She clutched the mask in front of her, twisting the straps. “I’m here because I need to talk to you. I’m sorry for the crazy shit I said to you, about you being empty inside. I didn’t mean it. I was just freaked out from seeing Simon.”
“Chere—”
“No, wait. That’s not the truth. The truth is, I freaked out on you because I love you. I tried not to fall in love, but I did, and you said—”
“Chere, I need you to go.”
She was so sad, and so beautiful. It was so hard to keep my walls up when she looked at me that way, her clear brown eyes full of longing and apology.
But I had to keep my walls up. I nudged her back and shut the door.
The doorbell rang as soon as I threw the lock. I returned to my wine and my book, but my quiet had been shattered. She rang ten more times before I got up and yanked open the door. She was wearing the damn mask again.
“I’m not interested,” I said through my teeth. “If I wanted a whore, I’d have called one.”
She pitched herself at me, knocking me backward. I tripped and fell and she landed on top of me, a masked pink dragon, breathing fire. Somewhere along the line I’d forgotten she was such a fighter.
“I know you love me,” she said, holding me down.
“I don’t believe in love.”
“Then surrender. You believe in surrender. I tried my best to be the kind of partner you wanted. Why wouldn’t you ever let me in your dungeon?”
I glanced at the open door, wondering what the neighbors and their two young children might think of this scene. “You’re a fucking pain in the ass,” I said, pushing her off me.
She lay back on my floor in her damned designer suit. I remembered it as vividly as I remembered that day we met. The skirt I’d cut off her that day was still in the back of my closet, folded into a pale pink square. She kicked off her shoes.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me,” she said. “Or hurt me. Either one.”
“I’m very close to hurting you. Why don’t you move on with your life? Why don’t you get a fucking job?”
“Because I want to work for you. I want to work at Eriksen.”
“You don’t have the resume for Eriksen.” I took off her mask and flung it across the room so she couldn’t put it on again. “I paid for you to go to school so you would make something of yourself. Wasn’t that the plan?” Her eyes widened as I yelled at her. “Now you’re lying on my fucking floor in the same outfit you wore three years ago—”
“I’ll get a job, okay? Is that what I have to do for you to love me?” She crawled over and slammed the door, and leaned back against it, drawing in her knees. I read the body language easily enough: she wasn’t leaving. I thought with longing of my wine and Neruda poems. Damn her and her long, brown, curly hair making a halo against the pale wood.
“I’ll get a job,” she said. “I’ll design things. I want to design things. Why does that mean I can’t have you too?”
“Because I want to put you in a dungeon,” I answered in a sharp voice. “It’s not about the job, it’s about this relationship shit you’re looking for. I want sex and slavery. I want you as a toy, not a partner, and it’s not fair to draw you into a dynamic like that when you want love and commitment. Why can’t you fucking see this?”
“We can’t compromise?” she asked. “There’s no way for us to have the sex and slavery and still have love?”
I gave a bitter laugh. “You’d love me for about a week before you tried to run the hell away.”
“That’s not true. I want your intensity and your roughness. I love to surrender to you.”
I got to my feet, waving away her silly declarations. She had no idea what she was volunteering for. “It wouldn’t just be sessions,” I said. “If I had what I wanted—my ideal relationship—”
Stop. Stop talking, Price. Just stop.
“What? Tell me.”
“It would be about more than sex,” I said, standing over her. “It would be everything. You wouldn’t just be a slave, or a sub. You’d be mine, my possession.”
“I want that.”
“You think you do, but you don’t.” I started to pace, desire and angst expended in activity. “I would take everything I wanted from you, everything I needed, no matter what you thought you needed. I’d torment you if I felt like it. An all-encompassing dynamic. That’s what I would want.” I stopped pacing and turned to her. “You’ve never been anyone’s slave before.”
“I’ve been yours,” she said. “For three years.”