Page 43 of The Devil’s Feather

Rafael: Yes, Molly is the ex I told you about. And Folsom was six years ago. The one fucking time I participate in a public kink event—which was to recover from the Molly ordeal, by the way—and people treat it like front page news. Ask me anything you want. I am not trying to hide.

Me: manager says you start fights at parties and meetings and stuff

Rafael: I used to. Now I avoid them. Something about being the tallest person in every room encourages insecure straight men to come at me to “prove their manhood,” and too many people are too comfortable with sexually harassing me. Straight women are especially egregious, and they freak out the most if I get angry.

Me: ugh that sucks im sorry

Rafael: I understand if you have reservations. I can only tell you my experience of being myself, not what everyone has to live with.

Me: you and that big sexy brain

Rafael: Please do not ever say that again.

Me: if i was a zombie i would eat you first

Rafael: If you were a zombie, I would be a zombie too, because fuck surviving the apocalypse. We can eat people together.

Me: see i knew you were a murderer

Rafael: Brats get spankings. Wear a loose skirt on Friday.

Instantly wet, I shifted in my seat, glancing around to make sure nobody saw how hard I blushed. Damn him, as if I wasn’t already having trouble staying focused. I typed and deleted three different responses.

Me: dont threaten me with a good time

I couldn’t sleep⁠1. Every time I tried, I fell into the same old recurring dream I’d had since high school—a shadow floated upward through an impossibly tall library, spiraling to a roof open to the stars. I flew along behind it, desperate to keep up with the shadow so I wouldn’t get sucked into one of the scattered, secret doors along the way. I woke, as always, with a strange longing for a place I’d never been. Almost a homesickness.

My bed was too small and too empty. My grey-walled room was too boring. None of my safe foods tasted right. My clothes were too stiff. I couldn’t focus on anything; not even my writing. Every time I tried to draft something new, the love interest magically looked and acted just like Rafael.

I had a full-blown addiction on my hands.

“Dickmatized.” Deandra tossed a can of pear cider to me.

“Huh?” Distracted, I narrowly missed catching it with my face.

“Music Man got you dickmatized. I’ve never seen you like this, Laney.” She plopped down on the sofa with me. “Look, I get it. He’s weird, but like hot weird, if that makes sense? Clearly very smart. But that man has violence in his eyes.”

I hid behind my pear cider. Part of me wanted to tell her everything. But Rafael deserved privacy, and Dee would yell at me until the end of time if she learned I was with a man who’d hit women.

We always watched the newest trashy reality TV shows together on Tuesdays. I liked the creative competition ones. She liked the dating and marriage ones. I liked ciders. She liked spiked seltzers. The rare times Annie joined us—since she usually spent her Thursdays modeling at car shows—we all made margaritas. But she’d spent more and more time with Frank lately.

Deandra prodded me with her foot. “You’re really down bad.”

I groaned. “Yeah. And you’re not wrong. Rafael has a temper and a rough past, but he’s been honest about some pretty unflattering stuff.”

“He still pushing for you to move in with him right away?”

I dragged my hands down my face. “Yep. And I can’t lie, I want to say yes. Is that stu⁠—”

Dee slapped the sofa cushions, sloshing her seltzer. “That is SO stupid! It’s too much like love bombing. If he’s showing you all these red flags now, what happens when you have your first fight? What if he puts his hands on you? That giant fucker could snap your neck like a toothpick. What if we can’t get another housemate and let go of this lease, and then you have nowhere to go? Use your head.”

“God, I feel like Ariel in The Little Mermaid yelling, ‘but Daddy, I love him!’”

“You are ‘opeless, child.” Deandra mimicked Sebastian’s accent. She shook her head. “This ain’t a reality show, and you are not running off to marry a man you’ve barely known a week.”

“Whoa, I didn’t say anything about marriage.”

“Elaine. You are 38 years old. You fucking know better. You have a stable job and living situation. You don’t need a man; you just want one. I think he needs you though, and that’s what has you hooked so hard. You can’t resist taking in strays.”