On any other man's lips, cupcake would be offensive, demeaning. But when he says it, it makes me feel cared for, like the care he took to bake for me even if it was wrapped in so many threats. It's hard to remember that last part.
He dismisses me to go shower. As the water heats and steam fills the bathroom, I stand naked in front of the mirror, avoiding my eyes, twisting my body to see the perfect row of cane welts across my ass. My fingertips graze over the indentations.
I glance up to see a second camera has been installed since the last time I was in here. It's a few feet away in a corner next to the ceiling, and I know he's watching me as I look at and touch these welts. I wonder if I'll bruise. I wonder what it says about me that these hidden marks seem so different from the ones Conall gave me.
These are claiming marks that say I belong to this man. They are proof that we are two real people doing this twisted thing together. They make our secret real.
Eight
Just as he said, the police don't bother me again. On Friday, a few hours before the show, and around closing time for most normal jobs, I get a phone call. It's the police chief. It seems very unusual that the police chief would call me.
My heart hammers wildly as I listen to what he has to say. He tells me that he's very sorry I was bothered the other day by one of his officers. The guy was new and overstepped his duties. The police chief tells me he understands Conall and I had a complicated relationship and that I may be quite relieved if my husband never shows up again. And this is understandable, he says.
He tells me Conall is under suspicion of being mixed up in a lot of highly illegal activity which he is not at liberty to tell me about, though the words Irish Mob get thrown out in passing. They suspect he fled the country under a new name and could be anywhere by now.
The chief says he would be very surprised if he ever returns to this city or even the country. Then he goes on about protocols for how long it will be before they can legally declare Conall dead—for my sake—so that the house becomes fully mine and the accounts become fully mine. He says the department is here for me in whatever way I need and not to hesitate to reach out if I need anything at all. The way he says this seems to extend truly to anything and doesn't seem to be only about this issue with Conall fleeing the country. The chief assures me that otherwise no one from the department will disturb me again.
It's a surreal phone call. Very surreal. I thank the chief, disconnect the call, and just stare at the phone in my hand as if it might transform into a snake and strike. What in the actual fuck just happened?
I mean I don't know all that much about police procedure. What I do know, I've learned from television shows, which I'm told aren't very accurate. But I know what just happened isn't normal. That officer that came to my house didn't overstep his duties. He was just doing his job as officially laid out.
My blackmailer's boasts of his own power being far greater than Conall's, of his wealth dwarfing Conall's, were not empty. I know with every fiber of my being that he did this. Somehow. I don't know how. Is the department dirty? Did he pay the chief off with some ridiculous sum to free me? A freedom I'm well aware he can take back at any time.
Or maybe Conall was mixed up in something. I'm really not entirely clear about things. He owned several businesses: a chain of hardware stores, some restaurants and Irish pubs, a few night clubs. But I don't know much about it or which establishments he specifically owned. I know he went to work in an office building somewhere in the city where he presumably did office-type work managing his businesses. I know his secretary was the Delectable Stella. Is that weird? Or is it normal? That he had all these businesses and had some official office building set up? I don't know.
The more I think about this, the weirder I think it is that I knew so little real information about Conall's life outside of me. It seems suspicious, like he must have been doing something very wrong to keep me so hermetically sealed off from his life.
Everything between us always seemed to revolve around his jealousy and irritation over whatever minor thing he'd decided was a major catastrophe in our relationship at the moment. It was all about fear of what he would do to me and how I knew I could never escape him.
I can't escape my blackmailer either. But somehow even though I should—especially after the cane—I don't feel that same threat with him. I want to run to him, not away from him. Even if I have to run blindfolded. It's only been two days since I was with him. The welts and soreness remain with me, as though his hands have stayed on me even in his absence.
Was Conall in the Irish Mob? I think it must be some crafted story to put all the pieces in neat ordered rows, to close this chapter of my life once and for all with no loose ends, but I don't know. You hear a lot about the Italian Mob. You even hear about the Russian Mob. But you never fucking hear about the Irish. Most normal people forget there even IS an Irish Mob. Or they think there was one, early in the 19th century, maybe early in the 20th as well, but that somehow they just faded into the mists of time or returned to the rolling green landscape of Ireland as if whisked away there by fairies.
But they are out there. And Conall could have been one of them. I have no idea. But what I do know is... this was handled for me. Just like I was told it would be.
This should make me more afraid. Someone even more dangerous and powerful, someone with no face and no name... has this absolute power over me. I should change my name and flee the country—if I even knew how to do that. But then I couldn't dance. And all I've ever wanted was to dance. And just fuck it all if I can't do that one fucking thing.
I'm only free if I'm on a stage. In prison or a fugitive is all the same to me. And so I belong to this man who holds my life in his hands, who just pulled strings to free me from the consequences of murder, who claims he plans to elevate me in the company if I prove to him I can be a principal. There’s no longer any doubt that whatever this man wants, he will get, whether from me or anyone else in his path. Even so, the doubt lingers that he can or will make me a principal.
I don't know why I hang onto this doubt. I guess it's because it's all I've ever wanted, and if I believe it will happen and it doesn't, I don't think I'll recover. I can't allow myself to hope. Even if he can do it, maybe he just wants to dangle it in front of me like a carrot. I can understand why he handled the police. If the police got suspicious and took me in for questioning, my blackmailer loses control of the narrative, and it's obvious that the only currency he truly wants to possess is power. Control. He feeds on it and on me like a vampire with blood.
I spend the next ten minutes or so as I get ready to go to the theater fighting with myself over whether or not I should think of this man as my blackmailer. I mean he is my blackmailer. But when I think of a blackmailer, I think of someone who demands small unmarked bills in a paper bag left under a park bench every Thursday afternoon at two p.m. Not... this.
I want to call him my lover, but we aren't exactly having sex, and is he my lover if it's coerced? Is it coerced? I can't pretend I haven't desperately wanted every single touch from him. Even the punishment.
I can't pretend it hasn't all excited me, but does my wanting him even matter? What if I didn't? What would he do then? I can't bring myself to test this theory because I don't want him to stop. So it just rattles around in my brain, haunting and tormenting me.
Three hours later when the curtain goes up and I'm on stage, he’s in the box seat. I see his shadow outlined there. I feel his eyes on me. I let out a relieved breath and feel unreasonably safe, protected in this moment. Even though I realize exactly how crazy this thought is.
I dance better than I've danced since all this started because for the first time, I have the smallest hope that even if I can never be truly free, he will at least let me dance. And that's free enough.
Nine
It's Monday morning. The entire company is in Studio A. Every single dancer. Every single choreographer, instructor, the director, the ballet master. Everyone. Something big is about to happen. We can all feel it, but we all pretend we don't, running through our warm-ups and stretches at the barre as a sense of nervousness moves through the room like an electric current.
So far, the men and women running the company have been off in a corner of the studio having a private discussion, so technically, they haven't really “entered the studio” in terms of etiquette because they are collected in their own group full of low whispers and nods. Finally, they break from this cluster and come over to where we are. All the dancers stop what they're doing and turn to greet them. The dancers who were stretching on the floor stand.
“Good morning, company,” Mr. V. says.
