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damn near the
kind of money the equivalent female model would have commanded, Finn Garvey had
tried everything proper people weren’t supposed to enjoy and had liked all of
it well enough to make a habit of it. Partying and overexposure had surely
imploded his career, but the abrupt fall had also probably saved his life.
    Like Rilla, Finn was
counting on me, I suspected, to help him regain the fame and money that enabled
his addiction to public adoration. His backup plans were acting classes and an
emo band establishing a following on the local club circuit, with Finn as lead
singer, of course.
    Now that I thought
about it, maybe I should have stepped in between Finn and Cheri before he did
any of the things Iva suspected of me.
    When Iva didn’t answer
my prodding question, I couldn’t resist goading, “Have you been feeling a
little jealous? Would you rather I concentrate on corrupting Cheri’s older
sister?”
    She didn’t turn back to
me, so I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right when she said, “It wouldn’t take
much.” I was certain she shivered, and it wasn’t cold in Haute.
    This tightened my gut
and loosened my clenched fist, and I used my fingertips under Iva’s chin to
gently swing her head to face me. I wanted to make sure she was watching as I
tore Cheri’s newest model release to small pieces and tossed it over the
balcony rail like so much confetti.
    For a long surreal
minute, Iva watched the paper snow float down over the oblivious crowd. “And
what,” she asked cautiously, “am I supposed to make of that?”
    “A peace offering. An
act of good faith and bad intentions, but ones I come by honestly. I want you
to keep modeling for me, Iva Moreau. That strange love-hate fascination you
obviously have with my work? Oh, don’t bother denying it, Brown Eyes. It makes
you an intriguing subject to explore.” Then I watched Iva’s expression very
carefully as I added, “And I’m going to help you explore something as well—that
affinity you have for sexual submission.”
    This was it, that
moment when ninety-nine out of a hundred women would have drawn back their
shoulders and denied having any such interest or tendency, no matter the
behavior to the contrary. The modern woman, at least as much if not more so
than today’s man, was required to be aggressively independent to earn
acceptance and respect, especially self-respect. Never be yielding or
vulnerable or emotionally exposed, or so the cultural meme demanded, no matter
how alienating and destructive the deception. Strength required religion,
self-righteousness, and asexuality. Anything else was base, animalistic,
savage. And uncivilized, delightfully uncivilized.
    This was the moment
when I waited—for the span of a hard heartbeat and an anxious breath—to see if
Iva Moreau was going to own up to what we both already knew, that she had
enjoyed what had happened between us on that couch in my studio. That taking
orders from a lover who made her face her darkest, dirtiest urges simplified
her life if only for an hour. That not being in control was a rare respite, a
place of safety protected from the demands of an overly complex, judgmental,
duplicitous world. And that it felt fucking good to be coveted and taken and
owned in all the ways she wasn’t supposed to want.
    When I saw Iva square
her shoulders and her jaw, I felt that familiar wave of nauseating
disappointment and… vindication, I supposed, at turns both smug and sad. I had
been right about her running hot but also right about her insistence on
smothering that flame for the sake of cold, decrepit respectability. Just like
I had been right about all the others. Apparently, the first lessons learned
always stuck, and for good reason.
    I had entertained the
possibility for a few days that Iva might have been different, might have been
scared into assuming her cardboard cutout persona rather than coming by it more
deceitfully. It was hard to decide which was the greater shame: that