“I want it all,” I said primly, forking a bite of the meat into my mouth.
“You can have whatever you want,” Jake said, the meaning heavy in his words.
I ate and ate and ate. Jake was right; by the time the fifth waiter had come around, I was stuffed. But I was determined to try at least a little bit of everything.
“I’m ready to become a vegetarian after this,” I said.
“Don’t you dare. There’s a barbecue place near my apartment that has the most amazing ribs. To die for.”
“I can’t move.”
“You have to. Come on, let’s dance.”
“Dance?”
“It’ll settle all the meat down in your stomach and make room for dessert.”
“Dessert?” I groaned but let him lead me onto the dance floor. A few older couples were already swaying to the four-piece string band.
The music was low and we didn’t bother much in following the beat. My heart was pounding too hard to be able to hear the rhythm of the songs, anyway. Jake, too, seemed preoccupied, his fingers tapping against my waist impatiently.
I looked down and put a hand over his.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. His green eyes refocused closer, looking deeply into my face. For the second time, I thought that he was looking a bit too deeply. I wondered what he saw in me that held his attention at all. I was just a young painter trying to make it. Girls like me were a dime a dozen. But it was me in his arms, rocking side to side, and when he pulled me close, I rested my head against his shoulder.
“Thank you for taking me out tonight,” I said.
“It was my pleasure,” Jake murmured, and he sounded utterly sincere. And after a year’s worth of dates with guys who tried desperately to get me to come back to their apartments for sex, his sincerity was… strange. Not to mention the fact that this guy—this sincere, romantic man—had taken me without remorse when he thought I was a birthday gift.
Right then, though, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the stars shining through the glass ceiling, the waves outside in the darkness, and the strong tall man holding me. I felt as though he was my gift from the universe, and I wasn’t about to let him go.
He danced with me. In his arms, with the Statue of Liberty shining like a green beacon behind us, I felt utterly sated. I didn’t want anything else. Only this.
Only him.
***
“Where are we going? My bedroom?”
“No.”
“Your bedroom?”
“No.”
He showed me down the hall. It was a locked door. Locked, just like the storage room in his art studio. He opened it, and I stepped inside.
Instantly the fuzziness in my mind dissipated.
“Criminy.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word in here,” Jake said.
I looked around. Unlike the other rooms in this house, this room was dimly lit and the walls were closer together. It felt tight. Claustrophobic.
In the middle of the room was a bed with ivory sheets, lit from above with a single spotlight. No pillows, though. Only four bedposts, from which dangled chains that ended in black velvet-covered cuffs. I swallowed.
Behind the bed was a huge mirror taking up the entire wall. As I stepped into the room, I saw my reflection staring back at me. It was strangely modern for an apartment that looked like Versailles.
The other walls weren’t decorated the same as the rest of the house, either, I noticed, looking around. Instead of the classic oak paneling with gilt-frame oil paintings, the walls here were all concrete. Painted concrete.
Some of the artwork on the walls were words. Squinting, I could barely make them out. SCREAM, one of the walls read. Across from it, in equally imposing letters: BREATHE.
“What is this?”
“This is where I go to be myself.”
“Who are you?”
He didn’t answer me.
Over the words and around them were all kinds of abstract shapes. I stepped closer to the wall to see that the shapes were smaller, or made of smaller fragments of shapes. They looked like animals, almost, the way they were pieced together behind the words that splashed across the full walls. Small circles looked like eyes. Slits for mouths. Or maybe I was only imagining it.
“Pareidolia,” I murmured.
“What did you say?”
“Pareidolia,” I repeated, my fingers running down the walls. Every square inch was painted with something different. Another shape. Another animal. “You know, when you see faces when they aren’t there. Like the man in the moon.”
“Is that what you see?”
I started back at his touch. He’d come up just beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“I guess.”