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Jamie has gone even paler.
“I’m sorry,” Ben says.
The baton crackles beside his ribs. “His name is Jamie. Use it.”
Ben looks at him. “I’m sorry, Jamie.”
“Better.”
Heather releases his throat. Then she looks at me while she speaks to Jamie. “Jamie, go in the downstairs bathroom and get the bar soap.”
Jamie returns with the bar of soap cupped in his palm. It’s white, or it was once. A layer of dried foam has collected along one edge, and there’s a shallow split across the middle where it’s softened and dried again.
He could have rinsed it. He chose not to.
“Give it to Oliver,” Heather says.
Fuck me. She’s going to make me punish Ben.
Jamie comes around the table and holds the soap out. His eyes stay carefully above my shoulder as I take it from him. The bar is still slightly damp against my palm.
“Eat your eggs before they get cold,” Heather tells him.
Jamie returns to his chair. He picks up his fork and puts a bite into his mouth without looking at either of us.
Heather hasn’t stopped looking at me. Neither has Ben.
I turn the soap over in my hand. “Is this really necessary?”
Jamie stops chewing.
Heather’s attention settles on me. “You asked for the ugly names in your mouth.”
Ben revises his assessment of me from enemy to idiot. It’s a defensible revision.
“You’ll clean them out yourself.”
I look down at the nasty used soap. Jamie resumes chewing. Ben says nothing. Neither of them asks whether this is necessary.
I raise the soap to my mouth.
Heather waits.
I touch the end to my tongue. Soap coats it immediately, bitter and chemical beneath the faint taste of whatever Jamie used it for last.
“You can do better.”
I open my mouth and push the end of the bar between my lips. My throat tries to reject it before it gets past my teeth.
Heather watches until I wrap my mouth around it. “Farther. I said clean them out.”
I breathe through my nose.
Heather picks up her fork and cuts into her eggs. “Let’s eat while Oliver considers what words he needs.”
Jamie looks down at his plate. Ben looks directly at me.
I have several words for her. Apparently the soap hasn’t worked yet.
