fire.

"I think we need to have an understanding."

I said nothing, not trusting my voice.

Paul cleared his throat and folded his hands together on

the desk. He didn't look at me. I couldn't look away.

"I believe I have a reputation for being…difficult. To work

for."

for."

"I don't think so." The pulse beat in my throat, forcing my voice to deepen.

He looked at me then, straight in the eye. His hands on the

desk tightened inside each other as though he wanted to

be holding something else, something precious, but was

afraid he might drop it. I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

Without speaking, he unfolded his hands and pushed a

piece of paper across the desk to me. Neither of us

looked at the paper. We looked at each other.

I didn't look at it when I touched the tips of my fingers to

the paper, nor when I puled it toward me, or when I

clasped it in my hand. I didn't look at it until I sat at my

desk and laid it down in front of me.

The list.

I sat at my desk and looked at the list. It took up the entire

sheet of ruled paper. It was insultingly long and infuriatingly

detailed. He hadn't yeled at me yesterday, he'd done this

instead, and it was infinitely worse than if he'd caled me on

the carpet.

It was also infinitely, inexplicably better.

Not only did the paper have the projects he needed me to

work on today, but it contained detailed instructions on

duties I'd been performing without supervision for months.

He'd left out breaks for me to eat and use the bathroom,

but every other minute of the day had been accounted for.

In high school I'd had a teacher who didn't like girls. I

don't mean he was gay, just that for whatever misogynistic

reason, he'd thought females somehow lesser creatures

than males. Considering the boys in my class, I thought the

man was an idiot, but at sixteen there's not much you can

do about it but get through it. This teacher hadn't been

impressed by good grades earned through hard work, and

I'd had to work very hard for al my good grades. I've

already said I wasn't the brain. Even so, I wasn't a bad

student, and so when I got an A on my first test and this

teacher, this man put in charge of young adults to mold

them into something fit for future society, sneered and

suggested I'd cheated off the boy next to me in order to

have earned that grade, I learned a very important lesson.

No matter how hard you worked, there was always going

to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

Part of me pictured myself storming into Paul's office,

tossing the list on his desk and quitting in an outrage, but I

knew there was no way I'd ever do it. I needed my job. I

wanted it. I could put up with a lot more than a stupid list

to keep it.

So instead, I did what I'd done in high school with that

dumbass teacher who thought girls couldn't be better than

boys.

I worked my ass off. It was a game, that day, going down

that list and completing each task on it. And as the day

wore on and I finished item after item, my sense of

accomplishment grew. I'd never realized, actualy, how

much work I accomplished in one day.

I'd never thought to write down everything I did. Looking

at it at the end of the day, this job no longer seemed a

mindless drone. I'd done something. A lot of somethings,

as a matter of fact, and when I took that list into Paul's

office with each item boldly checked off and my neat

annotations in the margins, there was no hiding my triumph.

"Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

"Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

he'd say.

But, unlike my teacher who'd have probably dismissed my

efforts with a snide comment, my boss looked over the list,

ticking off each item with the point of his pen.

He looked up at me. I'd never noticed how blue his eyes

were before. Paul held the paper with both hands.

"Thank you, Paige," he said. "This is exemplary work."

"Thank you," I said graciously.

We did have an understanding, after al.

Chapter 15

Through the mailbox window I could see Alice, one of the

women who ran the office. I could also see the thin edge

of a folded note card.

I puled it out with the tips of my fingers and held it by the

edges so as not to muss the paper. Al I had to do was

bend, just a little, and slip it directly into the right box. But

of course, I read it first.

You've failed at every task I've set you. Your reward and

your punishment are in my hands. If you cannot learn

discipline, this wil end.

You have one more chance.

Today, between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., you wil visit

Sensations. There you wil purchase the item that most

embarrasses you. You wil pay for it with a credit card, so

there wil be no question that the clerk won't know your

name. You wil engage the clerk in pleasant conversation,

so there is no way he or she wil not know your face.

And tonight, you will use that item until you achieve

And tonight, you will use that item until you achieve

orgasm. You will do this knowing it's not for your

pleasure.

It is for mine.

I had to put my hand on the wal and close my eyes after I

slid the card through the slot. The brass, cool under my

palm, did nothing to steal the heat from my cheeks, my

armpits. The inferno between my legs.

I hadn't been the one to fail. I hadn't been late with my

essay on discipline. I hadn't even written one.

This note was not for me!

Yet there was no question in my mind I would do as it

said. I had written the sexual fantasy. I'd read al the notes.

Whoever was meant to find these and folow them, I had

done it, too.

Looking back, I understand how much easier it would

have been, how much better sense it would have made for

me to simply complain at the office about the misdeliveries,

to throw the notes away. To knock on the door of 114

with a note in my hand and say, "Make sure these stop

coming."

coming."

I can't explain why I didn't, except to say, simply, I didn't

want to.

I'd moved away from home to get away from my past and

my life, and the life I didn't want to have there. I'd taken a

new job, found a new apartment, tried to make new

friends. I wanted to become someone new, but the truth is,

I would never be new.

I would always be me.

Somehow, whoever was sending these notes knew that.

I slapped the note closed. I walked around the corner to

the desk. I could see her through the office door and after

a second she came out. "Alice? Did you see who put this

in my mailbox?"

"Nope." She barely glanced at it. "It's not a religious tract, is it? We have a strict policy about that."

"No, it's not a religious tract." I kept the note close to my body so she wouldn't see the number on the front. "I just

wondered if you'd seen who put it in there, that's al."

"No, sorry, hon." Alice flashed me a grin. "What is it, love letter?"

I laughed when heat spread up my throat. "No. Nothing

like that."

"Wouldn't be the first time," she said. "Last year at Valentine's we had a bunch of anonymous notes coming

and going. The T.A. wanted to ban people from putting

notices in the boxes but then they realized if they did that,

they couldn't deliver their newsletter, either."

The Tenant Association could be a little overzealous.

"Maybe I'l get lucky next time."

"I wouldn't doubt it, hon," Alice said. "This place is a hotbed of lust."

She said it without so much as a blink and I had no reply.

Seeing I wasn't going to comment, she gave me a nod and

went into the back to finish sorting the mail. I looked down

at the note.

I couldn't stop myself from opening the note one last time

before I gave it back.

before I gave it back.

I was stil thinking about it as I went outside and faced the

sunshine for a moment. I knew I wasn't alone, but I hadn't

expected an audience. When I opened my eyes, blinking, I

saw Mr. Mystery watching me. He hovered over the

sand-filed tube meant for disposing cigarettes, and when

he saw me looking he stabbed his out with a furtive smile.

"Caught me," he said.

"And without a net," I replied. Clever.

He laughed and looked with unrestrained longing at the

cigarette butts nestled into the sand. "I'm trying to quit."

"Good for you." It was a little surprising for someone as

into fitness as he'd seemed in the gym to be a smoker. But

appearances weren't everything, and I should know that.

"Eric." The hand he held out engulfed mine as we shook.

My name wasn't a prize, but I offered it like one. "Paige."

Eric shifted on battered hiking boots. Today instead of the

long-sleeved T-shirt, he wore a faded black AC/DC shirt

under an open plaid button-down minus a few buttons. His