With or Without You (21 page)

‘Why?’

‘Well, it’s absolutely amazing,’ he said, now producing a stack of typewritten pages and placing them on the centre of my clean desk blotter. Looking at them, I realised that he must have spent all weekend working. The pages were single spaced. He was going to make me blind, even if he didn’t mean to. ‘You’re going to go bonkers, totally crazy,’ he said, still smiling.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just like you said, it’s pornography,’ he told me. ‘Plain and simple. I guess I had thought from skimming ahead that the rest of it might be more about the girl’s life. That you would be able to use this information to create a picture of how women lived in Greece two thousand years ago. But there isn’t much about daily life. It’s all about fucking. If Colette had been hired to write ancient Greek smut for a dollar a page, she wouldn’t have been able to do any better than this. I don’t know if anyone could do better. The stuff is incredibly hot.’

I didn’t know how to respond. Was he teasing me? Looking at Anthony, again refined with his hair pulled back and glasses in place, customary blue Oxford-cloth shirt over a white T-shirt and khaki pants, I could hardly
believe we had been out together. That he’d let his hair down – literally and figuratively. That he had touched my hand and sent tantalising shivers through my body. But when he winked at me, the whole of Friday night came flooding back, the feelings of it, the force of it.

‘You mean there’s more – more of the bondage stuff?’

‘It’s
all
sex,’ he said, grinning even broader, obviously enjoying himself, and apparently wanting to see what my reaction to the news would be. ‘It’s not a few teasing lines about how the girl was tied up and the soldier came to visit her, used her, released her –’

‘The soldier?’

‘The man. He’s a soldier. Someone high up, though. Not a drone. And it seems that he and the girl wrote their experiences back and forth. There are simply pages of play-by-play, rough-and-ready action. The stuff is smut, but delicious smut. If we worked on it together, I’ll bet it would be as big a seller as
The Sexual Life of Catherine M
. People who don’t generally buy pornography would snap it up because it’s old. And for some people, old is better. We’d be interviewed on NPR’s
Fresh Air
. The
New York Times
would do a profile.’ He sounded extremely happy.

‘But you haven’t finished, have you? There were so many pages.’ I recalled the way the sheath of papers had looked when I’d found them in the rubble of the vase or urn. Broken fragments all around a pile of disintegrating papers.

‘I only did a few more scenes,’ he said, ‘and when I was done, I felt as if I needed to take a cold shower. A series of cold showers. With ice cubes thrown in for good measure. Or maybe I should have just gotten in my car and come to see you at Nora’s place. You would have let me in, wouldn’t you?’ He looked at me pointedly, and I returned the look, waiting. I didn’t admit that I had been up Friday night, as well, thinking that I should get in my car and drive to see him. ‘As it was,’ he continued, ‘I stood under the shower for ten minutes, then dried off
outside on my fire escape. I’m probably going to get sick, and it will be all your fault.’

Fire escape, my mind whispered to me. He’d stood naked on his fire escape thinking about me. I liked that thought. Naked in his shower, the hot water pouring over his hotter body. No, the cold water. What water? My thoughts were a blur. I tried not to think of any of these images, which was a lot like trying not to think of white elephants, or pink elephants, or any other kind of elephants.

‘I’m going to have to save the rest of it for later,’ Anthony continued. ‘I’ve got a few things that need working on if I want to keep my day job. Plus –’ he winked at me once again, making me feel as if we shared something dark and dirty, which I suppose we had ‘– if I do more translating of that, I’m going to have to drag you off to some empty meeting room, tie you down, and give you what for.’

‘What for?’ I murmured.

‘For making me wait.’ There was a long pause.

‘You mean on Friday night? Being late for dinner?’ My voice was a whisper.

‘I mean for making me wait all these months since last Christmas. Don’t you know I’ve been thinking about you every day since the party? Couldn’t you tell that?’

I shook my head. I was having a difficult time processing the fact that Anthony was speaking to me like this. ‘How did you know that Gwen was a lawyer?’ I asked suddenly.

For the first time ever, I saw Anthony blush. ‘I read Byron’s blog.’

Was I the only person on the planet who didn’t read Byron’s blog?

‘I wanted to know more about him – I was trying to figure out what you saw in him.’

I stared at him, feeling shock work through my body. So I hadn’t been the only one fantasising …

‘Finding our own empty meeting room wouldn’t be so bad, would it, Eleanor?’

I flushed even deeper. It felt as if my cheeks were positively neon. Nora would have been displeased. Nora says you should never blush in front of a guy you like because it lets him know what you’re thinking. It gives your hand away. As you might guess, Nora is a very good poker player; she has the face down perfectly. She’s even been on that show,
Celebrity Poker
, several times, and she’s always walked away the winner, earning thousands of dollars for her favourite charity.

But Nora is who she is, and I am who I am, and I couldn’t help it. Tie me down … those words hit me with enough erotic images that I had to shake my head to clear them away.

‘We wouldn’t be doing anything but research, would we?’ Anthony continued in his low crooning voice. ‘Simply re-enacting a love scene that is over two thousand years old. You’re the best researcher at ARTSI. Everyone says so. Don’t you think you ought to try out this stuff yourself?’

He was teasing me. I knew it. And yet I couldn’t respond. With Nora, I’m often able to shoot back quick witticisms. With Anthony, I felt as if nothing I ever said would make any sense. I was mute and shy as a virgin. Although not the virgin in the story. The faux virgin. She seemed as if she knew what she was doing. Anthony didn’t appear to mind my silence, though. He simply added, ‘Those Greeks could be fairly kinky. I have to say that I’m impressed.’

I gripped my cup and stared down into the dark liquid. I could see my reflection in the coffee. I looked untamed, and I quickly took a sip to erase the image

Anthony stared at me curiously. ‘Was that too much to say after just one date? Have I totally horrified you?’

He kept reminding me that he thought it was a date, too, just like Nora did.

Was I the only one who had a need to keep insisting that it wasn’t?

Anthony slapped his forehead in comic horror. ‘Now, you’ll never come over and see my trains, will you?’ It was as if he had revealed himself to me, shown me who he was behind the serious fac¸ade. Now it was my turn, right? I’ve read enough romance novels. I know how the scenarios are supposed to unfold. Anthony was the hero, and I was the heroine – not Nora this time. Me. Why couldn’t I simply open my mouth and say, ‘The conference room at the end of this floor is empty. You’ve got your belt on. What are we waiting for? Tie me down just like you threatened. Take me as fiercely as the man in the story.’

But when I didn’t reply, he said, ‘Are you OK, Eleanor?’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Let me read these and I’ll get back to you.’

‘After your own cold shower,’ Anthony said, apparently not offended at all that I hadn’t matched his dare. ‘I haven’t revealed the big secret, the crème de la crème, as it were. I’ve saved it. I want you to discover it all for yourself.’

He nodded at me, and then left me alone in my office to gaze at the painting of an open window and wish that it were real.

My coffee was calling to me.

I picked it up and took another sip. I gazed at the wall in my room for so long that the coffee grew lukewarm, and I drank it as if it were a glass of water. I wanted to be awake when I read the pages. I wanted to have my wits about me. I didn’t have them now. I had only images of Anthony grabbing me by the wrist and taking me down the hall to the conference room, leading me off like a naughty girl in need of her punishment, locking the door and spreading me out, face down on the long black table.

The table was commissioned by a local artist and is made of a huge slab of black glass. How cool that would
feel beneath my naked skin. The mere thought of it made me wrap my arms around my body, protecting myself. From what? From my fantasies?

Anthony would work slowly, unbuckle his belt with easy motions, pull it free from the loops and then stand where I could see him, fingering the worn leather and watching me. Waiting for my reaction.

What
would
my reaction be? I wouldn’t beg him to go easy on me, because I didn’t want him to. I would close my eyes, lower my head and wait for fantasy to become reality. For a brief flicker of time, I considered rushing after him, taking hold of him and spinning him around, saying, ‘Do it. What you just said. Do it. Every part of it. Do more! Do what the man did to the girl in those pages.’ But if I couldn’t say the words by myself, all alone with my thoughts, how could I say them to Anthony?

After several moments, I picked up the pages he’d left for me, started to read them, then stopped once again. I looked at the clock, then walked to the door of my office, and turned the lock, not in the mood to be disturbed.

At least, not until Nora called.

Over a late lunch at the Queen’s Road café, I confessed everything to Nora. Confessed to her what I could not make myself reveal previously. I told her everything because I knew she would offer help, not judgment, guidance not glee. Well, maybe a little glee. This was Nora, after all. Nora, who has a room in her club called Slave to Love, filled with assorted bondage devices, all coloured hot pink, many trimmed with marabou. A whip is so much less threatening when made of pink leather. That’s Nora’s philosophy. Who’s afraid of a pink ping-pong paddle? Not Nora. That’s for sure.

‘Anthony said he wanted to tie you down?’ my best friend asked, her eyes shining brightly at the thought. She had on casual clothes today – casual for her – decked out in an all-white outfit that was splashed all over with colourful graffiti. It looked like actual graffiti, as if an artist had stood her up against an abandoned building, and sprayed both her and the wall behind her. I could make out parts of swear words in the shimmering blues, purples and oranges. Her hair was done in multicoloured streaks, to match the outfit, and she had a silver boom-box charm dangling on a heavy chain around her neck. I felt as dull as a female peacock sitting next to her.

If Anthony were to see the two of us sitting here together, which one of us would he choose?

‘Just casually,’ I explained, closing the door on the thought of competing with Nora. ‘He simply tossed it out there.’

I shut my eyes as I remembered the way he’d spoken to me, and instantly saw myself captured, bound to a
four-poster bed with Anthony standing above me, presiding over me. Or was a four-poster not the sort of thing he was thinking of? Did he mean something more along the lines of the story, with a hair ribbon around my wrists and my own torn clothing holding me in place?

‘Tell me exactly what he said,’ Nora insisted.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. She was practically salivating at the thought. This story could have been pulled from Nora’s own life. Never had I been able to come to her with an X-rated tale like this one. Of course, if Nora had been the narrator, then the scene would already have taken place. She’d have been bound and cuffed, and would be describing the sensations in great detail to me, her willing audience of one.

‘He said he’d have to tie me down and give me what for.’ I took a deep breath. ‘You know, for making him wait the other night. But he might have been kidding.’ I was lying to her. ‘No, I don’t think he was kidding, actually.’

Nora looked directly at me, but rather than offer words of wisdom, she simply said, ‘God, he’s sexy, isn’t he? I was so impressed on Friday, the way he handled seeing your ex up there with Gwen. Most men wouldn’t have dealt with that situation nearly as well. They would have been jealous or angry or gotten all puffed up on testosterone. He simply seemed concerned about your feelings.’

‘He didn’t have to do anything, though. You did.’

She grinned, relishing the thought. ‘It was perfect, tossing them out of the club, banning them for life. I’ve never had more fun. Byron just kept hissing at me that he’d always hated me, and Gwen looked a bit crestfallen that she couldn’t come back.’

‘Thanks for doing that,’ I told her. ‘You didn’t have to.’

‘Of course, I did. You’re my best friend. I can’t have your enemies at the club. But I can have your friends. Why don’t you ask Anthony to come back? You two can make your own movie in our Cinéma Vérité room. I
think you’d look stellar up on the screen – and you do, too, don’t you? When you let your fantasies go that way. Admit it, Eli. You do.’

I half-nodded, not wanting to admit that she was right. This was a difficult concept for me to deal with myself, let alone to anyone else. But Nora knows me. She remembers the wide-eyed way I’d taken in the scenarios we’d witnessed at the underground clubs in Europe. She understands what those visions did to me, how they lingered. We haven’t discussed my own fantasies all that often, but Nora doesn’t need me to put them into words. That’s why she’s so good at running her clubs. She’s almost magical that way. She knows what people want, what they crave.

‘Don’t be ashamed,’ Nora said. ‘You have to know how many people like that sort of thing. We’d never have a Cinéma Vérité room if people didn’t want to show off for an audience, or a Slave to Love room if people didn’t want to tie each other up. I think you should experience everything there is to try. If you like it, great. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. You just chalk it up to experience and move on. Be a trisexual.’

‘A what?’ I asked, unsure that I’d heard her correctly.