Page 114 of His Turn

“Functional?” I ask her. “That chaos looked functional to you?”

“I don’t know, Bric,” she sighs, giving up. “If you say it wasn’t, then fine. It wasn’t. But it didn’t look…”

I wait, but she stops. “Didn’t what?” I snap.

“Aside from the understandable sadness, it was…” She shrugs again, struggling to put what she saw into words. What did she see? I hardly know, I was so drunk. “Just a big family from what I could tell. I liked them.” She looks at me again, then quickly back at the wall. Her legs are beginning to tremble from the effort of staying en pointe. “Your niece was funny.” Nadia smiles, like she’s remembering some conversation I have no knowledge of. “And your sister Keren. She’s young. My age. I wasn’t expecting that. She invited me to—”

“Shut up.” I can’t take it anymore. She knows the faces that go with those names. It fucking kills me that I let that happen.

She gulps air, but she shuts up. One foot comes up off the floor. She bends her knee, like she’s getting a cramp and needs to stretch. “I’m very tired tonight,” she says, by way of explanation. “I just got out of rehearsal. My legs—”

“So tell me to leave.”

“Bric,” she says, turning her head all the way to the side so she can see me. “I’m just sorry, OK?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because I like you. And I think you like me.”

“You’re wrong. I want nothing to do with you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you asked me to come here. If you want me to leave, tell me to leave.”

“I want a normal conversation—”

“I don’t do that, Nadia. I do this. So if you like me, we do this.”

She exhales loudly. Annoyed. “Whatever. If this is what you need to get over the fact that I won your stupid game, fine. Consider it a gift.”

“There she is,” I say.

“What?” she snaps. Very irritated with me now.

“The dom, Nadia. The top. The one who wants control. That’s what you want, right? When you agreed to play the game, you were playing your own game, weren’t you?”

“So were you.”

“I was playing our game. I was playing by gentleman’s rules.”

She snorts out a laugh. Lifts her other foot up, stretches her leg, places her foot back down. She’s tiring quick tonight. She won’t last much longer. “Are you going to fuck me? Or not?”

I actually laugh. “Not.”

“OK,” she says, coming down off pointe. She turns, leans against the wall, and crosses her arms. “Then we’re done, I guess. You can leave now. But when you look back, Bric, when you’re old and alone and you’re thinking about all those girls you used up and threw away… don’t blame me. And don’t call me, either. This is your one chance to be real. When you walk out, that chance with me is over.”

I think about that little speech for a few seconds. Which gives her courage, because she continues.

“Everyone knows you’re broken, Bric. You have no friends left because you’re so goddamned broken.”

“I guess you know them all, right?” I laugh.

“Chella told me.”

My heart actually skips a beat.

“She told me everything, Bric. About you. About Smith. About Quin, and Rochelle. And… Adley.”

Anger is boiling up in my blood.

“And Jordan doesn’t count as a friend. Not really. He’s just another anonymous player in your game. He told me that, you know. He told me last night that you need help. He thought maybe I was the one who could help you, but I guess he was wrong. You don’t want help. And everyone knows you can’t help people who don’t want it.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Nadia? Do you fancy yourself a psychiatrist?”

“Oh, I know all about that too. Thanks to Rochelle. She told me all about your failed attempt at medical school. How you like to mind-fuck people. That’s what you were doing on New Year’s Eve, remember? Just for the record, you freaked Jordan out that night. That’s why he hasn’t been around. He left the game because of you, Bric.”

I control my temper and check my watch.

“Time to go, is it?” Nadia says.

I walk over to her. “Do you really,” I say, grabbing her hair and pulling it so hard her head falls back, making her look me in the eyes, “want to play this game with me, Nadia? Because I will win.”

“You didn’t win last time,” she says. “Or the time before that. Or the time before that. In fact, I think you’ve been losing this game for a long, long time. I’m practically guaranteed a win. So let’s do it. Who’s the top here, Bric? Me? Or you?”