I exhale a deep sigh. “How long have you got?”
PART IV
HIS VERSION
22
Phantom.Then.
It’d been four days since I’d seen the sun.
Three back-to-back night shifts. As much as I liked the work—and I loved being a paramedic—it did something to the brain to go without daylight for so long. I lost all sense of time, for one. I ate breakfast under moonlight and had to strongarm my body to bed when it wanted to rise. But it was more than that. Nightshift work removed you from society in a way that was hard to explain to people. It was a challenge, if not impossible, to maintain the natural rhythm of friendships and relationships. My closest compatriots became the guys who operated the twenty-four-hour bodega down the street, and even they regarded me with a shifty-eyed stare.
The point was, it’d been such a long week, I’d genuinely forgotten it was Friday until I woke up to the low beat of music, punctuated intermittently by the sounds of moans and slaps.
The club I’d built from the ground up was thumping and bumping above me. I closed my eyes, getting a couple more minutes of shut-eye.
I slept in the basement apartment for the simple reason that it was the darkest room in the house. Plus, it had everything I needed. A bed, a bookshelf, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. It was the perfect apartment for an out-of-town tourist, a college kid, or a paramedic workaholic who just needed a bed to crash into now and again.
Plus, it allowed me to lock myself away for a little solitary time before engaging with the club upstairs.
I checked my phone, opening the Seekers Club app. As an admin, I could open the app and see who had checked in for the night. Carver, Jekyll, Zero, and…
Ophelia.
Ophelia had punched in her code forty-three minutes ago.
Nearly two years into our arrangement and, still, just the sight of her name was all it took to get me up and out of bed. I shuffled into the bathroom, and washed up. I rinsed off, dried off, put on deodorant, and changed into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.
Immediately, I felt myself coming back to life.
But I wasn’t done.
I flattened my palms on the bathroom counter and closed my eyes. I could feel the lingering steam from the shower. The cold, hard marble underneath my hands. I bowed my head in front of the mirror and took in a couple slow, intentional breaths.
I enteredplaythe way many people enterprayer. With intention.
Grounded, I headed upstairs. The noises didn’t sound so much like ruckus anymore. They sounded more like the sweet melody of pleasure and pain. I nodded to a few familiar faces, and frowned at one particular familiar face. Carver was in the lounge, messily eating a sandwich over greasy paper like he lived here.
“Carver,” I told him, “If you get mayo on my carpet, so help me god.”
He frowned. “What, so I can cum on your carpet, but mayo is off limits?”
He had a point.
I shot him a stern look anyway and he lowered the sandwich back onto its wrapper.
Princess perked up from behind her desk when I approached. “Hey. Good morning.”
“Morning. Any problems?”
She shook her head. “All quiet on the home front.”
“Where’s Ophelia?”
Princess cocked her head. “Upstairs,” she said. She hesitated, then clarified, “Third floor.”
Ah.Third floor. So Ophelia was enjoying herself already.
