Binding Agreement

Chapter 6





I DON’T WANT TO invite Robert over tonight. It’s not just that I need space this time. Things are getting out of hand but the most frightening part about it is that his ideas, propositions, and philosophies that I know are unethical are becoming more and more alluring.

So I don’t reach out to him. Instead I make myself a salad, open a bottle of wine, and cry. Maybe it’s because this isn’t the life I imagined. It’s so much more and so much less. Eventually I call my friend Simone. She doesn’t berate me for evading her for weeks on end. Instead she simply listens to the notes of emotion in my voice and tells me she’s coming over.

She arrives holding a bottle of Grey Goose by the neck. She studies me, standing in my doorway like an expectant trick-or-treater. I’ve changed out of my suit into a long silk robe; my hair hangs loosely over my shoulders. “Wow,” she says as she finally enters, walking past me. “What a difference a month makes.”

I follow her into the kitchen, where she leans against the counter holding the vodka against her heart. I study the label depicting white birds flying over a glass sky. “What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s think,” she says solemnly as she opens the bottle. “You were a good girl dating a controlling a*shole and then you had an affair, and then you got engaged to the a*shole, break up with the a*shole, and couple up with your lover. All that in less than thirty days?” She raises her blonde eyebrows. “That might be Guinness worthy.”

“And exactly what world record would I be setting?”

“Most transformation ever achieved by one Harvard grad during the month of March? Can we make that a category?” she asks. She hops up on the counter. “Do you have ice cream?”

I hesitate only a moment before going to the freezer and pulling out a pint of Stonyfield Vanilla. Simone unceremoniously digs out scoops for both of us and drops them into my blender before drowning the ice cream in the clear alcohol and blending it all together into something that reminds me of false innocence.

“You’ve already been drinking,” she notes.

“Yes,” I admit.

“But you’ll drink more?”

I nod and she smiles, pouring the drink into two gracefully curved water goblets. “That’s a change, too. Tell me, Kasie, does this mean you’re finally willing to relinquish some of your precious control?”

“I’ve been relinquishing control to Dave for years.”

“True.” She sips her drink, purposely giving herself a milk mustache to make me smile. “But that was like getting on a merry-go-round. You many not be controlling the plastic horse, but you know where it’s going. That ride’s over, so I guess I’m asking, are you moving on to the controlled thrills of the roller coaster, or are you ready to leave the amusement park altogether and try skydiving?”

I shake my head. “You thrive off risk; I don’t.”

“Oh? And what makes the newest rendition of Kasie Fitzgerald thrive?”

It’s a complicated question and I meditate on it as I swallow the sweet taste of sin. I think of what it feels like when Robert is inside of me. I think of the energy he fills me with, the intensity. In those moments the world becomes brighter even as the darkness inside me is expelled. In those moments I’m skydiving, breathing in the clouds, relishing in the thrill and danger of the fall. Perhaps that’s what it is to thrive.

Or is it when I hold the corporate world in my hands? It’s no wonder that I fantasize about sex while mastering a boardroom. It’s a different but related thrill. Falling versus flying. And what about Robert’s proposal . . . and it is a proposal, controlling the world, making up the rules as we go and forcing others to bend to our whims. He’s proposing that we reshape the universe, make ourselves gods. If I were to give in to that, which of course I could never do, would I thrive?

“You don’t have an answer,” Simone whispers. Her voice is hushed and touched with awe. “Things really have changed, haven’t they? Not too long ago you had an answer to everything.”

I laugh out loud, “I thought I did.” The drink is making my consonants softer, a little harder to understand. “Turns out I didn’t even know the questions!”

Simone reaches forward, brushes my hair back behind my shoulders then lets her hands slide down the edges of my silk lapel. “Relax,” she whispers. “You’re beautiful when you’re vulnerable.”

“And when I’m strong?”

“You’re gorgeous.” Simone’s hands float back down to her sides. I’m seeing the room through a soft-focused lens. Simone is the one who is gorgeous as her fingers stroke the stem of her glass. Her life has always been luxuriously simple. My eyes follow her hair down to her neck where for the first time I spot the small bruise that’s been left there. A mark of triumph left by a recent lover. “Who gave you that?” I ask knowing that whoever it was probably won’t be around for long. Simone has a habit of choosing easy, unambitious men who can act out her fantasies without touching her mind. It’s fun at first, until it gets boring.

She raises her fingers to the mark and smiles reverently. “My first ménage à trois.” She giggles. “I think his name was Joseph and she called herself Nidal. It’s a lovely name, isn’t it? Nidal. A boy’s name given to a girl . . . it suits her.” She lets the word slide around on her tongue.

I hesitate. I’m not the only one who is changing. Simone has never crossed that line before. “Did you . . .” My voice trails off, unsure of what to ask. “What did you do?” is the question I finally settle on. I’m not sure I want to hear anything she’s too scandalized to volunteer. After all, Simone isn’t scandalized by much.

“It was Nidal’s idea. She’s a DJ at Divinity.”

“Divinity?”

“You haven’t heard of it?” She puts down her glass and raises her arms into the air, stretching her back as she reaches for the sky. “It’s a little club on Melrose. Divinity. A funny name, isn’t it? It’s sort of a reminder of why people go to clubs. To dance, drink, and flirt until reality and all sense of mortality just sort of melt away and we all feel a bit like divine beings. Deities of the night.”

I look at my own glass. I’m not drinking because I hunger for a taste of the divine. I get that every time I lay my lips against Robert’s. I feel it when I lay beneath him, when he enters me and throbs inside of me, and I hear it every time he whispers my name.

On the contrary, I’m drinking because I want to touch the part of myself that is endearingly clumsy and human.

“It scared me at first,” she admits. “Nidal always flirts with me but I never thought anything would come of it. I told her I didn’t swing that way.” She pauses before adding, “Then she started asking me questions I didn’t have answers to.”

“Like what?”

“She asked if I was afraid I’d lose myself. She wanted to know if I thought I’d be changed if I let another woman touch me, if I liked it. She wanted to know if I thought it would muddle my sense of identity, my definition of femininity and sexuality. It was all very philosophical and I began to wonder . . . what am I afraid of?”

“But you’ve never mentioned being interested in women before,” I note. The thick, creamy concoction coats my throat and stomach, making me happy. Happy for this mild intoxication and happy to be distracted from my life by one of Simone’s titillating but innocuous adventures. “Perhaps it wasn’t fear that held you back, just lack of desire.”

Simone laughs. “But I’m always desirous of adventure. And I wanted to know . . . how strong is my sense of self? If it’s strong enough, no adventure should be able to shake it.” She meets my eyes, sips her drink again. “It was interesting . . . a woman knows a woman’s body. She knew where her touch should be light and where to apply just a bit of pressure. She instructed our partner, too, Jason—”

“Joseph.”

“Joseph . . . yes, Joseph. We started with me going down on him. I was on my back, my head hanging off the bed and I took him in my mouth while he stood up. I was totally focused on what I was doing, sliding my hand up and down the base of his erection while my mouth worked on the tip and ridges. . . . I didn’t even notice what she was doing until I felt her tongue against my p-ssy.”

I jump slightly, squeeze my legs together a little tighter as if Nidal’s here, right now, trying to smooth away my lines in the sand.

“It was a perfect way to begin,” Simone says, her voice hushed with memory. “My focus was on him, I didn’t even see her, and a woman’s tongue feels just like a man’s . . . except perhaps more skilled. I started to moan even as my mouth was wrapped around Joseph, I tried to keep my hips still, but couldn’t. That’s when Joseph asked if he could have a taste, too.”

“Simone!” I whisper her name with an urgency that surprises me. I hadn’t expected this tale, or its allure.

“Nidal told him how to pleasure me,” she continues with a smile. “She stood over him and told him to move his face down to my p-ssy, she told him to slide his tongue gently around my * and then back and forth. It started slow but then it was almost too much and I was writhing around on the bed while she watched me and he touched me. She was the teacher and I was the lesson. She told him how to add his fingers to the experience. And in between sentences she would lean down and nibble on my ear, find the sensitive spot there with her tongue; her fingers traced the area around my nipples, making them hard without her ever touching them directly.”

I look away as if the scene were right before me rather than in Simone’s head. As if I was seeing me on that bed. I could never do that, could I? I could never relinquish so much control, could never challenge so many conventions. I’m not even attracted to women. But this story caresses me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I cross my arms over my chest so Simone can’t see that Nidal has worked her magic on me as well.

“She told me where to touch her. . . . I’ve never touched another woman’s breast before. But I liked the way it felt, firm but so soft. I liked the way Nidal responded to me. Joseph liked it, too.”

“Did you actually have sex with them?” I ask. My cheeks are bright red and my question comes out in a whisper.

“Nidal directed that, too. She told him to enter me slowly, she told him how to rotate his hips just right. She asked me to kiss her while he rode me.” Simone falls silent, momentarily lost in the memory. “Nidal asked me to face my fears,” she finally adds, “and she rewarded me for it.”

“With sex?”

Simone hesitates only a moment before replying. “She rewarded me with adventure. And with the most amazing orgasm I’ve ever had. It ripped through me, Kasie. It almost made me weep. Joseph said he could actually feel the spasms that shot through me. It was . . . it was spectacular. And it’s a memory I will hold on to until I die. When I’m eighty I’ll be able to look back at that night and remember that I was once daring and bold.”

“Yes,” I say slowly. For a few moments we let the picture she’s painted hang between us, demanding both reverence and wonder. But as it fades I begin to remember what’s real and what isn’t. I reach for something to pull us both back fully into the present.

“You’ll always have the memory,” I say slowly, “but . . . you might not remember if you slept with Jason or Joseph.”

That makes her giggle and with her laughter the mood shifts to something a little less intense. “Well,” she finally says, “that’s why we have to stay friends. So you can remind me of these things.”

I smile down into my milk shake, relishing the idea of having a lifelong friend. She hesitates only a moment before taking my hand. “It sounds like you have fears you need to face, too,” she says kindly. “What’s going on, Kasie?”

I take a deep breath and begin to talk. I tell her of the push-pull lover’s game I’m playing with Robert. I tell her I’m being promoted by a man who wants to fire me. I tell her about Asha and Tom and how conflicted I am. “I’m being granted power and influence without respect,” I finally say. “I didn’t even know that was possible!”

This time Simone’s laugh is richer and more boisterous. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed but that’s the situation of all the dictators in the world and quite a few of our elected officials. We respect the office, we certainly respect the power, but it’s fairly rare that we respect the individual who wields that power over us.”

I shake my head. “I disagree. When we read our history books, it’s the leaders who we honor and idealize.”

“Oh please. The whole point of history books is to bring our attention to the exceptions. There’s not enough room on the page to write about those who represent the status quo, the norm. My God, how boring would that be?”

I giggle my half-hearted agreement.

“No,” she sighs, “normally when someone has power over us, we go out of our way to look for that person’s flaws. We exaggerate them in our minds and in our gossip. We ridicule our leaders when their backs are turned. We convince ourselves that they’re not really deserving. That they’re not better than us. Sometimes we’re right, sometimes we’re wrong. It doesn’t really matter because we still respect the power and we will still bend to it regardless of how we may feel about the hands that hold it.”

I haven’t thought of it like that before. “This isn’t a direction I’ve chosen for myself,” I say softly. “He’s chosen it for me.”

“And you’re afraid you’ll get lost?” Simone asks. She shakes her head, stirs her drink. “You can’t retrace your steps, Kasie. What’s happened, happened. As long as you’re at your firm, people will remember. You can either see this thing through and find out if it takes you to a place you like or you can leave the firm and go somewhere else. Start from scratch.”

“Are you kidding?” I exclaim. “I’ve put six years into that place! And where would I go? There is no other consulting firm in LA that has their reputation.”

“You could work for yourself.”

I blink. It’s not that the thought has never occurred to me but I’ve never taken it seriously. The risks involved in being self-employed are too great. The only structure is the one you create. “I’m not cut out for that kind of uncertainty.”

“Well then you have a problem.” Simone gathers her blonde hair into her hands, pulling it up to the nape of her neck. “Everything about your life is pretty uncertain right now. That’s not going to change regardless of what you do.”

I hang my head, defeated. “I’m lost.”

“No, you know where you are, you’re just not sure which routes you want to take,” Simone notes. “You have to make your own decisions, and you will. But I will tell you this, you’re not done with Robert Dade. Not by a long shot.”

When she says his name, I feel him. Feel his smile, his hands; I feel his lips against my neck. He’s never far away. Never out of my mind, always causing ripples. No, I’m not done with Robert Dade. I’m not sure I ever will be.