Switch Page 16

  114 was stil there. I'd done what it said. Rubbed myself in

  the shower that morning until my breath came tight and

  close and my entire body tensed until I eased off. It had

  been close. I knew my body too wel not to bring myself

  off within a few minutes. But I'd stopped myself, because

  unlike the intended recipient of the notes, I did know

  discipline.

  I'd written the letter, too, describing how I'd touched

  myself with fingers slick with my saliva and tilted my clit

  against the spray of water until my thighs shook and my

  breath came hot and hard and fast. How I'd had to turn

  breath came hot and hard and fast. How I'd had to turn

  the water to cold to keep myself from getting dizzy as I

  rubbed and stroked. I'd used the finest paper in my

  colection, my favorite pen, and I'd taken such care with

  each letter, every stroke, that I was almost late for work.

  I didn't give anyone the letter, of course. But I couldn't

  bring myself to throw it away. I put it in my nightstand,

  instead, tucked into the pages of the book on movie

  history.

  The ache between my legs flared as I shifted the gears of

  my car, and as I walked, and as I turned in my desk chair

  to pul files from the drawer.

  Paul was not out of the office today, but he hadn't come

  out yet this morning. Not even for coffee. Him hiding away

  with his door closed was not unusual, but him not at least

  caling out to me for a mug was.

  Two weeks ago it wouldn't have occurred to me to think

  he was stil angry with me for screwing up the files the day

  before. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have much cared.

  Now, I listened hard for the sound of his voice and stared

  at my computer screen without typing anything.

  "Paige." Paul stood in his doorway. I'd been so

  "Paige." Paul stood in his doorway. I'd been so

  preoccupied, I hadn't even heard him. "Can you come in

  here, please?"

  I nodded, but was clumsy when I stood. I knocked a pile

  of folders, so the papers inside slid across my desk in a

  messy heap. Paul stopped me when I tried to gather them.

  "Now, please."

  I nodded again and folowed him into his office. He didn't

  tel me to sit, so I didn't. I could tel nothing from the look

  on his face, which was carefuly blank. Over his shoulder, I

  could see the red numbers of his clock radio, tuned to a

  station playing soft jazz. I swalowed hard, my nerves on

  fire.

  "I think we need to have an understanding."

  I said nothing, not trusting my voice.

  Paul cleared his throat and folded his hands together on

  the desk. He didn't look at me. I couldn't look away.

  "I believe I have a reputation for being…difficult. To work

  for."

  for."

  "I don't think so." The pulse beat in my throat, forcing my voice to deepen.

  He looked at me then, straight in the eye. His hands on the

  desk tightened inside each other as though he wanted to

  be holding something else, something precious, but was

  afraid he might drop it. I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

  Without speaking, he unfolded his hands and pushed a

  piece of paper across the desk to me. Neither of us

  looked at the paper. We looked at each other.

  I didn't look at it when I touched the tips of my fingers to

  the paper, nor when I puled it toward me, or when I

  clasped it in my hand. I didn't look at it until I sat at my

  desk and laid it down in front of me.

  The list.

  I sat at my desk and looked at the list. It took up the entire

  sheet of ruled paper. It was insultingly long and infuriatingly

  detailed. He hadn't yeled at me yesterday, he'd done this

  instead, and it was infinitely worse than if he'd caled me on

  the carpet.

  It was also infinitely, inexplicably better.

  Not only did the paper have the projects he needed me to

  work on today, but it contained detailed instructions on

  duties I'd been performing without supervision for months.

  He'd left out breaks for me to eat and use the bathroom,

  but every other minute of the day had been accounted for.

  In high school I'd had a teacher who didn't like girls. I

  don't mean he was gay, just that for whatever misogynistic

  reason, he'd thought females somehow lesser creatures

  than males. Considering the boys in my class, I thought the

  man was an idiot, but at sixteen there's not much you can

  do about it but get through it. This teacher hadn't been

  impressed by good grades earned through hard work, and

  I'd had to work very hard for al my good grades. I've

  already said I wasn't the brain. Even so, I wasn't a bad

  student, and so when I got an A on my first test and this

  teacher, this man put in charge of young adults to mold

  them into something fit for future society, sneered and

  suggested I'd cheated off the boy next to me in order to

  have earned that grade, I learned a very important lesson.

  No matter how hard you worked, there was always going

  to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

  to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

  Part of me pictured myself storming into Paul's office,

  tossing the list on his desk and quitting in an outrage, but I

  knew there was no way I'd ever do it. I needed my job. I

  wanted it. I could put up with a lot more than a stupid list

  to keep it.

  So instead, I did what I'd done in high school with that

  dumbass teacher who thought girls couldn't be better than

  boys.

  I worked my ass off. It was a game, that day, going down

  that list and completing each task on it. And as the day

  wore on and I finished item after item, my sense of

  accomplishment grew. I'd never realized, actualy, how

  much work I accomplished in one day.

  I'd never thought to write down everything I did. Looking

  at it at the end of the day, this job no longer seemed a

  mindless drone. I'd done something. A lot of somethings,

  as a matter of fact, and when I took that list into Paul's

  office with each item boldly checked off and my neat

  annotations in the margins, there was no hiding my triumph.

  "Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

  "Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

  he'd say.

  But, unlike my teacher who'd have probably dismissed my

  efforts with a snide comment, my boss looked over the list,

  ticking off each item with the point of his pen.

  He looked up at me. I'd never noticed how blue his eyes

  were before. Paul held the paper with both hands.

  "Thank you, Paige," he said. "This is exemplary work."

  "Thank you," I said graciously.

  We did have an understanding, after al.

  Chapter 15

  Through the mailbox window I could see Alice, one of the

  women who ran the office. I could also see the thin edge

  of a folded note card.

  I puled it out with the tips of my fingers and held it by the

  edges
so as not to muss the paper. Al I had to do was

  bend, just a little, and slip it directly into the right box. But

  of course, I read it first.

  You've failed at every task I've set you. Your reward and

  your punishment are in my hands. If you cannot learn

  discipline, this wil end.

  You have one more chance.

  Today, between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., you wil visit

  Sensations. There you wil purchase the item that most

  embarrasses you. You wil pay for it with a credit card, so

  there wil be no question that the clerk won't know your

  name. You wil engage the clerk in pleasant conversation,

  so there is no way he or she wil not know your face.

  And tonight, you will use that item until you achieve

  And tonight, you will use that item until you achieve

  orgasm. You will do this knowing it's not for your

  pleasure.

  It is for mine.

  I had to put my hand on the wal and close my eyes after I

  slid the card through the slot. The brass, cool under my

  palm, did nothing to steal the heat from my cheeks, my

  armpits. The inferno between my legs.

  I hadn't been the one to fail. I hadn't been late with my

  essay on discipline. I hadn't even written one.

  This note was not for me!

  Yet there was no question in my mind I would do as it

  said. I had written the sexual fantasy. I'd read al the notes.

  Whoever was meant to find these and folow them, I had

  done it, too.

  Looking back, I understand how much easier it would

  have been, how much better sense it would have made for

  me to simply complain at the office about the misdeliveries,

  to throw the notes away. To knock on the door of 114

  with a note in my hand and say, "Make sure these stop

  coming."

  coming."

  I can't explain why I didn't, except to say, simply, I didn't

  want to.

  I'd moved away from home to get away from my past and

  my life, and the life I didn't want to have there. I'd taken a

  new job, found a new apartment, tried to make new

  friends. I wanted to become someone new, but the truth is,

  I would never be new.

  I would always be me.

  Somehow, whoever was sending these notes knew that.

  I slapped the note closed. I walked around the corner to

  the desk. I could see her through the office door and after

  a second she came out. "Alice? Did you see who put this

  in my mailbox?"

  "Nope." She barely glanced at it. "It's not a religious tract, is it? We have a strict policy about that."

  "No, it's not a religious tract." I kept the note close to my body so she wouldn't see the number on the front. "I just

  wondered if you'd seen who put it in there, that's al."

  "No, sorry, hon." Alice flashed me a grin. "What is it, love letter?"

  I laughed when heat spread up my throat. "No. Nothing

  like that."

  "Wouldn't be the first time," she said. "Last year at Valentine's we had a bunch of anonymous notes coming

  and going. The T.A. wanted to ban people from putting

  notices in the boxes but then they realized if they did that,

  they couldn't deliver their newsletter, either."

  The Tenant Association could be a little overzealous.

  "Maybe I'l get lucky next time."

  "I wouldn't doubt it, hon," Alice said. "This place is a hotbed of lust."

  She said it without so much as a blink and I had no reply.

  Seeing I wasn't going to comment, she gave me a nod and

  went into the back to finish sorting the mail. I looked down

  at the note.

  I couldn't stop myself from opening the note one last time

  before I gave it back.

  before I gave it back.

  I was stil thinking about it as I went outside and faced the

  sunshine for a moment. I knew I wasn't alone, but I hadn't

  expected an audience. When I opened my eyes, blinking, I

  saw Mr. Mystery watching me. He hovered over the

  sand-filed tube meant for disposing cigarettes, and when

  he saw me looking he stabbed his out with a furtive smile.

  "Caught me," he said.

  "And without a net," I replied. Clever.

  He laughed and looked with unrestrained longing at the

  cigarette butts nestled into the sand. "I'm trying to quit."

  "Good for you." It was a little surprising for someone as

  into fitness as he'd seemed in the gym to be a smoker. But

  appearances weren't everything, and I should know that.

  "Eric." The hand he held out engulfed mine as we shook.

  My name wasn't a prize, but I offered it like one. "Paige."

  Eric shifted on battered hiking boots. Today instead of the

  long-sleeved T-shirt, he wore a faded black AC/DC shirt

  under an open plaid button-down minus a few buttons. His

  under an open plaid button-down minus a few buttons. His

  hair, long to his colar in the back, ruffled in the wind. A

  scruff of beard stood out on his cheeks and over his

  throat. Dark stubble. He looked tired and disheveled, but

  his hands were clean and his teeth white. The leather bag

  slouching by his feet wasn't cheap, nor was the watch

  tangled in the dark hair on his wrist. I noticed things like

  that.

  He yawned, jaw crackingly, and roled his neck on his

  shoulders. He looked out at the sunshine, across the street

  to the river. He looked around with a grin that stopped me

  in my tracks and held a finger to his lips. "Don't tel on me,

  huh?"

  I laughed. "Your secret is safe with me. But it's a good

  thing you're quitting. Smoking is bad for you."

  He hung his head before peering up at me through the

  fringe of his dark, shaggy hair. "I know. It's terrible. I

  started in colege and just could never kick it."

  "But you are now, right?" I stared down into the butt

  holder.

  Eric chuckled. "Yeah. I'm trying, anyway. Hey, nice

  officialy meeting you, Paige. Maybe I'l catch you later in

  officialy meeting you, Paige. Maybe I'l catch you later in

  the gym."

  Was that a promise? "Oh, sure. I try to make it in a few

  times a week. After work."

  He yawned again, adding a loud, drawn-out sigh. "Yeah,

  me too, but I'm just coming off a twelve-hour shift. I'm

  beat. I might see you, though. We'l work on some reps or

  something."

  "Okay, sure." I managed to sound casual even as the

  thought of another round of Eric helping me work out sent

  my heart skipping in my chest.

  He looked at the sand, the butts, then puled a pack of

  cigarettes from his pocket and held it up. "One left. I

  should just toss it, right?"

  "You should." But I could tel he wasn't going to.

  I watched him tug the cigarette from the pack with his lips,

  crumple the package and toss it. He cupped the match he

  lit to shield it from the breeze and held it to the end. He

  drew on it. He took the cigarette from his mouth and

  licked the end, and I watched him with helpless

  licked the end, and I watched him with helpless

  fascination.

  He looked up at me and stopped for a few long seconds

  b
efore he smiled. "I know. Realy bad habit. This is my last

  one, see? Then I'm done. Kicking it cold turkey."

  I wasn't staring to get on his case but because watching his

  mouth work had been so damn sexy, and I was already

  feeling weak in the knees. "No. I mean, yes, it is. But it's

  not my business."

  Eric drew in a long, slow breath and let out the smoke.

  The wind came and whisked it away and he closed his

  eyes briefly before looking at me again. He looked at the

  cigarette. "I know it's the best thing for me. I know it is.

  You ever have anything you keep doing even though you

  know it's bad for you, Paige?"

  "Hel, yeah," I said without a second thought. "More than one thing."

  We laughed together. His gaze caught mine. Maybe it was

  the sunshine reflecting in his eyes or maybe it was my own

  reflected heat, but I met it ful on. He was the first to look

  away.

  "See you," he said.

  "I hope so," I told him, and he smiled.

  I passed Sensations every day on my way to work. The

  building, nondescript and set back a bit from the main

  street, had suffered a fire not too long ago, but apparently

  the dancing girls and nudie film booths hadn't been

  damaged, because the parking lot was half ful and I

  watched a stream of men go in and out the door for about

  fifteen minutes before I went in, myself.

  I'd been inside that memorable night with a boy on his

  knees, and a few other times to buy joke gifts for wedding

  showers or birthdays. I hadn't been embarrassed then,

  giggling with my friends or feigning nonchalance while

  comparing the girth of dildos molded from actual porn

  stars' cocks. I wouldn't have been embarrassed this time,

  except the note had told me I should be.

  I'd owned a vibrator I rarely used. I had slinky, kinky

  lingerie I never wore. I even had, someplace, a book of

  ilustrated sexual positions, the corners of the pages folded

  to show which I'd done.

  The clerk behind the counter looked up when I came in.

  I'd been expecting something different, not a hot, wel-built

  guy with model-pretty features.

  Now I was embarrassed.

  It was akin to looking down between the stirrups at the gy

  necologist you were expecting to be fat and balding,

  someone's dad, and finding Brad Pitt, instead.

  "Hi," he said. "Can I help you find something?"

  You wil find the one thing that embarrasses you the most,