“Would you bite me again?” I ask, and Javier makes a choked-off noise of surprise.
“God yes,” he says, and he sounds strangled. “Did you— Last time, were there?—”
It’s suddenly a million degrees in here, hard to breathe, impossible to open my eyes. Javier sounds like he’s dying, slick noises in the background, like he’s on the edge of losing it. It makes me feel like I’m high.
“Were there teeth marks?” I answer, my voice low and throaty and surprisingly even. “Yeah. There was a ring of bruises right on my shoulder blade. I looked at them every day.”
Javier makes a shaky, desperate noise.
“I was so disappointed when they faded,” I say, and then I can hear him saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and his voice fading, suddenly far away. I have to bite my lip and close my eyes and breathe evenly, in and out, because I’m pretty sure I look like I’m having phone sexwhile sitting on the counter in Ben’s kitchen, and that is not the look I want right now.
“Holy shit,” he says, a minute later, his voice small and far away. “God, I’m—wait, um, there,” he goes on, and suddenly I can hear him again. “Sorry. There we go. I dropped my phone. Christ, I made a mess.”
“Did you,” I say, my entire body hot, my skin too small for me. “I’m still in Ben’s kitchen.”
There’s ragged, rough breathing on the other end. Finally he inhales. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting on the counter,” I say. “Staring at the magnets on the fridge.”
“Is that all?”
“I’m in someone else’s kitchen, and he’s right on the other side of a door,” I say, voice still low. “I guess I could start doing the dishes.”
“Did you touch yourself?”
“Kitchen,” I hiss, and his breath catches.
“Not even a little?” he murmurs. “Over your clothes, just for some relief?”
I decide that squirming against the seam of my jeans doesn’t count. “Not even a little,” I say. “Not the tiniest bit.”
“But you wanted to,” he says, and it’s not a question. “You want to right now.”
I lean my head back against the cabinets, close my eyes against the bright white of the overhead light, and wonder what the hell I’m doing with my life. “Yeah. I want to.”
“You should go finish the movie,” he says. “You’ve probably missed too much.”
“I’ve seen it before,” I say. “I’ve got a better idea: I go home right now and call you back?—”
“Finish the movie, Madeline,” he says, and I can hear the semi-feral grin in his voice. “Call me when you get home afterward.”
“Fuckthat,” I say, my heartbeat picking up. “I’m supposed to just go out there and sit on the couch and watchFury Roadlike everything is normal? There’s at least another hour left.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a distraction.”
I swallow and squeeze my thighs together again, which—again—does not help for shit, and I briefly wonder how I got fromnormal persontoplaying sex games with my stepbrother in my friend’s kitchen.
“What if it’s not?” I ask. “What if for the next hour, I have to sit there, watch car chases, and think about how I’d rather be on my hands and knees?”
“Then call me when you get home,” he says. “Talk to you soon. But not that soon.”
“I hope Zorro bites you.”
Javier hangs up on a laugh, and I scowl at the door to the kitchen.
Then I turn my phone off, take a deep breath, go back into the living room, and sit on the couch.
“What’d I miss?” I ask.
