Odalisque

She blinked hard for a moment, her hands still in her lap. Then she said, “I’ll miss you. So yes, I would feel something.”

But what Kai heard was, Yes, I would go to him.

He pulled her toward the bed, then pushed her onto the white expanse of sheets on her back. He settled over her, between her legs, and pressed the length of his body to hers. He still remembered the first time he’d fucked her here in his house, when she was out of breath from jumping on the bed and he’d pushed her down and taken her so joyfully. It was almost a year ago now. That had been a hello fuck.

This was goodbye.

He just wanted her one last time. He kissed her hard and deep, rolling her nipples between his fingertips. She arched against him, responsive as ever. He slid his cock through the wetness of her arousal and pushed inside her, cradling her.

“Constance,” he said, but she wasn’t looking. Her eyes were closed, her arms stretched over her head. For one horrible moment, he thought he could be anyone. Any owner, any Master. Constance would serve anyone just as she served him. That was the code. He was the cock, she was the cockslave. He tapped her chin, distraught, until she opened her eyes. “Look at me while I’m fucking you.”

She looked right at him, the obedient sex slave. Her lust-fueled grin would have thrilled him a few months ago, but now it made his heart ache. She ran her fingers up his arms to his shoulders, kneading, scratching like a kitten. She was so lovely. He loved her so much.

He pulled away, abruptly, roughly, and sat on the edge of the bed. Constance scrambled up beside him. Her eyes were wide and troubled. His erection was gone, like a dream interrupted.

“I just can’t--” His signs were garbled and choppy. “Constance…do you feel anything at all for me?”

He hated that she pretended to be confused. “Like what?”

“Like anything. Any personal or emotional feeling.”

“I thought you were paying me not to have feelings,” Constance signed. “All I want is to be a good odalisque. I want to follow the code. You signed it--”

“I’m aware that I fucking signed it, Constance. I know! Why can’t you--” Kai rubbed his mouth and shook his head. “Why can’t you just step away from that fucking code for ten seconds and let me see who you really are? What you really feel about me? I see bits and pieces of you and I think I’ll just die if I’m never allowed to see more. But I’m not.” He stood up and over her, a quivering pillar of frustration. He reached for her, the woman he loved, the woman who refused to love him. He pulled her up and held her close. He knew every contour, every curve of her. He’d memorized every gold fleck in her green eyes. He’d internalized her smell, her taste. “God damn you, Constance. I love you. Why are you doing this to me?”

Constance went stiff. “You’re--you’re not supposed to love me,” she signed.

“No shit,” said Kai. “But I don’t know what the hell to do about it now.”

He wanted her so badly. Out of all the things he had, all the things his money could buy, he just wanted this one thing. This one woman. Why this torment, this obsession? Then it hit him.

He’d been here before.

“You know,” he said, looking down at her, “when I was growing up, I was an outcast. Tall and gangly. I was a total nerd, one hundred percent, and I had no friends. I acted too American to fit in with the Indians, and I looked too Indian to fit in with the American kids. School was...difficult.

“Then I met Mason. He got me through, you know. He always had it, the charisma, the personality. I rode his coattails. When we got older, I got women thanks to him. I gained a sense of self-worth. I used my nerd smarts to start a business, and when the success came I pretended I’d expected it all along.” He shook his head. “But I hadn’t. I was so shocked. It was like a dream I was afraid to wake up from. When I met Veronica, I was living in that dream haze. I was flush with success. I couldn’t believe she wanted me, but part of me thought, well, this is what I get for working hard. For making it. She wants me.”

He stared off into the distance for a while, utterly still. Then he looked back at her so she could easily read his lips. “Well, you know the rest. She took me for millions. When she dumped me it was like being back in school again, huddled in the corner of the playground, getting kicked in the nuts and taunted with ethnic slurs. And I look at you and think you’re too good to be true too. I wonder when you’re going to kick me in the nuts like she did.” He paused. “But I think maybe you’ve been doing it all along.”

Constance shook her head, flushing. He could actually see the flush move across her skin. She shook her head again more intently.

“No?” asked Kai. “I mean, you knew how I felt about you. You knew it at the Maison, the night we swam in that pool.”

She still shook her head, but it was empty denial.

“And the worst part...the worst part, Constance, is that I know you care for me too. Veronica never did. Somehow, you do. But there’s something more important to you. I don’t know what it is. Money. Security. Whatever it is women like you and my ex-wife want.”

Constance shook her head and pushed at his chest. Her hands came up in a rush of signing. “No! Stop saying that. I’m nothing like her.”

“I think you are.”

“Yes, I want money. I want security. I need money to do the things I want in life. But it has nothing to do with using you--”

Kai shook his head with a bitter laugh. “I think it does. I think it has everything to do with using me.”

“If I really wanted to use you, I’d marry you like Veronica did,” she signed. “I’m trying to protect you! Do you think it’s been easy for me?”

He held up a hand. “Spare me, please. I’m the one who’s biting my tongue every night when I leave you, trying not to say how I feel about you because you might not approve. I’m the one who keeps trying to make you love me--which I’ve done before, Constance. I’ve lived through this once already, and it made me desperately unhappy.”

Desperately unhappy. Is that what he’d gotten for his million bucks? He thought back on the past few months, the tension between them even when they were in each other’s arms. But he had thought it was just part of the deal.

“Kai…” Constance signed, her eyes pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve made you believe-- If I’ve made you feel--taken advantage of.”

Kai put a hand over hers. “No, it’s me,” he signed. “It’s not your fault. But here’s the truth of it: I can’t live like this anymore. I don’t want an odalisque. I wish I’d never heard the word to begin with. I want someone who loves me.”

“But, Kai--”

“Love me, Constance. Trust me. Or go. If I can’t have you, the real you, with trust and love and emotion, then I want you to leave.”

Constance threw up her hands in frustration. “Leave? Now? A month early?”

Kai pursed his lips and stared her down. “I want permission to love you. I want a relationship. ”

“But I’m your odalisque! The code--”

“Fuck the code! Choose! Your precious fucking code or me!”

Constance’s signs were crisp and angry. “It’s not fair of you to ask that. We signed a contract.”

“Fuck the contract. You need to choose.”

She signed, “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

Kai waited, his expression resolute, as she considered his ultimatum. Long seconds ticked by. Every gold fleck, he thought to himself. I know those eyes like I know my own eyes. Come on, Constance. Take a chance.

But she pulled away from him. “I’m not my mother,” she signed, her nostrils flaring and her mouth pinched. “I won’t beg to stay where I’m not wanted, where I don’t measure up. Not in this lifetime. Not ever.”

And with those parting words, she stalked out of the room, leaving him alone with his misery and suffocating regret.

Chapter Eighteen: Mistakes and Truths

Constance fell into a kind of trance as she flew over the ocean. Memories crowded in, all the wretched occasions when her mother had been thrown out. Thank God Constance didn’t have any kids forced to pack their bags, as she had, listening to her mother’s tears, her pathetic pleas for another chance…

Constance had no intention of pleading. No fucking way.

She made it almost halfway across the Atlantic before her outraged bravado turned to tears. Her blind resolve to be immovable and unemotional melted away, leaving her to look back on the day’s events in horror. What on earth had she done? How stupid and shortsighted was she? All the love she’d buried inside overwhelmed her, and for the first time, she let herself dwell on all she’d given up. She’d made such a huge mistake, not allowing herself to love Kai.