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I guess somehow I get a room. I get a room with the wad of cash tucked into my jacket pocket, and manage to ride the elevator up to it.
When I open my eyes, the clock beside this strange bed says 11:49 PM.
My throat is dry. It hurts so much I start to shake.
My stomach is awash with nausea, even as my body screams for food. I roll over on my side and am surprised to find a tray beside me on the bed. With a trembling hand, I lift the receipt. My eyes seem wet. I can’t read it.
I tear a piece of bread, but it’s no use. As soon as I feel it in the back of my throat, I’m vomiting.
I feel the edge of panic start to fray around me.
Soon, someone will come...
I slide off the bed and crawl over to a chair beside the window. So dark outside. Maybe just stay here on the floor...
I STEP THROUGH THE GLASS door slowly. Once, while I was still down on my hands and knees out on the balcony, I called his name. But that’s the only time.
I look around the bedroom. That bed—sans canopy now—with its thick headboard and tree-sized posts. The vast expanse of hardwood, topped by rug. The lamps on shelves and tables, wearing dust.
The urge to call out for him pulls at me, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. I straighten my shoulders and wait.
His arms come around me like a dream. His chest against my back, his hands cupping my hips. He turns me toward him, and we’re like a wicked fairy tale. Me with the sick gallop of my heart. Him with his hard face, his staunch mouth.
The room is warm with sunlight. He carries me away from the gold glow, toward the shadow of the bed. He lays me on my back and folds my arms over my chest. My hands rest on my shoulders.
I wonder where he went before he hid behind me, in the curtains, but I don’t think it really matters. It’s a game we’re playing. I want to stay in it, so I just lick my lips.
I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling, even as I feel him moving just behind my line of sight. I hear him opening a drawer. The ceiling gives a groan, and then it opens. Fear deadens my limbs. I watch a metal fixture lower down over me. Ropes. I don’t know what this means. My eyes try to tug toward him, but I don’t let them. For reasons unknowable to me, I don’t want him to see my nervousness.
A metal bar shaped like an X hovers over me, about five feet above the bed. Thick, white ropes hang down from each of its four ends.
Kellan comes into my line of sight, standing shirtless by the bed. He’s grim and... different. I don’t know exactly how, but I can sense a shift inside him—and it makes my heart pound harder, even though I wouldn’t say I’m scared.
He climbs up on the bed and takes one of the ropes in hand.
“If you stay,” he says slowly, “I’m going to bind your wrists and ankles. I’m going to fuck you until I’m tired.” He blows his breath out. “It takes a long time, Cleo.” He tightens his fist around the rope. “This is for me. I will make sure you enjoy it, but at some point, you’ll get tired—and I’ll want to keep going.”
I whisper, “Try me.”
I don’t know why. Because I’m scared? Because I’m spurred by my ridiculous bravado? This same shadow, tucked inside me, laughs when police cruisers rotate through the parking lots on campus, booting tires... while I walk by, my straw bag swinging from my shoulders.
There’s something bad about me. Years ago, before I learned to hide it, Grans would call it pride—but it’s more than that. It’s recklessness. It’s sin.
This stupid bar, these stupid ropes, they’re nothing. There’s a part of me that needs to play this game with him. I didn’t even know my dark spirit could rise to sex, but...
“Try me, Kellan.”
“You want to do this?”
“Yeah.” The word sounds nervous. The girl inside me, normal Cleo, is nervous, but I don’t tell him that. I’m shaking a little as he watches me. He’s serious and still. He’s beautiful.
“What’s your safe word, Cleo?”
“Sloth,” I whisper.
“Is that a nickname?”
I nod and he slides his arms under mine, pulls me against his chest, and moves me over, so he can lower the X-bar down to the bed. When it’s lying atop the sheets, he reaches down to the footboard for a slip of mattress he smooths over the X. This way I’ll be lying on padding, with the X-shaped bar beneath them. The only purpose the bar will serve is to anchor the rope that will bind my ankles and wrists. He lays me down on the tuft of padding like a sacrifice.
