Binding Agreement

Chapter 17





DAYS PASS INTO weeks, weeks into months. I don’t hear from him. The wound stays where it is, carved into my lungs so I feel it with every sigh.

But I don’t sigh quite as much anymore.

Initially I thought Simone’s suggestion that I start my own business was silly, even stupid. Isn’t that why Robert and I had broken up? Because he wanted me to play by my own rules and I had wanted to play by rules that were already set in stone by others?

It took me a few weeks of unemployment to realize that no, that wasn’t it at all. Robert had wanted me to play by his rules. Dave had wanted me to play by rules that were set in a different time, in a different place, in a world that only truly exists in those men’s clubs he can’t get into anymore.

I don’t want that either. And that’s when I realize that for once in my life I don’t have to live in the extremes. I don’t have to make fear my lover but I don’t have to run from it either. If I can just face it, a little at a time, find that illusive middle ground . . . that place where you set some of the rules but not others . . . then maybe I’ll be okay.

So I take the leap, decide to work for myself. I start small, a little office leased out of a big building. I seek out clients whose profits are still modest, businesses with untapped potential, fledgling entrepreneurs whose ideas can be spun into gold. I give them my ideas and they give me their money. And little by little the success grows, slowly, like drip-brewed coffee. It takes a while but the unhurried process just makes the coffee a little richer, better, and a hell of a lot more satisfying.

Simone and I have gotten into the habit of hanging out once a week. Sometimes we have dinner. Other times we wear our tightest dresses and go to the most exclusive lounges in LA. I let the men look, enjoy their attention, but it stops there. I have boundaries again, but they’re my boundaries. The only expectations I’m trying to live up to are the ones I’ve set for myself. It’s a completely new experience for me and at times it’s unnerving. I still occasionally doubt myself and wonder if I’m doing something wrong. But the men at the lounges admire me, my friendship with Simone has strengthened, and my new clients respect me. The mistakes I’ve made have not led to the ultimate rejection. I have not been erased . . . not even by my parents.

Yes, they still call me daughter. We speak every few weeks, never more often than that. They don’t understand me but they’re afraid to question the change. Afraid I’ll mention Melody again. So in that way perhaps fear is still working for me, finding dark ways to keep my parents’ disapproval at bay.

I get through my days just fine. It’s the nights, when all the lights are out and I lie alone in my bed, it’s only then that I find myself sighing. That’s when the pain seeps in through the cracks under the door.

Sometimes I talk to him. I tiptoe out to my tiny backyard still dressed in my nightgown. I curl up on my patio chair and stare up at the moon. I ask him what mysteries he’s seen since we last spoke. I ask if he’s angry. If he’s hurt. When I’m feeling bitter, I ask if that rock he calls a heart still beats for me. I ask if he ever tires of all the worshipers, if anyone or anything could ever understand him as well as the ocean. All those witches and tribes of men who dance for him, give him offerings and songs, do any of those gifts compare to the tidal waves I gave him?

And then I close my eyes and feel my tides rise. I imagine him standing behind me, his hands in my hair, then my shoulders, finally sliding to my breasts, toying with my nipples until they’re as hard as his heart.

I hear his whisper in the sounds of the wind. “One more hurricane, just for us.”

And there, in my backyard, he comes to me, illuminated in the darkness. I slip my hand between my legs, the nightgown gathering around my thighs, and I feel his mouth work its way down my spine, across my hips. I feel his hands caressing my stomach, holding my waist, strong hands with a tender touch.

My legs fall open, inviting him to dip into my waters. I’m wet, ready for him, eager and available. When I run my fingers along my sex, it’s his tongue I feel, toying with my * before sliding inside of me, tasting me, making me tremble.

And then he raises himself up, makes a trail of kisses along my hairline, my jaw, my cheek. He bites down gently on my lower lip. Yes, this is where we belong, right here, wrapped up in the cool breeze of early spring. I look up and all I can see is the deep purple midnight sky. With few stars, the light of the moon drowns them out, all but Mars with its red glow.

Mars. The God of war.

I feel his breath in my hair; it’s the wind, and I feel his arms wrap around me.

In those moments all my senses are heightened. The scent of the grass is his cologne; the drops of dew are his sweat as he labors on top of me, taking me, right here in my backyard.

I slide down in my chair and when I press my fingers inside, the moon seems to shine a little brighter—its gravitational pull just as strong and overwhelming as it ever was. The waters rise as my hips move to this imagined rhythm. I can’t say either of us is controlling it. This rhythm—passionate, at times frenzied, unpredictable in its periodic change of tempo—this is just who we are. We’re lost in it. When I kiss him, the wind moves through the trees; when I arch my back, they bend.

“That’s how strong our passion is,” he says and I cry out in the kind of agony that can only be brought on by love.

His hands are everywhere now. On my breasts, my waist, my ass; I run my thumb to touch myself in just the right spot as I continue to plunge my fingers inside . . . but it’s his thumb I feel, his erection thrusting inside my walls.

The ecstasy is almost unbearable. It shakes me, heats me from within, and I’m reminded that the ocean has volcanoes, too.

“Explode inside of me,” I whisper. “Make us complete.”

And he does, and the waters crash over the shores. Power, beauty, destruction . . . life. It’s all there as we cling to each other. I can still feel him throbbing inside of me, each twitch adding ripples to my calming tide.

It’s only then that finally the orgasm is complete.

On those nights it takes me a few seconds to catch my breath, a few moments before the fantasy fades, only minutes before the melancholy sets in.

When I walk back to my bedroom, there is no one there to kiss away the tears.

But the sadness doesn’t last, either. It weakens as the sun rises and continues to dissipate as I get on with my day, my work, my life. And it’s in this process that I find myself. It’s while signing another client to another contract, it’s when I’m able to hire my first employee, when my file cabinets are filled with documents covered in beautiful, soothing numbers, that I realize, I’m never again going to be lost. I may have some steep climbs ahead of me, some jagged rocks I need to navigate, but I’ve got my compass.

There are days when I barely think about my past; I’m too wrapped up in my present, my future, my life.

And then there are days like this.

It started off fine. I take a call from a potential client, typing notes into my computer. The woman on the other end of the line is the owner of three successful restaurants, all located in LA County. She’s looking to expand outside the area but could use a little guidance in regard to executing her plan. It’s the kind of project I was put on in my early days at the firm, back when I was getting my feet wet, the kind of project that’s so small no one at the firm really cared if it got messed up or not. But now that it’s my business, these types of accounts have become the fuel that keeps the acceleration steady and consistent. So I get her details, set up a time for us to meet face to face in the coming days, and ask her how she heard about me.

“I was referred,” she says mildly. “By my tax attorney actually. Dave Beasley.”

My fingers hover over my keyboard. “Dave,” I repeat.

“Yes, that’s right.”

I type the name into the appropriate line. Referred by Dave Beasley. Even when I stare at the words on the screen, I still can’t quite comprehend them.

“When was this?” I ask.

“Oh just a few days ago . . . actually it might have been a week. Time’s been getting away from me.”

Which is what I thought Dave wanted to do, get away from me. But he had to know this woman would mention his name. He had to know I would seek him out. “Can you give me the name of the firm he works for?” I ask, casually, as if this is another question for my form.

She gives me the name of a firm I know well. A direct competitor to the firm he was apparently fired from. It’s a lateral move, but considering the state he was in when I last saw him . . .

I wrap up my conversation with the woman on the phone, lock up my office, and go to see Dave.