the presence of evil

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You can't breathe, and it's wonderful. 

Art is above you, hands wrapped around your throat, squeezing the life out of you, like you've asked him to do a hundred times. 

He's more beautiful than you remember. The severe, gorgeous lines of his face defy existence, yet here they are in front of you, making up a picture so perfect you couldn't dream up anything better. His cheekbones impossibly sharp, catching light and casting shadow as he grins down at you. His eyes shine, and you want to reach out and trace his jaw with your fingertips, press your palm against his cheek. 

Only now he's too far away. 

Why is he getting farther away? 

You reach to your throat to put your hands over his and find that your fingers slide through them like water. He's disappearing, and you realize with somber clarity that you're dreaming. 

It's the third night in a row you've had this dream, and you wake from it in frustration, allowing your eyes to adjust to the muted, grey light spread across your rumpled sheets. 

It's raining again. Third morning in a row for that too. 

You're not sure what kind of Groundhog Day flavor of hell you've entered since meeting Art, but you're ready for it to end. You haven't heard from him since the night you met at the warehouse, and it's making you miserable to say the least.

With heavy resentment, you throw your bedsheets to the side and sit up. Steady rain drums against your windows. You can't bring yourself to move further; you don't want to test the soreness in your limbs just yet. 

Not that it's too much to bear, but on the contrary; it's not enough. 

You've been able to move through your days relatively unhindered, the pain of your injuries visiting you in unexpected echos when you shift a certain way, or cross your legs without thinking, but it's only a fraction of the feeling – a tease. 

Every time the pang of a tender ache surfaces, it is accompanied by Art's cruel smirk. His absence has been a crushing weight, and your battered thighs are a sore, persistent reminder of him you have to carry. 

Unable to spare yourself the torment, you glance down at them now, the hem of your t-shirt falling just short of the worst of the damage. You look over the healing scabs and blisters, folding your legs into a butterfly stretch as you sit amongst your tossed sheets. 

At first you were concerned about infection, but everything seems to be settling easily into a protective seal of scabby crust that's beginning to itch uncomfortably. The annoyance of diligently applying antibiotic and tolerating the unglamorous, admittedly gross, aspects of the healing process just rubs more salt in the proverbial wound.

If only that were the worst of it, maybe you’d be sleeping better at night. 

No, the greatest affliction you’re left with would be the deep purple bruises that wrap your inner thighs in the shape of Art’s hands. 

His grip left two perfect ghosts of spread finger outlines on your skin, damage sitting deep beneath the surface. Dark, speckled clusters of deep tissue trauma convalesce at the tip of each finger where they were buried brutally in your flesh and radiate outwards in hues of yellow green, making your soft skin a map of sensory memory, holding onto his touch. 

Of course you've tried to wrap your own hand around the shadow of his spread and straining fingers, but you can't stretch your own digits far enough to meet each delicious pressure point. Inevitably, you're left unsatisfied every time you've tried to recreate the feeling of his hands pressing into you. 

At night, you lay in bed and press into each tender imprint one by one like you're enacting a prayer ritual. Sometimes you can trick yourself into believing it’s really him touching you, hands between your thighs, communing with a ghost. 

You’ve barely slept at all. When you do, he’s all you see, haunting your dreams every night with his vicious smile. 

In the grey morning light, you can see that the bruises have changed in color again, a lighter hue than they were just last night, inevitably continuing to fade. Your heart sinks. This gradual slipping away is more torture than anything you could have asked him to do to you. 

Refusing to dwell on it any longer, you push yourself up from the bed. There's no straining of pulled muscles or deep aching in your movements today. You swallow your disappointment. 

The first morning you woke up, just the vibrations of each step you took sent a trembling jolt through the bruises buried in your skin. Now your strides feel strangely hollow in comparison. Unaffected. Void of substance. 

You miss carrying Art with you.

Shuffling in a rote zombie-walk, you move to the kitchen. Mia scampers across the floor beside you. 

The coffee pot fills with steady gurgling, and Mia circles your feet, stretching up your leg and pawing at your knees. You scoop her up and hold her to your chest while you look out the window at the unrelenting rain. 

Art's unexplained cold shoulder has left you with a sadness you can’t suppress, but doubt and anxiety nag you in equal measure, permeating the gloomy membrane of angst with a necessary reality check.

Meeting Art should have brought you peace of mind, but instead you’re filled with worry over exactly who you’ve invited into your life. 

His intentions remain a mystery and his absence is a glaring red flag that you can’t ignore. As you watch the rain spatter against the glass, you tuck Mia, purring contentedly, beneath your chin to feel her warmth and run through the automatic replay of the warehouse night once more. 

When you had returned home, you dumped your purse out on your bed, cataloging everything like it was police evidence. Your pink multitool -- it crossed your mind that Art’s fingerprints might be on it, but you weren’t sure what you could do with that fact; opting to do your best police work, you sealed it away in a sandwich bag, desperate for any fragment of control -- your compact mirror, your half-empty pack of cigarettes, a tube of lip gloss, two foil-wrapped condoms that seemed hopelessly laughable laying on your bedspread in the aftermath of everything, and your wallet -- sans ID, all laid out like they might provide you with some kind of clarity. 

You wracked your brain as you stood in your room looking down at what felt like chaotic red strings on a corkboard, and tried to quell the storm of panic crashing around you.

It’s possible you had left home without your ID.  Maybe it had already been gone, and you simply hadn’t noticed. Maybe you had dropped it, left it behind at the coffee shop, or misplaced it somewhere odd. It was probably waiting for you right where you left it. You tried to remember the last time you were certain you had it, and found yourself doubting your memory. It could be anywhere. You probably just made a mistake. 

However, a cold stone of truth remained: the most obvious answer is almost always the right one. 

The room tilted as you felt Occam’s razor at your throat. 

Art had gone through your purse. Art could have easily lifted your ID. Art could have any number of reasons to do something like that. 

You don’t know Art. 

You don’t know what he’s capable of.

You felt the same gut-punch feeling that struck you when you first made the discovery in the liquor store. A million of the worst things you could imagine flooded your mind all at once, and you crouched down, breathing deeply to staunch your paranoia. 

The urge to call someone for help flashed like a life-line, but you couldn’t bring yourself to admit just how in over your head you currently felt. Nobody was likely to answer this late at night anyway, and you didn’t want to worry anyone. You didn’t want anyone seeing you differently because of this lapse in judgement. 

You didn’t want to make this into a big deal.

As you stared at the carpet, your panic steadied and began to subside. You had to think rationally. 

Calling the cops was absolutely out of the question. You weren’t about to cry wolf to them and suffer their judgment. You imagined, with an internal cringe, how that conversation would likely play out. 

“So you went to meet a stranger at an abandoned warehouse, and now you’re worried he might not have had the best intentions?”

“You’re aware you could have been killed, right?” -- “Oh, that was part of the appeal?”

You knew they'd be no help, and you were better off sparing yourself the embarrassment. 

Sleep was the only reasonable course of action you could land on. So you gulped down an ill-advised combination of more cheap brandy and sleeping pills, threw your evidence back into your purse, and prayed that things would make sense in the morning. 

But they hadn’t. And they still don’t. 

You’ve been masquerading through your days, falling apart on the inside while nerves and sorrow each take their turn to torment you in tandem. 

You’ve checked everywhere you could think to check for your ID, all to no avail. The few conversations you've had with Nic have been kept short, held behind a calm, cool facade of nonchalance and aggressively steered away from any mention of your dating life. He hasn’t seemed to notice something’s off, but you know it won’t be so easy to hide when you see him this weekend. 

Your stomach turns at the thought. The coffee pot beeps to interrupt your dread spiral. 

Mia jumps out of your arms and lands gracefully on the floor, meowing at you expectantly for her breakfast. 

The actions of your morning become a safe, easy framework to follow, and you allow yourself to disappear inside your routine. You try to welcome the numbness in the wake of everything that’s happened. You imagine your mind like the grey rainclouds sheeting the sky, and your thoughts as the fat droplets that fall and disperse without consequence, leaving no mark where they land. 

You pour a mug of coffee. You scoop cat food and think no thoughts. You shower. You brush your hair. You get dressed. You do everything you’re supposed to do, all while managing to keep your mind empty and still.

But much like a deteriorating moat around a sandcastle, your efforts inevitably crumble as you pull your jeans up carefully over your thighs, feeling the familiar sting that conjures images of salacious black and white inside your head. A pointed hook of anxiety spears your chest, cold and sharp, like you’re being bisected on an autopsy table. 

On impulse, you rush to check your inbox again, refreshing it impatiently. Need stirs and goes unsatisfied. 

No new messages. 

You heave a sigh and lean back in your rolling chair, feeling uneasy, still waiting for the other clown shoe to drop.

***

She was easy to follow, probably drunk. 

The drunk ones are too easy, it almost doesn't feel fair. Though, they often make up for it with unpredictability: creative insults, erratic reactions and harebrained attempts to fight back or flee. Sometimes they puke. It's all good entertainment, and none of this was ever meant to be fair anyway. 

Beyond the fogged windshield, people filter in and out of heavy double doors, talking and laughing, tilting their cups with overzealous gestures to punctuate their trite stories, spilling carelessly and laughing all the more for it. The cab of the van offers a comfortable separation from the noise that pours out into the street. 

A lot of people for a rainy night, every one of them amused and self satisfied. They stumble and talk over each other, tumbling past each other behind the drizzle streaked picture windows. They almost seem to move as one being, but still he manages to keep her in his sights. 

This crowded bar really isn't the best place to go looking, a lot left up to chance, a lot that could go wrong, but she was the right one. 

Earlier in the day when the sun was still up, he’d spotted her. It was her hair, catching the light just right with a familiar glimmer of color and life that had shifted every previous plan to orbit around her. Time slowed, gravity intensified, and what had been an inkling of a feeling -- a nagging ghost of a breath of an idea -- was suddenly too vivid and clear to be ignored. 

He hadn’t been looking for her, but there she was. She was an opportunity that simply couldn't go to waste.

He wasn’t sure who to thank, so he thanked himself as he patiently stalked her like prey.

Her hair falls over her shoulders, swaying with her as she moves, hypnotically framing an elegant swan neck. It entices him, the curving stack of vertebrae sheathed in delicate flesh, architecture of biology that looks too fragile to hold her up. Yet she moves with graceful ease, relaxed and confident, stepping through the crowd that seems to part for her. 

She weaves her way towards the door, disappearing at times behind other staggering bodies. Just the right height, so easily manageable. Even the particular softness in her features causes an undeniable dragging force to clutch him tightly. 

Yes, she was the right one.

And this is where she’d led him. So this is where he waits, even if it’s not his first choice, or his second. 

There's just one nagging detail. It's been impossible to tell her eye color from such a distance, but that's something that can be overlooked for these purposes. 

Can't have everything, after all. 

Now she's standing out front under the awning, lifting her head to the breeze. There's a gap in the rain, and she jogs to her car parked on the other side of the street.

Art turns the key in the ignition and follows the red glow of her taillights. She drives cautiously, probably nervous about being pulled over. The rain picks up again, falling steady as his hands on the wheel. 

There’s an anticipation building now, but he can’t get ahead of himself. This is the part to savor, the part before she knows what’s coming. He watches the back of her head, silhouetted by the light of every passing car. She’s being so careful, looking both ways at every intersection. She’s doing everything right. His growing anticipation takes a tangible form, crowding the space behind his ribs, pushing with a sharpened edge that makes him grip the wheel tighter. 

She's perfect. She looks just like you. 

***

By the evening, you're finishing the bottle of disgusting, impulse-bought brandy. Thankfully, you've poured the last of it into a glass over a heap of ice to dilute the pungent, artificially botanical edge. Drinking it all felt like a necessary tribulation, and you've been working steadily through your regret over the last three days like a stoic monk. Finally, you're at the finish line, each sip going down easier than the last.

You feel warm and comfortable inside your cozy apartment. On the outside, it appears as though everything is in its place. A cleaning frenzy took you over once you logged off from work for the day, and you’re basking in the end result. A woodwick candle crackles on the coffee table while you try to let the meticulous tidiness of your surroundings settle over you and soothe the chaos that’s been rioting inside you. With effort, you try to remember what it’s like to feel at ease.

You’ve gone to great lengths to keep busy tonight, holding meandering text conversations with your friends as you sit on the couch with one of your favorite movies playing in the background. You clipped Mia’s nails, and then your own. You even filed them into perfect ovals, but you were bound to run out of distractions eventually. Your text exchanges lull, your glass empties, and your mind wanders.

The forum is open on your laptop before you can even think it through. With prickling shame, you reread the messages you've sent. 

Hey, stranger :-) 

The humor in the greeting was immediately lost when he didn’t reply, replaced by a stinging sense of rejection underpinned with dread that’s only grown stronger with each passing day. 

He is still a stranger, isn’t he?

Can't stop thinking about the other night…

You’re proud that you waited 24 hours to try again, still maintaining hope, and even flirtation. You were still getting high off your dreams about him, and your fingers pressed into the shadow of his touch still provided an adequate thrill. You had been steadily prodding your bruises as you waited for him to type back, eager nerves fluttering in your belly. 

Hours passed and the silence got harder to bear, so you sent a follow up, a direct question in need of an answer.

What have you been up to?

And then another. More demanding.

Are you there??

You’ve forced yourself to stop at that. Art’s silence has spoken volumes, and receiving no answer has left you feeling boxed in. Your choices being, to reveal your neediness by repeatedly sending messages into the void, or mirror his aloof indifference. 

The latter has felt like the safer option that at least provides you with the illusion of power. Yeah, I don’t care either, asshole. 

But you do. And you think he knows this. 

You have a feeling that Art knows what he’s doing. This disappearing act is intentional, but you can’t come up with a good reason for it. Things had been going well, hadn’t they? 

Meeting him was a shock, but you definitely showed an interest. Was that the problem? Were you too easy? The thought infuriates you. 

Alongside your anxieties about Art, a steady anger has been building like a storm cloud. Tonight it threatens to rain down a torrent of indignant rage. Your hurt has transformed and taken a new shape that you’re eager to wield. 

It pains you to be ignored like this – a deep, exquisite burning pain, an emotion you can locate just beneath your beating heart, festering and morphing into something ugly. No amount of alcohol will ever quell the sting, but you swallow another mouthful hastily, realizing you’ve reached the watery dregs as ice cubes knock against your teeth. 

Fuck it, you don’t need it anyway. Your will is narrowed into a burning pinpoint of anger, and your one-track mind can’t be redirected now. 

Who does this guy think he is?

You’re itching to tell him off. You want to scream at him, and tell him to forget your number and your name, that he ever met you at all. For a moment the thought is gratifying. But you falter, knowing that at the center of the hardened shell of your passionate fury lies soft and fragile, aching desire. 

Unavoidable, insatiable, loathsome desire. 

You want to see him again. As angry as you are, you feel you have to see him again. You doubt you’d be able to keep such a hard front if he were actually in front of you.

You think of the ways you’d likely melt for him, and then become angry all over again for imagining it and knowing how true it feels. How much you still want him. Your spite, your hurt, your desire, your confusion, and your fear all become too much to contain. 

You have to get his attention. You feel as though there’s no other choice. 

Your fingers clatter feverishly across the keys with a will of their own. 

***

Blood on the floor, congealing faster than it’s spreading, going thick and gummy and sticking to everything. Maybe it’s the humidity. It’s like it’s trying to hold its shape and reform a body of its own as it collects in overlapping layers, running over itself in a film of darkening clots. 

Probably too much blood, honestly. 

She wasn’t going to hang on much longer by the looks of it. Art slapped the girl’s face to keep her lucid. This really hadn’t gone how he’d hoped. 

From the jump, things hadn’t been right. 

When he’d ambushed her at her car, his perfect victim had almost run shrieking into the street and gotten away entirely, successfully yanking her arm from his grasp with surprising speed and awareness. If she'd been any more prepared, she would have had her keys between her knuckles and thrown a punch. Her wherewithal was impressive, but she was getting away, and that wasn't really an option.

She’d tried to bolt down the empty street, screaming blind terror, before he pulled her to the ground with force. She was making a lot of noise. A hand over her mouth wasn't enough to stop the sound, so he’d ground her face into the asphalt until she was only whimpering. That's not really what he'd wanted to do, but that’s how it had to be.

Porch lights flipped on at the commotion. A dog started barking somewhere. Of course she’d led him to a quiet neighborhood, not one of those shoddy apartment complexes that functioned like a revolving door of people too temporary and detached to really notice each other. Those were far preferable. 

Instead, here he was taking too many risks, driven by the powerful image of her face – your face, really – and what he’d do when everything was left up to him. A fantasy begging to be realized, and now it was in his grasp, sputtering blood onto black tar. 

He waited out any good samaritans that could be lingering near their windows, remaining completely still, huddled with his prize in the refuge of shadow cast by parked cars while he pushed her down into the pavement until she had struggled enough to exhaust herself. 

He stayed there longer than he needed to after her body began to go lax, attempting to revel in the moment. The night air was heavy with the scent of damp mulch, the rain bringing out the aromatic fullness of fresh landscaping. 

He let the fantasy breathe to life beneath him, coming into sharper detail now that he could really see the girl's resemblance to you.

Abruptly, she caught a second wind and started thrashing again, and it was time to drag her to the van. He didn’t mind that she had a lot of fight in her, that was usually part of the fun, but nearly losing the upper hand right at the start was always kind of a buzzkill. 

Getting her into the van and keeping her quiet was a bit of work, more work than he wanted it to be. Then, after all the screaming and the struggling and the duct tape, he finally got a good look at her petrified face just to find that her eyes weren’t even the same shade as yours.

Not even close.

It probably shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. The fantasy threatened to slip away.

Determined, he’d kept it on life support with every heinous act he’d inflicted on her since, fueling the dark appetite of his imagination with her agonized cries, twisting the knife and blurring the lines without much success.  Much like her life itself, the expiration had arrived all too soon. 

The dream had proven to be an awful tease. 

“Please,” Her voice, barely audible, muddled through ragged, heaving breath and snot and drool and pathetic tears, brings him back to the present. 

She tries to lift her head, and the light in her wrong-colored eyes is gone, extinguished by suffering.

She knows it’s over.

What do they think about -- these people in these moments? 

Do their deepest regrets haunt them as they lay dying? Their darkest, most shameful moments, do they recall them in cloying detail? People they love? The things they never got to do? 

He has always wondered, not to any great extent, but it’s interesting – like how sometimes it can be revealed the last thing that someone ate when they’re flayed open. He wishes just for the sake of his curiosity that he could split open a skull and find the last thought that person had, floating somewhere in the grey matter, a trivial little souvenir. 

What’s this girl thinking about? Someone she met at the bar? The worst thing she’s ever said out of anger? The last time she spoke to her mother? Maybe she wishes she had stayed in tonight. 

“Please,” she snivels out, “Kill me.”

There they are, those words. 

Most of them end up saying the same thing after long enough. This is supposed to be a moment to feel something. To withhold something. Just a little longer. Prolong the third act, delay the inevitable. This should feel indulgent, but instead he wants to roll his eyes. 

Art kneels down and grabs her face in one hand, squishing her bloody, tear-stained cheeks between his thumb and forefingers. She’s barely conscious; it’s underwhelming. He shakes her a bit, and she groans weakly. 

At one point she looked like you, but not anymore. He scans the mess of her face, her desecrated features, for the resemblance he once saw there. What was the feeling he had been chasing? Did she look more like you when she had still been fighting back? Was that good enough? 

Art drops the girl’s head, carelessly uninterested, and she flops over like a broken-springed bobble head. He looks around the room in need of a fresh idea. 

“Please--” she gives a ragged yelp. A surprising, desperate burst of strength gathered from some uncharted depth, deigned to implore him to act. 

She’ll have no such luck.

Art turns his back on his suffering captive, searching for inspiration of some kind.

A small blue light, blinking like a beacon, a plea for attention held in its persistent glow, asks to provide this. The battered laptop, shifted somehow to be visible among the clutter in the trashbag, brings an offering, and with it a sigh of reluctance leaves his lungs. 

It had better be good. 

Annoyed, but feeling like there isn’t much more that can be lost, Art opens the laptop begrudgingly. Your body double has gone stone still on the floor, and likely just as cold. Mercy granted. Something needs to balance the scales. 

The inbox loads onto the display, flooded with new messages.

I don’t know what your problem is.

I think you’re a sick person. 

Not for what you did before, but for this.

It’s just cruel.

I  don’t know where you get off treating people like this. 

I don’t know what the fuck I ever did to you. 

I thought you felt the same way I did.

Fuck you for pretending to be serious about this.

Fuck you for all of it honestly.

Art looks in disbelief at the screen, the words igniting a perverse thrill. It almost reads like a poem, each of your sentences delivered individually. 

He reads them again. And then again, enjoying each line more with every pass. His rotten mood begins to turn. 

He’s really had an effect on you.

I can't get you out of my head. 

Another message appears as he’s rereading your words, and with elation he discovers that you’re still typing. 

Art watches the messages pile onto the screen like presents on Christmas morning.

I can't stop thinking about you no matter what I do. 

I can’t stop pressing on the bruises you gave me, I think about you every night.

All the time.

So, fucj you for this

I don't know who you are, or wgat you normally do, but I don't want this to be a one off thing. I know I already said that, but it hasnt changed, nothign has changed. I still feel the samr. Please say something

I dont know what I did, why you aren’t givbing me a chance.

The typos are great. Excellent. He can picture you, frantic and flustered. It’s almost like you’re there. He can see you sitting at home pressing on your bruises, dissatisfied and miserable. 

What an image. 

I know you weren't what I expected, but that doesn't even matter. 

I told you I care about you, and I meant that. I meant everyhting I've said, I'm interested, I'm serious about this. I want more from you. I want to see you again. 

I have to see you again, Art. 

I thought we wanted the same things. 

Do we want the same things? 

He steals a glance over his shoulder at the poor girl bled out on the floor. It’s enough to paint a cynical smile on his face. Art returns his attention to the screen, and – wow, you’re still typing.

I want you to know that I liked everything you did that night.  All of it. 

It was something I hadnt known what it would actually feel like, to be scared like that. Vulnerable like that. 

To really meet you. 

To really not know, adn to give you everything. I want to give you eberything. 

I couldn’t know what that would feel like until I met you., but now that I do, it’s all I want. 

Hm, he likes the sound of that. 

He’d like to make you say that in person, to pull the words from your throat himself. On the phone before, you had said something like that too, but you hadn’t known what you were talking about, not really. 

I want to give you everything. 

The idea makes him weak in a way he could never admit. 

I need more. so  badly. 

You didn't scare me away if that's what you were trying to do. 

You're not going to be too much for me. 

This is what I want. That night, meeting you, was the closest I've gotten to what I've been searching for. You're exactly what I wanted, and I don't want this to be over. 

Oh, it’s not over. It’s imminent.

You’ve stuck in his mind from the start. 

Even from the first conversation, he had wondered about you. Curiosity crept in and lurked unobtrusively in the beginning, but he had suspected you would become something unavoidable. 

Now that you’ve met, his prediction has only been confirmed. You’ve become ever-present.

You were a set of nagging questions, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. You were in his mind tonight, driving this mess of an exercise in disappointment. What was he going to do about you? 

You were incorrigible. You were incongruent with his reality. You were an unfortunate idea he’s been turning over in his mind like a stone, searching for the most appealing side. There were just so many options. You were a special case, and he needed to take his time. 

Now, here you are being so… demanding. 

You need more so badly. 

Sometimes to ask is all it takes, and ye shall receive. 

With renewed clarity, Art returns to the girl slumped on the floor. Her chest rises and falls weakly, almost imperceptibly. 

A hint of shadow shifts across her sternum, light muted and swallowed by dried blood, disguised by carnage, but the subtle movement doesn’t escape his notice. The tensile strength with which the human body is able to cling to life inspires awe in him at times, and in this moment he feels truly grateful for the gift that’s fallen at his feet. 

He picks her up by the throat, an easy, one-handed motion. She’s not able to fight him anymore. The girl hangs like a ragdoll in his grasp. Her eyes open, and she recognizes what's happening as he presses her back to the wall. 

She meets his eyes, and he imagines that she’s thanking him. 

You’re so welcome. It’s the least I can do, really.  

You deserve this.

With both hands he circles her throat, and her hands rise to grasp at them futilely as he begins to really squeeze. She even kicks her legs a bit. Her body fights traitorously, though just moments ago she’d begged to die. It’s a perfect performance. Awareness burns in her eyes, locked on him, as they each play their parts. She’s really redeeming herself here, and he wants to return the favor. 

Art stares into her eyes, and it doesn’t matter anymore that she doesn’t look like you.

All that matters is how quickly her eyes glaze over with tears. They spill down her cheeks like beautiful beads of liquid glass. They soak into his gloves. Her lips part. Her throat spasms and stutters from the inside, and her open, gagging mouth makes the perfect amphitheater for the wet, desperate sounds to echo up to him. 

Broken blood vessels spread to decorate the whites of her eyes, bulging veins warp her neck and forehead, and every muscle is wonderfully tense in struggle. Panic dances in her eyes as her lips quiver, puffed and mottled like she’s in anaphylactic shock. They part in labored, futile straining, dripping with drool while she gasps for air like a fish out of water.

He can feel her fading by the second, her body melting like candle wax. She begins to go blue and slack-jawed, her muscles paralyzed by lack of oxygen, her eyes turning to unseeing, dead glass. 

The transformation is gorgeous, intense, indelible. As the flame gutters in his hands, a final spasm of life jerks defiantly through her body. Her legs flail and her broken body thrashes against the wall. A sound of determination would escape her throat if it weren’t for the vice grip around it. 

Yes, give me an encore!

Art squeezes mercilessly, raising his arms higher and higher until her neck snaps in the crescendo. It breaks easily in his hands, clean and satisfying. A punctuation mark of its own kind. It brings with it a release, and he drops her unceremoniously, delighted by the sound her lifeless body produces when it hits the floor.

He laughs to no one but himself, his back turned to the laptop screen. He doesn’t see your last message as you press send, but it doesn’t matter. 

You’re all he can think of. You’re all that matters. 

His willing prey.

The message sits in the inbox as Art begins ripping the dead girl’s body apart just for the fun of it – suddenly he’s having so much fun again – and your words carry a weight that could curl a finger on the monkey’s paw.

Please, Art

I want to feel those things again. 

If you're reading this, please say something. 

***

“I’m ghosting him, I decided,” you say with a breezy satisfaction you almost believe. 

If you repeat it enough times, you’re sure, it will start to feel true. 

Bauhaus plays softly on your stereo, and fresh polish dries on your toes. You're in the midst of getting things together to leave for the conference tomorrow. Another day has come and gone, wrapping up in a tidy conclusion as the sun dips below the horizon and paints the sky outside a deep, dusky blue. 

Another day without a word from Art, the clock on your last messages to him now ticking past the 24 hour mark, just as you predicted it would. 

With your last ditch effort expended and still nothing to show for it, you're ready to stuff the corpse of your would-be relationship with Art in a bodybag weighted with stones. Today was like any other, passing in bland succession to the week that preceded it. Things are going just fine.  

You tell Nic as much. 

“Whaaat?” Nic draws out the question in sympathetic shock, though he’s probably not surprised given your spotty track record. “Your kinky guy?”

“It had to be done.”

You imagine the bloated remains of what-never-was between you and Art sealed in zippered vinyl, chucked in a river somewhere with no remorse. The doomed affair sinks silently into the dark water, settling atop murky silt with bubbles of grim finality while you fan your half-dry toenails.

“Well, whatever happened with him, anyway?” Nic asks, "Did you ever get to meet him?”

You’ve practiced your alibis. The night at the warehouse is a secret you intend to take with you to your grave. You know your lines, and you're going to get away with this. Anything to dodge the life sentence of embarrassment.

“No, it didn’t get that far,” you sigh, “I think you could be right that he’s not who he said he is.”

Nic always loves to hear that he was right.

“Hmm, disappointing,” he muses. 

“Yeah, very,” you say, and mean it. 

With a shrug, you pull on a zip-up hoodie from the pile of folded laundry next to you on the bed, shivering in just pajama shorts and tank top now that you’re actually sitting still. 

“Well, you probably weren’t missing much then, right?” Nic placates you with reaching optimism, and you let him, gingerly tapping your big toe to test the polish as you hum in agreement.  

“Yeah, I guess not,” you concede, standing up and heaving a sigh. “Can’t have much conversation with an empty inbox.”

“Wait, I thought you were the one ghosting him.”

“Well, he started it, technically,” you admit, feeling the need to air out at least this painful bit of truth, “But I’m done messaging him now,” you insist. “I don’t care what he does. I’m not responding to anything.”

“Ha,” Nic laughs, “I’m not sure that’s how it works exactly, but I’ll let you have it.”

“Thank you,” you smile, giving a dignified curtsey as you stand in front of your closet reviewing what you’ve packed. Talking to Nic is lifting your spirits, and you find yourself looking forward to your trip for the first time all week.

Your suitcase sits facing you, mostly packed, save for your essential toiletries. The aggravating feeling of forgetting something always lingers until you can get everything stowed away inside. You’ve traced and retraced your steps from your bedroom to your bathroom, though there's nothing else you can add to your luggage. 

“Who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone when you’re out of town,” Nic ventures. As he speaks you watch the flame of the candle on your vanity bob and flicker. 

“I appreciate where your head’s at, but I’m not really looking to meet anyone else,” you tell him, “This whole thing has really put me off.”

“Understandable,” Nic agrees. 

You walk to the kitchen, moving aimlessly for the sake of it. Mia hops up on the counter, vying for attention, and you scratch her behind the ears absently. 

“I don’t know,” you continue, “I just feel crazy. Maybe I was expecting too much.”

Nic lets a rare pause linger in the air, and Mia fills it with her purring.

“Okay,” you groan. “I know I was expecting too much. I wish I could just do casual like you do. It seems so much less complicated.”

Mia leaps down from the counter, and you step into the living room.

“The dating life of the modern gay man is complicated in plenty of other ways, I assure you,” he grins flatly.

You give a laugh and turn on your heels.

The TV is on and you're half watching as you compulsively pace your apartment. There's a fight playing out on the screen that would typically hold your attention, but you're not able to really absorb the over-produced dysfunction.

It’s nice having Nic on the phone. You wish you could just carry him around with you and not have to say anything at all, but you know he has other things to do. The desire feels like a gut punch. 

You refuse to think of Art. The image of the bodybag sunk in dark water replaces him effectively.

“I’m just glad you didn’t end up meeting a murderer,” Nic says, breaking you out of your thoughts. 

The sentence hits your ears oddly, like you aren’t sure you heard him right, but you laugh in agreement. 

“Me too,” you reply. You mean it, but something half-awake stirs as you say it. “I should let you go,” you add after a pause. “We’ve both got to be up early.”

“You earlier than me,” Nic teases, but he agrees and says goodbye. As you hang up the phone, the newly emerged, unnamed feeling extends its crooked limbs around you. 

In your bedroom, you pull on a pair of socks. Then you dawdle in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing your teeth, examining your skin. You’re thinking about Art, and you hate it.

Nic’s comment lingers, even though he meant nothing by it. That’s just something people say –hope your date isn’t a crazed killer, haha– but it’s lodged in your mind like the ax blade in splintered wood. 

Again you ask yourself if you should be more afraid of someone like Art, and again you remind yourself that it’s too late to worry about that now. You smear lotion on your face and let it sink into your pores. 

For a while longer, you linger in the bathroom, packing up your toiletries now that you’ve used them. The simplicity of the act brings you some peace. Mia barrels down the hall from your bedroom to the living room in a fit of zoomies, making you crack a smile. You really are looking forward to the weekend. 

Getting reacquainted with normalcy is probably what you need. 

Flicking off the bathroom light, you step into the hallway, pausing when you notice your bedroom door has swung partially closed. You had left it wide open in your many trips between rooms. It strikes you as odd enough that you stop in your tracks for a moment. 

Through the crack in the door you can see the candle on the vanity has gone out, sooty smoke from the untrimmed wick curling upwards, carried on a cool breeze towards the doorway. The night air smells sweet and balmy, and your hairs stand on end as you realize you shouldn't be able to feel the pleasant chill wafting through your shut windows. 

A lump forms in your throat, and you swallow hard. You can't come up with a logical reason for this poltergeist-esque occurrence. Doubting your own perception, and eager to debunk your anxiety you push open the door cautiously, feeling self conscious for your apprehension.

The door slides out of the way, revealing your bedroom as you left it. Aside from one jarring detail. 

You startle and gasp, shocked into a frozen silence as you clutch the doorknob defensively at the sight of Art standing in front of your open bedroom window, looking very much like he did the last time you saw him: that is, grinning and deranged, in full clown drag. 

Your mouth hangs open, and you remain stunned in fear, bending at the knees like your body wants to run. But there's nowhere to go in your small apartment. You're a deer in the headlights. 

Art stands still, smiling at you expectantly. He lifts his hands, and you see he's holding a syringe. 

Should you run? You should probably run.

Before you can get that far, he's lunged forward and grabbed your wrist, yanking you towards him with enough force that you lose your balance completely. With your feet knocked out from under you, you scramble and stumble as you fall into him, and his arms wrap around you with strength you can't contend with. 

He pins your arms and pulls you towards him as you try to wrestle away, but it's no use. He has you caught, your back pressed to his chest, his arms steadfast as a straightjacket around your body. 

You flail your legs, trying to kick backwards, but he's able to counter your attempts to knock him off balance, leaning forward so there's nowhere to land a decent kick. Your body is fighting without hesitation, doing the work independently from your mind. 

You want to ask Art what the fuck he's doing here. You want to stop thrashing around, and you want him to let go of you. But before any of that can happen, there's a sharp jab in your neck. A fine point invading, an ice cold spill through your veins, something that swallows you instantly, flooding your body. 

You're so cold now. 

Art's not holding onto you as tightly anymore, and you try to turn around, tripping over your own feet. He keeps you upright, but you can't even hold your head up now. You're falling against him, unsure how you're moving through space. 

It's so cold.

You're worried about the open window. 

You see the blackness of the night around you, and nothing else, as you're carried out of it. 

***

Light swims in and out of focus. 

You're heavy. 

Sinking? 

Drowning? 

No. You're dreaming again. 

Art stands before you, an apparition you can't touch. 

You're too heavy to move, weighed down by something invisible, but insurmountable. Maybe you're in a kind of sleep paralysis this time. 

He's stopping you from moving with just the way he's looking at you. 

Hungry. 

Insatiable. 

You're glad the dream is different this time.

He steps towards you, closing the impossible distance, and he's more solid than you've ever seen him. So corporeally present and real you can't believe it.  And still so beautiful. 

You smile up at him, dazed, delighted. 

You try to lift your heavy arm to reach him, but you're stopped by more than just the altered physics of this reality; your wrist is tied to the arm of the chair you're in. 

Rough twine digs in and prickles in a way that brings the rest of your senses into focus all at once. 

The dream collapses in an overwhelming instant, and Art is still in front of you. 

You blink a few times, swallow, breathe. Everything happens by order of a checklist for a moment, your bodily functions feeling awkwardly hyper-manual and disorienting. Is your heart still beating? Check. Limbs attached? Yes, good. 

You wiggle your fingers and toes with gratitude. 

Art is looking down at you like he couldn't be happier to see you. 

It's not a performance. He's smiling like he's truly relieved and elated by your presence. A true, natural smile graces his features, not warped and snarling, not a grimace or a threatening sneer, but an expression of joy that simply can't be contained. His eyes crinkle at the corners when you meet them, inviting you in. 

His energy is contagious, but you feel immune somehow. The surreal feeling of a dream lingers. Apprehension tugs your sleeve. 

The film reel of your memory travels back through time to reconnect you to your emotions. The open window. Struggling against his arms. The syringe in your neck. You remember that you're pissed. 

He broke into your apartment. He brought you here. 

Where are you anyway? 

You look around wildly.

The space is shrouded in shadows, making it hard to see much at first. 

Light from the street outside filters in through a dirty window to your left, the fogged glass half papered-over. Large chunks of translucent, yellowed newsprint have peeled away, allowing a square of pale moonlight to mark the dusty floorboards a few inches from your feet. You shift in the rickety chair you're bound to, and scratchy loops of twine pull taught over your wrists and ankles. 

Huge motes of dust drift and shimmer like snowflakes around the deteriorating frame of the window. Rusted nails jut from the wood at hazardous angles. 

Lots of exposed wood – the floor and the walls all made from weathered planks coated in thick, grey dust, gratuitous and substantial, filling cracks like mortar and gathering in wispy piles on every surface. It’s cartoonish, the sheer amount of dust on everything; the kind of grime you thought could only exist on a film set courtesy of props and design.

Looking up, you notice shelving above your head. It’s hard to tell what’s up there, but it looks like a hoard of long-neglected, decorative knick-knacks. What might be an oversized pickle jar coated in filth conjures macabre curiosity as to what could be inside, ala Silence of the Lambs. As you stare at the derelict oddities, unable to make anything out in the sparse light, you have the uncanny feeling of being in Hannibal Lecter’s storage unit. 

Are you sure you’re not dreaming?

Shaking off the surreal sensation, you look back to Art and try to move again. The wooden chair creaks in protest beneath you, wobbling on the uneven floor. You’re not dreaming, he brought you here. You're in an attic. The slanted boards of the roof meet in a cobweb adorned peak behind him, just above his place in front of you. 

He’s still smiling. He won’t stop smiling. 

Why did he bring you here?

Art towers over you as he steps closer, everything about him vivid and sharp, even in the dim light. His features are horrific, and you remember the fear you felt the first time you saw him. You still feel some of it now, but it’s buoyed with a fluttering excitement. His rotten smile holds something truly evil, but still you’d like to know its taste. 

His body casts a shadow that covers you completely, blocking out the moonlight and the safe, lamplit glow of the street outside. 

You’re groggy with whatever he’s drugged you with, and your thoughts are thick and difficult to grasp, wooly and tangled. You want to be happy to see him too, but the emotion curdles as soon as it surfaces, turned sickly by the wrongness of the situation. Your perception is sluggish, but you’re touched by the same feeling of avoidance that arrives with a spot of mold on ripe fruit. 

A warning to be careful rushes through the current of your bloodstream. 

Art steps forward, and you feel sour delight, excitement with a poisoned edge. He really is just how you dreamed him. 

“What are--” you begin, only to be shocked silent, cut off by a sharp, stinging slap across your face. 

You look up at Art, bewildered. He’s not standing near enough to reach you, so the sudden contact comes as a surprise. As you fully register the stinging pain across your cheek, you see that he’s holding some kind of braided whip, and looking all the more delighted for having gotten to use it. 

You close your mouth, open it again and shift your jaw, letting the pain settle and fade.

Everything still feels frustratingly void of context. Your annoyance begins to grow into anger, the shock of the slap having jolted your brain from the heavy fog of sedatives. 

“What are you doing?!” you yell at him.

Art suppresses a mocking giggle, earning the response he was after, before charging forward with the whip again. It coils around your thigh viciously fast, snapping with friction as it retreats. 

You cry out, unprepared for the harsh sting, your scant pajama shorts offering no protection against the lashing. Art raises his hands in a gleeful shimmy as he comes closer to get a better look at the welt rising on your skin. 

Spurred on by the sight of the damage he’s inflicted, he pulls his arms back again with fervor. You squeeze your eyes shut and jerk away.  

“Stop it,” you shout, unable to keep from flinching. You strain your wrists against the snaggles of twine that wrap them and find more give than you expected. 

Art snaps the whip across your forearm, eliciting a groan that’s equal parts pain and exasperation. 

“I’m serious,” you cry. Rage has heated you from the inside, and you must look at least half as pissed as you feel because Art drops his arms, and his incessant grin finally falters. 

“What the fuck,” you seethe, “Is your problem?”

Art looks back at you, half a grimace on his face like he’s the one who’s annoyed now, narrowing his eyes in confusion at your indignance. 

“What’s your problem?” You continue your tirade, not expecting an answer. “What the fuck is this about? You think you can do whatever you want?”

It feels good to yell at him, just like you thought it would, and you watch him straighten his posture and reconsider. 

“You think you can treat people however you want? Get whatever you want from them?”

Art’s expression darkens at this. He steps towards you, glaring, but you don’t back down.

“What is wrong with you?!” you yell up at him as he stares back down at you coldly. You don’t care that he’s trying to intimidate you, you’re so angry you could spit. You will yourself to stand up from the chair you’re tied to, pulling as hard as you can at your wrists and ankles. 

A half smile of amusement lifts the corner of Art’s mouth as he watches you struggle.

“Breaking into my apartment,” you spit through gritted teeth, “Ignoring me for days--”

He puts a hand on the side of your face, and you startle at the soft touch. Rough fabric over his palm slides across your cheek as his fingertips find the space below your ear where your jaw meets your throat. You fight to not lean in, trembling as you half-heartedly turn away from his touch. 

His palm catches your chin, resting across your jawline, and he tilts your head upwards, forcing you to face him. He leans down and looks into your eyes with a sorrowful pout. 

“I know you took my ID,” you tell him, your voice low and even. “And I have your fingerprints,” you hiss, “I kept the pocket knife you touched in a bag when I got home.”

Art drops his hand from your face and waves you off, rolling his eyes at your flimsy threat. It’s only now that you realize your own grip on the knife from cutting yourself free probably smeared away any prints he left on it. 

Your heart sinks, and your face heats with embarrassment. 

“Well, I can call the cops now that you broke in,” you counter, trying to hold your ground. Putting on as much bravado as you can, you square your shoulders and jut out your chin.

“Someone’s going to notice,” you insist. 

Art still isn’t phased by your scare tactics. Admittedly, they ring pretty hollow while you’re sitting here tied to a chair, unsure where you even are.

He leans forward again to brush his knuckles softly across your cheekbone, getting close and looking down at you with a pitying smile. A teasing light dances in his eyes as he handles you with tenderness. His fingers come to rest beneath your chin again, pulling all your focus to those calloused points of contact. 

The doublespeak in his actions makes your shiver, and you try to connect the silent dots he’s plotting on the map between you. 

He grins and shakes his head slowly, his smile widening as he does. His eyes are sinister-cold, calculating and delighted at once, and you recognize what they convey. 

No one is looking for you. No one will notice a thing. Art assures you that it’s just the two of you now; no one else needs to get involved. 

He will make sure of it. 

You swallow hard, feeling trapped in more ways than one. The chiding feeling to be careful what you wish for returns as a pit in your stomach. You had wanted Art to answer you, to show you some sign of life.

Now here he is, like it or not.

He’s a vision as menacing as any you’ve ever seen, staring you in the face with a smile that’s equal parts threat and promise.

You can’t look away as he drops his hand from your chin and stands straight again. He stares you down, stone faced, and a chill grips your spine. Then with a harsh jerk of his arm, he brings the whip down on your thigh, over the welt already risen on your skin. 

You groan and hiss, glaring up at him. He’s breathing heavily as he takes a step closer, his shoulders curled forward, heaving as he raises his hand, ready to strike you again. The fury in your eyes does nothing to stop him and everything to encourage him.

The two ribbons carved in your thigh form a glaring red “x”, and that must mark the spot because before you can think another thought, the whip cracks brutally once again across the weeping welts. 

You jolt with the force of it and squeeze your eyes shut, attempting to even out your breathing. 

Pain fizzes like Pop Rocks in the wake of the whip’s brutal sting. 

Art’s not slowing down, you recognize with dread as you look up at him, desperate to regain your bearings. 

Teeth bared, eyes alight, he crowds you with his towering form, bringing the whip down across the tops of your thighs again and again, becoming a blurred force of vicious motion, battering the torn and tender flesh until you’re shrieking and crying. 

Words fail you, and you realize you’re completely powerless to stop him. 

He strikes you relentlessly while you quake uncontrollably with the force of his blows, thrashing and kicking, unsure how the ropes that bind you are still holding you to the chair. 

Everything burns. Adrenaline courses through your veins. 

Through the stinging onslaught of the whip, you still find yourself following his face, keeping your eyes trained on him as though nothing else exists. 

He’s reveling in the torture he’s inflicting on you, coming alive in a way that’s truly captivating to behold. He’s lost in it, grinning wildly, eyebrows raised in a mask of sheer delight. Nothing but deranged elation on his face as he lashes you to bits.

You don’t even hear yourself anymore. You’re not sure you’re making any sound at all. 

He’s all you can see. He surrounds you completely, blocking out everything else – any chance for escape, any hope for a normal, quiet night at home. His ruthless beating is all you can feel as he turns you into a helpless, bloodied mess. 

Endorphins rush to blot out the pain of it, and you feel yourself getting high on what he’s doing to you.

The feelings you’ve longed for from him wrap around you as tightly as the twine around your wrists and the unforgiving sting of the whip itself. Unlike the night at the warehouse, you can tell he’s truly holding nothing back now.

You aren’t jerking away from the onslaught anymore. You’ve succumbed to it, ragdoll-limp as he shows the merciless side of himself he promised you. 

It feels good. You can’t lie to yourself, it feels amazing. You’re electrified, a bundle of raw nerves tied down to a chair.

It’s not fair though. This isn’t how you’d wanted it to be. 

There’s absolutely no way in hell this qualifies as a second date. 

Art pauses a moment to catch his breath, panting and grinning at you like a devil. You look up at him, letting your frustration ground you amidst the conflicting haze of everything else he awakens in you.

Your anger at his insistence, his self assuredness, his presumptions, his arrogance moves through you like a small force of nature. Like a funnel cloud shaped from the force of your will, your strength gathers in your limbs and tears a defiant warpath through your being. 

As Art raises his arm to strike you again, you manage to pull your wrists from the chair, snapping the twine on your right first.

The moment plays in slow motion cinema as you attempt to stand, gripping the chair with your free arm and wrenching your other wrist loose. Art steps back as you break yourself from your binds, drawing his arm back even further and letting go a wild flail of the whip.

You find your feet, though the chair still hobbles you at the ankles, and the whip sails high and far through the air, catching on something above you on its steady trajectory towards you. 

As you bend forward to work at the binds on your ankles and shield yourself from the lashing, the whip cracks across your back. In the same instant, you register a sound above you, but not soon enough.

You look up from your crouched position to be smashed in the face with a blinding force from above that makes you crumple to your knees, the chair awkwardly pulled along with you, landing hard against your back.

You cry out in pain and taste blood pouring into your mouth like a faucet. 

Unable to open your eyes, you cover your face with your hands and feel slick skin beneath them. You feel blindly for the damage, following the flare of pulsing pain in the center of your face. Your nerves are numbed with shock, so it’s like you're touching someone else as you gingerly slide your fingers over your nose. 

It’s gushing blood. You feel a split across the bridge, and your stomach turns in a visceral flip, making you pull your hands away like you’ve touched an open flame. With a ragged scream of distress you open your eyes, your vision clouded with tears.

Art stands before you motionless. You can’t look up to see his face, the pain is too debilitating, but you see his feet planted in place on the floor. He makes no move towards you.

“What was that?!” you scream to the floor, staring into your bloodied hands. 

You start to cry, from the sheer pain, and the confusion, and the frustrating absurdity of the entire situation. 

Something in you breaks, and ugly sobs bubble up, shaking your shoulders and rattling your aching face. The pain alone would be enough to bring you to tears, and each sob serves to double its blinding weight behind your eyes. 

You’re pissed that you’re crying at all, which adds to the onslaught of emotions. Your blood and tears mingle in a disgusting pool beneath you, quickly gathering enough that you can see your reflection. 

The image of yourself in the viscous puddle snaps you out of your agony, and you attempt to push yourself upright. 

Determined to stand, you try to get purchase on the floor, but your feet are useless, still tied to the chair. It’s impossible to lift yourself with the piece of furniture boxing you in, but you try anyway. Your hands slide away from you, slipping from all the blood, and you gracelessly catch yourself, barely stopping short of landing face down in your mess of bodily fluids.

A scream of rage tears your throat, and you slam your bloodied palms against the floorboards. 

“Help me!” you shout at Art.

You strain to look up at him, and he’s just standing there, unmoving, watching what’s unfolded with a blank expression.

“What the fuck,” you repeat impatiently, “Help me!”

Moved by the novel new idea you’ve presented, Art crouches down, albeit unhurriedly, to free your ankles from the legs of the chair. 

Once he’s pulled the chair away, letting it fall to the side, you sit back on your heels, still holding your hands over your face in an attempt to catch the blood that’s spilling steadily from your nose.

It hurts. More than anything you’ve ever felt. You try not to grit your teeth because that only makes it worse. 

The sight of all the blood you’re losing is starting to make you woozy. You wobble and sway, folding forwards with a groan.

Art grabs at the sleeve of the hoodie you’re wearing, tugging you towards him, and you shift, allowing him to move you closer and pull the zipper open. He removes the article of clothing with efficiency. Then he folds the sleeve neatly in his hand and presses it over your nose in a firm, sudden move that makes you yelp. 

Reflexively, your arm raises to smack him away, but you let him apply pressure to your face even though it fucking hurts. You clench your jaw and gasp out a breath as he tilts your head up towards the ceiling, supporting you with his other hand, his palm at the base of your skull where the bend of your neck begins. 

You’d forgotten that you should look up to stop a nosebleed, in the same way that advice of “stop, drop, and roll” might easily elude you if you were to actually be on fire. The realization lands like parting clouds, and you unfold your legs and sit back on the floor, leaning against Art while he holds you in place. 

His fingers pinch the bridge of your nose through the fabric of your hoodie sleeve, and it feels as though he’s literally holding the pieces of your face together, though you’re sure the damage isn’t truly so dramatic. At least you hope it’s not.

Tangy, metallic drainage runs down your throat as you try to breathe normally. Everything begins to settle. The solid pressure on the injury is grounding. You feel yourself relax into Art’s steady hold on you, your heartrate slowing. 

You’re still not sure what hit you. Literally. But it was something heavy. 

You groan out a sound instead of words, trying to look around. Art stops you from moving, gripping you tighter and pinning your arms with his elbows. Your back is pressed against his chest again, his arms caging you from behind in the same way he held you during the struggle in your apartment. Only now as you sit on the floor with him, the gesture is filled with an eerie semblance of care. 

For a moment you focus on just his hands instead of the pain radiating through your body. 

As you’ve gotten your bearings each of the lashes from the whip have begun sending out radar pings of distress, competing for attention with the trauma in your face. Art’s palm, steady against the back of your head, feels as though it’s supporting the whole world. You lean farther into him, and he allows for this. 

You float above your body as you rest your head on Art’s shoulder, removed from the screaming in your nerve endings. His hand slides down your neck to accommodate the shift, coming to rest at the taper of your shoulders. 

The feeling is so starkly comforting you want to ask him to knead his fingers and massage your neck and shoulders where he’s touching you. You’ve almost forgotten that he’s the one who caused your suffering in the first place. 

Almost. 

You look up at him now, and he remains unmoving, watching your blood saturate the sleeve of your sweatshirt. It’s beginning to ebb, clotting and slowing, you can tell. You feel everything in your face firming up like drying paint, snot and tears and salt and blood. Art seems satisfied with this, and he pulls the fabric away, leaving you vulnerable to the first searing kiss of the open air.

It comes as a shock as you sit forward. 

Art doesn’t move his other hand, you notice. He keeps it patiently resting at the base of your neck as you continue to gather yourself. 

Gently, you pat your cheeks with your fingertips, moving slowly towards your nose until it becomes too much to bear. Your face feels like a nightmare, and you're terrified to see the reality of it. 

After another moment, you’re able to stand again on shaky knees. 

“Fuck,” you sigh, exasperated. “Jesus, that fucking hurt.”

Tears are still leaking from your eyes, and you can feel the swelling ballooning in your face. 

“What the fuck was that, anyway?”

Art stands, picking up what looks to be an ornate, granite bookend that fell from the shelf overhead, and presents it to you. It’s shaped somewhat like a bishop chess piece, tall and top heavy enough to be knocked down by the wild flail of the swinging whip. 

“Wow, this could have literally killed me,” you say flatly as you take it from him and feel the weight of it. “This could have smashed my nose straight into my brain and killed me.”

Art raises his eyebrows and leans back, suppressing a scoff at your overdramatic remark. He grabs the weighty bookend from your hand and places it back up on the shelf.

“Can you take me to the E.R., please?” you ask with an edge of annoyance, your head pounding.

He turns back to you with his eyes narrowed in disbelief, like you’ve suggested something truly absurd.

“My face is broken,” you tell him, fully annoyed now. “I’d like to have a doctor look at it.”

Art rolls his eyes.

“You know what, yeah, I really should see a doctor,” you keep going, “because I was also drugged with an unknown substance. So yeah, I should probably mention that to them too, shouldn’t I?”

He steps away to rifle through what looks to be the same garbage bag he had with him last time, heaped against the wall out of your notice until now. 

With a patronizing grin that betrays impatience, Art holds a small vial out to you, pinched between his thumb and index finger. He blinks a few times in exaggerated imposition as you squint to examine it. 

Sodium Thiopental the label reads in tiny print. It looks like it came straight from a pharmacy.

“Cool,” you deadpan. “That's great. Can I request ketamine next time?” 

Art grins like he's just tickled by your back-sass, batting your comment away with a limp wrist.

“I mean really,” you say, “That shit is fucked up. I know you're into some intense stuff, but I didn't agree to that.” 

You're not sure if he's listening, his back turned as he stows the vial and the whip away.

“Scare me, hurt me, threaten me,” you continue,  “Sure, I asked for all that. I want that.” You pause again, but he still won’t look at you. “But you can't just fucking drug me,” you raise your voice in anger, speaking sternly. “That's seriously fucked up.”

Art looks back over his shoulder at you with a furrowed brow, still hunched over the trashbag. It’s not clear whether a word you’ve said has made any difference to him, and you’ve just about had it. Your face aches, and you want good drugs from an actual doctor.

“And can you give me my ID back?” you sigh. “Seriously, please?”

He flashes you a quick smile and produces your ID from the bag surprisingly fast, placing it in your hand with a flourish. You snatch it away before he can think better of it, and cross your arms.  

“Thank you,” you say cooly, “Now, please take me to a hospital.” 

***

In the van, you ride together in silence. 

Crusted paint trays crowd the floor around your feet. The back looks empty aside from a ladder held in place with bungee cords. The image of Art painting houses by day isn’t one you can easily swallow as truth. You wonder where he got the van. 

It’s probably fucking stolen, but that’s an issue beyond your immediate concern. Art’s not driving like it’s stolen, and the pain of your smashed nose has given you a splitting tension headache. So you sink into the passenger seat and try to gather every detail that you can.

The first thing you had noticed were the out of state plates on the otherwise unmarked van. You filed the information away in your mind and tried to look around before you climbed inside, staring up at an old farmhouse with shattered windows and peeling paint, not on farmland, but alone nonetheless, surrounded only by tall, lonely trees. You craned your neck to gape at it, haunting and drenched in moonlight, while Art stood next to you, impatiently holding the passenger side door. 

The abandoned house was completely unfamiliar, but you nearly laughed once Art drove down the winding road and out of the connecting neighborhood. You weren’t far from your apartment at all. There was no way you would have known about that old house tucked away at the very last stop on a dead end road just minutes from where you live. An uncanny, skin crawling feeling settled in your bones.

Inside, the van is relatively clean, seemingly intentionally scrubbed of context. No parking permit dangling from the rearview, or spiral bound ledger tucked in the door, or receipt book, or dog-eared company contracts lying around. 

Nothing to supply any details about who it belongs to or where it’s been. 

The only clues you can gather lie in the old fast food wrappers mixed in with the paint trays on the floor, and the ashtray containing a mountain of cigarette butts in the cup holder. You don’t take either to belong to Art. 

He hasn’t spared a glance at you since he started driving. It’s clear he finds this excursion to be unnecessary, but he’s humoring you anyway. You’re unsure how to balance this fact with everything else that’s happened tonight. 

You’re also acutely aware of time slipping away.

The closer he gets to the hospital, the more tense you become. You’re not sure what’s come over you, but a frenetic anxiety has begun to blossom in your chest as the inevitability of leaving the van draws nearer. It’s all you can focus on. 

The sudden stress eclipses your pain entirely. 

You watch Art drive, unable to look away from him. The street lights cast him in warm, muted yellow, and shadows slide across his face with the passing scenery. You follow them, melting like liquid across his features. You’ve never really seen him like this, you realize, to simply be able to observe him without the intensity of his gaze turned on you. 

You’ve memorized his face well, even after just seeing it once. The stark side profile turned to you matches the image of him in your dreams exactly. 

His jaw is relaxed, and he looks almost bored, but you watch his eyes intently follow people on the sidewalk and glance up to check his rearview mirror. The black that lines them seems even darker in here, and within them lies so much you can’t decipher. 

You catch yourself holding your breath.

He’s so calm. 

You can see it and sense it, but you wish you could lean into him and absorb it. You’re not sure if he notices that you’re staring, but you don’t care either way. 

He’s impossible to look away from, this monster of a man. He makes you desperate for answers to your questions. As you look at him, you can’t help but long for the fulfillment of your fantasies. He’s more than you could have ever imagined, stirring feelings you didn’t know were there in the darkest corners of your heart. 

You had asked to see him again. You had made an inexcusable fool of yourself and begged to see him again, and you got what you wanted.

Now what?

The hospital looms before you.  

Art turns into the parking lot at the emergency room entrance and weaves through the aisles to reach the nearly empty back row of spots, encroached upon by scraggly bushes. 

He doubleparks, and you almost say something about it.

With a flick of his wrist, he kills the engine. A moment of uncomfortable silence passes. You squirm in your seat, and the sound of plastic shifting beneath your feet fills the dead air between you.

“I want to keep seeing you.” 

You’ve just blurted it out, shocking yourself just as much as him.

Art side eyes you with stoic skepticism, unmoving in the driver's seat.

“I'm serious,” you state plainly. Your mind catches up to your mouth, and you repeat yourself with more confidence. 

“I want to keep seeing you.”

He turns to face you fully, lifting his chin a bit and narrowing his eyes at your declaration.

“I like you,” you continue, and Art drops the front he was putting on, relaxing his furrowed brow and taking in your words earnestly.

He looks at you, listening. 

“I, uh…” you try to keep going, but you’re uneasy now, made self conscious by his undivided attention. 

“This is the kind of thing I’ve been wanting,” you tell him, and Art nods in understanding, prompting you to say more.

“I…” you falter again, “I like how you make me feel.”

His face lights up at this, and you stifle a nervous laugh, feeling warm. 

“But please don’t break into my apartment again.” 

You feel the need to emphasize this point, and Art looks a bit dejected. 

“I want to see you though,” you laugh, “You don’t have to kidnap me for that. I’d prefer if you’d just talk to me.” 

Art doesn’t look convinced, but he nods again at your words. You drop your gaze to the paint spattered plastic at your feet.

“Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough,” you say, “What I was looking for, I mean. Maybe I didn’t even really know. Maybe I still don’t.”

You feel yourself rambling. Art keeps listening. 

“I don’t know what this is exactly,” you continue over the sound of your heartbeat rushing in your ears, “But I don’t want it to stop.”

You look up from the floor and meet his eyes again. He looks pleased. He shifts in his seat and nods again in agreement. 

“I, uh --” you falter again, ridiculously nervous, “-- Fuck,” you break off in a breathy laugh, and then sigh in frustration. 

You run a hand through your hair and look down at your lap. Dropping your shoulders, you laugh at yourself and let a smile spread across your face. 

Art smiles with you. 

“I’m just not used to this,” you tell him. “I told you I had a bad break up, and I really don’t date anyway.” You pause and fix him with a serious look before continuing, “And I’ve never met anyone who’s into, well… the stuff that you’re into.”

Art shrugs this off easily like he hears it all the time. 

While you’re figuring out what to say next, the movement of someone walking to their car a few spots over makes you turn your head, and you catch another glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

“God,” you sigh, “My face is so messed up.”

Deep purple, shining beneath the thin skin under your eyes, has already risen and settled in a pair matching crescent moons, competing with your bulbous, blood-crusted nose for the prize of most unbearable to look at. Two black eyes and a broken nose, you’re going to make an impression at the conference for sure. 

Art tilts his head and pouts his lip, as if to say it’s really not that bad. It is though. You steal a glance at him, but return your attention quickly to the mirror attached to the side of the car. You look crazy. 

You weren’t even able to wipe away any of the blood, not really. Everything is just dried to your face in an indecipherable mess. Suddenly, walking into the E.R. is the last thing you want to do.

What are you going to tell them?

You look down at yourself in socks, pajama shorts, and a bloodstained hoodie, feeling absurd for asking to come here. The fresh welts from Art’s whip wrap your thighs in alarming, angry lines, impossible to conceal.

What the fuck are you going to tell them?

“Maybe, I shouldn’t go in there,” you venture timidly. 

You turn back to Art, and he furrows his brow and flattens his mouth into a straight line of consideration.

“I-,” you start, “I look messed up, like something bad happened to me.” Which is true, you remind yourself.

“I don’t know what to tell them when I go in there.”

Art looks like he's losing his patience again, and you feel like you're an unreasonable child.

“What am I going to say about this?” You gesture to the concerning state of your legs. 

With a nod of recognition, Art holds up a pointer finger, shaking it in emphasis as he turns to reach for something behind your seat. 

Apparently, he has a solution, though you’re hard pressed to guess what it could be. There’s nothing inside this cleaned out painter’s van that looks remotely helpful. 

He struggles for a moment, pulling something from underneath your seat, and you watch in quiet curiosity.

You’re speechless when he presents you with a pair of stylish darkwash women’s jeans. The strange unlikelihood forms a pit in your stomach as you take them from his hands and inspect them. They’re your size. They even look like something you would own. 

You hold them up and turn them over. No tags, they don’t look new; there’s wear around the beltloops and lint in the pockets. 

“Where did you get these?” you ask him, not hiding the concern in your voice.

Art simply pushes his hands towards you, urging you to accept his offering. He nods insistently while you stare with dubious hesitation at the inexplicable item of clothing.

Uncomfortable, but unsure what else to do, you slide your shorts down your legs and carefully pull on the jeans, lifting your hips and arching against the passenger seat. Art watches, satisfied that you’ve taken his suggestion. 

The buttons fasten easily. They’re comfortable, they fit perfectly, and something about putting them on makes you feel instantly better. Safer. Like you can handle whatever happens next. You look at Art and let out a laugh that’s both relief and disbelief. 

He claps his hands together, pleased to have found a solution. You can’t place the emotion you’re feeling. A kind of warped and misguided sensation of romance beckons, the surrounding context it lives within all too strange and poignant to deny. 

It’s sweet, what he’s doing. 

At least, that’s how you see it. He’s trying to be sweet. 

“You don’t happen to have a pair of shoes back there, do you?” you ask, teasing. 

Art shrugs and lifts his leg, jokingly offering you the oversized shoe on his foot. 

“That’s okay,” you laugh, the vibration reviving the pain in your face. “Honestly, it’s weird enough that you had these.” You smooth your hands over the mysterious, secondhand denim, hoping it’s dark enough to conceal any blood that might seep through the material. 

Facing the E.R. staff will be considerably easier with one less injury to explain. Your shoulders relax, and you take a breath, feeling more prepared to go inside. The pain in your nose and inside your skull is pleading for relief, ramping back up now that the promise of medical attention is on the horizon. 

Something stops you from getting out of the van. You’re not sure what to say next.

“Okay, well,” you venture, “Hopefully, we can start fresh from here.”

The kidnapping, the drugging, the broken nose, can all be water under the bridge. 

You look at Art, he’s not smiling, but he seems to agree. His features hold a softness you haven’t seen before. His eyes are alive with a flicker you’d like to catch and keep in a jar. 

“I should go in there,” you say, stalling, “Hopefully it doesn't take all night…”

You don’t know how to end this moment. You want to reach out and touch him, but instead you reach for the door handle. 

Night air spills in like blood from a cut as you rip off the bandaid and swing it open.

Leaving your shorts on the floor, you push yourself out of the van and lean against the open door, crossing your arms as you give your perfect stranger a last look. He quirks an eyebrow at you. 

“You have my number,” you tell him, half flirting, half scolding, “So text me.”

Art grins impishly and starts the van. 

You watch him leave, standing with your arms still crossed as he tips his hat to you before he gives a finger wiggle wave and drives away. 

***

Ignoring the looks you’ve been getting all morning has been exhausting. The questions have been even worse; you can’t dodge those as easily. 

The tedium has reached the point that you’re ready to tell the next person who says something about your face that the first rule of fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club. 

You smirk to yourself. 

The morning can’t pass fast enough. A careful sip of coffee from a styrofoam cup passes your lips. It still manages to burn the roof of your mouth.

The clock on the wall ticks a steady metronome of ennui, and you move in time with its rhythm. Sip, shuffle papers, sip again, avoid eye contact – a careful dance that you hope allows you to become part of the faded wall paper behind you, rather than a fixture seated at the table who can be asked to give input. 

You’re fighting to stay awake. The last thing you want right now is to be asked your opinion on current company policies. Your eyelids droop, and you attempt to bolster them with more scalding hot, charred hotel coffee. 

The E.R. went about as smoothly as you could have hoped. They put a splint on your nose and gave you some pain meds and didn’t even question your flimsy story about a falling pickle jar. 

You had thought that showing up unaccompanied with no shoes would raise more questions, but no one batted an eye at your disheveled state. Thankfully, to the paramedics working the night shift you were just run-of-the-mill weird, not cause-for-concern weird. 

And miraculously, you had your ID with you, so you navigated the whole process without any real friction, getting home in time for a solid four hours of sleep before you had to leave this morning. 

Once you had arrived at the hotel and began fielding the barrage of questions and concern about your injured face, you realized a broken nose (well, technically it’s fractured, but what’s it to them) and a late night trip to the E.R. were probably enough reason to call out sick and skip this conference entirely. 

Unfortunately,  you’d come to that conclusion too late. 

Sleep deprived reasoning and an auto-pilot sense of obligation had landed you here before you could think better of it, and now you felt you had to stay the course, cursing yourself for being so reliable. 

With a start, you snap your eyes open, only realizing they’d fallen closed once your neck relaxed enough to let your head list to one side.

You blink a few times, disoriented, thinking you might have seen Tyler Durden appear in your periphery. 

Hastily, you start jotting down the words on the power point presentation displayed behind the thoroughly manicured presenter to keep yourself conscious. As you scribble nonsense, your phone buzzes in your pocket, making you jump. 

You steal a covert glance at the screen, eager for a distraction. A message from an unsaved number sparks instant excitement, and you bite your lip to stop it from curling into a manic grin. 

You’re sure who it’s from before you even read it.

Are you busy?

You look up at the presenter standing at the head of the conference table and watch her for a moment. She’s possibly the most coiffed and polished person you’ve ever seen, someone you’ve never met before, much higher on the corporate ladder than you are. 

She exemplifies the unrealistic perfectionism the beauty company strives to uphold with a graceful, but heavy handed obviousness, her movements smooth and glidey like a ball-jointed doll. Her nails are perfectly lacquered eggshell white ovals shining under the florescents, and her teeth are somehow whiter. They burn unnaturally bright behind precision applied rose red lip liner and a sheen of gloss. Not a tacky red, tasteful. Vivid and subdued at the same time. 

Everything about her is tasteful and measured, even her overly pleasant, hypnotic voice that’s been lulling you into a trance state for the last 20 minutes. The window she’s standing in front of lets midmorning sunlight fall evenly on every painstakingly pressed fold of her sensible business formal outfit, and you wonder if you were to step behind her and open it, whether a single hair on her head would even shift out of place. 

Most everyone in the room wears the same glazed expression that you do. The try-hards are taking notes. It’s with great responsibility that we must write down the new and improved company values in ballpoint pen in order to carry them out to their fullest potential. 

You stifle a scoff and squeeze your cell phone in your palm with a half smile. 

Yeah, you’re busy. But you’ll do just about anything to change that. 

Um, yeah kinda

You type quickly.

But I can fix that, just give me a minute.

Aiming to appear discrete, you cover your nose with one hand and glance around the room, trying to catch a few eyes before leaning down to reach for your bag. 

In a calculated move to avoid disruptive sound while increasing the spectacle, you don’t lift your purse from the floor as you fish around in it blindly, folding forward and craning your neck to keep watching the presentation while you fumble through your things, keeping your other hand over your face. 

The presenter slows her speech a bit and eyes you with uncertainty, and you enthusiastically nod for her to continue, your head nearly lying on the table. You smile like you’re trying so hard not to distract everyone, increasing desperation and faux embarrassment in your movements.

As the presenter picks back up, her perfectly drawn lipstick mouth moving in a steady stream of buzzwords once again, you sit up and cringe a silent apology to your seat neighbor with your compact mirror and a tissue in hand.

Immediately, you open the mirror and begin dabbing at your nose, blotting up imaginary blood. Becoming slightly more frantic, as though it’s getting worse, you look around the room with wide eyes. A few of your colleagues look concerned, flitting glances to the door for you to excuse yourself. 

At their gracious pardon, you scoop up your purse and leap to the door, dipping your head apologetically as you exit and dropping your unsullied tissue in the trash. The door closes softly behind you, dropping the curtain on your performance. 

You think Art would be proud.

With a self satisfied smile, make your escape down the hall, sauntering past the darkened windows of the empty gym opposite the conference room. You’d thank him for the get out of jail free card if it weren’t such a pain in every other way. 

Even your molars ache today, and washing your face was a hellish endeavor. Not to mention, the way that everyone’s treating you as either a plague or a pity case has made this corporate, social-Saw-trap of a weekend even more unbearable than you could have imagined. 

No, you’d rather kick him than thank him. 

Still, you can’t stop your heart from soaring with blissful freedom as you step out into the empty courtyard and feel the sun on your skin, or your lips from stretching into a devious grin as you pull out your phone to text him back. 

**Hey, you

As soon as you press send, you’re treated to the typing icon materializing promptly next to his number. 

Three little dots dance on your screen while you save the number under his name. You even debate adding an emoji, feeling hopelessly affectionate as you scroll through them all. 

So what, if you’d also like to kiss him? After you kick him, of course. 

His reply interrupts you before you can settle on an image to pair with his name, and you think that’s probably for the best.

You reign yourself in, pulling your cigarettes from your purse as you sit down on a solid cement bench beneath a lush shade tree. You don’t need to be getting wrapped up in giving Art pet names and cutesy emoji glyphs just yet; he fucking abducted you from your apartment yesterday. 

He’s on thin ice. He should be trying to win you over. 

You remind yourself of this as you flick your lighter and read his reply.

Art: Not so busy anymore?

**Nope, all yours :)

**Can I save this number?

You decide it’s worth asking since this is the third different phone number he’s used to reach you. With all his strange, evasive behavior, some consistency would be nice.

Art: Yes.

Art: This one’s for you.

It’s a cryptic reply, but it reads mostly like a compliment, and your skin warms in a flattered blush. A number just for you to text? You’re not entirely sure why that’s necessary, but you appreciate that he’s gone through the trouble.

As always, you’re left wondering what other extra curriculars Art occupies himself with in his free time. 

Does he have a different phone number for everyone he talks to? Who else does he talk to? He’s said himself he’s not really one for relationships, so maybe this is a special case. But who knows.

You don’t want to speculate too much about it, but it’s hard not to. 

He’s an intriguing person, a baffling person really. Does he always wear that clown costume? Will you ever see him in normal clothes without that makeup on his face? 

That’s what you’d really like to know, what he looks like without it. Your brain won’t put together an image for you. The scary clown is all you have, but you’ve found you actually like that more than you would have ever guessed. 

**Um thanks, haha, I’m flattered, I think?

Art: Good, you should be.

Art: What are you doing?

Another wave of blush spreads across your cheeks at his first comment. The audacity. You type back quickly, eager to keep the exchange going.

**Snuck outside, stealing a smoke break

He matches your speed with his next reply.

Art: Sneaking AND stealing?

You love that he’s flirting with you. A stupid, giddy feeling that you don’t bother to judge yourself for rises in a rush that makes a heavenly pair with your nicotine buzz. You catch your bottom lip between your teeth as you type. 

**Yep, I’m on my worst behavior 

Art: I appreciate that.

**I thought you might…

You hope you have enough time to hide out here a little longer. 

Falling back into exchanging messages with Art is an easy comfort, and you don’t want to cut it short if you can help it. Every second with your phone in your hand feels like a precious resource you must hoard for fear of running out. You take another greedy drag of your cigarette and steal a glance at the large, polished windows surrounding the courtyard, finding the coast clear for the time being. 

Everyone is still in the conference room, and you’re free to indulge the devil on your shoulder.

Art: I don’t think I’ve seen your worst behavior

**No, you definitely haven’t

Art: I’d like to.

**I hope that you get to

Art: What does that mean?

**Maybe you have to earn it…

This is what you’d love to see. Extensively, you’ve wondered what he could do to you, but what would he do for you?

Art: And how would I do that?

**Well, you’re doing a decent job right now

**I’m happy you texted me

Art: I have to make you happy?

**Well if you do something nice for me, I’ll do something nice for you

Art: I’m not asking for nice

Your gut swoops in a thrill at his reply. 

It’s true he’s not one to play nice. Far from it, based on what you’ve already seen. Now that you know who you’re talking to, his words carry a weight that wasn’t there before.

The sinister enigma on the other side of the screen has become real, igniting a delicious foreboding that beckons from the shadows. What’s waiting in the darkness? At the bottom of the basement stairs? In all those lonely, hazardous places sensibility warns you to avoid? 

These are the spaces Art seems to occupy. What would happen if you joined him?

**Well, what are you asking for, Art?

A deep drag of menthol fills your lungs, a parachute for the free fall as you wait for his answer.

Art: Your worst behavior

**My worst behavior?

He types for a moment, and you’re left salivating in the empty space.

Art: Yes.

Art: What’s the worst you can do?

Art: That’s what I’d like to know.

**Maybe you’ll have to help me find that out

You’d love nothing more than to have his guiding hand show you the depths you can sink to. 

In your mind you're on your knees for him, filthy and indefensible. It’s a feeling, more so than any specific act that you can picture. The fantasy is hard to define beyond the haze of heart pounding depravity to which you long to surrender yourself. 

You want to shock yourself with the things you’d do for him, and you feel that he could take you there with ease. 

Art: I could do that.

**You make me want to be bad…

Wetness warms you between your thighs, and you clench at the sensation, feeling like a raw nerve.

Art: Do I?

**You really do.

**There’s something about you that makes me feel reckless

Art: I could say the same.

This takes you aback. 

You’re not sure what to say, so you voice your genuine surprise. 

**Really?

Art: It’s strange.

**I’m not sure what you mean

Art: I mean, you’re different.

**So are you, different from anyone I’ve ever talked to

**I know I’ve told you that before

Art: I’m glad it’s not a bad thing. 

You crack a smile at this, his rare, candid remark making you wonder about the ways his past has likely shaped him into the strange, frightening individual you currently know. 

It’s not something you’d given much thought to up until now, his life before… 

Before what? 

Surely, there was a time before all of this. His menacing performances, his disappearing acts. Before Art put on that costume, who was he? 

Something must have made him feel the need to be so drastically, outlandishly different. Intentionally set apart. He’s so insulated, separate from the world in a way you noticed even in your first conversations. It’s a choice he’s made. To be different. 

What kind of life has led him here?

Whether it was a single incident or a relentless pattern of disappointments, something caused him to double down on becoming stranger, more abrasive, and harder to reach. 

Does he dwell on the times he hasn't been so well received? Does it ever hurt?

What had he been expecting from you? 

You venture to pull the thread. 

**Were you nervous to meet me, Art?

It's hard to picture him feeling even a fraction of the same emotions you feel for him. 

It’s only in your wildest dreams that you feel you could have half the effect on him that he has on you. The idea that he’d be losing sleep over you strikes you as entirely unplausible. You doubt that he replays your conversations in his mind, reliving them in his spare time just to feel closer to you, to feel like he knows you better somehow. 

Art gives nothing away. 

But he’s confessed that you make him feel reckless. An admission so absolutely delectable you know you’ll savor it the rest of the day. 

Art: I didn’t know how you would react.

It’s not really an answer, and you’re not surprised he won’t give one. 

A sharp longing surfaces in the wake of your question, a persistent aching to know precisely the effect you have on him. You want to know the extent of his recklessness. Does he regret you? You want to see him when he’s alone and thinking of you. 

You try to imagine the kind of thoughts he has about you, stirring a shiver down your neck despite the warm air. 

You need to interrogate him further, push him into a corner, trap him the way he traps you. If you could read his mind, you’d be satisfied, but it doesn’t seem likely you’ll ever have such intimacy with Art. 

Right now, you have intimacy the way a spider is intimate with a fly. You itch to untangle yourself from the web and catch him under glass. 

 Before you can say any of that, a flurry of movement catches your eye and you turn to see a throng of your chattering colleagues filing out of the conference room. 

**Shit, I think I’ve got to go

**Sorry

Art: It’s okay.

Art: Before you go, put out your cigarette.

You'd nearly forgotten you still had one, smoldering down to the filter between your fingers. They twitch with anticipation, sending ash swirling towards the ground as you reply with the question you know he wants you to ask. 

**Where?

You suck in a breath, willing that no one else steps into the courtyard.

Art: Behind your ear.

Art: The spot that meets your jaw.

Art: Where the skin is softest.

With just his words, you already feel the burning cherry tip pressed exactly where he described. 

You imagine him with you, conjuring the spectre of his presence with ease. His hands. His stature. His shadow looming over you. His devilish grin. His insistence. 

Rather than waste any time replying, you act on his command.

Praying not to be interrupted, yet exhilarated by the possibility, you brush your hair behind your ear and pinch the cigarette butt between your fingers, finding the tender hollow below your earlobe with an exploratory tap of the ashen tip. The edge of heat raises goosebumps on your skin like a lover whispering dirty confessions in your ear. Your gut tightens, and you press the glowing ash into the space behind your jaw in a scalding kiss that jerks you fully to life. 

The burn is delicious, searing heat buried into soft flesh, the perfect spot that Art picked just for you. 

Where the skin is softest. 

You feel him with you. It blooms through every nerve, the slick need between your thighs pulsing with it. Your hand becomes Art’s hand as you press until every ember is extinguished. 

As the sensation begins to ebb, a whine you wish he could hear reverberates from the back of your throat. You grind your toes into the grass, wanting to hold onto the feeling and draw it out for all it’s worth. Desperately, you twist the cigarette butt into your neck, though it offers only bits of tumbling ash. 

Still, you close your eyes in bliss and tilt your head towards the branches above you, your other hand trapped between your thighs, pressing against the aching heat between them without your conscious thought. 

You nearly jump out of your skin when the sound of the door opening behind you cuts through the air. 

The cigarette falls from between your fingers, and you scramble to brush any fallen ash from your clothes as you right yourself.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” a playfully accusing voice comes from behind you, and you give a startled laugh as you turn, trying to slow your hammering heart. 

Your coworker walks over to you and you do your best to appear casual instead of totally panic stricken at nearly being caught all but pleasuring yourself underneath a tree. Your nonchalance must not be convincing because she purses her lips and eyes you with concern as she steps closer.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell on you,” she says with a reassuring smile. She's got a cute, almost punky look going on, with a silver hoop in her nose and a deep, purplish red pixie cut that frames her soft features with sharp-ended curls. 

Her face is memorable, and you know you've talked with her before. At last year's conference, you think. She's not someone you work with directly, and you realize with embarrassment that you can't remember her name. 

“Sorry,” you laugh, “You startled me. I was barely staying awake in there.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” she says as she comes to stand next to you and lights a cigarette of her own. She studies your face, taking a drag before continuing, “I wouldn’t have come in at all looking like that – No offense,” she tacks on quickly.

“That’s what I keep hearing,” you sigh. 

“Glutton for punishment?” she teases, raising an eyebrow at you. 

You try to remember when you've talked with her before. Maybe you’ve even flirted with her? Too many drinks at a company Christmas party? You can't remember at all, and your embarrassment grows. 

“I guess you could say that,” you chuckle, feeling your face heat up. You’re dying for this conversation to end, but the thought of going back inside is equally daunting.

“I can let Sandra know you aren’t feeling good,” she offers, “You should probably keep some ice on that, yeah?”

“Yeah, that would be great, honestly,” you agree quickly. You would jump up and hug her if that wouldn't be so wildly strange and inappropriate. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” She extends a hand to help you up, and you take it even though it makes you feel a bit pitiful. 

You thank her again, but forget to ask her name in your haste to make it inside. 

Once in the elevator with a key card from the front desk, you're able to relax, craving the quiet solitude of a hotel room more desperately than ever before in your life. Your reflection in the polished metal walls boxing you in seems to taunt you, and the burn hidden behind your ear still tingles with warmth.

***

You stab the olive in your drink with your red, plastic cocktail spear and stir it around, watching the sediment swirl inside the glass like a snowglobe rather than meeting Nic’s eyes as you retell your fabricated broken nose story. You’ve added a few more details, unsure whether that’s working in your favor; (caught up in your packing, you had started rearranging in the kitchen, one of Mia’s toys was on the floor, you were stressed and not paying attention…).

Nic chews his cocktail spear, still digesting your tall tale. He looks at you skeptically, and you’re not sure how to handle being on the other end of it for once. This is the look he reserves for mismarked clearance and synthetic fabrics. Sweat coats your palms as you fidget with your glass. 

You wish you were still lying in the comfortable darkness of your hotel suite with ice on your face. 

“Alright well, we don’t have to unpack all of that,” Nic decides aloud, he drums his manicured fingers along the bartop. “I know we have the time to, but I wouldn’t want you to break something else while you’re at it.”

“It’s fractured,” you tell him.

“Well, it looks awful,” he adds with finality. 

He’s been so hung up on your face that the two of you were barely able to get drinks ordered. You’re hopeful that after a few more sips of martini, the conversation will shift elsewhere.

“Okay, sorry,” he catches himself, “I’m being rude. After the week you’ve had, we should be drinking to forget.”

He holds up his glass in a cheers, and you meet him.

“I will absolutely drink to that,” you say as the edge of your glass knocks against his. 

“I mean being ghosted, breaking your face,” he continues, “This latest shit that's happened with Liz…”

A surge of anxiety rises, stopping you before you bring your glass to your lips. Nic seems to assume you know what he's referring to, but you're clueless. You haven't heard anything from Liz since she flipped out on you the night you went dancing. 

“What do you mean?” you ask with trepidation. 

“She got arrested,” Nic informs you, and you nearly choke on your drink. He matches your surprise with his own. “You didn’t know?”

“No,” you say, “Why would I know?”

“I figured you’d heard,” Nic shrugs. As usual, he's underestimated your connectedness to the ever flowing gossip grapevine that he's somehow always privy to.

“Well, what the fuck happened?” you ask him. 

“She got a drunk and disorderly charge,” he explains, sipping his martini while he launches into the story, “Maybe even an attempted B and E, but I'm not sure.” He shifts on the barstool and adjusts his hair before continuing, leaving you on the edge of your seat. 

“She was trying to get into this girl’s apartment. Totally wasted,” he says with emphasis. “I don’t even think they’d been seeing each other that long, but Liz was making a huge scene outside her place. Trying to get in, threatening her, getting all pissed off and hysterical when she wouldn’t answer. Eventually someone called the cops, and she still wouldn't calm down so they fucking arrested her.”

It’s obvious that he's delighting in the drama of the story, but trying his best to conceal it for your sake. 

“When did this happen?” you ask.

“Last night,” he says. “Laura told me. She's the one who bailed her out. I figured she would have told you too.” 

“No,” you state, bewildered, “She didn't.”

“I guess maybe she didn't want you to stress about it,” Nic reasons. 

“That's crazy,” you say. A sinking feeling forms in your stomach, but you're intent not to dwell on it. 

“Yeah, well, she’s crazy,” Nic asserts, “What can you do?” He punctuates the rhetorical question by tipping his head back to gulp his martini. He finishes it and sets the glass on the bar while you follow suit, draining your own glass like it's a competition. 

After that, the tension dissipates, and you’re off on a bender with your best friend. A well deserved bender. A responsible, reigned in bender, partially funded on the beauty company’s dime. Forgetting about Liz proves to be pretty easy. 

You drink two more martinis rather quickly, and in no time you’re feeling absolutely weightless, laughing with Nic and egging him on to go do karaoke across the street at the VFW. 

“I’m not singing Beyonce with you,” he remains adamant in his conviction as the bartender mixes another round.

“I will convince you,” you lean on his shoulder, helping yourself down off the barstool, “Right after I go pee…”

“Lovely,” Nic rolls his eyes. “Don’t hurry back,” he calls after you playfully. 

You wave off his comment as you turn towards the bathroom, nearly tripping over your own feet as you go. The floor drops away from you, and your legs have gone suddenly boneless, pulled like taffy as they anchor you tenuously to your shifting surroundings. You hold the bartop to steady yourself as the material plane of reality slowly restructures itself around your drunkenness, thankful that Nic is too busy flirting with the bartender pouring heavy handed martinis to notice your stumbling. 

Once the wave of acute intoxication brought on by standing up recedes, you’re able to manage your best field sobriety walk towards the bathrooms. You find them tucked away in the quiet back corner of the bar next to a row of cushy candlelit booths nestled in the dark wood wall. Their dimly lit, cozy intimacy opens a pang of envy in your heart towards the couples you see sitting in them, sharing fries and playing footsie.

Without meaning to, you glare at the happy couples on your tipsy beeline towards the bathroom, turning heads as you pass. You feel their eyes on you, but any judgement cast doesn’t reach you. Your ego is shaded by liquid bravado and unadulterated, covetous desire. 

It surprises you, how much you want what they have, the way the feeling springs forth, fully formed, from some unspecified ether of your being the very instant you them. 

The idea of putting on a nice outfit to sit in a nice restaurant and order fancy appetizers while aiming to impress each other with smart questions and clever remarks glitters in your mind like cut diamonds in a case you know you’ll never be able to afford.

It’s hard to look at them, these perfect couples – these normal, happy people – making charming small talk over expensive cocktails, sipped slowly over an evening of gentle get to know you games. They nudge and compliment and laugh at bad jokes. All the while, the anticipated dance of the “your place, or mine?” conversation waits with promise at the end of an evening filled with subtle hints wrapped in sweet smelling perfume and coy smiles. 

They’ll go home together while you lie alone in your hotel room. 

The suddenness of your wanting makes you sick, so you tear past them, stomping quickly in refusal to look any longer than you have to at their pitying glances. 

Alcohol has your blood running hot as you push open the bathroom door, and you catch sight of your flushed reflection in the mirror. 

For a brief moment you're startled by the image that meets you. Your broken nose is an abhorrent, purple fright taking up the center of your face. You grimace, musing your hair in hopes of finding a perfectly tousled visage to distract from your marred features. However, you recognize the futility of this almost immediately and drop your arms to your sides, blowing out a tamped breath through puffed cheeks.

The obtrusive wanting you’ve awakened crawls over your skin like a rash you can’t scratch, and you brush your clammy palms against your jeans, turning away from the mirror.

Gracelessly, you maneuver yourself into a stall and plummet down onto the toilet seat, taking satisfaction in the bodily release that comes as you piss a steady stream into the bowl. While the river of relief runs through you, your phone finds itself in your needy hands. 

**You already know I’m thinking of you….

You pray for a fast reply, and get one. Satisfaction shimmers at the thought that he was waiting to hear from you.

Art: That’s what I like to hear.

Already warm from booze, you grow somehow warmer.

**Wbhat are yiu doing?

You’ve typed too quickly with thick fingers, sending the message before you could correct your mistakes.

Art: A better question is what are you doing?

**I’m w a friend, why?

Without looking, you tear off a strip of toilet paper and crumple it into a wad, dabbing yourself dry.

Art: Are you drunk texting me?

Caught. Guilty. It’s unexpectedly thrilling to be confronted with it. 

You want him with you in this bathroom stall. 

You want him to confront you in person. To corner you in here. You want to find out what he’d do if you pushed him, if you made yourself a brazen mess in front of him. 

You’ve wanted him with you so many times now, more than you can count, but in this instance it materializes in a way that’s so palpably physical, so visceral it becomes a bodily need like the one you’ve just finished tending to. Art being with you in this stall is simply the logical next check on the list.

The fact that you can’t sate it drives you crazy. 

**So wghat if I am?

You push for consequences, extending a greedy palm for him to hand them out to. 

Art: You mean, what?

His reply confuses you, but it’s quickly followed by another. 

Art: That word seems to be giving you some trouble.

You look back at your typo, and indignant frustration bubbles in your chest.

**Fuck offffffff

Art: It’s okay, it’s a tricky word. I understand. 

You can see his smug, withholding expression as he delights in patronizing you, typing out words just to get under your skin, always angling for a reaction. You give him one.

**Don’t be such a bastard

Feeling daring, you wait for his response with adrenaline singing through your thinned blood. 

Art: Never known another way to be.

Art: You seem to like it. 

He fields your challenge with a barbed assessment of his own, calling you out, laying you bare. 

You do like it. You’re hopeless for it. 

Your skin grows impossibly warmer.

**Mabye I do

Fuck, another typo. You shift on the seat of the toilet, becoming aware once again of your jeans bunched at your ankles. You stare down at your torn up thighs, the sight of them getting you even more worked up.

You’re a flustered mess, drunk in the bathroom of the hotel bar, begging for anything that Art will give you.

Art: Maybe?

**Okay, I do. 

You bite your lip, knowing he has you right where he wants you. Giving into it is easy.

Delicious surrender. 

Art: That’s better.

Art: Don’t start lying now.

You don’t see how you could ever lie to him, how you could ever dream of successfully concealing the effect he has on you. Your blood is hot in your veins, burning for him with just the words he’s typed. 

You’re sure he can feel just how worked up and wanting you are as you type back to him.

**You see right thru me

You lick the fingers of your free hand and find the wetness that’s already waiting for you, covering every inch of you that aches to feel his touch the most.

Art: You’ve been so forthcoming. 

With one hand, you type painstakingly slowly, careful not to make any mistakes while you pleasure yourself with the other. Your hand seems to move on its own accord, working spit and slick arousal over velvet skin that pulses with need as all the blood in your body rushes to meet your touch. 

**It’s hard to hide the ways you make me feel…

So easily, you’d unravel for him completely. You just need to be given the chance.

Art: Don’t try to hide it.

Art: Tell me.

You move with deliberate slowness, wanting to draw the moment out. It’s obscene, how wet you are, how turned on and needy, and he’s barely giving you anything. 

Art makes his demands, and you fall into the dance with him. But not without a bit of teasing of your own. 

**You already know…

Your fingers circle your pulsing clit, and you grow tense with need.

Art: Tell me again.

You indulge him, sliding a finger inside yourself and finding it to be nowhere near enough as you tell him what he already knows.

**You scare me…

**But I like it

A second finger makes no difference. You need him. You want to feel him. You need him to see what he does to you, but still you keep your desperate ministration to yourself, aching for him in secret behind the dented metal door of the bathroom stall. 

Art: I can tell.

Your movements grow faster. Aching for friction, you slide your fingers over the length of your slick folds, pressing hard against your needy clit with every stroke of your wrist. 

**You turn me on

**Even more now that I’ve met you

**I just want more from you.

You’d make yourself a mess for him if he were here. Let him watch you like this, completely desperate. Though the motions of your hand aren't truly enough to satisfy you, the tightness of building release begins to gather in your core. 

Still your body begs for him, for everything he hasn't yet given you. 

Art: I can give you more.

Please. You’re climbing steadily now, every movement an unspoken, selfish plea for him. 

Art: How’s that new burn?

The bathroom door opens, and you freeze instinctively. Two girls waltz in together, high heels clicking, their voices echoing off the walls as they chatter to each other. 

Your pulse hammers in your ears as the rest of your body returns to your awareness. You heave a sigh, deflating like a balloon at the interruption. 

God, it’s too bad Art’s not in here with you. You’re not feeling quite bold enough for a round of solo exhibitionism. 

But with him… 

You can only imagine what you’d be willing to do in the presence of an unsuspecting innocent. Dirty thoughts run through your mind. 

Heart still beating fast, you wipe your hands on hastily gathered toilet paper, crumpling it between shaky fingers to clean yourself up.

Gingerly, you prod the burn behind your ear, keeping yourself restrained. Thankfully, the two women who just walked in are too absorbed in their own spirited conversation to take notice of your lingering presence. It’s a relief to feel invisible as you tap a testing finger to the tender, round bite the burning embers took from your flesh. 

Right where the skin is softest, a gift for him. 

**It’s missing you.

Art: That’s a shame.

You want to press harder, but you don’t feel bold enough now that you’re not alone. Sadly, your adrenaline spike has been commandeered and crashed by these two women talking loudly about the divorce one of them is going through. 

Suddenly you feel there’s an insurmountable distance between you and Art. You long to bring him back, but a whisper of a touch would never be enough.

Deciding that you don’t care about how sanitary this bathroom is or anything else that happens tonight, you unroll more toilet paper and press it over the burn so you can push with more force, awakening the same toe curling sensation you felt outside in the courtyard. 

You tense your neck and brace your other arm against the wall of the stall, pressing into the vivid flash of pain that retreats too quickly, swallowed into dull friction and a lukewarm sting of raw tissue as you grind the rough paper against your skin. It only leaves you wanting more.

**Pressing it is almost like you’re here

**But it’s not enough

You pull the fistful of paper away from your neck and drop it into the bowl. 

Art: Poor thing.

His pitying pout appears in your mind. You see him looking down at you with sarcastic sorrow in the shadow of his brow. You long to feel the smooth, calloused tips of his fingers beneath your chin again; a touch so cold and measured that inexplicably makes your heart race like no one else’s ever has. 

**I get home tomorrow, you should come over. 

It’s all you can think to type. It feels like a long shot, but you can’t stop yourself from suggesting it.

Art: I can do that.

You feel yourself grinning like you’ve just won the lottery. For some reason you thought he might say no, or be cryptically evasive. His agreeance satisfies you, and you push for more, thinking again of the pairs of lovers sitting outside the door in their cozy, candlelit booths. 

Maybe you can’t have what they have, but you want whatever Art will give you.

**I want a real date.

Art: A real date?

You stand and pull up your jeans, typing back to him with conviction.

**Yes, a real date.

The girl in the stall next to you is going on about attorneys now, and you let her words caution you against the pitfalls of modern romance. The trouble that comes with playing the domestic game, and pinning all your hopes on a false promise, that only leaves you burned in the end. 

Money signed away, and half your life gone just like that. 

You imagine you don’t have to worry about anything like that with Art. He’s already shown you who he really is, and you’re sure as hell not looking to get married. The idea makes you scoff. 

You just want a date. 

The simplicity of your request prompts a sense of superiority that squares your shoulders. You’re uncomplicated and transparent, unafraid to ask for what you want.

Well, maybe a little afraid. 

Art has taken a while to respond, leaving you standing dumbly in the stall, looking down at your cellphone. Your shoulders begin to drop.

Art: You might have to show me what you mean by that.

You can do that.

You’re smiling wide as you spell it out for him, amused by the idea of him following your instructions. 

**I mean a real date.

**No traps, no tricks, no sneaking around…

Apparently, Art doesn’t really do normal dates. But maybe for you he will.

**Just be at my place at 7

Art: Making demands?

You’d love to be his exception. 

**Just this once :-) 

Art: Okay, just this once.

Art: See you then.

Wow, that was easy. A giggle of disbelief and elation leaves your lungs. 

**See you then <3

You step out of the stall and round the corner, eyes sparkling as you meet your reflection in the mirror. One of the two girls who sauntered in earlier eyes you from the other sink, and you give her your best smile. She looks at you like you're a little nuts, but returns a forced, uncomfortable smile of her own. You wonder if she’s the divorcee or the supportive friend. 

“Have a good night,” you tell her as you rinse your hands under the water and flick them dry. 

She flinches at your overzealously flung spray of water, looking mildly affronted, and gives you an uncertain nod of thanks before busying herself with washing her hands. Her attitude doesn’t phase you as you practically sashay your way out of the bathroom feeling completely restored from the dismal state you had been in.

Upon your return, Nic is practically laying across the bar with how close he’s talking to the bulky, bearded bartender you didn’t take to be his type. 

Apparently, they really hit it off in the time you were gone. The bearded guy is flashing toothy smiles and laughing as he shakes a batch of cocktails while Nic hangs off his stool to talk in his ear. 

“I thought you might have fallen in,” Nic greets you playfully as you sidle back up to the bar.

“Well, it doesn’t look like you were too concerned,” you say, giving the bartender a pointed glance as you speak. He’s walked away to serve a cluster of over-manicured, impatient-looking suits crowded at the corner of the bar.

“I was just about to send a search party, actually,” he replies, loftily indignant. “But first,” he lowers his voice, hunching like he has a secret as he slides a fresh drink across the bartop towards you. “I needed to make sure you had one of these waiting upon your safe return.”

“So considerate,” you laugh, picking up the glass.

“He really was looking out for you,” the bartender chimes in, breezing back over. Apparently, he’d kept his ear turned in your direction as he finished skillfully pouring his shakerful of manhattans. 

He faces you now with a winning, listerine-white smile that he definitely uses to earn his share of tips. He’s handsome enough, with dimples hiding beneath his beard. Colorful tattoos peek out from the edges of his cuffed sleeves.

Cute as he is, you really don’t take him to be Nic’s type. He must have some good banter. 

“Yeah,” you drawl sarcastically, “He’s a real martyr.” 

“I did go to Catholic school,” Nic agrees enthusiastically, punctuating the point with a long sip of his drink.

“What would the sisters have to say for you now?” you tease back. 

“Nothing but good things, I’m sure,” the bartender chimes in with a chiding tone, giving away that he’s already gathered that Nic’s typical behavior would be shocking to most nuns. 

This guy’s laying it on thick, but Nic’s eating it up. He’s giving the bartender bedroom eyes as he empties his glass and sets it down. Apparently you missed a lot while you were in the bathroom. 

You’re still sizing him up for yourself as he lines three shot glasses up on the bar.

“What are we drinking?” he asks you, smooth as can be. 

“Well,” you start, “I’m drinking this,” you gesture down to your un-sipped martini. “You boys can have whatever you’d like. Don’t make this about me.”

“Oh, but it is about you,” Nic fawns. You can tell he’s reached the overly insistent point of drunkenness, past the agreeable-karaoke-sweet-spot. “We missed you while you were gone! Marcus turned out to be great company, but now we have to catch you up to speed.”

The only option is to humor him. You look back at Marcus the charming bartender.

“Okay,” you smirk, “Tequila.”

Nic is convinced that every poor decision he’s ever made during a night out can be blamed on tequila alone. He glares at you silently while you hold back bubbling laughter. You really don’t need this shot either, but you watch with glee as Marcus pours them up. 

From there, the rest of the night passes in a blur. Marcus the bartender turns out to be a pretty funny, interesting guy. Or maybe it’s just that everyone is funny and interesting after the amount you’ve had to drink. He’s definitely flirting with you, you can recognize that much. 

He and Nic continue to banter through the evening, and once he’s off the clock, Marcus invites you both up to a room with him.

“No thanks,” you politely decline, a little caught off guard by the proposition. 

“Aww,” Nic pouts. He turns to look at Marcus, which is difficult because he's basically already sitting in the other man's lap. “Usually she likes to watch.”

“Shut up,” you roll your eyes at his bad joke.

You give him a warning look, but you’re not about to tell Nic not to hookup with the endearing stranger who's been hitting on both of you all night. Not when the only legs you have to stand on are still whipped raw. At least you know where Marcus works. At least plenty of people have seen you all together tonight. 

You wave off their insistence for a night cap, citing your genuine exhaustion.

Nic goes with him, hanging on the taller man’s shoulder and waving at you from the elevator like it’s a departing cruise ship. You wait for the next one.

In the elevator, you reread Art’s texts, swimming in comfortable warmth. He's coming over tomorrow. For a read date. 

There’s no room in your head for work stress, or the social pitfalls of your broken face, or Liz’s latest drama, or any worrying about what Nic might think if he knew what you were up to. 

You're walking on clouds as you make your way down the hall to your room.

Once inside the dark, silent embrace of the empty hotel suite you aren’t sad to be alone at all. You fall into the bed immediately, not bothering to change out of your clothes. The down comforter swallows you whole as you plummet swiftly into the best sleep you’ve had all week. 

***

Sunday night, and you’re finally back home. 

48 hours after getting your face smashed, and it’s really not looking so bad anymore. The intensive icing regimen you were able to maintain in the privacy of your hotel room every moment you weren’t in a meeting has done a lot to minimize the swelling. Everything on your face is basically the right size and shape again. The bruising is still bad, dark and too tender to cover with makeup. 

The splint will have to stay on for the rest of the week, and you’ve made peace with that. You’re hopeful that if you keep up with the ice, the damage will be unnoticeable by the time it comes off, aside from any last remnants of fading bruises. 

The short supply of pain meds you were given has helped a lot, and overall you’re feeling pretty good. Sure, you’d rather your face weren’t in a cast, but Art is the reason your face is in this stupid cast in the first place so you try not to feel too self conscious about the idea of him seeing you like this. 

You practice another smile in the mirror, feeling a little ridiculous. Since you’ve arrived home, all you’ve been able to do is anticipate Art’s arrival by trying on different outfits, cleaning your already clean apartment, and staring at your bruised face in the bathroom mirror. This is going to be your first real date, and you’re aiming to control every aspect of it that you can, even if it proves to be a losing battle. 

A glance at your phone tells you it’s 7pm. No messages. You chew your lip.

He hasn’t texted you all day. 

Just as you’re beginning to grow nervous that Art might disappear on you again, there’s a knock at your door. 

Your spine straightens, and your head turns automatically towards the sound. A soft rush of excitement curls your lips into a coy smile. He’s right on time, but you didn’t expect that he’d just knock on your door like anyone else would. 

You realize you don’t know what you had been expecting, only that he’s kept you on your toes so far, to put it lightly, and you're caught off guard by this straightforward approach. A simple knock on your front door is the last thing you’ve come to expect from Art, and the thought makes you laugh to yourself as you move to answer it. 

Hand on the knob, you pause, shaking your nerves out through your shoulders and drawing in a deep breath as you open the door. 

Though you shouldn’t be surprised, you are, when you pull it open and find Art on the other side; not pulling any tricks or bearing down on you with an ax, but simply waiting politely in the hallway. Your scary clown, your perfect stranger, standing outside your door, happy as ever to see you. 

His hands hang at his sides, no trashbag, or syringe, or weapons that you can see. He nearly takes up the whole doorway, the hat atop his head just an inch from brushing the doorframe. He smiles with his gnarled teeth as you look up at him, and your heart picks up its pace. His eyes shimmer, and all his sharp, pointed features crease with delight. He leans forward ever so slightly, and you expect him to make a move of some kind, feeling yourself brace for the unexpected. But he simply clasps his hands together, still smiling, and bounces on the balls of his feet while he waits for you to welcome him inside. 

You smile back at him, anxious, unprepared for the feeling of having equal footing for once. A fringe of uncertainty bristles against your skin as you step out of the doorway to let him inside, but it’s chased by the warm thrill of a new beginning. 

Giddy and nervous as you were on the night you met him, you hold the door for Art as he steps into your apartment, embracing this fresh start with something that resembles hope.