I risk a glance around to spy a mirror, but I don’t see one immediately. I get an impression of gleaming wood floors, thick throw rugs and vivid paintings on the walls before I close my mind to them.
“The bedroom,” he insists and puts me away from him. He picks up our drinks and walks off, turning into a dark hallway that brightens as he elbows on a switch. I stand there, annoyed now that he’s taken the upper hand. Eris could show him by leaving. She could find someone else, take refuge in the anonymity of the hotel.
But we don’t want anyone else.
I make sure the door is locked, then follow him down the hall.
~ 6 ~
In his bedroom, he’s lighting candles, of all things.
And he has the bed turned down, scattered with bloodred rose petals. He sees me looking and gives me a serious smile. “I told you—I hoped you’d come tonight.”
My heart thuds, beating against my ribs in a last-ditch escape attempt. I have to leave. Leave now before I crack open. I turn around, and his hands are around my waist before I take two steps. His mouth is against my cheekbone, the wings rustling between us. I cannot fly.
“Don’t run,” he murmurs, coaxing. “You like dim light, yes? This way we can turn off the lights. And you like red. I meant all this to…ease the way.”
It rattles my skull that he planned it out, that he expected me at Circle2 and that he’d predicted I’d come upstairs with him, observed what I’d like. Of course, if he’d been recognizing me all along, he knew my patterns. I’m too exposed.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper, not at all sure who I’m talking to.
“Okay,” he replies easily. “No pressure. Let’s sit, have our drinks and talk. Or go back downstairs and talk. Or dance. Whatever you like.”
I spin, and he ducks the stiff wing, his smile fading immediately at the look on my face. “What do you think this is?” I hiss the words through my teeth. “Do you think this is about talking and dancing and… and rose petals?” I fling a hand at the bed, my fingers tight in a fist.
He takes off the glasses and tosses them aside, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, do I? I don’t know anything about you, not even your name.”
“I am Eris, goddess of—”
He seizes me by the upper arms, the grip arousingly tight. “Not whoever you’re pretending to be. Mary, Tiffany, Syd, Bobbi—all of them. I think you’re all of them and none of them. I think you’re in my bedroom for a reason. I want to know more about you. I want you. Don’t go.”
I watch his lips move. They’re smeared with my lipstick and he still sports the magenta stain on the corner of his jaw. I want him with searing intensity.
“Help me out of these wings,” I say.
He relaxes his grip, sliding hands up and down my arms, as if comforting me. “Are you sure? We don’t have to have sex.”
“I have to. I need this.” I shrug off his hands, then the wings. I strip off the straps and let the black silk puddle at my feet. I’ve covered Eris’s skin with honey dust, so she gleams naked in the candlelight, her nipples rouged as dark magenta as her mouth. I’ve waxed her clean, so none of my natural hair shows. He stares at me, transfixed. Eris is beautiful, full of the allure of chaos, those destructive acts that are too compelling to resist. “Here are the rules. You can do whatever you like to me. Do the romance thing. I don’t care. But this is only fucking and only for tonight. After this you’ll never see me again.”
He hesitates. “What if I want more than tonight?”
“Not on the table. You’ll never see me again either way. So either you fuck me before we say goodbye forever or not. Your call.”
He’s frustrated, his jaw tight, but he bites it back. “Will you take off the mask and the wig?”
“The mask, yes, the hair, no. Never the hair.”
“Why do you do this? What drives you so hard?” His eyes are back on mine, staring into them, as if he might read my secrets there. Eris is naked and available, and he wants to talk psychology.
In reply, I take his hand and put it between my legs so he cups my bare mons, the liquid heat there making his fingers slide. “For this,” I say and move in closer, pushing his shirt from his shoulders and rocking my hips on his hand. He strokes me and it’s so good that I moan. “Always this.”
“Take off the mask.” He’s watching my face. “I want to see you.”
I oblige, untying the ribbons and tossing it aside. He can’t really see me anyway, behind the bruised makeup and my dark glass. I try to kiss him, but he leans his head back. “No—I want to watch you.”
His other hand slides up my spine, supporting me as his fingers work their magic. He crafts my orgasm with meticulous care, building sensation upon sensation, finding a rhythm that drives me hard, then backing off, leaving me panting, begging, just short of the climax I so desperately need.
“Enough already,” I growl, digging my nails into his neck. They’re long and gold and he hisses at the pain but sets his jaw, holding me in place with an insistent grip.
“If I only get one night, then I get to have you my way.”
“You’re having me.”
“Yes.” He pushes a finger inside me finally, but still not enough for me to come. “You’re so beautiful, coming and going like a dream. An enigma. Playing those guys. Every night I watch for you, wondering if you’ll come in. And I watch you go home with those other men. None of them mean anything to you.”
“I went home with you tonight.” I finish the words on a gasp.
“And I mean nothing to you.”
I don’t answer. Partly because I can’t and…because this once I don’t want to lie. Or because I don’t know what the truth is. He’s slowed again, two fingers curling inside me, the heel of his hand constant pressure on my clit, driving me wild.
“Are you playing me?” he asks in an academic tone, as if I’m not nearly frantic, pumping on his exquisitely competent fingers.
I laugh, the sound feral, almost unhinged. “Of course,” I say, and I barely get the words out before he presses hard on my lower back, forcing my hips into his hand, ripping me into orgasm so I scream.
It tears from my throat as I throw my head back. This. This is what I need from him. I ride his hand, clinging to his shoulders, all the while aware that he’s watching me, studying my face. Finding my equilibrium, I reach for his cock, but he takes my wrists, his one hand slick from being inside me.
“Not yet,” he says, and backs me to the bed. He is Clark Kent in the phone booth, pants and shirt gaping ragged over the electric blues, reds and yellows of Kal-el. I whisper that name and he smiles, laying me back and spreading my knees. Then his mouth is on me, hot, wet, devastating. No deft manipulation this time. He makes me come, over and over, his hands pinning my wrists and his dark head between my straining thighs until my voice is ragged and my body limp as the bruised rose petals staining the sheets. More magenta smears, as if I’m a virgin who’s given up her sacred blood again and again.
Not the goddess, but the sacrifice. I am laid open on the altar of his bed, split apart by ecstasy.
Shattering an infinite number of times.
~ 7 ~
Finally he lets me go.
He crawls up my languid body, kissing and stroking. I can barely move, much less assemble thought. I curl against him like a cat and he kisses my damp temple, careful not to disturb the wig. Every capillary in my body sings with the effort of pumping blood, every tissue throbbing, wrung to inertia.
In a moment, I’ll catch my second wind. I can’t believe we haven’t fucked yet, that I haven’t even seen his cock. Already I’ve spent more time with him than I have with any man since…well, since before. Any second now, I’ll resurrect.
But I like being held. He smells nice, like good beer, expensive champagne and hot sex. And his arms around me are warmly soothing, as are his lips at my temple, pressed in an unending kiss, a message penetrating the depths of my mind, past conscious thought, to the part of me who lies
buried in ice.
When I open my eyes, the candles have burned down considerably. We’re in the same position, but hours have passed. I’m still naked and he’s still in his layers of costume. It should be absurd, but it’s not. I move, and his eyes open, slits of moss green behind feathery dark ferns of lashes.
“Hi, lovely,” he says and my throat tightens.
In answer—the only reply I have anymore—I put my hand on his cock. It hardens from semi-erect, leaping to my touch. He puts his hand over mine. “Not yet.”
I have to smile, stroking him harder. That gets to him and he shudders. He might have tremendous control, but he’s not superhuman. “Then when?” I murmur, finding the glans beneath the tight material and pinching.
He groans and takes my face in his hands, kissing me. It’s both tender and ferocious, communicating a different kind of fierce need than the one his hips thrust through my fingers.
“I don’t want this to end,” he says, and he sounds on edge, a little desperate.
“All things come to an end,” I tell him, tugging on the tight spandex. “Take this off. Don’t you want my mouth on you?”
His eyes glint with wild desire even as his jaw sets in obstinate refusal. I think he’s going to say no, but he sighs out a ragged breath and pulls away from me, briskly shucking off the cheap suit and the costume beneath. He’s naked, slim-hipped and sprinkled with dark hair, his cock perfectly shaped and enticingly thrust toward me.
I’m back in my hard-won element.
I crawl up onto my hands and knees, slinking over to him, and taking him in hand. He’s transfixed, so hopefully I still look more like Eris than Medusa. I’d have gone to check, but once I enter the bathroom, things are over and I don’t want them to be done yet.
He and I are alike that way. The difference is that I know the end is inevitable.
The sound he makes when I take him in my mouth is everything. As is the hot throb of him. I drink his salt, his desire, the way his hands run over the bones of my face and the length of my throat. Feeding me with his touch.
I’ve been starving for this and take him deeper, though he’s murmuring something, then speaking louder.
“No,” he gasps, prying me off of him. “Not like this.”
I smile up at him, the cat with cream in her mouth. “It can be.”
“Not the first time.” He pushes on my shoulders, still gentle but resolved, laying me back and following to straddle me, showering me with kisses.
“Our only time,” I remind him.
He leans on an elbow and traces my cheekbone, following it with his gaze. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“It does.”
“Why?” His cock is hard and urgent against my splayed thighs, but he looks as if he could wait forever. “Are you married?”
“No.” Not anymore and never again.
“Won’t you explain?”
My heart cracks a little and words spill out of it, but they never reach my lips. I turn my head so I don’t have to look at him. “There is no why. There is only this.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sounds distressed enough that I look at him, then lay a finger over his sensual lips, shushing and stroking him. “There’s nothing to understand. You wanted me. You have me. Take what’s yours.”
I slide my hand down his lean body, taking his cock in my hand. He loses the argument he was about to make, groaning and dropping his forehead to mine. His lips search out my mouth and I welcome him in.
This he can have.
This I can give.
He stops my hand and grabs a condom from under the pillow. I love how he’s planned this. It no longer frightens me, which should be a warning, but I’m not interested in running now. Not when I’m about to get what I need. I’m weeping for him and undulate to show it, as he strokes firm hands down my sides to part my legs.
Poised at my entrance, he holds himself there. “Tell me your name.”
“Eris.”
“Your real name.”
“That’s as real as any, Clark.”
“Peter,” he says. “My name is Peter.”
He enters me and I sigh out the unbearable bliss of it, digging my fingers into his muscled shoulders. I’ve broken off three of the fake nails along the way. A holy trinity of self-destruction. “‘Upon this rock I will build my church.’”
In that moment, I believe it. He could be my rock. Is that for at least these fleeting hours.
“‘And the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.’” Peter chants the lines with his thrusts, the silver crucifix swings from a chain like a censer, glinting. “‘I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”
I am both bound and loosed. Pinned under him, trapped between the twin possession of his relentless cock on one end and his ravenous mouth on the other, I give myself up. With only the mirror of his mesmerizing gaze, I give him everything.
We sync, moving together in a mindless rhythm. Rising. Falling. Ascending to that moment of sheer, shimmering gold, where all is perfect, without shame or sorrow.
Exact. Warm. Unholy.
And gone.
He knocks on the bathroom door.
“Are you okay?” When he says it, it sounds real. Like he truly wants to know.
I, however, can’t come up with an answer.
I am a mess. There’s no sign of Eris, only me, a shattered crush of blue, black and magenta. I’m trying to wash, but I need makeup remover, for my face and for the nipples that look obscenely huge now, with the rouging smeared by Peter’s mouth and hands.
Peter.
I don’t want to know his name. The others, their names didn’t matter, but his… I don’t want it. Peter.
He knocks again, louder. “Hey. Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.” I manage to make my voice be smooth and unconcerned. Not quite Eris. She’s already vanished. Really, she never quite came into being. I practically hear Peter hesitating, thinking through.
“Can I get you anything?” he finally asks.
“I’d love another Black Velvet,” I say, scrubbing at the mascara on my cheeks. It looks like I’ve been on a crying jag, but I haven’t done that in forever. I never finished the first drink, which is a waste.
“Okay.” There’s a soft thunk and I imagine him leaning his forehead on the door. “Promise you won’t leave.”
I will leave, of course, but I promise not to anyway. Promises are easily broken, with no consequences for those who make them. I’ve learned to do likewise.
“Look,” he says, still right there. I’m tempted to open the door, but that would—as open doors tend to do—only let things in. I can’t let him in. I’m too afraid. Instead, I lay my hand against the door, as close as I can come to touching him again. “How about this,” he continues slowly, thinking as he speaks, “If you won’t stay, if you—if Eris can’t be with me, with Clark again—come back as someone else. I can be someone else, too.”
I’m quiet. He can’t be anyone else. He’s Peter, now and forever. In all truth, he was always Peter. My rock. A steady foundation. Owner of a bar he works six nights a week, lover of geek jokes and classic Superman.
“Say you’ll think about it.” He’s insistent again. He won’t leave until I say so.
“I’ll think about it,” I lie.
But it’s not entirely a lie, because I can’t stop thinking about it.
I’m ragged inside. A curious sensation because I’m also sated. For days afterward I’m very nearly happy. As happy as I’m capable of being when I’m only myself. I do my work, quietly, anonymously, to the usual lack of praise or criticism, but I’m glad to do it well.
I think about Peter a lot.
I think about a lot of things. About endings and broken promises. I am not the serial killer anymore. I’m only myself. Lonely in my lifeless condo, owner of far too many wig
s. I think about the alpha and the omega and how endings lead inevitably to beginnings. Unless you’re dead.
I think I’m maybe not dead.
~ 8 ~
Tonight my name is Rachel.
Did you know it means “ewe”? Jacob’s favorite wife was a sheep. I fix Rachel’s hair to the best of my ability. It’s short. Has been ever since she chopped it all off in her grief, shame and fury, burning the long locks in the fancy fireplace. The first of many rituals, consigning her hair to ash. Her eyes are not-blue, not-green, not-gray. Not distinctive.
She is not beautiful. Not remarkable in any way. This has always been a problem.
Rachel doesn’t wear makeup or paint her nails. Her clothes are as nondescript as her face. She’s good at her job, which isn’t interesting, and lives alone, which is lonely. She reads a lot and has no friends or family in this city. For a while she thought about moving away again, back to where she came from, but the effort seemed staggering. Even if they forgave her failures. If nothing else, she got the condo. A forever place to live and all she had to pay was everything she believed to be good about herself.
The windows overlooking the city give her a kind of perspective, most days.
Because she can, she wears a coat to Circle2. It’s cashmere, another expensive thing she sold herself to have. She still has on her suit from the day, along with the conservative low-heeled boots.
It’s a Tuesday, so it’s quiet in the bar. Only Peter is working. He’s at the far end, chatting with a businessman as he builds a beer. He gives me a half wave as I enter. “Be right with you.”
I take a deep breath and a seat at the bar.
“What’ll you have?” he asks with no special emphasis. He’s wearing a T-shirt that has “-shit” inside a square root sign, then squared and the caption “shit just got real.” He doesn’t seem to recognize me. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. Maybe equal measures of each, both desperately felt.
“Red wine,” I say.
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