Page 75 of Safe Word

Paula.

My Paula.

But she wasn’t mine tonight, was she?

That was okay. She had strayed from me, but she would return.

My finger hovered over the table’s row, tracing it like I was touching skin – fevered. My eyes slid across the columns. Price. Time. Room.

Then the name of whom she was meeting.

My jaw snapped tight. It could have been any name there, I would have had the same reaction, in truth. A tendon flared in my cheek as my lips curled into something between a snarl and a grin.

Something boiled under my skin, tangled with something sour and bright – jealousy so bitter it tasted metallic. My fists clenched hard enough to make my knuckles crack.

He couldn’t have had his hands on her just yet. She had just walked in. I still had time.

My tongue pressed against the back of my teeth.

I was going to shatter the fucking touchpad or combust where I stood.

Instead, I breathed. Once – a long, laborious inhale and exhale.

And smiled.

‘Relocate Room Eight to Room Thirteen,’ I said.

Blondie looked up, blinking in that dumb, wide-eyed way I realised I was going to have to beat out of her. But she didn’t question it and pressed the button to call the stewards.

Good puppy.

I turned and walked through the door marked ‘Privato’, the letters like teeth biting into the wood. Down the corridor, left at the sconce. Velvet and shadows paved my path. The scent of sweat and polished leather already caogulated in my lungs. The sounds of whips cracking, cries and moans herded me towards my destination.

People weren’t disgusting – they were rot in skin, carrying their sins like incense with a desperation to burn. They called it pleasure, penance, freedom… They writhed and begged for absolution in the dark while their souls crawled towards the pit. Sheep without shepherds. Filth without fire. And still… I’d let them come to me. I took their money and watched them sink lower… and lower.

Room Thirteen.

The one with the double-sided mirror.

For guests who liked to watch. For those who didn’t mind it.

But I didn’t have to pay to watch – I owned the feed.

And even though I wasn’t going to be the one to split her open tonight, I would at least watch her cunt weep.

I stepped into the darkened chamber; the observation room. It was dressed in bland violets and blacks. The pane of the one-way glass was wide, perfect. Already aglow.

And they were out there.

Together.

She walked straight into his arms like she fucking belonged there.

No hesitation. No nerves. No shame. She fucking opened up to him right then and there.

Not a single goddamn word between them.

He bound her eyes, wrenched his mask off. And his mouth latched onto her neck. Her legs wrapped around him like it was the most natural fucking thing.