“Perhaps you would like to have a drink with us?” he asked.
“Oh, that would be lovely,” she said. “But perhaps your friend would mind?” She had supposed that the blonde would indeed mind, of course, but that she would have no choice but, in the situation, to acquiesce with the pretense of graciousness. This gave the older woman no little pleasure.
“You don’t mind, do you?” asked the young man of his companion.
“Certainly not,” she assured them.
She had not seemed as dismayed as the older woman had hoped she would be.
Outside the theater the young man, not entering the waiting limousine, spoke briefly with the waiting chauffeur, and it drew quietly away from the curb.
In a secluded, upholstered booth, rather toward the back of a nearby, small restaurant, convenient to the theater, the young man ordered. He ordered a Manhattan, a sweet Manhattan, for the older woman and a Scotch for himself. “You will have water,” he told his companion. She looked down, toward the table. The older woman assumed that she might have some medical condition, or perhaps an allergy to alcohol. In any event she was to be given water. The older woman was surprised, too, when the young man had simply ordered for her, too, without asking her what she might prefer. But she did not question him. It was he, after all, who was the host. She might have preferred a tiny glass of white wine, as she scarcely ever drank, but she did not object to his choice. She found that she desperately wanted to please him. Too, she sensed in him a kind of power, and will, which might brook no question or test. Although he seemed to be gentle, thoughtful, and courteous, she was not sure that this was truly he. She wondered if such things were natural to him. She wondered if he might not, perhaps in the interest of some cause, be merely concerned to project a semblance of solicitude. There seemed something frightening about him, something powerful and uncompromising about him. She could imagine herself naked before him, frightened, on her belly, he with a whip in his hand. In retrospect she had supposed that he had ordered the dark, sweet drink for her in order that the traces of any unusual ingredient it might contain would be concealed. But that now seems unlikely to her. Tassa powder, which was presumably used, as it commonly is in such situations, though doubtless most frequently with younger women, is tasteless, and, dissolved in liquid, colorless. She now believes that he ordered that drink for her for different reasons, first, to simply impose his will upon her, and that she might, on some level, understand that it was so imposed, and, secondly, that he might, in his amusement, cause her senses to swirl, thus producing a calculated, intended effect within her, and putting her thusly more in his power. He knew many things about her, many things, she now realizes, and among them he doubtless knew that she drank seldom, if ever, and thus his joke of having her, of her own will, imbibe, to please him, for he knew she desired to please him, for nothing could have been more obvious, a drink much too strong for her.
“Are you well?” he had inquired.
“Yes, yes,” she had smiled.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “about your interest in, your question concerning, my supposed resemblance to someone you once knew.”
“Yes?” she said. She smiled. She felt unsteady.
“I may be able to shed some light on that matter,” he said. “Indeed, perhaps I can introduce you to the individual you have in mind.”
“I knew — knew — it!” she said. “You must be the son, or a cousin, some nephew, something, some relative!”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I think I can introduce you to him,” he said.
“Oh, I would not want to meet him,” she said. “I was only curious. I was just asking.”
“Are you afraid of him?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Of course not!”
“Perhaps you should be,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“I will introduce you to him,” he said.