‘My favourite opera is Madame Butterfly.’
‘You could be any anonymous millionaire suit.’
‘So if I was poor you might say what you mean?’
‘I might.’
‘Then I am penniless.’
The words themselves are not unusual. But, I confess, the sudden conviction in his voice gives me pause. There’s something steely about it, as though he’s carving each word into a tree with a knife.
It makes me shiver, but I pretend it doesn’t.
‘You can’t change the dynamics just by saying.’
‘Of course I can. That’s how the game is played.’
‘And is that what The Harrington is about? Playing games?’
‘If you say the real words I might tell you yes or no.’
Whatever this game is, he’s extremely good at it. I didn’t agree to dancing, and yet somehow I’m doing it anyway. I’m doing it right here in the middle of the work day, with Michaela to one side of me yakking away into her own phone and my boss over there by the water cooler.
He gives me a slight nod, like he thinks I’m fielding an important call – and I suppose that is how I must look. I’m hunched over, near-whispering, one fist clenched over my keyboard. The other clinging to the phone for dear life.
‘All right. All right,’ I hiss at him. ‘People meet there to have illicit liaisons.’
‘I’m not sure that’s quite real enough. It sounds like something from a tabloid newspaper, about the swinging the neighbours have been doing.’
‘People meet there to have sex, then.’
‘Sex is better, but I think you can do more.’
I glance across at my boss. He’s no longer looking, but that doesn’t matter. This conversation is definitely giving off a vibe, now, that people should be able to feel across long distances and without glancing at me. I can feel it pulsing at my core like some nuclear reactor, so it must be spreading outwards.
Soon everyone will be irradiated.
At the very least, they’ll know. Alissa is having an oddly sexual conversation with a complete stranger, and doesn’t want to stop. Look at her there, shamelessly not stopping.
‘They meet to touch, and kiss, and lick,’ I say, and though my voice shakes I’m proud of myself. It feels like he shot a tennis ball at me with a cannon, and somehow I miraculously managed to smack it back.
‘And is that all?’
I close my eyes and take a breath, hovering on the brink of not obeying. He’s just toying with me, pushing me, daring me to go too far. I shouldn’t care. I should put the phone down. But I suppose the trouble is:
I want to go too far. I’m tired of living in the land of not far enough.
‘They meet to screw in every kind of position, all over each other and upside down and inside out. And when they’re done with all the things I can imagine, they start on the things I can’t. Threesomes and foursomes and things with toys … things with handcuffs and canes and red silk sliding all over their bodies …’
By the time I’m done my face is flaming, and I’m trembling all over. I barely even remember what I’ve said – it just came out in such a tumble, one word racing after the other, all of them so eager to emerge. I didn’t realise how eager I was to emerge.
But I think he does.
‘What a wonderful way with words you have when you really try.’
‘It’s nothing to do with trying. It’s just you and how goddamn persuasive you are.’
‘If I’m so persuasive then why are we talking about what you want to talk about?’
I frown at nothing and no one, the inside walls of my cubicles suddenly gone. Instead they’re replaced by his indomitable face, and its every infuriating line and curve.
‘No, we’re not.’
‘Of course we are. You wanted to know about The Harrington, and now I have told you – even though it is the most closed of all secrets.’
‘But this is … this is what we started out at. We started talking about it and then you wanted me to talk dirty.’
‘Oh, darling. If I wanted you to talk dirty there are a hundred other ways I would have gone about it. No no no, when we began talking I wanted to know what your face looked like, and you led me down an entirely different path. I must admit I am enjoying the view here, but even so – it’s your view, not mine.’
Oh, God, he’s right. How is he so right all the time? It would be impossibly frustrating, if he wasn’t so calm about it. So inoffensive. He doesn’t force his point of view on you. He just leads you down a certain path inside the labyrinth, and suddenly you’re lost.
‘It wasn’t … I didn’t do it on purpose, though.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Of course not. Why would I?’
‘Because you don’t want to talk about your face.’
This labyrinth is dark, and deep. I don’t know where I am any more.
‘Maybe I’m hideous,’ I say, so faintly I hardly have to worry if anyone can hear. Only he can, down a million miles of phone wires to his lair that lies beyond the goblin city.
‘I think it’s more likely that you think you’re hideous.’
‘No, I really am. I’m sure you think you’re talking to some gorgeous babe whose presence pushes through wood, but in reality I’m monstrous. I’m six foot tall and three hundred and fifty pounds, with no ears and one eye,’ I say, and I know why I do it. It’s so I can be the minotaur instead of the girl. I’m marching around his maze, hungry for his blood.
But he doesn’t care either way.
‘Are you just trying to turn me on now?’
‘A man like you isn’t turned on by no ears and one eye.’
‘Perhaps not – but I am turned on by the sound of your voice, and the way you watched me, and by your resistance. I’ve never known anyone long for something so much and yet be so afraid to take it when it’s offered.’
I’m the girl again, just like that. I’m running around the insides of myself, blind and fumbling – only I think I was wrong about him having a lair at the centre. I think I can see him atop one of the walls with a rope, and he just threw it down to me.
I won’t take it though. I don’t know him well enough to take it. This could be a trap, and once I’m up there he robs me of my self-esteem and makes a run for it.
‘You don’t know what I long for.’
‘How can you imagine so when you make it this clear? You long for something different, and lovely, and exciting,’ he says, as my eyes drift closed. ‘You long to be outside your own skin, for just a little while.’
I’ve never ached before over something someone’s said. I’m not used to the sensation, so sweet and hollow inside myself. It makes me swallow too thickly and keep my eyes closed in case someone sees I’m having feelings, and most of all it forces me to deny, deny, deny.
‘That’s all wrong.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are you still on the phone?’
‘I’m putting it down.’
‘Of