Page 37 of Salt in the Wound
He froze behind me, his hand going still, and again, his fingertips skated over my slick seam. Intentionally this time.
A rough exhale near my ear.
“Did you come?” he asked in a low voice.
I hesitated, and then gave a tiny nod.
Another exhale.
He didn’t speak again.
Neither did he touch me again. He lifted his hand the barest amount and then pretended to masturbate me in front of the audience until I pretended to have an orgasm.
I wished I had the courage to ask him to touch me for real, to make me come for real.
I wished I had the courage to saytake me, use me, press my face into the floor and make me scream.
I could hate myself for that.
And maybe I already did.
twelve
THE NEXT WINTER
Iwas staring out the window of my family car, seeing not Manhattan in winter, but that Lyonesse stage, the lights, the crowd.
Mark had carried me offstage after I’d faked my orgasm, carried me into an elevator and then into a dark, spacious suite of rooms at the very top of the building. He’d laid me on a bed covered in black silk and rubbed something cold and slick on my ass and my back, and then he'd handed me fresh panties.
When I’d stared at them dazedly, not moving to change, he’d peeled off my old ones and then worked the fresh pair over my hips. I had been sat up like a doll, my hair brushed, and then a glass of water held to my lips.
I had sipped, looking down at where Mark knelt in front of me, holding the glass.
“Thank you, sir,” I’d managed to mumble, and that thing had moved behind his eyes again.
He hadn’t told me that we didn’t have to pretend when we were alone; he hadn’t reminded me that what had happened on the stage was all an illusion.
Instead, he’d wrapped me in a soft blanket and carried me back downstairs, where I had sat cuddled and warm in his lap the rest of the night. And despite the music, the noise, and the carnal displays happening on the stage, I had fallen fast asleep.
When I had woken up, I had woken up alone in my hotel room, with a tube of arnica gel, a bottle of ibuprofen, and several bottles of water to greet me.
The flight to Rome had been miserable with an ass that raw.
I hadn’t seen Mark since. And I was fine with that, I reasoned. We’d pulled off our little act convincingly. No doubt in anyone’s mind that I was the type Mark could conceivably choose to marry. It didn’t matter what I’d felt on stage and what I’d felt curled up in his lap after. That was irrelevant. Unnecessary. Sinful, even.
But then again, I was full of sins these days. New sins on behalf of the Church. Sins that made anything I did with Mark practically moral in comparison.
A whole sacrifice, my uncle had told me while I was in Rome.A burnt offering. The pain you feel over your sins to save God’s kingdom will be sweeter than incense.
I wondered if anyone else could smell the smoke coming off me, or if it was only God.
Preoccupied, I stepped out of the car when it stopped and the door was opened for me, slinging my leather backpack over my shoulder as I walked into my building. I was grateful for college because it gave me something else to focus on, to fill up my thoughts and hours, so that after a day of training, praying, studying, I was too exhausted to think of this last summer. To think of Lyonesse and Rome.
Both had been baptisms, in a way. Both had been confirmations too, but with pounding blood and fevered adrenaline instead of oil and communion.
I looked down at my hands as the doorman summoned the private elevator for me and I stepped inside. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see; they were still my hands. When I looked in the mirror, it was still my face.
Despite what had happened in Rome, I was still Isolde Laurence.
