Slow Surrender

by Cecilia Tan

  “I guess. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a trainee server to deal with.”

  “Okay. Bye.” I hung up knowing I had chickened out by not telling her about Renault, but she had other things to worry about. I didn’t want to be the basket-case sibling. That was Troy’s job. I would have to figure out what to do about Renault on my own.

  After what she’d said, I was dreading the inevitable call from my mother.

  While walking home after my shift, my cell phone rang and I picked it up. The weather had turned chilly again, and I held the phone to my ear inside the hood of my sweatshirt.

  “Your sister’s worried about you,” my mother said, which was her way of saying she was worried, but my mother wasn’t very good about expressing anything directly except disappointment.

  “That’s funny. I just talked to Jill and everything was fine,” I said. “What’s happened to me since then?”

  “I don’t appreciate your jokes.” My mother sniffed. “Save them for your fabulous career as a sitcom writer.” That was just like my mother: to tell me not to use sarcasm and then turn around and use it herself. “She said there’s a lot you’re not telling her.”

  “Oh, really? Like what? Enlighten me.” I stopped at a crosswalk and jogged in place a little bit to keep warm. The sun was already getting low in the sky and the streets were full of evening commuters.

  “She said you didn’t say a word about your thesis.”

  “She didn’t ask.”

  “Well, I’m asking.”

  “Mother, what am I supposed to say? It’s in my advisor’s hands currently. He’s had it for weeks. There’s really nothing to do until he gives me feedback on it.” All of which was true, I thought.

  She made a disgruntled noise and changed the topic. “So you can call your sister but not me? You must have loads of time if you’re not working on that dissertation anymore.”

  I didn’t even want to dignify that one with an answer. She was baiting me and looking for an excuse to scold me over something. “Jill only calls me when she needs something,” I said.

  My mother brushed that aside. “Have you heard from Brad lately? I got a birthday card from him.” She sounded unbearably smug.

  “No, Mom, I haven’t heard from Brad. I dumped him six months ago, remember?” I crossed the street with the crowd and then walked along the edge of the park.

  “Well, I don’t see why. He’s perfectly nice, polite, a good provider, and he’d take you back in a heartbeat. He’s not a closet alcoholic or something, is he?”

  “No, Mom, he’s not an alcoholic. I’m not in love with him.”

  “You were in the beginning.” Her voice had the same accusing tone she used to use when I’d lied about whether I did my homework or not.

  “And I wasn’t at the end, okay? Why is that so hard to understand?”

  “Karina, don’t you take that tone with me.”

  “What tone? You’re acting like you’re angry that my infatuation didn’t last.” The problem was I was never really that infatuated with him to begin with, and after a year had lost all interest. “If you think he’s so great, you date him. You should be happy I’m not making myself miserable with that self-absorbed loser.”

  “Name-calling is uncalled for, young lady.”

  “Call me back when you want to talk to me like a real person and not like a dress-up doll you can spout parental clichés at.”

  I have to admit it felt really good to hang up on her. Then I wondered if maybe I hadn’t hit too close to the bone: My mother probably would love to date Brad. Since my father left when I was a child, she’d had a constant string of boyfriends, and even one very brief second marriage to a guy named Jerry she now refused to talk about. I met him only once; that’s how brief it was. They had eloped to Vegas in June and were separated by Christmas. I never, ever brought up the fact that she didn’t stay with any of her guys, even when she was getting on me for the same thing. It felt like that would be too low a blow. It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying. And that was the thing: She accused me of not trying hard enough to keep them. It wasn’t about Brad at all—it was about keeping a guy, any guy, at any cost. The thing is, if it hadn’t worked for her, why did she expect it to work for me?

  By the time I got back to the apartment, I was feeling depressed and angry. My mother never took my side in any argument, whether it was with one of my siblings or with the outside world. Anyone who had a problem with me she took as evidence that I wasn’t good enough or that I’d done something wrong. That was a tough pill to swallow.

  For about an hour I tromped around the apartment thinking the last thing I was in the mood for after being scolded by my mother was to be scolded by some guy. But the anger wore off in time for me to think it over a bit more. He didn’t actually scold me. He expressed his feelings about certain matters and then gave me the choice of doing something about it. He told me what he liked, what he expected…

  So unlike my mother, who seemed to think I should “just know” what shoes went with an outfit and the right reply to when a man said something at a party, like the X chromosome was supposed to convey inherent knowledge. He wasn’t like that. He told me what his expectations were. And I felt like I could meet them. More important, I could meet them without feeling fake or insincere about it. That was ironic, and I knew it. Even Becky expected us to be doing some kind of role-playing thing, daddy/girl, boss/secretary, something. But like I’d told her, it just didn’t stick. When I was with him, I could really be myself.

  I wondered if that was why he didn’t want to tell me his name. Because with me, he’d found he could be who he wanted to be, too. Isn’t that what he said at the bar, the night we met? He was finishing a big project and could finally devote some time to himself. And he’d wanted to be alone…

  Until he met me. Was James his real name or the name of the man he wanted to be? Maybe in the world we created between the two of us, it didn’t matter. James was who he was, I decided, regardless of what the world called him.

  Each time we got together, he issued me an invitation to have an erotic adventure with him. An invitation I could decline, if I wanted to.

  But I definitely didn’t want to decline. It felt too good. And despite what my mother, sister, and roommate might think, it felt good for me. Whatever this “punishment” was going to be, I wanted to find out. I wanted to pass whatever test he put before me.

  I stopped moping around and decided to get dressed. I picked up the card and looked at the address: the Upper East Side. He said not to worry about what to wear, since I wouldn’t be in the outfit long, but there was always someone looking, wasn’t there? What did people see when they saw Karina Casper? I hoped no one really noticed me at all when I took the subway. I put on my urban street armor: black jeans, a turtleneck, plain black waitress sneakers, and my somewhat beat-up leather jacket. I pulled a baseball cap over my hair. If someone wasn’t looking carefully, they might mistake me for a messenger.

  I took the subway uptown in plenty of time to scope out the place. I didn’t want to chance being late. At one point the train got stuck, and I started rehearsing in my mind what I was going to say if I was late. As I ran the words through my mind, it felt lame. It wasn’t a lie but it would sound like an excuse. My nerves bubbled during the wait and I wondered again what kind of punishment awaited me. He had given no hints. Thankfully, the train didn’t sit long and got moving again. As it was, I was only about ten minutes early instead of the half hour I’d expected to be.

  The building was two blocks over from the park and didn’t look like anything special. It was on the corner, but the entrance was from the side street, not the avenue, and looked to be ten or twelve stories tall. The facade was a bluish gray stone like marble or granite, and the vestibule was tiled in the same stuff, highly polished. In the vestibule sat a security guard at a high desk, his viciously precise cornrows taking the place of a hat.

  I spent a few minutes working up the nerve to approa
ch him, checking the address a few times, and then finally going in. Beside the desk was one of those old-fashioned directories made of black rows of foam, with white letters pushed into it to spell out the names of companies and people on each floor.

  The only thing listed on the third floor, where I presumed I was going from the suite number, was a place called Viva Associates.

  “You have an appointment?” the guard asked me.

  “Um, yeah. Third floor.”

  He nodded and waved his hand toward the elevators behind him. I gave him a smile and a nod as I went by and then pressed the button between the two sets of doors.

  Upstairs, the elevator let me out into a small hallway. A windowless door at one end said VIVA in small silver letters. There was a doorbell. I pressed it.

  A moment later the door buzzed and I pushed it open to find myself in a large, brightly lit waiting room. There were only five or six chairs, but it was spacious, with potted plants and magazines sprinkled liberally throughout. The carpet was white and lush under my sneakers and all the lighting seemed to be coming from hidden sources near the ceiling and behind frosted glass. I approached the sleek Lucite curve of the reception desk, but there was no one there. I had the feeling I was in a dentist’s office, but a dentist for incredibly rich people.

  After a moment a woman came from the back. She was dressed like a fashion model and was as tall as one, too, her brown skin and high cheekbones reminding me of Whitney Houston. It struck me then that this might be some kind of a beauty clinic, or maybe an office for plastic surgery?

  I was even more surprised when the woman took the seat behind the reception desk. I’d assumed she was a client. “Karina?” she asked, eyeing me up and down.

  “Yes. I guess that means I found the right place.”

  “Yes, dear.” She gave me a nod and a pleasant look that didn’t quite become a smile. “Your appointment is for eight, so you still have a few minutes, but if you don’t mind, I can show you to a room right away.”

  “Actually, could I visit the restroom quickly?”

  “Of course. Right through there.” She pointed at what I had assumed was a wall decorated with frosted glass, but once I took a better look I realized the chrome thing on one side was a door handle.

  The bathroom was just as high-tech-looking as the rest. The sink was a white slab of porcelain like a miniature, edgeless swimming pool. I didn’t linger, even though I wanted to, and went back to the waiting room. I was obviously in the right place, and surprising me with what was going on was clearly part of the test. This was all about whether I could follow directions, wasn’t it? Like with that first marble.

  She ushered me into some kind of exam room. At least the medical exam table, complete with stirrups, was unmistakable, even if the room was much more posh than what I was used to seeing. “You can undress completely,” she said as she laid what looked like a white terry-cloth robe on the counter. “Here’s a robe for now.”

  “All right.”

  She closed the door behind me and I stripped quickly, putting my clothes onto a chair and slipping my arms into the soft bathrobe. Having the robe made this seem like a spa. I looked around, trying to gauge my surroundings, when I spotted a pamphlet on the counter. I couldn’t see specifics but I could tell it was advertising some kind of skin treatment.

  A knock at the door made me jump. “Come in.”

  A woman in a white lab coat entered. “Karina, I’m Doctor Powers.” Her hand was warm and smooth as she shook mine. “I realize we are meeting under somewhat unusual circumstances, but my employer would like to be sure that you are getting the best medical care. You can refuse my services if you want to—that is entirely your choice. I am prepared to give you a full gynecological and STD exam if you need one. At the very least, I would like to give a thorough dermatological check to your skin.”

  I swallowed. “Is this part of the deal?” I asked, trying to figure out what I was allowed to say.

  She thought for a moment, perhaps trying to determine the same dance around privacy in her own head. “As I said, I know these are unusual circumstances. What transpires between you and him after I am done is your own business. My job is merely to offer you medical services.”

  “Oh. Okay.” So she wasn’t part of the punishment. “I actually had a gynecological exam at university health services recently, so I’d rather not do it again, you know?”

  She gave me a knowing smile. “That’s fine. And I know modern intimacy can create awkward situations. If you do need anything, now or in the future, you can call me, completely confidentially.”

  “Completely?”

  “Completely,” she repeated as she took a card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to me. “Someone just wants to be sure you’re in the best of health.”

  I placed the card on top of my folded clothes. “Well, tell someone I’ve had all the tests. I don’t mind if you get a copy of my record from my school.”

  She nodded. “You can tell him yourself, later. I have a release form you can sign so we can get your records. Now, what do you think about giving your skin a full check?”

  “You mean like for skin cancer and stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay.”

  What followed was nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact that I hadn’t exactly been expecting a medical exam tonight. She looked me over, every inch of me, but it was strictly professional except for maybe one thing. At the very end, she laid the robe over a chair instead of handing it back to me, so I was sitting there on the exam table completely naked. “Everything looks good,” she pronounced, and then left the room, closing the door behind her.

  I sat in the silence that followed, wondering what I was supposed to do next. During the exam, the doctor’s pleasant manner had put me completely at ease, but now the thought that I was there to make up for my lapse and collect my punishment suddenly surged back in. What was he going to do?

  And then came a soft knock on the door and I was glad I hadn’t put the robe back on.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened and there he was, shutting the door quickly behind him. His smile was warm and he seemed genuinely happy to see me. As usual, he was dressed in a suit jacket and trousers, but no tie this time. In the bright glow of the exam room, he looked gorgeous, his skin and hair flawless, and I caught a whiff of his scent over the sterile background. Being in the room with him made me feel warm all over and I craved his touch. “Hello, Karina. I hope that Doctor Powers wasn’t too rough on you.”

  I chuckled nervously. “Well, she wasn’t rough at all.”

  “I know. I just wanted to be sure your skin was in healthy shape before I consider doing anything to it.” He stepped closer while I pondered the meaning of the word anything.

  “What are you considering?” I heard myself ask. I could already feel my insides melting, even though what we were discussing right now was my punishment, not my pleasure.

  His hand traced the edge of my collarbone and my shoulder caringly, an indulgent look on his face, and it surely seemed more like we were discussing pleasure than pain. Even though his words could have been scary-sounding, his tone was anything but.

  “I don’t intend to leave permanent marks,” he said. “But accidents can happen. Bruises, burns, scratches—”

  “Burns?” I burst out, scenes of prisoners being tortured with hot pokers in old movies leaping into my head.

  He ran a gentle hand up my thigh, soothing me. “As I was saying, only by accident. Lie back.”

  I settled back against the exam table, which was tilted so that I could keep looking at him. He pulled the stirrups from the corners of the table and asked me to settle my heels into them. He stood between my legs and rubbed his hands lightly up and down my inner thighs, making my clit throb in the open air, yearning for touch.

  “Tell me, Karina. Do you experience pain as pleasure?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, what pain I’ve experienced dur
ing sex has been the unintentional kind.”

  “Unintentional?”

  “You know, like B—my ex-boyfriend knocking my head into the headboard accidentally.”

  “So no spanking, no tickling to the point of collapse, no love bites?”

  “He bit me once,” I said with a bit of an eye roll. “You know, I haven’t found guys to be that creative. I’m willing to try anything once, though.”

  “Your adventurousness is one of the things I enjoy most about you,” he said with a toothy grin. “There are plenty of things we can try—just not all at once. Tonight I need to pick something suitable to punish you with. How do you feel about hot wax?”

  “I’ve always heard wax jobs were excruciating,” I said.

  That made him laugh, and at first I wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t thinking of it as a depilatory, but you have given me an idea.”

  His touch on my legs was making me want more. Being naked in front of him like this was, too. I tried to stay focused on what we were talking about. “What kind of hot wax did you mean, then?”

  “Sweet girl. I’m trying to figure out a punishment for you. Something more sophisticated than just pinching your nipples. Next question: Are you afraid of razors?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then I won’t need to tie you down, will I? You’ll lie still like a good girl?”

  “I’ll at least try.”

  “Good. If you decide you’d rather be tied down, just tell me.”

  “Okay.” The thrill in my blood was rising. This wasn’t anything like what I’d done before.

  He turned away, opening a cabinet and setting out numerous things I couldn’t see. He then removed his jacket and hung it on a hook on the wall.

  When he faced me again, he had a pair of barber scissors in his hand. “Hold still. I don’t wish to cut you accidentally.”

  I took a deep breath while he put on a pair of exam gloves and then began to pet my pubic hair. Well, not really pet it, but get it all going the same direction so he could trim it. He was trimming for a while, and I could feel the occasional cold touch of the scissors as they made contact with my skin. When he was done with that, he blew on my crotch and I involuntarily thrust my hips upward.