Just One Night, Part 3_ Binding Agreement(16)

“Nidal directed that, too. She told him to enter me slowly, she told him how to rotate his hips just right. She asked me to kiss her while he rode me.” Simone falls silent, momentarily lost in the memory. “Nidal asked me to face my fears,” she finally adds, “and she rewarded me for it.”

“With sex?”

Simone hesitates only a moment before replying. “She rewarded me with adventure. And with the most amazing orgasm I’ve ever had. It ripped through me, Kasie. It almost made me weep. Joseph said he could actually feel the spasms that shot through me. It was . . . it was spectacular. And it’s a memory I will hold on to until I die. When I’m eighty I’ll be able to look back at that night and remember that I was once daring and bold.”

“Yes,” I say slowly. For a few moments we let the picture she’s painted hang between us, demanding both reverence and wonder. But as it fades I begin to remember what’s real and what isn’t. I reach for something to pull us both back fully into the present.

“You’ll always have the memory,” I say slowly, “but . . . you might not remember if you slept with Jason or Joseph.”

That makes her giggle and with her laughter the mood shifts to something a little less intense. “Well,” she finally says, “that’s why we have to stay friends. So you can remind me of these things.”

I smile down into my milk shake, relishing the idea of having a lifelong friend. She hesitates only a moment before taking my hand. “It sounds like you have fears you need to face, too,” she says kindly. “What’s going on, Kasie?”

I take a deep breath and begin to talk. I tell her of the push-pull lover’s game I’m playing with Robert. I tell her I’m being promoted by a man who wants to fire me. I tell her about Asha and Tom and how conflicted I am. “I’m being granted power and influence without respect,” I finally say. “I didn’t even know that was possible!”

This time Simone’s laugh is richer and more boisterous. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed but that’s the situation of all the dictators in the world and quite a few of our elected officials. We respect the office, we certainly respect the power, but it’s fairly rare that we respect the individual who wields that power over us.”

I shake my head. “I disagree. When we read our history books, it’s the leaders who we honor and idealize.”

“Oh please. The whole point of history books is to bring our attention to the exceptions. There’s not enough room on the page to write about those who represent the status quo, the norm. My God, how boring would that be?”

I giggle my half-hearted agreement.

“No,” she sighs, “normally when someone has power over us, we go out of our way to look for that person’s flaws. We exaggerate them in our minds and in our gossip. We ridicule our leaders when their backs are turned. We convince ourselves that they’re not really deserving. That they’re not better than us. Sometimes we’re right, sometimes we’re wrong. It doesn’t really matter because we still respect the power and we will still bend to it regardless of how we may feel about the hands that hold it.”

I haven’t thought of it like that before. “This isn’t a direction I’ve chosen for myself,” I say softly. “He’s chosen it for me.”

“And you’re afraid you’ll get lost?” Simone asks. She shakes her head, stirs her drink. “You can’t retrace your steps, Kasie. What’s happened, happened. As long as you’re at your firm, people will remember. You can either see this thing through and find out if it takes you to a place you like or you can leave the firm and go somewhere else. Start from scratch.”

“Are you kidding?” I exclaim. “I’ve put six years into that place! And where would I go? There is no other consulting firm in LA that has their reputation.”

“You could work for yourself.”

I blink. It’s not that the thought has never occurred to me but I’ve never taken it seriously. The risks involved in being self-employed are too great. The only structure is the one you create. “I’m not cut out for that kind of uncertainty.”

“Well then you have a problem.” Simone gathers her blonde hair into her hands, pulling it up to the nape of her neck. “Everything about your life is pretty uncertain right now. That’s not going to change regardless of what you do.”

I hang my head, defeated. “I’m lost.”

“No, you know where you are, you’re just not sure which routes you want to take,” Simone notes. “You have to make your own decisions, and you will. But I will tell you this, you’re not done with Robert Dade. Not by a long shot.”