Dangerous (45 page)

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Authors: Sandra Kishi Glenn

BOOK: Dangerous

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In case of a real emergency, you still have my number. You’ll know the if and when of using it. Stay safe.

You swam up the waterfall. Now become a dragon.

—V

I slumped on the couch with the letter clutched to my chest, and wept for a very long time.

34
coda

“WHAT’S THIS?” PAUL asked, bending close over my shoulder. I liked the scent of him. He reached around me to lift the plastic ice cube from under a computer monitor, leaving a square hole in the fine layer of dust I hadn’t noticed before.

“A memento.” Nostalgia lent a huskiness to my voice, and Paul noticed.

I took the ice cube from him and gave it a brisk slap against the palm of my left hand, for the first time in two years. To my surprise, there was still some juice left.

He studied it for a minute. When he was done I shut it off, then spun it between a thumb and forefinger like a globe, deep in thought.

“I came to tell you I made popcorn,” he said. “The movie’s queued up and ready when you are.”

“I’ll be right there,” I said, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Just let me save this and check my mail.”

He pointed to the screen. “How’s it coming?”

I zoomed out and showed him the entire image, a deep underwater scene far below the reach of sunbeams. Two exotic mermaid-like beings swam close without touching, in a yin-yang configuration. The descending creature had flowing blond hair and a perfect human torso blending into a the graceful curves of a dolphin tail. Her ascending counterpart, however, was a frightening deep-sea creature with inky skin and bioluminescent spots, trailing a hundred tendrils whose bright tips shone like tethered stars. Her nightmare face was little more than a mouthful of dagger teeth and two glassy eyes, unblinking as security cameras. Yet for all that, she had a kind of terrible beauty. The spiral dance of these two aquatic beings suggested mutual desire, but also the possibility of violence, feeding.

“You’re a complicated woman, Koishi Paz,” Paul said. “What do you call it?”

“
Fathomless
, I think.”

“Hmm, that’s deep.”

I turned to punch him playfully. “Yes, you dork. It also means
unknowable
.”

When he’d gone I studied it critically, then took a breath and clicked File > Save As…, giving it a new version number. Then I verified the backup drive was still doing its job. A hard drive meltdown last year had taught me the importance of archiving, the hard way.

I opened a browser and checked my email.

There was an important business proposal from Barrister Mewro Ghali of Nigeria, which I quickly marked as spam, sight unseen. The same fate befell the breathless notification of a FREE IPAD RESERVED IN YOUR NAME!

The next email wasn’t spam, but rather a message from Milton:

Congratulations are in order. Someone sent me a link to your interview in DigitalVisions last month.

(I could guess who that someone was.)

Let me be the first to say ’well done’. Your work continues to be sensuous, challenging, and technically impressive. Keep it up.

Which reminds me. I was recently approached for a commission, by a person with very (ahem) specific needs. My plate is quite full, and that article convinced me his project is right up your alley. With your permission, I’ll send him your contact information. It could turn out to be quite lucrative and lead to further work down the road. He has excellent connections.

Josie sends her love.

All the best,

Milton

Dear Josie. No direct mention of Val though, which was both a mercy and a thorn in my heart.

I owed Milton a great deal, first for giving me the courage to start Luminous Garbage Studio, and then helping me get up and running with advice and contacts. I still took freelance compositing work from Carl in the slow times, but the art commissions were picking up, and Paul had complete faith in my abilities.
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you
, Joseph Campbell had said. So it did, though I had passed through some very strange places along the way.

My finger stroked the ice cube as I pondered all that had happened to put me on this path.

After sending Milton a quick reply expressing thanks, and my interest in the commission, I stiffly rose to join Paul in the living room.

“What’s the movie?” I asked, curling up against him on the couch.

“V for Vendetta,” he said.

Hugo Weaving was brilliant, even with his face hidden behind a Guy Fawkes mask the whole film. I cried when he told a tearful Natalie Portman that her new reality had no place for monsters like himself.

My epiphany came when she reluctantly threw the lever sending the train—and her beloved tormentor—to certain destruction, a fiery midwife to the birth of a better world.

I could not have thrown that lever. I would have held tight until the bombs went off, squandered everything he had fought for, and destroyed us both to no good end.

That
is why Val had gone. I was the most dangerous thing in her world, the one who picked the lock of her self-made cage and freed the monster, to the peril of all.

I imagined her then as a dark, fanged predator running with her pack-mates in dire places. Hunting unknown enemies, keeping us safe. Keeping
me
safe, from herself as much as those nameless foes.

Touching my neck where the koi tattoo still swam, I thought of dragons and prayed that someday Val, too, might find deliverance.

August 24, 2011

afterword

THIS WORK IS a gift. It comes to you from tears, from demands, from discipline, from the whips of the tongue and the heart and the mind. The inspiration that gave birth to this gift is bloody in its own way, and I am the knife that cut it free. Therefore, it is only fit that I offer it a blessing as it goes out into the world.

Some time ago, Sandra and I crossed paths. I was pleased with her literacy, her education and her perspective, and our association grew over time. The work that you have just read is, in many ways, the sum of that association. Sandra has been scorched and scourged with inspiration over months and years now, and I have watched over her as she composed. I have been demanding, exacting, brutal and caring by turns. I have driven her onward when she weakened and dragged her up again when she failed. Her failures as well as her dreams are in the words you have read, and I have pulled both of them from her again and again until she was finally done. From the start, this book was meant to be mine, and she has given me every word.

This work is a gift, offered to me without reserve or condition, and I accept it without reserve or condition. And yet, in the end, it is I who am humbled by this act of service. So, with red-stained hands, I bow my head and acknowledge the fruit of Sandra's dedication to me, and I smile to think that the work might inspire some among you to adore what she and I have done.

—V

author's note

THIS IS A work of fiction, not a manifesto or blueprint for any sort of relationship.

If the dominant/submissive or BDSM lifestyle interests you, be aware there are right and wrong ways to go about it. Much of what transpires in
Dangerous
falls into the “wrong way” category. I implore you to learn about the concepts of Power Exchange, SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual) and RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) before attempting anything. Do the research, and use your head. There is much information to be found on the internet, but also a lot of nonsense.

acknowledgements

I AM INDEBTED to Anne Desclos, whose infamous novel set a fire in my young mind, and Catherine Robbe-Grillet and Elizabeth McNeill, who added fuel to that fire and, without meaning to, showed me the way.

Also, my heartfelt thanks go to the many people who offered inspiration, advice, and encouragement. They include (but are not limited to): V, Lotus, Andy, Suzanne, Gen, Cheryl, Kat, Mare, Mary and Stu, Amy, Ramona, Jester, Steve, Jason B, Shannon, Arnold, Carla, Belle, Annie, Juan, Heather, Ricercar, Tara, Roxanna, and Brannon. And of course my family, for putting up with me the whole time.

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