Exposed

by Jasinda Wilder

  "Back away. Now." Len's voice is colder than ice, flat, emotionless.

  "Fuck you. You won't shoot me in broad daylight." His hands tighten on my arms to the point of pain.

  "Think again," Len says. He pulls back the top portion of the pistol, snick-click. "I sure as shit will. I haven't forgotten, Ryder."

  I remember the penthouse, my bath, Len being bound and gagged at gunpoint. I see murder in Len's eyes, and I know Logan could die in a split second. Between one breath and the next.

  "Let go, Logan," I whisper. "Don't do this. I will not see you hurt over me."

  "You have a choice," he says. His eyes find mine, pleading. "You have a choice. In this, in your name. In your future."

  "I am her future," you say. Not to me, but to Logan. "Just as I am her past, and her present. And you are none of those. You are a distraction."

  "Let him shoot me. I don't fucking care, X. Make the choice for you."

  I feel strangled. Choked by choice.

  I look at Logan, and his eyes blaze with fury, melt with . . . some emotion I do not understand, soft and potent and boiling and razor sharp, all at once, all over me, for me, directed at me. His blond hair is long, so long now, wavy and curled at the ends, hanging past his shoulders, blond curls drifting over his eyes. I see his scars, two round holes in his right shoulder, white thin lines on his forearm and right bicep, and I know there's another round puckered scar low on his right side, just beneath his ribs, and I see his tattoos covering his upper arms in a jumble of images; I see all this in a tableau, a frozen vignette, his indigo eyes and blond hair and scars and tattoos and work-roughened hands and his square jaw and high cheekbones and expressive lips that have kissed me and never demanded more, never claimed more, needing more, wanting more, but waiting until I was ready to give it. Will I ever be ready? Will I ever be free to choose him? Am I capable of it?

  I do not know.

  I pull away from him, for him. I cannot allow him to be hurt because of me.

  He is already hurt for me, though. That is written in his eyes, and it in turn strikes my heart like a knife.

  I pull away, and this is like deja vu. Logan before me, you behind me, waiting. The car. Len. My heartache and my sorrow and my confusion. I want him, but I don't trust myself. I don't trust my vision of the future with him. Do I trust him? I don't know.

  You, behind me, in the Maybach. You haven't gotten out. Your eyes are darkness incarnate. Unknowable. Inscrutable. You are perfect, as you are always perfect, untouchable, carved out of living marble.

  Len opens the door with one hand, gun held low in the other, out of sight. You do not reach for me. You aren't even looking at me. You are staring at Logan, but I do not know what you are thinking. What you are feeling.

  I know what Logan is thinking and feeling, because he wears his emotions on his face, he does not care what anyone sees, what anyone thinks.

  He is. He just is.

  But I am in motion, and a body in motion stays in motion. I cannot stop this. I cannot flee to Logan, not now. Perhaps not ever. He is too good for me, too true, too much.

  He is too real.

  And I . . . ?

  I am a ghost.

  A ghost named Isabel.

  SIX

  You are silent for a long time, and I watch you as you sit in imperturbable stolidity, perhaps deciding what to say, what not to say. I don't know. I have never been able to read you.

  "X--" Your voice is carefully even, precisely modulated.

  "Logan found out my name."

  "He thinks so, does he?" You sound cocksure, careless.

  "The story he tells makes sense," I say.

  "And? What is your new name then?" You are dismissive.

  "Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro." I glance at you as I say it. "A Spanish name."

  You are silent a moment and again I do not know how to interpret your silence. "So you're Isabel now?"

  "I don't know. That's the problem, isn't it? I don't know. Not anything."

  "You do know, though. You know who you are." You slide across the seat, and I notice that there are dark circles under your eyes, and that your cheeks and chin are unshaven, dark with day-old stubble. "You are Madame X. I am Caleb Indigo--" You start.

  "Am I? Are you?"

  "Once you begin questioning things, you won't ever stop, X. That is a rabbit hole down which it is entirely too easy to fall."

  "Funny," I say. "Logan said something very similar."

  "Did he." This is phrased as a question, spoken as a statement.

  "He did." Panic still overwhelms my mind, but I am learning somehow to push through it. To speak despite the turbulence in my soul. "He told me that I couldn't shy away from the answers, once I started asking questions."

  "I don't care what Logan said. He is no one." Closer now.

  I can feel the heat from your body, see the way your biceps stretch the material of your suit coat. Your eyes are red, as if you haven't gotten even the small amount of sleep you're used to.

  "He isn't no one. Not to me. I care what he said."

  "Why?"

  "Because he tells me the truth, Caleb."

  "How do you know?" Your hand floats out, comes to rest on my thigh.

  I knock your hand away, with sudden violence shocking to both of us. "No. You don't get to touch me." I feel vehemence boiling within me. Rage. Raw, potent fury. At you. At Logan. At everything.

  "How do you know he told you the truth?" you repeat. "He could have made it up."

  "I know. I've thought of that," I say. "The trouble is, that same question can be applied to you. How do I know anything you've told me is the truth? What do I believe? Whom do I believe?"

  You sigh. "The man who has always been there for you."

  "And why have you been? What do you get out of it? If it weren't for the ready availability of perhaps dozens of other women at your disposal, I'd say it was just for the easy access to sex. A captive audience, if you will."

  "That's not what you are to me, X."

  "Stop calling me that," I snap. "I am not Madame fucking X anymore."

  "Then who are you?"

  "I DON'T KNOW!" I shout the first two words, scream the third. Even Len twists his head to glance at me.

  "Shall I call you Nameless then?"

  "Do not mock me, Caleb Indigo." My voice is thin, as the blade of a knife is thin.

  "I'm not. Mockery is not my style."

  "What is your style? Pimping? Prostitution? That's what those girls are, beneath the thin veneer of salvation. They are still prostitutes. But now they work for you, and you are their only client. Until you sell them to the highest bidder, and then they become bride-slaves. You convince them they have a choice, but do they, really? Rachel does not have a choice. If she returns to the streets, she will once again become Dixie, the whore. Dixie, the drug addict. So for now, she is your whore, and you are her drug. She has no choice." I close my eyes and breathe out, letting the truth seep from my lips. "No more than I. We are your whores. We are your addicts. You are a drug, and you are in our veins."

  "You do not understand what you're talking about, X, Isabel, whoever you are."

  "Whoever I am. Apropos indeed, Caleb." I let a thick, tension-fat silence hang between us. "I'm going to ask you one question, and you will answer it truthfully, or I will never speak to you again."

  "All right." You sound calm.

  "How did you find me?"

  A sigh. An outbreath of resignation. "You've been surgically microchipped. I paid the surgeon who reconstructed your face two point five million dollars to insert it."

  This is a shock that goes beyond even numbness, a shock so great I am able to remain utterly still and calm. "Microchipped? Reconstructed?" I touch the left side of my face, just above my ear.

  "You don't remember?" You seem puzzled.

  "No." I try, and fail.

  I think back, but the days immediately after waking up are a blur, a haze of therapy and Caleb, surgeries an
d Caleb, nurses and Caleb.

  "The entire left side of your face was . . . a mess. The right side was perfect, unblemished. The left . . . was not. I imported the most skilled and renowned reconstructive plastic surgeon in the world, and paid him a rather large amount of money to restore you to your former beauty. The two and a half million dollars I mentioned was just the bribe to implant the chip, mind you. I paid him more than quadruple that to drop all of his other clients and fly to New York and fix you."

  I suppose I should be impressed by how much you spent to have me fixed.

  "When you say that I've been . . . microchipped--what does that mean?" I have trouble now forming words, forming breaths.

  You do not answer for a moment. "The scar on your hip . . . it was always there, since the accident, I mean. When Dr. Frankel had you under to fix your face, however, he sliced into that scar, implanted a very small computer chip, and closed the incision, making it look as if it had never been disturbed. The microchip allows me to pinpoint your location, down to the nearest meter." You lift your phone.

  I don't know what I am to think about your revelation. So I change topics. "Would you like to know the story Logan told me?"

  "If you wish to tell me, I will listen." Impassive, unconcerned. Disbelieving.

  Too much so, perhaps?

  "There was a car accident," I say. "My parents were killed, and I wasn't. They were immigrants. The police couldn't identify me, but because I was in a coma I might never wake from, the investigation was closed, leaving me a Jane Doe."

  "I see."

  "You see?" I stare at you. "What does that mean, 'you see'?"

  "It means there are problems with his story," you say. "Why could you not be identified? Were your parents illegal immigrants, that they didn't even carry basic ID? And even if we assume some bizarre sequence of events leading to your parents and you being unidentifiable, why would the investigation just be closed? They wouldn't just . . . give up. If Logan could figure out who you are, why couldn't the police?"

  "I . . ." My throat is dry and my spirit numb, my mind confused.

  "Six years, X. I've spent six years of my life caring for you. You think I would hold back this kind of information from you, if it were that easy to find it?" Do I think so? I don't know. You continue. "You've known me for six years, yet this man you've known for less than . . . what? I don't even know? How much time have you spent with him? A few hours, at most? And you are ready to believe whatever he says." You sound disgusted.

  I have no answers for your logic.

  "But my face, Caleb. You just said it was burned. How would that happen in a mugging gone wrong?"

  "I didn't say it was burned, X. I said it was messed up. You'd been beaten, savagely and brutally. The doctors think your face was kicked, that you'd tried to turtle, you know? Hands over your head? The damage was so severe your face would never be the same. I didn't want you to have to live with that, so I had it fixed. I never said you were burned."

  And just that fast, my nascent identity is gone.

  I hate you.

  "You are Madame X . . ." you say. And I want so desperately to be able to cling to that, but I cannot, and the words you speak, once so familiar and comforting, seem empty now. "And I am Caleb . . ."

  "Stop it, Caleb," I say, barely able to manage a whisper. "Just . . . stop."

  "If you wish to choose a new name--"

  "Why do you get to decide what I am allowed to do?" I ask. "Why is my entire life dependent on you? Why is my entire existence dependent on you?"

  You sigh. It is a long-suffering sound. "Stop the car, Len," you say.

  The car slides to a halt in the left-hand lane of Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from your tower, early-morning traffic rushing past on our right.

  You gesture at the car door, the window, the world beyond. "Then go. Find your own way."

  "Caleb--"

  You open your door, watching the traffic, and then circle around behind the vehicle. You pull open my door. Grab my wrist. Haul me out. Close the door, return to the rear driver's-side door. "You are not dependent on me because I insist on keeping you captive. It is just the way things are. You want your 'freedom' so badly"--you weight the word with sarcasm--"then so be it."

  You lower yourself into the car. The door closes with a soft thud. A smooth purr of the engine, and the Maybach glides away, leaving me alone.

  You have made your point: Where do I go? What do I do?

  Who am I? If I am not Madame X, who am I?

  Isabel? Is she real? Is Logan's story the truth?

  If it is, then that means yours is a lie; if yours is true, Logan's is a lie.

  There are holes in both stories. Reasons to doubt both. Perhaps neither are true.

  I have been walking as I think, and I do not know where I am. Not far from where you kicked me out of the car, a block or two away maybe. There is a church on a corner, dark stone, Gothic architecture. Stairs, with people sitting on them, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and talking on cell phones. I sit on a stair, legs tucked demurely beneath me, fighting panic.

  I am alone in Manhattan. I have no money. I have no identification. I have no identity. I am no one. If I go back to you, ascend your tower, I am consenting to be yours. Consenting to be Madame X.

  I could call Logan, but what do I know about him? Very little. What he's told me, and what I feel. I feel like I can trust him. I feel, when I'm with him, that anything is possible. I do not doubt him, when we are together. I know him. He is in me. Everything is okay, with him. But now, away from him, I doubt it all. I doubt him. I doubt me. I doubt Caleb.

  I don't even realize I'm crying until a foul-smelling old black man dressed in rags sits beside me, takes a swig from a brown paper bag-wrapped bottle, and eyes me sidelong. "Somebody done you wrong, huh?"

  I sniff. "Yes. No. I don't know."

  The old man nods sagely, as if what I said made some kind of sense. "Worst kinda pain, right there. The not knowing."

  "I don't know who I am." Why am I admitting this to a homeless drunk? But I am, and it is cathartic.

  "Yeah, me neither. But then I never was no one much. I ain't drunk 'cause I'm homeless, you know, I'm homeless 'cause I'm drunk." A swing, an eye cast toward the sky, as if seeking something in the clear, cloudless blue. "Or maybe it is the other way around. I can't 'member no more."

  "I can't remember either. I can't remember who I used to be, and I've lost confidence in who I am now." I don't bother wiping away the tears.

  "Don't need to know who you was, or who you is. Only need to know who you wanna be."

  That is a surprisingly helpful statement. I stare at the man, absorbing that last sentence. I only need to know who I want to be. Rachel said much the same, and so did Logan.

  The question remains, however: who do I want to be?

  I don't know.

  I don't know.

  At some point, the old man totters off, swigging endlessly from the bottle.

  I see you approaching, a god striding the earth among mortals. Navy blue suit, bespoke, of course. White button-down. No tie, top two buttons undone, baring a V of flesh. Dark hair swept back, effortless, artful. Eyes like black holes, absorbing all light and matter, absorbing, drawing, seeking, sucking everything in. Sucking me in. Dragging me in. You sit beside me, lean back, elbows on the stair behind you.

  "Come home, X."

  "Home?" I speak the word as a question, spit it like the bitterest gall. "Where is that?"

  "Oh for fuck's sake, X--"

  "I sit in your monstrosity of an apartment, waiting. You know what I wait for? You. I sit there waiting for you. Waiting for you to show up, so you can fuck me and then ignore me." Eyes around me seek me. I ignore them. You, however, do not look at me. You scan the crowds, watch the passersby, watch the river of cars, yellow and black and white and blue and red, watch anything but me. "I am discontent, Caleb. The status quo has been called into question. Who I am, who I was, who I will be, it's all up fo
r grabs. Do you even know what that's like?"

  "More than you know."

  "I don't want to be that person anymore, Caleb."

  "Then who--"

  I speak over you. "I don't know yet. I don't know anything anymore. I'm not sure I believe Logan, but no more do I believe you. I don't know what to believe." I stare at you, and finally you meet my gaze. "You can't keep me in thrall with your mantra anymore either. Everything has changed."

  "What changed you?"

  I shrug. "Logan." It is the simple truth.

  A few hours with him, and everything changed. I am not sure if I am grateful for this or not.

  "He's an ex-con," you say.

  I nod. "I know. He told me." I lick my lips. "He told me it had something to do with you. Or, that was the implication, at least. He wouldn't say what. It doesn't matter. I don't care."

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "I don't know."

  "Just come back with me. I'll help you figure things out. I'll give you space."

  "I don't know if I can be alone with you anymore. Not after what happened with you and Rachel."

  A sigh. A long silence. Another sigh. "Come back." Your eyes meet mine. I see a glimmer of emotion in them, a tiny, infinitesimal spark. "Please."

  Where else do I go? I have nowhere. No one. Rachel is tainted for me now. I cannot see Rachel without seeing you, fucking, pounding, spanking, staring at me.

  I want to go to Logan. I want to bury my head in the sand. I want his arms around me. I want his eyes on mine, his hands on me, his lips. I want that, so badly. I want his truth. The ease of everything that is him. But what if he's lying, too? What if I become addicted to him the way I'm addicted to you?

  You are a drug. I am hooked on you.

  I read a book about drug addicts, about addiction. How even when addicts know the drug is killing them, they cannot stop. They return to it time and again, despite knowing the toll.

  I return with you, despite knowing that I cannot trust you. That you are lying, that you are keeping the truth from me. That you are manipulating me into staying. I go with you, because I am addicted.

  SEVEN

  You pin me up against the door of the elevator, hips hard against mine, and your hands roam my body, one sliding up to grip my hair and the other stripping me of my clothes. Your mouth crushes mine, but this is not a kiss, this is a demonstration of ownership. Your mouth steals my breath. Your hands steal my will.

  Your body erases my thoughts. You are hard against me, giving me no chance of arguing, of hesitating, of pulling away. I am imprisoned by your mastery over my body. You know the buttons to push, and you push them. I am rendered helpless.