by Kitsy Clare
“Your beautiful body, your hot butt.” With this, he gives me a pat on my rear.
“No, really. I want to know more about you.”
“Ah! You want to hear the great mythology of Casper Mason,” he quips.
“Why would you call your past a myth?” I stare at him, dead on. “I want to hear about the real Casper Mason. The hard times, your family, your mom. How you grew up.”
“Oh that…you’re so serious, Sienna,” he says dismissively, and starts kissing me. He moves down seductively to kiss my breasts then he circles in on my nipples—teasing and licking them to hard nubs. I want to challenge him, get to know him. But everything’s forgotten in the red heat of our connection. He’s good at distractions that’s for sure!
Our pattern of lounging in bed, eating gourmet meals, and me cataloging his work continues. All the while, I’m wracking my brain to come up with a different way to get Caz to open up. The next time we’re cuddling under his quilt, I decide to talk about my own past. My theory? If I spill my guts, it’ll inspire him to.
“You want to hear about my checkered past?” I ask him, stroking his hair cascading over the pillow in auburn waves. I swear, his hair is prettier than mine.
“Sure, Sienna.” Turning toward me and winking, he props his head up on his hand “Tell me all of your dirty secrets.”
“Not sure I have dirty secrets in quite the way you’re insinuating.” I chuckle. “But, here goes. I was embarrassed to bring my boyfriends over because my mom was a hoarder. The place was a horrible mess. That’s why I’m obsessively neat.”
“That must’ve sucked,” he says, brushing a strand of hair from my face. Good, I’ve roused his tender emotions. I’m bound to hear something authentic.
“It did suck.” I sigh. “Okay, I’ve spilled a humiliating part of my past. Your turn.”
Caz’s expression shifts from tender to guarded. It’s subtle but evident in the way his eyes narrow, how he grits his teeth. “I don’t want to play,” he mock whines. “I’d rather hear more about you.”
Epic fail on my theory of inspiring him to reveal by revealing first! “No fair,” I insist.
He glances at the clock on his side table. “Crapola.” Rolling over, he sits up and wriggles his gorgeous bod back into his ripped jeans. “Listen, Sienna, I’ve got to finish something up before I—”
“Before you what?”
“Um, I have to put finishing touches on a piece and then speak to a client. I lost all track of time.” He leans over and wraps me in a long, achingly loving hug. “You make me forget everything.”
“Even your past?” I nudge when we break apart.
He gives me a good-natured, but irritated, eye roll, and then hustles off to his studio.
I’m disgruntled and frustrated. Even though, an hour ago, he brought me to a mind-numbing, loin-tingling climax. But I want more than sex. I want us to take the relationship to a deeper place. I get up and shower, slip into a pretty lavender dress I’ve brought here to look good for Caz. Then I brew myself tea and settle in to finish up the Munich and Copenhagen cataloguing. It’s hard to concentrate because Caz has managed to upset me once again. He’s like a stony walnut that won’t snap open, even with a nutcracker. Guess I’ll need a titanium one!
A couple of weeks ago, I stopped myself from betraying his trust and sneaking into his secret sanctum. That took a lot of discipline. I’ve asked him about his past in a more honest way, but no dice. Why does he steer me masterfully away from any talk of his childhood? It makes me worry even more about what he’s hiding. What? Was he born with three heads? Conscripted into the CIA at thirteen?
For the moment, Caz is safely ensconced in his studio. He’s been working on a new series of sculptures that he won’t show me, even though I’m still functioning as his intern. He claims his work-in-progress is too raw and unsettled for anyone to see. He promises to unveil it soon. At least, there’s that.
So, there’s time to poke around. I close out the catalogue window and peek around in his files. No old photos, no letters saved from friends back home in the Carolinas.
Logging onto Google, I poke around more. As before, there are tons of articles about his million-dollar sales, his theatrical sculptures and installations, but that’s it.
The single tidbit about him before he set foot in Manhattan is that same old canned myth about him tromping up north in his hiking boots and flannel shirt and taking on the city like an urban Johnny Appleseed. Nothing more factually revealing or personal? I need more.
The lack of authentic info is really starting to bother me. Unease spreads in me.
Disgusted with myself as much as with him, I log off. This online stalking makes me feel corrupt, so I get back to cataloguing.
Even that’s making me feel weird. I’m not so sure I like working for my boyfriend. Being his secretary slash intern, even his cherished one. I sip my lukewarm tea while I ponder this. Perhaps it’s time to look for another job. That way, we can just be lovers—be as close to equal as we’ll ever be. Looking up toward the door, a flash of crimson hits my gaze. My eyes settle on that flipping key. He’s put the thing back in there. Why?
Just then, Caz lopes into the office and over to me. His hair is wet from a shower, and he’s wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips. He gives me a mini shoulder rub. “How’s my favorite lady faring on that catalog work?”
“Caz?” Wow, the shoulder rub is so relaxing, I need to force myself to focus. “How come there’s nothing about you online?”
He stops the shoulder rub. “Nothing?” Leaning over me, he clicks into a bunch of Casper Mason sites. Casper at MoMA, Casper interviewed by the head feature editor from ArtNews, a front-page article in the New York Times art section about his sugar vats that piss colored sand. “Is this chopped liver, or what?”
“Impressive, Caz, but there are no sites about where you went to high school, your family, and stuff.”
He sighs heavily. There’s sadness in it, but in a flash his face lights up into one of his gotcha glints. “Look, no one wants to hear that stuff. They want the glossy story about me storming into New York in my hiking boots and flannel shirts and taking on Manhattan. You know, the making of a star thing.”
That stale line again. My hackles rise. “But, Caz, I told you, I want your real story. Come on! Tell me about when you were a kid. We should get to know each other more.”
“God, you’re insistent.” He sits next to me in one of his expensive chairs and toys with my hair. “Um, I was a boy, and I swam in water holes and pulled girls’ pigtails….” With this, he gently yanks a lock of my hair and uses it to pull me toward him until our lips are pressed together. “I adored pulling girls’ pigtails,” he murmurs. And kisses me again. “My boyhood was boring. Let me love a pretty art princess instead of dwelling on my past.” And then he’s off to get dressed.
Holy crap. As hot as his kiss was, that line about pulling girls’ pigtails was the canned cap off line of the Caz mythology on those commercial Google sites. Really? Is that all I get? Brushing a finger across the place where he kissed me, I stare at that goddam key until my chest catches fire.
When Caz returns, ten minutes later, he’s pimped out in a form-fitting charcoal suit and a purple shirt that accentuates his fiery hair. His musky cologne wraps its magic around my senses when he leans over and licks my ear. “I have to dash out for coffee with a client, up the street at Peter Luger’s Steakhouse. Know it?”
“Yup, sure.” That was where I hung out, waiting for Harper on the very first night of my internship. It brings back all of Harper’s warnings about Caz, how angry she was at me, how testy Caz was. A crappy bunch of memories to pop into my head, especially right now.
“You going to be okay here for about an hour?” he asks, running his thick, callused finger along the curves of my cheek.
Resist him, I think. “I’ll be fine. Is Tommy still here?” I glance down at my watch and then over to the key. Should I come out and ask h
im about the damn thing?
“It’s after six. Tommy’s gone for the day.” Despite my frustration, Caz’s chocolate-brown eyes warm me with their concern. “You’ll lock the inner door?” I nod. “Hang tight. I’ll make us dinner when I get back. Sound good?”
“Sounds delicious.” A smidgen of coldness creeps into my tone.
And then he’s gone. I glare at the key. He’s testing me again, the devilishly handsome shithead! Why is he all dressed up, anyway? Is he meeting some woman out there? “Come on, Sienna,” I scold. “You sound a little psycho. There’s no evidence of that.”
Then what is he hiding? My mind goes there. Of course it goes there. Here I am, doing his grunt work while he gets his jollies. “Sienna, you’re losing it, calm down,” I tell myself.
But it doesn’t work. My treacherous mind slips back into insecurity, and the past, to my childhood. My own pain.
I remember the night my mom found out my dad was cheating on her. She found a heap of phone numbers hastily scrawled on napkins in his desk drawer. It was locked, but she found the blasted key under his deodorant in the bathroom cabinet. A stupid hiding place, almost like he was testing her.
Men and their secret stashes, so easy to find.
For my mom, finding those letters was like a grenade dropping on her. I heard her crying in her room and, I’m not sure why, but I was already shaking. Knocking on her door, I asked if she was okay. She muttered something I couldn’t hear, so I took it upon myself to open the door and walk in. I sat by her in silence and rubbed her quivering back.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes, I asked her what was wrong. And my world broke into pieces when she spoke. “Your father walked out on us. I found out he was cheating on me.” She resumed her crying.
“Why would he walk out if he was cheating?” I asked stupidly. “Did you kick him out?” I was also wondering why he didn’t bother to tell me he was leaving.
She wiped her nose on some damp Kleenex. “I said, I might be able to forgive him if he went into counseling. But he started yelling about how the place was a pig hovel and I was a slob and….” She couldn’t go on, except between sobs. “I’m so sorry, Sienna.”
What? Did she actually feel it was her fault he cheated and then ran out? I looked around the room through tear-filled eyes and saw the mounds of dirty clothes, the randomly thrown shoes, the crusted-over plates on her side table. Yeah, I saw a mess, the clutter he used as an excuse to split. And I hate to say it, but I blamed her, too.
Now, shaking off the dreadful memory, I think of Caz, how I’ve tried for these last two weeks to get him to talk—to open up and share his pain, his inner heart.
I don’t want to be put in my mother’s situation of not knowing the guy I’m with. Ever.
I need to know who Caz is, know that his love is real, that he is who he says he is, understand why he’s still so closed up, so damn jokey at the very times most people would be serious.
I stare at the key. I don’t want to do what my gut is telling me to, but my mind won’t stop arguing with itself. You’re losing your one chance, it prods. What if he never opens up to you about who he really is? I mean, how can he not have any online past? Who pulls that off?
If I go in there and find something awful, maybe I could help him with it without telling him exactly how I know. God, I’m so screwed up, just as full of crap as he is. But I need to know who he is, completely. I deserve that before I give myself to him again. Time’s up, it’s now or never, my mind yammers at me like some persistent maniac.
When I spin around and march down the hall to that secret sanctum door, my heart is pounding so hard I’m sure I’ll pass out. Caz will come back and find me sprawled out in front of the door, the key in my limp, thieving hand.
My need to know overcomes any good sense I have.
I thrust the key in, turn it, and push the door until it swings open with a low creak. My breath hitches. Oh, my God. I did it. I flick the light switch. Nothing. It’s pitch black. Is this yet another weird game? Has Caz intentionally removed the overhead bulb? Wouldn’t put anything past him, my overheated mind gripes.
I scramble back to the office for the mini LED flashlight Harper gave me. It’s good I stashed it in my bag in case of more blackouts or unforeseen plights. This one qualifies. I close up my messenger bag and look up to see the rotting jack-o’-lanterns grin crookedly at me from the windowsill.
Running to the secret room again I switch on the flashlight and frown. Shoved up against the back wall are clear plastic recycling bags full of Jack Daniels bottles surrounded by barbed wire. Holy mother of pearl, is Caz a bad drunk? Why would an alcoholic keep all of this evidence—and why behind barbed wire?
To the right of the bags near the wall shelves is the mannequin Harper described with the little girl’s dress on it. The dress is torn, just like Harper described. One sleeve’s been ripped clear off.
I shudder. Is Caz a freaking pedophile, too? No way. He couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be able to get it up for me if he were into little girls. Then, what?
Avoiding the barbed wire, I reach up for a stack of papers on his shelves. I cough when dust billows down along with a bunch of old news articles wrapped in twine. I undo the twine, carefully extract one edition, and unfold it. By the light of the flashlight I read, incredulously.
Charles Mitton struck four-year-old Ella Gaines who ran out in the intersection of Daily and Taunton Streets Thursday morning, March eighth. Her mother was taking her daughter to pre-kindergarten classes. According to an eyewitness, the small child had run way ahead of her mother and dashed out between two parked cars. The eyewitness stated in a deposition that although the driver was going at a slow clip, the girl was thrown onto the hood of a parked car, fatally hitting her head.
Mitton did not resist when taken in for questioning. He was released later that day after no guilt was determined. The eyewitness stated that the girl was jaywalking.
Who’s Charles Mitton? A good friend of Caz’s? An earlier colleague? I flip open another article and continue reading, despite a spreading emptiness.
The funeral of Ella Gaines was held at Amarillo Unitarian Church on Sunday, March tenth at 10:00 a.m. A private viewing in the chapel for the family preceded the service.
How awful. This tragedy must’ve taken place in Texas. That’s where Amarillo is. Who does Caz know all the way out in Amarillo? He’s from North Carolina. Did he spend time in Texas before he lived in the Carolinas?
Against the opposite sidewall is a raggedy chair. I sit and continue to read, beaming the light on the dusty papers. Each article is a slightly different version of the last story. Why would Caz save all of these papers? Think harder, I warn myself, because he’s coming back very soon and he’ll see I’m not exactly doing his catalog work. I’m not drawing, either. In the pit of my stomach a distinct and dreadful possibility I can’t bear to face weighs me down.
Drawing. My mind meanders to our conversations about our art. What was it Caz said, then? Something about, when you want to make your work more formal, more haunting, all you need to do is to alter one word, one or two letters. I think about how he took that sheet of visualizing paper and altered my drawing, just a little. And then he showed me how if you alter the Schneitryn Sugar sign, just tweak the letters, you get strychnine. Oh my God!
Staring at the name in the last article I tweak the letters, just a few. My whole body goes into shock when it hits home….Casper’s manipulations, his hideous secrets.
It’s hard to catch a breath. With quivering fingers, I hurriedly tie the twine back around the stack when I hear footsteps, and in a flash they’re loud as hell, right outside the door. I’m so, so dead.
I leap up and drop the flashlight while I’m trying to shut it off. It lands at an awkward upward angle, shining ghoulish light on Casper’s chin as he dashes in. He runs around to the other side of the door and leans in to turn on an overhead switch hidden behind it. “What are you doing in here?” he asks.
His face is a shifting façade of anger and betrayal. Panic is also clear in the ring of white around his dark irises. And his long, windblown hair lends him the look of a madman, even in his fancy clothes. “I asked you a question, Sienna.” His tone is tight, simmering with barely controlled rage.
I wag the stack of news clippings at him. “When were you going to tell me who you really are?” I shake my head. “Your grand theory of art, how with one tiny stroke or one little reorganization of letters you can change your whole composition. You did that with your life, too! Changed a few letters—I to A, and two Ts to an S—and suddenly your name is Mason instead of Mitton. Right? Changed your first name from Charles to Casper. Casper the freaking ghost! Holy mother of hell, Caz, why?”
He lunges forward and, for a terrifying moment, I’m convinced he’s going for my neck, but instead he grabs the clump of papers from me. Stepping back, his eyes emit spears of hatred. “How dare you read these!” he yells. “How dare you accuse me of anything? You don’t know what I’ve been through. You’ve known me a short six weeks. So, who do you think you are, huh?”
“A person, an artist…your lover! It hurts that you’ve never told me anything. Am I that unimportant to you? I’ve been trying to get you to open up, tell me something, anything real about your past. Why didn’t you tell me why you had a phobia of cars? I would’ve understood you better. You must’ve been so devastated when that girl ran out in front of your car. If you’d talked about it, I would’ve comforted you. Instead, all you did was snap at me, yell at me. Scare me.”
“Thanks, but don’t be so melodramatic, Sienna. Some people are private. Some things don’t need to be exposed.” I was about to run over and hug him, but that melodramatic cut is so glib, so patronizing.
“Maybe it would’ve been good for you to talk about it. Ever think of that? So, who’s the melodramatic one? I didn’t make up a whole mythology of my life.” I know I shouldn’t run my mouth, but I can’t stop myself. I feel like I’m racing down an icy hill on a sled, and I know I’m going to crash, but I can’t bring myself to stretch out my legs out and dig in to slow the damn thing down.