Free Being Me by Lisa Renée Jones Page B

convince you there is.”
    He’s gone before I can reply and I feel my knees quake with the aftermath of his words. Chris had said the same thing to me back in his apartment the morning we’d headed out to Napa Valley. No in between, I repeat in my mind. It is a reality I’ve had lurking in the back of my mind all morning. A reality that says “all” means not only that I have to embrace Chris’s dark side fully, no matter where that takes me, and us, but also that I have to show him mine, and I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready and I doubt very seriously he will be, either. Not for this. Not for his own reasons as well.
    I fill the two coffee cups and I’m relieved to find Ralph on the phone, and so make my escape back to my office without conversation, quickly and painlessly. Settling behind my desk, I set my mug down and dial David’s office, only to get an answering service. The office is “indefinitely” closed. The choice of words the operator uses sends a chill down my spine. I set the receiver down and stare at the desktop without seeing it.
    I’m starting to feel like I’m losing my mind. I can’t see danger everywhere. Ella is in Paris on her honeymoon. She’s fine. I’m letting this Rebecca mystery make my mind run wild. Actually, my whole life feels like it’s running wild whereas only weeks before it was calm and uneventful. I’m standing on a high-rise ledge and walking the edge, and while there is fear and apprehension, there is also a high I can only call an adrenaline rush that I crave more and more each day.
    My cell phone rings and I dig it from my purse to see Chris’s number on caller ID. “You made it okay?” I ask when I answer.
    “I just landed, and you know how I spent the entire flight?”
    He sounds a bit on edge, or maybe I’m on edge. Maybe we both are. “Sleeping, I hope.”
    “Thinking about you and not even about fucking you, Sara. About lying in my bed, with you asleep in my arms.”
    His confession thrills and worries me. “Why do I feel like I should apologize?”
    “Because you chose to stay there and you won’t be sleeping with me tonight.”
    “Oh,” I say, and the tension that had curled inside me begins to unwind. Chris is upset that we can’t sleep together tonight?
    “I’m not used to anyone having this kind of hold on me,” he continues, his voice dark and troubled. “I feel like I’m crawling out of my own skin.”
    I’ve rattled his deep-rooted need for control and I am still struggling with the idea that I have this power over him that he does over me. It pleases me but I am fairly certain it truly has him unsettled. “Just hearing your voice now affects me,” I say, trying to give him the reassurance I would need if I’d just said to him what he’d said to me. “That’s how much of a hold you have on me.”
    “Good.” He breathes out and I feel the relief wash over him even through the phone line. “Because it would suck to feel like this alone.”
    “Yes,” I say, smiling. “It would suck.” I hear someone shout in the background, and I think Chris is outside the airport, trying to get a cab.
    “That would be my cab,” Chris confirms. “Or rather someone getting me a cab. I’ll call you later. And order in lunchtoday. I’m worried about you going out.” I hear someone, the cab driver, I assume, ask Chris about his bag, and Chris replies before he returns his attention to me. “I’m serious about lunch, Sara. Order in.”
    “I’ll be careful, I promise. Catch your cab and call me when you can.”
    “Careful isn’t the answer I’m looking for and you know it.” More voices in the background and I hear Chris issue a muffled curse. “I have to go but this conversation is not over. Did you talk with Jacob?”
    “He wasn’t around—”
    “Sara—”
    “I’m fine.”
    “The point is keeping you fine.” He makes a frustrated sound. “I’ll call you when I get a break and we will