Lisa
36 days since finding grace
Lisa was sitting on Emery’s couch reading a book about scrapbooking. Or at least looking at the pictures. She doubted she could make something even half as amazing as the pictures in the book, and they weren’t exactly her goal. She didn’t want to make a scrapbook of some idealized version of Miles’s life, which seemed to be what most scrapbooks were. But maybe she could balance it so when he looked back he’d know how hard he’d worked to get where he was.
She wasn’t at all sure she could do that with a scrapbook, but she could definitely try.
One of the sample pages toward the back of the book had a photo of a young girl with light brown hair, holding what looked like an Easter basket. But her eyes, her eyes stared right into the lens of the camera, and she wasn’t quite smiling.
God, she looked like Abigail. That expression, like she was hiding so much of how she felt that you could only scratch the surface.
Emery had been picking through shots from the most recent wedding on his computer. He was trying to assemble a collection to print and a larger digital collection to give the couple on a flash drive. She didn’t realize she’d been sitting there staring at the picture of the little girl for so long until he touched her arm.
“You okay? You haven’t moved in like half an hour.”
“Oh. I’m okay. Just thinking, I guess.”
He closed his computer and shoved it under the futon. “Yeah? About Miles’s scrapbook?”
“A little. And this picture. This is exactly how I would have pictured Abigail as a kid.”
“Really? I like her eyes.”
“Abigail’s were more green, but they were similar in other ways. Like you never saw beneath the surface.” Lisa reached for whatever it was she wanted to say, and Emery didn’t fill the space. “I don’t know. I miss her. I wish I could introduce her to you. But I know she’s dead, and it’s still hard to— Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the idea that I could tell her about Miles, or you, or the Derries.”
“I’m sorry she’s lost to you,” Emery said. “Now would be a good time to get religion.”
“I wish I could. I wish I could believe she was a spirit, that she wasn’t just my memory of her voice, you know? But that doesn’t feel right either.” She looked up. “I thought about trying to find her parents, to thank them, or to tell them that she didn’t die unloved. That I loved her.”
“You decided not to do that?”
She shook her head. “There were reasons she left home, same as there were reasons you did, or Alice, or me, for that matter. If it was reversed, if she showed up to tell Mother she’d loved me, that wouldn’t make Mother feel better.”
“If you randomly told my parents you loved me, they’d laugh and slam the door.” His voice was low. “I know what you mean. Even if you found them, even if they weren’t awful, it wouldn’t necessarily make you feel like anyone understood her loss.”
“Yeah. So maybe no one but me ever will. And that’s sad, you know? Because she was good, and I miss her. And maybe because she’s the first person who ever looked at me and wanted to actually see me, not just whoever they needed me to be.”
“I think I get that. Being seen can be a gift.”
“It was, I think. Though it pretty much makes it impossible to go back to who I thought I was.” She closed her book and turned so her knees rested against his thigh. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.” His nose wrinkled. “Okay, forget I just sounded like the lead in a romantic comedy.”
“Uh, yeah, I think there’s not a lot of danger of this turning into a romantic comedy, Emery. Can I look at your portfolio?”
He blinked. “Totally not anywhere I thought you were going. Of course. I never really get tired of showing off my genius, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”
They unfolded from the futon, and she waited for him to set the portfolio out on the rug before she started looking through it. If the picture wasn’t here, that would make this harder, but Emery usually kept copies of everything he gave to Alice. He said he liked to know what she was working from, and she must have had something to make that sketch in her studio.
And here it was, strikingly familiar even though Lisa had only seen the drawing.
She pulled out the photograph of Emery with his hand out as if offering a blessing to the boy in ropes kneeling before him.
“Oh, that’s a good one.” He took it and tilted it to the light. “It’s a little insulting that you picked out a picture I didn’t take, but I’ll forgive you, since you have a good eye.”
“I like looking at you,” she said, watching his face. “How careful you look here. Like you’re standing between him and the world. As if you tied him like that to protect him.”
Emery’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t need ropes for that, Lisa.”
“Maybe not. But I might. Could we—if I asked you to—could we try something like that? I want to feel safe. I want to trust myself to know what that is, even if it’s a man.”
He stared at her for a moment longer, then nodded. “Tonight? Or in the future?”
“Tonight.” While I’m still thinking of Abigail, while I can still hear her egging me on in my head. “I mean, if that’s okay. And I don’t— I don’t know how this changes other things. Sex. I don’t know if this means sex to you, but you said it doesn’t, so—”
“Definitely not tonight. And it doesn’t. They can play together, but they don’t have to. Do you want ropes? I have other things that can bind people.”
“Ropes. Ropes is how I, uh, pictured it.”
The serious lines in his forehead smoothed out. “You’ve pictured me tying you up in ropes?”
“And you haven’t?”
“Oh god, don’t make me answer that, please. I plead the Fifth.”
Good. Good, it wasn’t just her, it wasn’t some dumb thing she made up like it would be the answer to her everything.
“Also, you can keep your clothes on.” He stood up, put away his portfolio and dragged out his tub of stuff she didn’t understand.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t want to what?”
She swallowed. “I don’t want to keep my clothes on.”
He swiveled on his heels to look at her. “Listen, I don’t want you to think, for a second, that I object to seeing you naked. But ropes is a whole lot of contact, and it might make you feel incredibly vulnerable, which is what it sounds like you’re going for. Do you really want to add nudity to that?”
“I think so. I think that’s kind of the point.”
“Huh. Then how about you keep your underwear on? For me, not you.”
“But why?”
“Fact of the matter is, if I do this right it’s going to massively turn me on, and I don’t want you to notice that and think there’s any chance I’ll try something while you’re tied up. I think a barrier would be good.”
“Oh.” Oh. Oh god. She blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t think— I mean, I guess it’s not really fair to ask you—”
“To be turned on and not have sex? Yeah, actually, that’s totally fair. You might be turned on, too, you never know. Can I trust you to control yourself?”
“I kind of doubt it will come to that, but yeah. I promise I won’t try to take advantage of you, Emery.”
“Thanks.”
And oh boy, those were definitely ropes. One long piece? Multiple lengths? She was a little distracted by their similarity to snakes, though she’d never seen a neon purple snake.
“Lisa?”
She looked up.
“You can stop me anytime.”
“I know.”
“Okay. Good.”
“So, uh, how does this work? Am I supposed to take off my clothes now?”
“I’m not quite ready yet.” He put the ropes down on the coffee table and drew her to her feet, holding her hands. “How modest are you?”
“Modest? I didn’t used to be.”
“I’m thinking about a harness. It wouldn’t incapacitate you; you could sit down, stand up, move around, even put your clothes on and cut it off later. But you’d be stunning in one, and I assume if you’re looking at that picture, you aren’t trying to start small.”
“I want everything,” she whispered. The boy in the picture had been clothed in lines of rope like a shield, like a force field.
“Let’s start with this.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “It stops when we say it stops. If you don’t like it, tell me.”
She pulled their joined hands to her own lips, a clumsy return kiss. “I’ll tell you. I’m a little worried they’ll turn into snakes.”
“I have scissors, Lisa. No matter how far into it we are, I can have them off you and away from your skin inside thirty seconds.”
“And they’re neon, so that … helps.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“So how does this start?”
“With your shirt. But wait.” Emery dropped her hands and pulled off his own shirt, tossing it on the futon.
And oh god, the fox inked on his gorgeous chest. It was staring at her, but this time it made her feel as if she were under its protection, not outside of it. Lisa pulled off her own shirt and stepped forward, kissing the side of his smile.
“That wasn’t in the script,” he murmured.
“Sorry. I’ll get myself under control in a minute. Or three.” But god, the feel of his hands sliding up into her hair made her want to stay suspended in now forever.
“Three.” He kissed her, soul patch tickling her skin. “Two…”
“One. Okay.” She leaned her forehead against him. “Tie me up, Emery.”
“Oh god. I mentioned I’m pretty turned on, right?”
She looked. She couldn’t not-look. And yeah, he was packing something in those jeans.
“Stop. You’ll make me blush.”
Lisa giggled. “Sorry.”
“You still want to do this?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. More than ever.”
At first it was awkward. Partly because she had to hold two ropes at her shoulders (“Trust me, it will all be worth it when you feel it at the end,” he said), but mostly because she was far too aware of everything. Horns honked down the street; someone walked up the stairs with jingling keys to their apartment on an upper floor; kids on the corner shouted insults; radios blared out of car windows; a scuffle outside the door included a yap and a sharp “SHHH!”
She could hear the motor in the fridge, and the way the toilet ran intermittently. She could feel every air current against her skin, only underwear and bra still on.
She wanted to think she felt safe with Emery because he was safe to be with, but the real truth was she’d felt safe enough with all of them, with every one of the men she’d been with. She wondered briefly if Frankie had felt safe with Caldecott, then banished the thought.
The harness, so far, was disappointing. Far from the woven work of art she’d seen in Alice’s drawing, this was just a series of knots down the front of her body. And Emery touched her carefully, but she didn’t think any more or less carefully than he’d touched the boy in the picture. He could probably tie up anyone and touch them just like this.
The last knot landed above her pubic bone, and this time he looked up from where he knelt.
God. No shirt, on his knees, at her feet.
“I have to get kinda touchy for a minute,” he said. “Is that all right?”
“Touchy?”
He held up what was left of the incredibly long rope he was using (even doubled over, it seemed to go on forever). “I’m running this between your legs. Don’t worry, it won’t chafe.”
Chafing. She hadn’t yet considered worrying about chafing.
Lisa slid her legs just a little apart. “Okay.”
“Tell me if it’s too uncomfortable.”
“I will.”
It wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, even through thin cotton, it was arousing and grounding all at once. The background noises receded, and she could feel the ropes now. Emery did something behind her and pulled them around, stringing each side through the top knot he’d made above her breasts. Then around back, forcing him to move in close, and through the front ropes, pulling the lengths between knots into diamonds.
Lisa lost herself to the feeling of tug and tautness as the ropes seemed to find their own perfectly balanced tension against her skin.
She realized she’d closed her eyes, that the only sensations she could still feel were his hands, his ropes, and occasionally his breath on her skin. He was on his knees again, tying the last of the knots with the last of the rope. She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, so she kept her eyes closed and swayed slightly as if there were a draft. She was upright, but her body was fluid; standing with the floor against her feet, but also floating in space, in ropes that both buoyed her up and tethered her down.
She was naked, and somehow the ropes held her securely and at the same time set her free.
When Lisa at last opened her eyes, he was gazing up at her as if he could never get tired of the sight.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Do your knees hurt?”
“Who cares about my knees?” he whispered back. “How do you feel?”
Birds soaring, waves crashing, dolphins shooting through water, cheetahs speeding over the savannah.
“Powerful. I feel powerful.”
He grabbed her hands again and held them to his lips, just breathing for a long moment, eyes still raised to hers. Then he stood up and stepped in.
“May I kiss you?”
“You better.”
Kissing a man who’d tied ropes around her body should have felt like giving something away, but instead it felt like creation, like between them they made something new—a fire, or at least a spark.
He leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “You look hot in neon purple, by the way.”
“It goes so well with black matching bra and panties.”
He laughed. “It really does.”
What had started out steamy and just a little bit kinky wound up as a brief wrestling match, after which both of them collapsed on the futon.
“This rope rubs in interesting places,” Lisa panted.
“Tell me more. You want it off yet?”
She slid more completely under his body. “Not yet. Can I spend the night?”
“Definitely. And I meant it, earlier. We’ve done this now. We can do it again. It’s not a step on the way to something else.”
She nodded, feeling generous. “Unless we want it to be.”
“Unless we want it to be, yeah.”
Sex would be good. God, could they have sex with the ropes? No, right? That would rub both of them wrong. Though Emery probably knew some way to do it so they could.
As much as Lisa wanted the outcome of that—of knowing she could have sex with a good man, of knowing she wasn’t so broken she couldn’t bear his touch—what she wanted more was to rub against his glorious muscles with ropes between them and kiss.
She reached up to kiss the fox on his skin. “Eventually, yes. To everything. Tonight I want to stay in this space in my head where all I can feel is strength.”
“Hell yes,” he said. “Let’s do that.”
So they did. Not as a consolation prize. Not as something she was willing to offer in the face of what he really wanted. They kissed and rolled around and took it up to the loft when they nearly rolled off the futon for the fourth time, and when Emery untied her, much later, she felt as if she were being stroked and petted and soothed, that every touch sank into her skin, leaving behind an invisible layer of protection to guard that precious sense of power she’d only just discovered, a tiny fire burning that she could still feel even without the ropes.