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He walks over and grips my forearms. Instinctively, I flinch. He kisses me hard. “Do you want to have sex with me, or are you just doing it because I’m paying you?”
If you have to lie, you might as well stick as close to the truth as you can. “It’s my job.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“A little of both, I guess.”
I see something in him shift. It’s like he’s starving, and this is the last meal he thinks he’s ever going to eat. He pins me against the wall, lifts my sweater dress, and fumbles with my tights before pushing into me.
Obviously, we have a whole host of things to work out, but there’s time for that. It’s not going to change anything either way—we are what we are. Liars on a collision course, headed for nowhere good. And anyway, passion is seldom rational and usually blind. It’s over almost before it started. Afterward, when he sits on the edge of the bed, when he gets that sleepy look in his eyes, I don’t stop him. I need to go. “I haven’t slept in days,” he says with a yawn, and it shows.
“I have to go,” I tell him.
He lays back and stares at the ceiling. “I don’t know why you lied. But I guess it hardly matters.”
“What did they do to you?”
“What didn’t they do?”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I mean it.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, but it’s a lie, and maybe we’re so deep in them we can’t find our way out.
I go into the bathroom to wash up, and when I come back he’s snoring.
My phone buzzes.
It’s a text from Adam. If you don’t come out, I’m coming in.
I could ask how he found me, but I already know. Instalook.
I guess what they say is true: dopamine and serotonin, if mixed with other things, make you sloppy. My mistake. I’ve been afforded a lot of privileges in my position, but stupidity isn’t one of them.
Somewhere along the way, in coming here for one last gig, I slipped up, and now the option to run—the option to keep running—is clearly no longer on the table.
Life can change on a dime. He told me that the first time we met.
I didn’t believe it back then. At least not in the way he meant it. I wasn’t the only one. No one believed it. Why would they? It was easier to walk around with our false sense of security and our blanketed smiles, our veiled truths and half-hearted lies.
But now he’s here. Now I’m passing from one room to another, and now he’s standing in front of me. Now his eyes are lingering in places I wish they wouldn’t, and now I am probably about to die.
“Well, well. Look at you.”
When he takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look him in the eye, what I see is a warning. What have you to say for yourself?
I don’t have an answer, and even if I did, excuses are forbidden.
It’s best for me, for everyone involved, if I keep my mouth shut. Maybe I can’t save myself. But this isn’t about me.
People say words don’t matter. Sometimes words are all you have. I should know; I am bound by them.
When I turn away from him, he expects that I’m going to talk. He waits patiently as I take three steps forward.
I count each one as I slide the gun from my robe. I stole it from Sean’s collection, just in case. I’d never planned to use it. Life can change on a dime.
I turn and point it at him.
My hands tremble. No one warns you this will happen. But why would they? This isn’t what they train you for.
