Lunch

by Karen Moline

  “—­how Olivier makes love to you.”

  “How anybody ever did. Nick didn’t make love, he fucked me as if it were the only thing he had to keep him alive. And I thought if I only saw him for a short time I’d be able to control it, but that was ridiculously naive. What a fool I am.”

  “How could you have known?”

  “Oh, I knew, all right, that’s part of what was so tantalizing, sensing that unbelievable power in him. It was so erotic, feeling the enormity of this man’s sexual potency focusing on me, watching me when I was painting him. I must’ve encouraged it then, subconsciously, or even overtly. I know I did, because feeding off that concentration gave me the strength to capture it in his face, in the portrait.”

  “That’s why it’s the best you’ve ever done.”

  “But even when I felt that desire oozing out of him, when he made me feel so alive, painting, I couldn’t understand why me, why he wanted me.”

  “Maybe because he sensed that you didn’t want him.”

  “I wonder. I thought that, at first, you know, no one ever says no to a Hollywood star, blah blah, spoiled jerk, can have any woman he wants, but it’s become more than that. Now I see what I can do to him, too. It’s an addiction, a physical addiction. That I’d even want one bit of it after seeing Olivier like that the other day makes me sick.”

  “It doesn’t sound to me as if you really want it anymore. I imagine you’re not quite aware of it, but you’ve been talking about it as if it’s already over, describing him in the past tense, you know, as if it’s something that happened to you a long time ago.”

  “I wish. It’s much more complicated than what I might want anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid.” She towels the sweat away. “I’m afraid he won’t let me go. Last time we met he asked me to go back to L.A. with him, he told me all about his house, how he lives, and made me memorize his private number. He thinks I’m seriously considering it even though he knows I want out. He’s sure he can do something to change my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Not having something he wants is making him angry. The more mad he feels, the more he feels anything, the more unable he is to suppress his anger, and it scares me.”

  “Do you think he’s in love with you?”

  Olivia frowns and rearranges her towels. “No, I don’t think so. God, I hope not. I told you, Nick’s not about love.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “What can I do, send him a letter? I’ll tell him, I have to. I’ll tell him that it’s over, cold turkey. The film’s almost finished, and I’m going to leave.” She sits up, splashing more tepid water on her face. “God, I can’t breathe, thinking about it.”

  “You need a cold shower.”

  “I need a lot more than that.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Olivia laughs, touched. “You are a darling, but it’s my mess, and I have to deal with it.” She doesn’t tell Annette about the terrifying blankness sweeping all humanity from Nick’s face, about the bonds imprisoning her to the bed, and to him. Even the heat of this room parching her skin can’t stop her from shivering at the thought of it. “And afterward, I’ll disappear, I can’t risk seeing him. And I don’t want him to know where I’m going.”

  “With Olivier.”

  “Yes.”

  She stands up, too quickly, and her head spins. Annette grabs her arm, righting her. “Come on, sweetheart, time for some cold water on your face,” she says.

  “I’m okay,” Olivia says. “It’s just the heat making me dizzy.”

  It’s more than the heat, she says to herself, it’s much more than the heat.

  SHE HAS carefully planned what she is going to say to him, calm and assured and unyielding, rehearsing it over and over again in her mind as if she were a young actress auditioning for a role in Faust, but he spoils it as soon as she walks in the door and drops her bag with a thud.

  “You’re late. I’ve been waiting to see you for a week, and you were supposed to be here nearly an hour ago,” Nick says, the panic of waiting edging into his voice, barely masking the fury hiding underneath. “So do me a favor. Don’t say ‘I shouldn’t have come.’ You’re here, so shut up about it.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” she says, throwing back her hair, “and I won’t shut up about it either. I’ll just tell you this is the last time, because I can’t take it any longer.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why do you make it so difficult for yourself?” he says, exasperation seeping into his voice like mud down the slopes of Topanga Canyon during the floods the year before. “You’re here, now, because you want to be, whether you mean it or not, so stop making excuses, and just . . .”

  “Just what? No, go on, tell me. Just what?” She has completely forgotten her lines, and is spoiling for a fight.

  Anger is becoming easier, for Olivia.

  Nick has that kind of effect on ­people.

  She still has not realized how any impatient fury in her charges him with a frisson of intense amusement, seeing her fueled with resentment as he so often is, masking it behind the habitual cloak of polite charm. He is already plotting with lurid anticipation exactly how he will pounce on her, in just a minute or two, as soon as she drops her guard, twisting her anger into a sharp stinging weapon, and impaling her with it.

  “Time. All I want is time,” he says to her, instantly relieved and confident, smoothing the vexation from his voice. As usual it is a splendid act, because I can tell from the look on her face, already thawing and less wary, that she has absolutely no idea what he’s really thinking. “We’re nearly finished shooting, you know that. After everything you’ve said—­or not said—­I can guess you’re not exactly planning to hop on a plane with me.” He is so blasé. “Therefore I assume this time left is all we’ve got.”

  “You want more than time, Nick, and I haven’t got it to give to you. And I won’t start my marriage by cheating, and betrayal.”

  “You’re not married yet. You’re not betraying him.”

  “I’m betraying myself,” she says fiercely. She runs her hands through her hair, exasperated, and defensive. “Please, Nick, it’s got to stop.” Her voice softening. “Before it goes bad. Before it gets worse.” Pleading, desperate. “And you’re leaving . . .”

  Her voice trails away when she sees him sit, rigid, with a frightening stillness on the bed, that blank look on his face again, that horrible empty expression bereft of any human emotion. She closes her eyes, she can’t face it, not that look again, make it go away, she can’t bear to see that horror haunting her dreams again, it is too terrifying. Before she dares open her eyes, before she can try to reach for the doorknob and run down the stairs and away from him, his arms are around her like a vise she’s felt so many times before, and he throws her facedown on the bed.

  “Tell me you can,” he says, in an instant tugging off her coat, and pulling her sweater over her head so she is blinded, smothered by the heavy wool, “tell me you can live without this. Tell me.” Slipping her arms from her sleeves and imprisoning them, viciously pulling the cords tighter than they’ve ever been, pushing the sweater off her face so he can see her suffer and hear her shrieking that she’ll never tell him anything he wants to hear, never, he’ll never see her again, ever. She is kicking at him furiously as he reaches down and pulls off her boots, throwing them to the floor, before kneeling over her legs to still them and tugging the snap of her jeans, the zipper, how he always managed it so quickly she never could quite figure, not thinking it was years of practice, twisting them off as she tries to kick him again, and fails.

  “Tell me you can’t take it any longer,” he says. “Go on.”

  “You make me sick.”

  “Yes, I kn
ow.”

  He calmly backs away from her thrashing legs, and knots a leg of her jeans to the bedpost, grabs her right leg, running his fingers down her foot with a nasty tickle, his lips brushing her instep, and then ties the other leg of her jeans around her ankle. His movements are methodical and precise, as if he’s performed them a thousand times, and she watches with an appalling numbed fascination, because there is nothing else she can do, as he pulls off his belt, dropping it on the comforter, and then slides down his jeans, an inch at a time, his hands on his thighs, caressing, knowing she cannot help but stare at this excruciatingly lingering striptease, taunting her in slow motion as he flaunts his virility above her, so raw and so unmerciful, just out of reach.

  “Did you like what you saw?” he asks, not expecting an answer as he neatly knots his jeans next to hers, tying her other ankle to them so she is helplessly spread-­eagled on the bed.

  He’s never done that to her, never dared render her quite so appallingly exposed, but time is running short, and so is his judgment.

  She feels a stab of pure hatred as he lowers himself down and slides against her skin.

  “Get off me,” she says, her voice low, and he hears it catch and knows this time she truly means it, but he is already deep inside her and has no intention of listening to her, even if she is screaming that she hates him, forever and ever.

  “You don’t hate me,” he says, “you want me.”

  “I don’t want you. I hate you.”

  “Who do you hate more?” he asks sarcastically. “Me, or your own sweet self for being here?”

  She opens her mouth, furious. “You, you despicable pig.”

  “Ah,” he says. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Because you don’t hate this,” he says, slowing his manic pace and swirling his fingers the way she likes it best. “You can’t tell me you hate this.”

  “I do hate it, and you.”

  “Not this,” he says, pulling out and leaning down to stab at her with his tongue, sliding his hands under her hips as she struggles against him, easing the ache of this familiar torment only when he hears her entreaties to let her go.

  “No,” he says, picking up his belt, “I’m not listening to you, because you don’t know what you’re saying.” He whacks the sensitive insides of her thighs, once, twice, one long thin welt on each, the pain of it shocking her, then bends down to her again.

  “Stop it, please stop,” she is sobbing even as she arches against him in helpless satisfaction. “Let me go.”

  “It’s only this, Olivia,” he says, kneeling over her, huge and feral, “we have only this. That’s all there is.”

  For once, I can’t argue with him. He is telling the absolute truth.

  “This, my darling Olivia, this is why you’re here.”

  She closes her eyes, he’s right, the bastard, she does hate herself, betrayed by her body and his wicked mastery of it, conquering her senses. But not her spirit. It is easier to capitulate than to fight him.

  She cannot win. She can only escape.

  “You’ll always want this,” he says, bringing her to the brink again, and toppling her over the edge.

  “WILL YOU do one thing for me before you go?” he asks, watching her dress, her movements jerky.

  “What?” Her voice is flat, emotionless. She is still very angry, and he knows not to push her.

  “Give me a weekend.”

  Her eyes widen, startled.

  “It’s always been lunch,” he explains, careful to keep his voice relaxed, conversational. “We’ve never had any time together, not really. Not a whole day, and not a whole night.”

  She shakes her head no.

  “Please, Olivia, please,” he says, kneeling on the bed, his eyes instant pools of desperate liquid pleading. “I know you want to end this. I know you hate me. I’ll never ask you anything again, I’ll never see you again, I’ll go back to L.A., I’ll leave you alone forever, just give me a weekend.” He sees her hesitating, this is how he’ll trip her, persuade her to do as he says with the lovely lying promise that he understands what she wants, and he’ll let her be. “Please, Olivia, I’m begging you, don’t leave me this way. You said it yourself, that we should end it before it goes bad. Before it gets worse. I don’t want to end it with anger between us.”

  Don’t end it. The unthinkable.

  “I’ll think about it,” she says.

  “That’s not good enough. There’s no time. I have commitments, you know that. Everyone wants something from me, and I’ve got to let them know, soon.”

  They can wait. There is all the time in the world for lunch, if Nick Muncie really wants it.

  She stares at him, wavering, wondering if this is an act, or some twisted trick, wanting to keep hating him and wanting to give in. After what he’s just done to her, the awful specter of the blankness on his face ­coupled with the raw, brute force she felt shimmering, ripe and potent, coiled in his muscles, she is more afraid than ever, afraid of fighting. She hasn’t got the strength for it, not when he is offering her the chance to escape.

  All he wants is a weekend.

  “When?” she says.

  “I can pick you up Friday night, I think. We’re shooting odd hours this week.”

  “Okay,” she says. “One weekend. On one condition.”

  “Anything.”

  “That you mean it.”

  “Mean what?”

  “That you’ll leave me alone.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “You promise.”

  “I promise. I’ll leave you a message when I know what time I’ll be free. M will pick you up.”

  “Fine,” she mutters, not wanting him near her studio. “Why am I doing this?” She leaves without saying goodbye, slamming the door, and Nick stretches lazily, a languid cat, before he looks over at me. I turn off the tapes, wondering what kind of diabolical scheme he is already plotting in the feverish recesses of his mind, what sort of fiendish trickery can be making him smile, so spitefully exultant, as he gets dressed, humming a timeless song, already counting the hours till Friday, when he’ll have her in his arms, utterly vulnerable to the perversity of his passion, convinced that he can persuade her to do his bidding, helplessly his, for a weekend, and then forever.

  Chapter 20

  All the windows are tinted dark in the Daimler I have rented, exactly as I’d ordered, although it is already dark outside. No one can see in, nor can the passenger see through the partition separating the front and back seats. I can vaguely discern Oliv­ia’s profile when she slides in and pulls the door shut. I throw the locks with a switch at my fingertips, a click too unobtrusive for her to notice, exactly as I’d ordered, and slowly pull away.

  I hit another button to roll down the glass partition. I can see Olivia clearly, she fixes her queer stare on me and then looks away, staring into darkness, conflict racing across her face, clouds scuttering as I’d seen it before, watching in the flat. Bewilderment, fear, and the thrilling shock of sexual enthrallment are all mingled with nervous apprehension and the sure, relentless knowledge that Nick will exhaust her till she is quaking with abandonment, imploring her to let her be, because she cannot endure any more.

  That is what she is hoping.

  I want to turn the big black car around and drive away, drive to Heathrow and put her on a plane, but my foot stays steady on the gas, and we do not speak. I turn around a curve, up a long winding driveway, stop, the car idling, and raise the partition. Olivia hears the faint thud of an automatic door, I creep up a few more feet, then stop, she hears the garage door closing behind her, and she gets out and disappears into the house.

  Nick is waiting for her by the door. He beckons, and she follows him, oblivious to the furniture or the draperies or the colors of the walls of someone else’s house, whose, it doesn’t matter, how could it when her skin is so alive
and tingling. Down a hall they go, up a wide staircase, down another corridor, up more stairs, and into a cozy warm room lit only by candles and the snapping sparks as the logs in the fireplace burn into flame.

  She shrugs off her coat as she’s done in the flat so many times before, and Nick hands her a glass of champagne he’s just poured. She smiles and drinks, a little too eagerly. Nick smiles back, and refills her glass. It is too dark for her to see his face clearly, the lines of frustrated passion etched around his eyes.

  She doesn’t know it yet, but all his meticulous plans for the weekend have been thwarted by a typical production screw-­up. Jamie told him only hours before that he must work tomorrow night, they all must, they have no choice, they are all so very near the end, the lab had scratched the prints or some other insanely moronic something, and an infuriated Nick had no alternative but to capitulate, sulky and brooding.

  He has to tell Olivia, ask her for another day when she’d barely agreed to this, and he prefers the coward’s approach. The drug he’s slipped into her glass, mixed with the alcohol, will soon render her pliant and relaxed and thoroughly bendable to his will. That is all he wants from her now, not her usual wary feistiness and stubborn refusals to change her mind, but the lovely blissful surety of submission, numbed to reality, hidden in this timeless cave.

  “I like this room,” Olivia says. “It’s dark, and little. Like the other room.”

  Like the flat, she means but cannot say. Like the safe house has once done, this little room with its connecting bath eases her fears. I recognized its suitability as soon as I’d found it, though it will always be dark up here on the third floor of a mansion I paid heavily for, this weekend, shadowed by the trees in the garden overlooking the Heath, shadowed as long as Olivia’s here with Nick because I have pulled and taped shut the shades and drawn the velvet drapes.

  “I want you,” Nick says.

  “I know.” She finishes her second glass, and nearly giggles, falling back on the bed, relieved by her giddiness. She doesn’t have to think, she wants only to feel, and then be done with it. “I’m getting drunk,” she says. “I can’t believe it. I never get drunk.”