I had to get out of bed before I broke the rule about touching myself without his permission.
I got up and exited my bedroom. My feet came to a halt and for a second, I froze.
Wait. Was this the same apartment?
My place was spotless. My laundry was folded into a neat stack. The kitchen sink was cleared and the counter sparkled. Coffee was brewing in a pot that I thought I’d broken for good.
When did he have time to do all…this?
There were flowers in a vase at the center of my tiny, round kitchen table. In front of the flowers was a box of breakfast pastries and a note.
I read the note and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Have a good day, baby. That’s an order.”
PART III
UN-FREAKY FEBRUARY
16
Ophelia.Now.
Have a good day, baby. That’s an order.
The note has aged a little, it’s lost some of its white and crumpled at the edges, but I still keep it wedged into the frame of my bedroom mirror. Every time I wake up and look at myself in the mirror, I can see Phantom’s handwriting, cheering me on.
I tucked it in there to keep the day he left it, and I haven’t moved it since.
Not even now.
Somewhere in the middle of my retelling, the small crowd of listeners I’d gathered moved with me into my bedroom. Seekers are scattered around my bedroom like limp dolls. Dove and Ginger lay on either side of me in bed, the three of us propped up against the headboard.
Dove refills my glass of wine and I sip it. The red leaves a tangy taste in the back of my throat.
“So…wait,” Ginger says after a beat, “I totally lost the plot. Why aren’t you two married yet?”
“I met Brody not long after. And Phantom and I weren’t exclusive so…Brody and I started dating. I had a boyfriend six nights out of the week, and a dominant every Friday. It worked. For a while.”
Dove picks up where I drop off, “But Phantom can’t commit, and Opheliawantscommitment, and he’s all likeyeah, okay, do whatever you’ve gotta do, babe, grrrr, except when Brody was finally ready to propose to her last Christmas, Phantom sabotaged the whole thing with a night-long scavenger hunt and broke up their relationship.” Dove turns to me. “How’d I do?”
“Great, actually. Stellar.”
The subs break into speculation—but did he really sabotage it? Didn’t Brody cheat?—and all other sort ofblah, blah, blahthat I’m suddenly too exhausted to listen to. I grab a bottle of wine and take it outside on the fire escape.
This is my spot. It used to bemysacred spot. Then Phantom interrupted it. Then I would sit outside here,waiting. Hoping. That he’d show up after another shift and fuck me against the shower wall in a way that makes me see stars.
But Phantom hasn’t shown his face around here in almost a year. Not since I started seriously seeing Brody. And then the fire escape became my sacred spot withDove, and honestly, it’s better for it. There’s nothing quite like girl-chats on the fire escape.
But. Still.
Some nights I find myself peering down the slots in the fire escape like a war widow, waiting for him to come home.
Big, stupid daydreams.
My gaze catches on a figure climbing through the window. Dove comes out to the fire escape and exhales big sigh. Immediately, my mood lifts. I can get through anything with my Seeker Sister by my side.
Dove sits across from me, the space so small that our legs weave together. She knocks her knee against mine. “How’re you feeling?”
