Just One Night, Part 3_ Binding Agreement(18)

I eye the sign for the 101. South will take me home, north will take me to him.

I need to go south. It’s where I live, where I belong. I’m not ready for anything else. I don’t want it.

But I need it.

The Los Angeles traffic continues to creep; someone leans on his horn in a useless expression of frustration.

The palms of my hands are moist and slide up and down along the smooth leather of the steering wheel.

Go south; it’s where you belong. You don’t want what he wants.

I’m shaking now. The numbers I reviewed all afternoon have all been left in the office. There is nothing clear or simple for me to hold on to here. I’m closer to the freeway entrance. I see the little arrow pointing the way for me, urging me onto the freeway that will take me home.

But I don’t go home. I go north.

And when I pull onto the freeway, I see that the traffic going along this new direction isn’t so daunting. The devil has cleared the way.

Soon I get to his exit and in minutes I’m curving up the familiar street.

The gate to his driveway is open; the door, unlocked. I walk in without announcing myself.

He’s waiting for me in the living room. A bottle of champagne is chilling in a bucket. Flames dance in the fireplace.

“You’re late,” he says without animosity.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” I say quietly.

He’s wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt, his sports coat the only thing that indicates he’s not planning on a quiet evening at home. His only response is a smile.

“I haven’t heard from you since the meeting,” I add.

“So you came to me.” He pops the champagne, pours the bubbling gold into two waiting glasses.

I don’t answer; I don’t like to think of what my being here means.

“Drink, Kasie.”

My hand is unsteady as I take the glass. “I’m not supposed to be here,” I say again.

He simply wraps his hand over mine, raises the drink to my lips. “You were magnificent in that boardroom,” he says quietly.

The bubbles tickle my confidence. I bring the glass down and whisper, “I was. But I’m not ready for this promotion.”

His hand caresses my cheek, runs up through my hair before finding its place at the back of my neck. “You’re ready for anything.”

“If I screw this up, what happens?” I ask. “Will I get another chance? Will you make them indulge my incompetence?”

“You’ve never been incompetent.”

“And what’s the price for these favors?”

“Take another drink,” he suggests, his eyes smiling. He steps back, watches me, his own glass untouched.

“You were magnificent,” he says again. “The only price is that I want you to be magnificent every day. I want people to see it, feel it. And then I want to be inside the power that I’ve helped grant. I want to make you come, I want to see you command the world and tremble at my touch. I want to fuck you right here, and in my office, in yours; I want you to relish in the pleasure of both authority and submission on a daily basis. It’s an intoxicating combination and you are one of the few who can explore both.”

“I’m scared.”

“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be very smart. But”—and with this he slips his hand under my shirt, under my bra, pinches my nipple—“fear can be fun. Like a scary movie or a haunted house. Fear can be its own high.”

“How can the man who makes all the rules and takes what he wants without apology, how can he be afraid of anything?” I counter. “You’re asking me to take pleasure in an emotion you know nothing about.”

“Ah, you’re wrong there.” He steps away from me, walks to the bookshelf, lets his finger slide over the bindings until it stops at one title, John Milton’s Paradise Lost. “It was my mother’s book,” he says, pulling it out. “She was the manager of a small office for a large company. My father was a broker working his way up, trading commodities and stocks he himself could barely afford. Buying and selling the promises of companies whose operations he knew little about. Don’t get me wrong,” he says, turning to me, smiling in the way people do when they relive uncomfortable memories. “He wasn’t bad at his job. His firm liked him. He was a team player.”

The last words are spoken like a curse. He walks to the fireplace, turns up the gas, making the flames surge. “When they set him up to take the fall for an insider trading charge, he didn’t stray from the script. He kept up the party line. Loyalty before survival; that was the way my father lived his life. He believed their promises. He told us they’d take care of him, make sure no felony counts would stick. He wouldn’t do a minute of prison time, his career would survive intact. They were such charming promises, dandelions in a field; that’s how my mother described them. Weeds, flowers that weren’t planned for but were pretty nonetheless.”