Wait for Me (18 page)

I began to kiss him gently. On his lips, his cheeks, his neck, and I ran my fingers down the buttons of his shirt. “…I can have you,” I whispered. “That I can be the only one – just the two of us. I'll give you anything you want, but I have to be the only woman.”

“Sophie, you know how guilty this makes me feel… I—”

“You can punish me all you want, whip me, make me kneel,” I searched his eyes. “Tie me, torture me, and I'll take it all as long as I'm the only one.”

He shook his head, horrified by these words.

“I have to go,” he announced. “Go home Sophie. Think about graduating.”

“Will I see you again?” I asked, like a pining dog.

Adam shook his head and walked away.

“Will I see you again?” I repeated. After a few steps he stopped. I saw him shake his head again before turning to me with a decisive, annoyed expression.

“This isn't a fairy tale, Sophie. It's pretty clear that we want different things.”

“I know. I know you're not looking for a love story, but it's not that simple. Let's just try this – a middle path.”

“A middle path?” he muttered.

“Yes, a compromise. I give myself over to you, but I'm your only one.”

“Christ,” he said, glancing at the sky.

“I'm all yours Adam, every part of me.” I laughed lightly to try and ease the tension. “I have to have you, it's driving me crazy.”

There we were, face to face, muted like
The Lovers
.
A passion to transcend language; a love to transgress the conflict between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.

“Sophie, you're insane,” he said, brushing my cheek lightly with his fingers.

“Utterly,” I added, winking.

He smiled, and enveloped me in a delicate hug. Finally, I felt at safe and at home.

“Are you busy?”

“What?”

“Now, are you busy?”

“No, there's nothing I need to do until three.”

“Do you want to come with me?”

I nodded.

“I'll get the car, wait for me here.”

I watched him walk away. Already I had butterflies. I wanted to cling to him, like a koala.

Five minutes later, Adam picked me up. I didn't ask where we were going – I didn't care as long as it was with him. Within fifteen minutes, he had found a parking spot and we walked the rest of the way to Central Park. We bought another coffee from the kiosk and set off towards the lake.

“Now, Sophie, I want you to tell me everything. Leave nothing out. It's important that I know.”

“Everything?” I asked.

“Everything.”

I didn't go through all of it, but I told him about some of the more intense experiences with Albert – the thirty-something obsessive, who left me in a pool of my own blood with two cracked vertebrae, a broken tail bone and a year in a psychiatric hospital. I told him about Paul too, and his alternating use of violence and affection. Adam listened intently, but his face never offered compassion.

“Albert, where is he now?”

“In rehab, of his own free will though. It's been three years since I last saw him. We met up just after I left the psych ward.”

Finally, his impartial expression showed a sign of humanity. He was visibly troubled.

“But it went well. He apologized and I've forgiven him.”

“Forgiven him?”

“Yeah, it was about choosing whether to keep all that bitterness inside, or to just let it go.”

He sat on a bench and took my hands.

“Sophie, I'm so sorry, I never imagined. I guessed that you'd had some bad experiences, but nothing like this. You should have told me right away.”

I laughed and ran my fingers through his hair. “It wasn't really that easy, you're not always receptive to conversations like that.”

“Sit down,” he said, smiling at me.

He lifted my legs onto his lap.

“And also I didn't want to see that look of pity on your face.”

He gave me a kiss on the forehead and smiled again, shaking his head.

“What are you smiling at?”

“What am I smiling at? Sophie, you're the most delicate creature in the world, and you've fallen into my hands.”

“But, you're different from the others.”

“And you're also utterly insane.”

I held him tightly and he returned the embrace.

He sighed and whispered: “a middle path.”

After a thousand caresses and kisses, he walked me to the subway. He said goodbye and promised to wait for me outside the bookstore at eight. For the entire afternoon, I silently worked through my wrapping, under the suspicious eye of Sabrina.

“You're very quiet today,” she observed suddenly.

I shrugged, mumbling some generic nothing about the weather. Obviously she wasn't swallowing that.

“Sophie,” she said, springing up from her chair. “Don't tell me you went to find him!”

“Sabrina,” I muttered, staring at my work.

“Oh fuck, what the hell were you thinking? Did you see him?”

“Yeah, earlier,” still mumbling.

“Well, that explains why you're about as talkative as an inanimate object today.”

I burst out laughing. “I'm not an inanimate object!”

Sabrina tilted her head and looked me up and down. “He comes in here for five minutes and you go running back to him like a bitch in heat.”

I couldn't argue with her, but then, she couldn't understand the feelings between us.

“And don't tell me that there's something special between the two of you and that I wouldn't understand because, seriously Sophie, this whole thing is just sick.”

“Like me, right?” I glared and turned away.

“Sophie, I don't know what to say – you're a grown up and we all have our own sexual preferences, but I can honestly say that this whole thing was sick when it began and it'll be sick until it ends. At least tell me you're still going to therapy.”

“I am.”

“And I imagine you haven't uttered a single word about this? If that's the case, I strongly urge you to do so. You're going to wind up in pieces at this rate.”

Annoyed, I returned to my packages, and she to her invoices.

After five minutes of deadly silence. “You told him what happened that night at least?”

“Yeah, I told him everything.”

“And?”

“And nothing, Sabrina. He understood and apologized a thousand times. That's it.”

She muttered something through clenched teeth, but I let it go.

At eight o'clock, as promised, he was waiting outside the store. I melted at the sight – smiling, casual dress. Sabrina escorted me to him, visibly irate.

“Hello, I'm Sabrina,” she said, holding out her hand. Adam shook it firmly.

“Nice to meet you – Adam.”

“Are you going out for dinner?” she asked politely.

“We are,” Adam replied.

“Okay.”

“Are you going to wait up for me?” I asked sarcastically, to break the ice.

“Probably. I'm also going to have an argument with Steph too, so don't be late if you don't want us to break up.”

She left abruptly.

“I suppose she knows about me and my particular interests?” he said, hugging me. “She seems very protective.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Can I trust her?”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that she won't speak about this to anybody.”

“She's a good friend of mine, she won't say a word.”

“Very well,” he said, and finally kissed me. The world could have ended and I wouldn't have cared: I was in his arms.

“Let's go,” he took my hand.

“Where are we headed?” I asked curiously.

“Dinner.”

In the car, I told him about my day and asked about his. Meetings, signatures, video conferences, he told me. It was the first time I had heard him talk about his day-to-day life. Usually our meetings consisted of long silences and the odd word between sexual encounters. As I listened, I struggled to imagine him in that context, behind a desk, talking about finance with other investors.

“Does it ever get boring?”

“No. I like to realize my goals. It's rewarding to conceive a project, mold it and then watch it flourish into something profitable.”

We were out of the city by now.

“Where are we going?”

“Dinner,” he replied.

“I know, but where?”

“There's a little Italian place in Long Island, right by the ocean. Sure, we won't see much in the dark, but it's suggestive.”

Around fifteen minutes later, we arrived at a small restaurant on the coastline. The manager gave him a warm reception.

“Adam!
Benvenuto!
My wife told me you booked – I've set your usual table.”

“I appreciate your trouble,” Adam replied.

Still holding my hand, he led me into the back room to a table overlooking the dark water.

He pulled out my chair and then took the seat facing me.

“Do you like it?” he asked, breaking a breadstick.

“Very much, it's intimate.”

There were only a dozen tables, all couples.

“Do you come here often?”

“Not as much as I'd like to. Usually I come during the summer, but I haven't been for a year or so now.”

The owner brought the wine. He poured a glass for Adam, who then gestured for him to pour me a glass too.

“Adam,
allora
– we have lobster tonight. I would suggest lobster tagliatelle, and scampi as a second course.”

“Perfect, Arturo. Do as you wish, like always.”

“
Bene
. Oysters as an antipasto?” he asked.

“Of course,” Adam replied, with a courteous smile.

It was a novelty to see him in such a normal situation, i.e. not in a parking lot or a luxurious, masked bordello.

“Are you finding this strange?” he asked, once we were alone.

“Kind of.”

“I thought so, you only ever see me with my clothes off,” crunching on another breadstick.

“That's the same for you though,” I replied.

He sighed. “As much as I like you naked, I do prefer to see you in clothes.”

“I can imagine.”

“I could make a detailed list of them all.”

“That wouldn't be difficult – I have about three items.”

“And you wear them so well.”

“Even the underwear,” I said, joking.

“Actually, that's something you could take more care over, and your appearance too.”

“Are you trying to say I look shabby?”

“No, I'm just saying you could look a little bolder, but for me it's fine – plain and simple.”

The owner returned with a plate of oysters. I went to take one but Adam stopped me. “Wait – not before a toast.” He raised his glass. “A toast to compromise. I promise that I'll try, and you?”

I lowered the glass, disappointed. That I'll love him? “To bear it,” I replied.

“Perfect. Trying and bearing sounds like a fine compromise.”

Midway through the antipasto, I asked him to tell me something about himself.

“Let's see, what do you want to know?”

“How many women have you had?”

“What kind of women?” he smiled.

“Normal women.”

“Nobody is normal Sophie, but about a hundred.”

I tried to mask my surprise with a sip of wine.

“Too few?” he asked ironically.

“I expected less,” I answered. “Any serious relationships?”

“I was only joking – I've never counted. As for serious relationships, I'd say a couple, but I prefer simpler arrangements, as you already know—”

“And how did you discover your certain ‘interest'?” I asked, sliding an oyster into my mouth. Adam watched me with a strange expression. “What is it? Is that not how you eat them?” I asked, blushing.

“No, it's just that women usually have trouble with it. Does it not remind you of something else?”

I looked at another slimy oyster in its shell and ate it. “I dunno, they're tasty though.”

“Yeah,” he replied, swallowing one too. “Very tasty.”

“So yeah, how did you discover your interest?”

“I met a woman who was particularly demanding, shall we say, and it's not as though I was holding back. We dated for a few weeks, but even with my sex drive I still got the sense that she wasn't fully satisfied. So, one day I asked her what I could do, and that was the day I discovered bondage.”

“Do you still see her?”

“No, she married a few years back and moved to Chicago.”

“And… how did she introduce you to it?” I asked, sucking a fresh oyster.

“She opened a closet full of tools in her bedroom,” he said, humored.

“And then?”

“You're very inquisitive, Sophie.” He laughed and refilled our glasses. “It's like an interrogation.”

“So, what did you do?”

He sighed, ate another oyster, and took a sip of wine.

“Sophie, I warn you, it takes an hour to get home from here and I don't think I can wait that long if I get myself going.”

I blushed. “Try.”

“I'm beginning to like this word ‘try'.”

I was having fun, not necessarily for the topic, but for how natural it felt to be together.

“So, the closet, as you can probably imagine, was full of different equipment. There was a huge selection of whips – her favorite. She was really into leather and a lot of them were made by hand. She explained to me exactly the kind of sex that she liked. It was all completely new to me, a revelation, even. It was something I'd simply never thought about, assuming that it was just violence and by no means arousing, but I realized I had it all wrong.

“So you started off normal?”

“What does this word ‘normal' mean?” he asked, amused.