by Cecilia Tan
“Ten years ago, yes. The thing is that the royalty percentage is not very large, and various costs and fees on the part of the record company cut into it. Essentially, for every fifteen-dollar CD sold, I make about a dollar. Let’s assume a platinum sale, which means a million copies sold. That’s considered very good. However, they already paid me that million dollars ten years ago, so I don’t receive anything additional on those sales.”
“But all your albums have done better than platinum.”
“True. But sometimes not right away. Much of the money I’ve made has come from merchandising rights and from touring. Normally a record company makes almost nothing from what an artist brings in from ticket sales.”
“Normally. Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”
“Because I have not always toured in the traditional manner. Bride of the Blue, for instance, was an installation production in Las Vegas. It required a bit more investment than merely putting a rock band on the road. The theater had to be rebuilt with a custom stage and effects, for one thing. I allowed Ferrara and the record company to act as producers the way one would with a Hollywood film production. She invested money up front for a share of the profits later.”
“But she turned into a royal pain.”
“Yes.”
A moment passed between us.
“Okay, so in your e-mail to me you said you were going to explain why the business you thought was concluded… wasn’t.”
“Yes. Some time ago, when Huntington was still in charge of the company, before the divorce, he and I had planned that the final three albums I owed him on the contract would be a double album of Bride of the Blue, and then the farewell tour album. At the time he was afraid I would be wooed away by another record company and was preparing to renew me for another multimillion-dollar deal. This was before I decided to quit.”
“Aha.”
“Then he split with Ferrara, she took him for all he was worth, and suddenly I was sure I wanted to get out. She’s now claiming that the double album only counts as one. She is not entirely wrong, but it was my mistake not to get that agreement in writing!” He twitched angrily, but calmed himself. “At any rate, she has been making various demands ranging from the sensible, like I fulfill the contract with a greatest hits album that includes one new song, to the nonsensical, like the one that I move in with her, because I married her.”
“But you didn’t marry her. Did you?”
“I did not. It’s a very strange claim.” He shook his head. “I think perhaps she is a bit unhinged. All the more reason to have as little to do with her as possible. She is also demanding that I tour in support of the album. I refused but agreed to do a new residency in Vegas, which will be simulcast into movie theaters, pay-per-view, and livestream on the web.”
“And that will satisfy Ferrara?” I sat up to look at him.
“I hope so. The thing to understand about Ferrara is that she is quite motivated by the upkeep of appearances. Everything she has tried to force me to do has always been within the confines of a contract, an obligation. She’s learning that I have limits, though, and when she pushes too far, she may push me to say to hell with the contract, which would be bad for everyone.”
I brushed his damp hair back with my fingers and it fell in soft, straight sections as it dried. “But the marriage thing… it sounds like she wants more than money.”
“She’s a complex creature.” James pulled a water bottle from a compartment in the door and offered it to me. “I mostly have to convince her that she wants the money and the continued rights to my record catalog more than she wants to fuck me.”
I almost choked on the water when he said that. I’d been tiptoeing around the actual issue and not saying it out loud. “Do you think you can?”
“I believe so. I’ve held her off for years, Karina. I just have to do it a little longer.” He took the water bottle from me and drank a few gulps himself. “I have a proposal for you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I don’t want to only tell you about my life, Karina. I want you to join it. Be a part of it. That means being a part of what’s happening in Las Vegas.”
“What do you mean by ‘be a part of it’?”
“Answer me a question first. What’s happening with your university now?”
“I have to speak to the dean. Best case scenario, they accept my thesis as is, rubber stamp me with a PhD, and tell me to get the hell out. Worst case scenario, they make me start over with a new advisor, writing a new thesis. Honestly, if that’s what they want… I don’t know if it’ll be worth jumping through those hoops. If other opportunities are beckoning me, I don’t have a lot of incentive to go back. Other than pride and not wanting to have wasted five years of my life.” Not to mention the student loan money.
“I see. Well, I am hoping you might be able to defer whatever might occur there for another semester so you can join me in the performance.”
“You mean—”
“As a dancer.”
I shook my head instantly. “I can’t measure up to a troupe of professionals. I’ll look ridiculous.”
“I assure you you’re wrong about that. Well, if the performance were tomorrow, maybe. But we have a few months, Karina, and I’ll be expecting you to work with a trainer every day. I need to get back in shape myself.” He stretched one arm toward the far window and unfurled his hand elegantly, probably thinking about dance exercises. “I haven’t danced or sung since the night we met.”
“Have you missed it?”
“I have, a little. I don’t miss the grind, though. I don’t miss having to keep up the facade all the time. I never realized how exhausting it was until I stopped.” He leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m an incredibly lucky bastard.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, because if I had let my guard down for anyone but you, it would have ended in a ball of flames.”
“It nearly did anyway.”
“But it didn’t, because of you. Because of the wonderfulness of you. You’re special, Karina.” He offered me the bottle again and I took another sip. “How much longer do you think you’ll be in Ohio?”
“I’m not sure. My aunt Tera called today to announce she’s showing up tomorrow to stay for two weeks. If that’s true, I won’t have to stay.” I did have to get back to the city. To deal with my landlord and the university and who knew what else.
James was looking at me thoughtfully.
“What? What is it?”
He smiled. “I’m just noticing how many strong, independent women you seem to have in your life.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d count my mother as strong… though it seems like she picked up a backbone in the hospital!”
“She raised you and your siblings on her own. I’d say she can probably lay claim to independence if she wants.”
“True. And her opinions are never weak. Those are always quite strong.” I glanced in the direction of the house. “I guess I should be getting back.”
“Well, if you think you’ll be staying more than a few days, I’ll contract a dance trainer for you here, to start getting ready for the performances.” He folded one of my hands into his. “That is, if you agree to my proposal. You still haven’t said yes.”
Of course he would notice that. “I think it’s questionable I’m good enough to get on stage with you. Maybe you ought to have someone besides yourself look at me. I don’t think you’re exactly an impartial judge.”
“And you’re far more talented than you think. How about this? We’ll hold an audition for principal dancer. I won’t tell the judges who you are. We’ll let them give their opinions. The final decision will still be up to me, of course, but you can get an honest evaluation of where you stand in relation to others. If they think you look ridiculous, they’ll say so without hesitation.”
I slipped my shoes on. “All right. When?”
“Let’s say in a month. That’ll give you time to prepare.”
“Okay. I mean, yes. That sounds like a plan.” I slipped my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Now, are you and Stefan planning to sit out here all night?”
“I defer to Stefan on our security plans. If there is any hint of trouble, though, promise me, Karina, that you’ll contact us immediately.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Then you should probably sneak back into the house.”
I kissed him on the forehead and grinned. “You know, I never did this when I was a teenager.”
“Did what?”
“Sneak out of the house after my mother was asleep to have sex in a guy’s car.” I kissed him on the mouth then. “Something tells me it was worth the wait.”
Seven
Look Out, World
Aunt Tera blew into town the next day like a summer storm, flattening everything in her path, though in a good way. It was great to see her, but within an hour of her arrival she had us cleaning out the entire pantry, getting rid of canned goods that had been there more than a few years, vacuuming under the couch cushions, you name it. Tera had gotten rid of a few leech boyfriends in her time, she said, and the best therapy was a thorough turning out of the house. I think my mom’s purge of her closets and jewelry boxes had been the same idea, but Tera extended it to the whole house.
By dinnertime we were all too tired to cook, so Tera took us out to eat. I brought up the e-mail I’d gotten from the head of the art history department about needing to schedule a meeting with me. They agreed that I should get back as soon as possible. I’d invested too much in my education not to fight for reinstatement.
I told them I could go back the next day. With James.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” my mother asked. “I mean, if you’re not getting along, to be stuck in a car together for ten or twelve hours?”
Tera snorted. “Sounds like the perfect arrangement to me. He can’t weasel away.”
“But will you be safe with him?” My mother was suddenly an expert on domestic violence. For once I didn’t mind that she decided she had all the answers, even if it meant I had to listen to a lecture on the warning signs.
Maybe it was good to hear them, actually. I could truthfully say I felt safe with James, physically anyway. Emotionally there was still the fear that he could disappear again.
That’s why he wants you to dance in this show, I thought. He’s trying to prove to you there’s more to him than sex in the back of a limo.
“Yes, Mom, I’m sure I’m safe with him. Besides, we won’t be alone. His chauffeur does the driving.”
Tera’s eyebrows went up at that, and she looked back and forth between us for an explanation.
“Karina has a rich art dealer from the city at her beck and call,” my mother said.
“Sounds like you have him by the balls!” Tera laughed.
“It’s not like that,” I said, but I couldn’t really explain.
“Well, am I going to get to meet him?” my mother asked.
“Why don’t we wait until I’m sure I’m keeping him? I don’t want another Brad situation where you end up liking him better than I do.”
My mother sighed. “Very well.”
It had been so long since I’d felt like she approved of anything I’d done that it was a little disorienting to hear her agree so readily. But a relief, too. Not feeling like I had to argue with every sentence out of her mouth was incredibly liberating. For once, the only reason I was eager to leave home had nothing to do with her at all.
To reassure myself it really was all right to leave, I went with my mother to her doctor’s appointment in the morning. She remembered everything now, it seemed, except the accident itself. That was fairly common, they said. Her wrist was healing quickly and so was her ankle. She pressed Dr. Mukherjee on when she could return to the gym.
Tera and I spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and neatening up the flowerbeds, and after dinner it was time for me to hit the road. To keep the drama to a minimum, just in case, I had Stefan come and pick me up without James.
My mother was very reassured by Stefan. As usual, he exuded an air of friendly competence, and he gracefully accepted a case of bottled water and box of granola bars from my mother when she insisted we take them as necessities on a long drive.
James had some work to finish up at the hotel and by the time we got on the road it was nearly ten at night. He looked quizzically at the case of bottled water as Stefan hurriedly moved it to the trunk, putting a few bottles into the cup holders throughout the car.
“A gift from my mother,” I explained as we settled into the backseat. “She’s definitely getting back to normal: driving me crazy about that sort of thing. Does she think we can’t just buy water if we need it? She didn’t need to spend the money.”
James cracked open a bottle and took a sip as the car began to move. “Did you ever consider that maybe it’s not about that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’s just a way to show she loves you. It isn’t that she doesn’t think you can take care of yourself. It could be her way of caring about you.”
“Hmm. I never really thought about it that way. Does your mother give you things you don’t need?”
“Every time I see her! I try not to be guilty of the same thing.”
“You try?”
He held out his arm, beckoning me to sit closer to him. “I try to say what I mean instead of using gifts in place of what I’m unable to express. But I don’t always succeed. There’s also the case that with my mother, she doesn’t listen to me. So I give her things. To cover all the bases, you know.”
I accepted his invitation, settling against him. There it was again, that feeling that this was right, that I belonged there at his side. Rather than fight it, I relaxed against him to enjoy the ride. There was no traffic, one of the reasons Stefan liked driving at night. Our plan was to go for a few hours and then stop for the night to break up the trip. “You know, sometimes you let your actions speak instead of words.”
“That’s true. But I try not to make too many assumptions. Especially with you.” He rubbed my arm. “I let my assumptions get the best of me once. Not again.”
I basked a little in the warm feeling that came with his apologies, though I wondered a little, as I sat there thinking it over, why he’d never called me on the fact that I’d basically coerced him to tell me his name. That wasn’t exactly the loving, trusting thing to do. Yet he’d never come out and blamed me for it. “James?”
“Yes, sweetness?”
“I really am sorry I pushed you into telling me.”
“I understand completely why my behavior led you to think you needed to go to such extremes,” he said.
“Hey, don’t make excuses for me when I’m apologizing!” I teased. “Seriously, I didn’t realize at the time how out of line that was. I should have, I don’t know, talked to you more seriously about it instead.”
He kissed me on the hair. “Is it out of line when a man drops to his knee and proposes to his unsuspecting girlfriend in a public place?”
“Oooh, that’s a trick question!”
“Is it? People think it’s romantic…”
“What if he does it when he suspects she wants to break up, and he thinks he’ll shame her or guilt her into staying with him?”
“Then he likely gets the miserable relationship he deserves for doing something so jackassed. On the other hand, if he knows she’s likely to say yes, or he feels she’s really waiting for him to pop the question?”
“That’s different.”
“Indeed. In many circumstances I would agree that coercing someone to tell a secret is not right. But you were quite right, Karina. You had every right to know before you let me take you. You had every right to demand it, and you knew me well enough to know it was the one way to ask that I wouldn’t refuse. Had you merely asked me in the car on the way there…? I don’t know that we’d have gone any further.”
“What do you mean? Would you have lied to me?”
“I might have ended things rather than lying to you. Think of it this way. We were playing a game. All the time that you interacted only with my mystery identity was a game. You basically declared it was time to move from the realm of fantasy to reality or you weren’t going to play anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much what I was demanding, I guess.”
“I was already trying to figure out how to move us into the realm of reality. But I wasn’t quite ready yet. You beat me to it.”
“And you’re saying that might have worked out fine… if you hadn’t been paranoid about Ferrara being after you?”
“Exactly. Although now, Karina, I truly hope we’ve reached the point where we can talk to each other if we have any issue?”
I paid no attention to the highway speeding by outside. My focus was completely on James. “Me, too. Although I have to ask, does that mean we’re starting over?”
“Or maybe it feels like we’re actually starting, for real, for the first time. Because I think perhaps we are.”
“Hmm. It certainly feels like since you arrived in Ohio, I’ve been talking with the real James for the first time.” I lay my hand on his chest, listening to his heartbeat with one ear against him. “It feels so right to be here with you, to touch you this way. How can I be this comfortable with you when in the back of my mind I’m still telling myself you might do something crazy again? I thought it was your dom aura, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Dom aura? You mean like a spell that magically seduces submissive women?”
“Yeah. Or, you know, you’ve trained me to feel this way.”
“Karina, I don’t think it’s possible for me to train your emotions. I can train your body, your physical responses, with pain and pleasure, but I can’t control how you feel about what I do, or about me.”
“Good to know.”
“Many doms’ hearts are broken when they learn the hard way they can’t make their subs fall in love. Spankings and bondage don’t make a person fall in love any more than candlelight and roses do.”