Page 22 of His Holy Chaos

I make a little dance, showing I need to pee, using my best pleading puppy eyes.

"Oh? You want to go potty?" he mocks, leaning forward. I nod, desperately, whimpering more, and pawing on the cage's door again. "I suppose I can let you go but that would be very generous of me, wouldn't it? I wonder what you'd be willing to trade me for it…" he says. "Use your words now, pet. Beg me to let you go."

"Please, please, please, Daddy. I need to go now."

"Oh, do you now? My poor little puppy doesn't want to make a mess? But I thought that was your goal when you were being a mouthy brat, calling me all those things. I wonder what changed, hmm? How's it my problem that you need to pee?"

I'm still whimpering, dancing in place.

"Please, Daddy, please, I'll do anything you want, anything at all, Daddy, please, I'm so desperate. I know I'm not worthy and I can't tell you what to do, but I'm begging you," I say, so relieved that I can speak again that tears start flowing down my face. He smirks.

"Is that so? Oh, but I thought you would already do whatever I want as my pet. Was I wrong, hmm?"

My face flushes with the realization. He always gets me exactly where he wants me. "No, Daddy, please, of course I'll do whatever you want anyway, but please, Daddy," I'm now openly crying and I see more people peeking at the door. One of them is Alfie. Knowing he's seeing me like that makes me even harder.

"Good puppy," he says. Two words. His voice shifts from mocking to warm. He leans forward, and his long fingers, strong, gentle, nails perfect, painted red, reach for the cage latch. The click of the lock releasing is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. The door swings open, and Emmett's hand finds the back of my neck, fitting against my collar.

"Go on, off you go," he says.

I bolt to the bathroom, passing the viewers, who all give me funny looks. I love it. I'm so hard it's actually difficult to pee, even with how much I need it.

When I'm back, he pats his thighs and I sit there. He hugs me and puts my head on his chest. "You did so well. You're such a good puppy for me, so obedient when you want to be. I'm so proud of you, my puppy," he says and soothes me. I whimper again, this time from how much the praise overwhelms me in a good way. "I see how hard you are. Let's take care of this now, hmm?"

☐

The memory ends abruptly. My body remembers before my brain does: my knees ache, phantom pain from a cage I haven't been in for over a year, and then I'm back on my couch with Tove Lo again, telling me she has to stay high all the time to keep them off her mind, and yeah, that tracks, that absolutely tracks. The song loops for what must be the fifteenth or twentieth time. I lost count somewhere around the third whiskey and the second bout of staring at the ceiling, crying. The worst part is that I know I'm horribly pathetic.

The apartment is as messy as it can get. Noa's pan sits unwashed in the kitchen sink from two nights ago as per our agreement that he cooks and I clean, which means it's been two days since I last cleaned anything, which means it's been two days since I last cared about anything, and even two days ago I barely had strength to do so. It's been a longer time since I felt like myself but I forgot to count the days, so I don't know how long.

I've been on this couch performing my own one-man production of Jude Piaf's Greatest Hits: The Depressing Ones. My jacket is on the floor. My shoes are somewhere. One of my socks is draped over the arm. And the worst part: nothing huge had happened to make me spiral. The memories just decided to make everything worse. I just feel so sad and vulnerable, and Ford makes it worse, but it isn't his fault. It's mine. When I think he could hurt me just as bad as Emmett did, or that I could trust him and have my heart destroyed again, I can't deal with it. I cuss myself. I should never have gone back to BratWorld in the first place.

I catch my reflection in the dark TV screen and immediately wish I hadn't. My cheeks are hollowed out. I haven't eaten since yesterday's handful of crackers that I consumed standing over the sink in the dark like a raccoon with an existential crisis. My eyes are bloodshot, the honey color gone muddy, red-veined, the eyes of someone who has been crying or drinking or both, which in my case is both, always both, because tears and alcohol have the same function in my body: they fill the space.

Ford's face floats behind my eyelids every time I blink. I miss him like crazy but that's the problem, that's why I'm drinking in the first place. His face morphs. It always morphs. Ford becomes Emmett. It hurts so bad that it feels like someone pierced a knife in my heart. It's as bad as the first months were. Regret tastes like bile. I should never have met Ford because now it hurts all over again but I can't forget him.

I stopped going to church. I woke up, looked at the ceiling, and decided that getting out of bed required a level of self-delusion I couldn't manage. Ford probably didn't even notice. Ford probably conducted his rehearsal with perfect precision and ate lunch at whatever restaurant serves the most orderly menu and went to his spotless home and didn't think about me once. Why would he? I am a footnote. He said so himself, didn't he? Not in those words, but in the spaces between his words, in the way he keeps me at arm's length.

My phone buzzes. I stare at the screen without picking it up, watching the notification preview glow and fade and glow again.

Glynn: Ford's at BratWorld looking for you. Come here.

The words don't make sense but maybe I'm just drunk. I read them again. Ford's at BratWorld. Ford. At BratWorld. The man who wore a button-down shirt to a kink club and looked at the playrooms like someone touring a museum in a country whose customs he found fascinating but barbaric.

Looking for you.

My heart does something catastrophic. It hammers, fast and arrhythmic, the whiskey in my blood thinning. My hands are shaking. They were already shaking, but now they're shaking differently, with adrenaline.

He came looking for me. Ford Ridden drove to a kink club on a Friday night to find me.

I know this is a terrible idea. I know it with the same part of my brain that knows fire is hot and heights will kill you. I know that going to BratWorld drunk and desperate and raw is the kind of decision that future Jude will have to clean up, assuming future Jude exists, which is never something I bank on.

I'm already standing. My legs disagree with this decision. The room tilts thirty degrees to the left, then corrects itself with a sickening lurch, and I grab the arm of the couch to keep from going down.

I find my orange jacket on the floor. It's neon and makes me look like a highlighter, which I love. My boots are by the door. I shove my feet into them without bothering with the laces, grab my keys from the counter, and I'm halfway to the door when Noa materializes.

He's standing in his bedroom doorway in Henry's oversized shirt, his dark curly hair a cloud around his face, his big black eyes fixed on me with an expression that's equal parts fury and fear. His arms are crossed. He's smaller than me by a significant margin, a furious thing with the temperament of a wasp and the loyalty of something fiercer. He's holding a glass of water in one hand, extended toward me.

"Drink this," he says.