Текст книги "Cam Girl"

Автор книги: Leah Raeder

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

—11—

It rained all morning. The road was a ribbon of chrome winding through deep, dark forest, the broken coast shining like shards of metal covered in oil. Wind whipped foam off the water, thickening the air with mist. An empty fury that was all breath.

Ellis drove the rental car. I fought the urge to reach out, put a steadying hand on hers. She was good, if overcautious. I was good but reckless. That’s why we fit so well. Balanced each other out.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “About Blue.”

She frowned at the highway, the oncoming headlights scribbles of gold gel on the asphalt.

“He asked me to bring you. It was his sole condition for meeting, actually.”

Ellis kept staring straight ahead. “Why?”

Because I’m torn between the two of you. Because looking at you side by side will break me, and I’m not sure which half of my heart will be bigger.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What if he wants to kill us both?”

“Really? Is this a Lifetime Original?”

“What do you actually know about him?”

“I know he’s not like that.”

“What is he like? Since you’re the expert.”

Her tone was cool, taunting. I wanted to say He’s like you with a dick, but I didn’t rise to it.

After a while she glanced over, sober now. “If it’s Max, and he’s decided he can’t live with the pain anymore . . .”

“Max wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s had the chance to hurt me.” And the chance to take advantage. I looked out the window. “He never has. We have a connection, Ellis.”

We fell quiet. Rain came down hard, bouncing off the blacktop like flashing coins. After a while I laid my hand lightly on her leg. Not in an erotic way, but not platonic, either. Merely familiar. I felt her tense up, then relax. We listened to the rain shredding the sky, all those threads of mist fraying into water.

Boston is almost a smaller, statelier Chicago, but instead of a neat grid its streets are a drunken spiderweb. I got us lost twice even with GPS. Neighborhoods scrolled past: cobblestone lanes and redbrick row houses, gas lamps leaking yellow fumes of light into the rain. We crossed the Charles River, its pewter skin stippled with raindrops.

Dane met us at a café a few blocks from the official meeting place. He ran out with an umbrella in either hand. Always the gentleman.

Indoors I threw my arms around him, squeezing hard.

“She missed me,” Dane told Ellis when I let go.

“Shut up.” I mussed his hair. He wore tight jeans and a fitted leather jacket, no inch of muscle undefined, and that puckish smile I’d actually, yes, sorta missed. “Been raising hell?”

“Been raising lots of things, baby.”

Ellis laughed.

“Don’t encourage him,” I said.

Dane winked at her. “You keeping out of trouble, Red?”

We both did a double take. Ellis recovered smoothly.

“Morgan never listens to her voice of reason. That’s why we’re here now.”

“Come on,” Dane said, motioning toward a table. “Let’s strategize.”

I left them to check myself in the bathroom. Last chance before meeting him face-to-face. As soon as I exited eyeshot, I pulled out my phone.

one more hour

my hair is frizzy from the rain

and I’m pretty sure Red hates us both

but this is actually happening

how will I know it’s you? what are you wearing?

–Vada

I set my phone on the counter and touched up my lip gloss, tried to tame the frizz. Understated makeup. Blue already knew me glammed up. No pretension today.

My phone vibrated.

you’ll know me when you see me.

i’m nervous, vada.

but when i think of holding you in my arms, all the fear falls away.

and all i feel is you.

see you soon.

–blue

I pressed the phone to my chest, inhaling deeply.

“Vada?”

Ellis stood behind me, watching me in the mirror. I slipped my phone into my jeans. She stepped close, caught my hand against my thigh. Her eyes were sad.

“This really is what you want,” she said softly.

“I don’t know what I want. That’s why I’m here.”

Our gazes locked in the mirror. For a moment I saw us as characters, not ourselves: a redheaded prince and a black-haired princess, neither of whom could rescue each other, in a story without a happy ending.

“Dane’s waiting,” I said.

“We could walk out of here right now.”

“Ellis.”

“We could go home. Or anywhere. Just me and you, Vada.”

I averted my face, but clasped the hand at my side, twisting my fingers in hers. “You are my home.”

“Then why are we here? What do you want?”

“I don’t know.” Something like this. Me and you, without the fear.

She untangled herself, pulled free. “I tried. But I was never enough for you.”

“Don’t.”

“I loved you the best I could.”

“Don’t make me fucking cry, Ellis.”

Eyes shut. Breathe.

When I opened them again, she was gone.

I turned on the water and listened to it for a while. Let it soothe me. Part of me had been born on a windswept prairie, but part had been born here, on this jagged, sea-lashed shore. The rawness and loneliness of New England resonated inside me like a tuning fork. The ocean was in my blood. I came here to escape who I was and only ended up finding myself again.

“You okay?” Dane said as I joined them at the table.

“Yep. So, plan?”

“Red says you don’t have visuals of this guy.”

I thought of the figurine photos. His hands. “Nothing that would actually help. He’s fair-skinned, not old. All I know.”

Ellis flicked a paper packet across the table. She and Dane were playing sugar hockey.

“That describes ninety percent of the people in this room,” she said.

“He told me I’d know him when I saw him.” I intercepted the packet. “That can only mean I already know him.”

“Or he’s someone famous,” Dane said.

“Or he’s lying,” Ellis said.

I flipped the packet to her. “Occam’s razor, Professor.”

“What’s that?” Dane asked, and for a second Ellis met my eyes, almost smiling.

“Assume I’ve seen him before,” I said. “He’s probably light-haired. Lean build. Blue eyes. Somewhere between his twenties and forties.”

Dane reclined in the booth, hands knit behind his head. “Sounds like your type.”

I kicked him under the table. Ellis flicked the sugar packet at his chest and it made a little thwap.

Again we almost shared a smile. Then she said, “He might be armed.”

“Give me a break. We’re meeting at a coffeehouse in the middle of the day. It’s not going to turn violent.”

“Unless you dump him in front of everyone.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I can go by myself if you’re that worried.”

I stood and they did, too.

“Morgan.” Dane touched my arm. “We just want to keep you safe. Right, Red?”

Ellis sighed.

“Look,” Dane said, “I’ll be there the whole time. I’ll come and go in different disguises.”

“Disguises?”

He took Ellis’s glasses and slid them on, grinning.

“I’m Clark Kent, baby.”

He was so goddamn cute I couldn’t stay mad. “Fine. No heroics, though. If stuff goes south, I’ll give you a sign.”

We hashed out the remaining logistics until Ellis went outdoors to vape. When she was gone I turned serious.

“Is it you, Dane?”

“What?”

“Clark Kent. Red. Our kiss. The show you gave me.” My hand darted across the table, seizing his like a viper. I turned his palm up. “Are you Blue?”

“I guess you’re gonna find out, huh?”

My heart hung in my chest, untethered.

Dane squeezed my hand and let go. “I wouldn’t mess with you, Morgan. You and me had a spark. We let it die. That’s that. Besides, I’ve been busy with the studio. No time for romance. Last couple months, we pulled in more revenue than Frankie’s house.”

Because I hadn’t been camming. Because of Blue.

A suspicion flickered in my mind.

“Would you ever hire someone to . . . distract me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You looking for an escort? I know some guys. I’m offended you didn’t ask me first, though.”

“No, you bozo.” I had to laugh. “Never mind. And who do you know?”

“Some guys.”

“Some guys. Right.”

He winked.

Like me, Dane was primarily attracted to the opposite sex, but he hooked up with men, too. I wondered if he’d ever fallen in love with another man. If it made him question whether he was really bi. And I hoped he wasn’t playing me, because I needed a friend who understood what this was like.

Dane checked his watch. “Ready to meet the man of your dreams?”

“I have a feeling I already have.”

The walk to the café felt surreal. My head floated a dozen stories up, observing from a bird’s-eye view: the city gleaming with an oil-paint glaze, cars and feet flowing through the warrens of Boston. Two people walking to a café. Two stories, one about to begin, the other to end.

Ellis and I went into an upscale hipster coffeehouse, all unstained hardwood and riveted steel. Track lights twinkled in the crisp air like champagne bubbles. We took a table on the mezzanine and I emailed Blue.

I’m here

Two syllables. The sound my heart was making, over and over.

When I looked up, Ellis was watching me. Our hands joined under the table. I hung on for dear life.

Thank you, I mouthed.

No response. But she was hanging on to me, too.

Below us Dane walked in, bought a latte, and sat near the window.

This was it.

The meeting was set for two p.m. At ten till I was a mess, breathing fast, my heart kicking down my ribs like a wild bull. Every time the café door opened I nearly leaped from my seat. Two o’clock came and went. Maybe his plane was delayed. Two fifteen. He got stuck in traffic. Two thirty. Dane left.

Ellis watched me more than the door. Her thumb moved over the back of my hand, steady, a little metronome of sanity.

Three o’clock. I stopped refreshing my email every thirty seconds.

Dane came back in wearing a track jacket, and glanced up before buying a bear claw and sitting beneath us.

I took a deep breath. “Blue bitched out.”

Ellis said nothing. My pulse slowed enough to distinguish it from hers: hers was still fast, nervous.

She liked things scheduled and organized. Settled. This was chaos.

where are you, Blue?

I checked the weather. Plane delays. Road accidents. Someone died on the Maine Turnpike that afternoon. Water lying like silver silk on the macadam. Tires that couldn’t bite through it. Skid, smash. No seat belt.

Buckle up, kids. Unless you’re so tired and beaten you’d rather die.

At half past three I bought lattes. By four, the pale light flooding through the windows dimmed and faded. At four thirty I went to pee.

I’m leaving at five

where the fuck are you?

As I left the stall, my phone buzzed in my hand. I was so startled I nearly threw it.

vada.

don’t be angry with me.

Guaranteed way to piss me off.

you’re not coming, are you?

I was afraid to move, my entire being focused on this tiny phone screen.

The next email came while I washed up at the sink.

i saw you, with red.

holding her hand.

you looked right at me. through me.

i watched you together.

and i knew it was wrong.

coming between you two.

vada, i felt something real for you.

i still do.

but your heart belongs to someone else.

it’s wrong of me to ruin that.

what i’ve done is wrong.

i hope someday you can forgive me.

yours, always,

blue.

Everything in me was going a hundred miles an hour. Then it hit:

you looked right at me.

He was here.

I ran out of the bathroom, crashing into someone on their way in. Mumbled apology. Blurred lights, a swirling cacophony of voices. I dashed beneath the mezzanine and looked up.

Ellis stood, peering down. “Vada?”

“He was here.”

I stumbled through a couple at the door and onto the street.

Commuters flooded past, umbrellas up, small pearls and crystals of rain rolling off and shattering on the asphalt. A taxi pulled away from the curb and I chased it into traffic but when I grabbed the door handle, a shocked woman’s face stared out. Mist collected on my skin. Any man that passed could have been him. Fine, pale hands. That’s all I knew. Aside from the way he’d made me feel, the way he’d laced his fingers into my heart and unraveled it. Was that what I’d have to do? Pry my ribs open and see whose hands fit, whose fingers were stained with the same red inside me?

I walked up and down the block, peering into every face. Looking for Max, or someone I knew. Anyone. Only strangers. Then Ellis and Dane appeared like angels, one on either side.

“What happened?” Dane said.

Ellis clung to my arm, eyes wide.

“He stood me up. That fucking asshole stood me up. He was here. He saw us, and bailed, like a little bitch.”

People on the street side-eyed me. I wanted to snarl, What the fuck are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen someone getting their heart broken?

“Why?” Ellis said.

I shook my head. “I’ll explain later. I just—I want—”

Across the street, a bar sign glowed warmly through the rain.

“I want to get shitfaced.”

Three White Mexicans later—tequila, Kahlua, and horchata– I felt a lot less shitty about this whole stupid scenario.

Dane matched me with Moscow mules. Ellis was still on her second amaretto sour, but she was easily the drunkest.

“Let’s play a game,” she said.

The bar bustled, sweat sparkling in the air, Ed Sheeran crooning “I’m a Mess” on the sound system. Scents of fish and chips and vinegar wafted from the kitchen. Ellis and I sat crammed in a small booth, Dane straddling a chair across from us.

“What’s your game, Red?” he said.

“Never Have I Ever.”

“It’s a trick,” I said. “She always wins. She’s pure of heart.”

Ellis gave us an airy look. “It’s okay if you’re not up to the challenge.”

The later it got, the calmer and more confident she got. It curdled in my gut, knowing she was relieved I wasn’t spending the night with a stranger. Because Blue bailed. Not because I’d chosen her.

Dane signaled a server, and Ellis ordered eight shots of Johnnie Walker Blue. Dane whooped. I put a hand on her arm.

“Do you have any idea how expensive that is?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t order it just for the sake of irony.”

“I’m ordering it because it’s expensive and ironic.”

“You can’t stand whiskey. You’re going to puke it all back up.”

“Unless I beat you.”

I folded my arms. Ellis raised an eyebrow, defying me.

“Red’s throwing down,” Dane said.

I met her stare for stare. “You’re on.”

When the shots arrived she arranged them in two neat rows.

RULES OF NEVER HAVE I EVER:

1. Someone says, “Never have I ever” done something.

2. Anyone who has done that does a shot.

3. If no one drinks, the first person does a shot.

“Three shots and you’re out,” she said. “Last man standing wins.”

“Who’s first?” I said.

Dane shrugged. “I vote Red. Let’s see how dirty she plays.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” I warned. “Her IQ is probably a multiple of yours.”

“Be nice,” Ellis said.

“Floor’s yours, brainiac.”

She eyed us coolly. “Never have I ever kissed everyone at this table.”

Shit.

I delayed a few seconds, poker-faced, then grudgingly picked up a shot. Liquid smoke and hot toffee. My chest burned.

Ellis and Dane gaped at each other.

“You kissed him?” she said.

“You kissed her?” he said.

I groaned. “I fucking told you. She doesn’t play fair.”

“I need details,” Dane said, and Ellis said, darker, “So do I.”

“Nope.” I banged my glass on the table. “And if you two ever talk about it, I’m disowning you both. You’re up, Dane.”

He looked at me, then her, his eyes glittering. “Never have I ever fucked anyone at this table.”

Nobody moved. Then Ellis and I reached for shots at the same time.

Dane crowed with glee.

“You are such a guy,” I said, and slammed mine.

Ellis wrinkled her nose and downed hers. She looked poisoned. I was two deep, plus the other drinks, and getting giddy. I brushed my fingertips over her throat, tickling.

“You just drank thirty bucks like it was toilet water.”

“Oh my god. Could you please not.”

Dane watched us avidly, his hands steepled.

“I’ll admit it, Dane. You’re a natural. But I’ve got your number.” I smiled. “Never have I ever received anal sex.”

His eyebrows rose.

He picked up a glass.

“Who was he?” I said, intrigued. “Older, younger? Was he good?”

Dane did the shot and set the glass down. “Which time?”

I giggled. Ellis studied us, her game face on.

“She’s so cute when she’s all thinky.” I traced a finger around her ear, along her jaw. “My pretty little prince.”

“If you’re that drunk, I will graciously accept your surrender.”

“Never.” I slapped the table, rattling the glasses. “To the death.”

Ellis looked regretfully at Dane. “I’m sorry, but: never have I ever jerked off to everyone at this table.”

“Aw, come on.”

We both laughed at him.

“Payback’s a bitch,” I said.

Dane did another shot.

“But the question is,” I said, “did you fantasize about us separately, or together?”

“Let’s head to your hotel and I’ll reenact it for you.”

Ellis turned bright red. I wadded up a napkin and threw it at Dane.

We all laughed, drunk and careless and happy, and I realized with a pang that I hadn’t thought of Blue for a while. The splintery, cracked place in my sternum felt blunted. It was mainly the alcohol but for a second I wanted to hug them both, hard. I slipped my foot behind Ellis’s, linked my ankle with hers. She gave me a private smile.

Dane watched us, not salacious now but thoughtful.

“Your turn, ol’ blue eyes,” I said.

“Never have I ever been in love with someone at this table.”

I stalled. “Not even a little?”

“Sorry, baby. Infatuation doesn’t count.”

Ellis reached for a shot. I took the one next to hers. We glanced at each other.

“I lose,” I said.

We threw our shots back simultaneously. When I lowered my face, she leaned in and kissed me. Once, sweetly, on the lips. It burned through me in a flash of wildfire. Dane didn’t comment—he didn’t even look aroused. He just smiled at us.

What the hell am I doing here? I thought. Why did I come a hundred miles for some stranger when she made me feel like this?

I leaned in and kissed her back, not sweet. Fierce.

When I stopped for breath, dizzy, Dane was gone.

“He went to the bathroom,” Ellis said. Shy-eyed and flustered, adorable.

“Want to get out of here?” I said.

“Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

“He’ll understand.”

In the taxi I sent him a text.

MORGAN: taking a cab to the hotel

MORGAN: meet up tomorrow?

DANE: u bet

DANE: but who won the game??

MORGAN: you did

DANE: hmmm u sure?

DANE: ur taking the hottie to your room

DANE: in my book thats a win

I laughed, and held my phone away from Ellis when she tried to see.

DANE: let me know if u need backup

DANE: I can show u that fantasy red asked about

MORGAN: you’re a pig

MORGAN: I’m blocking your number

DANE: ;)

DANE: have a nice night baby

Ellis wrestled for my phone, convinced Dane was mocking her. We sprawled across the backseat and I tickled her elbows and knees till she pulled my hair and we collapsed together, laughing, then falling quiet. Streetlights swept over us, amber into violet into amber.

The things I want to do to you, my prince.

Sixteen floors up, Boston was a diorama of tiny toy cars and boats, miniature lights, electric filigree. I’d paid a mint for a suite overlooking the harbor, with its own private terrace. In the twilight the gilt and porcelain looked palatial.

“This is like some fairy tale.” I stepped outside. Cold, the wind tangy with brine. “None of this seems real.”

Ellis leaned on the railing, gazing at the water. “I know.”

“You seem real. Are you?”

She didn’t answer.

I moved behind her, slid my arms around her waist. Kissed the bare nape of her neck, hot lips on cool skin. Exhaled into her short hair. There was something both masculine and feminine about her, or neither. The androgynous beauty of youths in myth, the type gods would chase and try to defile, until some other god took pity and turned them into a flower, or a tree.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Mythologizing you.” My mouth moved against her skin. “You’re my favorite subject, Ellis. Your body. Your mind.” I laid a finger at the center of her chest. “Your heart. I miss drawing you. Sometimes my hand moves on its own, a muscle memory. I dream of it. I dream of you in colors that don’t exist.”

Her back arched, her body molding against mine. My palms scaled her ribs till she pressed them still.

“You’re drunk, Vada.”

“Don’t think I mean it?”

“We came here to meet your Internet boyfriend.”

Instantly my mouth went sour. I released her, walked to the other end of the terrace.

“I’m glad he didn’t show,” I said.

My own words startled me. I repeated them.

“I am glad. Fuck him.” I wrapped my fists around the railing as tight as I could. The left was strong, the right watery, ghostly. I’d kill to crack my knuckles. My bad hand always felt like this, one good crack away from being fixed. “We never should’ve come here. This whole time, I’ve been chasing a mirage. A phantom. Because I’m—” Can I actually say this to her? Right now I think I can. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“You. This. Us.”

She came up beside me, guarded. “You’ve said that before. What do you really mean?”

Salt air in my throat. Blue ocean beyond, licked by the gold flames of harbor lights.

“I mean it terrifies me that the love of my life is a fucking girl.” I didn’t look at her. I spoke to the dusk sky. “You want honesty, right? Well, here you go. I have stupid irrational hang-ups about you. About how people look at us. About how they’ll see me as this, a girl with another girl, without caring who I really am. That there’s more to me. They’ll see a label, not a person.”

“There’s more to me, too. Sometimes you don’t even see it. You see the labels you’ve put on me, instead of what’s really here.”

“You’re right. I—” God, time to cop to how shitty I am. “Ellis, I liked Blue because he’s like you, but a guy, okay? Because that’s how fucking deep it goes for me. I wanted someone easy. Someone who wouldn’t make me question so much about myself, about what’s really inside me. In my head you’ve always been the exception to the rule.”

“What rule?”

“That I’ll turn out normal someday.” I gripped the railing with all my might. “I’m sorry if that makes me a shitty person. It scares me, that I might never love anyone else like this. Makes me wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about who I really am.”

“Maybe I’m lying to myself, too.”

I glanced at her. “How?”

“Sometimes it feels like something inside me is waiting to explode.”

Ryan’s words.

“Who am I, Vada? Who do you see?”

“Ellis Carraway. My best friend.”

“Just your friend.”

“There’s no word for what you mean to me.”

“Do I embarrass you?”

“Are you nuts? You’re the smartest person I know. I brag about you all the time. And you’re cute as hell. So cute I kissed you in the Old Port, on the street. And in that bar in front of everyone.”

“That was kind of balls-out.”

I grinned. “Reckless Vada.”

“No. Brave.”

We eyed each other in the deepening twilight. Lights popped on along the wharf, little yellow kernels.

“I don’t want to just be friends anymore,” I said. “The only problem with our relationship was me. My stupid hang-ups. My fear.”

“I won’t be your second choice.”

I took her hands, brought her fingers to my mouth. Warmed them with my breath. “You’re everything I want. If Blue showed up right now, I’d tell him to fuck off.”

“Even if he was really hot?”

I answered earnestly, my throat tight. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

“Is this because we’re drunk, or is it real?”

“I think both. Look.”

I let go of her, gave her space to breathe. The navy satin of the harbor fanned below. Skyscrapers towered over it, a palisade of steel.

“Not exactly van Gogh, right? Too clinical. But see that?” I pointed. “The stars are still there. They fell out of the sky and drowned. They’re underwater now, sparkling beneath the surface. Ruby, sapphire, amethyst, topaz. More colors than ever before.”

“How do you see things like this? These drowned stars.”

You, I thought. I see them because of you.

“Ellis, you totally have a type. I’m an artist, Blythe’s a poet. Next you’ll fall for an interpretive dancer.”

“There won’t be a next.”

Knife, twist. “I lied about lying, about the experiment. In the Old Port. Do you want to know what it really was?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “I wanted to see how it’d feel, being your girlfriend.”

I sensed the hitch in her breath. “How did it feel?”

“Exactly the same as being your friend. But a lot nicer, because there was kissing.”

Ellis hung her head, not hiding her smile very well. “Can I say something?”

“Can I kiss you after you say it?”

“Yes. Please. But listen.” She made herself meet my eyes. I saw nervousness there, but no fear. “You said it scares you, that you might not love anyone else this way. But it doesn’t scare me. It makes me happy, Vada. That I have someone I can love like this.”

Right at that moment my silly drunk heart was an overfull paint can when a brush jams inside, color slopping over the rim, running everywhere.

I took her glasses off. Harbor lights danced over our skin. “You’re getting kissed now.”

But she beat me to it.

We both had alcohol on our lips, a whiff of burnt sugar and cream. My back curved against the railing. Ellis leaned in and kissed me gently, daintily, precise little brushes across my mouth. Her hands framed my face, angled it so she could kiss me exactly where she wanted. The way I’d position paper when I drew. I gave myself up to her. Let her cradle the back of my head, her lips softly shading mine in.

“I want you so much,” I murmured into her mouth.

I pulled her across the terrace into the dark suite. She pushed me against the glass doors. More boy than girl now, this slender, pretty boy, smoky-eyed and tousle-haired, lifting my face to kiss me again and again. Her hands were all over me, pulling my hips to hers.

“Fuck me,” I said.

I tugged the top button of her shirt.

“Do you really want this?”

“Do you want to feel how wet I am?” I dragged her hands lower, but she stopped me.

“Look at me. Do you want me, or a boy?”

I circled her waist, held her tight to my body. “You. Just like this. You’re kind of a boy, aren’t you?”

Her heart crashed against mine. “Do you want me to be?”

“Yes.” I grabbed her ass, brought her knee between my legs. “Fuck me like a boy, Ellis.”

She put her mouth to my ear. “Like Blue?”

“Like you.”

She took my blouse off in a smooth pull, unclasped my bra. Held my wrists to the glass in one hand while the other slipped beneath the bra cups. Teased my nipples hard. Then took one between her lips, sucking till I could not feel where my spine ended, only this cord of electricity crackling from my skull to the tips of me, firing out wild trails of sparks. My hands fell free, raked into her hair and knotted. Held her to my breast as she circled the areola with her tongue till I couldn’t take it anymore and pulled her up to face me.

“Let me see you,” I said.

She let me unbutton her shirt now, slowly. The weak useless hand that fumbled and the strong awkward one. When I struggled, she guided my fingers. I used to do this so suavely. I used to be so confident. Invincible.

Ellis waited, patient.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be.”

Her shirt came off, and the tight tee beneath. I dropped my bra. Our bodies met again, skin on skin. Her shoulder against my cheek, moon pale, freckles spilling down her arm like a fall of sand. I counted the ridges of her spine with my fingers and pulled her closer, crushed my breasts to hers, our lungs fighting to occupy the same space. I wanted her inside me. I wanted her deep, in the marrow, the bitter redness.

We tumbled onto the bed and lay side by side, kissing, until she rolled astride me and held me down. She kissed me everywhere, her hands on every exposure of skin, tracing my tats with her fingertips, nails, tongue, to the point where I could barely register any individual touch but felt her desire wash over me in a sweeping, impressionistic wave, the blurry underpainting of lust. We undid each other’s jeans, slid them off. Nothing left between us. I pulled her face to mine and moaned, unabashedly throaty, carnal. Ellis moved against me, steady and hard, rolling her hips, and I wrapped myself around her and gripped that tight little ass and made her grind on me, spread her wetness all over my leg, till she pushed my legs apart. One hand between them, one on my throat. She kissed me when she touched me, traced my clit with a finger and ran her tongue inside my upper lip, and all the resistance in me dissolved. I’d never felt like such a girl as when she touched me. So soft and open, my body pliant, transparent like tulle, responding to the barest brush of her fingers. I’d slept with a lot of boys, but none made me feel this feminine. None knew how to touch me like this. Because Ellis knew exactly what this felt like. How the lightest glide against my tongue, my nipples, my clit felt like a spark racing down a fuse. How suggestion could be more powerful than direct stimulation. But I wanted it direct now.

She felt what I needed. We’d been together so long, we just sensed things.

The finger tracing me slid inside, then another, and I gritted my teeth because touching an ache feels so fucking good you almost don’t want the pain to stop. I rocked against her, unable to hold back.

“Fuck,” I said. “I’m close.”

Ellis looked down at me. Tucked my hair behind my ear. Touched my mouth, fingers running down to my throat.

And then grasped it, tight.

Some noise rose from my diaphragm, beastly and crude. Animal pleasure.

Choking yourself is one thing. You control it, fine-tune it, but the pleasure is in the control. Being choked by someone else is exhilarating precisely because the control is gone.

“Tighter,” I whispered.

Shadows seeped inward, vignetting my vision. The darkness seemed to glitter blackly.

“Baby, fuck me,” I said, and she did. Two fingers inside me. One hand on my throat.

The first time I’d done it, it was instinctual. I’d been fingering her on the sofa, kissing her neck, feeling the artery pulse against my lips like a red butterfly trapped beneath the surface, and as she got close something dark reared up in me, bitter and unkind. I knew when she came and clutched me helplessly that I’d melt, I’d fall in love with her a little more, and I resented it, the whole thing, this beautiful friendship that went too far and couldn’t go back, that would crash and burn and destroy the life I’d built around her. I wanted this love to hurt her, just a bit, the way it hurt me. I wanted to hurt her. My hand slid around her neck. Her eyes opened wide. We were fully, mercilessly in that moment together. Afterward we didn’t talk about it, but it became part of us. It happened when we were upset, when we couldn’t solve a problem any other way. We both did it. Ellis was reluctant at first, but the more I failed to be the out-and-proud girlfriend of her dreams, the more okay she seemed with this fucked-up manifestation of our tension. And then it started happening so often that sometimes I wasn’t sure if we actually wanted to fuck or just to hurt each other.