Odalisque

More than six months gone.

Mason had been a frequent guest at Kai’s house since he’d first joined them a few months ago. Constance didn’t mind. Mason could be coarse and immature, but she knew inside he had a good heart. She often caught him watching her in a kind of fascination. It was flattering and sweet, and then they’d go to the saray and it was like the two friends competed for who could fuck her and turn her on the most. She really didn’t mind that. She’d gotten a little graphic trying to describe it all to Ms. Dresden, and had actually seen the iron-tempered, worldly woman blush.

But she hadn’t met Mason’s wife, Jessamine, or any other of Kai’s friends besides Mason and his sister. Satya. Truth. Constance was still, for all intents and purposes, a dirty little secret. Kai’s dirty little secret who’d be paraded around in thousand-dollar gowns and jewelry and be introduced to all his politically and financially powerful friends over the course of this New York trip.

She snuck a look at Kai, shifting in the wide, comfortable seat. She wanted to talk with him, interact with him, but flying in side-by-side seating wasn’t conducive to conversation when you were deaf. She could read signs sideways from long-time experience, but Kai wasn’t to that point yet, and reading lips sideways was out of the question. He was also engrossed in some document he was typing at in fits and spurts. She reached beside her and dug in her bag for a notebook.

She wrote, What are you working on?

He shrugged and took the pen. Party speeches. I have to be on my game.

Are these high stakes types of parties?

Some of them, he wrote back. I want to say the right words to move people and make them want to get involved.

But none of this is business, is it? All charity stuff?

He shot her a crooked smile, twirling the pen once around his fingers. It’s still important. My business is booming, making money. It practically runs itself. Charity work is like swimming against a current. There’s always more that’s needed.

How many charities are you involved in?

He started writing a long list. American Cancer Society. Livestock for Life. Kids Making Music. Battered Women’s Network. ASPCA. Wounded Warrior Project. Make a Wish. Pediatric AIDS. Project Playground. Amnesty International, which Satya works for. The Foundation for Auditory Research. There are more I can’t think of right now.

She circled the last one. I never heard of this.

Kai looked over at her and then down at the page. I just started it. Don’t be mad at me.

Why would I be mad?

He still wouldn’t look at her. He wrote, Because I know you don’t want to be able to hear.

Wow. He missed the mark on that one. Not wanting to be pitied and fussed over wasn’t the same thing as not wanting to be able to hear. She scratched her cheek and turned away to watch the blinding sun reflecting off the clouds. So he was throwing his money at auditory research now, thanks to her. She hoped it came to some good for someone. Maybe someday they would find a way to make every deaf person hear. It might not help her, but it would help those who came after her. She picked up the pen again.

I think you’re a really amazing person. I really admire you.

Kai looked at her words and gave her that devastating smile. He made the sign for her name right against his cheek, an endearment, and turned back to his laptop. Her heart flip flopped in her chest. Sigh.

After a moment or two he stretched back in his chair, rubbing his neck in frustration.

She turned toward him and signed, “Can I help?”

He shrugged. “It’s mostly written already. But it sounds kind of stilted. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

“Do you want me to look at it? I study words.”

Kai laughed. “That’s right. Your etymology. Sure, take a crack at it.” He pushed the laptop her way, and Constance looked over the short speech he’d typed. I study words. Yeah, sure. She actually studied the great orators, speeches, and the craft of speechwriting. She wrote speeches of all kinds in her notebooks, a secret hobby that seriously embarrassed her. She didn’t even remember now how she got so interested in it. She’d watched speeches on TV perhaps, subtitled of course. Something about the act of public speaking had fascinated her from her earliest years. Because you’ll never be able to do it...

But here, now, a chance to finally use the skills she’d furtively honed. She added a few juicy words and sentences to Kai’s existing work and even added some parenthetical sections where he should pause for maximum effect. But then she took them out. A little too over the top.

She pushed it back over to Kai when she was done. He scanned it, one corner of his mouth hitching up. “Wow, thanks. That’s actually a lot better now. You really do know your words. Or your insects. Or something.”

She tried to act casual, laughing and waving off his praise.

“So...all those speeches I saw in your notebooks the day I”--he paused to look guilty--“eavesdropped on you. You wrote them, didn’t you?”

Scarlet humiliation flooded her face. Even if she wanted to deny it, her blush would have given her away. “Go ahead,” she signed. “Make fun of me. A non-verbal deaf person with oratorical dreams.”

Kai shook his head. “Don’t mock yourself. I could tell from the few I scanned that you’re good at it. Have you ever considered trying to work as a speechwriter?”

Constance wished this painfully embarrassing conversation was over. “Odalisque money is better,” she said with a shrug.

“I’m not joking, Constance. In a few minutes you made my lame speech a hundred times better. This should be your life’s work.”

“I can’t talk! Who do you think would hire me to write speeches?” She set her gaze somewhere in the middle of Kai’s chest. “I used to try to talk. People look at you with pity. Or they smile and nod even though you can tell from their eyes they’re not understanding a word you say. It didn’t take long for me to give up. So let me have my dinky little speechwriting hobby. But don’t tell me I should do it for my job. That’s ridiculous.”

Kai dipped his head to catch her gaze. “You don’t have to deliver them, you know, only write them. Presidents have speechwriters. CEOs like me. Public relations firms. They all need people who can write good speeches.”

“I already have a job,” Constance signed, then turned away. She prayed he would let the topic drop. Well, he didn’t really have a choice when she purposely looked away from him.

He put a hand on her knee and squeezed it. She turned warily but his gaze was less incisive now, more thoughtful.

“Why did you decide to become an odalisque? Because of the reasons you told my sister?”

Constance raised a brow. “Did you think I lied to her?”

“You lied to me,” he pointed out. “You told me you wrote poetry in your notebooks.”

She searched his face for anger, but he was teasing. “Please don’t tell anyone I write speeches. Don’t go hounding your rich, fa

mous friends to give me a job.”

Kai stroked a hand up her forearm. “I’ll keep your secrets. But...I mean...are you really happy? Being an odalisque?”

Constance knew he didn’t mean to be insulting, or reproachful of her choices. He really wanted to know. She thought for a moment before she started to sign. “When I was still at the Maison, I worried I might end up with someone who was only interested in using me in the most basic sense of the word. An owner who just fell on me and pumped away and came in me, like I was only some kind of receptacle. Day in and day out. I thought that would be the worst thing that could happen.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” said Kai with a grimace.

“The thing is,” Constance continued, “I would have been content with that. I would have put up with it and been happy enough. Because I really was just seeking a safe situation. A way to make good money and find the security my mother never had. But this...you...” She paused, feeling a blush rise in her cheeks.

“What?” Kai prompted.

“When I came over here to be with you... I hoped for the best but braced for disappointment. I thought, ‘He must be too good to be true.’ But I was wrong. You’re better. Better than I thought the best lover could be. And I’m really grateful.” She had to wrap it up before she started bawling. “I guess all I’m trying to say is, I don’t regret becoming an odalisque for a minute, because it brought me to you.”

It was almost too much to say. It probably crossed a line, but it felt good to let it out for once. And Kai was practically glowing at her praise. He looked pleased, and affectionate. “I’m glad it brought you to me,” he signed. “And I feel very much the same.”

When he looked at her like that, with that half-crooked smile, those white teeth and those amber eyes you could drown in... Good God, help me please.

*** *** ***

Normally Kai found travel tedious, but he’d enjoyed flying across the country with Constance. There was something delicious about taking her out into the world, where no one knew what they were to each other, or the charms Constance possessed beneath her reserved outer shell. And for him, she was like a curtain being pulled back, revealing new aspects of herself every day.