Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

I stand alone in the middle of the lobby of your tower. The reception desk is fully staffed: two older white men, a striking young black woman with a shaved scalp, and a Hispanic man of indeterminate age, which means probably about thirty. They all glance at me, notice me, and then return to their work, but the black woman makes a very brief phone call. Which means they know who I am and have alerted Len, most likely.

Indeed, it is Len who appears from the bank of elevators, expression inscrutable, aged, weathered, hardened features cast in stone. He does not greet me, doesn't say a single word. Merely gestures at the elevators. I nod and accompany him onto the elevator marked Private .

The ride up is long.

"Len," I say, curiosity getting the better of me. "How old are you?"

"Forty-nine, ma'am."

"What is the worst thing you've ever done?"

A very thick silence as Len stares down at me. "I would say it's probably impossible to pinpoint one single thing. I'm not a good person, and I never have been."

"Indulge me."

An outbreath, blown between pursed lips, eyes cast to the roof of the elevator car. A moment of thought, in which Len looks nearly human. "I fought in the first Desert Storm. Marine Recon. We caught this insurgent, me and two guys from my unit. We holed up in a little hut near the Kuwaiti border and tortured the unholy fuck out of the poor bastard. He knew where some high-ranking Iraqi military generals were hiding, and we were told to get the intel by any means possible. So we did."

"What kind of torture?" I cannot help asking.

"Why would you want to know this shit, Madame X?"

"I'm not Madame X anymore, Len. My name is Isabel. And I'm learning that no one is ever as they seem."

Len nods. "Fair enough. We ripped his fingernails out with pliers. Cut strips of his skin off with a box cutter. Burned toes off with a blowtorch. Waterboarded him. Beat him half to death. Stuck pins in him until he looked like a pincushion, and then heated 'em up with a lighter."

"My god," I breathe. I am horrified. "Did he survive it?"

"Oh yeah. Point of torture is to cause pain so bad they'll tell you anything to make it stop. So yeah, he survived long enough to sing about the generals, but when we had what we needed, we put a couple rounds in the back of his head."

"Double-tap," I say, thinking of Logan.

Len nods. "Yeah, we double-tapped him, and left him for the vultures and the ants."

"Tell me one more thing," I ask.

"Sure, why not."

"What's the best thing you've ever done?"

"That's a helluva lot harder." Len is silent for a long time. "There was this girl. In Fallujah. Local girl. We were headed out on foot after a raid, and I heard screaming. Followed the sound, against orders. Discovered some local fellas running a train on the girl. Killed 'em all. I had some local currency in one of my pockets, and I gave it all to her, then pounded leather back to my unit. Whenever I could, I stopped by and helped her out. Brought her money, food, clothes. Whatever I could scrounge up. I still dunno why. I don't stand by rape, I guess. I'm an evil motherfucker, don't get me wrong. I'll beat up, torture, and murder men without thinking twice about it, but I won't touch a woman in violence, and won't stand to see it happen. I may be a bastard, but I've got my own code of honor. Such as it is, at any rate."

"What happened to her?" I ask. "The girl?"

A shrug. "Lost contact with her. Battle of Fallujah happened, and it got to where I couldn't really go looking anymore without getting my ass shot off."

"Have you ever killed anyone for Caleb?"

A stony stare. "We're not talking about Mr. Indigo."

"You have." I meet Len's glare. "Would you kill Logan if he told you to?"

Len's answer is immediate: "In a heartbeat."

"Why?"

"Because he's dangerous."

"So are you. So is Caleb. I'm surrounded by dangerous men, it would seem."

Another shrug. "You're not wrong there." The car stopped a long time ago, but Len has been holding the doors closed. Now he allows them to open. "He's not back yet, but he will be shortly." The conversation is over, apparently.

"Thank you, Len."

Len seems puzzled by my thanks. "Yeah." And then he's gone, doors closing between us.

I don't know what I'm going to say. What I'm going to do. You will be here soon and I've got a million, billion questions, and answers that I don't know the questions to, and demands I don't know how to formulate. Needs I don't know how to meet. And all of this requires that I face up to you and not flinch, speak to you and not succumb to your sorcery.

I do not have the best track record when it comes to that. I am weak.

I stand for long moments a mere three steps into the colossal space you call home, the echoing, open-plan apartment occupying the entire footprint of the tower. There, the couch. Where you fucked me. Here, where I stand, the carpet under my feet where you shoved your cock into my throat and came on my face. The haptic memory is overwhelmingly strong, a twinge in my jaw reminding me how wide I had to stretch my mouth, a ghost of heat and wetness on my face where you finished on me. There, the kitchen, the breakfast nook. You pulled me down onto your lap in that chair, the westward-facing one, with all of Fifth Avenue spread out for you. You pulled me down onto your lap, wrapped your fist into my hair, tugged my head backward so I was forced to stare up at the ceiling while you thrusted up into me and bit my neck in sharp nips. You never spoke a word, didn't touch me other than to fuck me and bite me. It was almost like a punishment. But for what?

Strange that I remember that encounter. You'd woken me up out of a dead sleep at three in the morning, hauled me into the kitchen, yanked off my underwear and tossed them onto the table, and then proceeded to fuck me until you came, and then you were done. You shoved me off you, snatched my underwear and shoved them into your pocket. Tossed back the last of your doppio macchiato, strode out without a backward glance. I went back to sleep, and the next morning it had seemed like a dream, easily forgotten.

There is a crystal bottle of something amber on a side table near a window. It is an artfully crafted little vignette: a small round table of dark wood, a cut-crystal decanter and two matching tumblers on a silver tray, the table and tray nestled against the wall between two floor-to-ceiling windows. There are two overstuffed armchairs facing the table at oblique angles, and each armchair has a tiny table near to hand, on which rests a cut-crystal ashtray, a silver cigar cutter, and a torch-style lighter. A few feet away, between the next pair of windows, is another small table, this one with two rectangular boxes, glass-topped. Cigars. I open one of the boxes, select a cigar. I bring my cigar with me and pour a measure of scotch whisky into a tumbler. I've seen you do this a thousand times. I cut the end off the cigar with the platinum cutter sitting on the table near to hand, put the freshly cut end to my lips and light it, rotating the cigar and puffing as I've seen you do. When it's smoking merrily, I suck in a mouthful and taste it. Thick, acrid, almost sweet. Blow it out. Roll the smoke around in my mouth, let it trickle away. Play with it. I try a sip of the scotch. This, I've had before. I think of Logan as I roll the powerful liquid around my mouth and then swallow it.

I wait for you this way, the way you have often waited for me, a cigar coiling serpents of smoke toward the vent cleverly hidden in the ceiling, a glass of scotch in hand. Eyes dark and brooding, watching traffic and the sunset or the sunrise. Time seems to have no bearing on you. You are the same at dawn as you are midnight, always put together and perfect and silent and powerful and tensed.

The elevator whooshes open, no ding here. Just the door sliding open to frame you. My throat closes and my mouth goes dry. You are shirtless and sweaty, wearing a pair of tight black sweatpants with the elastic cuffs tugged up to the knee, pristine white socks peeking up over the edge of black athletic shoes. Your muscled chest is coated in a sheen of sweat, beads trickling down between your pectorals, shining on your biceps, running down from your hairline over your temple and into the day- old stubble on your jaw. Your chest heaves rapidly. Cords trail from your ears, meet beneath your chin, and extend to your cell phone, which is in your hand. You are speaking rapidly in fluent Mandarin as you enter, and your eyes find me. A gleam mars the blankness of your expression as you see me, and I think you almost smile.

Even half naked and sweating, you are a work of art, perfect even thus—perhaps even especially thus—crafted particularly to please the female eye. To rile the female libido.

I take a large swallow of whisky to fortify my nerves, letting out a breath as you approach, still talking in a low voice in Chinese. You stand two feet away from me, and I smell the sweat on you. The person on the other end of your conversation is speaking now, judging by your focused silence, and you reach down, take my glass from me, drain the rest of my scotch.

Gesture at the bottle with the glass as if I'm your servant, sent to fetch more for the imperious master.

I do so, refilling the glass, but I remain by the table and drink it myself, staring at you. I place the cigar in my teeth, baring them, an unladylike expression in the extreme, and replace the crystal stopper in the decanter. You lift your chin and your eyes crackle, spark, spit fire. You see then. You see that I will not be cowed any longer.

You spin away, stalk to the kitchen, say a few angry-sounding words in Mandarin, then resume listening as you pull two bottles of water from the refrigerator. You down one without stopping for breath as you listen. Say a few sentences, pause and listen, say a few more, and then slowly drink the second bottle.

Ignoring me now, are you? Fine by me. I take my seat and stare out at Manhattan, swilling my second glass of scotch and feeling the first. Smoking my cigar. Studiously not rehearsing what I will say, because I know whatever I might imagine you will say, it will not be close to the truth. You are not predictable.

Finally, you say what sounds like a good-bye, touch the screen, and stand in silence for moments more, finishing your water.

You turn to me. "Good morning, Isabel." This, from the kitchen, many feet away from where I sit.

"Good morning, Caleb."

"Early for scotch, isn't it?" Your voice, so calm, so deep, so deceptively hypnotic. Like staring into a sinkhole, unplumbed depths, darkness and mystery and danger.

I shrug. "I haven't been to sleep yet, so it is late, for me."

Your expression hardens at this. "I see. And how is Logan?"

"None of your concern," I return. "What is your concern is that he told me how you got him put in prison."

You smirk. "Ah. He told his side of the story, did he?"

"His side?"

A nod. "There are two to every story, aren't there?" You swagger to me. Sit in the chair opposite mine, nearly empty water bottle in hand. "He went into the situation eyes open, Isabel. He knew exactly what he was getting himself into, but wasn't smart enough to not get caught."

"So what he told me is true."

"Oh yes. Very much so. He was a pawn. I used him, kept him disposable, and let him take the fall when the SEC came knocking. I was grooming him for it the entire time, keeping him isolated, keeping him flush with cash, making sure he had the requisite skills to do what I needed. And he did. So I made use of him. Lured him in, hook, line, and sinker. And then, yes, I intentionally set him up to take his share the blame when things went bust, as I always knew they would. And really, I didn't set him up. I just made sure he was out in the open and I wasn't. I didn't accuse him of or frame him for anything he didn't do. If you're going to commit a crime, you have to plan on getting caught, and have a plan for getting away when you do. Your boyfriend was a sucker, Isabel. And if you're expecting an apology or an explanation for that, or for any of the many ways I've made my fortune... well, don't hold your breath. I will not apologize to anyone, not for anything."

"I would never expect an apology from you, Caleb."

"You know me better than that, obviously."

"No one knows you, Caleb."

You finish your water and crumple the bottle into a ball, twisting on the cap. "Not true. You know me. Better than anyone, I think."

"Which is saying something, because you are a complete mystery to me."

You merely breathe and stare at me for a while, and I merely breathe and stare back. I set my scotch down. I've had enough. I'll need my wits about me for this, something tells me.

The silence extends. The history between you and Logan is irrelevant, really. It doesn't concern me, or the crux of my problems. It's rather underwhelming, actually.

"What do you want, Isabel?" you ask, eventually.

"I don't know," I say, truthfully. "I wish I did."

I hand you my glass of scotch, but keep the cigar. It's something to do with my hands, something to distract myself from your beauty. You take the tumbler and swirl the amber contents, toss back a sip. I watch your Adam's apple bob as you swallow.

Your eyes pin me. "You do know, you're just afraid to say it to me."

Damn you for being right. "I want my freedom. I want to be... a real person. I want to love and be loved. I want a future." I swallow hard against the hot stone of emotion searing my throat. "I want my past back. I want... I want to not need you. To not be addicted to you."

"I will give you anything you ask me for, Isabel. I have never kept you prisoner. I kept you isolated, it is true. Sequestered, perhaps. But it was for your own good. And also, truthfully, because I am selfish. I do not want to share you. Not with anyone. Not any part of you. I must, however, so I do. I do not like it, but I do."

"So if I asked you to have the microchip in my hip removed, along with any other means of tracking my whereabouts, would you do it?"

"Is that what you are asking me for?"

"Are you a djinn, that I must phrase my requests with precision so as not to be tricked?"

You smirk. "Yes, Isabel. I am a djinn. I've been meaning to tell you."

Humor? Sarcasm? I really do not understand you. "It feels that way, sometimes. The more I try to extricate myself from your clutches, the more deeply entangled in you I become. I am loath to ask you for anything, because then I will only be all the more indebted to you."

"You owe me both everything and nothing." You gaze down at the scotch and do not explain that statement any further.

I wait. Finally, I must break the silence. "That does not make any sense, Caleb."

"It does, if you think about it. I created you in a sense, as we have both stated before. I was there when you woke up. I was there when you relearned how to walk and talk. I was there when you chose your name. I am woven into the fabric of your very personality. So yes, you owe me. But then again, you are a person, not a robot, not an object to be owned or made. So you owe me nothing. Some days I feel one way, some days the other." You take another sip, still not looking at me.

"I want the chip out, Caleb." I say.

You touch and swipe at the screen of your phone several times in quick succession, and then hold it to your ear. "Good morning, Dr. Frankel. I am well, and yourself? Good, good. I'm calling to see how soon you can be in New York. That facial reconstruction you did six years ago? The young woman? I would like you to reverse a certain element of that procedure. I'm sure you're aware what I mean. Correct... I think ten million dollars is a little high, Doctor. How about two? Eight? I think not. It's a very simple procedure, Doctor. It will take you twenty minutes at most. Fine, three, and I'll arrange a night out with one of the girls to an exclusive club I know of. Very good. Tomorrow then. I'll have Len meet you with the car at ten a.m. Eastern time, domestic arrivals at LaGuardia. Excellent. Thank you for your time, Dr. Frankel." You end the call with a touch of your index finger, set the phone on the arm of your chair, and glance at me. "There. By noon tomorrow, the chip will be gone."

Silence between us then, equal parts awkward and comfortable.

After a time I cannot measure, you stand up, drain the glass, set it on the table. "I have much yet to do today. So if there is nothing else, I need a shower. You are, of course, welcome to stay as long as you wish."

It cannot be that simple. That easy. There is so much I want to say, but I don't know how. Nothing fits. None of the puzzle pieces click properly. I feel panic at the sight of you walking away so easily.

"Wait." I stand. Take careful steps across the thick rug and halt behind you, mere inches from the rippling plateau of muscle that is your back. Watch you breathe. Watch your shoulders rise gently and fall subtly with each breath. "Tell me the story, Caleb. How you found me."

"I thought you'd be past that by now." You do not turn around. Your hands clench into fists.

Early-morning sun blazes through the eastward-facing windows, bathing us in brilliant yellow light. Dust motes dance in the gleaming spears of sunshine.

"I'll never be past that, Caleb. I need to hear it." What I do not say, a truth I do not dare utter, is that I doubt you.

I doubt the truth of the story. I wonder if, perhaps, it is just that: a story. A fiction you fabricated in order to bind me to you. But I have to hear it, one more time.

As Isabel.

You move with slow, lithe steps to a window. Rest a forearm against the frame, and your forehead against your arm. "It was late. Past midnight, I believe. It was raining, and had been for hours. The whole world was wet."

A flash of olfactory memory hits me: wetness, damp concrete, the smell of rain. I choke on the remembered scent.

"The sidewalks glistened in the streetlights," you continue, "and I have this very specific memory of the way the stoplights looked on the wet pavement of the road, red circles, yellow circles, green circles. I remember the way my shoes sounded, clicking dully on the pavement. I was alone on the sidewalk, which is rare in New York, even at midnight. But it was October, so the rain was cold, and it was windy. The kind of weather you didn't go out in unless you had to. The wind was so strong it would turn your umbrella inside out. It had done it to mine, and I'd stuffed it into a trash can. I was so wet. I'd been walking for blocks in the pouring rain. Funny thing is, I don't remember why I was out. Where I was going, where I was coming from, or why. I was absentminded. Just trying to get home as quickly as possible. I would have walked right past you. I almost did. I don't help the homeless as a rule. Not because I am too important, or because I'm too cheap, or any of that. But because I know from experience any help I give them will only go to more drugs, more alcohol, more gambling. I cannot help everyone in the city. When I first began making real money, I tried. I think everyone who first moves to New York tries to help the beggars. It's a rite of passage to becoming a New Yorker, I think. Eventually, you have to learn that you cannot spend all your money tipping the homeless. Especially when many of them aren't really even homeless, but merely too lazy to work. I know this, as well, from personal experience. I know their addictions. I know their predilection for destructive substances."

"You're wandering off topic, Caleb," I say.

You sigh. Make a fist and tap your knuckles against the glass in a rhythmic pattern: tap-tap—taptaptap—tap-tap—taptaptap. You are still staring out the window, head cradled against your forearm.

"Indeed I am."

You lapse into silence, into stillness.

When you speak again, your voice is slow and cadenced. "You were lying on the sidewalk, facedown. Wearing that blue dress. Curled up in a ball, in the rain. Just lying there, so still. I walked past you, and then something made me stop, I still don't know what. I turned around. Looked at you. Really saw you. I've walked past a thousand homeless men and women and not really seen them. But I saw you. I saw your hair, thick and black and so long. Wet and matted and sticky with blood. I saw that. The blood. Maybe that's what stopped me. You were bleeding. Not homeless, but hurt. Curled up, but you were trying to move. Trying to crawl. I turned back, and you reached out a hand, tried to drag yourself across the sidewalk. Your fingernails had been ripped off from dragging yourself like that for who knows how long. Your fingers were shredded. Your toes too. Bloody from crawling across the ground, bleeding. Alone. Cold and wet. Dying."

You pause, and I see us in the reflection. Your face in profile, high cheekbones, square jaw, brownbrownbrown eyes like fragments of deepest space, black hair swept back and damp with sweat, a single strand curling on your forehead as if placed there by an artist. My profile is very similar: dark skin, olive-caramel, black eyebrows, black hair. Exotic features, wide, almond-shaped eyes darker even than yours, not truly black, which is biologically impossible, but so fiercely darkly brown as to appear so except under direct illumination. The sun is in my eyes now, so the brown is almost visible. My hair is braided, the queue hanging over my right shoulder onto the dove-gray fabric of my dress.

You breathe in, continue. "You looked at me. ‘ Ayudame ,' you said. ‘ Ayudame. '"

A bolt of something hot and sharp and hard and excruciating hits me. "‘Help me.'"

I slump forward against the window, leaning against it beside you.

You look at me in our reflection, surprise on your features. "You remember?"

I shake my head. "No. No more than ever, just faint impressions, like a memory of a dream. Some things are more... visceral, like the smell of rain. The smell of wet concrete. But I just... know ... what that word means."

"Que utilizas para hablar espa?ol, creo," you say.

You used to speak Spanish, I think.

"Si lo hice," I respond, surprising myself. "Aún lo hago, parece."

Yes, I did. I still do, it seems.

"I don't know why it never occurred to me to try speaking to you in Spanish," you say.

"Strange, indeed."

You eye me directly then, perhaps catching the sarcasm in my tone. It was faint, but present. "You looked so... pitiful. Helpless. I picked you up. You were speaking, but it was too faint and too rapid for me to catch it. Something about your parents, I remember. Spanish is one of my weaker languages, and you were mumbling, and your accent was odd. Proper Spanish, I think, from Spain. Different from the Spanish spoken by Mexicans and other Latin Americans, which is the Spanish I know."

"How many languages do you speak?" I ask, curious.

"Five. I know some French, but not enough to be fluent, practically speaking. English, Czech, German, Spanish, and Mandarin. I'm strongest in German and Mandarin, my Czech is old and I don't speak it much anymore, and obviously English is my primary language now."

Now? What does that mean? I open my mouth to ask, but you speak over me, as if you realize that you've given something away, engendered more questions.

"You clung to me when I picked you up. More strongly than I'd thought you capable of. Begged me to go back, go back. I caught that much. But I couldn't figure out why. I asked you what was back there, and you became frantic. Incoherent. Screaming, thrashing. You were bleeding all over me, and I knew I had to get you to a hospital soon or you'd die. I have many skills, but dealing with injuries is not one of them. So I held on to you and carried you to the nearest hospital, which happened to be just a couple blocks away. It was where you were going, I think. Or trying to. You wouldn't have gotten there. Not in the shape you were in. As it was, the surgeons say you barely made it. You'd been bleeding profusely for a long time." You pause, and your eyes go vacant, unfocused, staring into memory. Something tells me you are telling me the truth. At least part of it. "I'll never forget it. That night. Holding you in my arms. You were so frail, so slight. So young. Only sixteen, I think. Or thereabouts. Sixteen, seventeen. A girl, still. But so beautiful already. Dying, terrified, lost, and your eyes, when I set you down on the stretcher when we got to the ER, you looked up at me with those great big black eyes of yours and I just... I couldn't walk away. Something in your eyes just caught me. You needed me. You clung to my hand and you wouldn't let go. I followed the medics as they wheeled the stretcher through the halls of the ER, to the operating room. They wouldn't let me back there with you. I think they thought I was your boyfriend or husband, which was the only reason they'd let me get that far. I remember so vividly the last moment I saw you. You were twisted on the stretcher, trying to see me. Desperate for me. It was like I knew you. Like you knew me. I'd never seen you before, never met you. But I just... I did know you. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. But I couldn't leave. I couldn't. I walked out of the hospital, but it was like there was this... this rope tied around me, and you were pulling on it, pulling me back in. So I waited in the ER waiting room for the next six hours as they worked on you."

I believe this. I also believe you are lying about something. Not this, but something. Maybe lying by omission. I don't know. I don't dare ask. This is the most detail you've ever given me out of the thousands of times you've told me this story. I need this. Need it. I let you speak. Lean against the glass in silence as you talk. I feel as if I've been listening for a thousand years now. Logan, and now you. Hours of listening. I'm so tired, so exhausted, but I cannot turn away. Cannot turn a deaf ear to this, not when it contains truth you've kept so long hidden.

"They'd shaved your head." You glance behind, at your phone on the arm of the chair. Retrieve it.

I watch as you swipe across the screen, press your thumb to the circular button, and a plain black background appears. No, not black. Stars. Speckles of silver, a constellation. Which one, I don't know, can't tell. You tap on a white icon with a multicolored rosette, like a flower made of all primary colors in an overlapping wheel. Photos appear. You tap a button near the top, and the photo icons get smaller, multiply, arrange themselves by year. You scroll down so the photos move backward in time. I catch your face, a car, snow, a painting, me, me, me, in states of undress, asleep, not looking at you, clasping my bra behind my back, head turned in profile. So many photos of me. None of Rachel, none of Four or Six or anyone else. Just me. Tiny little squares of color like a mosaic, a composition of me. You scroll down, down, down through the years. To 200—not 2009. You touch the row of photos so fast I almost doubt what I saw, and they expand, organized now by location, some from New Jersey, most from various boroughs of New York City. More scrolling through the photos from that year, until you find one. The one. Me, again. So young. My god, so young.

I barely recognize myself. My face is battered. Scratches. Cuts. Bruises. So thin. Delicate-looking, birdlike frailty. My head is shaved down to black stubble, highlighting the contours of my skull and the high sharpness of my cheekbones and the almond shaped width of my eyes. There is a bright, wicked, reddish-pink scar on my scalp, on the left side, crossed by jagged black threads. I am looking at you. At the camera, the phone. Not smiling, just staring. Wide eyed and curious.

I do not remember this. But I am staring at you. I am lying in a bed. The frame of the photograph contains a bit of silver rail, pillow, some blue fabric, probably the hospital gown. How can you have taken this photograph of me, looking so fresh, so candid?

"You came out of the initial surgery just fine. Woke up after, everything seemed fine. I snapped this. You remembered me. We didn't really talk, just sat together. Then the nurses kicked me out, saying you needed to sleep. And when I came back the next day, you were gone. They said something had gone wrong during the night. Swelling in your brain. They had to do emergency surgery, put you in a medically induced coma. You didn't wake up from it for six months."

I take the phone from you and stare at myself. The younger me. As if I could find clues to my past, to my former self in this digital photograph, nothing but pixels, nothing but ones and zeroes. I cannot. I do not see myself in this. I see a girl, a sixteen-year-old girl. Lost and alone, trying to be defiant. Staring up at a camera held by the man who'd saved me, unhappy but daring. Brave, but scared. I see this. Did I know then that my parents were dead? Did I even have a chance to mourn? Or did the bleeding in my brain steal that from me as well?

I cannot get over the way I appear in the photo. My head shaved, how it highlights my eyes and cheekbones, the delicate but somehow strong shape of my head. I look a little masculine, but I am yet somehow unmistakably female. Involuntarily, I run my hand over the top of my head, almost expecting to feel stubble.

Could I?

What would it feel like? To feel nothing but scratchy stubble and scalp? No hair, no long thick black tresses.

I could do it. Perhaps I will.

Perhaps to truly become Isabel, I must shave my head and regrow my hair once more. Cut away the coiffured, styled, curled, brushed perfect locks of Madame X and become Isabel, a new woman, rebirthed and fresh and raw.

You turn in place. Take your phone back, shut it off, toss it aside carelessly. It lands on the seat of the armchair and bounces once. You are looking down at me. You take my braid in your hand, tug my head back. You are standing close, not quite touching. Towering over me. Blocking out all the world with your muscled bulk, and I smell you. Feel your heat.

Anger flushes through me. I push you away, but you do not let go of my hair, and I must return to you or suffer the pain. "Let go , Caleb." I accept the pain and continue to push away.

You swell with an inbreath. "No," you growl. "I know you're angry. But you cannot deny that you feel this, Isabel."

I do. Oh, I do. And that is the true source of my rage. That I cannot help but feel this. Somehow your proximity eradicates all that exists beyond you, all that exists outside of you and me. Your heat and your brutal strength occlude my ability to remember why I hate you, why I do not trust you.

This feels familiar.

I know when you will move next. You will wait a beat... a second... a third, and then—yes. Now. You cup the back of my neck, my own hair crushed against my neck, soft and silky against my skin, between my neck and your hand. And you lift me up thus, force me up to my tiptoes and your lips are insistent on mine. The kiss blasts me. Shadows of confusion contort and cavort with rays of truth, dance on the walls of my twisting mind like a puzzle of chiaroscuro. You kiss me dizzy and then release me. Abruptly, violently.

"Fuck," you snarl. " Fuck. I taste him on you. I smell him."

"You knew," I say, wiping at my lips with the back of my wrist. "You knew where I was going, and who I'd be with."

"That's different than tasting it."

"And how do you think I feel, watching you fuck Rachel?" I hiss. "How do you think that feels for me, knowing you leave me, still smelling of me, and go to her. Bed her ... taste her , fuck her . And then come back to me, and bed me, taste me, fuck me, and now both of us are on your skin. Or more, even? The other girls on that floor, too, maybe. Are there others? Other girls, in other buildings? Girlfriends elsewhere in the city, who know nothing of each other? Like that girl from the limo... what was her name, the Jewish one?"

"Isabel—" you begin.

"There is nothing you can say to me, Caleb. Nothing that will make it better. Nothing that will take away that betrayal. And then you did what you did to me, right there by that elevator. The way you used me." I swallow hard against the rage and the hurt. "The way you've always used me. It's never been about us. It's been about me belonging to you. Being your whore . Only you do not pay me in money, you pay me in life . You pay me in things, in false memories and mantras in the night, old stories and half truths. You pay me in things far less useful or tangible than mere currency, Caleb. And I will not accept those forms of payment anymore."

I turn then, and you let me go. Allow me to walk away. But then you're behind me. Standing far too close. Breathing on me. Your front touching my back. I can feel your erection against my backside, and your hands clutch my hips. Your lips touch the curve of my neck, near my shoulder.

You murmur to me.

"Can you walk away from this, Isabel? How right we feel together? Yes, I use you. But you use me just the same. You accept what I give, and you take more from me. You do not stop me. You do not say no. You beg for more. Not in words, but sex is not about words, is it? You beg for more with the way you breathe, the way you tense when I draw closer to you, the way you arch back into me. The way you lift your hips when I touch you. The way you moan when I make you come, over and over and over. You come for me, Isabel." Your large, powerful hands with your squared-off, manicured nails and rough calluses paw across my hips, one scraping up to cup my breast, the other down to my core. "Do you remember the first time I touched you?"

I cannot breathe. God, I remember. All too well, all too vividly. I remember. I'd felt it coming for so long. Weeks. Months. Years, even. Tension building, heightening, mounting. The way you looked at me, didn't quite touch me. Almost, but not quite. We were in my condo, which was new. Still smelling of fresh paint. I'd lived in a different apartment in that building until then, a smaller one. Much like it, but not as large, not as nice. But very similar. I was standing at the kitchen counter, looking at my new home. Admiring the dark hardwood floor and the bookshelves, daydreaming of all the books I'd put on them— you'd put on them. And you came up behind me, just like this. An inch away at first. I smelled your cologne, and felt you there. You put your hands on the counter to either side of me. Just stood there. Inhaling my scent. I wanted you. I wanted to touch you. I remember that. Needing to know how your muscles would feel. Needing... something. I wasn't sure what, but something. And when you edged closer so your body was touching mine, I knew. I'd straightened, and you'd moved closer. I felt your chest against my back, and the thick ridge of your erection. I remember fighting it. Not knowing if it was right or wrong, nor understanding the potency of my desire.

But when your hands touched my waist and skated down to cup my hips, I had no choice but to let out the breath I'd been holding and melt into you.

Second by second, you seduced me with nothing but touch, and I let you. I ate it up, truth be told. Devoured every touch. Felt you remove my clothing, bit by bit, until I was naked in that kitchen and your hands were on my skin and you were tasting my flesh and I was moaning. You tasted me then. Buried your face between my thighs and made me come. And then you bent me over the counter and drove into me right there. It surprised me, but excited me. And when you were done, you carried me to the bedroom, set me in the bed. Touched my skin. My curves. And in not too many minutes, you were ready again and this time you rolled me to my hands and knees and took me once more, and you commanded me to keep quiet and told me not to come until you instructed me to do so. It lasted for a time I could not measure. You allowed me close to climax, and stopped. Closer, and stop. Closer and closer, stop. And when you did let me come, I was ripped apart by an orgasm so potent I cried.

My skin is hot and my breathing falters, just remembering.

"You remember." You pinch my nipple through dress and bra, and I gasp. "I waited so long to have you. Years, I waited. I wanted you every single day, but you weren't ready. So I waited, and waited, and waited. When we moved you into that condo, I was planning to wait longer yet. But you were standing there, and you were just so fucking beautiful that I had to be closer to you. And the way you reacted, I knew you wanted me. I knew you were ready. Not before or since have I ever experienced anything so beautiful and erotic and incredible as that first time with you. You were so responsive. You knew what you wanted. You weren't a virgin, Isabel. You had no more memory of yourself then than you do now, but I could tell. You knew what you were doing, and what you wanted, even if you didn't know you knew."

"Years?" Those early years are a blur. I remember your presence, always you, only you. I remember wanting you, wondering why you didn't touch me, kiss me. And then you did, and I glutted on you.

"Every single day, every moment I was near you, I wanted you. Obviously, at first, you were barely able to function. But after you regained mobility and speech, it got so much harder to resist you. I taught you, educated you, trained you. Worked out with you, ate with you. And all that while, I craved you." You drive a finger against my core, through my dress. "As I crave you now."

My next words are foolish, daring, and so very, very stupid. But I cannot stop them. "And do you still crave me, knowing another man has touched me, Caleb? Do you still crave me, knowing another man has tasted me, touched me, kissed me?"

You spin away with a snarl so feral I wonder if perhaps you truly are an animal in human disguise. You scrape your hands through your hair, stalk away, glance at me with unbridled rage so fierce it frightens me. A rare look into your deepest emotions. You pace with angry, leonine steps to the table containing the decanter of scotch, pour a huge measure, and toss it back in one swallow, hissing at the burn.

"Do not test me, Isabel."

"Or what?" I ask, my voice calm and quiet, filled with the venom you taught me so well. "Will you beat me? Kill me? Turn me out? What will you do if I continue to test you? You are a hypocrite and a liar, Caleb Indigo. If that's even your name." Rage suffuses me. "You crave me, but not me. Not me , Isabel. You crave Madame X , the nameless, identityless woman you created. I was your golem, Caleb. I know this. I see this. You formed me out of clay, baked me in the fires of your controlling and mysterious ways. But now—now the clay and the stone are cracking and falling away, and the true woman beneath the perfectly shaped skin of the golem is emerging, and you hate that. You hate it. Because I'm not the woman you thought I was. Because I am not so completely yours anymore."

"Such poetry, Isabel. You are very eloquent in your anger." Your voice is low, thinner and sharper than the blade of an electron splitter.

You move with the slow, precise gestures of a man in complete control of his rage. You are better than useless displays of anger, better than tantrums. You do not hurl the glass to smash on the floor or against the wall. Such a gesture would be satisfying, perhaps, but useless. Petty, and empty. No, you take a moment and merely breathe. I watch your chest swell and contract. I watch your fists clench and loosen. I watch your eyes pierce me, unblinking, staring, and you are utterly inscrutable. I do not know your thoughts. I do not know what moves beneath the surface of your carefully shuttered expression, coiling and diving and not quite breaching the surface.

You are leviathan.

And my rage is the callow fury of a young woman only now learning how to express her emotions.

You stand before me. Stare down at me. "You cannot deny me, Isabel. You walked away, and yet here you are once more. In my home. You tremble. With rage, yes."

A step closer, and your chest brushes against the tips of my breasts, and even through the fabric of my dress and bra, my nipples respond to your proximity.

"But also, you tremble with desire." Your lips brush my earlobe. "For me ."

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

You cup my core with a broad, hard hand. "Your pussy is wet." You bite my earlobe, whisper dirty secret truth against the shell of my ear. "For me."

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

Your words leach my lungs of air. Your proximity snarls my will and tangles it. You are a sorcerer, and you weave magic of singular purpose: to seduce me.

You slide your hands up my front, grasp my breasts.

Clutch the V of fabric between them.

Slowly, slowly, with exquisite control, you rip my dress open from top to bottom. Unclasp my bra with a single deft flick of your hands. Tear apart my underwear at the seam over my hip, and the scrap of lace tumbles to the floor.

I am gasping for breath, my breasts heaving. My blood thrums as I hunt vainly for the will to resist you.

I sob once, and then your lips are on mine and your hands are lifting me and somehow you've shed your sweatpants and shoes and socks and you are utterly naked with me in this echoing space with dawn light battering blindingly upon us, illuminating us, leaving no shadows in which my weakness can be hidden, no darkness that can absorb the stain of my sin.

You press my spine to the coolness of the window glass. Your hands are large and rough and strong on my backside, holding me up, spreading me open for you.

I bite your shoulder as you thrust into me, taste blood as I am filled by you.

As Madame X I was owned by you.

As Isabel, I am fucked by you.

A thrust. A thrust. I sob, and you buck into me. My flesh squeals against the glass. This is agony, this is ecstasy. You move like a machine, hips driving you into me with pistonlike power.

But . . .

There is a void within me now. It was always there, perhaps, but now I feel it most keenly, as you fill me and fail to sate me.

I know your patterns. I know your needs.

You cannot stomach being face-to-face very long. I wait, but it isn't long before you lower me to the floor, spin me in place and press me to the glass. Not just my hands, but all of me. Breasts smashed flat against the cold glass, thighs, stomach, cheek. Naked, I am pressed against the glass for all the world to see.

I am exposed.

And you are behind me, pushing into me. One hand on my hip, guiding my motions, the other clutching the queue of my braid.

You fuck, and you fuck, and you fuck.

In this, there is no pleasure for me. For the first time that I can remember, you do not spare a single moment of attention for me. You only drive with single-minded madness into me again and again and again, hips slapping loudly against the taut roundness of my backside. I hear that, and only that. The slap-slap-slap of your body meeting mine. I glance out the window, and across the street I can almost see a face in a window, watching me.

You come, and I feel the hot rush of your seed filling me, dripping out of me.

You have claimed me, but there is a secret only I know: Your mark does not adhere to my skin, your claim does not sear into my soul.

In the last few minutes, I felt the earth shift, felt the shackles of your sorcery fall away.

You step away, and I spin in place, rest my bottom and shoulders against the glass, stare at you.

Something within me aches.

There are no words to speak.

I turn away from you, return my gaze to the world beyond the glass. After a time the silence grows profound, becomes empty, and I know you've walked away.

My cigar, at some point set in an ashtray, still smolders. I place it between my teeth, pour a measure of scotch, blow thick plumes of smoke into the rays of sunlight, and swallow burning mouthfuls of scotch in an attempt to drown the screams of self-loathing welling up within me.

I smoke, and I drink, and I listen to you shower.

I remain naked, because clothes cannot cover my shame.

You emerge dressed, hair wet and clean and slicked back, dressed in a tan suit with a pale blue shirt, no tie, baring that sliver of skin. You stare at me, a frown pinching your face, razoring a line into the bridge of your nose.

I want to yell at you. Tell you how much I hate you. Tell you how empty I feel. Tell you that everything is different now, everything is changed. I am changed. If I am addict and you are a drug, the high has soured.

I say nothing, however, because there are no words that can express the weltering chaos within me.

Neither of us speaks, and after a moment, you leave. The elevator doors close together, narrowing my view of you until there is nothing left but the doors.

And I am alone once more.

I give in to the screams, and my voice echoes off the glass in raw, ragged, jagged fragments. I scream until my voice gives out, and then I weep.

I allowed you to use me again. I feel the cancer of it like a film of grease on my soul.

No more.

Never again.

I cease weeping, and I shower you off me.

I step into a long, loose dress, wrap myself in a blanket. While away the hours with a book, bored and alone and drowning in self-loathing and disgust. Eventually, the day fades, and I fall asleep on a couch, because I do not want to be in your bed, even to sleep.