Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (8 page)

She rolled her eyes.
“Of course. That place.”

“You’ve been
there?”

“Too many times,”
she said, her Even when Marc didn’t want to go, I did, especially
toward the end. I thought if I could just…get him inside, the
atmosphere would make him want me again. Sometimes it worked, most of
the time it didn’t.” She looked down at the table, her voice
barely audible. “The things I did there, the things I
almost
did – I’d have given myself to every man in the place if Marc had
wanted me to, but he wouldn’t allow it. At least he saved me that
humiliation.”

I swallowed, my throat
tight. “He said your relationship with him had a bad effect on
you.”

She raised her
eyebrows. “Is that how he put it?”

“He wasn’t
specific. I’m sure he was trying to protect your privacy.”

“Or he was trying to
protect you from the truth,” she said.

“Which is?”

She stared at me before
setting down her coffee. Her face had turned dark and harsh.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to know. I wanted to run out to the street,
but it was too late.

“Nervous breakdown is
such a polite term, isn’t it?” she said. “The truth is, after
nine months with Marc I lost my mind over him and tried to kill
myself. I took an overdose of painkillers and slit my wrists, and I
would have died if he hadn’t found me unconscious in my apartment.
It was Marc who called the ambulance and my parents and stayed with
me in the hospital until I recovered. It’s a strange thing to
admit, but I owe him both my life and my near-death experience.
Funny, isn’t it?”

Funny
.
My lunch churned like acid in my stomach. “You tried to kill
yourself over him?”

“Is it really that
shocking?” she said with a quizzical frown. “I’d stopped being
interesting to Marc, and I wanted to send him the strongest message I
could. If he didn’t want me, my life wasn’t worth living. That’s
what so much demeaning treatment did to me. I ended up in a
psychiatric program back in England. I won’t pretend our
relationship was the only factor because there were other things,
family problems that went back years. But it was the trigger.”

I didn’t want to hear
any more but felt compelled, like a person drawn to the edge of a
cliff. “When you say demeaning treatment – was it worse than what
I’ve done with him?”

“Yes,” she said. “I
thought if we didn’t take it to extremes he’d get bored. Whipping
and spanking weren’t enough for me. I hardly took a breath without
his permission. I wanted to be left tied up with a ball gag in my
mouth when he left the apartment. I was pierced between my legs with
a silver ring with his initials on it. I begged him to brand me but
he wouldn’t do it. At the time I thought he didn’t want me
enough, but he kept me from making a big mistake. I can’t imagine
how I’d feel with his initials burned into my back. It would be a
shame I couldn’t escape.”

“He stopped all that
after what happened with you,” I said, sounding defensive. “For
eight years.”

She shrugged. “He
told me he was going to try. It sounds like he wasn’t able to keep
it up. He relapsed like the hopeless addict he is.” She had a
gloating tone that I despised.

“Is he an addict if
he does it with only a few women?”

“A few women?” she
scoffed. “He’s had a hundred lovers just like us. He told me
about some of them, how hysterical they got when he ended the
relationship. One of them showed up at his office drunk and crying.
Another girl tried to trap him by getting knocked up, then she had a
miscarriage.” She fell silent for a moment. “I can’t blame them
for going crazy over him. He inspires it. But I’m stating the
obvious, aren’t I? I mean, look at you.”

Yes, look at me. My
face went cold.

This was Marc’s
routine – get a woman hooked on him and drive her to obsession.
Lydia was right. I was no different.

She sat back and folded
her long, thin arms. “Any other enlightening tidbits you’d like
to know while we’re at it? What he eats for breakfast? How he likes
his cock sucked?”

I’d already
discovered far too much. I couldn’t stand to hear another word. “I
wanted to know what your note meant, that’s all.”

She waved a dismissive
hand. “I wrote it more out of spite than anything else. But I do
think he’s dangerous, because he’s so addictive. You probably
feel it already. You think about him constantly. He’s so handsome
he overshadows everybody else. All you want is to please him.
Otherwise, why are you here?”

I had the feeling of
being held underwater. “For information,” I said. “That’s
all.”

“Tell me this,” she
said with a frosty smile. “Does he love you?”

I blurted the truth
before I could stop myself. “I’m not sure. He hasn’t said he
does.”

“A man like Marc
needs a constant challenge, somebody who won’t bow down to him. He
wants to capture a woman but he wants to do it all the time, every
day.”

Now she was talking
circles around me. “But isn’t that what being submissive is,
bowing down?”

She smiled icily.
“That’s the problem. How can you challenge a man and be
submissive at the same time? A relationship with Marc requires the
impossible. You’ll figure that out, sooner or later.”

She insisted on paying
the check, waving away my Euros with a pink-nailed hand. “Let me.
If not for that note, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Thank you,” I
said. “And thank you for being honest.”

She put her tote on her
lap but didn’t get up. “All these years later, I still wonder
about him. I go to his company website sometimes, hoping one day he
won’t look so devastating. When I see a picture of him, the bottom
drops out of me. It’s like…he’s looking right at me. I know it
sounds insane, but that’s how it feels.”

She stared blankly out
the window, her expression wistful. “Sometimes I really miss him
and other times I’m relieved that part of my life is over. Wanting
a man that much can crush you. It almost crushed me.”

It was an eerie echo of
what Marc’s father had said at the chateau about his ex-wife. “It
doesn’t have to, does it?” I said, more to myself than to Lydia.

She just shrugged and
stood up.

We said goodbye on the
sidewalk. The sun was a blinding white glow behind her shoulder,
forcing me to shade my eyes with my hand.

“One last thing,”
she said. “Please don’t tell Marc I still think about him. I
don’t have much pride left where he’s concerned.”

“Don’t worry,” I
said. “I won’t say a word.”

That night, Marc
insisted on making dinner for me. In a sudden burst of enthusiasm
he’d bought a roasting chicken and vegetables, the only things he
claimed to know how to cook.

“This is my version
of a very difficult Jacques Pepin recipe,” he said, unpacking a
canvas grocery bag. “It calls for chicken, salt, and pepper, and
when I don’t screw it up it’s delicious.”

Sick from the secret I
was holding inside, I eked out a smile. “How can you screw up a
recipe with three ingredients?”

“I have no idea,
except it took two years of trial and error to get it right.”

He flipped on the
faucet and scrubbed his hands like a doctor prepping for surgery. On
the counter he’d set out a potato peeler, a stainless steel
roasting pan, and four different types of knives.

“Can I do anything?”
I asked.

“Yes,” he said.
“Get your lovely tush out of my kitchen. Go relax and don’t come
back until dinner’s on the table.”

Go
relax
, as if that were possible after the stunt I’d
pulled. “You’re sure?”

He pointed at the door
with a look of mock seriousness. “Out. But leave on the dress and
shoes until after dinner. They look gorgeous on you. Shout if you
want a cocktail.”

“I will.”

While he cooked, I sat
in the living room and tried desperately to accomplish something that
wasn’t shady and deceptive. I stared at my laptop screen while
Lydia’s words played through my head on a nauseating loop.

I
tried to kill myself. He’s had a hundred lovers just like us.

She hadn’t answered
my questions, she’d created a hundred more. She’d proved that
there was a nearly invisible line between desire and the kind of
obsession that wrecked lives.

Even after eight years
and having a child with someone else, she still thought about him.
She looked at his picture online. Her husband would always be second
best to the lover who’d driven her to attempt suicide. This was
what the craving for Marc could do to a woman, and might already be
doing to me.

All the signs were
staring me in the face.

A month ago I’d fit
the dictionary definition of frigid, now I was wearing open-crotch
panties to bondage clubs. Marc’s crop had left a trail of red
slashes across my ass. I had sore ribs from tight corsets and raw
knees from giving blow jobs. Every day I wore stilettos that bit into
my feet, all so Marc could picture them on me while he was at work.

This wasn’t love or
even attraction. It was insanity, brought on by a man so seductive
he’d made me a slave in under three weeks.

“Mademoiselle!”
Marc called. “Dinner is served!”

If I were smart, which
I obviously wasn’t, I’d go straight to the bedroom, pack my
suitcase, and check into a hotel. Instead, I went to the kitchen as
if walking to the gallows in five-inch slingbacks.

Marc stood at the long
glass table with his back to me, placing meat and vegetables onto two
oversized white plates.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starving. Everything
smells delicious.” My smile felt as though it might crack my
cheeks.

He pulled out a leather
chair for me and I sat down. The centerpiece was a huge vase of
fully-bloomed white roses flanked by tall silver candlesticks. The
napkins were the same color as the red silk blindfold, a thought that
set my mind racing.

How long had he owned
that blindfold, anyway? Had he ever used it with Lydia? Or the
hundred other women he’d played along the way?

He sat kitty corner
from me at the head of the table. “Wine?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”
As soon as he filled my glass I took two generous swigs, hoping
they’d erase the entire afternoon from my memory.

While we ate, I tried
to limit the conversation to Marc’s business and the challenges of
properly roasting a chicken. I asked every question I could think of
about technology start-ups, practically cross-examining him about how
he chose which companies to fund. I complimented the food three times
and drew him into a debate about French and American restaurants.

But as he was finishing
his second plate of chicken he turned the discussion to me, posing
the one question I had no good answer for.

“How was your day?”

I jabbed a crispy
browned potato with my fork, splintering it in half. “Fine. I took
a taxi to Bistro Midi and back. I spent the rest of the day writing.”

“Oh. How was the
food?”

“Not as good as your
chicken, but I’ll give it a favorable review. To start I ordered
the black mussels, which are the bistro’s specialty, and then I
thought I’d better try the tuna tartare since I saw so many coming
out of the kitchen.”

I described my lunch in
rambling detail, but not a single word sounded like the truth. It was
as if one lie had infected everything I said and I couldn’t be
honest anymore.

Halfway through a
critique of the restaurant’s lemon tart, I dropped my napkin and
jostled the table when I sat up again, almost spilling my wine.

“Oops.” I tried to
laugh.

“Is something
bothering you?” Marc asked, knife and fork poised in mid-air. “You
seem a little jumpy.”

“Do I?” I stared at
my plate, pushing a sliver of chicken from one side to the other.

“Sophie?”

I looked up, one cheek
filled with carrots. “Mm?”

“What’s going on?
Is it last night?”

I chewed and swallowed.
“Last night?”

“You do remember last
night at the club.”

“I thought I was
supposed to forget about it. That’s what you said this morning,
anyway.” It sounded flippant and disrespectful but it was too late
to take it back.

“All right,” he
said evenly. “If it’s not last night, what is it? Did something
happen today?”

“Like what?”

He gave me a confused
smile. “I don’t know. All you did was take a taxi to Bistro
Midi?”

“Yes. And come back
here to write.” The lie was sour and sickening in my mouth.

“Okay. Were you
writing on the Metro, too?”

“What?”

“You took the Metro.
Didn’t you?”

Every muscle in my body
turned to stone. “How do you know what I did?”

“This morning you
asked me to join you for lunch so I rushed out after a meeting,
hoping to surprise you. There was traffic and I got to the restaurant
late. The maître d’ told me you’d just left. I saw you walking
into a Metro station when I was driving back to the office. I called
your name but you didn’t hear me. I even tried your phone but it
went to voicemail.”

He raised his eyebrows,
obviously waiting for an explanation.

“So?” I said.

“So, you said you
took a taxi straight back here. I’m just wondering why.”

“You’re following
me now?” I said, my face hot. “Isn’t that going a little far,
even for you?”

“Even for me,” he
said, setting his flatware down slowly. “Wow. What kind of nerve
have I struck here, Sophie?”

Suddenly the words were
spilling out and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

“You’re the one who
has nerve, not telling me your ex-girlfriend went nuts and tried to
kill herself over you. And before you ask, yes, I did find out where
she works and I went to see her today. I know I shouldn’t have but
it’s been way too intense between us, especially after last night.
I’m trying to figure out what the hell this all means.”