“I didn’t stop you. If it was too much, I would have used the safe word. Honestly, when you were tying me up, I wanted to die from excitement. And what you did after… I mean, it hurt, but it felt good at the same time. It felt thrilling. Everything in my body was buzzing.”
I drained the rest of my coffee, giving up the argument for now. She had stars in her eyes. She wanted more, and it would be so easy for her to convince me to give her more.
“You know, there’s a BDSM club in this area that’s really popular. I saw it online. It’s called Underworld.”
Underworld? My God.
“Maybe we could go there together.” She ducked her head, my little innocent. “I mean, you’ve probably been there already.”
“I have.”
She looked delighted. I closed my eyes a moment, wondering how to tell her that I’d outgrown the play scenes at Underworld in my teens. For a moment, the crunching of her dry cereal was the only sound between us. I had to end this before her blush got any pinker, before she got any more excited about going to Underworld.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, because I love you so much, Alice, but we’re not doing any more BDSM together.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too dangerous. I’m afraid you don’t really understand the sexual sadism thing.”
“I understand it fine.” She frowned, huffing out a breath. “We had such a great time last night. What am I missing? Am I crazy?”
“I told you last night that we weren’t going to go any further,” I reminded her.
“And then we did, because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. What’s the deal? It seems like the more compatibility we find with each other, the more you shove me away.”
“Alice…I’m afraid you’re making yourself compatible because you want to promote this relationship between us that’s never going to work.”
“Why won’t it work?”
“Because I…I’m not good at relationships.” Maybe that was a way to put it that she’d actually understand. “And I don’t plan on getting married, ever, so I don’t want to lead you on.”
“I don’t care if we get married. Just because I babbled about it that one time…” She shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to get married either. Can’t we just have fun?”
“I’m not going to be your fuckbuddy. Jesus. I took advantage of your willingness last night when I shouldn’t have. What happened was a mistake, something I didn’t intend to do.”
Mistake was probably a bad way to phrase it. It definitely upset her, but I was damned either way. If I agreed to keep playing with her, things would eventually become unmanageable. If I insisted on a platonic friendship, I probably wouldn’t have a friend. And if you’d controlled your fucking urges, jackass, you wouldn’t be in this situation. She pushed back her chair, the hurt I’d caused apparent on her features.
“You make me so angry.” She didn’t stamp her foot, but the voice was classic Lala, blunt, icy, and Nordic. “Friends can become lovers, you know. Friends can fall in love and have crazy, kinky sex, and everything can still be okay.”
She was driving me crazy. I wanted to slap her, or spank her, or read her the rules of The Gallery, and ask if she still believed everything would be okay. Any submissive brought into The Gallery shall be considered communal property and shared in any way her sponsor desires. The Gallery is a no-safe-word zone. The submissive’s limits will be determined by her sponsor. She didn’t understand that my idea of crazy, kinky sex was so much crazier and kinkier than anything she could dream up in her BDSM-beginner’s brain.
She didn’t understand how much I did not want to reveal that side of myself to her.
“It’s not okay for me to…be with you in that way,” I said. “For me, it’s not okay. Please try to understand.”
The earlier warmth between us, the embrace, the chaste kiss on the top of her head, it all seemed a million miles away. She was furious, and I was a jerk. The passion we’d experienced in our all-night lust explosion had become something negative, a point of contention. I hated that everything was ruined, that she wouldn’t be able to look back on our encounter together with any fond memories.
“I’m sorry,” I said, spreading my hands in apology. “I want us to stay friends, along with our families. I want to help you whenever I can, and make you that violin.”
“I don’t want a violin from you anymore.” Her lips trembled. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’d just feel sad every time I played it. You’re making me really sad, Milo, because you’re being weird and prickly, and acting like…acting like you don’t like me at all.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Really?” She passed a hand over her eyes and stalked from the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hall.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
I saw her wipe away a tear as she went into her room. “I’m leaving. I’m not staying here anymore.”
I followed her and got in her way. “You don’t have to leave. Can’t we just go back to how things were before last night? We’ll be friends. You can sleep in my guest room. We can hang out with Blue.”
She ducked around me and went to her closet for her luggage. “I don’t think that’s possible now.”
I didn’t help as she carried out a suitcase. “I don’t want you to leave, Alice, not like this.” I tried—and failed—to get in her way. “Do you remember what happened last time you left, or nearly left? What almost happened to you?”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, throwing her suitcase on the bed. “It’s very hard to forget that my apartment exploded. That’s why my violin’s gone, and all the clothes I liked, and all my shit. I would have exploded too, right? Maybe I should have, so I could have avoided all this embarrassment.”
“Don’t say things like that. And what embarrassment are you talking about? I’m not rejecting you. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You keep saying that, like you’re a fucking land mine or something.” She threw the contents of her underwear drawer in the suitcase, and added jeans and shirts on top of it. “I’m going to stay in a hotel.”
I grabbed her around the waist as she headed back to her closet. “No, you’re not.”
“You can’t stop me.” She broke away and started jerking clothes from their hangers. “The insurance will pay for it.”
“You’re not storming out of here to move into some random hotel, not like this. No.”
“Are you going to hold me hostage?”
She glared at me from inside the closet, and for a moment, I thought how fun it would be to hold her hostage, tie her up, put duct tape over her sassy mouth.
Yep, that was why I couldn’t be with her. Fuck me. Damn it.
I left her to her angry packing, went over by her door, and opened a window on my phone. She glared at me, throwing clothes into the other new suitcase we’d bought to replace the ones that’d gone up in flames.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
“Calling Ella to see if you can use her place, the apartment she got through work. She mostly lives with Devin now. Do you think that would work? It’s a decent-sized two bedroom on Mercer Street.”
“I don’t want to move into your friend’s apartment. Then you’ll know where to find me.”
“So our friendship is over forever?” I threw up my hands. “You’re going to hide from me, and avoid talking to me ever again?”
“Yes, I would like to,” she yelled.
“I think you’re overreacting.” When I got angsty, more of my Italian accent came out. “Are you that hard up, that you need to be with a soulless sadist like me?”
She shoved down a jumble of clothes and slammed one of the suitcases shut. “It has nothing to do with being hard up. And you’re not soulless. Last night, I thought you were even more amazing than I knew. I thought everything felt great. I thought it was perfect.”
“Alice.” I sighed. “That feeling
won’t last.”
She shook her head and went back to packing. “You’re such a fucking asshole.”
“Thank you for finally realizing what I’ve been telling you all along.” I looked down at my phone. “Ella says you can use her place. She has the lease for two more months, so she’ll meet us there with the keys.”
Alice opened her mouth to refuse the offer, but my expression must have made her reconsider.
“Fine. That’s nice of her,” she finally said.
“I’m going to take you there with all your stuff,” I said, indicating the pile she’d made of her belongings, “and let you have all the space you want, for as long as you want.” I sat at the foot of the bed. She had so few things since the fire, she was almost done packing. “But I’m still making you a violin.”
“Great.” She closed the other suitcase with a whump. “I’ll never play it. I’ll sell it to someone else for lots of money.”
After that, she gave me the silent treatment. Fine. She had a right to be angry, just as I had a right to protect her from my deviant sex life. Someday she’d calm down and forgive me for everything. Maybe in a year or two, we could go back to being something akin to friends. But there would always be that one night between us, and the wretched morning after.
When I returned from taking her to Ella’s place, Blue moped around the living room, and finally sprawled with theatrical melancholy in his bed.
“No wonder you got along so well,” I told him. “You’re both drama queens. Hey, man, you could have tried harder to make her stay.” But he’d disappeared when we started arguing, because he hated conflict. I wasn’t a fan of it either. “She might come back.” But I doubt it.
I went into the now-empty guest room, because I already missed her and the energy she’d brought to my quiet place. Everything was arranged the way it had been when she’d first moved in. Maybe she was wise to pack her things and get out. It was too hard for the two of us to live together. She’d taken everything, except the Pressenda violin I’d loaned her, which was propped in its case outside my instrument room’s door.
Over the last twenty-four hours, our relationship had gone from the highest emotional highs to the darkest depths, like the greatest violin concertos, only this concerto was unfinished, its denouement cut short.
Chapter Twelve: Alice
Ella’s loaner apartment was older and charming, like the apartment I’d bought in the Michelin building. Well, the former Michelin building.
I cried as I unpacked, going over everything that had happened between Milo and me. In hindsight, it was so embarrassing. I’d offered myself to him with no reservations, practically begging him for sex. He’d fucked me everywhere, grasping and controlling me, acting out my perfect fantasy of a dominant lover. A Dominant, as they said in the lifestyle. Capital D. I’d done things with Milo that I’d never done with anyone else, and now I hurt in places that had never hurt before in my pre-masochistic life.
I’d been so turned on by everything he did. I’d been so excited by his violent possession, so eager to try more. I’d been so sure our night of connection was the start of our “forever” love story, but no. It turns out it was just a tawdry, ill-thought-out one night stand on his end.
Ugh. I had to let it go. Ella’s minimalist apartment didn’t have a large, cozy fireplace, or a shy greyhound who loved me, or a climate-controlled instrument room, or a secret dungeon, but it was a place to be alone and lick my wounds. Eventually I stopped crying and finished unpacking, and decided I’d make the best of things. I called a fellow violinist from the orchestra, a pompous society son who took every opportunity to brag about his vast collection of instruments. He agreed to let me borrow a modern vintage Yang until I figured out what violin I’d buy next.
A Fierro was out. Milo could make me as many violins as he wanted, but I’d never play any of them. Too much sadness. There were plenty of other contemporary makers I could look into, or maybe I’d spring for a Strad of my own. My father could help me track one down with his network of musical contacts. I emailed him the next day, after a frustrating rehearsal with the Yang, and wrote in English rather than Swedish so he’d be less likely to sense that my life was unraveling.
Dear Pappa,
How are you? I’m doing well. I’ve found a new place to live while I look for an apartment, courtesy of one of Milo’s friends. It’s on Mercer Street, in a very busy area of the city, but I like it a lot. Maybe I’ll look for something down here in Lower Manhattan, rather than the area around Lincoln Center.
I’m also having second thoughts about playing a Fierro for my next instrument. I was thinking about trying one of the older makers, just for a change? I’m sure there are options to buy here in New York, but maybe you can ask if any of your friends would like to sell. I’m open to anything.
That’s it for now. We’re playing Tchaikovsky tonight, Orchestral Suite No. 2. Give Mamma a kiss from me. Please visit soon!
Love,
Lilly-Alice
His reply came the next day in Swedish. Yes, he would ask around with his friends, but why not a Fierro violin again? Wasn’t Milo making me one? I delayed answering the email, and hoped my dad wouldn’t call. It would worry him to know that Milo and I weren’t on good terms anymore, especially since proximity to Milo was one of the main reasons I’d taken the job at Met Orchestra.
A few days after I moved in, Ella texted and asked if she could stop by. I couldn’t delay that reply, since it was her place, and some of her things were still stashed in the closet. She showed up a few hours later with her friend Juliet.
“Hi, it’s good to see you both,” I said as I let them in. “But I have a question. Did Milo send you?”
“No,” said Ella, blinking her blue eyes. “Well, kind of.”
“What she means is that we’re here because of Milo,” said Juliet. “But he didn’t ask us to come.”
“Not in so many words,” Ella hedged. She looked around the living room, her expression brightening. “It looks like you’ve mostly moved in.”
“I have. Thank you so much for letting me borrow this place.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t been using it, and I was given an open-ended lease, rent free. The National Science Foundation is footing the bill.”
I remembered that Ella was a theoretical astrophysicist, working on some high-level project, and that Juliet managed some rich, famous artist. Not only that, but they were both in happy, healthy relationships. Juliet’s engagement ring sparkled as she threaded her fingers around the cuff of her over-the-knee socks. Ella sat on the edge of the couch, looking uncomfortable, even though this was her place.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked them.
“That’s okay,” said Juliet. “We don’t want to take up your afternoon. You play with the orchestra tonight, don’t you?”
“My call time’s not until six.”
“Oh, okay.” Ella let out a breath and looked at her friend. “So, the reason we’re here is that we heard through Fort and Devin that you and Milo had a…”
I waited to see what we’d had. A fling? A one-night stand?
“A falling out,” Juliet provided as Ella fell silent. “Milo confided with Fort about what happened between you.”
“Not all the details,” said Ella quickly, in a way that made me think she knew way too many of the details. “Just that you found his dungeon, and the two of you played in there a little, and that things didn’t go well.”
“That’s the thing,” I said, scratching my temple. “They did go well, in my mind at least. But he was like, that’s that, we’re not doing anything else, I don’t want to hurt you, blah blah blah. So, you know…” I was the one to shrug this time. “I felt like I had to move out, because I couldn’t think of him as ‘just a friend’ after the things that went on.”
“Nothing he did upset you?” asked Ella.
“No, I enjoyed all of it. I mean, I guess you know what he’s into.”
T
hey both nodded, and Ella blushed, biting her lip. “Full disclosure: we’re into it too, Alice. The BDSM, the power exchange and sado-masochistic stuff.”
“Cause it’s fun, right? I really liked all the crazy stuff he did. He bound my hands and spanked me, and used—” I gestured toward my breasts.
“Nipple clamps?” Juliet provided.
“Yes. He even choked me once. Well, a few times. Not real choking, but you know, gripping my neck really hard. He thought it was too much for me, but it wasn’t too much at all. It’s like he’s ashamed of the kinky activities he enjoys.”
“I don’t know,” said Ella. “Maybe he’s just worried about letting his sadist flag fly around someone new. Someone…inexperienced.”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes. “I guess he’s used to playing with more experienced people. I get it, but there’s more between us. We have a longtime connection.”
Juliet looked down at her ring, straightening it on her finger. “I heard Milo tell Fort that he loved you.”
“I guess. Unfortunately, he loves me like a sister. Or a cousin.”
“No, it’s more than that.” She leaned closer, meeting my eyes. “He and Fort talked about you for a long time, and I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I was just so fascinated to hear Milo say that he loved someone, and that he didn’t know what to do.”
“Because Milo always knows what to do,” said Ella.
I looked at them, wishing they’d say what they’d come here to say. The more they talked about Milo, the more I remembered our torrid night, and the worse I felt. “Milo’s made up his mind about me,” I said. “He ‘respects me too much’ to take things any further. It was a brutal conversation.” I looked around at Ella’s mostly bare apartment. “That’s why I had to come here. He didn’t want me to go to a hotel.”
“Because he cares about you,” said Juliet.
The women exchanged a look again, Juliet dark-haired, and Ella as blonde as a northern Swede. Then both of them fixed their eyes on me.
“I’m just going to say this.” Ella moved closer to where I sat. “Milo Fierro is kind of famous at this club we go to, for being the most hardcore guy.”
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