by JA Huss
But I’m not even sure what day it is anymore. I think it’s close to Christmas. I know Thanksgiving came and went. I ordered Chinese food and read a Scarlett Savannah novel. It wasn’t terrible. Lots of sex on motorcycles. Which was hot but wildly reckless, I thought.
In any case…
“Derek is on the phone for you,” Bryce says.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Hey, Pierce.”
“Derek! What’s up?”
“Well… I hesitate to tell you this, but the Paris deal looks like it’s falling through.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. They’re being very French about the whole thing. I’m going to fly over there this week and see if we can save it.”
“No… no. Don’t do that.”
“What? Really? Why?”
“I’ll go and talk to them myself.”
“Pierce. I’m not sure—”
“Derek, I got it. I won’t freak out. These are my people. I know how to deal with them.”
There’s a long, long pause. Followed by, “Pierce?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay? You’re not… sick or anything, are you?”
I laugh. Because I get it. I remember when my dad was nice to me back in New York, back when the fuse to the bomb that blew everything up got lit and I didn’t know it; I wondered if the guy was dying. Just because he was being nice to me.
When not being an asshole is the exception in your personality and not the rule, that’s something one really should take a hard look at.
“No, man, I’m fine. Just… I’ll go. K?”
“OK. If you’re sure…”
And then I decide that there’s only one way to make Derek realize everything’s OK…
“Derek, I said I’m sure! Jesus! Do you need me to have someone translate it for you? What the fuck?”
I hear a smile in his voice as he says, “OK. Great. Have a good trip.”
When people think of London around the holidays, what they’re actually thinking is Paris. Paris around the end of the year feels very Dickensian. Christmas villages, lights, trees… People fawn over La Tour de Eiffel, but L’arc de Triomphe is my favorite. They used to have the Christmas Market right on the Champs Elysées, but after some bullshit city ordinance dispute—it happens everywhere, it seems—they moved it to the Tuileries Gardens. Which is where I am right now. Strolling along, taking it all in. Andrew was right a few months back when he suggested I should come for a visit. It is grounding for me. I feel… I feel OK.
The situation with the building contract was no big deal to hammer out, after all. It came down to money, which so many things do. But in this case, I decided it would be easier to just give them what they wanted. In the past, I would’ve fought and been intractable and pushed and pulled until something broke or someone gave in.
But something I’m learning is that not all hills are worth dying on. Sometimes, to get the thing you want, you have to give up some control. Not completely. But enough so that, in the long run, you wind up getting the thing that actually, really matters to you.
Another way to say it is: Compromise.
Walking along, nursing my coffee, looking at all the gifts in the market, I catch a glimpse of something that draws my attention. A sign that reads: Joyeux noel de la maison de Sade!
Merry Christmas from the house of de Sade. As in: the Marquis de Sade.
I have to admit, I’m intrigued.
Landing at the joyfully decorated table, I see…
Whips. Handcuffs. Slings.
Cock cages…
All beautifully designed and all decorated with a distinctly holiday motif.
My God, I really do love Paris.
A smile comes over my lips and I can’t help but chuckle. I pick up one of the cock cages and my chuckle turns into a laugh. And then my laugh fades and I get unexpectedly forlorn. Which is not the usual reaction one has to a cock cage. Or maybe it is. I dunno. Could go either way, I suppose.
The woman working the tent—a woman who has multiple piercings in her ears, nose, eyebrows, and, I presume, elsewhere—asks if she can show me anything in particular. I’m just about to answer, “Non, je vais bien,” when off to my side I hear, in English…
“He’ll take one of everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - MYRTLE
I’d be lying if I said that Paris was a random choice when I decided to leave town and try to start over.
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t imagined a chance meeting with Pierce while I was here.
I’d be lying if I said my heart isn’t beating irrationally fast in this moment.
Because all those things are true.
When I got to the airport I looked up at the departures board and saw many possibilities. Most of which would’ve never ended with me staring straight into the eyes of Pierce Chevalier. I saw Anchorage. I saw Maui. I saw Orlando.
But Paris was on that board too. A non-stop to London with a layover, then on to France a few hours later. So I booked the one remaining first-class ticket and left. Telling myself the whole time that this was it. I was walking away for good. The end.
But inside I had this little dream. Little fantasy, if you will. That I’d be walking out of a classic Parisian coffeehouse, glance across the street through traffic, and our eyes would meet.
Not quite like this. I never imagined we’d both be standing in front of a house de Sade table admiring their dungeon wares. But it feels close enough to fate to justify my galloping heart rate.
“Myrtle,” he says.
“Pierce,” I say back.
I want to say so much more. Things like, You hurt me. I expected more from you. You remember my middle name but you forgot that you lied about the magazine? And the entire party was just a way to keep me busy?
But all that has been in said in some way or another. And it feels sad. It feels like it would lead to an argument and I don’t want to fight with him.
Because I have lost my fight. I am the tamed tiger, after all. And what I really want to say is, You hurt me and I’m sorry I walked out, because in doing so, I just ended up hurting myself. I want to tell him I’ve been miserable. Sad. Maybe even a little bit depressed. I want to tell him that I’d like to come home. I’d like my old job back. Not the VP job, but my job. The one he chose for me. The one I did better than anyone else. The one that made me whole. The one I looked forward to every day because it involved being on his team.
I want to tell him that he looks good. And ask him if he’s happy. And say congratulations on the booming success that Le Man has turned into under his leadership.
I want to tell him I’m sorry I didn’t give him a chance to explain. That was wrong. He deserves to be heard just as much as I do.
I want to tell him I miss him. Terribly.
I want to tell him I love him. Because I do. And there’s no way to deny it anymore. I feel this in my heart. I feel like we were meant for something bigger than this little string of misunderstandings.
But when I open my mouth none of that comes out.
Why, Myrtle? Why can’t you just say what you feel?
Some might blame past experiences. I was in a relationship once when I first got to Colorado that didn’t involve feelings like this. Or open communication. And even though I didn’t enjoy being that man’s submissive, I did enjoy his… detachment. So much so that when I left, I started up my own string of detached relationships.
It felt like the right way forward for me back then. And I was smart enough to know when it stopped feeling like the right thing to do and then I walked away.
And I’ve been thinking about this whole walking away thing since I got here to Paris. How I have done it several times now. How I have reshaped myself. Remade myself into a new woman.
That’s all I thought I wanted when I left but… turns out that’s not what I want.
Not even close.
I want him. I like me, with him. I want us to be
a team again.
“Say something,” he says, swallowing hard.
The woman in charge of the table looks at me, then at Pierce, then back at me. And she’s just about to open her mouth and save us both from this terrible, awkward moment when a patron comes up and distracts her.
Fate, it seems, will not intervene again. Once is enough, says fate. Now you’re on your own.
“Love is stupid,” I say.
“Is it?”
I nod. “Because…” I swallow hard now. “It’s so messy.”
The corners of his lips lift up, just a little. He nods. “It is pretty messy.”
And then all the messy things that have happened since last summer come rushing back. All the stupid feelings. All the stupid reactions to those feelings. All the wrong words that could come flying out of my mouth are there, hanging in the air in front of me. Whole paragraphs of wrong words strung out in long sentences flow out and shimmer in the cold December air.
All the ways to make this worse present themselves.
And I lose my nerve.
I am not the woman I thought I was.
I have never been that woman. Ever.
I am the wallflower. I am someone who fades into the background. I am the one who turns away and never looks back because I am too afraid to step forward and be seen.
That is what fate is trying to tell me now. That is the final chance I’ve been given.
Proof that people don’t change no matter how many costumes they put on. No matter how many blindfolds they wear. No matter how many cages they put themselves in.
I am just… a tiger, I guess. But in all the wrong ways.
“Well,” I say, wringing my gloved hands together. “It was nice seeing you again, Pierce.”
And then I just accept this fact and turn away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - PIERCE
“It was nice seeing you again, Pierce? Are you kidding?” I reach for her gloved hand. I catch it. She looks down at me holding her wrist and says…
“Let go of me, please.”
“No, thanks. Already did that. Didn’t like it much.”
With a knowing smile, the woman working the Christmas present sex toy table asks, in her Parisianated English, “Ah, you two are married?”
“No, we’re not,” Myrtle says.
“You talk like married people. Here. This, you should try.” She holds up a full latex suit, complete with a face mask that has only a breathing tube where the mouth hole should be.
I walk away, pulling Myrtle with me.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I don’t want to have this conversation in front of Catherine Robbe-Grillet.”
“How do you know who Catherine Robbe-Grillet is?”
“How do I not? She’s like the most famous dominatrix in France.”
“That wasn’t her.”
“Yes. I know that wasn’t her.”
“Catherine Robbe-Grillet is almost ninety.”
“I know! I was making a joke!”
“Oh, right. I forgot. You’re hilarious.”
I pull her off to the side, away from noisy children and meandering tourists.
“What?” she asks, huffily, as I let her arm go and she faces up to me.
“You’ve been in Paris?”
“Wow. How’d you puzzle that out?”
“OK—”
“You’re a real sleuth.”
“Jesus! Will you fucking stop for a second?”
I guess that was a little loud because a handful of people stop to stare.
“Alló, alló. Joyeuses fêtes,” I say as I smile and wave. Then I turn back to face her. The look on her face is as chilly as the winter wind.
“What?” she asks. “What do you want?”
“What do I want? Y’know, I didn’t see you. You saw me. You’re the one who came up and engaged me just now.”
“Yeah, well. Serendipity,” she says.
“OK, I don’t even know what that means.”
“It’s like coincidence, but—”
“I know what the word means! I don’t know what… look. Let’s just… can we start over?”
The look that meets me is one of near confusion.
“Start over?” she asks. “From when? Exactly which starting over point would you like to pick? From before you lied to me? Or from before you humiliated me? Although I guess those are technically related. So how about just before we met? How about we get in our wayback machine about seven years and maybe you just hire Valerie from the start? How about that?”
“What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”
“I gotta go,” she says and starts off.
“Myrtle, I’m sorry,” I call after her. “I’m sorry, please. Please, come on. Please let me try to apologize.”
She stops walking. She doesn’t turn around. Just stands there with her back to me. Her black hair blending into the black cashmere of her ankle-length winter coat. Then, after a moment, she turns slowly to face me again.
“How do you want to apologize?” She says it quietly. I have to step to her and ask her to repeat.
“What?”
“How do you want to apologize? Do you want to give me another raise? Make me CFO? COO? How about your job? You think that’ll be a good apology? What are you doing in Paris?”
“What?”
“Are you here about the building that you’re going to scoop up? Since the magazine is not only not failing, but doing so well that you can apparently buy a Paris headquarters?”
“Yeah…” I say, sheepishly. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Well, then. Just offer me that. I’m in Paris. I have no plans to go back. Why don’t you just offer me the job of running the Paris office? You think that’d make it all OK?”
I pause for a second. Then… “I—Would it?”
“Oh, my God! You are the stupidest smart person I’ve ever met!”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
“Goodbye, Pierce.”
She takes off again. Faster this time. I chase.
“Please, Myrtle, wait. Wait! Please! I love you!”
She doesn’t stop before she turns around this time. She just whips on me.
“Well, that’s great for you. That’s great that you get to feel that way. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with me, does it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you know why I came up with the idea of making you my submissive? Even if it was just going to be for a minute?”
I look at my feet. Nod. “Because you wanted me to feel humiliated like you felt humiliated. I know. I get it. I—”
“No,” she says, sadly. “You don’t get it. I mean, look, it’s partially on me. There’s no way that you could learn how to submit to me in the way I wanted in the time that we were going to have. It can take years to really understand. But, in short, being a submissive means that you learn to rely on me. To trust me. To trust me. And to know that I will never abuse that trust. That I will never hurt you. In return, I accept your submission and do not take for granted the gift of you giving your trust over to me.”
She looks into my eyes, searching for something.
“I’m saying the whole dom/sub relationship is about trust, Pierce. That’s it. That’s the deal. And it’s about considering someone else instead of just your own wants and desires. The problem? You can trust me, but I can’t trust you. And I’ve shown for years that I can put your needs above mine, but you can’t put me above you in any way. And to even consider trying anything with you again, I’d need something shared. Something we agree on. That’s why I wanted you to sign a contract, an agreement. Because for a long time, this has been a one-way street that travels in a direction I’m just not willing to go down by myself anymore.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
I think for a moment. Because you rarely get a second chance. And you really don’t get a third. Or a f
ourth. Or what the fuck ever number I’m on now.
“OK, it is fair. You’re right. But you just said it can take years. And I’m assuming that’s when you’re dealing with someone who isn’t so totally on the other end of the spectrum as I am. So, y’know, it’ll take me a little longer. But… is there any way you can try to give me that chance? Any way at all?”
She folds her arms and tucks her gloved hands against her chest. “How can you expect me to try when you didn’t even try a little?”
“Try a little what?”
“To come after me. To call or to come by or anything.”
“Yeah, I know.” What I don’t know is if she can hear the requisite shame in my voice. But it’s there. “I know. That was… I know. I’m sorry. I can try to explain, but… it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Right. OK. Well, I thought I was doing what you wanted. You made it very clear that we were on a zero-tolerance kind of a deal, and so… I just wanted to honor that. To submit to what I thought your wishes would be, if you will.”
“Don’t get cute.”
“I’m not trying to. I swear.”
I’ve known Myrtle for a long time. I’ve not known Myrtle for a long time. Both things are true. So I can’t be certain if what I’m sensing in her energy is a slight thawing, or if she’s just a sleeping tiger that’s about to wake up and rip my face off. But this is it. This is one hundred percent it. This game of cat and mouse stops here. I will have no more chances. I have to do something. And I have to do it now. So…
“What are you doing?” she asks as I put my coffee cup down, pull off my gloves and strip off my overcoat. “Pierce?” I don’t say a word. Competing voices volley in my brain. My father. Andrew. Eden. My own.
Myrtle. Hers is the one that’s the loudest. And it’s the only one that matters.
“Seriously, Pierce. What are you doing?” Her voice is a little more urgent. But that’s only because my shoes are off now, and I’m unbuckling my trousers.
“Oh, my God,” she says. “You’re not—?”
I am.
My pants come down and the cold winter air hits my legs like an icy scythe. What I wouldn’t give for some hot candle wax right now.