Room service plates dot the bed like lily pads on a monochromatic, cream-colored pond. James lies artfully among the plates and crumpled napkins, part of the pond himself. His sweater rides up his stomach, unveiling a dusting of cinnamon hair above his waistband.
Nelle yanks her attention away from that little detail and tilts the minibottle to her lips, downing the last drop.
James crawls around the bed to stack the plates and used napkins on the desk across the room. The plates clatter in place, and he spins around, bounding back to the bed like a puppy. Laughing, he rolls around on the mattress.
“You’re such an idiot,” she says, rubbing his tummy. “But you’re a good boy.”
“Too far.” He sits up, breathless. “We need to implement safety words because the furry talk crosses a line for me.”
“What?” Her hand is still out where his stomach was. “You were acting like a dog; all I did was play along.”
“I’m kidding.” His laughter dissolves into worry that he hurt her feelings. “I thought that was clear with the whole furry comment.”
She hates feeling stupid, but for the thousandth time she has to ask, “What is a furry?”
“A person who—how do I put this?—imitatesan animal, both in how they dress and how they act. And sometimes, not always, but definitely sometimes, people do it for sexual scenarios.”
“Oh.” New wires connect in Nelle’s brain, an epiphany. “Humans are weird creatures.”
James folds an arm behind his head. His white Henley wrinkles up his torso.
“I forget sometimes that you’re not a human,” he says, his face giving away no emotion.
“It’s confusing,” Nelle says. “Even for me. I’m essentially alone, the single member of the rarest species in the universe.”
“You’re not alone.” James puts his hand over hers, rattling every molecule of her body. “You grow old, right? I mean, you were a baby, and you looked like a baby, and now you’re twenty-one, and youlooktwenty-one, so by that logic, you do age. And you said someonecanwrite that you die if you want to? So when you’re really old, like ninety-nine, and your husband passes away, then you can have someone write for you to go, too. Maybe one of your kids? Unless you want to live longer, then by all means. But do you see what I’m saying?”
Nelle shakes her head, still hanging on to the husband comment.
“I’m saying ...” James takes her shoulders. “You’refree. Quill can’t hurt you anymore, so do whatever you want. Go out, find love, make friends, break hearts, start a business, watch it crash, start another one, become a lawyer or a scuba diver or whatever it is you want. You may not’ve been born like the rest of us, Nelle, but you’re no less human to me.”
Nelle sways from a wave of dizziness, grateful for his grip on her. “Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me?”
“Because you’re the reason I can be free.” Nelle tries to ignore his throwaway comment about her hypothetical husband. If she thinks about how that word sounded on his lips, how amazing a partner he would be, she will rip off his pants with her teeth.
A firework goes off behind James’s eyes.
“I have an idea,” he says.
Nelle squints.
“I think you should try to write for yourself.”
“I can’t do that,” she says.
James folds his arms behind his head. “Because Quill told you it’d kill you.”
“Yes, precisely that reason.”
“Did it ever cross your mind that he might have lied?”
Nelle’s irritation spikes. “The first thing that crossed my mind anytime Quill saidanythingwas that he was lying. But he never used my death as a consequence in any other regard, never included it in a lie, so I’d rather not risk it.”
“But you could justtry,” James says. “You painted, right? That’s basically the same, and nothing happened there.”
“I didn’t paint withmy ink.” Nelle has never been so exhausted in her life, and the bed seems to grow plush arms that pull her in.
