuck?"
"I'm serious. You're a one-woman guy. You were all set to get married while we were still in college, remember?"
"So? Kate and Arthur got married right out of college. They did just fine until he got himself killed."
"What I'm saying is that there's always been something about you that doesn't add up. You're into all this hard-edged kink and please don't tell me you don't have a bevy of submissives lining up to get flogged by you. I've seen it every time we hit a club. Do you accept all the bounty that the sex gods are sending your way? No."
"Well, sometimes I do," Stephen said with a grin.
"Still, more than most guys, you have love on the brain. You've always wanted to find that special girl."
Stephen was silent for a long moment, staring into his glass. "I found her once, lost her, and now I've found her again."
"I thought your passionate teenage love match only lasted one day?"
"The sex only lasted one day. But I spent the whole summer with her and her father. Long weekends turned into weeks when I didn't go back to my apartment. It was the three of us, Percy, Viola and me. I'd lost my own father, remember. Well, you wouldn't remember since it was before I knew you, but he died when I was sixteen. Percy was my mentor. Viola started out as an annoying little sister, but she quickly became a good friend and companion. I loved spending time with both of them. They were like family."
"So she's the perfect girl for you. Except for one tiny detail. You like your sex in a dark chamber with weird apparatus and whips and chains hanging from the walls. Let me beat you, whip you, torture you, and I'll love you forever. You're such a romantic, dude."
Stephen couldn't help laughing. "It is romantic in a twisted way. And Viola liked the playroom. She was having a fine old time until right before I accidentally triggered her."
"So can't you just learn her triggers and avoid them? Problem solved."
"I want to help her. I want her to find her true self again. The girl she was that summer."
"Yeah? Well, invent a fucking time machine, dude, because you know as well as I do that you can't go back."
"You're a helluva guy to lecture me on time, Mr. 14th century Medieval Battle Techniques Guy."
Jeff laughed. "Okay, fine. We are both fucked. It’s the blind leading the blind here. More Scotch?"
"Hit me."
"The thing is," Jeff said after swallowing more single malt, "I don’t think Viola really is afraid of you."
Stephen snorted. "You weren’t there."
"Bear with me a moment. It was just two weeks ago that you two met again and crossed swords when she accused you of being a misogynistic sadist. In spite of that, 24 hours later, you were in bed together, and a few days later, she’s down at your deserted beach house on the Cape, blithely allowing you to chain her up in your dungeon. Since Viola has never struck me as reckless or self-destructive, this suggests that deep down she does trust you. Despite the awful experience with her ex."
Stephen considered. He hadn’t thought of it this way. "Okay."
"Then some bad stuff happens. She panics. But she doesn’t run away. The truth is, you haven’t harmed her. Physically, she's fine. Her fear isn't based on anything real, at least, not with respect to you. When she’s with you, she’s okay, but when she’s away from you, she starts worrying and freaks herself out."
"Yeah. She's probably thinking, what if she takes me back and Bart comes out to play again? That’ll be the shadow that’s haunting her. What if, what if, what if."
"So you should let him come out to play. I’m serious. What’s one of the best ways to cure fear in a person?"
"You’re the amateur shrink, not me."
"You expose them, in gradual increments, to the thing they’re afraid of. You have to prove she can trust you. If the worst thing she can imagine is that you might turn into Bart, let her get to know the guy."
"But I’m not him."
"Stephen. You spoke in his voice during an unguarded moment while you were having sex. So he’s in there. The difference is, Bart needs blood and torture to get off, where you just need some fantasy role play."
"Getting back to the fact that Viola doesn't want to fuck me again...."
"She lives less than a mile away from here. Go see her. Isn’t that what you were planning to do, anyway? Please don’t tell me you drove all this way just to listen to me theorize about your sexual psychodynamics."
Unexpectedly, Stephen found himself laughing. "Shit. You're right. As soon as I sober up, that’s exactly what I’m going to do."
"I'll put on a pot of coffee." Jeff went to his medieval clothing pile and pulled something out. "And wear this."
"What the fuck is that?" Stephen caught the item Jeff tossed him and held it up. It was a thin lawn shirt with full sleeves and a thong that fastened it around the neck.
"Pirate shirt. Trust me. She'll like that."
When her doorbell rang at ten p.m. on Saturday night, Viola was a little nervous about answering. She wished she had one of those peepholes to peer through. "Who's there?"
"Your favorite author."
Her heart skipped with something very different from panic, and she yanked open the door.
Stephen stood on her front porch. When he saw her face, he grinned in his bone-tingling way, turning her entire body turn to mush. "I don’t suppose you’d buy the old ‘my car broke down in front of your house and I need to use your phone line?"
"Cell phones have pretty much destroyed that ploy."
"Dead cell phone battery?" He smiled even more winningly. "Have pity. It’s late and the Cape is miles away."
She pulled the door wide, and he lost no time entering. She stepped back, because his body felt like a giant magnet—the closer he got to her, the stronger the pull.
He was wearing a loose black shirt with flowing sleeves that were gathered at the wrists. It had leather laces hanging open over his muscular chest. Oh my god, was he roleplaying again? If so, she wanted to play.
"Stephen. I thought you were going to give me some time?"
He shut her door, but he did not touch her. "I will. I just want to be near you while you’re figuring things out. No pressure, though."
His eyes were gleaming in that special way that told her he was on the edge of laughter, and, it loosened something inside her. "No pressure?" she repeated, having a tough time keeping a straight face.
He held his hands up, all innocence. "None. I won’t touch you. Look," he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a data stick. "I brought work. I can borrow one of your computers, or, if not, my laptop's in the car. I'm on deadline and I have a lot of writing to do. Just stick me in some corner and ignore me, and you won’t even know I’m here."
They were standing in her front hall, which was large. She couldn’t stop staring at his extraordinary costume. "How can I ignore you when you’re wearing that shirt?"
He glanced down at himself. "What, this old thing?"
She began to laugh. "You look like the hero on a romance novel cover."
"I was hoping you’d say that." He fingers beckoned to her. "Come, my heroine, and welcome me properly."
"I'm still sniffling. I probably have germs."
"I don't give a shit about germs, bright eyes."
His eyes, his smile, the shirt, that magnetism—they were all conspiring against her. He was irresistible, of course, and she was very glad to see him.
"I have the worst willpower," she sighed as she moved into his arms.
"You won’t need willpower," he said, after subjecting her to a long and thorough kiss. "I am not here to ravish you, despite my piratical attire."
"No? That’s disappointing. What are you here for?"
With one arm around her waist, he walked her toward her living room. "I’m here to have that ‘our relationship’ discussion."
She pulled a face. "No way. No man on earth has ever initiated the ‘our relationship’ discussion."
He grinned at her, his eyes laughing behind his glasses. "Yeah, well, I’m special. Come, let’s sit down on your sofa and get cozy."
It was his lightheartedness and laughter that made him so dear to her. He had a smile to light up the world.
When they were seated in her living room, side by side on the sofa, he lounged back, stretching out his long legs, and took off his glasses to rub them with his handkerchief, that other endearing gesture that he seemed to do more often than was necessary. For several moments, neither of them spoke, and then she said, "I'm going to let you open this fascinating discussion, if you dare."
Propping his glasses back on his nose, he said, "I dare. I've been thinking. I've decided that I want to leap right over that 'is this a relationship' thing—because it is—and go directly to 'Yes I want it to be exclusive.' Because even though we've only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks, you're the best damn thing to come along for me, since, well, since you came along the first time."
"Stephen," she began, feeling stunned and uncertain how to respond to this remarkable statement.
"Wait. I know you don't want to hear that right now, since you're obviously debating whether this should be a relationship at all, and that's cool. You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to do a thing. I won't push. But I wanted you to know how I feel about you."
She put one hand on his wrist. He had a very nice wrist. "I do want to be with you. I'm just trying to cope with some crap that I've been avoiding. Stuff that I ought to have faced up to a long time ago."
"Okay. But, correct me if I'm wrong, this crap has leapt out to slap you in the face because of what happened last weekend, right? Because you panicked?"
"Kinda," she admitted.
"You're worried that since one man abused you, I might do the same. The fact that I'm Bart's creator makes that scarier. Not to mention my kinkiness."
"I know my anxieties are irrational," she tried to explain. "I know they aren't grounded in reality. That's why it's not about you at all. It's about me getting a grip on my emotions."
"I understand that. I had a period a few years ago when I had some panic attacks. I was under a lot of stress, and, being a writer, I have a beast of an imagination. So I get what you’re going through. All I'm saying is, you don't have to do it alone. That's why I'm here. That's why I came."
Viola felt tears spring into her eyes. As always, she fought them down. But she had been wound up tight for what seemed so damn long. She hadn't had anyone to talk to about it, either. She had friends, good ones, but none of them, at least none that she knew of, had been attacked and beaten by their husbands. Most of her friends weren't even married yet, let alone divorced from an abuser.
No self-pity, she reminded herself. That was becoming a mantra. There were literally billions of people alive in the world who had far worse problems than hers.