Chapter 2: Doing It Again
Andrea had been quiet all week, and Steve had learned not to poke at it. He'd tried once, on Tuesday, a casual "So, how are you feeling about everything?" and she'd given him a look over her coffee cup that closed the subject like a door. Now it was Friday and she'd booked a room downtown herself, told him to be there at eight, and wouldn't say why.
He found her standing at the window of the suite when he came in, still in her work coat, watching the lights of the skyline smear through the drapes she hadn't closed. Two glasses of wine sat on the table. One was already empty.
"You booked this," he said.
"I booked this." She turned. Her face was composed, but he could see something running underneath it, some current she was keeping on a leash. "Sit down, Steve."
He sat. She took her time with her coat, hanging it in the closet, then took the full glass and didn't offer him one. She drank, and looked at him the way she looked at a menu when she already knew what she wanted.
"I've been thinking about that night. A lot." She set the glass down. "And I've been thinking about how it went. You picked the restaurant. You picked the room. You picked Darryl. You texted him, you set the rules, you sat there sweating and telling me it was okay every time I looked at you like I was asking permission."
"That was, I was trying to make it easy for you."
"You were trying to make it yours." Her voice wasn't angry. That was the strange part; it was calm, almost clinical. "And it worked, mostly. I went along. But here's what you don't know, because I didn't tell you. For about an hour that night, while you were doing your little director act, I was already decided. Before you finished your drink. You didn't talk me into anything. You just took longer than I did to get there."
Steve's mouth was dry. "Okay."
"So." She came around the table and stood in front of him. "Here's what happens now. I called Darryl. Yesterday. From my own phone, which I assume you'll want to check, so go ahead."
"You called him."
"I called him. We talked for forty minutes. He's funny on the phone, did you know that? You never got that far, did you, you just looked at his picture and his cock." She let that sit. "He's in town again Monday. I invited him here. This room. Not to repeat last time. Last time was yours. This time is mine."
"And what does mine mean, exactly?"
"It means I'm not performing for you, Steve. It means when he walks through that door, you'll be wherever I put you, and you'll stay there, and you'll watch when I say you can watch and you'll wait when I say wait. It means I decide what happens and in what order, and you don't get to narrate it." She crouched slightly, brought her face level with his, and he felt the heat of her breath. "Because here's the other thing you don't know. I liked it. Not the way you wanted me to like it, all grateful and wide-eyed. I liked it the way a person likes something they've been told they shouldn't want. And I want it again, on my terms. Can you live with that? Because if you can't, say so now and I'll cancel, and we'll go back to normal, and you can have your fantasy only in your head for the rest of your life."
His heart was going hard. There was fear in it, and shame, and something else, a hot electrical pull in his gut that he recognized from that night, the same wire lighting up. "You really talked to him for forty minutes."
"And I'm having dinner with him first. Just him and me, downstairs, before either of us comes up." She straightened. "You'll be in the bar. You can watch us if you can see us, but you won't join us. You'll come up when I text you."
"Like a guest at my own thing."
"Like a guest at mine." She smiled then, and it was the smile that undid him a little, slow and private and not for his benefit. "You liked watching me. I remember your face when you saw how big he was. I remember your face when he went in the first time. You couldn't act then, even for you."
"I didn't have to act. It was," he stopped, because the words were too large. "God, Andrea."
"So don't fight it now." She pulled the chair beside him around and sat, close, her knee against his. "One more thing, and then we can talk like normal people about logistics. Monday night, after, when he's gone. Whatever's left of me, whatever state he's put me in. That part's yours. I'll be yours again. I'm not taking that away."
"You don't have to give me anything. Just don't leave me out of the room entirely."
"Oh, you'll be in the room." She picked up her glass, finished it. "Or the closet. Or the corner chair, depending on what I decide Monday. I haven't decided. I like having that in my pocket." She looked at the skyline again, and her voice went softer, almost to herself. "Nine inches, Steve. I still can't stop thinking about it. Do you know what that's done to me all week? I sat in a budget meeting on Wednesday thinking about it."
He laughed, unsteadily. "What did you say to him on the phone?"
"Things." She stood and finally poured him a glass. "Monday you'll find out. Sit with it all weekend. That's part of it too, the sitting. You did the arranging last time, so this time you get to do the waiting. I think you'll find it's worse." She touched the back of his neck, gentle. "And I think you'll find you like worse."
Steve drank. Outside, the city burned on, indifferent. Andrea was already checking her phone, thumb moving, and he caught, just for a second before she tilted the screen away, the top line of a text thread with Darryl's name on it and her reply, still unsent: Actually, I want to be the one who.
She locked the phone and set it face down.