He held me while I cried and he didn’t ask why and he didn’t try to fix it and he didn’t make it about himself. He just held me. And at some point I stopped crying and started breathing and the breathing turned into sleep and the last thing I remember before I went under was his heartbeat against my ear, steady and unhurried, and the thought that maybe—just maybe—there was a version of intimacy that didn’t require me to be in control to survive it.
24
GUESS WHO
This bitch thinks she can take everything away from me and get away with it. I’ve been following her. Stalking her every move. I know where she goes, what time she leaves, what car she drives, where she parks, who she talks to. I know her routine better than she does because she’s careless and comfortable and doesn’t know that someone is watching.
But I’m always watching.
Tonight I watched her get into his car. I watched them drive to that lounge on the nice side of town. I sat outside for two hours in the dark with my headlights off and my heart beating so fast it hurt. Two hours of imagining what they were doing in there. Were they laughing? Were they touching? Was she giving him that smile I’d seen through the restaurant window all those weeks ago?
And then some man I didn’t recognize stumbled out of the lounge with a busted lip and blood on his shirt. And I thought, good. Maybe the night went bad. Maybe they fought. Maybe she’d come out alone and get in a cab and go home by herself and I could stop feeling like the walls of my car were closing in on me.
But no. They came out together. Side by side. He opened her door. She got in. And they drove to her apartment. I followed them from a distance because I’ve gotten good at that. I know how many car lengths to keep. I know which lanes to use so my headlights don’t show in his mirrors.
They went upstairs together. His Maybach sat on the street for hours. I sat across from it for every single one of those hours, watching her window, watching the light behind the curtain, watching it eventually go dark.
He didn’t leave.
He stayed the night with her and something inside of me snapped so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it. It wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was a small sound, like a thread breaking. The last thread holding me to the version of myself that was willing to just watch.
I’m done watching.
She took something from me and I’m going to take everything from her. Not tomorrow. Not next week. When she least expects it. When she’s the most comfortable she’s ever been. When she thinks she’s finally safe.
That’s when I’ll remind her that she’s never been safe.
25
MEHAR
It made me uncomfortable that he left in the middle of the night. Not because he left—men leave, that’s what they do—but because I didn’t feel him go. An orgasm had knocked me out so completely that this man had carried me to my bedroom, tucked me into my own sheets, and walked out of my apartment without me so much as flinching. I didn’t hear his footsteps. Didn’t hear the door close. For a woman who slept with a gun on her nightstand and woke up at the sound of a tree branch hitting the window, that was terrifying.
It also meant I trusted him. And that was even more terrifying.
His text was on my phone when I rolled over.Had an early morning. Didn’t want to wake you. I’ll call you later.
Oddly, I felt sad that he was gone. The apartment felt different without him in it, bigger and quieter, like the air itself missed him. I needed to get him out of my head because I had a full day—class this morning and a new client session tonight—and I couldn’t afford to be floating around on some post-orgasm cloud when I needed to be focused.
I got up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, stared at myself in the mirror. Same face. Same eyes. But something behindthem looked softer than yesterday and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I showered, moisturized, threw on leggings and an oversized crewneck because it was a school day and Mrs. Pak didn’t care what I looked like as long as my hands were steady. Box braids into a high bun. Minimal makeup. Gold studs. Out the door.
My phone buzzed while I was in the car.
Quest:Can’t get the taste of you off my tongue
I almost rear-ended the car in front of me. I pulled over to the curb because I was not about to crash my Honda over a text message, no matter how nasty it was. I sat there for a second with my cheeks on fire and my pussy tingling and I hated this man for being able to do this to me with emojis. Emojis. I was a whole dominatrix who made men crawl on concrete and this nigga had me blushing at a peach and a tongue.
I sent back because I refused to give him anything more than that. He didn’t need encouragement. His ego was big enough to have its own zip code.
Class went well. Four hours of advanced chemical peel application and Mrs. Pak only yelled at one student, which was a record. She complimented my technique on a glycolic treatment and I filed that away in the part of my brain that collected evidence that I was building something real. The medspa was getting closer. Every class, every practical, every A, was another brick in the foundation.
By the time class let out around one, I was feeling good. Centered. The sun was out. My skin looked great. My grades were up. A man I was starting to care about had his face between my legs last night and told me I tasted good. The bar was literally on the floor for my happiness and today it was being cleared with room to spare.
And then I walked into the parking lot and saw Judge Timothy Baker leaning against my car.
My entire mood collapsed like a building demolition.
He was in his court clothes, dark suit, no robe obviously, but the conservative tie and polished shoes that screamed federal judiciary. His eyes were red and swollen. His hair was slightly disheveled, which for a man who usually looked like he’d been pressed by a dry cleaner before breakfast was deeply alarming. He looked like he’d been crying in his Jaguar for the last four hours, which he very well might have been.
