I had three men who wanted me, but I was engaging with all the worst thoughts I ever had, and I was pushing them away whenever they tried to help me. I couldn’t just let myself believe I was actually loved, and now I’m here with a man who chose Eric as a fake name quizzing me about my sexual adventures.
“He paid me,” I say. “A lot of money.”
“He paid to sleep with his dead brother’s girlfriend? What a sick bastard.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t ask about his inner motivations.” I sound bored. I’m not bored, I’m just very annoyed. More annoyed than afraid, even though my life is clearly at risk. Apparently the Levin men are not the only guys I am unable to shake.
“You did good work for BP, and it seems like your connection with the Levin family is in good stead to be leveraged again,” Eric says.
I am getting very, very tired of men seeing me as some kind of assassination adjacent fuck doll. I am even more tired of a lot of international travel and being kidnapped. It really takes it out of you. People don’t talk about that enough.
“Oh, yeah?” I give him a noncommittal response that I hope he will interpret as a cue to stop talking. He does not take the cue.
“I believe so. And as you are taking money for sex, it seems like it would still be your bailiwick.”
“I’m not interested,” I say. “And I’m going to go.”
“That’s going to be difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because I have armed men outside the door,” he says.
Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, I am accustomed to being kidnapped. I sigh and sit down.
“I’m hungry,” I say. “I want a grilled cheese.”
Eric rings a little bell, and a man in a butler’s suit shows up through a door I didn’t notice because it looks like a bookcase. Very cool. I wonder if there are armed men at that door. I doubt it, somehow.
“Bring the lady a cheese toastie,” he says. “And some tea. And probably coffee, because she’s American and they rarely drink tea properly.”
“I like to steep my tea for several weeks in the nearest harbor,” I say, making a deep cut historical joke.
“You’re quite sassy,” Eric Mandeville notes.
“Cake would be nice too,” I say. “It’s just the little things about hosting, you know?”
“Of course,” he says, his eyes shimmering like a mud pool. “I should have thought to make more generous accommodations for someone who was so close to BP for so long.”
“He’s dead, and I have independent means of making money now. If this is about him, I am not interested.”
“I think I could interest you,” he says.
“I assure you, you cannot.” I’m accidentally speaking the way he does now. There’s something about an accent like his that compels my brain to mimic it.
“You have been used as a honeypot all too many times. But that does mean you are good at it. You have the ability to make any man think you adore him. I imagine you could make me think you liked me, if you were to stop sneering.”
“I’ve earned this sneer, and I have a thousand other facial expressions you would find just as hurtful, I promise.”
The thing about honeypots is that it’s actually very hard to force someone to participate. I liked Teddy genuinely. And I didn’t even know I was being set up by BP, because he was able to manipulate me from a distance. I thought I was meeting Teddyorganically. And I thought I was… I had no idea that it was all a ruse.
This direct approach is never going to work. And this man does not have any of the influence over me that BP did. So I’m going to have my grilled cheese and wait for this guy to work out why this is a bad idea on his own.
The butler brings his version of a grilled cheese. It has a lovely caramelized onion in it, which is absolutely delicious. It has a fancy cheese of some kind that I can’t identify, but fully enjoy, and a side of tomato soup.
Eric entertains himself with an E-reader while I sup, and turns on a television program that happens to be an old British comedy in which a husband and a wife turn their suburban acre into a self-sufficient farm, much to the horror of their fancy neighbors.
I, I discover, am having a nice time. This probably indicates something broken deep inside me, but so far I am not being assaulted or insulted, so I’d call that a win.
