Page 54 of Mister St. James

Aiden’s hand twitches toward the desk, then pulls back. “Not here,” he says. “Not yet.”

I almost laugh, but he’s right. Not here. Not yet.

I push off the desk, straighten my shirt, and pivot to the window. “You know there are rumors,” I say, not really asking.

He lets out a breath. “Of course.”

“They say I’m fucking my way to the boardroom.”

He shrugs, but it’s forced. “You’re already overqualified for your job.”

“That’s not what they care about.”

He stands, walks around the desk, and stops in front of me, close enough that I can feel the static of him, sharp, clinical, but warm at the core. “What do you care about?” he says, like it’s a genuine question.

I look past him, to the city and its hunched gray skyline. “I want this job. I want you. I want both at the same time, and I’m not sorry for it.”

He places his hand on my wrist, fingers over the cord, just enough pressure to signal yes, I see you, yes, I want that, too. He doesn’t smile, but the set of his jaw says he means it.

“Then don’t apologize,” he says.

I look at him, really look at him. “I won’t,” I say.

Aiden’s hand lingers a second longer, then he releases me and walks back to his side of the desk. “There’s a briefing at nine. I want you there.”

“Already in my calendar,” I say.

He looks at his screen, but I know he’s watching my reflection in the glass. “Wear the cord,” he says. “All week.”

I grin, wide and toothy, and walk out. The cord on my wrist feels like a brand, a banner, a private joke.

I take my seat outside his office, cross my legs, and start typing up the day’s schedule. Every few lines, I touch the red cord, twisting it tighter, looser, tighter again, until it leaves a spiral impression in my skin.

I wonder if anyone will ever get close enough to see it.

I kind of hope they try.

The first rule of the Velvet Stag is you don’t talk about the Velvet Stag, unless you’re talking to someone who already knows, and even then it’s all coded language, like old spies or people who survived the same house fire. The second rule is that your real name is sacred, but your secrets are currency, and the exchange rate is brutal.

We show up together, Wednesday at ten sharp, through the velvet-curtained back entrance that keeps the membership from mingling with the city’s garden-variety perverts. It’s my idea. Walking in with him, arm in arm, the red of my robe and the black of his shirt a matched set. I want the spectacle. Let them see. Let them talk.

The club’s main floor is busy, more so than usual, the press of bodies all lacquered and glassy-eyed, everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of something unfiltered, something real. I catch the looks. I catch the whispers. There’s a thrill in it. For months, the Scarlet Muse was my own myth, a one-woman show, exhibitionist with a thousand faces and no strings attached. Tonight the string is literal. A band of red rope braided tight around my waist, the end tucked into itself like a serpent eating its tail.

I spot her first, the woman from the bar with the inked shoulders and the hair like wet crows. She’s wearing the same disappointment as last time, apparently some people don’t get over being rejected for a solo scene. She clocks Aiden beside me, clocking the rope, and raises her drink in a mock toast.

Aiden ignores her. Aiden ignores everything that isn’t mission critical, which tonight is me and the corridor leading to the upper-level playrooms.

We bypass the main lounge, where the voyeurs queue up like concertgoers outside an arena. There’s a sort of electricity when we pass, nerves or envy or just the flat awe of seeing someone who doesn’t blink. We take the stairs up, my heels silent on the dense carpeting, his hand at my lower back. We say nothing, because there’s nothing to say.

At the end of the hallway is the room with three mirrored walls and the one-way glass. Aiden punches in the code, opens the door, and we slip inside. He locks it behind us.

I stand in the center, the silk robe pooling around my ankles, feet bare against the padded black mat. The lighting here is engineered to be soft overhead, sharp at the perimeter, so every movement casts an exaggerated shadow. I see myself in triplicate. The front-on version, arms crossed, spine straight, the side profile, hips pushed out, mouth cocked in a half-smile, the oblique, where my reflection and Aiden’s overlap, merging into a two-headed animal.

He crosses to me, slow and deliberate. He unties the cord from my waist, lets it dangle from his fingers, and gives me the smallest of nods. It’s permission to begin.

I drop the robe and stand naked, except for the cord. My heart’s already outpacing my breathing, which is exactly what I want. I don’t shiver, not even when the air kisses every inch of me.

He starts at my collarbone, looping the rope around and under, over the shoulder, around again, forming a cross-hatch that presses between my breasts and cinches at the sternum. His hands are exact, the tension always perfect, neither too tight nor too loose. As he works, he talks to me, not loud, not for the room or the audience, just for me.