Begging for It

  His fantasies all begin with a woman alone and vulnerable. That’s how my fantasies begin too.

  When our eyes meet, I see the Jonah I know and want. The one he tries to hide from everyone else in the world but me. He whispers, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you all night. ”

  Heat flushes through me as I imagine Jonah back in his apartment, fist tight around his erection as he stands in the shower, jerking himself off to the memory of me that night. Maybe he envisioned one of the scenarios that tantalized me, like dragging me into my car, taking me on my own backseat. I think of his lips slightly parted as he breathes harder and faster—the water from the shower beading on his pale skin—the dark head of his cock sliding back and forth within his grip. When he did that, he was remembering me.

  My power over him comes from my powerlessness in his arms. The paradox intoxicates us both.

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  I lean forward and pour us each a glass of wine. It’s not that I want to get him drunk, convince him to do something he doesn’t want to do. He’s respected my boundaries, and I want to respect his. But this is a difficult subject to discuss, even after months of living out our shared fantasies. The wine can only help.

  We need a little lubrication, I think, a joke I can never share. My panties are already so wet just from the sight of him that I can feel the crotch of my jeans getting damp.

  “Is that why you wanted us to meet?” I say. “Because you can’t stop thinking about me?”

  Jonah breathes out, not quite a sigh. “Of course. ”

  Hope blazes brighter within me. “You’re ready to play our games again?”

  His expression darkens. “That’s not what I said. ”

  Why? I want to plead. But we both know why.

  In our last intimate conversation, Jonah finally told me the primal origin of his fantasies. He was born into so much privilege and wealth that he might as well have been a prince in a fairy tale: His mother, Lorena Marks, was an heiress, perhaps the richest and loveliest girl in Chicago’s upper crust, and his father, Alexander Marks, was a self-made man, the founder of Oceanic Airlines. Both Jonah and his little sister Rebecca were raised in Redgrave House, a mansion so baroque and beautiful that it’s a landmark known around the nation. They were dressed in velvet, tended by nurses, untouched by care.

  But fairy tales always take a turn for the dark. Jonah’s father died, and his mother—perhaps weakened by grief—remarried. To the outside world, Jonah’s stepfather would have seemed to fit the role of king equally well. Carter Maddox Hale is a luxury hotel mogul who appears on the covers of magazines like Forbes. He brought with him two more children from his first marriage, a girl called Elise and a boy named Maddox. According to Jonah, the children all loved each other from their very first day together, and never called each other stepbrother or stepsister. The bond was as deep as blood.

  Within Redgrave House, however, Carter Hale revealed his true self. The fairy tale shifted into reverse as the prince turned into a beast.

  Carter raped his wife regularly, and brutally. That would be enough to make him a monster. But his needs were even more depraved. When Jonah was five years old . . . Carter began forcing him to watch.

  Jonah might be made to stand against the wall; he might be commanded to climb in the bed and lie right next to them. Elise had to watch too, sometimes. He and Elise worked hard to make sure that Carter never turned on the younger two; I don’t even know if Rebecca and Maddox ever learned the truth. But Jonah feels that he kept them safe, that they’re not as twisted up inside as he will always be.

  Because that was Jonah’s first impression of sex—violent, forcible, and merciless. Over and over, as a child, he would ask his mother what was wrong. Over and over, she refused to accept the truth of what was happening. Denial was easier for her. So she told Jonah that what was happening was normal between men and women.

  He learned better, thank God. But the damage to his psyche was done. For him, the sights and sounds of force will always be arousing. He can’t change that any more than I can.

  Rape was my first experience of sex too.

  “Knowing that you’ve been hurt,” he says, “realizing what Anthony did to you—it changes things for me. ”

  I was so fucking happy when Jonah stood up to Anthony. He’d seen the truth hidden beneath our actions, the same truth my family refused to see even when I told them in plain words. Nobody had ever defended me; nobody had ever made Anthony back down.

  If I’d known it would signal the end of my relationship with Jonah, I would’ve broken down and wept instead. I wouldn’t even have cared that Anthony was watching.

  Jonah continues, “It used to turn me on so hard, thinking about you tied up, at my mercy. And now all I want to do is get between you and anyone or anything that could do you harm. ”

  Tears prick at my eyes. I’ve waited so long for someone to feel this way about me.

  And yet I also waited just as long for someone to make love to me the way I really wanted—to accept me as I am, kinks and all. Will I always have to choose between the two?

  “You know how much I need this,” I whisper.

  But he shakes his head. “There can’t be anything that either of us wants in bed as much as we need each other. ”

  I can’t argue with that. I don’t want to. Jonah’s voice has become ragged; his hand grasps my forearm like he will never let go.

  “You’re the only one who’s ever understood, Jonah. The only one who ever could understand completely. ” The words tremble. I’m on the brink. “But you’ve pulled away. ”

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  “I’m sorry. I should have tried harder, thought it through. At the time, I hated myself so much for hurting you that I couldn’t see anything else. Couldn’t feel anyone’s pain but my own. ”

  You weren’t hurting me, Jonah. You gave me what I wanted when no one else would. Why can’t you see that?

  He continues, “There has to be another way for us to be together. ”

  “Like normal people?” It’s a joke. We both smile crookedly. Whatever Jonah and I are together, it ain’t normal. “Does that mean we won’t ever—play our games again?”

  The euphemism fades his smile. “We can have a relationship without that. ”

  “Yeah, we can—we could—but I don’t want to. You didn’t just give me the fantasy I wanted; you gave me something I needed. ” Then I tilt my head, inviting him to be less serious for a moment. “And it was absolutely the best sex of my life. Are you going to tell me it wasn’t that good for you too?”

  “You know it was. No other woman would ever—completely give herself to—Jesus. You’re perfection. ” Jonah cuts himself off. “But the game isn’t necessary for me to enjoy having sex with you. Remember Scotland?”

  He swept me off to the Highlands for one amazing week earlier this fall. While he did whatever it is earthquake scientists do off the Scottish coast, I drew constantly—pages and pages a day of heather-covered hills and otters darting beneath dark water. I plan to turn those drawings into a series of etchings soon. We ate our dinners together in the tiny seashore inn where we stayed, and at night Jonah took me to bed, treated me like the most fragile treasure in the world, caressing me, going down on me longer and better than any other man ever has—

  —and it wasn’t enough.

  Which isn’t his fault. I know good oral when I get it, and damn, does Jonah give it. Most other women would have been screaming his name within seconds. But my brain was wired for perversity long before Jonah ever came along.

  “I enjoyed making love with you in Scotland,” I say honestly. Simply being that close to him, having him treat me so tenderly—that had its own kind of magic. “But by now you have to have guessed that it didn’t work for me on its own. ”

  “You mean you were faking it. ” He sounds so stung. So cheated.

  “No, I wasn’t! I’ve never had to do that with you, Jonah. Not even once. ” I take his han
d in mine. “I should’ve been honest with you from the beginning. But it was so hard to admit to you that I don’t—that I can’t ever get off without imagining being raped. ”

  Just said the R-word in public. But nobody’s sitting particularly close, and the low music muffles anything we would say so that nobody else can hear.

  I continue, “It’s hard to admit that to myself, sometimes. I hate it. I’ve spent so many years in therapy trying to change it, but it never changes. So even when you weren’t playing the game, I still was. ”

  Jonah leans back on the sofa. He looks disappointed—no, worse. Wounded. Like he’s not hurting because of me; he’s hurting for me.

  “Never,” he says. “You’ve never gotten off any other way. ”

  “Before Anthony—” But I stop. For me, sexually, there is almost no such time as before Anthony. I was fourteen. An age when girls might begin to wonder, or explore. Me, I went straight from daydreams to nightmares. “I touched myself like any other kid would, or I did, beforehand. ”

  “Afterward?”

  “I didn’t get myself off again for four years. ”

  Jonah’s broad hand closes over mine, as if he could reach into that awful time and pull me out. “It wasn’t like that for me,” he says, quietly. “So I didn’t realize what it was like for you. ”

  Of course it wasn’t like that for him. Guys are lucky, with their dicks. No matter how fucked-up they are, the mechanism usually works. It’s like they have an expressway to orgasm, while even the happiest women sometimes have to wind their way through a maze. “That’s how it is for me,” I say. “I want to work on it, but—that’s my truth, that’s where I am. If you can’t be with me until I’m over it . . . Jonah, that’s going to be a long time. ”

  He doesn’t answer right away; he’s deep in thought, weighing what I’ve said. I want him to take this seriously, but I also want an answer. More than anything, I want him to drag me back to his apartment and ravage me until the pleasure in my body drowns the pain in my head.

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  I take a sip of wine. Killing time. The suspense stretches me thin.

  Finally, Jonah says, “You know why this is hard for me. It’s not like I drew some arbitrary line. ”

  “I know. ” What must it have been like for him, watching his mother broken down night after night, year after year? “But I don’t understand why what Anthony did to me has to define what we do together. ”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds cruel. I don’t mean for it to be. ” The silence between us lasts even longer this time. Jonah’s gaze turns inward, toward other people and other times. “What my stepfather did to my mother wasn’t only meant to hurt her. Elise and I weren’t merely props for his sick games; it took me a long time to realize he enjoyed victimizing us just as much. I think he wanted Elise to feel helpless. To expect nothing but pain from any man. He’s the kind of man who would want his daughter to believe that. And Carter wanted me to be that kind of man too. ”

  “You aren’t. You have to know that, Jonah. You’ve always taken such good care of me. ”

  His gray eyes search mine. “I want to believe you,” he says. “Sometimes I do. Other times I wonder whether all the evil I saw in Carter is in me too, but—silent. Ticking like a time bomb. Waiting to detonate. ”

  I understand what Jonah means. No, I don’t believe he’s grown up to be anything like that bastard Carter Hale. But I know what it’s like to feel like a parent’s script is forever waiting for you to speak the lines. My father’s denial, my mother’s sharp, shallow judgments: I hear echoes of those in my own thoughts from time to time. The fact that I don’t believe the words will never fully stop me from hearing them.

  Jonah continues, “Knowing what you’ve been through—that you’ve been hurt—that brings us too close to what I lived through before. I can’t forget what’s been done to you, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t affect me. ”

  “It’s like—like you stopped seeing me as me. Now you can only see me as a victim. ”

  “That’s not true. ”

  “Okay, then you can only treat me as a victim. And you were the one who helped me feel less like a victim than I ever had since the day Anthony raped me. With you, it was like I owned this. I’d felt so sick and ashamed, but with you—when we acted out our scenes together—I could let the shame go. You set me free. ”

  “Vivienne,” he says, leaning closer. Jonah folds my hand against his chest. He wants to kiss me, but he doesn’t. Neither of us moves. We are bound together and yet parted. Two halves that can’t be glued into a whole. Maybe that’s how it is when you find someone whose wounds are the same as your own.

  But I’m not willing to give up on Jonah. Not the sex, not the emotions between us, not any of it. If I’m going to fight for this man, I’m going to fight for everything.

  “Jonah, you and I—we’re walking through the same dark place, together,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me there alone. ”

  “I don’t want to leave you. I don’t even think I could, unless it’s the only way to keep you safe. Make you whole. ”

  I want to cry. I want to scream. Jonah holds so much power over me—but this is the one power nobody else can ever have.

  “You don’t get to make me whole,” I say. “You have to take me as I am, or we’re lost. ”

  Jonah wants to protest, but even as he opens his mouth, I sling my handbag over one shoulder and stand. The firelight plays across his face, tricks of light and shadow obscuring what he feels in this moment.

  But I know myself, and that’s enough.

  So I say, “Listen to me. Tomorrow night, I’ll be at home. At ten P. M. , I’m going to unlock my front door. At eleven, I’ll lock it again. If you’re still on the other side of the door—then I’m locking you out. For good. ”

  “What?” He looks stunned. No, hurt.

  “I know it’s not fair,” I confess. “I don’t like giving you an ultimatum. But what I’ve had with you is the one honest sexual relationship of my entire life, and if giving up that honesty is the price of getting you back, it’s too high. I won’t live a lie again. ”

  “You’re giving me one day?”

  My voice trembles as I say, “How much time would be enough? A month? A year? This isn’t about waiting until we’re both comfortable and ‘healthy’ or whatever the hell else our goals should be. It’s about accepting that we’re both twisted as fuck and the only way we’ll ever work this out is together. If you can’t deal with that now, then you’re probably not going to be able to deal with it ever. And if that’s the case, then the best thing for both of us is to move on as soon as we can. ”

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  Jonah finally gets it, I can tell. Slowly he nods. But his expression has become completely unreadable—those steely eyes closed to me again—and I have no idea which way he’ll jump.

  “Tomorrow night,” I repeat. “Ten to eleven P. M. I’ll be waiting. ”

  Instead of waiting for a reply, I turn and walk out, refusing to glance back even once.

  As I fumble for my car keys in my purse, blinking back tears, I ask myself if I’m really ready to draw that line in the sand. A traitorous voice inside me whispers, It’s not too late to return to the bar and take everything back.

  But I am ready. I have to be. Because the barrier between me and Jonah isn’t one that will slowly disappear with time.

  Jonah has to tear it down.

  Four

  The next morning, I keep myself busy at the university. Exams are upon us, which means I have to lead two exam-review sessions, read a few late papers, and sort through e-mails about a statistically improbable number of dead grandmothers. Normally I’d get through this by reminding myself that I’ve got the afternoon off—

  —but free hours today are hours of almost unbearable suspense. Every second is one more tick on the clock counting down to the moment Jonah comes for me, or I learn I’ve lost him forever. My mind refuses to focus. The
disconnect between my inner tension and the outside world makes everything slightly surreal.

  Luckily, I can invite myself to a place where focus is impossible anyway—to a house with a newborn baby.

  “Thank God,” Shay breathes as I enter the town house with a couple bags of groceries. She’s propped up in this puffy red recliner she and Arturo bought at Goodwill. In her arms, Nicolas nurses hungrily, his tiny pink hands opening and closing against her breast. “Tell me you brought chocolate. ”

  “Not just any chocolate. ” I swung by World Market on the way over; they carry various snacks from all over the world, including Shay’s native Australia. As I triumphantly pull out a red-and-brown packet, Shay lights up.

  “Tim Tams! Thank you. I swear, I’m going to eat the lot in one go. ” She sighs in anticipatory delight. “Nursing a baby—it’s like you can’t get enough calories in you, no matter how hard you try. ”

  “Sounds like fun. The calorie part, I mean. ”

  She laughs. “Not the rest, huh? Oh, God, I must look like hell. ”

  Shay’s hair, usually tinted some outlandish shade of maroon or purple, now shows an inch of plain brown roots. Her thick-framed glasses are slightly askew on her face, and she’s wearing the same pajamas I saw her in two days ago. Having a new baby might be one of the greatest joys human beings can experience, but from what I can see, it’s also completely fucking exhausting.

  I peel open the Tim Tams and set the packet next to her. Shay stuffs one in her mouth with her free hand, then gives me a big-cheeked smile.

  “Hey, baby,” I whisper as I brush one fingertip along Nicolas’s arm. He keeps feeding hungrily, his heavy-lidded eyes shut against this unfamiliar world. “I’m here to help your mom and dad out today. So where do I start?”

  “Ask Arturo. ” Shay sighs as she reaches for another Tim Tam. “I have no idea what’s happening in the rest of the house. I don’t think I’ve left this recliner since four A. M. except to pee. ”

  My real family lives one state over, in the physical sense. In the emotional sense, they might as well be on the moon. That distance might be harder to bear if I hadn’t found an adopted family to love and be loved by. Carmen Ortiz began as my randomly assigned freshman year roommate. Within a couple months, she’d become my best friend. When her younger brother Arturo joined us at UT Austin, we both took him under our wing, and for the past few years, I’ve been the unofficial third sibling. They even brought me back to their home in San Antonio to spend a couple of Thanksgivings with them and their parents. The way they love each other—openly, unabashedly—it shows me what a healthy family looks like. My parents and Chloe don’t have a clue.