Exposed (8 page)

A sigh. A long silence. Another sigh. “Come back.” Your eyes meet mine. I see a glimmer of emotion in them, a tiny, infinitesimal spark. “Please.”

Where else do I go? I have nowhere. No one. Rachel is tainted
for me now. I cannot see Rachel without seeing you, fucking, pounding, spanking, staring at me.

I want to go to Logan. I want to bury my head in the sand. I want his arms around me. I want his eyes on mine, his hands on me, his lips. I want that, so badly. I want his truth. The ease of everything that is him. But what if he’s lying, too? What if I become addicted to him the way I’m addicted to you?

You are a drug. I am hooked on you.

I read a book about drug addicts, about addiction. How even when addicts know the drug is killing them, they cannot stop. They return to it time and again, despite knowing the toll.

I return with you, despite knowing that I cannot trust you. That you are lying, that you are keeping the truth from me. That you are manipulating me into staying. I go with you, because I am addicted.

Y
ou pin me up against the door of the elevator, hips hard against mine, and your hands roam my body, one sliding up to grip my hair and the other stripping me of my clothes. Your mouth crushes mine, but this is not a kiss, this is a demonstration of ownership. Your mouth steals my breath. Your hands steal my will.

Your body erases my thoughts. You are hard against me, giving me no chance of arguing, of hesitating, of pulling away. I am imprisoned by your mastery over my body. You know the buttons to push, and you push them. I am rendered helpless.

You are an incubus.

Somehow, you become naked. I do not remember seeing or feeling you remove your clothes, but I feel your skin against mine. You are not gentle, or slow. You ravage my mouth with yours until I must rip my face away and gasp for breath.

And that is when your hands press down on my shoulders and I am forced to my knees. Your hand is tangled in my hair, and you
force my head back. My heart hammers, and I stare up at you, lips parted in shock. This is not the Caleb I know, the man who has possessed my body every night, every day for . . . for as long as I can remember.

Your penis is an erect shaft in front of my face, thick and veined and plump-headed and as perfect as the rest of you, although I suppose I have no frame of reference, only the knowledge of your body, thus.

“Open your mouth,” you command.

I open my mouth. My body obeys, although my mind is numb.

You thrust yourself into my mouth, roughly. I gag. You pull back. Thrust again.

“Is this what you want?” you demand. “The way I treat them?”

Ah. We return to this.

You thrust into my mouth, and I taste flesh, gag as you reach the back of my throat, choke as you push deeper. My eyes water, and my nose touches your belly. I cannot breathe, and my jaw aches, my eyes leak involuntary tears, and I am paralyzed by this, by you, by the ache, the choking of your erection down my throat, and I suck in a breath through my nose.

I do not like this.

I shake my head and try to pull away, but the door is behind my head and I have no escape.

“Is this how you wanted it?” you ask.

I shake my head.

This is starting to feel like violation.

Betrayal.

And then you slide your erection out of my mouth and your fist closes around it and you begin pumping your fist up and down, up and down. One hand in my hair, knotting my locks in your fist.

“You want to take it on the face, don’t you? Like Rachel?”

Why are you doing this?

I could cry, but don’t.

I watch your hand move in a blur on your shaft, and then your face tightens, your jaw clenches. You point the tip of your penis at my face. You release in silence, lip curled in a sneer.

You come on my face.

It drips hot down my forehead, trickles into my hair. Down my cheek. Splashes hot onto my lips, and I taste salt. Down my chin.

You step back, and I shoot to my feet, fighting sobs. I stand, chest heaving, disgusted, aching in my soul.

And . . . oh, I hate myself. I loathe myself.

Because I cannot deny the truth: If you had done that without forcing me, I might have liked it. Watching you. If it had been my hand on you instead of your own, if it had been done with any kind of mutuality . . .

But it wasn’t, and I am enraged.

I spit your own semen into your face. “Fuck you, Caleb. You are a pig.”

“It’s what you wanted.” You make no move to wipe away the spittle-tinged semen from your cheek.

“Not to be forced to it!” I shout.

I am seized, spun around, pressed flat against the door, and then you are up against me, and you bend at the knees and slide up and into me. Slowly, gently. Your lips touch my shoulder. The back of my neck, just beneath my hairline. You hold my hair up in a pile on top of my head and kiss my neck, down the curve to my shoulder again. Thrust.

You’ve already come, but you are either still hard or impossibly hard again already.

“Like this?” Slow, gentle, gliding thrusts, kisses to my neck.

Yes
, part of me says.

“No,” I growl. Push back, elbow you as hard as I can.

I let you put your penis in my mouth, but then you took more than I was willing to give.

I never said no, did I?

I question everything now. Myself most of all.

I still have your come on my face.

“Tell me to stop, X.”

“Stop, Caleb.” My voice is calm. I am proud of this, because I am not at all calm.

You release me, back away. Empty, I sag. Brace against the cold silver metal of the elevator door. Chest heaving. Gasping. Tears prickling my eyes. I turn around. Take a step toward you.

I slap you, openhanded, as hard as I can. My palm cracks against your face. I slap you again. And again. You make no move to defend yourself.

“That is how I treat them. I do not ask them what they want. I fuck them. I do what I want. I am not gentle. They take it, or they leave.
You
 . . . I don’t do that with you because
you
are not like them.” Your cheek is red from my slaps.

My spit, your seed, it is smeared on your face, on my hand. We are both of us a mess.

“That’s not what I saw with Rachel.” I want badly to wipe my face, but I won’t give you the satisfaction. “And is that supposed to make what you just did any better?”

“You could have stopped me. You had my cock in your mouth. You could have bitten me. You had both hands free. You could have hit me, punched me, grabbed my balls. Any number of things. You didn’t. You just knelt there and took it.” You pause for effect. “You
liked
it.”

“Don’t you dare turn this back on me, Caleb Indigo.”

“Why not . . . Madame X? Is it not true? Couldn’t you have stopped me?”

He’s right. I could have. I didn’t fight hard enough.

I slam into him, shoving him backward. “Goddamn you, Caleb! Why are you doing this?”

You catch your balance easily, and turn away. Wipe your face with your hand. Dress with your customary precision. “You want me to be the bad guy. So, I’ll be the bad guy.” When you are clothed, and I, again, am naked, you stare down at me. “And you know deep down you liked it. Maybe you didn’t like that I was rougher with you than you would have initially preferred, but you liked it. Same way you
liked
watching me fuck Rachel. You hate me for that, but I think you hate yourself more for liking it.”

I shake my head but cannot find the words to deny it.

You do not quite smile, but there is a ghost of amusement on your icy features. “You don’t deny it.”

I open my mouth to speak, but I have no words.

And then . . .

You kiss me.

It is gentle.

There is sweetness to it.

You pull away, reach into an inside pocket of your suit coat, withdraw a slippery, silky, maroon necktie. You wipe my face with it, and then you kiss me again.

Do you notice that I do not kiss you back?

I am reeling. Your emotional manipulation has left me exhausted, empty.

You reach into the hip pocket of your slacks, withdraw a slim white rectangle. A cell phone. You hand it to me. “It’s yours. I programmed my number into it. Len’s, if you need a driver or anything.” You glance down at the pile of fabric that is my clothing, my dress, my underwear. There is a small square of folded paper. You bend, retrieve it, unfold it, read it. You toss it, let it flutter back down.
Take the phone back, tap at it for a moment. “There. Now you’ve got
his
number, too. This is me giving you choices.”

You hand the phone back, and I take it, still and silent. I am so tired now that I can barely stand upright. You just stare at me, your expression characteristically inscrutable.

“You want to be her?” You point at the square of paper. The name written thereon. “Then be her. Be the immigrant girl.”

You turn, open the elevator, step on, insert your key. I am within reach. You palm my hip, tug me to you. Kiss my mouth again, the way you never have before. And then you release me, and I stumble backward.

“You are Isabel, and I am Caleb.” You leave off the rest, and somehow that is worse than if you’d said the rest.

As if by leaving off the rest, you are acknowledging the lie. That there was no bad man. That you did not save me. I suddenly want the lie.

I want the lie.

But you only repeat the new truth: “You are Isabel, and I am Caleb.”

You twist the key, and the doors close, and I see your frame in a narrowing perspective, until there is just a sliver of you, and then you are gone.

And I am alone with your words.

You are Isabel, and I am Caleb.

Oh, you are cruel. Even if I am her, I am still yours.

I take a shower, a long, scalding shower, and I scrub myself until I am pink and raw, and the water runs cold. I brush my teeth until my gums bleed.

None of that scours away the scrim of ugliness on my skin, or purges the mire from within me.

I fall onto the bed, wrapped in a towel, mind spinning in dizzying circles.

I am Isabel.

You are Caleb.

I am Isabel.

He is Logan.

I am Isabel.

I think of a line from a Bible I once read, in my library, long ago, back before everything changed: “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”

I didn’t understand those words then, but I do now.

I am an addict, and you are my drug.

I am Isabel.

If I want to be anyone other than the addict, the Caleb-junkie, the no one, the girl on her knees, taking what you give as if it’s all I’m worth, then I have to choose someone else to be.

I choose Isabel, a dead immigrant girl I may or may not have once been.

I am Isabel.

Sleep is a long time coming, and when it does claim me, it is with tear tracks drying on my cheeks; the walls echo with the ghosts of my sobs, the specter of X writhes in my soul, and the memory of choking on you is a livid scar across my
mind.

T
here are no blackout curtains in your bedroom; there is no noise machine. Those are the weapons with which I fight the demons plaguing my sleep. I haven’t slept well in the months since moving up here; the nightmares wake me up, and you are always gone.

I cannot wake up, this time. I am trapped in the dream, trapped in the darkness, with sirens howling like wolves in the shadows, rain slicing my face like icy knives. Lights flash, blue and red, white lights piercing the black. Searching. Eyes, searching. Pain stabs me, grips me. I am confused, disoriented. I do not know what happened. All I know is pain. Agony. I burn. My skull throbs, my face aches. My bones shake and my muscles tremble and it hurts to breathe, hurts to sob, hurts, hurts, hurts. I crawl across cold wet hard ground, fingernails scrabbling and ripping away. I do not know where I am trying to go, just away. Away. Away from the pain, but the pain is me and I cannot escape it. I cannot escape myself. The pain is all.

I wake abruptly, sobbing, sweaty. Alone. The penthouse is dark, and silent. I know the various sounds of silence, the silence of someone waiting, the silence of emptiness.

This is the silence of absence.

You are gone.

I am not upset by this. I do not know if I can ever face you again.

I am assaulted by a wave of memory: your fingers in my hair, my jaw cracking wide and your essence on my tongue.

I barely make it to the bathroom in time to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Acid burns my throat, bitter and hot. Coats my tongue, my lips. Drips down my chin. I rinse my mouth with tepid water from the tap, then brush my teeth again and wash my face with hand soap.

I am exhausted, seeing as what little sleep I did get was wracked by the nightmare and provided no rest. I am slow, sluggish, lethargic. Empty. Numb. As if by vomiting, I purged myself of any capacity to think or feel.

On autopilot, I dress myself. Black lingerie, because I do not own anything except lingerie. A simple dove-gray dress, A-line, knee-length, with a wide crimson belt and matching red pumps. I brush through my hair and leave it loose in glossy raven-wing waves. I do not know why I am getting dressed. I do not know where I intend to go, only that I cannot stay here any longer.

As I near the elevator, I trip in the darkness over a pile of cloth, and my toe kicks something hard, which skitters across the hardwood floor. I retrieve it.

The cell phone.

I lift it, press the circular button at the bottom. The screen lights up, showing the time—8:48
P.M.
—and the date—September 18, 2015. Beneath that, there is a green icon. Next to the icon is a name: Caleb.
And beside that is a line of text:
the code to access the phone is 0309, the date you left the hospital.

I touch the icon and swipe it to the right, and a keypad appears, prompting me to either touch ID or enter passcode; I enter the numbers, and the screen appears to fly at me as it shifts to show the message. I see the message from you in a gray bubble on the left side of the screen. I touch the thing that looks like an Internet search bar, and a keyboard appears.

I type a message in return:
Thank you.

Three gray dots appear in a bubble, and then a message pops up.
Youre welcome.
The lack of an apostrophe to denote the contraction irks me.

I’m leaving
, I type.

Where

No question mark, just the single word. I didn’t expect such poor grammar from you.

I do not know. Anywhere but here. Anywhere that is not where you are.

I’m sorry, X. I went too far.

Yes, you did. Much too far.

Do you need money?

You are letting me go? I don’t know what to think about this, what to feel. It is odd to be using a cell phone, to be doing something
so mundane as texting. I’ve seen you do it, I’ve seen clients do it. I never thought I would do it.

I do not want anything from you, Caleb.

Everything you have comes from me, X.

My name is Isabel. And yes, I know that. If I could walk out of here naked, with nothing but my skin, I would.

You wouldnt make it far in that state

No apostrophe, no period. Why? Is it hard to take the extra time to add them? I don’t understand. I notice, as well, that you do not address my statement of my name.

No, I would not.

Have fun with Logan. It won’t last.

I don’t know what that means, and I’m not sure what I can respond with, so I don’t respond at all. I have seen you use your phone—which is the same as this one except yours is black—so I know that the button on the right side near the top turns the screen off. I clutch the phone in my hand and notice that the elevator key is in the slot. I twist it, remove it when the doors open, and take the elevator down to the lobby. I debate whether to take the key.

If I take it, it would be a concession. It would mean I plan to return.

I don’t.

I see a security guard I recognize standing beside the receptionist desk. Frank? I think that’s the right name. I cross the lobby, my heels cracking loudly on the marble.

The guard eyes me suspiciously. “Ma’am.”

“Frank, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tall, round-shouldered, heavy brows, square jaw, shaved head.

I extend the key. “Give this to Mr. Indigo, if you would.”

“Won’t you need it, ma’am?”

“Not anymore.” I don’t wait for a response, I spin on my heel and pretend to have confidence I don’t feel as I stride out through the revolving door.

Turn right, up Fifth. Try to breathe. Try to ignore the noise, ignore the panic.

Try to ignore the fact that I am alone in the world. I have nothing but my name. Even the clothes I wear are yours, the phone, the shoes. Even my face belongs to you, since you paid to have it fixed.

I am reminded, then, of the chip in my hip. Is that real? Is that possible? I make it two blocks up and three blocks over before my nerves overcome me. I huddle against the side of a building, clutching the phone so hard my hand hurts.

Swipe right; 0-3-0-9; contacts; Logan.

It rings once. Twice. Three times.

“Logan Ryder.” His voice alone soothes me.

“Logan? It’s me. It’s”—I have to suck in a breath—“it’s Isabel.”

There are voices in the background, a phone ringing. “Sorry, it’s crazy at the office right now. Hold on, let me go somewhere quiet.” I hear a door click closed, and the background noise fades. “Are you okay?”

“No. I—I left.”

“Left?” You suck in a breath. “You mean you
left
, left?”

“Yes, Logan. I walked out.” My voice quavers. “I . . . Caleb, he . . . we—he did something. To me.” I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about that, yet.

“And he let you leave?”

“He gave me a cell phone, and even programmed your number into it.”

“So he can track you, probably.”

“He told me he had a microchip surgically implanted in my hip. So I don’t think he needs a cell phone to track me.”

“Are you joking?”

“Humor is not one of my strong suits, Logan.”

“Goddamn. That’s fucked up. Like really,
really
fucked up.”

“I know.” I fall silent as a man sidles past me on the sidewalk, eyeing me with something like greed in his gaze. I give him my best glare, and he continues past me. “Caleb, when I told him I was leaving, all he said was to have fun with you, and that it wouldn’t last.”

“I wonder what game he’s playing,” he muses.

“I wish I knew.” A phone rings in the background. “Do you have to answer that?”

“No. That’s why I have employees,” he says. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know. A few blocks from the tower. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t want to just go running straight to you, but I don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you should go straight to me. I’m here for you, Isabel.”

I like that. Oh, I like it very much. Hearing my name on his lips. A normal name. A beautiful name.

“Can you come get me?” I ask.

“I—shit. Fuck. I can’t. God, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m at the tail end of a fifteen-million-dollar acquisition.” He curses again, fluently. “My office is on Ninth and Forty-fifth. Can you make it here?”

“Yes. I’ll call you again when I’m at the intersection?”

“All right. I’m sorry, normally I’d drop whatever I’m doing, but I have to be physically present for this one.”

“No, it’s all right.”

“It’s not. I don’t even have a car to send for you. I keep things simple, you know?”

“Simple is good. I’ll make it.”

“But your panic attacks—”

I try to infuse strength into my voice. “I’ll have to work through it.”

“One breath at a time. One step at a time. Baby steps to Logan.”

“Is that another reference to that movie?”

“Yes.”

“I still haven’t seen it, you know. I’ve never seen any movies.”

“Make it to my office, and we’ll set about rectifying that.”

“Okay.” I take a breath. “I can do this.”

“You can do this.” I hear a voice in the background call Logan’s name urgently. “I have to go. Call me if you need me. I swear I’ll answer, no matter what.”

“Okay. Now go do your acquisitioning.”

He laughs. “See? You do have a sense of humor. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

I end the call, to save him having to. I look up at the nearest intersection, at the signs. Seventh and Forty-fourth. Two blocks up, one block over. I can do it.

I push away from the wall. Straighten my spine. Lift my chin. Breathe deeply. One foot in front of the other. Ahead, a siren blares, and I flinch, and my breath lodges in my throat, but I force my feet to move. One foot forward. Follow it with the other. One step after another. Keep breathing. Ignore the people. Wait at the intersection for the light to change, a crowd around me. No one is looking at me. I am just another face in the crowd. Anonymous. It feels good.

I make it to Forty-fifth, but then I can’t figure out whether to turn
right or left. I choose left, and discover that I’ve chosen incorrectly when I reach Sixth Avenue. I turn around and retrace my steps, wading through the ever-present crowds, wincing and flinching as my shoulder is jostled, ignoring the hammer of my heart in my chest, trying desperately to pretend I’m okay. Fake it till you make it, Logan told me. I’m trying to fake it, but it’s hard. The city is loud, horns always blaring, lights blinding. The people are myriad.

I’m crossing Eighth when a young man runs across the street, arms flailing, glancing behind, running frantically. He slams into me, sends me flying, twisting. I hear a shout, and a mammoth horse gallops across the intersection, a policeman on its back. I am in its path. I am still off balance, arms windmilling, stumbling. My shoe has come loose on my foot, and my ankle twists.

A hand grabs me, jerks me out of the way at the last second.

I am pulled against a hard chest smelling sharply of cologne. I look up into the cold gray eyes of Len. Big, broad, craggy features, a man like a stone golem made flesh, but barely.

“You’re here?” I ask.

“He had me follow you. Make sure nothing happened to you.” Len gestures at the horse and rider in pursuit of the criminal. “Like that.”

“I don’t need your help,” I say.

“You were almost trampled.”

I will not resort to petulance. “Thank you for your assistance, Len.”

“No problem. Those fuckers will run you down and not even blink twice.”

“I suppose you’re reporting my whereabouts?” I say, noticing the wire looped around an ear, the cord vanishing under the suit.

“Don’t need to. He knows where you are.”

“Of course he does. He always does.”

Len just shrugs. “How he is, I guess.” A gesture in the direction I was going. “Might as well walk with you now.”

There isn’t much to say. Len is a man of few words, and I am lost in my own mind, focusing on keeping down the panic.

When I reach Ninth and Forty-fifth, I stop. Dial Logan. “I’m here,” I say, when he answers.

“Be right down.”

He emerges from a doorway between shops, across the street from me, on Forty-fifth. His eyes narrow when he sees who’s with me. He glances both ways, then jogs across to me, eyeing Len warily.

“You didn’t say anything about Len being with you,” he points out.

“I didn’t know he was. I was almost run over by a police horse, and Len saved me.”

“Orders from the boss,” Len says.

“Well, she’s safe now.” Logan reaches for me, and I take his hand.

Len just nods. “I’ll be seeing you.” Turns, walks away.

Logan watches as Len vanishes into the crowds. “‘I’ll be seeing you?’” he repeats. “That’s not ominous or anything.”

“Len is an ominous sort of man,” I say.

“No kidding.” Logan’s eyes find me, compassion fills his gaze. “You’re about done in, aren’t you?”

I can only nod. I am holding it together by a string.

Logan leads me across the street, his arm around my waist. I lean into him, inhale his scent. He is chewing cinnamon gum, but I notice the outline of a pack of cigarettes in the right hip pocket of his tight blue jeans. I notice odd details, as he leads me to his office. His shoes, old, worn Adidas sneakers, faded, scuffed, the fabric worn nearly through near the toe of one shoe. Why would a wealthy man like Logan wear such old shoes? I notice a watch on his wrist, a huge black rubber thing that looks like it could take a bullet and not suffer any harm—the only watch I’ve ever seen him wear. His hair, pulled
back in a ponytail, low on his nape. With his hair pulled back, his looks change. Sleeker, a little older. I notice wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, from smiling, and from squinting in the sun.

I remember that he spent time fighting in the desert overseas.

I notice graffiti on the wall, on a mailbox. A homeless man huddled in a doorway, watching everything but somehow seeing nothing.

I notice Logan’s T-shirt, black and tight-fitting, with a white skull painted on the front, the jaw depicted as four vertical lines extending down to the hem, the eye holes made into angry slits.

Looking at him, it isn’t readily obvious that Logan is a multimillionaire. Which, I suppose, is the point. He keeps things simple.