She shakes her head with mock sadness. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that. State secrets and all that jazz.”
Inside the house, she leads me through to a dining room with a large table and eight chairs. A woman sits on one, knees to her chest, with a hot drink perched on top of them, scrolling through her phone.
“Hey, Kim,” Rosa says in greeting. “Did you get your car sorted?”
The woman glances over, looks back to her phone, then stares at me in surprise. “Yeah,” she says, hooking her eyebrows at Rosa, then she shakes her head. “I mean, no. It’s still in the garage waiting for spare parts I can’t afford. You catch the bus, right?”
“Sure. The stop’s just around the corner.”
“Mm. I might need to take it if my boyfriend doesn’t get his arse into gear and pick me up.”
“You want a lift?” I offer. “I can drop you somewhere if you like.”
Rosa looks startled. “Ah, no you can’t. You’re going to be busy for the next hour, remember?”
“Sure. Yeah, sure. But I could—”
I’m saved by a knock at the door. While Rosa goes to answer it, I try not to stare at Kim who’s only dressed in a robe over her underwear. “First time? Don’t worry. We don’t bite unless you pay extra.”
My ears burn and my entire face must be glowing red.
Somewhere between the idea and the reality, I’ve lost all my chill. To be in this space, knowing what comes next, feeling it bear down on me like oncoming traffic, uses all the attention I usually put into remaining calm, appearing staunch.
“Kim! What’d you do to him?” Rosa says with a laugh when she walks back in the room. She reaches out to touch my hand, a tiny buzz of reassurance. “This is Andy.” She introduces me to a guy in his late twenties, early thirties, and I can’t even meet his eye.
Suddenly, this feels like the worst idea.
“Come on through,” Rosa says, touching the back of my hand again. “We’ll get the room set up and we can talk.” She turns to Andy. “Help yourself to a cup of tea or coffee. I’ll come back and get you in a few minutes, okay?”
“Sure.” Andy takes a seat next to Kim, eyeing her appreciatively. “Haven’t seen you around here before.”
A car horn sounds outside.
“And you won’t see me this time, either,” she says, leaping to her feet and dumping her cup in the sink. “Gotta go.”
The moment she leaves, I relax a little. I trail Rosa into the bedroom, large and clumsy. She waves at the bed. “Take a seat. I’m just going to change.” She drops her oversized handbag on the floor and pulls out a few fancy looking pieces of lingerie. I stare at one of them, frowning. I’ve seen the same piece before but back then it was on Lily and she was pouting at me in a photograph.
Rosa follows my gaze and interprets it correctly. “Yeah, we divvied up a lot of the stuff Zach gave her. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind.” I pause for a second, then add, “I’m really nervous.”
“I know,” she says, stripping off her top and laying out the garments on the bed. “There’s an en suite if you want a shower. Sometimes, that helps people to relax.”
“I can’t think of anything more stressful than getting naked and taking a shower.”
She bursts into giggles. “Oh, really? Because I knowwaymore stressful things than that.”
Balancing on one foot, she reaches over to her bag and pulls out some thick twist ties. “Like these, for instance. Do they get your heart pumping or what?”
I take them from her, turning them over in my hands, seeing how they’re connected. Although I’ve seen them on tv before, I’ve never had occasion to use them in real life. They’re solider than I would have thought. Much larger than the miniature versions my dad uses to keep his old paper files tied together.
“There are cuffs if you’d prefer,” Rosa says, moving to a cabinet and crouching in front of it, shuffling through items on the inside shelves. “Like these?”
She holds up a pair of fluffy handcuffs that can’t be mistaken for anything but a sex toy.
“Maybe not those.”
“Sorry,” she says with a wink. “Didn’t mean to threaten your manhood with the fluffy pink bondage cuffs.”
