Jake & Mimi (30 page)

I lie still for a minute.

That first night, in the bar, I saw cruelty in his eyes. And the blood rose in my face.

I reach up with my free left hand and pull the blindfold over my eyes. Darkness. I slide it up again and stare at the ceiling,
my heart racing. I breathe deeply, twice, three times, then pull it down over my eyes again, easing into the darkness this
time, letting my other senses take over. I feel the coolness of the covers beneath my legs, hear for the first time the sounds
of the room, of the night. The deep, subliminal hum of the heater. A car engine, starting.

Soon it will be music instead. I dig my heels into the covers.

The room is so hot. I feel the first beads of sweat in the well of my neck. In the darkness and quiet, there is nothing to
slow my imagination, so I see the sweat on the faces of the others. On the forehead of Nina Torring. The throat of Elise.
I press my legs together again.

I reach with my left hand for the other silk tie. It is too high, too far. No, I can reach it. I touch the silk with the tips
of my fingers. He will do the rest. He will guide my wrist through the loop and then pull it tight. I can see his hands, his
concentration. I feel the first stirrings inside me.

Clear your mind, Mimi
.

I think of the garden in Greenwich. The winding path of stones from the patio, the roses by the far wall. My mother, gardening
at night in her old clothes. Earth on her knees. Tonight she released the ladybugs. She sprayed them with sugar water, to
weight their wings. If you can keep them in the garden for twenty-four hours, they become territorial and will stay.

Footsteps.

Outside on the concrete walk. Coming quickly. Reaching the door. Passing it. I wet my lips and exhale. But now — rattling.
The scrape of a bucket. The ice room. I cross my ankles and press my knees tight together. The footsteps start back. To the
door… past it… fading… gone. I ease one ankle off the other and breathe out again.

Fifteen minutes ago I called Mark. From the bench outside the ice room. I knew he wouldn’t answer, because he screens his
calls. I called to hear his voice on the machine. To see if maybe… I don’t know. As I listened to his voice, clear and strong,
a taxi pulled into the parking lot. Its passengers stepped out, and the driver looked over at me. All I had to do was raise
my hand. I closed the cell phone and put it back into my purse, and watched the taxi turn and pull out onto Tenth Avenue.

A soft click, a breath of wind, another soft click. The door.

I turn toward it and listen. Nothing. Wait. The rustle of clothing? No. But a sound. A sound that I’ve heard — the give of
the door. The soft sigh I heard when I leaned back against it.

He is in the room.

Jake Teller is in the room, and he is standing where I stood. Watching me.

I cover my bra with my left arm. The room is still and silent. I can feel his presence, the way the others could. He is appraising
me. Slowly, I take my arm away. I take it away, and I reach and find the silk loop again. I can just slip my wrist through
it. I lay my head back on the pillow.

Thirty seconds pass. I will keep still. Thirty more seconds pass. I feel the bed give beneath him. He is beside me. He is
leaning in close. I’m trembling now. He doesn’t touch me. Ten more seconds pass. Ten more. Please. Anywhere.

Click
.

The lamp. I feel its brightness through the blindfold, its heat on my neck. I wet my lips. And now I feel it — butterfly wings
against my left wrist. Not his fingers — the silk. Gossamer soft, closing slowly, and now tightening, tightening, tight now,
tighter, and now pulling my wrist a few more inches toward the post.

I’m bound.

I feel the soft burn in my shoulders and across my breastbone. Bound. I pull gently against the ties. They give an inch, no
more. I pull harder and gasp as the knots tighten into my wrists. I reach back with my fingers and take up a few inches of
silk. I twist them and try to pull out. I can’t. Panic rises through me. I pull harder, harder, but the silk is too strong.
It is like steel, and the harder I pull, the tighter it closes. I try to slip my wrists out from the loops, but they are too
tight. I kick my heels on the covers.

“Please.”

Silence.

I won’t be like the others. My breathing is fast and loud in the quiet room. I calm it. My struggle will excite him. As theirs
excited me. I bring my legs together and somehow, against everything inside me, I keep them still. The lamp is trained on
my throat, and I can feel the sweat trickling down into it, gathering. I try to concentrate on the cool of the covers beneath
me. If he would just touch me. If I could hear a sound from him. A whisper. My name.

Thirty seconds pass. A minute.

To imagine it was nothing. To listen, to watch — no. To lie here in the pitch dark, helpless, waiting for him to begin… is
beyond everything. I close my legs tighter, but already I feel the wetness between them. He will see it, as he saw it in the
others. I cross my ankles. The thought of silk, closing around each one, pulling them apart…

Click
.

The lamp again. No. I can still feel its heat.

The tape player.

Music. The last preparation. Piano notes now, filling the quiet room. Patient. Haunting. “Convento Di Sant’Anna.” I drop my
head back and pull against the ties again. This time I don’t feel the burn in my wrists, but in the center of me. “Convento
Di Sant’Anna.” I see Nina Torring’s bedroom. His discipline, her cries, the ice. I bring my legs up and then slowly back down,
but inside I feel the spreading wave.

I see the bed I lie on as if from above. The red covers, the white silk. I see myself as Jake Teller must see me. Spread and
bound, the tendons standing out in my arms, in my throat. I see the lace that protects me and the scissors that will cut it
loose.

I see all this, but I am still.

Still, though I know now that he will break me. I will plead, like the others, and cry out. Already I can feel the cries building.
Cries Mark has never heard, could not imagine. In the deep dark of the blindfold I see it now — the church in the fading light.
Empty.

I’m bound. God, it is so simple. So pure. Submission.

The piano plays softly, beautifully. For so long I’ve wanted this. Since I could dream. I hear the twist of a bottle cap.
The strong scent of oil fills the room. He will touch me now. In seconds.

Please let me last. Let him do anything, but let me last and last.

He touches me. The backs of his fingers on my face. Stroking me gently, gently. I am slipping into ether. Weightless. Free.
And now he is touching the blindfold. Lifting it. I blink in the blinding light of the lamp. What’s wrong? Why is —

I can’t breathe.

I
couldn’t do it.

I sat on the bed at the Century Motel, the white silk ties laid out in front of me on the red covers. It was seven o’clock,
and the last light of dusk came through the window and fell across them. I reached for the solid wooden post at the head of
the bed, and ran my hand down along it. Then I gathered up the ties, folded them, put them in my shirt pocket, stood, and
walked out of the room. Ten feet away, outside the door to the ice room, was a wooden bench. I sat down on it and stared across
the parking lot. I took my cell phone from my pocket, then put it away again. Better that she come and find the door locked,
the room canceled. Better that she come and leave betrayed. I looked again at the door to room twenty, then walked across
the parking lot to the motel office, where I told the old man at the desk that I had to cancel my reservation.

“We still got to charge you,” he said, his eyes sour and challenging.

I didn’t argue. I stepped out the door and stood on the sidewalk of Tenth Avenue. A breeze came up from the west, from the
water. Between the buildings I could see the sun sinking into the Hudson. I started to walk.

South to Forty-second Street I headed, then east. Out of the gray, gritty clamor of Hell’s Kitchen, through the neon corridor
of Times Square, past the majestic white library at Fifth Avenue. I kept walking, past the quiet office towers of midtown,
through the Friday night chaos outside Grand Central. I walked to Third Avenue, the sidewalk crowds thinning, and then on
to Second.

I walked the width of the island, until I was finally cut off by the gates of the United Nations. I turned south and walked
down to Thirty-fourth Street, then cut up across the car ramp, wound down past the heliport, stepped through the open fence,
and stood, alone, at the beginning of the river walkway. It was full night by then. I crossed to the river railing.

There was still time to go back. To reclaim the room, prepare the bed, and wait. I looked across the water at the lights of
Roosevelt Island. I reached into my shirt pocket, took out the white silk ties, and threw them over the railing. Three fell
folded into the water, but the last one unfurled and was lifted by the wind, out and away, toward the far shore. As if changing
its mind, it fluttered back toward me. Then it swirled a last time and dropped into the black water.

I stood at the railing, watching the slow progress of the ties, white lines wreathed in black water, as they drifted toward
the sea. I looked at my watch. 8:20. I’d have to hurry.

I walked back to First Avenue, moving faster now. Down to Twentieth Street, then west to Third Avenue. To the green common
and across it, to the path through the garden, and then to the door of the Columbarium.

Where I stand now, at a quarter to nine. I have fifteen minutes.

I step into the deserted lobby and walk across the marble floor to the stairs. Soft classical music plays, seemingly from
out of the air. I climb to the second floor and then to the third. Grandpa’s niche is on this floor, but I keep climbing,
up to the fourth-floor landing, where I step out into the circular walkway. I start around. The rooms on this floor are all
named for trees. The Cypress Room. The Sequoia Room. Here it is. The Cedar Room. I pause in the entrance, then step inside.

I am all alone, but it is thirty seconds before I can look at the niches that surround me. I move along the west wall. Names,
dates, keepsakes. Gladys Stoppard, 1920–1982. A small watercolor. Jerome Henderson, 1941–1990. A cross. Ryan Glasson, 1972–1989.
A varsity letter. I keep moving. William Jennings, 1931–1996. A service badge, leaning against the urn.

I come to the end of the west wall, and now start along the north one. I walk ten feet and then stop. Their wedding photo
looks back at me. And behind it, the two urns. Two gray, Oriental urns. The urns I held in my lap ten years ago, on the flight
from Tokyo to New York.

It’s been ten years since I’ve seen them. The day of their inurnment, I waited in the lobby until Grandpa came to tell me
that the director was through. I wanted to be alone with them, I said. He nodded, but I walked to the top floor, the fifth,
and looked out the window at the city for five minutes, then walked back down to the lobby. Every year, on the anniversary
of the accident, I’ve done the same thing.

I look now at the picture. Dad at twenty-five, cocksure, grinning. Holding Mom’s hand to his vest. Her veil is lifted, and
though she looks into the camera, the laughter in her eyes is for him. She is twenty-three.

I clean the glass. It is peaceful in this room. Serene. The air is scented with flowers, and the music plays softly, eternally.
The two urns touch at the shoulders, like shy lovers. I’ll bring something next time. A rose. I’ll bring it soon.

I stand in silence, looking into the niche, until I hear the chime of the closing bell. I touch the glass with my fingers,
turn, and walk out to the walkway, then back to the marble steps, down them, and to the lobby. A custodian stands patiently
at the door, holding it open. “Thanks,” I say. He nods kindly, his eyes on the floor. He closes the door behind me, and I
step down the walk and into the garden. I sit down on a stone bench at the garden entrance and swipe the sleeve of my jacket
across my eyes.

The cell phone is heavy in my pocket. I take it out. I have both her numbers, home and cell. I pick up a stone from the ground.
All the ways I’ve thought of her, and what I want most now is to show her the Columbarium. To show her the way their urns
touch at the shoulders. Then I want to walk with her along the river walkway. The whole way along it, from the heliport at
Thirty-fourth Street up to Gracie Mansion. Walk with her and explain. Her hand in mine. I toss the stone away, shake my head,
and stand up.

She has her man for that.

I put the cell phone away and start down Third Avenue. I walk to Sixth Street, then head west, the street life thickening
here in the Village, the sidewalks a riot of vendors and walkers. The smell of Indian food mingles with the scent of flowers
from an outdoor stand, and then both give way to the smell of pot. I continue west, drawn now, realizing for the first time
where I’m headed. At the hoop court on West Third Street I pause, my fingers in the fence. Five-on-five, full-court, under
the lights. One dribble and then launch a thirty-footer, then turn and cock an ear to the crowd, letting their roar tell you
you’ve split the metal nets again.