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
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,