Page 58 of Mister St. James

“So,” Cat says, voice steadier now. “Are you going to use it, or did you build me a very expensive museum?”

I let the line hang. I want to memorize how she looks at this exact second. Bare-faced, barefoot, baring nothing except the smallest, realest hope she thinks I can’t see.

I step into the room. The door closes behind me. The lock clicks with a finality that, for once, doesn’t feel like a threat.

It’s a beginning.

Cat doesn’t blink. She stands on the other side of the platform, arms folded, not in defense, but with the confidence of someone who already knows the rules, and knows I’ll break every fucking one of them for her.

I cross the room and stand in front of the cabinetry. My hands are steady, but my heart’s going at a cadence that would trip any normal diagnostic. I don’t let it show. I select a coil of natural jute, lay it flat on the counter, then pull two more lengths—one in silk, scarlet, and one in heavy hemp, undyed. I line them up, test each between my hands, finding the memory and stretch. It’s a ritual, the check for flaws, the tactile assurance that everything will hold. The preparation is as important as the scene.

Behind me, I hear the slow whisper of fabric. I turn, and she’s already naked, her clothes folded on the single low stool in the corner. She stands with her feet together, spine straight, shoulders thrown back. She doesn’t bother with seductive postures, there’s no pretense. Her nipples are already hard from the chill in the room, and the soft curve of her hips calls to me like a moth to a flame.

Her curls have gone wild, settling around her shoulders in a dark cloud. Her eyes are wide, direct. She looks like a goddess caught between statue and sleep.

I have to close my own eyes for a second to steady myself.

“Ready?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“For you,” she nods. “Always.”

I walk over, take her hand, and guide her up onto the platform. The leather is cool against her skin, and I see her toes flex as she settles her balance. I gesture for her to sit at the edge, feet still touching the floor.

I start with her arms, because I always do. I like her wrists, the way they are narrow but strong, the shallow network of veins visible when she clenches her hands. I wrap the jute around her left wrist, then her right, binding them together in front of her, palms touching. Not a restraint, but a containment.

As I work, I speak, but not like I do at the club. No whispers, no secrets, no performance.

“This is trust,” I say quietly. “You handed me your safe word on a card and walked into a room with two-way mirrors. I’ve never had that before.”

Cat’s breath catches, but she doesn’t look away. Her fingers curl slightly in the rope, knuckles whitening.

I move up to her shoulders, wrapping the jute across her clavicles, looping around her neck, then under her armpits and over the tops of her breasts, framing them. It’s not a harness for suspension this time, just for beauty, for emphasis, for presence.

I switch to the silk, red and impossibly soft, and bring it under her ribs. I wrap her twice, cinching above and below the curve of her breasts. I knot it off at her sternum, close enough that the color makes her skin glow.

“This is joy,” I tell her. “You put a scrap of red rope in a client folder and watched me try not to react for six floors in an elevator.”

Cat laughs, the sound wobbling with a note she’s trying not to show me. She looks down at her chest, the way the silk sits, and lets out a long, trembling exhale.

I kneel on the platform and run the heavier hemp down each of her thighs, then up and over her shoulders, creating a tension that grounds her to the mat. The hemp is scratchier, more abrasive, but she never flinches. I secure the ends at her wrists, so that her whole body is a single circuit, every part of her connected to the others.

“This is challenge,” I say. “You walked into my office for nine months and made it impossible to think about anything else.”

Her chin lifts at that. I see a line of wet at the corner of her right eye, but she doesn’t blink it away. I want to reach up and wipe it, but I don’t. Not yet.

I take a final length, thin, red, the same as the one she wore on her wrist that morning. I loop it around her waist, tie it tight at the small of her back, then bring the ends forward and knot them at the center of her stomach, where her breath is shallowest.

“This,” I say, and the word is almost lost, “is acceptance. You know every version of me. You’re the only person who does.”

Cat closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, they are impossibly bright. She is silent for a long time. I finish the knots, then stand back to look at her.

She is bound, but not immobilized. Every loop and knot was chosen to frame her, not to trap her. She could stand, could move, could undo any of it with a few tugs, if she wanted. But she doesn’t.

I place my hands on her shoulders, right at the collarbones, my thumbs resting over the first tie. I lean down and kiss a different part of her shoulder after every few words. “The people who feel loneliest in a crowded room are often the ones who learned that being seen and being known are two very different things.”

Grabbing her chin I guide her face up to mine, kissing her softly while murmuring, “I don’t only see you, Catalina, I know you.”

We stay like that, in the half-light, not speaking, just breathing in the same uneven rhythm. Her pulse is visible, a flutter at her throat.