The Willing (4 page)

"We have sandwiches," I shot back, defiantly hooking a finger in the paper bag I'd gotten for us earlier and shaking its contents as a way of reinforcing my answer. "And..." my free hand dug into the pocket of my long, shapeless leather jacket, "Hershey's?"

"Damn, you sure do know the way to a girl's heart." Carrie went for the sandwiches. "Oh, cool, you got me pickles
and
fried egg. I knew I kept you around for something." She beamed a smile at me. "Still not sleeping with you, though."  

I feigned a pout and clicked my tongue. "You tease."
Perils of knowing so much about one another,
I supposed. Once upon a time, we'd got so sloshed together, that Carrie had shared with me her fantasies—both those involving her husband and those that did not. To my best recollection and in the interests of fairness, I was sure I must've reciprocated. That, or Carrie had psychic powers she hadn't told me about.

Sober, the thought of my best friend knowing that I considered myself masterful with a whip made me feel pretty self-conscious. I wasn't ashamed, not really; more like uneasy. But minor discomfort aside, it helped to have someone I could talk to about these things who
didn't
see me first and foremost as a potential sex partner.

"So," I sighed, "that was the good news. The bad news is that this is probably the first and last time I get to call this mine..." My shoulders rolled up in a shrug as I nodded to the barren walls around us. "I got fired yesterday."

Carrie gaped at me. "What? Why?"

"Corporate restructuring." Two words I'd learned to loathe in the past twenty-four hours. "I was one of the youngest people in the office, assistant to the assistant… I mean, I get it but I don't." I scratched a hand over short hair, wishing I hadn't had so much of it sheared off so I could at least get some decent pull. "I had the morning off to sign the deed for the apartment and when I came in, voila: laid off, effective immediately."

"Holy shit." Carrie's response was on par with the way I'd felt yesterday. After the shock, though, had come anger and disbelief, and later even despair. I needed that job to pay my bills. I needed it so I could identify as something other than a high-end call girl, which frankly I was pretty lousy at anyway.

"It gets worse," I added, unwrapping my pastrami sandwich. "There was a party last night and guess who showed up?"

"God?"

"That'd be a twist. No… Oliver Shepherd. Of—"

"Emerson Industries?" Carrie supplied, confirming that she, too, watched the news. "That guy's face is everywhere. I can't believe his name isn't on the company logo yet. Whoever Emerson is, he's got to be a hardass to work with that pathological narcissist."

"She."

"Sorry?"

"She," I repeated. "Emerson's first name is Evangeline and she's very much a woman through and through."

Carrie blinked. "She came to the party, too? Wow, isn't that, like, super rare?" I confirmed that it was, indeed. Our clients never brought dates along for the ride. Harder to behave like pigs with women around to judge them, I suppose, though Evangeline looked like she could go toe to toe with any of her male competitors.

I told Carrie all about the evening I'd had, summarily describing proceedings and leaving out all names except for Oliver's and, consequently, his business partner's. When I got to the part where he cornered me after the interminable toing and froing, I discovered my palms getting sweaty. I was suddenly uncomfortable, though I had done nothing wrong.

If anyone broke protocol, it had been Oliver.

"That creep," Carrie huffed. "Christ, who does he think he is?"

"God," I supplied, my smile mirthless and tight.

"You're not thinking of going, are you?"

How could I not? "He's threatened to expose Madam. Were it anyone else, I'd have my doubts, but Shepherd's single-minded. He doesn't care if it ruins his reputation, he'll go down with us just to show me how I wrong I was to refuse him."

Carrie arched a brow, wiping crumbs off her jacket. "And if you go, what message does that send? That you'll bend over if the threat's big enough?"

I didn't want to argue with her about this, but at the same time I realized I needed someone to be the voice of reason, to pull me back when I went too far. Carrie knew about Oliver—or Shep, as he'd been calling himself back then—and how he'd callously destroyed what for many people had been a safe space where they could be themselves without judgment. I was counting on her to understand the magnitude of the threat in a way Michelle couldn't, because those events had been so private and so awful for everyone involved. Carrie had been my confessor and now she was opposing counsel.

"I don't have a job anymore," I pointed out. "I can't afford to lose the work I get from Madam Madrigal, too."

"You can get another job," Carrie scoffed, but in the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: not in this economy, I couldn't. Not with my lack of degree and my lackluster references. I had done everything from waitressing to working as a hotel maid since I'd left school, but I had an 'attitude problem' which managers conveniently remembered when it was time to lower headcount. My employment history spoke for itself: I was a quick learner with a big mouth and I brought only trouble to a new position.

We ate the rest of our makeshift picnic in silence. When we were done, I held up the Hershey's. "Peace?"

Carrie smiled and broke off a square. "I still don't think you should give Shepherd what he wants. What if he's bluffing?"

"What if he's not?" I asked softly. "I don't have a Plan B."

"I'll lend you the money…."

At first I thought she was kidding, but Carrie's feature remained perfectly blank, perfectly sill. She meant it. "Oh, honey…" It was unbelievably generous and entirely undeserved; most importantly, I couldn't possibly accept her offer. "You don't have the money," I said as gently as I could. "You're just as broke as I am and you've got Duncan." I didn't mean to make him sound like a burden on Carrie's shoulders, but when it came to cash flow, the pair of them was in no better place than I was. We were all just trying to stay afloat.

"Oh," Carrie affected a gasp, "him." She pretended to ponder Duncan's presence in her life for a long moment. "I could always feed him to the cat?"

I made a face, scrunching up my nose and eyes. Carrie laughed and I laughed with her. The ghoulish, humorless mess of our so-called golden twenties was worth the chuckle.

Whenever older colleagues tried to tell me I should seize the moment, I found myself resisting the urge to rant about what
the moment
was really like for people of my generation. Then again, I'm sure youth had never been all sunshine and roses for anyone; it was only in looking back that hardship morphed into a wonderful character building exercise.

Carrie and I parted on the subway steps. I offered to walk her down to the platform, but she suggested I take a walk, get some air, and clear my head. Or rather, "get to know my new neighborhood," as she put it with a knowing wink. I figured she was hoping I'd come to my senses by the time I got home. And maybe I would've, but I made the mistake of stopping for groceries along the way and at the register, I realized I only had a fifty in my wallet. It was the bill Evangeline had handed me last night for services rendered. My heart swelled with anxiety all over again at the memory.   

Eight PM found me in the ritzy part of town, where all the cars were shiny and the women looked like they'd stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. I considered my jeans-and-dress shirt ensemble as I stepped through revolving doors and gave my name to the uniformed concierge. I was sure to be found wanting. Should I have dressed up?
No
, I told myself. Oliver hadn't asked for the French maid routine and I wasn't about to spend the evening in a scratchy synthetic outfit just so the tight-ass could feel comfortable. Fitting my short hair under a burgundy-black wig was all the effort I'd made. I refused to feel insecure about the rest.

"You can go up now," the concierge said with an affable smile, interrupting my self-administered pep-talk. Of course, Oliver would have someone guarding his door; probably more than one person, at that. No doubt a guy like Oliver Shepherd had a lot to lose and many people to be afraid of. I didn't think for a second that he'd ever count me among them; I was small potatoes, a Friday night distraction after a Thursday night run-in I was deeply regretting.

That was, of course, still assuming that this was
his
apartment I was ascending towards. My insides churned even as I clung to the hope that Oliver hadn't dispatched me like a gift basket to one of his peers. It would be the first time a client tried to pull a stunt like that.  

The elevator doors dinged with a musical hum as they opened and my stomach flipped over. Yesterday's Presidential Suite had nothing on Oliver's penthouse. It was bigger, for one thing, the walls high and bare, with only a few billboard-sized paintings hung here and there, like color accents on a blank canvas. For another, it was much brighter. Not hospital white or chrome furnishings, but warm reds and bold strokes of patterned fabric. His decorator must have made a fortune fixing up the space, but in my opinion every penny had been well-earned.

My square boot heels clicked tellingly as I stepped out of the elevator and into Oliver's domain. I could have sworn the floor was Italian marble, though even imitation linoleum would've won me over in this setting.

"You came." I followed the sound of a deep male voice up to the ceiling, where I discovered that the penthouse had a whole second floor leading down to a palatial grand staircase. It was like something out of the movies; it didn't seem real. And just like a silver screen leading man, Oliver was holding court at high altitude, perched over the railing in a black silk shirt and grey slacks.

Even as I stood there, determined to despise everything about this visit, my more materialistic half was helplessly struck with admiration. It was a nice apartment. The owner I still had my doubts about.

"Bravo," I said, and clapped my hands lazily. "Although I'd stay away from balcony scenes: too
Romeo and Juliet
."

"You never know," Oliver quipped, "I may persuade you to take your life for me yet."

That I could well believe, but not out of love. He was an arrogant, venal know-it-all, used to getting his way no matter how many bodies he had to trample in the process; I'd sooner chew sand than try to see him in a favorable light.

"Are we going to be shouting at each other all evening?" I shot back, hooking my thumbs into my belt and rocking back and forth on my heels. Peering up at him was starting to hurt my neck, but mostly I just wanted to see if he'd take the hint and clear off his metaphorical high horse.

He was far away in the stratosphere, but I could easily see his lips purse tightly as he considered my not-so-covert apropos. It took him a couple of seconds to weigh his options. In the end, he started down the stairs, each step rattling through the foyer like cannon fire. "Have you had dinner?"

My brows twitched up. "Thanks, but no thanks. I think I'll skip the poison chalice."

"How about a drink?" We were at eye-level now and Oliver strode towards me like he'd done last night, all jungle cat in a man's body. This time, I didn't cower, not even for a second. I knew I was alone in his apartment, a willing victim if ever the story of how I'd died should be told. But screw it, I wasn't about to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.

"Skip the niceties," I advised sharply and narrowed my eyes at him. "Why am I here?"

For a moment, he looked taken aback by my candor and I expected some rebuff about insolent ghetto bitches to follow—it seemed like it would be right up his alley—but then he recovered: "Do you still work as a dominatrix?"

I was sure my jaw hit the floor. "
That
's what you want to talk about?" I wanted to punch his white, all-European teeth out. "I don't. Not since you forced my employers to declare bankruptcy and retire in shame." Before I'd been a waitress and a hotel maid, before I learned to answer phones and fill excel sheets, I had worked as a hostess at a club that serviced a very specific clientele. I'd started there in my second year of college, only a few months before I dropped out for good, and if not for Oliver Shepherd, I would still be working there now.

It was vindicating to see his eyelid twitch and know it was my doing.

"By the way," I added sweetly, "I prefer
domina
, but what the hell do you care anyway, right? You break people for the fun of it."

I could handle risking my neck to withstand whatever perversions Oliver had in mind for us tonight and I'd even suffer his company for the sake of keeping Madam Madrigal in business, but one mention of the club and the way Oliver had betrayed us all and all bets were off. I was ready to get the hell away from him. "This is a mistake," I heard myself say. "I shouldn't have come here..."

I was afraid, yes, but not for myself. I was worried that if I lingered in punching distance of Oliver, I'd end up taking a swing at him. I was even more worried I wouldn't stop at just the one blow.

Those problems I had with authority? Present and accounted for. They had started early in childhood and had never been mended by school or sports or family. Work as a domina gave me structure and a controlled setting in which I could be as violent and rough as I needed to be without hurting anyone beyond what they could or wanted to take. I liked dishing out pain when it was paired with consent; I didn't like when it became suffering.

As I turned to leave, Oliver seized me by the arm. He was surprisingly strong for a man who spent his days behind a desk. All the same, he shouldn't have touched me without permission. That wasn't a sex club rule; it was common sense.

I wheeled around and struck out with my open palm, catching him square across the face. He reeled with the blow, staggering back a few paces. When he could look at me again, his eyes were wide, the imprint of my palm glowing red across his cheek. Had I really hit him that hard?