‘I wouldn’t dream of it. All right, Miss Neely, you want something no one else knows about me? I’ll tell you, but brace yourself; it’s a shocker.’
She couldn’t tell if he was joking, and wondered if she would have been able to read him even if they were face to face, so she did what he said and braced herself.
‘When I was nine years old, a kid at school was giving me a hard time. I wasn’t small, but I was smaller than he was, so he started roughing me up where he could. One day he told me that he would kick my ass after Art class, and so I told him that my family hadn’t gotten its fortune from buses and airplanes. I told him that we were actually a mafia family, and if he laid another finger on me I’d have one of our hit men take him out.’
There was a shake to his voice, not quite a laugh but getting there.
Grace sat for a moment, hands folded over her knees as she stared out the window. She hadn’t been expecting an admission like this. She had steeled herself for something sordid and shocking, but this confession was just so … human.
A coughing laugh burst from the back of her throat, and then she smiled. ‘Did it work?’
‘Of course it did. I even named the hit man. Red “The Butcher” Belliveau. Red was actually a gardener, and we did call him “The Butcher” in my family because of the way he seemed to relish hacking the brush along the fence around the house. I told the kid this, too. I told him it was a front. I told him that Red’s speciality was castration by pruning shears.’
Grace laughed. ‘That is just evil. You were an evil child.’
‘I’ve always had a solid sense of preservation.’
‘And this is something no one else knows – aside from the kid who thought his dick was going to be snipped off.’
‘Not a soul,’ he said, and she heard the creak of him sitting back in his chair. ‘Are you close?’
Grace asked the driver, and reported to Taureau that they were just a few traffic lights from their destination.
‘I’m going to disconnect now,’ he told her. ‘Tell the driver to wait for you. Once you get there, identify yourself to the concierge and he’ll give you the key and tell you where to go. Put the phone in the dock to keep it charged.’
‘Am I going to be there all night?’
‘You can stay if you want, but I’m only interested in keeping you until just after dark. Keep the headset in. I’ll call you back in about fifteen minutes.’
After the click in her ear, Grace once more wondered about his surroundings. It almost seemed absurd to think that he was something more than a disembodied voice occasionally joined by a partial portrait on a screen. The idea of him doing things that normal people did, like running errands or answering the door to a pizza delivery, was laughable to her.
As the car passed through the gate of a park-like condominium community, Grace had to admit to herself that the initial lure of Jacques Taureau had been his mystery. The idea of some faceless man directing her from the shadows would have made her laugh a month ago, but once it became her reality she had been intoxicated by the mystery.
Now, things were changing. He was giving her little facets of himself that didn’t fit the image of the ubiquitous stranger. In her mind, Taureau was like the mummy from the horror movies who, piece by piece, went from dust and bone to flesh and blood.
The driver told her to have the concierge notify him when she was ready, and she watched him leave to no doubt while away the evening at one of the nearby eateries. The concierge greeted her with a practised smile and promptly produced a key to an apartment on the third floor.
She took the elevator up, and as she slid the key into the lock a sudden dread of the unknown came over her. No boundaries had been set with Taureau. None had been needed, what with the digital nature of their relationship, and she worried now that she was about to walk into something abhorrent.
As much as she enjoyed sexual experimentation, there were things that had never appealed to her. Group sex, for example. The occasional threesome was one thing, but a handful of times in her adult life she’d politely declined an invitation to take part in an orgy. The same went for sex with other women. She’d never had a lesbian experience, not because of any particular aversion to it – enough of her fantasies included women – but because she’d never met a woman she was so attracted to she could feel it in her bones.
Those were the soft scenarios of what might be behind the door. She refused to entertain the more chilling ones. Sucking in a deep breath, she turned the key and pushed the door open, and was relieved to discover an empty apartment.
Well, almost relieved. Part of her had still held out hope that she’d open the door and find herself face to face with Taureau, even though deep down she knew she had a better chance, that night, of being struck by lightning.
The apartment was what one would expect of an executive condo. The space was tastefully furnished and decorated in neutral colours and had the unlived-in smell of air freshener hanging in every room. Grace doubted that the chef’s kitchen had ever been used to its full potential. The bedrooms, perhaps, though when she peeked in both the master and the spare she saw nothing short of showroom perfection.
She was headed back to the living room when Taureau called back in.
‘What would you do if I told you I wanted to move in here like a kept woman?’
‘I’d say yes.’
‘Good to know.’ She dropped her handbag onto the sofa and walked towards the window as she unbuttoned her coat. ‘Cameras here, too?’
‘Temporarily. This condo is typically used for contract workers and their families. I give them their privacy.’
‘I guess I was wrong about the kitchen not being used much,’ she murmured, and swept out of her coat. She spun around like she had for him in the conference room, her gaze moving to every corner of the room. ‘Where’s the camera?’
‘Guess.’
Grace focused on a piece of metal art hanging over the sofa and took a step towards it. ‘This?’
‘Not even close.’
Turning away from her first deduction, Grace tucked her hands behind her and thumbed the bottom hook of the corset.
‘Don’t do that,’ he warned.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t take off the corset.’
‘Why not?’
‘Do I really need a reason? You can take your panties off, though. Slowly.’
‘After I find your little hiding spot.’ She fingered the elastic clinging to her hips as she moved around. ‘Shall we make a game of it? Hot and cold?’
‘I don’t play games. You’re a smart girl; figure it out, and quickly.’
‘Patience is a virtue.’
‘It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any virtues, but by all means keep spouting clichés if it helps you.’
She ruled out anything that wasn’t at least eye-level and named a few more harmless pieces in the room. Not the dock where she had left her phone. Not hidden on the flat screen hanging opposite the sofa. Not the wireless modem in the little business area off the kitchen.
She grew tired of what wasn’t a game and could tell by Taureau’s clipped answers that he was too. Lifting her hair off her hot neck, she sank down on the sofa with a growl.
‘Just tell me.’
‘Look, and think.’
‘Seriously, just …’ A grin crept up to her mouth and twisted it.