The Siren (5 page)

“I’m not a biochemistry major at a fucking brutal liberal arts college. Scoot. The grown-ups are talking now.”

She shut the door in his face.

“Talk, Kingsley,” she said into the phone. “This better be good.”

* * *

“Working late as usual, I see.”

Zach glanced up from his notes on Nora’s book and found J.P. standing outside his office with a newspaper under his arm. He checked his watch.

“After eight already?” Zach asked, shocked by his sudden immunity to the passage of time. “Good Lord.”

“Must be reading something good.” J.P. entered Zach’s office and sat down.

“Possibly. Here—listen to this.” Zach opened her manuscript to a marked page and read aloud.

It is a pleasure to watch her work. From my desk in the office I need only to move my chair six inches to the right and I can see the kitchen’s reflection in the hall mirror with such clarity that I feel like a ghost in the room.

This is what I see—Caroline, who at twenty still retains the coltish legs of a much younger girl, pushes a stool to the counter. It wobbles nervously under her knees as she kneels on it with a steadying breath. She opens the cabinet that houses my wineglasses, my deliberately mismatched collection, all of which are older than her and one or two which are older than this adolescent country. She takes them one by one from the rack; their fragile stems shiver in her delicate fingers.

I brought her to this moment by design. I could have tortured her with tasks, with arduous acts of service. Instead, I chose to torture her with boredom, curious to see what the devil would do with her idle hands. Interesting that in my home it is the objects most easily broken that draw her attention first. With a soft, clean cloth she polishes every glass. She holds the bowl like a bird, strokes the stem like the back of a cat, wipes every old whisper off the lip. I see her eyes count the glasses. I count them with her. Thirteen. Last night I showed her the lash but did not use it on her. Thirteen…one lash for every glass she touched without my permission.

Thirteen…tonight I think I’ll whip her first and tell her why after.

Zach closed the manuscript and waited for J.P.’s reaction. J.P. whistled, and Zach raised his eyebrow at him.

“I think that rather turned me on. Should that worry me?” J.P. asked with a rakish grin.

“Since I’m the only other person in the room, I think it should probably worry me a great deal more,” Zach said. “It’s rather good, isn’t it? The content is slightly unsettling but the writing…”

“She’s got talent. I told you. I hope this means you are no longer planning on killing me.”

“Killing you?”

J.P. grinned. “Yes, for twisting your arm over Sutherlin.”

Zach laughed a little. “No, I’m not going to kill you anymore. But tell me—was I really the only editor who could or would work with her?”

“I suppose I could have dug up someone else. No one near as good as you, though. Anyway, Sutherlin requested you.”

Zach looked up in surprise.

“She did?”

“Well, not by name.” J.P. looked slightly sheepish. “She told me to give her to whichever editor would flog her the hardest. Yours was the first and quite honestly the only name that came to mind.”

“I’m hardly flogging her.”

“What would you call it?” J.P. had a dark twinkle in his eyes.

“I don’t believe I will justify that insinuating tone in your voice with a response. We were discussing the book after all.”

“Yes, quite a stunning little book you waltzed out of Rose’s party with Monday night.”

“I’m a professional,” Zach said calmly. “I don’t shag my writers.”

He omitted mentioning how shamefully close he’d come to asking Nora up after the cab ride to his building. He still couldn’t believe she’d gotten to him that fast. In ten years of marriage he’d never once been unfaithful to Grace, never even wanted to be. And then in one day Nora Sutherlin was putting thoughts in his head he hadn’t let himself have in years.

“I’ve seen her. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But it’s just a shock. I’m surrounded by postfeminists and neo-Freudians. Whatever happened to that ‘forgot the author, only the book matters’ philosophy?”

“One cab ride and one good conversation hardly makes me a Freudian. I’ll admit I was a bit of a prig about her. She is a good writer and the book has potential. If I’m warming up to her it’s only because I’m warming up to the book. But she is starkers. That I was right about.”

“She’s a writer. She’s supposed to be mad.”

“At least she’s also a mad worker. She’s already sent me a full synopsis of every chapter and the new outline I ordered.”

“How’s the new outline?”

“Better,” Zach said and glanced at his notes. “But still, more sex than substance. I think she’s capable of substance. Just afraid of it.”

“She does seem fairly married to her bad-girl writer persona,” J.P. said, and Zach nodded his agreement. “It lends her credibility if she makes people think that she practices what she preaches. Getting her to retire her proverbial whip and take up the pen full-time won’t be easy.”

“But if she did…” Zach glanced down at the manuscript and remembered his reaction Tuesday morning when he’d forced himself to read it again, this time with an open mind. The words had simmered on the page, flared into life and burned. He’d gotten so engrossed in the story he’d forgotten that he was supposed to be editing it. “If she did, she could set the world on fire, and she wouldn’t even need a candle. And don’t you dare tell her anything I just said. I’ve got to keep her afraid of me if I’m going to keep her writing.”

J.P. laughed to himself, and Zach stared at him.

“What?” Zach demanded.

J.P. took the newspaper out from under his arm and unfolded it. It was a copy of the
New Amsterdam Noteworthy,
a biweekly New York trade publication that carried the most recent news in publishing. J.P. threw the paper on Zach’s desk. On the bottom front page was a small photo of him and Nora on the staircase at Rose Evely’s party. Zach hadn’t remembered a camera flash. Apparently the photographer had been far enough away he’d missed it. In the photo Nora leaned toward Zach with her mouth near his ear. It looked as if she was about to kiss him on the neck. Zach knew exactly what moment that was. It was when he’d said he couldn’t believe he was doing this and she’d responded with a seductive “I can.” The caption under the photograph read, “Nora Sutherlin—the only writer who could make Anaïs Nin blush.”

“She doesn’t look scared to me,” J.P. said. “You look a little petrified, however.”

“J.P., I—”

“I don’t want to have to find another editor for Sutherlin. But I will if I must. I don’t mind if the book sells because of the sex in it. But I don’t want anyone thinking that writers have to do more than write when they come to Royal.”

Zach rubbed his forehead.

“I swear it’s just about the book. And no, you don’t have to find another editor for her. I know we can make something good together.”

“I think you can, too. If you stay focused.” J.P. sounded skeptical.

“I am focused.”

“Easton, I’m an old man. My hearing’s going and I’ve got two knees on the way out. But my eyes can still see. Since the day you arrived here, you haven’t once smiled like you meant it. And when I walked into this office and caught you reading her book, you were smiling like a lad who just found his father’s Playboy stash. I’ve tried writing in bed before. I never seem to get much done.”

Zach opened his mouth again, but J.P. raised his hand to cut him off.

“You can keep working with Sutherlin. For now. Just take a little advice—”

“I’d rather not.”

J.P. reached across Zach’s desk and grabbed the manuscript. He flipped it open and whistled. No doubt his eyes had landed on one of the myriad erotic encounters in the book.

“In the words of Charlotte Brontë,” J.P. began, “‘Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.’ Or in the words of me… Keep it on paper, Easton.”

Zach clenched his jaw and did not reply. J.P. grabbed the newspaper with Zach and Nora’s picture and left him alone once again with her book.

Closing his eyes, Zach conjured an image of Grace. God, he was glad she was in England where she wouldn’t see that photo. But why worry? Even if she saw it, saw him with another woman, would she care? Of course not. If she did, she’d be with him in New York right now.

With a tired sigh he turned to a page in Nora’s book he’d marked with a paperclip. Caroline is sleeping in a separate room from her lover after an argument. William wakes and walks on silent feet to her door. Cracking it just slightly, he pauses and listens until he hears her breathe. The image haunted Zach. The last year with Grace had become a nightmare of shutting doors and separate rooms. Still he could never let the night pass without at least looking in on his sleeping wife until that one terrible night when he found the door locked. The next day J.P. called and invited him to New York and to Royal House with the promise of the chief managing editor position at the L.A. offices when the current chief retired. Zach didn’t even bother to ask what he would be paid before saying yes.

Why was he letting himself think about this? He had to stay objective about the book and its enigmatic author with her dark hair and red dress and her words that burned.

Keep it on paper, Easton…

Easier said than done.

5

T
he phone rang at seven and the call itself consisted of only seven words—her
hello
followed by his “The club at nine. Wait blindfolded.”

With shaking hands she hung up the phone and went to shower.

She arrived at 8:46. In most areas of her life she ran habitually five minutes late. But she’d learned the hard way never to keep him waiting.

He had his own room at the club, only one of seven people who did. And she had a key to his room, only one of two people who did.

His room was spare and strangely elegant considering its only purpose. Apart from three floor-standing candlesticks, his room was simply adorned. Rich white and black linens covered the bed. White sheets waiting to be stained.

She undressed completely and found the black silk scarf. Kneeling on the bed with her back to the door, she closed her eyes and wrapped the sash around her head. She hated this part, hated sacrificing her sight to him. It wasn’t fear so much as greed. She wanted to see him, wanted to see him hurt her, wanted to see him in her. He knew that’s what she wanted. That’s why he ordered the blindfold so often.

She waited.

While she waited for him to arrive, she began the deep, slow breathing he had taught her long ago. She took the air in through her nose and pulled it into her stomach before exhaling out through her mouth. The breaths weren’t simply to relax her although they did take the edge off her nervousness. The hypnotic breathing lulled her and helped her slip closer into subspace, that safe place where the mind went while the body was elsewhere being tortured. There was a third reason for the breathing he had never told her, but she knew was true—he’d ordered her to do it. Even the very air that went into her lungs did so at his command.

She exhaled when she heard the door quietly open. Straining her ears, she tried to hear everything he did. He didn’t speak. He rarely spoke at these moments. She listened and heard with some relief the sound of only one set of feet. Sometimes he didn’t come alone. She heard him strike a match and light the candles; she sensed the room brighten.

Five minutes or more passed in silence before he came to the bed. A shiver ran through her body as he placed his fingertips on the small of her back. The pleasure of the shockingly gentle touch was so intense it felt like something had pierced her back all the way through to her stomach. She sighed as he kissed her naked shoulder. She stiffened when he locked her collar around her neck.

He rarely used the leash in their private interludes. He reserved the leash to humiliate her when he paraded her through the club. When alone he simply slipped two fingers under her collar and dragged her like a dog to where he wanted her. The collar tightened when his fingers gripped the leather band. He pulled and she came with him as he brought her carefully off the bed. He was always so cautious with her when she was blindfolded, careful to never let her trip or hurt herself in any way. Hurting her was his privilege alone.

He pushed her forward and she felt the bedpost against her shoulder. Taking her arms one by one, he pulled them behind her back. She leaned her weight into the wood as he buckled the leather bondage cuffs on each wrist. He raised her arms over her head and secured them high to the top of the bedpost.

She stiffened as she felt his hands cover her face. They did nothing but rest there a moment before they moved over her head. Slowly, they ran over her neck and across her shoulders, up her arms and down them again. His arms encircled her and slid over her chest, breasts, and stomach and up her sides before gliding up and down the expanse of her back. One hand slipped between her legs as the other passed over hips and buttocks, down one leg and up again, then down the other. Finally, he ran his hands over the tops of her feet and then lightly passed them over the sensitive soles. She tried not to smile at the exquisitely gentle sensation of his hands touching every part of her body. She knew what he was doing. If more than three days passed without him taking her, he would perform this ritual of re-marking his territory. Her body was his territory, his hands were saying. Every inch of it.

She sensed him step away from her. She began her slow deep breathing again. When the first blow landed between her shoulders, she flinched but did not cry out. The second one came harder and this time she did flinch. By the tenth her back was on fire. After twenty she lost count.