Mercy by Annabel Joseph Page A

unfortunately, true.
    So I said goodbye to Grégoire by the stage door and climbed in a cab at 10:40 sharp. I had showered and carefully shaved, and scented and perfumed every inch of my body. I’d painstakingly made myself up to look alluring and sexy. I had applied my very best dark red fuck-me lipstick, and put on jeans and a sweater that hugged my curves. Under my clothes, I had on things I hoped he’d find exciting and beautiful. A black silk thong, a matching black balconette bra. I could have dressed up in more risqué trappings but I had a sense it might upset him, to take that initiative myself.
    All too soon, the cab pulled up at the coffee house. I paid the driver with bills rustling in trembling hands. I stood in the cold night air for a couple of minutes outside on the sidewalk, then I just couldn’t bear the anxiety and I went in.
    I was assailed right inside the door with the familiar smell of smoke and coffee, the sickly sweet scent of clove cigarettes. I swallowed hard and started the long walk to the back. What if he wasn’t there? What if he was there, watching from some hidden place, laughing with friends as I made a fool of myself returning to report to him? I looked around furtively, embarrassed and agitated. I took in all the happy people talking and laughing with their friends and for one split second of a moment, I almost turned and ran.
    But then I neared the table and he was there, and it comforted me greatly that he looked nervous too. He sat rigid and still, looking down into his coffee. On the other side of the table was another cup, presumably for me.
    He looked up, and my heart leaped. My heart leaped. So trite, but that’s actually what it did. My breath caught and I had to choke a little to get it going again. He looked stunning dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a sweater. I’d only ever seen him in business suits and tuxedos, powerful clothes of status and formality. But in jeans and a sweater, you could see he was a man, just a beautiful man, potent and attractive. He looked up at me, and in that second the worry left his face, replaced with something else, something priceless—a broad smile of palpable relief.
    He wanted me. He wanted me. It was written clearly all over his face. I walked the rest of the way to the table, propelled by sheer gladness, and I returned his smile with an uncontrolled smile of my own. He stood up to pull my chair out when I was close enough. So formal and old fashioned. I turned to mush. He sat back down and just gazed at me. I waited for him to say something but he just stared.
    “Is this for me?” I asked, gesturing to the cup in front of me.
    “It’s what you ordered last week. You can get something else if you like.”
    “No, it’s perfect. Thanks.” He’d remembered what I ordered and ordered it again for me. Sigh. I picked it up, warming my hands with it, and my face, which was still cold from outside.
    “You should wear a coat,” he chided. “That little sweater wouldn’t keep Satan warm.”
    I laughed, just breathing in the coffee and letting it warm me, the coffee he’d gotten for me.
    “So you came.”
    I nodded.
    “When did you decide to come?”
    I thought of my recent impulse to flee.
    “About a minute ago.”
    He smiled, and his eyes moved over me slowly. “Are you scared?”
    “Yes.”
    He fidgeted and rubbed his cheek.
    “Drink your coffee,” he said.
    I added some sugar to it and stirred. He watched, taking a deep drink of his own.
    “I went to the show tonight.”
    “Did you?”
    “Yes. I often do.”
    “To see me?”
    “Yes. To look at you.” The way he said it made me wet. He watched me. He wants me, that man right there. Oh my God. He smiled, perhaps sensing my anxiety. “Tonight, Lucy, we’ll mostly talk. Nothing too wild.”
    I nodded, thankful to hear it.
    “Answer me out loud,” he said. “I prefer it.”
    “Yes, Matthew,” I amended, blushing.
    “You have a lot to learn but I think you’re a