Page 57 of Total Exposure

I press the button to speak—“Are you there?”—and startle when I hear my question echo through other rooms.

Nothing but silence in return.

So I look down at the note in my hand and wonder what’s next. Should I even open it?

It’s a stupid question. I almost rip it apart trying to open it.

Congratulations, it says. Just a few more commands to follow and then you can close your eyes and dream about tomorrow.

Look up at the camera. Take your clothes off.

Slowly. Never breaking eye contact.

Get in bed naked. There’s a blindfold under the pillow. Put it on. Lie still.

If you do that I’ll come say good night.

But you have to promise not to peek, Evangeline. You have to stay in the dark and let me do whatever I want.

I let out another breath, but this time nothing about me is calm. My heart is galloping inside my chest. My head is pounding with excitement as blood rushes to my brain. And my stomach flutters with some foreign feeling I might never have felt before.

Reaching for the nearest wall, I bow my head and breathe through the spell this stranger has cast.

What to do?

I’m practically panting, imagining what following this order will do to my life.

Will everything unravel?

Or is this… experience just what I need to put myself back together?

It makes no sense. I realize that. It’s nothing but a request for sex.

Right?

But isn’t that what people do these days? Anonymous sex?

It’s right up my alley, so to speak. I mean… I’m the one who won’t know anything, but as I have determined after one very expensive therapy, I’m seeking the anonymous. Or was. Anyway. I want to be seen now. But what’s one more night, right?

I take a deep breath and turn around, looking straight up at the camera. “I want to see this Jordan guy. I think you made him up. It’s some kind of trick.”

Silence from the intercom and the camera doesn’t even have the decency to blink a red light at me to let me know he’s paying attention.

“I said,” I say, louder this time, “I want to meet him. Not at your leisure, but tomorrow. I need to know more about this treatment plan. What he’s doing. Whether or not this was all approved by Lucinda. Or if this is just your sick, twisted idea of mind games.”

My answer is silence.

I exhale and walk back over to the bed, the note still clutched in my hand. Balled up and scrunched.

I read it again. And again, and again, and again until I’ve got it memorized. I throw it across the room and it slides under a dresser. Disappears.

His commands cycle through my thoughts, over and over again as I wrestle with the decision that must be made.

Yes. I do what he says.

No. I don’t.

Yes, I stay in the game.