Odalisque

by Annabel Joseph

  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.

  *** *** ***

  Constance sat curled up on her bed, staring at nothing. Waiting. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t waiting, but she was. Kai would have gotten the paperwork yesterday. Constance knew it was already essentially over, but when the papers of resignation were signed, their relationship would officially be through.

  It was a good thing. Constance kept telling herself that. When the papers came back, she could take off her clothes and move back to the other side with her fellow odalisques. She could begin the process of forgetting about Kai and all the things she almost had in his arms. When she got back into the swing of things, everything would be okay.

  She glanced up as one of the servants came to the door. “Miss Constance, there is a man here to see you. Downstairs. Would you care to come down?”

  Kai. Just like that, she was petrified. What would she do? What would she say? She’d hoped against hope that he might care enough to come, but now that he had, she felt panicked. The formally dressed servant waited patiently, not reacting to the fact that she was sitting there like an idiot wringing her hands. She knew she ought to send the servant back with the message that she didn’t want to see him...

  But instead she was on her feet, out the door and down the hall, following behind the servant’s swishing coattails. She almost stepped on the back of his heels, she was so anxious to walk faster, to get there--

  The servant opened the door to Bastien’s office. Her eyes swept the room in search of Kai only to discover...Mason Cooke.

  “Constance, you have a visitor,” Bastien said. “If you like, I’ll send him away.”

  Mason raised his eyebrows just an iota. She read the plea there. He looked nothing like the last time she’d seen him. He was shaved, impeccably dressed in a button down shirt and khakis. Constance gave Bastien a nod of endorsement, and with one last look at the both of them, he left and closed the door.

  Mason looked at her, relief clearly written on his face. “Thank you.”

  Constance went around the other side of Bastien’s desk. She took a sheaf of his fussy linen paper and jotted down, For what?

  “For not hating me, for one thing. You don’t hate me, do you?”

  Constance regarded him for a moment, remembering their last time together. I don’t hate you. But I meant what I said to you that day. I can’t be your odalisque.

  “Constance, I’m so sorry. That day…the way I acted... It was inexcusable. And I know you can’t be my odalisque. I was in a crazy place to even think about it. My marriage was over, I was lonely, I felt hounded, and I just...” He twisted his hands together. “I just wasn’t thinking right. And Kai… Jesus.”

  Have you talked to him? Constance asked.

  “No. But Satya says...”

  Mason’s voice drifted off, as if he didn’t want to say more. You talked to Satya? Constance wrote to prompt him.

  Mason shrugged. “I don’t have many other friends right now. She wanted to know why you left, and Kai wouldn’t tell her. Why did you leave?”

  Constance shook her head. I didn’t leave. He sent me away.

  Mason looked horrified. “Because of me? God, Constance, I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t just you. It was a lot of stuff.

  Mason fell silent, biting a finger. Constance finally wrote, Is that the only reason you came? To apologize? To be forgiven?

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I came to make amends. I came because I did a really awful thing, and now I have to do a really good one. I came here to convince you to go back to my friend.”

  There’s no point, she wrote. He doesn’t want me back. If he did, he would be here instead of you.

  “Satya told me he’s really miserable. She’s worried about him.”

  I’ll only make things worse.

  Mason narrowed his eyes at her. “In what way?” He tapped the paper. “Tell me.”

  Don’t get snippy with me, she scrawled. Whatever I write, you’ll just argue with it.

  “Yes, I will. Because I happen to think the two of you belong together. He’s in love with you, you know. And you’re in love with him. Before you try to deny it,” he warned, holding up a hand, “remember, I saw your face when you came to the door. When you thought I was Kai waiting in here.”

  Constance blinked, flicking at the edge of the paper. He needs a hearing wife. Someone well-mannered and poised.

  “Bullshit.”

  To attend all those charities and things he does. Those parties.

  “We don’t have scatter parties that often,” Mason protested. “And he wouldn’t make you do them if you didn’t want to.”

  She gave him a withering look. I meant the business and charity parties.

  Mason shrugged. “He wouldn’t make you do those either.”

  He wants children. He needs someone who would be a good mom.

  “Now who’s making excuses? You don’t know any of that for sure. You don’t know what he’d be willing to give up out of love for you, especially with all he’d be gaining. Listen, just come back with me. Talk to him.”

  There’s nothing to talk about! she wrote angrily. I’m the wrong person for him to be in love with.

  “Ah, but you know,” said Mason, wagging his finger, “that’s not your decision to make. Kai gets to decide who he loves. Not you. And you know who you love, Constance. You can deny what you’re feeling, but that won’t make it go away.”

  Oh God. It was so true. If she wasn’t so chick
enshit, she’d admit he was right. She’d go back with him to Los Angeles and at least take a stab at things with Kai. There had to be some slim chance things would work out between them. 1% chance? 5% chance? She was mentally calculating the odds when Mason jumped up out of his chair. A blur of bronze skin and dark hair passed by her, hands outstretched for Mason’s throat.

  Constance shook off her shock and tugged at Kai’s arm. Bastien ran in, a couple of burly footmen behind him. They hauled Kai away from Mason. “He just stormed in, Constance, Mr. Cooke,” said Bastien. “I’m sorry.”

  Kai was looking from Constance to Mason and back again like he couldn’t decide who to murder first. “This isn’t what it looks like,” Mason said.

  “Oh, really?” snapped Kai. “Because it looks like you’re still trying to acquire my fucking odalisque.”

  Constance stepped in front of Kai to get his attention. “He’s not here for that,” she signed. “Mason came here to convince me to come back to you.”

  All the bluster seemed to go out of Kai then. The men let him go. Constance couldn’t take her eyes off him, standing there, breathing hard and opening and closing his fists. He looked like some glorious avenger without a battle to fight. Or maybe he did have a battle to fight. Mason said something to him and then smiled at Constance. Bastien ushered everyone out until Kai and Constance were alone.

  She waited to see what he was going to say, but instead he pulled a ragged sheet of paper out of his wallet. He unfolded it and slid it across the desk. “I found this in the saray.”

  She read the words, the truths she’d written about what she felt in her heart. Constance let the paper drop and gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I only did what I thought was best. I never wanted to hurt you.” Her hands dragged under the weight of all she had to explain. “I’m so afraid of upheaval,” she signed slowly, begging him to understand. “Violent feelings. Dependence on someone. Love. I’m afraid of falling in love and having my heart broken. Or worse. That’s a lot of the reason I became an odalisque.”