The Bound Heart (23 page)

He pulled up, looked down at her, and schooled his face.

“I’m not going to face demons for you, so you can feel like we are closer. I don’t have demons to face. I have rules because that’s just how I like it. This is as good as it’s going to be with me. And I thought you understood that and were happy.”

She stepped forward poked him in the chest.

“Liar! I know what you wanted to do tonight. You wanted to break your rules as much as I did. I don’t know why they are so important, but there’s a demon behind how hard you fight to keep them. Make no mistake about that. I may not be as educated and cultured as you Jamie Edwards, but I am no fool. You have more to give; you just don’t want to reach in and give it.”

A sharp pain pierced through his chest, a shaft of light gutting long closely held shadows.

No, she most certainly was not a fool.

A woman who wore her brother’s brace, despite ridicule, who refused to be forced down, to be something other than her whole self. Somewhere in her childhood, she’d found the strength to follow who she was with an integrity that those of her class would have held against her.

She’d stood in front of him every Friday afternoon in the workshop with her heart in open view beating out the words ‘I want you’.

He’d been a fool to think she would have ever been satisfied with the rules. Even more a fool to think that he would be too.

However, that didn’t change the way things were. He was a fully formed man, the way he was put together worked. They may both yearn for a taste of something more, but it wasn’t in him to give it.

Days had passed since he’d ushered her out of his room before dawn.

It still hurt, yet she had not said anything and neither had he. Instead, they focused on the work for Paris.

They had not had sex, he was waiting for her, waiting for her to accept the rules and continue as they had. And every day with the rope, he said the opposite from his rules, the opposite of his distance. Every touch, stroke. Every soft whisper as the rope wrapped around her, showed her a man hungry for their intimacy, for the connection they had.

Olive lingered in her room. Jamie would be waiting. Today they’d do the first of the photographs that would be displayed in Paris at the competition.

Her stomach fluttered at the thought.

It was only going to be Jamie and her. He’d borrowed Edgar’s equipment to take the images himself. He wanted to be sure that she was comfortable. The ties they’d worked on were quite marvelous. She longed to see what they looked like. She felt like she was flying, being suspended so high; the rope was so evenly placed, no single part of her experienced pain or discomfort. It was strenuous. She had to hold her arms, legs, and head in certain ways. They were supported by the rope; but it was also her part to help style the tie. Just hanging there with her head flopped down didn’t work; she had to hold it up, tilt it, or face a certain way, work together with the ties to create the shape and the feel of tie.

All her morning exercises had made that part of it easier. She understood why Jamie had started to work with them on the tatami mats. It was soft, leisurely, and very sensual.

The suspension work was more demanding. The ties and the technical knowledge of how to best balance her body and still create the beauty of the rope, what knots could be used for what kind of weight bearing. Jamie had talked through why he was doing what he was, why certain parts of her body were tied in certain ways. Tying the wrists should be done above the actual wrist, which was the most vulnerable point. Layers and layers of knowledge and skill became apparent, and then the way that knowledge came together to make the most beautiful image of the rope and her.

She appreciated the art of it more now. She could see why Jamie loved it. The challenges of making it technically perfect, comfortable, and safe for his model, and the most beautiful he could.

Time and a very good mind were required. The sensuality of it was still there for her. After all, Jamie was touching her, his firm hands steadily hauling the ropes up, his fingers that tested the ropes against her skin, sliding over her body. His murmurs of praise with instruction, his eyes that darkened, his mouth, which softened as he looked at her in his creation.

But her face would still be on those images. And the memory of Mr. Russell at The Velvet Basement as he looked at the photo plates on the counter and then at her still worried at her.

She might meet people who would have seen those shots and would know it was her, feel they knew her intimately and they would, because she would not be able to hide what the rope did to her, what Jamie made her feel as he held her, as the rope became a trail of his touch, of his regard. She only wanted him to see that, to know what he did to her.

A model in a painting didn’t give that of herself. She just posed; she was placed into an arrangement and was painted.

What she would feel would be raw, would be her deepest feelings for him.

The world behind the erotic Jamie said it was. He valued that exposure, said it was what was powerful not the sex of it. Sometimes she felt she understood that could feel the difference but at other times it all blended together.

On the dresser, propped up against the wall, next to the mirror was a white fox facemask with red ears.

She picked it up, placed it over her face, and looked into the mirror. An eeriness about the image was reflected back at her.

She took the mask off and looked at her face in the mirror, a face that showed all her secrets. Her face had gotten her into strife with her mother and sisters when they bullied her to head out on the street with them, the distaste as she put the food they brought back into her weak, hungry mouth was plain to see on her all too easy to read face. It had earned her a belting on many an occasion.

Upstairs in the main house, Olive walked into the attic workshop to find Jamie looking through the camera. He’d pared down to his britches, his chest bare, hair pulled tight in its oriental-styled queue.

“I’m still of two minds about the backdrop. What do you think? Plain black so the focus is on you and the ties, we’ll hand paint the photo plates to make it really jump out. Or this one?” There was a scroll unrolled and hanging on the sidewall. A forest scape washed with moonlight and a wandering forest path to draw the eye through the trees.

At first, when he started to ask her opinion, she’d thought he was humoring her. But he meant it. He was very generous with the role of rope as art. He never asked what tie or what rope to use; but other areas like this, the backdrop, or which kimono she liked best, he did.

Olive walked over to where Jamie stood in front of the forest scroll and his arm came out and slipped around her waist as he leaned in and kissed the top of her head.

“They’re both good,” she said.

“I wonder if the forest is too obvious, if it leads the person who will look at the picture to think in a certain way. The black means they can imagine their own context.”

“Jamie…”

She stepped back. Moved out of the warmth of his hold.

Sensitive to her as always, he turned, his gaze dropping to the fox mask in her hand.

“Jamie, I don’t know if I can do it.”

His face showed nothing.

She looked at his eyes, the one part he was never able to school. There was no judgment in them, just concern, just focus.

He nodded.

“I know it’s not a display in front of anyone, but people will see my face, see how I feel. My face…my face, when I’m with you, when we use the rope…it…”

“It says everything,” he whispered. “It hides nothing.”

“A bane,” she said.

“A beauty,” he replied.

The mask restless in her hands. Damn him for reaching out and stepping in closer than anyone ever had, and yet he kept her at arms’ length.

Her eyes pricked with heat. She would not cry.

He reached across and took the mask out of her hand.

“Okazaki used to let me play with this when I first came to the house. I was nine. I should have been much too old for something like this, but I wore it for days on end. I was in a world far outside my ability to understand. I’d recently lost my father and was turning into a street rascal. Sensei and Okazaki would come up here to work. Serious work.” He smiled at the memory. “I had no idea of the sexuality that lay behind what they did; they were so disciplined, so focused on the art. He let me stay with them up here when they did their practice ties.” He turned, pointed to the window overlooking the back garden. “I’d put the mask on and sit over there near the window so I could look out.”

He ran his hands over the snout, the black whiskers.

“The day Sensei got me to work with him on the rope, I gave it back.”

It was another of those rare glimpses into him and his past. It wrapped around her like hope. One step closer to a man who had designed a life to keep women away. To keep her away.

But not when they used the rope. It was as if the rope said what he refused to. It was as if it bound her to him as his rules kept them apart.

He was such a hard man to read. Olive clasped her hands in front of her, uncertainty filling every pore.
“Mrs. Okazaki gave it to me the night you brought me here. She said I was to keep it, that it matched my hair. But I don’t think my hair is light enough for a fox.”

Jamie’s eyes softened.

“I imagine she remembered my first weeks at the house.”

He looked back down at the mask. Stepped forward and placed it over her face. Moved her hair so it fell about the mask and covered the ties.

“My Inari Okami, my fox goddess come to haunt me for real.”

Her chest ached for him. Longed for the man standing right in front of her. Her mind understood, her mind even accepted his rules and the distance he needed; but her heart was crying out at his refusal to let her through, to let her past the black door he had on the inside.

Jamie’s hand reached out and cradled her chin, his thumb stroked over her cheek. “I keep on expecting to see a Okami standing next to my bed, the moonlight washing over her soft freckled skin. She came once but hasn’t come again.”

Heat flushed up her face. Her arms crossed over her chest as she looked through the eyeholes in the fox mask.

“You know why,” she whispered.

His jaw tightened.

Then he leaned down, lifted the mask, and pulled her up against him. Kissed her hard, kissed her until they were out of breath. “Don’t slip away, Olive.”

She went to tug out of his hold, but he held her tight.

“I’m right here,” she whispered.

“And moving out of reach,” he whispered back.

She shook her head ‘no’. “Just step forward.”

His lips pursed and his hold loosened as he stepped back. Always stepping back from her.

His gaze traveled down her attire.

“That kimono will show up well in the photo; it was a sound choice.” He moved away, picked up a rope that hung over the chair, and started to bundle it up. “We’ll have it hand painted to bring out the colors.” His voice was matter of fact.

He was punishing her, creating distance in retaliation for hers. But it wasn’t going to make her change the way she felt.

“Jamie.”

He looked down at the rope in his hands.

She stepped over to him, reached out, her hand on his chest, his heart beating under her palm.

“Jamie… please, don’t be upset.”

He gave a conciliatory half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. No…his eyes were dark and hurt.

“I think the mask’s a good idea. We’ll work with it until you feel more comfortable. But we’ll eventually need images with your face showing, Olive. If you can’t do that I need to make other arrangements, this is important.”

She nodded and the clamp in her belly released. At least that was sorted.

The trouble was she wasn’t sure being comfortable, showing how she felt in the rope, how she felt doing that together with him, would ever happen.

And if it didn’t, what then?

Maybe it wouldn’t matter. The distance between them was growing. It was her fault; she knew that. If she could just be satisfied with the way things were, with the rules. If she loved him less, she would be content; but how she felt, how he made her feel, she needed more. She needed it all. And her instincts told her he did too.

“Olive-san the carriage is here,” Mrs. Okazaki called from the narrow hall.

The paper door slid open to her small room and Mrs. Okazaki stepped in.

“I’m almost done.”

She held the black lacquered comb in her hand.

It had come after she’d met him at the dress shop. A gift from Mr. Sato.

‘A woman as beautiful as you needs beautiful things.’ The note had read.

Olive knew that Sato was just ‘trying it on’, that it was less about her and more about Jamie.

Mrs. Okazaki came up behind her.

“You look very beautiful, Olive-san.”

Okazaki ran her hand over Olive’s embroidered jacket. Tugged it down over Olive’s hips and rearranged some of her skirts. The jacket had come just today from Iwara’s shop. They’d been so good with making the alterations and protecting the embroidered work.

“I’m never going to be able to repay you and Jamie for the clothes.”

“An old woman like me with no children needs a young person to fuss over.”

A wave washed through her. Her mother, her sisters, their angry words, and harsh world. Here was a woman so gracious, so generous. Mrs. Okazaki had walked her own path, had chosen to work with Jamie’s teacher as his model and his mistress. She’d walked that life with no shame.

Olive admired that.

Really admired it.

“You’re not that old.”

Mrs. Okazaki looked ageless; a few lines at the corner of her eyes were the only signs of aging she showed.

“We Japanese age well.” But her eyes creased and Olive knew she liked the compliment.

“Can you help put this in my hair? I don’t know how to wear it.”

Mrs. Okazaki looked at the comb. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Do you really want to do this?”

Olive nodded. “Jamie probably wouldn’t even notice.”

“Don’t be too sure. Jamie-san’s strength is to notice the things that others fail to see. A man cannot master the rope and reveal the woman in it without looking at the smallest signs.”

“What do you mean reveal the woman in the ropes?”

“There is the art of the rope, the skill, the shapes, the suggestions of power, bliss, control… But a man of Jamie’s ability. He seeks to use all those tools to show the woman on the inside, the deep well of self underneath it all.

To do that a man must read every sign, the smallest signal to guide him past the barriers we naturally hold.”

Olive’s heart was beating fast. More like a rabbit not a fox. The depth of what Jamie was really asking from her settled over her. Hungered fought with fear.

Okazaki caught her eyes in the mirror her gaze dark and insightful, she knew exactly what she had said and exactly how Olive felt about it.

The comb slid into her hair. A beacon of her discontent. A challenge for him to step closer.

Okazaki reached into the fold of her kimono. “I have made these for you Olive-san.”

Mrs. Okazaki handed her a small bundle wrapped in paper and beautifully tied off, as was the Japanese way.

“What is it?”

“Open them; you will use them tonight.”

Olive placed the sample gift on the dresser and preceded to open it. Inside, after a number of wrapped layers, was a simple white card embossed with O & O Designs, and read Art Embroidery and Japanese Designs, and her name and an address.

Excitement rippled through her at the formality, the clean crisp beauty of the cards.

“O & O Designs, is that us?”

Mrs. Okazaki smiled. “This is a Japanese meishi; it is for people of business to give away so potential clients remember them. Tonight you are going out amongst a very discerning and artistic crowd in your signature creation. People will want to know where you got it. Once you tell them you designed it, they will want to know how to contact you.”

“The address isn’t here.”

“Mrs. Iwara has agreed to house O & O Design as part of her shop while we grow.”

Olive forgot herself and threw her arms around the woman in front of her. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, she had something she had always dreamed of, a business, a livelihood centered on her passion.

Hours and hours she had worked as the light dimmed. Working at repairs, working on her embroidery, working on her lace work, all the while dreaming of a life of freedom. The chance to make enough to live somewhere cleaner and bigger. Safer and with more light. To be able to buy a new set of clothes at Christmas.

Mrs. Okazaki leaned forward stiffly not sure how to respond. Olive just squeezed her closer.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Mrs. Okazaki. Patted her back.

Olive reluctantly let her go.

There was a soft glassiness to Mrs. Okazaki’s eyes.

“It’s good for both of us Olive-san. With Sensei gone, I now need to focus on something new. You have given me a good reason to step forward. Two women together.”

Mrs. Okazaki, reached out, took a few cards, and placed them into the small pocket of Olive’s jacket.

“Hand them out when people ask how to contact you. Handle your card with dignity, respect, and care. Not like this.” Mrs. Okazaki showed a few casual manners to hand over the card. “Give it with purpose.” She demonstrated the difference. It made sense and presented a picture of pride in what she did and could do for others.

“I will.” It felt like every day she was learning. Every day, the wall of what she didn’t know seemed to grow. She had never thought of herself as ignorant, simply not educated or worldly. Now as education and the world were opening to her, that safe buffer of ignorance was being washed away much like layers of grim off windowpanes. Jamie reassured her she was learning fast and that like him, when Sensei first took him in, she would learn what she needed.

She hoped so. She wanted to find a place for herself in this world between worlds.

Mrs. Okazaki squeezed her shoulder. “Now hurry, the carriage is waiting.”