They cleaned off excretions and dressed then, giving each other happy looks as they did so.
The bartender drove her home as he promised, telling X it was alright to smoke in his car, and right before she exited his vehicle, he leaned over to kiss her.
“What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.
“Michael. And yours?”
And then X said her name, the syllables of it sounding foreign on her tongue.
“I want to see you again,” he said.
X began to open the door. “We’ll see,” she returned. “Thank you,” she said, “for the ride, I mean,” aware of the double entendre.
He looked up at her, his eyes alight. “My pleasure.”
14.
Alarm, consciousness, toilet, shower, shave, suit, coffee, food, news, car, work: that was Simeon’s typical morning. But this particular morning was different, one in which he awoke with a special anticipation, one in which he interjected masturbation before exiting his bed. And as he closed his eyes, his hand moving piston-like under his sheet, the images in his mind were primarily those of X—her hair, her breasts, her mouth, her ass (especially her ass), and then the smooth pubic mound that he had glimpsed when he had pulled down her pants in the fake hotel bathroom, followed by his remembrance of the photo of X in her dominatrix costume and the fantasy of his own penis gripped not by his hand but instead by the soft warmth of X’s vagina, and that was all that it took.
Before X had come into his world, before he had even been told about her, his life had lacked the sharp voltage that X’s presence seemed to emanate, the piercing thrill that the simple knowledge of her existence seemed to create.
There had been other women, of course, many of them. He had liked the sweet ones and the slutty ones, had even tried to enjoy the uncomfortable mornings when he hadn’t snuck out of a woman’s bed in time. But that carousel had ultimately bored him.
When he had heard of X, the impressive mythos surrounding her, and then when Compton had wanted her, Simeon had known that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had conquered her. He had never wanted to conquer a woman more.
Today he would follow her, get to speak with her again. He knew that she detested him and resisted him, but those reactions only made him desire her more. And those times that Simeon had touched X came into his mind now: the way her body had fallen into his arms so languid and pliant after he had placed the drugged rag over her face; the way she had struggled under his weight after he had tackled her first onto the floor after she had thrust the glass at him and then onto the bed after she had smacked him and tried to kick him.
Simeon wanted X to submit to him, to obey his commands, but her refusal had created a challenge for him. He would have to threaten her, bribe her, and frighten her in order for her to do what he wanted. As he waited in his vehicle in front of her apartment for her to exit so that he could follow her, his desire was only to have X yield to him, to give herself to him completely, to bend like a reed to his wind. It was not simply that he wanted to have sex with her, (although he wanted that, too)—no, he wanted to break her like a horse is broken; he wanted this woman, an equal to himself, to defer to him, to concede to his dominance.
Finally, as he sipped the last of his coffee from his travel mug, he spotted X exiting her apartment. He watched as she entered her car and then he started his vehicle and followed her. He parked as she ran into a coffee shop and emerged with a cup of coffee, and then he continued trailing her until she eventually went to the parking area by the beach.
He waited in his vehicle as she exited her own, watched as the winter wind from the surf blew her dark hair wildly until she secured it in a loose bun, watched as she pulled the sweater she was wearing closer around her body and walked towards the surf, and once she was near it and his erection had retreated, he went to talk to her.
When X spotted Simeon in the distance, she turned around and began to walk as quickly as she could, but he caught up to her.
“You again,” she said.
Up ahead, a middle-aged couple was playing Frisbee with their dog, the animal jumping to catch the toy with a weightless fluidity.
“Stop,” he said. “I need to talk with you.”
“What is it?”
“Compton asked you to go to Paris, didn’t he?”
X looked out to the ocean horizon. Seagulls circled around her and Simeon looking for food on the beach, making fierce cries to each other.
“Yes, he did.”
Simeon looked irritated. “Have you told him that you are going to accompany him?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t have his phone number. Should I send him a letter?”
“You should have told him when you saw him last time that you would go.”
X sat onto the sand and listened to the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach. She wanted to dissolve into the primal movement of them, the trance of their repetition.
X said, “What do you want me to do there, Agent Simeon? Let me guess…fuck him.”
Simeon, who was still standing, crossed his arms and looked down at X, his dark sunglasses shielding his eyes.
“We want you to note who his business partners are. We want you to keep track of where you are staying and when he goes to meetings. He is starting to trust you. And we believe that one of his associates, Eliot Ventura, will be there as well. He’s an Italian business man and we may want you to help us recruit him.”
X stood up, brushed the sand off her rump, and started to walk away. Simeon followed X, grabbing her arm and telling her to stop. To the other people on the beach, it appeared that they were just a couple having a spat.
“Get your hands off of me!” she said. “You just keep pulling me in deeper and deeper, don’t you? First Compton and now this other man? No. That wasn’t part of the deal. Plus, what would Compton think seeing me hit on one of his associates?”
“He wouldn’t care,” Simeon said. “He’s excited by the idea of being a cuckold. Didn’t you see it on the list?”
X slapped him and he clutched at her wrists.
He came in close to her and said, “You’re the Virgin Mary, huh? You go around fucking bartenders but when we want you to do something for us, you won’t give us an inch.”
“You’re watching me?” she said, enraged.
“Of course we are. We weren’t positive that you fucked the bartender but now we know.”
“Look,” she said, “it’s Compton and that’s it. Nobody else. And after you get the information you need, I want out. I want free.”
Overhead, the seagulls were shrieking as if mocking them.
Simeon pulled out a small thumb drive from his interior suit pocket and handed it to X.
He said, “We need you to put some software onto his computer. It will install automatically and only take a few minutes.”
“He’s never going to let me onto his computer.”
Simeon rubbed his chin, moving his thumb over the slim scar on his jaw.
“Your brother,” he began, “the lab where his drug tests go, it’s in Pasadena. He’s got another one coming up soon as I understand.”
X stared at him with disdain. “Don’t you think he’ll get suspicious if he sees me fiddling with his computer?”
“Then tie him up and do it then.”
“Fine,” she said, putting the drive into the pocket of her jeans.
X began walking along the sand, the footprints she left accompanied by Simeon’s beside her own. Bright rays of sun cut through the clouds above, illuminating them.
“I have something to ask you,” she said.
“Sure.”
“You said that Compton is funding the movement of artillery through the Middle East. Why would he do that?”
“To destabilize the region.”
“But why?”
Simeon stopped and looked out to the ocean. X stopped with him.
“When Pakistan and Pal
estine and Syria have weapons, it makes Israel nervous, and then Israel buys more weapons from the United States. When Israel gets nervous, the U.S. produces more weapons for itself. And Compton, who owns large amounts of stock in weapons factories, makes himself a fortune.”
“But Steinberg, his assistant, is a Jew. That’s a Jewish name.”
“Compton doesn’t care.”
“He should.”
X thought about the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. They were all sons of Abraham. God’s poor dysfunctional family.
Simeon put his hand on X’s arm for the sole reason that he wanted to touch her. “You assume that Steinberg cares. Neither of them cares. Steinberg does whatever Compton wants; he’s the closest thing the man has to a wife. Look, the information that you get for us will help to stabilize the global community. I know that’s difficult to believe but it will. We’ll have our access person let Compton know that you are going to accompany him and Steinberg will let you know where and when to meet him. But there is something important you need to know. Every year in Paris, Compton attends a masquerade ball. He will want you to go with him.”
“To a ball? Fine.”
“It’s an orgy,” Simeon divulged.
“Whatever. I’ll take him on a leash with me.”
“And I may be there observing,” he said.
X was visibly surprised. “You? How are you getting in?”
“That is not something you need to know.”
“Fine. Just leave me alone.”
Simeon took hold of her shoulders, a touch that brought to him a thick and heavy awareness of the power he held over X and likewise, the power she held over him.
“X,” he said, “I want to know,” his voice trailed off. “What do you do to him that drives him so crazy?”
X looked Simeon in the eye.
“Why don’t you let me show you?” And then the pair agreed on a time to see each other again.
15.
Simeon had spent the rainy day passing the time, trying to compress the seconds, minutes, and hours between the moment he had awoken and the pre-determined hour when he would see X again. He attempted to organize his closet and then lost interest half-way through. He tried the television but could find nothing to satisfy him. The man considered beginning a project on the house but decided it would take too much energy and attention. When he realized the frequency with which he glanced at his watch, Simeon took the thing off and threw it across the room where it collided with a baseboard. Nothing, it seemed, could make the time go faster, and thinking about it only slowed it down more.
Just when it seemed that time would stop, just when it appeared that the world would pause eternally in obdurate banality, a crash of thunder rolled through his house, through his entire body, in fact, breaking up the miasma around him. And then, instantly, he knew what he wanted to do.
Simeon found his running shoes and dressed quickly before exiting his house and beginning to run full throttle into the rain. It fell in heavy sheets as he propelled himself into the drops, the water hitting him hard at first, stingingly almost until the chill of it numbed his skin to the sensation. Above him, lightning flared, the bolts followed by the multi-layered sounds of thunder, crashes that seemed to wallow in the sky before crumbling to its periphery.
He ran on the sidewalks. He ran on the thin shoulders of dark roads while cars sprayed him as they passed. He ran through the park, his feet soaked and muddy by now, each step squishing the earth below him. And yet, no matter how fast he sprinted, no matter how he varied his terrain or his pace, he could not escape the thought, the knowledge, (one that threatened to reduce him and melt him into a mere etching of his former self), that X would soon do to him whatever magic it was that she performed on Compton, a man who could have anything that money could buy, a man who could have anything but wanted only X.
Simeon ran, knowing that he, like Compton, longed to taste a particular ambrosia, that he wanted to experience the same pleasure that had made Compton, epicurean and libertine as he was, its captive.
Finally, as if his body returned him to his home without his mind consciously deciding to end his run, Simeon arrived at his house, tired, spent, and soaking wet. He peeled off his clothes and showered, resisting the urge to masturbate in his shower stall as he had so many times before. A few minutes later, the man was in his bed, hoping to pass those last few hours in the hermitage of sleep, a shelter which eluded him, for whenever he closed his eyes an image obtruded into his mind, a remembrance of the photo of X dressed in her full and radiant splendor.
16.
It was an impressive chair, black wrought iron, regal, a striking work of art. A lover had made it for X years ago as a birthday gift, and were it not for the conspicuousness of the metal wrist and ankle restraints and the heavy rings welded here and there, X would have displayed it proudly in her home. But most of the time it sat in the corner, enshrouded in its vesperal covering, hidden away.
Once when Daniel had visited, X had caught him peeking under the cover, but he had never asked her where it was from, who had made it, or what function it served. But today, the chair was uncovered and it sat in the center of X’s living room, waiting for Simeon.
X had already dressed, rolled smooth stockings over her legs, contorted her arm to zip her leather corset, the black hide split down the middle by its heavy metal scar. Soft waves of hair had been piled up loosely and clipped into place, leaving a few escaped curls to fall over her shoulders. She wore riding boots, footwear purchased from an equestrian shop, boots that had been delivered along with a selection of crops and whips.
It was dark outside, and the rain hit the window in heavy sheets.
And then, there were five quick knocks at the door. Simeon had arrived. X put on a robe and let him in.
Simeon was dressed in a suit and shades, eyewear which he removed as soon as he entered and placed on the console in her foyer.
This was the way she wanted it to be, she and Simeon alone in her apartment, the man vulnerable, anticipatory. Let him be blinded by her loveliness and distracted by his lust, unable to anticipate her intentions. Beauty had its own power; it stunned. And after he was successfully blinded and restrained, X would give him what he deserved.
X invited him to sit on the couch and asked him if he would like a glass of wine. He eyed the metal throne and X noticed this.
“Yes, that would be great,” he answered. X opened a bottle of Riesling and poured them each a glass.
“You have a nice apartment,” he said, making small talk.
X, her own glass in hand, relaxed into the arm of her soft couch. It seemed to her as if she and Simeon were on a date, and the strange sensation lingered for a few moments before evaporating. In another situation, maybe, she would have dated him, gone out with him a few times, loved him and left him.
“I am going to ask you a few questions,” X said, “an interrogation.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Do you have any experience being dominated?”
“Not by a dominatrix,” he answered.
X lit a cigarette, feeling no guilt for smoking in front of him—it had been his fault, after all, that she had picked up the nasty habit again.
“Have you ever heard of a safe-word?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You will need to choose one,” she told him, “and while I am doing what I do, if you say this word, then I will stop. But I will only stop if you say the word. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
X finished her cigarette and crushed it out in her ashtray. Once Simeon had finished his glass of wine, she took the empty glass from his hand and put it on the counter.
“May I use your bathroom?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. While you are there, find your word if you haven’t thought of it already.”
When Simeon emerged from the bathroom, X asked him if he had chosen his safe-word.
“Yes, I have.”
“Tell me.”
“Amn
esty,” he answered.
X removed her robe and recognized the awe in Simeon’s eyes. He had only ever seen her dressed in such a way in the photograph, one that he had looked at many times and returned to in his mind again and again. He noticed the way her corset accentuated the indent of her waist and the fullness of her breasts, noticed how her skin, lightly bronzed and freckled, seemed to shimmer in the soft light.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
X moved her bag of gear next to the chair.
“Take off your belt and give it to me.”
He obeyed.
“I am going to tell you this just once. Do not speak unless I speak to you. If you must speak you may ask permission.”
Simeon shook his head in understanding, and then X sat on the wrought iron throne, its back extending far past her head with its scrolls and forged leaves at either side.
“Come here and take off your clothes,” she commanded him, “everything but your underwear.”
Simeon came to stand in front of X and began to undress. He wasn’t wearing his holster today, hadn’t brought his gun, and X was glad for this. First, he removed his shirt and let it drop next to his feet. He undid the button of his pants and unzipped his slacks, pushing them down over his hips before stepping out of them. He fumbled with his socks, but removed those, too, until he was standing in front of X in just his boxer shorts, the noticeable bulge of his erection under the gauzy material of his undergarment. He had a lean body, well-defined, and he knew this. He was proud of his musculature and enjoyed being looked at.
“Get on your knees,” X said, and Simeon dropped down. “Interlace your hands behind your head,” she said, and after he did so, X slapped a pair of cuffs over his wrists.
Then, X went to his pants and found his wallet. She pulled out all his bills, returned his wallet back to his pants, and tossed the garment to the side of the room like a rag. As he watched, she began to count the bills.
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