Odalisque

The staid Swedish businessman next to her hunched to the side, as if her unchecked grief might be contagious. Constance pulled a blanket over her face and cried with bitter regret until her chest ached and her eyes burned. Then she slept for a while. When she woke up, she found her armor had returned. She would not be her mother. Ever. She would not give a man power over her, especially the power of love. She wouldn’t beg to stay where she wasn’t wanted, where she wasn’t accepted on her terms. She wouldn’t compromise her long-sought goals for some ephemeral romantic illusion. She’d done all of this to gain security and independence, and she sure as hell wasn’t sacrificing that now.

Kai would get over it. She’d get over it too. She let herself wonder about Kai only briefly, about how he was holding up. He hadn’t even said goodbye, but instead called his driver to handle everything. He’d been so unlike himself at the end.

She hoped he wasn’t having regrets. If he came after her, there would be a big fuss, and Bastien hated big fusses. Constance was already worried about how Bastien would react to her showing up in the middle of the night. She would have called ahead, but she’d left all her phones behind with Kai. They were his anyway. And she hadn’t wanted Kai to be able to contact her and make her reconsider yet again.

In the taxi on the way to the Maison, she tried to pull herself together. She flicked bottled water into her eyes to combat the redness. She worked on her hair, and finally just pulled it back in a twist. Then she was on the doorstep of her old home, ringing the bell. The night butler let her in with an almost undetectable lift of his eyebrows. The cool, luxurious grandeur of the foyer looked different at night. Before she could ask the butler to send for Bastien, she saw him hurrying down the stairs.

“Constance!” He reached out to her in alarm. “What are you doing here? Where is Ms. Dresden? She didn’t tell me to expect you.”

Constance fumbled for a notebook in her bag. Mr. Chandler asked me to leave.

Bastien gaped at her words. “Asked you to leave? Ms. Dresden gave me glowing reports about you and your owner.”

Constance shrugged and felt the tickle of tears at the back of her throat. She couldn’t let Bastien see her cry.

She wrote some more. Enough, she hoped, to satisfy him. Since New Years, things changed between us. He had a long time grievance with me that he was keeping hidden. He truly didn’t want me anymore.

Bastien searched her face. The tender concern in his features almost had her crying again. She gave him a wobbly smile and wrote, It’s okay. I understood how he felt.

“But--” Bastien was still flabbergasted. “To turn you off this way. Putting you on a plane without so much as a--” He took her hand and marched her back to his office. She looked at his clock to find it was after one in the morning. Bastien gestured her toward a chair, then dialed the phone. He turned back to her, scolding. “You at least ought to have called me. Let me know you were on your way, and when to expect you.”

Constance wrote some words and held them up for him to see. I was afraid you would tell me I couldn’t come.

He grimaced. “You will always be given refuge here at the Maison. No matter what. But this--this is not at all how things are done.”

Bastien turned away from her, his attention back on his call. Constance saw him bark out Kai’s name, and then Bastien turned his back to her so she couldn’t see the rest of what he said. The conversation seemed to go on for hours. In fact, it lasted just under ten minutes according to the clock. Constance stared at Bastien’s tense shoulders, watched the indignant gesticulations he made. Then Bastien would go still and listen, and Constance wondered what Kai was telling him. She was sure it was nothing good.

When Bastien hung up and turned back around, Constance couldn’t tell anything from his expression. “We’ll talk more about this in the morning. For now, I think it best if you get some sleep.”

Constance nodded and stood to gather up her bag. Bastien touched her arm. “Are you okay? Was there an...ugly scene?”

Memories flitted through Constance’s head, scenes from the scatter party, and from Mason’s unnerving visit. Kai’s accusations and the way he’d looked at her when he’d compared her to his ex-wife. She didn’t have to say anything.

Bastien cupped her face and kissed her forehead softly, then looked into her eyes. “I am so sorry. I had a sneaking feeling. A misgiving about pairing you with him. I didn’t trust my judgment, and now I’m afraid you’ve been caused a lot of pain. Come, let’s find you a room where you can rest.”

Bastien led her out of his office, but rather than taking her to the odalisque quarters, he took her to the guest wing, where the visitors and prospective owners stayed. She looked at him questioningly.

“You are staying here simply because you are not available for another placement yet. We have some legalities to tie up with your current owner first.” Bastien paused and gave her a searching look. “Are you still planning to remain an odalisque? To find another Master?”

Constance nodded with much more enthusiasm than she felt. She did, of course, still want to be an odalisque. She was sure things wouldn’t go so haywire with another Master.

No. There couldn’t be another Kai anywhere in the world.

*** *** ***

Kai lay awake in bed for the fifth night running. He’d gotten the legal papers from France today. Stupid papers. Like he cared about the contract or the money or any of it. All he really cared about was that Constance had arrived there okay after he’d kicked her out of his house onto the street.

Well, not exactly the street. He’d paid for her plane ticket, and the driver. He’d told her to take everything, but she’d left everything he’d given her. All the gowns from the New York trip, all the books and jewelry and naughty toys. Her odella remained as it was because he couldn’t bear to go in there, not because he thought he might bring her back.

He wouldn’t bring her back. Sebastien Gaudet wouldn’t let him anyway. The odalisque agent had been furious, spewing the same nonsense as Constance about emotional detachment and the importance of adhering to the code. When he calmed, he’d offered Kai a replacement odalisque, and then it had been Kai’s turn to rip into him. Ha! Kai needed another odalisque like he needed a hole in his head.

Kai rolled over with a groan, fearful of sleep but needing it badly. Since Constance had gone, he dreamed a whole new dream. It started the same, his children falling under the waves and calling out to him. Only now, Constance stood there beside him with that shuttered look on her face.

“Help me!” he would plead. “My children--”

And she would say, in her dream-Constance voice, “Relationships are dangerous. Just let them go.” Instead of grief and helplessness, he’d wake feeling fury. Why was she that way? Why didn’t she care?

Kai swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat hunched over, rubbing his eyes. There was no point lying there dreaming the same dream. With a sense of dread, he forced himself up the stairs and into her old rooms. He sat at her desk and sifted through the remaining notebooks for the tenth time. There was nothing to see. They were all empty. She’d taken all the others when she left, or destroyed them.

He turned to look over his shoulder, into the saray. How many hours had they spent there, her entire body laid open for him? No inhibitions, no limits except the limit of knowing her, really knowing who she was inside. You bought my body. You own my sex. My ass, my pussy. Not this! Not my mind. She had told him plain as day. Why hadn’t he believed her? God, Bastien had warned him time and time again. No emotional attachment. He hadn’t wanted the rules to apply to him. Typical rich prick.

Kai stood by the bed, staring down at the sheets, remembering their last moments together. After so much pleasure, to end things that way… He’d made her feel guilty, and compared her to his ex-wife just to make her hurt. He hadn’t realized how angry he’d been at her inside. I’m sorry, Constance.

He was turning away from the bed when he noticed the noteb

ook shuffled underneath. He bent down to pull it out, recognizing Constance’s handwriting. The conversation was one-sided. She’d been writing to someone who was talking back to her. Jeremy Gray. He’d been alone in the saray with her the night of the scatter party. Kai knew he shouldn’t read it, but what could it hurt now? She was gone.

It was painful, looking at the familiar messy writing. Why are you asking? Are you in the market for an odalisque? Kai’s heart clenched. Had Jeremy been angling for her too? All these secrets he hadn’t known. He’d thought Jeremy was happy with his wife. Kai almost put it down again, but his curiosity won out.

My year is up in February. So I don’t know. Maybe. That fucking bastard. Next time he saw Jeremy, he was going to punch him in the nuts. He read on, compelled by some masochistic impulse. I’m not sure I could survive another year. Bitch. Bitch!

That doesn’t matter. Love isn’t part of the code. Anyway, we don’t belong together. I’m deaf.

Kai paused. Huh? What didn’t matter? Love isn’t part of the code? Jeremy hadn’t been trying to steal her at all. He must have been urging her to give a relationship with Kai a chance. Cancel the nut-punching. He owed Jeremy a drink.

And I have plans, her writing continued. Dreams. Things I want to do. Kai wants children, and I don’t. There are a lot of reasons it wouldn’t work out.

Kai dropped his head into his hands. Why hadn’t she said any of this to him? He could have helped her with her dreams, helped her do anything she wanted. He could have told her that kids weren’t important. But what else would she have thought, after the way Kai moped over the children he lost? Story of his life, finding the truths he needed when it was too late to do anything about them.

Wearily, he looked down at the last of the conversation, a series of scrawled lines. Reasons it would work? Of course there are.

He makes me laugh. He’s kind and responsible.

He’s the most generous person I know.

He touches me in ways no one else ever has, and he helps me hear music I can’t hear.

He has this smile he gets when someone else is happy. I’ll never forget that smile as long as I live.

I want him to be happy, Jeremy. He deserves it. He doesn’t deserve someone like

The words cut off then. Kai remembered Jeremy and Constance appearing belatedly through the door at the top of the stairs, just as all the screeching and fighting began.

Kai ripped the page out of the notebook, fled back through the odella, and took off down the stairs.

*** *** ***