“It’s all so much to process. I don’t know what to think, Caleb.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Teeth on my earlobe. I shiver, tilt head away, close my eyes and hate my weakness, my involuntary chemical reaction. “Come. One more surprise for you, back down in your room.”
I was not at all sure I had room within me for more surprises, but I allowed myself to be led away from the window with its mesmerizing view of the city. To the elevator. A key, from a trouser pocket, inserted, twisted to the13. Descent, moments of utter silence in which my heartbeat is surely audible.
As I am led into my living room, the first thing I notice is that my books have been replaced on my shelf. Heart leaping with hope, I turn and see that my library is open once more. I am allowed to leave the strong-armed embrace, wander into my library. Sweep my hands over the spines of my dear friends, these many books. My gaze falls on this title, that:TheForge of God;Wool;I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings;Lolita;Breath, Eyes, Memory;A Brief History of Time;Influence: Science and Practice;American Gods... everywhere my eyes look, a book that has taught me something invaluable. I could cry from joy at having my library back.
I turn, let a tear show: gratitude emoted. “Thank you, Caleb.”
Somehow the distance between doorway and room center has been traversed invisibly, silently, and a thumb trails through the wetness on my cheek. “I think you’ve learned your lesson now, haven’t you?”
“Yes, Caleb.”
Deep, long, gusting breaths, swelling that great, powerful chest, eyes raking down my form, eager and hungry and admiring. “My Spanish beauty. My X.” There is a note in those words, in the delivery of them... it must be the wine, the alcohol pushing aside some of the granite wall veiling whatever emotions roil behind those eyes, which have always seemed to me the ocular equivalent of Homer’s “wine-dark seas.”
“Caleb.” What else do I say? There is nothing.
“Look in the display case.” The words hold a thread of satisfaction. There is a new tome in the case:Tender Is the Night.F. Scott Fitzgerald. “It’s a signed first edition, the original 1934 version with the flashbacks.”
There are white gloves in the case, of course. I open the case, don the gloves, withdraw the book with shaky breath and steady hands. The inscription, in Fitzgerald’s own hand:From one who wishes he could be at 1917s 20th, in that crabbed, looping script,the name below, the curlicueF, the double-bar downstrokes of the twinTs inScott, the crossbar looping and swooping to merge with the secondFthat beginsFitzgerald.
“Caleb, it’s... it’s incredible. Thank you, so much.”
“It’s your birthday, after all, and birthdays require gifts.”
“It’s a marvelous gift, Caleb. I shall treasure it.” I look up and see that the time for admiring my gift is over with, for now.
Time to show my appreciation.
Some things cannot be rushed.
This night, insatiability comes in the form of my body being slowly unwrapped, inch by inch. The dress unzipped, lowered to bare my lingerie—nostrils flare and eyes go heavy-lidded and hands reach; evidence of my “Spanish beauty”—and then the lingerie is peeled off, tossed aside.
Naked, I wait.
“Undress me, X.”
To reveal that body is like unveiling a sculpture by Michelangelo. A study of masculine perfection done in unforgiving marble. Each angle carved with a deeply piercing chisel. My hands work and my eyes devour. My heart resists, twists, beats like a hammer on an anvil. My body, though. God, my body. It knows something my metaphysical heart and cerebral understanding do not: Caleb Indigo was created by an artist for the express purpose of ravishing women.
Specifically, in this moment, this woman.
And I hate my body for it. I tell it to remember the way of things. That this is expected of me. Required. Demanded. Imust; my will does not enter this equation.
And my body? It has a response:I do not care about requirements... all I know is a singular desire: TOUCH ME.
Touch me.
Touch me.
My body says that, as does the body I have now laid bare.
So I obey. I obey my body and the tacit command within the two words so recently spoken: “Undress me.”
Touch me, that order implies.
So I touch.
Stroke into life the erection as large and perfect as the rest. Well, it was already fully alive and ready; I merely gave it the attention it was begging for by standing so tall and thick and straight.
