The Original Sinners: The Red Years

“It’s a terrible idea. The staff won’t know who’s in charge. You won’t know who’s in charge. She’ll undermine you. You’ll undermine her. Regime change has to be quick and dramatic for it to be effective.”

“It’s Royal’s West Coast office, not France in 1799.”

J.P. took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

“Bring me her contract. I’ll keep it.”

Zach turned on his heel without another word and walked to his office. He paused at the door when he noticed it was cracked open. He remembered very clearly locking it last night since he’d left his laptop on his desk. Warily, he opened the door and entered.

“Hey, Zach,” Nora said. She sat in his chair behind his desk with her eyes closed.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you get into my office? It was locked.”

“Magic.” She opened her eyes and smiled.

“You look like hell,” Zach said. Nora had dark circles under her eyes and her face appeared gaunt from lack of sleep.

Zach came around his desk and she stood up to give him his chair back. She sat on top of his desk and rolled back on it like a bed.

“I’ve spent the last twelve hours in hell. Sorry, I forgot to bring you a souvenir.”

“I have all the souvenirs I need from my own trips there. What are you doing here, Nora?”

“Apologizing for going off on you last night.”

“Apology accepted. Now you can go. J.P. is going to find another editor for you to work with. Probably Thomas Finley. He’s an asshole. You’ll like him.”

“There are good assholes and bad assholes. You’re the good kind. I only want to work with you.”

“Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have told me to first, fuck the book and second, to fuck myself.”

Nora rolled up off his desk and turned to face him. She crossed her arms over her chest. She exhaled slowly.

“Wesley didn’t come home last night.”

“He’s old enough he can go anywhere he pleases, Nora.”

“But you don’t know Wes. He calls. He calls all the time. If he’s going to be five minutes late he calls me. I was in Miami a while ago and he called me to tell me he was going to the movies so if I tried to call him and didn’t get him, I wouldn’t worry. That’s Wes. He didn’t come home and he didn’t call. I freaked out.”

“I assume you found him?”

Nora laughed coldly. “Sort of. He’s in the hospital.”

Zach sat up in his chair.

“Good Lord. Is he all right?”

“He went into diabetic ketoacidosis at the library. No one called me because no one knows I exist. I’m not next of kin. I’m not any kin.”

“Have you seen him?”

“I just came from the hospital where I spent half an hour eavesdropping on his parents while lurking out in the hallway. I can’t go in since they’re there. Zach, I feel…impotent. Bad feeling.”

Zach looked away from her and stared out his window. His view was to the east, and if the world was flat and his vision was telescopic he could see all the way to England. He knew how Nora felt. Grace…her parents had come as soon as he called and told them she was in the hospital. As soon as they arrived he knew he’d made a mistake by calling them. The doctors immediately stopped talking to him and starting talking to them instead. He remembered his fury then, how he’d stepped between Grace’s parents and the doctor and told the doctor in no uncertain terms that when a married woman was in the emergency ward, you spoke to her husband first and her parents second. He hadn’t told the doctor to go fuck himself. He’d been far less polite than that.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“When you called last night I was waiting for news. If God Himself had called me and started telling me the secrets of the universe, I would have told Him to go fuck Himself, too. You can’t take me personally, Zach. Can I make it up to you? Coffee? Tea? Me?”

Zach laughed. Even exhausted she was still shameless.

“You need sleep, not caffeine or any other stimulant,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. She smiled and nodded in agreement.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. Soon as Wes is home again, I promise I’ll get back to the book. Can you email me whatever it was you were going to tell me last night? I’ll read it and do whatever it is you want me to do.”

Zach promised to do so and Nora started to leave.

“When’s the last time you slept, Nora?” he asked before she walked out of his office.

“Twenty-six hours ago.”

Zach winced. “You shouldn’t be driving. Dead writers revise no tales.”

“We’ll put that on my tombstone,” Nora said. Zach stared her down. “Fine. I’ve got a friend with a town house a few blocks from here. I’ll go crash at his place.”

“No stimulants, remember?” he reminded her. “Actors playing Hamlet are told to stay celibate lest they ruin their performance.”

Nora threw a smile over her shoulder. Suddenly, she didn’t look tired or worried anymore. She looked wild and beautiful and so alive.

“Celibate, Zach? Have you met me?”

Zach was still laughing after she’d left him. He looked up and saw J.P. standing in the door to his office.

“So the contract?” J.P. asked.

Zach looked at his boss.

“I think I might keep it a little while longer,” Zach said a little sheepishly.

“And her?”

Zach reached under his desk and pulled Nora’s manuscript out of the paper-recycling bin.

“I think I might keep her, too.”

* * *

Nora pulled in at Kingsley’s town house and walked inside without knocking. Nora announced herself to Juliette, Kingsley’s beautiful Haitian secretary and the only other woman in the world besides her he was afraid of. Juliette gave her breakfast and took her up to Kingsley’s opulent bedroom. She could sleep there since Kingsley was gone until tomorrow. Nora stripped out of her clothes and crawled between the sheets—sheets she’d spent more than a few nights on before. She took both of her cell phones out and laid them on the pillow next to hers in case Wesley, Zach, King or Søren called.

As she faded into sleep, Nora’s mind went to Wesley’s side—she hoped he was feeling better and would be home with her soon. As she pressed deeper into the luxurious sheets, a little part of her sort of wished Søren was there.

When Nora finally woke up it was almost nine at night. She’d slept for almost twelve straight hours. She showered in Kingsley’s decadent bathroom and dressed in the clothes Juliette had brought for her and left on the chair next to the bed. When she got out of the shower, her hotline rang. She grabbed it and answered it with still wet hands.

“King—what’s the news?”

“The good doctor says you are clear for a rendezvous with ton petit garçon malade. His parents succumbed to the doctor’s insistence they let your pet sleep tonight. They are at a hotel.”

“Tell Dr. Jonas next time I’ll do that thing he likes with the peanut butter and the cock ring.”

“It is without a doubt the sole reason he went to medical school.”

Nora left Kingsley’s town house and made her way back to the hospital feeling like a new person. Nearly shivering from the excitement at getting to see Wesley, she parked her car and headed straight to his room. Tiptoeing in, she saw Wesley lying in his hospital bed sound asleep.

She came up to the bed and looked down at him. His eyelashes fluttered against his tan cheeks and his chest rose and fell slowly. She bent forward and kissed him on the forehead. His eyes flew open and he looked at her as if she was something out of a dream.

“Nora, thank God.” He tried to throw his arms around her. But he winced when he realized his arms were taped up with tubes.

“Don’t move, kid. You’re going to rip something out. I’m right here. How are you feeling?”

“Perfect now that you’re here. I’ve been going nuts all day trying to figure out how to call you. But if Mom left the room Dad was here and vice versa. They finally left a few minutes ago. The doctor was really insistent they leave me alone tonight.”

Nora grinned at him.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Friend of a friend. It’s good to have friends in strange places. I’ve got a cop who owes me a favor, too, if you ever get arrested.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Wesley reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. I was here earlier creeping in the hallway. I heard your parents talking. Your mom wants you to move home.”

“She does, but I’m not going to. I’ve got Dad on my side. We’ll wear her down.”

“You better. Good help is so hard to find. So what did the doctor say?”

Wesley groaned and Nora ran her hand through his hair. It felt so good just to touch him again, to be near him again. She couldn’t believe it had been only one day they’d been apart.

“I’ve given myself so many shots in the arm that I’ve got scar tissue,” Wesley said, rubbing his upper left biceps. “The insulin isn’t getting through it well enough. I have to change my injection site.”

“Thighs?” she asked. “Your cute little ass?”

“Worse. All my daytime shots in my stomach now and my thigh at night. You know, sticking a needle into your own stomach and leaving it there for five seconds is sort of overrated.”

“Tell me about it. Even the biggest kinksters don’t play rough on the stomach. Very sensitive area. When can you come home?”

“They may let me out tomorrow or the day after. I feel a lot better. Just really tired.”

“You look like you lost ten pounds and you didn’t really have any extra to lose.”

“You’re the one who’s too skinny, Nora.”

“I have gained eight pounds since you moved in and started cooking every day.”

“You needed those eight pounds. You were all gristle when I moved in.”

“I have to be very tough to beat up on all my bad little boys and girls. I’m going to beat up on you, too, if you ever scare me like that again.”

“I don’t plan to. Promise.”

Wesley smiled at her and she clutched his hand.

“Do you want me to run home and bring you anything? Clothes or anything?”

“Mom will use any excuse to go shopping. She was going to pick some stuff up for me tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. I’ll go and let you sleep then.”

Wesley sat up and shook his head.

“Don’t go. Please.”

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Wes,” she said to the almost panic in his voice. “Scoot over and make room.”

Wesley laughed but she wasn’t joking. She carefully crawled into his hospital bed and slid under the wires and tubes. She stretched out next to him and Wesley wrapped an IVed arm around her back. She lay against his chest and closed her eyes.

“You know, I’ve fooled around in a hospital before but never in the pediatric ward.”

“Nora, you’re disgusting. Go to sleep.”

“You sleep first.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to talk to you.”

“Good. I don’t want to sleep, either. What do you want to talk about? Horses?”

“You want to talk about horses?”

“Don’t be mad but I was digging through your stuff trying to find your friends’ phone numbers. I found the photo album from last summer. And the stupid picture of me with Speakeasy.”

She looked up at him. Even in the dark she could see Wesley’s blush.

“It’s not a stupid picture. You look happy in it.”

“Of course I do. I was with you.”

Wesley smiled down at her. Nora kissed him on the cheek and rested her head once more against his chest. It was such a relief to hear his heart beating steadily against her ear.

“How did you find out where I was?” Wesley asked. He ran his hand up and down her arm. She knew the last thing he wanted to hear was that Søren had hunted him down for her, and that Kingsley, her partner in crime, had used some of his connections to get confidential information.

Nora shut her eyes and nestled in closer to Wesley.

“Magic.”

10

Zach was relieved to find almost fifteen thousand new words from Nora in his email when he arrived at work two days after finding her half-unconscious in his office. Apparently she was working out her nervous energy from not having Wesley at home by writing five breathlessly intense chapters. He read through them and jotted down notes as he went. He was thrilled with what she was doing with the book. But he needed to steer her in a new direction before she wrote any more. The whole book couldn’t be a sprint. She needed to stop and let the reader breathe for a chapter or two before kicking into high gear again.

Zach read through his notes again and dialed her office number.

“Sophocles’s House of Patricide and Incest,” Nora answered. “How may I blind you?”

Zach bit the inside of his cheek to keep her from hearing him laugh.

“Nora.”

“Zachary,” she said breathlessly.

“You’re in a chipper mood, I see.”

“You can see me? Where are you? Are you in my house?”

This time Zach let her hear him laugh.

“From this excessive display of mirth and jubilance, I assume your intern’s come home.”

“Yes, thank God. With a little subterfuge I managed to smuggle him back under my roof where he belongs. He is resting comfortably right now, and I am on cloud ten because cloud nine was full of pompous Englishmen. Wasn’t my scene.”

Zach cleared his throat. “Speaking of scenes—”

“Oh, God, the book. You know what, Zach, I am in a great mood. Nothing you can say or do will ruin it. Shred the chapters. Do your worst. Make it hurt. I’m ready.”

Zach took a deep breath.

“They’re fabulous.”

He heard Nora snort a most unladylike laugh on the other end of the line.

“You’re terrible at this game.”

“I’m quite in earnest, Nora. They’re excellent. Needs some minor cleaning up but spot-on all the way through. Now you just need to slow the pace down a little.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Three words. Show—don’t tell.”

“How much are they paying you for this?”

Zach chuckled and gave Nora some concrete suggestions for where to take the next two or three chapters.

“And I want five more chapters by tomorrow morning,” Zach said even though he knew that was an almost impossible challenge.

“Slave-driver,” she said.

“Nora, we’ve lost a lot of time—”

“Zach,” she said and he heard the smile in her voice. “Relax. It’s me. Slave-driver’s a compliment.”

They said their goodbyes and Zach hung up the phone. He looked up and saw his assistant standing in the doorway of his office holding a box in her hands.

“Oh, God. Another one?” he asked.

“Afraid so, boss.” Mary came inside his office. She put a book-size flat box on his desk.

“Have we figured out who is sending this nonsense yet?”

Zach picked up the box and warily tore off the plain brown paper wrapping.

“I think I know who it is,” Mary said. “Wonder what it is this time.”

“It was, what, anal beads two days ago. And a blindfold before that. And what was it last week?”

“Lube,” Mary supplied. “K-Y Jelly specifically, I believe.” Zach eyed Mary and suppressed a grin. Mary was his second favorite woman he’d met since coming to New York. “If you keep working with Nora Sutherlin, you’ll be able to start your own sex shop.”

“Anything would be preferable to this. I thought only adults were allowed to work in publishing,” he said. Turning the box over in his hands, Zach considered just tossing it in the trash. Ever since he’d started working with Nora, a new “gift” would arrive in his office mailbox or on his desk every couple of days.

“Come on, you know better than that. I’ll bet you anything it’s Thomas Finley. He thought he’d get the job in L.A since he’s been here the longest. He’s been pretty pissed ever since J.P. promised it to you. But everyone knows he’s still here only because he sucks up so much to the big bosses. He’s doesn’t edit books. He just spit-shines shit.”

Zach laughed and decided Nora and Mary needed to meet if they hadn’t already.

“I appreciate the loyalty as well as the imagery. But let’s get this over with, shall we? Lovely,” Zach said as he pulled out a pair of bright silver handcuffs with a set of tiny keys hanging off the middle link.

“Nice. Very shiny.” Mary took them from him and examined them closely. “You have the right to remain silent,” Mary began and slapped the cuffs on his left wrist. Zach gave her a dirty look. “Sorry. Too many Law & Order marathons, I think.”

“Far too many.”

Mary took the key and slipped it in the lock. She turned it but the cuffs didn’t pop open.

“Shit,” she breathed in shock. “The key doesn’t work.”

“Surely not.” Zach took the key and tried it himself. Nothing happened. “Bloody hell.”

“Boss, I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “I’ll call a locksmith right now.”

“That bastard. If it’s Finley, I’ll kill him. Whoever it was wanted this to happen.”

She raced from his office and headed to her own. He could only imagine how long it would take to get a locksmith here during the lunch rush hour.

He glanced down and saw Nora’s manuscript in front of him. And then he looked at his door. He picked up his phone again.

“Ian McEwan’s Cement and Incest Emporium—”

“Nora, really.”

“I love caller ID. What can I do you for?”

“I have a small problem involving handcuffs,” Zach said, glancing down at his wrist. “Do you know anything about locks?”

“If you knew how much of my life I’ve spent chained up, you wouldn’t ask that question.”

Zach paused a moment and said five words that were surprisingly difficult to get out.

“I need your help, Nora.”

Zach waited for her to laugh or tease him. Instead, she gave him a small piece of advice that he decided to take and hung up the phone.

“I called the locksmith,” Mary said, coming back into his office. “He said he’d be here in a couple of hours.”

“Cancel him. I called Nora. She gave me a suggestion.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Three words—come to me.’”

Zach stood up and pulled on his long gray coat; he stuffed his hands into his pockets so no one could see the cuffs dangling off his left wrist.

“And I think I will.”

Walking toward the elevator, Zach stiffened in fury as Thomas Finley strolled past him wearing an oily smirk on his face.

“Your jokes are not amusing, Finley,” Zach said as he continued toward the elevators.

“That’s because they’re not jokes, Easton.” Finley ducked into his office and Zach resisted the infantile urge to personally show Finley what was and was not amusing. Finley on the floor coughing up blood—that would be amusing.

Still fuming, Zach momentarily forgot about the handcuffs on his left hand when he stuck his hand out to hit the down button on the elevator. He heard a throat clearing and looked to the right.

J.P. stood at the receptionist’s desk with his eyebrow arched in disapproval.

“Long story,” Zach said. As much as he wanted to rant to J.P. about Finley’s torments, he was no schoolyard tattletale. He’d handle it himself when the time came.

“Might I ask where you are going thusly attired?” J.P. asked.

“Jail. Obviously.” The elevator door opened and Zach stepped inside. He smiled at J.P. knowing full well that’s exactly what Nora would have done. “It’s just about the book.”

If it was possible, J.P.’s eyebrow seemed to arch even higher.

“It’s never just about the book, Easton.”

* * *

When he put her in the handcuffs, she knew she was in trouble. The third time they ever saw each other she was wearing handcuffs. She wore them not for reasons of kink but of law enforcement. It was raining that night when she got caught for the first and last time. When she arrived at the police station and the cop pulled her out of the squad car, he was standing there just behind her mother. What was he doing here? she asked herself and then realized her mother must have called him out of fear and desperation. What a sight she was that night—soaked to the skin, bedraggled, wearing her school uniform with her hands cuffed behind her back. She’d glared at him from behind the veil of her wet hair, and he looked back at her with ironic amusement. But that wasn’t the only look in his eyes. There was something else there, something it would take years before she fully understood.

She understood it now.

She sat on the floor gagged and handcuffed to the bedpost. In forced silence, she leaned back and watched him. A young woman with pink and blue hair was strapped spread-eagle to a St. Andrew’s cross. With a cat-o’-nine-tails he tattooed the girl’s back bright red with welts. The girl squirmed and cried out. She begged him to stop. He didn’t stop.

After a few minutes the beating ceased. He laid the cat aside and strode over to where she sat on the floor. He knelt in front of her and ordered her to meet his eyes.

“Are you ready to apologize now?” he asked her. “Or shall I continue beating Simone?”

The only thing worse than one of his beatings was being forced to watch while someone else took the punishment that was rightfully hers. She slowly nodded her head.

“Good girl,” he said. He stood up and walked over to the girl on the cross. He unbound her wrists and ankles. Simone stepped gingerly off the platform and knelt on the floor. She kissed the top of his bare feet and rose up again. He bent his head and in a voice too low to overhear, whispered something in her ear. The girl blushed and smiled. She asked for permission to kiss his hand. He granted it.

Simone kissed the center of his palm, gathered her clothes and left the room. They were alone again.

He walked back to her and squatted in front of her. He untied the gag and waited.

“You have something to say to me?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.” She took a ragged breath. “I’m sorry I forgot to call, sir. I apologize for worrying you. I was so tired when I got home I went straight to bed.”

“It takes mere seconds to call and let me know you arrived home. You are my most treasured possession. Your value to me is beyond what you can conceive. It is my duty to protect you. You know my rules. And you know better than to flout them.”

She hated when she disappointed him. But it wasn’t her fault she was so tired. He’d kept her up until

3:00 a.m. beating her and fucking her over and over again. It had taken everything she had to just make it to her bed that night. She knew she’d worried him when she hadn’t called. But it was galling to be treated like a teenager with a curfew. She’d refused to apologize at first. She was twenty-six years old, for God’s sake.

“Forgive me, please. I’ll do anything.”

He raised his eyebrow and she knew she’d made a mistake.

“Anything?”

Her stomach fell through the floor.

An antique black rotary phone sat on a table in his private quarters. He only ever used it for one purpose. He used it for that purpose now.

She didn’t look up when the door opened. She knew from the shoes who it was who’d entered. Black riding boots. Men’s riding boots.

She shouldn’t have said “anything.”

He returned to her and released her from the floor. He didn’t remove the handcuffs, though. He kept her hands cuffed behind her back. He’d made her wear her old school uniform tonight in honor of the first time he’d seen her in handcuffs.

He unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it roughly off her shoulders. His mouth crashed onto hers and he kissed her until her lips were sore and swollen. He kissed his way down her neck and across her shoulders and breasts, leaving a trail of bite marks and bruises. He pushed her onto her back on the bed and wrenched her skirt up to her hips. He yanked her white cotton panties down her legs, over her white knee socks and saddle shoes. His fingers pushed inside her and spread her wide for him. He gripped her arm and shoved her onto her stomach. She felt his hands between her legs again separating her, prying her open. She braced herself and groaned as he pushed inside her. He rode her with fierce thrusts that left her gasping. She didn’t want to moan or cry out. Not with an audience standing at the foot of the bed smiling and watching everything he did to her. But he wrenched the cries from her. She pressed her face into the bed and bit the coverlet trying to stifle the sound of her climax.