Page 86 of Mr. Romantic (Mister 2)

“You’re about to have the most sexually explicit night of your life. Would you like me to tell you how I’ll start it?”

Do I? “No,” I say, just as Nolan pulls into the parking lot. “I want to be surprised.”

“Good girl,” he says. When he gets out, I wait. I know he has manners and I’m right. He walks around and gets my door, taking my hand to help me out.

His arm slips down to my waist and he grips my hip. I am so ready for this night to begin.

We wait a moment to be seated, and when we’re finally at our table, I have to look at the river for a few moments before the sun slips away and it disappears from view.

Nolan orders us wine and as soon as the server leaves, his attention turns back to me. “It was a weird night.”

I realize with a start that he is talking about the past.

“Perfect took her out on a date but he didn’t like her. That’s what he told me later that night. After I… well, I’ll get to that—Perfect actually took her home. Dropped her off at her dorm and came back to the house. I lived in back. We had this little carriage house back then for the fraternity. After the bad publicity, the Greek association shut that carriage house down. It’s too bad, too. It was nice. And private. But I guess that’s what they didn’t like about it. That I had the whole carriage house to myself. And I made good use of that privacy.”

Nolan stops, his attention only on me, as the server talks about the bottle of wine he chose and pours some into our glasses.

“Go on,” I say, taking a sip of my wine once we’re alone again.

“But she came back to the house too.”

“On her own?” I never heard this.

“Yeah. She came to my carriage house because I was in the middle of a fight with my date for the night.”

“What were you fighting about?”

“The fantasy.”

“Oh,” I say. “So you’ve been doing this a long time?”

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t call what I was doing back then quite the same thing I’m about to do with you tonight. I meant it when I said you do not want an amateur to run this sort of thing. It takes time and experience to understand what it means to you, as a man, and the woman, as well. Since she will be very emotional afterward.”

“Did you do a fantasy with that girl?’

“No,” Nolan says, like I should know this already. “No. Never fucked her at all.”

“Then how did it all get twisted up into so many… lies?”

“I was trying the fantasy out on my date. The drawings, Ivy.”

“Ohhh,” I say. “Oh. So you drew her something like what you drew me?”

He shakes his head. “I drew something a little more graphic.”

“What?”

“Gang rape.”

The words are tossed around in my head as I take in his answer. “Wow. Did you ever live that fantasy?”

“No. But I thought about it enough to draw that picture and show it to my date that night to see what she’d say.”

“You asked her if she’d… do that with you?” Gang rape fantasy. I stare at my hands for a moment to try to understand. “What happened?”

“Not surprisingly, my date walked out. I followed her, trying to explain myself.” Nolan turns his head to stare at the darkening river and then gives me a sidelong look. “She was not convinced… but…”

“And then what?” I can see he needs prodding. I can see he’s ashamed. I can see he has struggled with this many, many times over the years. In fact, I might see more than he intends to show. It’s possible that the infamous Mr. Romantic isn’t as self-assured as he pretends to be.