Exposed (25 page)

He turns it back to us. God, I love him.

Is he real? Or am I dreaming? Is this just a fever dream?

“Do you masturbate very much?” I ask.

He bobbles his head. “Depends.”

“On what? Be honest.”

He moves into his bedroom, and I follow him. We each dress, and he speaks as he tugs on underwear and then jeans. “Before I
met you, I had a few flings. Nothing serious. Not one-night stands, exactly, but . . . somewhere in between, I guess. Short-term. But . . . between flings, yeah, I’d jerk off regularly.”

“And since you met me?” I don’t know what answer I want to hear.

He tugs a T-shirt on, a slightly morbid one, black with a white skull near the bottom, the lower mandible fading into tree roots. A crow perches on the skull, and a red rose grows out of it, and the words
Bullet for My Valentine
are printed across the top. I eye it with distaste, and he catches my expression.

“No? Too much, huh? Okay.” He flips through a drawer stuffed full of T-shirts and pulls out a different one, exchanges them. This one features a man with long shaggy hair, a bandana across his mouth and nose, and a crossbow on his back, with
The Walking Dead
in large red block letters. “Better?”

I nod. “Yes, much, thank you. That other one was . . . gross.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, metal band shirts tend be a little gnarly, I guess.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I prompt.

“You really want to know the answer?” He waits until I’ve tugged my dress on and tied my hair back.

“Yes, I do.”

He leans back against the edge of the bed. “First, there’s been no one else since I met you. I hope that’s obvious. If not, there it is. I’ve not so much as spoken to a woman who isn’t an employee since the day we met at that auction. And—” He sighs, glances at me, and then away. “Every day, sometimes more than once a day, thinking of you, yeah, I jerk off. After we first met, it was just . . .
you
. That kiss in the bathroom. I’ve never gotten so hard from just an innocent kiss before. And you were so fucking sexy, it tormented me. I pictured you in this very room, sliding that dress off . . . shit, this is kind of embarrassing. I feel like a teenager all over again, talking about this.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Logan. Tell me more.”

He swallows hard, rubs the bridge of his nose. “And then, after that scene in the hallway there, and we almost—yeah, I thought of that a lot. I thought of just . . . sinking into you. I’d imagine how fucking tight you’d be. How soft you’d be. I felt guilty about it, too. Dirty. Like I was . . . defiling you somehow, whacking off thinking about you. But I couldn’t help it. I’d try to think of something else, but nothing . . . turned me on. Not like you. I even tried porn a couple times, which I’m not generally a big fan of, but it just seemed . . . stupid. Empty. Nowhere near as fucking erotic as you, in my hallway. The way you dropped that towel, practically begging to be shown how beautiful you really are.”

“Not practically, Logan. I
was
begging.”

“I couldn’t, though.” He looks up at me. “I hope you got that.”

I nod. “I did, and I do. Doesn’t make it easier, but I understood.”

“It was self-protection. I felt myself falling for you, and I couldn’t let myself get too attached too soon, not knowing how things would shake out between you and Caleb.” He ducks his head. Speaks to his shoes. “Even still, I have this . . . fear. That you’ll still go back to him.”

“Logan—” I want to reassure him, but he speaks over me.

“I don’t fall easy, Isabel. But when I do, I fall hard and fast.” He stands up, strides over to me, takes my hips in his hands. “There’s no going back for me now. I wouldn’t want to, even if I could. This is it, for me. I don’t—I don’t see anyone ever being able to match you. So just keep that in mind, okay? Do what you have to do. I’ll never hold you back if your path leads you away from me. But just—just don’t do so lightly, okay?” Logan is an articulate man, not given to stumbling over his words or hesitating. That he does now paints a picture that leaves me near tears. He is a warrior, a man who has seen and delivered death, and narrowly escaped it himself. A man who has been to prison and come out the other side a better person.
A man who has been betrayed and can still find the courage to show himself to me, who can allow himself to be vulnerable.

Knowing what I know, knowing what I’ve done to shake his faith in me—more than once . . . what courage must it take for him to say these things? It is unfathomable.

“
You
are my path, Logan.”

“I sure as hell hope so. And believe me, Isabel, I won’t take a single moment for granted. Not even if we have a fucking thousand years together.”

He palms the damp knot of hair at the base of my head and tugs so my face is tilted up to his.

Kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

Love is a painful emotion, I’m realizing. It cracks open the walls around my heart. Demands honesty of me. Courage. Vulnerability. Humility. It is not a light, frilly, easy, storybook thing, where the hero and his lady can ride off into the sunset together. The lady must be a warrior as well, willing to face the darkness with him; she must be brave enough to face the demons and dragons alongside her hero if she wishes to see sunrise, let alone the sunset.

M
y heart is in my throat, thick coil of black hair in one hand, scissors in the other. I blink and let out a breath, stare at myself in the hairdresser’s mirror, at Logan’s reflection. He’s standing behind me, hands in his pockets, watching. His friend, Mei, the stylist—who actually owns the entire salon—has my head in her small, delicate hands. Holding me steady. Soothing. Stroking nimble fingers over my scalp.

She understands, I think, even though I’ve told her nothing of myself, nothing of my story. I told her only that I needed to change my appearance drastically, and she met my eyes, stared at me knowingly for a long moment, and just smiled at me. Sat me in her chair, stroked her fingers through my hair, fanning it out, billowing it, pulling it back severely to assess the shape of my face, folding it up and under to get an approximation of what I might look like with shorter hair.

And then hands me her scissors. “You make the first cut,” Mei says.

Despite having been moments from shaving it to the scalp mere
hours ago, now that I have my hair in hand and scissors ready to make the first cut, I’m having a moment of doubt. Of hesitation.

Logan says nothing. Just watches.

Mei takes the scissors from me. Moves to stand in front of me. She is short and slight, hair dyed lavender and clipped close on the sides, left longer on top, twisted and pulled back over her head. She speaks English fluently but with a pronounced Asian accent. “It’s your choice. You do it, you don’t do it, only one who matters is you. But I think you want to do it. We donate it to Locks of Love.” Her fingers run almost compulsively through my hair again. “You make first cut, I make you beautiful. Make you
more
beautiful. You already beautiful.”

She hands me the scissors again, lifts my hair bound between her fingers in a thick rope, a small gap between her two hands. “Cut between hands.”

I breathe out. Snip the scissors open and closed—
snicksnick-snicksnick
—and then, before I can second-guess myself any further, I open the scissors wide and cut between Mei’s hands. I feel weight float free from the column of my neck. My head feels lighter. Mei takes the scissors from me and moves around to stand in front of me, blocking my view of myself in the mirror. I shake my head, and the sensation is bizarre. No thick sheaf of hair waving at my back, no long strands tangling around my ears, draping over my shoulder. There is nothing. I want to cry, yet also laugh. I’m not sure which.

“Let me see,” I say.

Mei just shakes her head. “Not until I’m done. Close eyes.” I close my eyes. She spins me around, pats me on the shoulder. “Okay, open, but no peeking.”

She buttons a black cape around my neck, and her fingers run through my hair several times. Oh god. It’s short. So short. There’s so little up there for her fingers to even move through.

And then she starts cutting.
Snick . . . snicksnicksnick . . . snicksnick.
I feel bits of hair flutter down and land on the black cape, on my shoulders and sliding down to my lap. A bit here, a bit there, my hair going shorter and shorter and shorter. Her scissors are so fast, moving unerringly, never hesitating. As if she has a vision and knows exactly what to do to make it reality. Like a painter utterly sure of her brushstrokes. I’m staring at Logan, who is just standing in the middle of the deserted salon, legs spread wide, arms crossed over his broad chest, eyes on me, on Mei, watching intently. His expression is inscrutable, which makes me nervous. What does he think? Does he like it? Hate it?

What will
I
think?

I have no idea. I like the way it feels, though. Loose, light, free. Everything I want to be, everything I’m striving to be.

After what seems like an eternity of cutting, she steps away, gestures for me to stand up. “Come, come. Almost done. Wash, style, and then you see.” She leads me to a sink with a U-shaped divot in the front, puts me in the reclining chair, and settles me backward, so my neck rests in the U. Warm water, strong hands. She doesn’t just wash my hair, she massages my scalp, powerful fingers digging into my scalp and the back of my neck, loosening tension, relaxing me. Kneads shampoo into my now-short hair, rinsing it away. Towels me dry.

“Okay, back to chair.” She sprays a little foam into her palm, rubs her hands together a few times, then works the mousse into my hair. “It will take time to remember, but you only need a very little product now. Shampoo, conditioner, mousse, only a little. Before, so much hair, you need a lot. First few showers, you will squirt too much. Just laugh, every girl who cuts all her hair away does it. I had long hair, like you, once. Cut it all off, dyed it purple like so.” She gestures at her head. “To make my father angry. I use too much shampoo for weeks. Never remembered.”

She uses a blow dryer on my hair, brushing stiffened fingers through it, working it forward, smoothing it down on the sides. I feel it tickling my forehead, my temple, brushing my eyebrow.

It took her perhaps fifteen minutes total to wash, dry, and style my hair. It feels miraculous. It took me fifteen minutes just to shampoo all my hair, another fifteen to rinse it. And it would still be sopping wet for at least twelve hours after washing it. Sometimes a full day, or more.

Now, it’s washed, dried, and styled in fifteen minutes. No hours of brushing.

This alone makes me giddy.

“Yes, very good.” Mei places her hands on my shoulders, squeezes, leans down close to my ear. “Ready?”

I have to let out a nervous breath. “I think so.” I straighten my spine. “Yes, I’m ready.” I close my eyes as Mei spins the chair around.

“Okay,” Mei says, “now look.”

I open my eyes, and my breath leaves me in a whoosh. Short, messy.
Perfect.
It’s boy-short. Pulled forward into my eyes, long narrow V-shaped points draping down in front of my ears. The cut accentuates my exotic features, makes my already large, dark eyes appear dramatically larger, highlights my high, sharp cheekbones, heart-shaped face, my lush, kissable lips.

“Can I do makeup on you?” Mei asks.

“Sure?” I shrug. “I don’t usually wear much.”

“Not much. You don’t need much.” She opens a cabinet under her station and pulls out her purse, lays cases and tins and brushes and tubes out on the counter of her station.

Spins me away from the mirror yet again, brushes blush on my cheeks, runs eyeliner under my eye, smears eye shadow on my eyelids, lip stain on my lips. I don’t wear much makeup, never have. I was
always told that I don’t need it, that natural beauty such as mine is best appreciated with little or no adornment.

When Mei is done, she turns me around, and yet again I am left breathless, speechless. My eyes are enormous, their natural almond shape and dark irises emphasized and highlighted. My eyes are . . . hypnotic, this way. My cheekbones look razor sharp now, my lips even fuller, darker red. The overall effect is subtle, but dramatic. Smoky, mysterious. Sultry. Sensual.

“My god, Mei.” I am near tears. “I look like . . . I don’t even know. Not even myself, anymore.”

“Is it good? You are crying, but I don’t know if it is a good cry or not.”

“No, it’s perfect. I love it. It’s perfect. I can’t believe this is me I’m looking at, right now.”

I turn my head this way and that. Examine myself from different angles. I really, truly do not even recognize myself. I look edgy, modern, sexy, exotic. Nothing like the formal, Old World aristocratic beauty I used to look like. Used to
be
. I love the messiness of it. The wind could ruffle it and muss it, and it wouldn’t ruin the look. I could run my hands through it, and it wouldn’t look worse. I do so, feather my fingers through my hair, marveling at the lack of weight sliding through my fingers. I push all the hair to one side, draping it all over to the left, and my look changes slightly. To the right, the same, a subtle change in the way the look sits on me. Brush it forward again and mess it up.

“See? You get it.” Mei smiles at me. “Mess it up. Play with it. You could slick it back, too. That would look badass, very dramatic, very different. It makes you look beautiful, a new you. Still woman, not butch at all, just short, and edgy. Different.” She unbuttons the cape and pulls it off me so the loose hair falls to the floor at my feet.

I rise to my feet and lean into her, wrap her up in a hug. She stiffens at first, clearly not comfortable with such affection, then somewhat awkwardly hugs me back.

She pushes me away after a second. “
Oh
-kay, hug time over now.”

“Sorry. I’m just . . . thank you, Mei. Thank you so much. I love it.”

“I’m very glad.” She glances at Logan. “Any friend of Logan is a friend of mine. You come back any time. We have girl talk, drink too much wine, and bitch about stupid boys.”

“I’d like that.”

“Good. You come here Friday night. I close at seven, we have a good time together.” She gathers her makeup into her hands, glances at me. “You have your own makeup?”

I shake my head. “No, like I said, I’ve never worn much makeup. Some eyeliner, lipstick, that’s about it. Nothing this dramatic.” I don’t mention that I don’t own
anything
, much less something so frivolous as makeup.

“It’s a good look for you. Makes you look mysterious. A little intimidating, I think.” She yanks a plastic grocery bag out of a cabinet in her station, dumps the makeup into it. “For you. I have more. You practice. Come Friday, I teach you, if you want.”

“Thanks, Mei. I—”

She ushers us to the door, waving her hands as if herding chickens, cutting off my thanks. “Now, go. Go. I have another client soon, and I have to clean up.”

We’re outside in the late-morning sun, walking to Logan’s SUV. When we’re in his truck and waiting at a stoplight, I turn to him. “So. What do you think, Logan?”

He looks at me long and hard. “It’s an incredible transformation, Isabel. You are absolutely gorgeous. There’s nothing you could do to ever make yourself look anything other than stunning. But this
look? It’s perfect for you. Like Mei said, it makes you look even more mysterious than you already are.”

“How do you know Mei?” I ask.

“Oh. Um. Well, I hired her to do some programming for me. She’s actually an insanely talented computer programmer too, like seriously one of the best I’ve ever met. So she worked for me programming our website and debugging some of our systems as a freelance contractor. But then when that was done, we stayed friends.”

“Just friends?”

He eyes me. “Jealous?”

I blush. “Maybe a little. It’s an unusual emotion, for me. I don’t know how to process it.”

He just laughs. “We went out once. I went to kiss her at the end of the date and we were both just like . . . nah, it’s not there. We’ve been friends since.” A glance at me. “Jealousy is totally natural and normal, by the way. Just be honest about it with yourself and with me.”

“It’s just new for me. I never . . . it never occurred to me to be jealous until I saw Caleb with someone else. He did it on purpose. He was mad at me about . . . well, that’s a long story. But he was mad at me, so he arranged for me to see him kissing another girl on the street below my apartment. My old apartment, I mean.” I try not to remember. I don’t want those memories crowding out my new sense of self. “As far as tactics go, it was effective. But that was the first time that I can remember feeling jealous. I thought he was . . . I don’t know. Not mine, because it didn’t work that way between Caleb and me. But it just . . . it never occurred to me that he’d have other women in his life. It wasn’t a good feeling.”

“I don’t suppose so.” It’s all Logan says on that subject. Smart of him, I think. Nothing good could come from his opinion of Caleb. I know how he feels and why, and there’s no sense discussing it.

Miles pass under the tires, past the windows. The radio is off, silence is thick. I don’t know where we’re going.

“What do you want to do, Isabel?” Logan asks, abruptly breaking the silence.

“I was wondering where you were going.”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. Right now I’m taking us to lunch, this great Mediterranean place I know in Brooklyn. I meant with your life. With yourself. What do you want? How will you live?”

Optimism leaves me in a rush. “I don’t know, Logan.”

“I only ask because I know you well enough by now to know you’ll only be content if you’re making your own way.” He reaches out and takes my hand, glances at me briefly. “You can stay with me. I’ll support you. Everything I have is yours. If that’s what you want, you’ll never have to work another day in your life. I’m not as wildly rich as Caleb, but I’m doing pretty fucking well for myself. You’ll never want for anything. My point wasn’t that you’re not welcome, or that there’s some kind of expiration date on you staying with me. But I feel like you need your own space. Your own thing. So that’s what I’m asking. What do you want for yourself?”

He’s right. I would feel owned all over again if I relied on him. Even if that was not his intention, even if he went out of his way to make sure I didn’t feel that way, it would seep in.

So what do I want?

I have absolutely no idea. What am I capable of? What am I good at?

I spend a long, long time thinking. And I can only come to one sad conclusion. “I’ve only ever done one thing. I only know how to be Madame X, and I cannot be her anymore. But what else can I do?” I am near tears, but I keep them down. Force them away.

“What if you don’t have to be Madame X anymore, but still
perform that same basic service, just . . . on your own? For yourself. Not as Madame X, but as Isabel de la Vega.”

I breathe deeply and slowly, carefully. “I . . . I don’t know. Could I? I don’t know. Why would I do that? What was it I really did?” I trace the stitching in the leather at the edge of my seat. “Looking back, I find only dubious value in the service I performed.”

“See, I disagree. I think you performed a
very
valuable service. When you’re dealing with people as rich as your former clientele, parenting often gets left at the wayside. Pursuit of wealth is the only thing that matters to many of them. So . . . you end up with spoiled rich kids who have no conception of reality, who don’t value hard work or money, who have no sense of self or decency or morals or anything. And I think your real value was in taking them down a few notches. Making them realize that the world wasn’t always going to revolve around them. That it didn’t, doesn’t, and never will.” He pulls to a stop on a street, I have no idea which one or where we are, and parallel parks in front of a restaurant. Doesn’t get out, pivots in his seat and looks into my eyes. “I think you could open your own business doing the same basic thing, but maybe take it a few steps further. You’d probably make a fucking fortune,
and
you’d be doing the world a favor by taking the douche out of some of the spoiled assholes out there.”