Curio by Cara McKenna Page B

only a European male model can pull off. Though I wouldn’t have minded pulling it off myself, right up over his head. The sleeves were pushed to his elbows and I studied his bare skin and his collarbone, his dark stubble. This man with all of his extraordinary nuances… He could be above me, before the night was over. I could leave here calling him my lover.
    “You’re very quiet,” he said, tapping my forearm. “What are you thinking of?”
    “About tonight.”
    “Me too. Come.”
    He says that a lot— come . A very interesting order. Or in the case of Sunday evening, a plea. Whatever its meaning, I’m happy to comply. I took our glasses and he grabbed the bottle and I followed him to the living room. As we sat on the settee, the wind rattled the old panes behind us.
    “So you think tonight may be the night?”
    I nodded. “I’d like it to be.”
    “I would like that too. Have you thought about how you might wish it to feel? Aggressive, gentle? Romantic?”
    I think it’s fair to say I’d given it a ridiculous amount of thought, easily a hundred hours’ theorizing in the past week. The previous evening I’d lay in bed for ages, fantasizing about Didier and running through every scenario, sweet and nasty alike, that crossed my overheated mind.
    “Whenever I imagine it,” I said, “I think about you. What you’re doing. More than I need it to be, you know, satisfying, I want it to be hot . I care about that more than I care about coming, I guess is what I’m trying to say.”
    “You’d like a show?”
    I laughed. “Sounds that way. Sorry, I’m not explaining it very well. When I fantasize about sex, it’s usually just about the man. I’m not usually there in my fantasies.”
    “Really?”
    I nodded. “That’s always how my brain has worked with sex.”
    “You really do fear rejection.”
    “I really do.”
    “Well, we are not in your mind tonight. Before you know it we’ll be in my bed. I don’t know what you’re picturing, but usually for two people to have sex, they both need to be present.”
    I rolled my eyes at the tease. “Of course.”
    “But I think I understand what you’re saying.”
    “That makes one of us.”
    “And how do you want me?” he asked.
    “Really…worked up. And aggressive, I think, but not mean. Just sort of desperate. Does that make sense?”
    “Absolutely. I can be that way.”
    I sipped my wine. “How do most women like you to be?”
    “They like many different things. Sometimes they wish to order me around. But far more often, they want to be the one who’s dominated.”
    “And you like doing that?”
    “As I said, I like pleasing women. I can be cruel, if that is what’s desired of me.”
    “Does anyone ever just want to pretend you’re their boyfriend?”
    “Yes, sometimes. That is how many dates begin. With a meal or a drink, just as you and I have done. Talking leads to kissing, leads to bed.”
    “Do you… Are any of your clients married?”
    He nodded. “I imagine so.”
    “Oh. How do you feel about that?”
    “I don’t.”
    His answer gave me pause, but he went on.
    “My world is very small, and when I’m with a woman, I think it is my job to reduce that even further, to the space between her and I. It is my job to be someone’s fantasy. And unless they, like you, wish to question me about reality, I give it no thought. For as long as someone is here with me, reality is just whatever happens between our two bodies.”
    “You aren’t bothered that you might be helping a woman cheat on someone else?”
    “That is not my job, to be bothered. And to be frank, that is a very American kind of guilt.” He smiled at me.
    “I know. I was just curious.”
    “It is not my job to ask questions.”
    “Does it bother you that I ask so many?”
    He shook his head. “It’s a nice change, to have someone so interested in what goes on in my head. I so often play the role of the seducer, it’s flattering to think that maybe I’m