Page 19 of Madame X
I step back, shaking, and close the door in your face.
Chapter 5
Evening. Clients are done for the day. It took every ounce of my abilities to compose myself enough that I could deal with the rest of the day’s clients. Yet after they are all gone and I am alone, I am still shaken by what happened. No one gets in my space. No one affects me. No one touches me.
No one but—
Ding.
“X. Where are you?” Voice a low, angry rumble.
“I’m in here,” I say. “In my library.”
I call it a library. Really, it’s just a bedroom lined floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with stuffed bookshelves. One corner is left open, a Louis XIV armchair, a lamp, and a little table clustered in the triangle of open space. In the center of the room is a glass case with my prized books, signed copies and first editions of books by Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, and Woolf, a copy ofA Streetcar Named Desiresigned by Tennessee Williams, and even a fourth-century illuminated translation ofThe Odyssey.
Prized possessions; gifts.
Reminders.
The doorway to my library is filled, darkened. Dark eyes so filled with fury as to be feral. Hands clenching into fists and releasing in a heartbeat rhythm. I setSmilla’s Sense of Snowface down on my thigh. Pretend to a calm I do not feel; such anger is unusual and dangerous. I do not know what to expect.
Five long steps, powerful legs eating the space in a predatory prowl, a quick hand snatches my book and tosses it across the room, spine cracking loudly against a shelf, pages fluttering, a gentle thump as it hits the carpet. I have no time to react, no time to even breathe. A brutally powerful hand seizes my wrist and jerks me upright. Seizes my throat. Fingers at my windpipe, gentle as a lover’s kiss, yet shaking with restrained fury.
Breath on my lips and nose, clean of alcoholic taint. Sobriety makes this fury all the more terrifying.
“Georgia Tompkins has been recalled to Texas. You will not be seeingheragain.”
“All right.” It comes out of me as a whisper, penitent. Careful.
Lips move against mine, voice buzzing in a rumble like an earthquake felt from a hundred miles away. “What thefuckwas that, X?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know.”
“Answerme, goddammit.” Fingers squeeze in warning.
“I did. I don’tknowwhat happened, Caleb. It took me by surprise. I—I didn’t know how to react.”
“It was unacceptable. I had to force Michael Tompkins and his queer slut of a daughter to sign further nondisclosure agreements, so yourimproprietywon’t be leaked to the rest ofmyclientele.” I flinch at your cruel and vulgar insult, so casually hurled. I feel offended for Georgia, somehow, though I shouldn’t, and do not dare to let it show. “You work forme, X. Remember that. These aremyclients.Mybusiness associates. You representme. And when you act that way, when you allow yourself to betouched... it reflects on me.”
“I’m sorry, Caleb.”
“You’re sorry? You let alesbiantouch you? Almost kiss you? You let her speak to you that way? And you”—a tremble in that avalanche-rumble voice—“you looked like—like itaffectedyou. As if youlikedit.”
“No, Caleb. I was just—”
“Did you, X? Did you like the way she touched you? Did you like the way she felt? Is it better than the way I feel? The way I touch you?” Hands on my waist, where hers were. Lips, brushing mine. A tongue, touching nose, upper lip. Mirroring. Mocking.
“No . . .”
“No,what?”
“No, Caleb.” This is the correct, expected response. I know this. But I am afraid, and shaken, and unable to breathe, so I forgot.
“No. She doesn’t feel better than me, does she?”
“No, Caleb.”
I am turned, given a violent shove. I stumble and catch up against the glass of the display case. A foot smacks against the inside of my ankle, tapping my feet apart. Another, to the other side. Now my feet are more than shoulder width apart. Hips against my backside. Reflection in the glass: my face, dark skin flushed, frightened, yet my mouth is opened in a moue, eyes heavy-lidded, lips moist, nostrils flaring, and behind my face a larger one, pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Chiseled, sculpted features so beautiful it hurts.