Page 110 of For Real

“There’s no normal in grief.”

“Yeah…” He glanced at the rope spilling across the living room carpet. “I think I got that memo.”

“Is it working?”

He sighed. “Not really. Mainly, it’s just annoying the crap out of me.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, I need my hands to tie the knots, but I need something to tie the knots around like, for example, my hands.”

“Ah yes, a common manifestation of the infamous chicken-and-egg problem.” I didn’t know what else I could give him, how else I could help him, so I offered him my wrists. “What are we watching?”

His eyes met mine, sad and silver-touched by the screen. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll be okay.”

“I want to. Will you let me stay? Be with you?”

A long shuddering breath, as if it was his yielding, not mine. Then he took my wrists in his cold hands and began—inexpertly—to bind them. For whatever reason, he’d chosen nylon rope. I shivered a little as it slid against my skin, a cool, silky whisper of mingled promise and danger.

“It’s Swing Time. Found it on iPlayer.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“One of Granddad’s favourites. Sunday-afternoon-type viewing.”

It was hard not to watch Toby’s fingers working to immobilise me, but I glanced at the screen where a man and a woman were singing irritatedly at each other in the snow. Toby was whispering the words under his breath, interspersed occasionally with instructions from the book. My heart ached helplessly for him, and my body—God help me—my body was a whore.

I shifted, trying not to draw his attention, but I should have known that was foolish. His eyes flared, his face losing some of the stillness that made him almost a stranger in that eerie half-light.

And then his hand pressed between my legs. “Are you getting hard in front of Fred Astaire? That’s so wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” I squirmed even more. “I can’t help it. You’re tying me up. I know it’s not what you need right now.”

He grinned. “It’s exactly what I need.”

“And I’m probably ruining all your happy childhood memories.”

“Or…” He drew the knots tight, keeping a thumb beneath for control, and I moaned. “Making new ones.”

I closed my eyes, everything disappearing except Toby and the rasp of rope across my skin. “If this is what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

I didn’t know what to tell him. For a little while, we sat together without speaking, Toby’s head bowed over my captured hands, Fred and Ginger bickering in the background.

Robert had liked to bind me. Severely, decoratively, lovingly, humiliatingly—I had thrilled to all his moods, to the strange liberty of constriction, and the peace of being so mercilessly held.

This wasn’t like that at all.

I was worried for Toby. Grieving for his grief. But in a strange way, content. He was with me now, and I was going to…do better and be better. I was going to be there for him in every way I hadn’t been before. Make him safe and happy.

As he did me.

He cursed softly as a knot slipped and unravelled. “I think I really suck at this.”

“It’s just practice.” I struggled a bit and most of the rigging held. “Why the sudden interest in ropework?”

“Something to do? I don’t know. I thought it might impress you.”

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