 |
|||
|
|
The sky hung heavy with the promise of the first snow of winter. Thick, deep and low clouds clung eerily about the tops of many of the city’s skyscrapers. The city’s more experienced residents knew what was coming and accordingly they’d retreated inside to the warmth and comfort of their homes. Normally bustling streets now saw only a handful of warmly dressed people scurrying about on essential errands, hurrying to get home before the weather turned.
The basketball courts that were normally filled with laughing, playing children and young adults were entirely empty, except for a solitary figure dressed in a long dark overcoat and hidden behind a thick scarf, gloves and woolen hat.
For several minutes, the figure stood on the edge of the half-court’s circle, looking up at the hoop and across the court. The wind gusted, blowing an errant sheet of newspaper across the empty court where it wrapped itself around the figure’s legs. The paper roused the figure to motion, with a flick of the leg, the paper was returned to its swirling journey through the eddying winds.
The figure walked through the chainlink boundary fence and stopped opposite a vacant storefront. The windows, once full of expensive suits and shirts were now depressingly boarded up. The elegant serif lettering on the storefront had lost its vitality, and where once it had proudly proclaimed “Thompson and Campbell est. 1856”, now it greyly presided over just another vacant shop front. A bright poster plastered across the wooden boards invited offers for lease or sale of the premises and gave the contact name and number of a prominent commercial agent.
The figure looked at the vacant store for some minutes, oblivious to the few passersby who scurried past curiously wondering why this well dressed young woman chose to stand about in the frigid biting wind.
Eventually she turned her back on the storefront and scanned the empty streets hopefully looking for a cab.
---
They met at a restaurant in the park. It seemed fitting, the Boathouse shut for the winter months, and it was clear the staff had already started their seasonal closedown in anticipation of winter’s imminent arrival. Only a handful of diners accompanied them. While normally busy and vibrant, today the restaurant was almost somber. Shed of her winter layer, Charlotte sat quietly opposite an uncharacteristically sedate Lisa.
The slightly older woman was dressed conservatively in a black skirt suit, her signature punk clothing, fringe and pigtails had been disposed of, and she wore her hair out, cascading freely over her shoulders. Lisa looked indistinguishable from any other professional city woman, a far cry from the hyper-sexual goth-look she adopted at her brothel.
“I can’t believe how great you look.” Lisa said warmly across the table.
“You’re too kind, and a bad liar.”
“Oh please, you’re too hard on yourself, you do look great. Can’t you take a compliment when it’s offered freely?”
“Sorry. You too, by the way. But I must say it’s weird seeing you dressed like that.”
“I don’t advertise in public.” Lisa smiled wanly.
The conversation descended to small talk as they looked over their menus. Once their orders had been taken, Lisa lent forward.
“How long has it been?”
“Four and a half years.”
“And you just decide after four and a half years to pick up the phone and invite your old prostitute pal to lunch?” She asked dryly.
“Look, I know it seems weird. I haven’t spoken to anyone since then. This is my first time back. I’m sorry I didn’t call or anything, it just didn’t seem right.”
“I really hoped you’d call, after that day. I thought we’d shared something.”
“We did. Stuff just got in the way.”
“I know. It’s just a shame. But life does that sometimes, it lets ‘stuff’ get in the way. Or you let ‘stuff’ get in the way. But you don’t have to. You can always put ‘stuff’ to one side and focus on life again, focus on achieving those things you set out to, to enjoy what it is you live for. If you let ‘stuff’ get in the way, you don’t really live. You just get buffeted along from one set of ‘stuff’ to another.”
“You’re speaking from personal experience?” Charlotte asked.
“Sure. I see it every day. Most of my clients are all hung up on their own ‘stuff’. They let it consume them to the point where they can’t be true or real to their wives and families, let alone themselves. They let it build up and dictate their lives until their ready to burst.
“Me. I’m the release valve, I’m who they come to when they need to live out their real desires and lives, even if it’s only for half an hour behind a closed door.”
Charlotte pondered Lisa’s words quietly.
“So, are you going to ask me?” Lisa posed a question.
“Ask you what?”
“Ask me what you came here to ask. ‘Where is he? Where is Mr Frank Campbell. Have I seen him? How is he? What’s he doing? Does he ever talk, you know, about me?’” Having delivered her guess, Lisa sat back in her seat.
“It’s more complicated than that.” Charlotte said quietly.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Stop being obtuse. Because isn’t an answer. An answer would be: ‘it’s complicated because I was deeply unfair to a man who’d fallen deeply in love with me’, or it might be: ‘it’s complicated because I had feelings once but now I don’t know’, or ‘I’m afraid of finding out he’s moved on and no longer wants me.’ Those are answers Charlotte, or do I call you Charlie?”
“I should leave.” Charlotte pushed her chair back.
“Ask me your questions. If you don’t, I guarantee you that you will regret it. Don’t let your ‘stuff’ get in the way Charlie.”
“It’s Charlotte.”
“Well that, at least, is a step forward.”
Charlotte pulled her seat back in and smoothed her napkin over her lap.
“I went to his store today. It’s closed. It was like a message, like he’s gone. I don’t know why I came. I suppose I wanted to say sorry and goodbye. But there’s a little part of me that really wanted him to be there in his store. A little part that thought music would well up and a man and a woman would look into each other’s eyes and know soulful completeness in a single glance.
“But he’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Tell me why I should tell you.” Lisa responded. “So you can hurt him again? So you can lead him on, get him to love you again and then disappear from his life to leave a crushed empty shell of a person behind? Because that’s what you did last time Charlotte.”
“Now that’s not fair.” Charlotte retorted. “My Father died. And I was only 16, what’s a 38 year old man doing seducing a 16 year old girl who’s Father was dying?”
“You’re asking the wrong person Charlotte. You won’t meet a more open minded person in this cess pool of moral vice and depravity. But even jaded little me can tell you that Frank did nothing illegal. Morally dubious maybe, but nothing illegal. You were both over the age of consent. The real crime here was what the two of you allowed to happen afterwards. So, I’ll ask again. Why should I tell you anything about him now? I love Frank as a person and a friend. I don’t want to see him hurt again.” Lisa’s eyes glowered.
“I want to see him. I need closure. I admit, I treated him badly. I shouldn’t have just cut him off. I was in a pretty dark place. I blamed him for things that I shouldn’t have. And by the time I realised I was wrong, it was too late to fix it.”
“So why are you here?”
“I don’t know. I just want to see him again. Just once.Just one more time. Then I know it can be over and I can start the next chapter of my life with a fresh page.”
“I’m truly sad for you,” Lisa’s eyes softened and she lent back across the table. “But I’ll help. He’s here.” Charlotte’s eyes almost popped out of her head.
“No, not ‘here’, here. I mean he’s still in the City. He closed the shop last year. I guess it no longer made him happy, he only ever did it for love. But after you left, something sad crept into him and I don’t think he ever got passed it. He still has his apartment, rattling about up there with his butler and house staff, doing who-knows-what.”
“Thankyou Lisa. How is he though, now I mean?”
“He’s okay. I see him every other month or so. He still has his needs and one of our girls usually looks after him. We talk occasionally, when he’s waiting or on his way out.”
“Does he ever...”
“Ask after you? Yes. It took him a while to get the courage up, but he asked if I ever spoke to you at all. I had to tell him no. I never want to see that look in another human’s eyes again. It was like I’d just killed his puppy.
“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked.
“I have to see him. I must. I have to say goodbye properly.”
---
She made the cab drive around the block twice before she gathered her courage. Fitfully and with a fluttering stomach, she paid the driver before turning to face the stone edifice of the apartment building. The doorman looked expectantly at her as she stood silently gazing upwards. Somewhere, at the top of the building, she knew, he was there.
She gulped back her fear and stepped forward. The doorman, cheeks rosy red in the biting cold, gladly opened the door for her before stepping back into his alcove out of the snow and the wind.
She asked the man at front desk for Mister Frank Campbell and while he phoned upstairs she tried to distract herself by looking at the prints hanging on the foyer walls.
“Who should I say is calling, Miss?”
Charlotte thought for a moment, “Miss Charlotte.” She replied.
“No last name?” The deskman asked.
“He won’t need one. He knows who I am.”
Moments later he put down the phone, “If you’ll just come this way.”
He swiped a card in the elevator before pressing the button for the penthouse, “Have a nice day Ma’am.” He offered as the lift’s door slid shut and the car began its trip upwards.
The nervous tension built as the elevator ascended quickly. She took several deep breaths as it slowed and its doors opened. She saw the familiar marble entry way with its fountain and ominous door. Stealing herself to press the doorbell, she jumped as the door opened to reveal Bosker’s familiar face, albeit slightly more lined.
“Miss Charlotte, this is most unexpected and unusual.”
“Yes. I’m sorry for arriving unannounced. I was just in the city and thought I should stop by.” She cringed at her obvious lie.
“You wish to see Mr Campbell?” The butler asked formally.
“Is he in?” She asked with just a tinge of fear in her voice.
“He is. I’ll show you to the sitting room and let him know you are here.”
She smelt the familiar smells of the apartment, leather, polish, a hint of flowers. Not a thing appeared to have changed in the years that had passed. Bosker showed her to one of the chesterfield couches in the sitting room. She sat awkwardly on the edge of her seat, looking about the room expectantly.
“Charlotte.” His voice: “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Her initial thought was that he hadn’t changed at all. She compared him to the first time she’d seen him, a mouth full of pins serving a customer in his store. He still looked fit, thin, well dressed and barely a day over 30. On second reflection, she saw some traces of grey in his hair about the temples and maybe a few extra wrinkles about the eyes. But if anything, they just made him look more distinguished. He offered her his hand, which she took gently. They exchanged a brief handshake before he indicated she should sit back down.
“Oh, I was just in town and thought I should say hello.”
“After four years?”
“Four and a half, to be correct.” She added.
“No. Four years. I spoke to you briefly five months after your Father, god rest his soul, passed away.”
“Oh yes. I’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t.” He said grimly.
“Look, that was one of the reasons I’m here. I wanted to say sorry for that. For what I said. It was unfair. You didn’t kill my Father, I should never have blamed you for what happened. It was a dark time and I now know that I was wrong. So I wanted to say sorry to you for what I said.”
“Thank you.” He said softly. “I knew you didn’t mean it, but it hurt just the same. I appreciate the apology, it mustn’t have been easy for you.”
“No.” She said. Silence fell over the room as she looked into her lap and smoothed her skirt over her knees.
“So,” he asked, “what have you been doing? How are you?”
“Better. I had help. Too many hours with shrinks and too many pills, but I’m much better now. I finished college...” She said expectantly.
“Really. Well done. What did you study?”
Bosker chose this moment to appear with a coffee service. Charlotte continued while the butler unobtrusively served tea and coffee.
“Sports management.” She saw Mr Campbell’s left eyebrow raise itself questioningly, “I’m thinking about going into public relations for a team, I did an internship with our college basketball team over summer and really liked the work. You get access to the players, and all the coaching staff and then you manage the relationship between the team, the players and the media. It’s really interesting stuff.”
“I see.” Charlotte sensed his disapproving tone.
“Well I don’t need your approval. Look, maybe this was a mistake.”
“Maybe it was.”
“I should go.” She stood to leave, he stood with her.
“Bosker can show you to the door.” Almost immediately the butler appeared, his face an impartial mask. Mr Campbell’s on the other hand looked stern, resolved.
“Wait. Wait a minute Bosker. Could you leave us for a moment?” She asked. The butler disappeared.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” She asked bruskly.
“What did you want me to say. You appear unannounced after four and a half years, offer me an apology, tell me you’ve been studying sport at college-“
“Sports management.” She interrupted.
“Fine. Sports management, and you expect me to say what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you had your own apology to make?”
“Perhaps I do.” He sat back down. Charlotte resumed her own seat while she watched him across the room. His eyes were closed and his head hung down. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked straight at her.
“I am sorry. I am sorry for imprisoning you against your will and for trying to instil in you the discipline, courtesy and niceties expected of a lady. I am sorry for spanking you when you were ill behaved. I apologise for watching you while you slept. I apologise for dressing you in a manner that aroused me, for humiliating you, for hurting you and for thinking that a man twice your age could possibly ever attract your love and attention. I am sorry that I fell in love with you. That I let myself be fooled that such a fickle and erratic young lady could similarly fall in love with me.
“Most importantly, I am sorry that I have spent such a great amount of time over the last few years wondering about you, wondering what you were doing, whether you were safe, or whether you were happy or sad. I am sorry that I invested so much of myself in what I hoped we might become. How stupid was I to think that I had finally found a fellow soul who I might enjoy the rest of my life with? No. I am sorry for fooling myself for so long.
“Now, I see that I was wrong to invest so much of myself in you. You didn’t learn a thing. Here you are, a ‘sports’ graduate – whatever that means - about to descend into the depths of some locker room full of reeking footballers to flick towels at their asses, and stare at their ‘packages’, make jokes with the lads and then get on the booze with some reprobate of a journalist with a gravy spattered tie, slugging down Buds in some seedy sports bar.
“It’s not like that.” She offered, but was drowned out by his continuing lecture.
“So what’s the future hold for you? Meet some jerk of a quarterback with a big chest and an inversely proportioned brain, fall in ‘love’, get married, enjoy his career for all of five minutes until he blows a knee or an ankle or takes one too many head knocks. Then he gets fat sitting on the couch drinking beer with his former football mates, and in between reliving his ‘glory years’ he finds time to drunkenly fuck you missionary and foist half a dozen screaming brats on you.
“And to think, you could have had a life of distinguished elegance and luxury with me. I would have put you through the very best colleges, ivy-league, whatever you wanted. You could have learnt the classics and contemplated the deeper meaning of metaphysics, or music, or what-the-fuck-ever. No opera and art galleries for you, its Shitsville Texas with twelve screaming kids. No charity events, country clubs and summer vacations in the Hamptons, its Bob the used car salesman - ‘Hey don’t I know you, didn’t you once play wide receiver for that college team in arse-fuck Idaho...’
“I tried to show you refinement and gentility. But I failed, I mean just look at what you’re wearing.”
“What’s wrong with this? I’m wearing a skirt.”
“Where from?The bargain rack at Walmart?”
“I suppose you’d rather I be wearing something frilly and outrageous: dressed up like some five-year- old in her best party dress!” She shot back.
“Why not? At least it would be suitably feminine and better reflecting your natural looks and talents. Instead you’ll just waste yourself on mediocrity and... squalidness.” The words sank in.
“Do you really think that?” She asked cautiously.
“Yes.”
“I think I’m very different now. I would never have worn a skirt before. I even call myself Charlotte these days. That’s something isn’t it?”
“Praise the Lord for small mercies.”
“I think you’re wrong. Being a PR manager for a great team isn’t what you think it is. It’s a career. It’s a respectable career, and there are lots of very respectable people working in the field. And I’m not into footballers, in case you never noticed, I like basketball, not football. Anyway, men in sport don’t interest me, not that way. I like smart guys. Guys who know how to treat me properly.”
“And how is that Charlotte?” He looked at her suggestively across the room. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She knew exactly what he meant. She could feel the butterflies in her tummy telling her exactly what he meant. She needed someone to dominate her. Someone to humiliate her.Someone to free the butterflies.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t change the subject Charlotte, how should a man ‘treat you properly’.” She fiddled with her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry.” She said finally.
“Why?”
“I’m sorry for coming here in clothing not to your liking. I’ll try harder next time.”
“Next time?” He asked lewdly.
“Next time I visit. Now, I should be going.” She stood up, raising her gaze from her lap. He was reclined comfortably in his couch, a familiar gleam in the corner of his eye. ‘Damn!’ she thought, ‘how does he do it to me? I have to leave before this gets out of hand.’
“Look. I came to say sorry. I really am apologetic; I should never have done what I did. I now know what it did to you and it wasn’t fair. But when I came here today, what I thought I wanted was to hear you say sorry for what you did to a naive 16 year old. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have expected that. You don’t think you did anything wrong.”
“No. You’re wrong there. I did do something wrong. I didn’t chase you. I let you go.”
“Yes you did.” She said sadly. “I’m going.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because isn’t an answer Charlotte.” He said quietly. “Why don’t you stay for dinner. Perhaps we can talk some more?”
She looked about the room. She knew what would happen if she stayed. He’d try to worm his way into her, tormenting her with his eyes, making the butterflies flutter. She needed time to think about whether to accept or not.
“Can I use a bathroom to freshen up?” She asked tentatively.
“Guest bathroom, it used to be your bathroom. First on the left down the hall. You should remember the way, there’s been some renovations but it’s still in the same place.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
She got back to her feet. Shaking, she walked down the hall to the bathroom. On doing so she walked past Mr Campbell’s family portraits. There had once been four paintings, one of his father, his mother, himself and one of her very own mother. Now she stopped dead in the middle of the hall to see the painting of her mother had been replaced. Instead she found a picture of herself asleep. The photo had been taken while she was imprisoned, she was wrapped in amongst her sheets, clad in the pink flannelette ballerina sleeper that she had loathed so much. She thought she looked peaceful in the photo.
A warm feeling erupted inside her. One that she couldn’t put aside.
She shook her head and continued on to the bathroom.
She let the door close behind her as she washed her face in the basin. She dried herself and then stared into the mirror. Looking back at herself, she saw that for the first time in a very long time she looked vibrant and alive. For too many months she’d looked at the cold eyes staring back at her in the mirror and wondered what had happened to her.
But now, she felt alive. She felt illuminated.
But she also felt scared. What was she doing? Was she seriously contemplating staying for dinner? What would that suggest to him? Would he take it the wrong way? Didn’t she just want to see what might be left of what they had?
She shook her head. No. She knew there was something there. She’d come to get closure and to say goodbye. But now there was a sliver of hope that something was still there. She’d thought it a remote possibility when she’d planned her trip to the City. Indeed, she had deliberately played down any expectations. But now? Now she didn’t know. ‘Only one way to find out.’ She told herself.
She smiled to herself in the mirror, took a deep breath and prepared herself to return to the sitting room and tell him she’d be happy to stay for dinner.
The door handle wouldn’t turn. It was locked.
She rattled the door in its frame, but to no avail.
A familiar panic rose in her stomach.
She shook the door again, and this time called out. “Mr Campbell! Bosker! The doors locked! Help!”
“Of course the doors locked Charlotte. You didn’t think you’d be getting out of here so easily did you?” Mr Campbell’s voice emanated from speakers in the roof.
She smiled slightly. “No. No I didn’t. Not from you, you pervert.” She let go of the handle.
“I’ve been hard at work while you were gone Charlotte, I’ve redecorated. Just for you. You see, I knew you’d be back one day. We started something Charlotte, something very special, and I knew that one day you’d remember what it was and you’d come back to finish it. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
She looked up at the camera, but she said not a word.
“But before we get back to where we left off, you have to be punished. If you remember, I used to award you black spots for bad behaviour. Well, since you were very bad when you ran away, so I’ve given you a black spot for every day of your absence. I’ve kept that tally every day since you left. By my reckoning, you’ve earned one thousand, six hundred and six black spots.
“That’s a lot of black spots to work off, and that means a lot of punishment.
“I’ve decided to start by removing some of the privileges I so graciously extended to you during your last stay.”
Charlotte turned slowly toward the back of the bathroom and looked at the interlocking door that she knew led to her old bedroom. She placed her hand on the door knob: it turned.
“Go ahead, have a good look.” Mr Campbell suggested wickedly.
She opened the door and her stomach fluttered.
She gazed at the pink wallpaper, the sheepskin rug on the floor and the large white cot where her bed had once stood. Laying over the rail of the cot was a pink, frilled and ruffled romper suit created from the depths of Mr Campbell’s depraved mind. Ominously, a cloth diaper and pink rubber pants hung next to her new clothes.
And that wasn’t all. Her single wardrobe had been replaced by a bank of cupboards, the doors were each thrown open to reveal an unrelenting tide of frilled and lacy clothes. Pink, blue, purple party dresses, a whole array of onesie pyjamas, rompers such as the one hanging over her new cot, playsuits in every colour imaginable, and an entire wall of fresh, clean cloth diapers.
“I once threatened you with a month in the nursery without toilet privileges. Well that should be a good start to your punishment. But if you behave well for Nanny Madeline, we may allow you back into some big girl panties in a few weeks.”
Looming out of the shadows, Madeline the maid appeared with a pacifier and bonnet in hand. She smiled evilly, “Welcome back little Miss, I’ve very much looked forward to this moment.”
Mr Campbell continued, “After a month of good behaviour, then we can return to your lessons so you may become a proper little girl, and if you work very hard, in a year or two you may be fit to become a lady and join me by my side.”
Charlotte looked up at the camera with fear in her eyes. Inside, her butterflies soared free.
|
|
|