The plane was delayed—mechanical issues, they said. I sat in that private terminal for another two hours, spiraling, convincing myself this was a sign. A cosmic intervention telling me to go home.
I didn't.
The flight itself was turbulent as hell. I felt sick the entire time. Gripping the armrests, stomach churning, convinced we'd crash into the ocean and no one would ever find me because I hadn't told anyone where I was going.
Who would I have told? My mother didn't even call me on Christmas this year. When I called her later in the afternoon on Christmas day,—still shaking, and excited, and confused, and happy, and bewildered, and relieved that my bank account held more digits than I'd ever thought possible in a single account balance—she made excuses for not calling me. Claimed she was traveling and didn't have service. As she was talking to me on the phone.
I didn't even push back. She's not worth the fight.
But my hesitations for this experience were real, even if I had no one to bounce them off of. The whole flight here I kept thinking I should tell the pilot to turn around. Demand it.
Didn't.
I kept thinking I was insane for coming. That this is proof I'm damaged beyond belief.
It is, too. Iaminsane. Absolutely unable to make a good decision if my fucking life depended on it, because I left the cameras up in my apartment.
All sixteen of them are still running. Still recording everything I do. I know exactly where they are now. The masked man told me how to disable them and I… just… didn't.
I didn't change my passwords, didn't remove the keystroke logger.
Iwanthim watching me.
I want him reading every filthy word I type intoThe Watcher, the novel I'm writing about him. About us. About everything he did to me.
I want him to see that I kept his Harvard shirt.
That I touch myself thinking about him.
That I accepted this invitation the second I saw it because forty-eight hours with him is worth any amount of money, any amount of fear, any amount of?—
"Easy," one of them murmurs, steadying my elbow as I step into the tub. The water's steaming. Lavender. Eucalyptus.
And then—hands.Everywhere.
One cups my breast immediately, soaping it with deliberate pressure that makes my nipples harden. Another slides down my stomach. The third is working shampoo into my hair, tilting my head back, exposing my throat.
Oh god.
I try to stay still. Try to breathe. Try to remember this is just preparation, just like before.
Except it's not like before.
Before, they were gentle. Clinical. Professional.
This time they're... aggressive.
The one at my breast pinches my nipple between soapy fingers, rolling it, watching my face for reaction. The one washing my stomach lets his hand drift lower. Lower.
Between my legs.
I gasp.
His fingers slide through my folds, not accidental, not incidental—deliberate. Circling my clit with expert precision while his other hand grips my hip to hold me steady.
He's watching.
The thought slams into me with absolute certainty.
