Page 70 of Twilight Mask

Laura: Easy, pervert. I’m not on display here.

Marco: Actually, you definitely are. Do me a favor and take a layer off.

Laura: Why, so you can stroke yourself while I get covered in dust? It’ll take an hour to shower it all off.

Marco: And I’ll happily watch.

Laura: You’re sick. I like it though so that’s fine.

Marco: Speaking of sick, Jackal misses you. He’s coming up with all sorts of devious new games.

Laura: Don’t tease.

Marco: But you know I love teasing.

I smile sweetly at the camera before turning it to face the wall.

Laura: That’s your punishment. Enjoy the view!

I can practically hear him laughing as I get back to the jackal ear I’ve been working on. As the shape emerges from the stone, I think about stroking the ceramic mask, about those eyes staring through the holes in the jackal face as warm hands touch my body, about the thrill of the fear and the pleasure of his tongue and fingers and cock. It’s all too much, and I’m too fucking distracted, but I don’t know what else to do.

Marco used up his tricks the last time he came to see me. That wouldn’t work again anyway: Simon has three guards watching my place at all hours, two up front, one in the back, with more on the adjacent roofs. I suspect they have orders to stay at their posts, no matter what. Which means no distractions will draw them off.

It’s been three days. Three miserable, ugly days. We distract ourselves with texting and video chats. He’s gotten me off a few times, and while I love it when he orders me around, it’s not the same. Although it’s close—Jackal sits wreathed in darkness, shirtless, and so beautiful it’s painful to look at, as he commands me to finger-fuck myself into oblivion.

It’s good, but it’s not enough. I miss him, and I’m lonely.

I have no idea how to process these feelings.

I thought I quieted that part of myself years ago, but Jackal and Marco turned them back on. Feelings, messy little emotions, crawl all over me and I don’t know how to shut them down anymore. It’s all too much, but as much pain and need as I feel, there’s also so much pleasure and joy that it’s hard to say what’s worse: life before where I was an emotionless husk, or life now where I’m a mess.

But then he’s there, sending me more messages. Sometimes they’re flirtatious, but more often they’re entirely normal. Questions about my work, about what I’m eating, about what I’m watching. I spend three hours—three full hours—explaining to him my sculpting techniques, and he listens the entire time. No, he doesn’t just listen: the guy actually asks questions like he’s paying close attention. We have normal conversations, the sort of mindless chatting, the kind of comfortable interaction I’ve never had before, and never knew I craved until him.

We make sense. It’s so easy. And even though it makes me want him more, and I feel myself falling harder every hour, I smile every time a new text comes in or a new video call summons me from the basement and into the bedroom.

Because I want to fall. I can’t keep lying to myself. I’ve fallen, I’m a splattered, smeared wreck of viscera on the sidewalk, all for them. Jackal and Marco.

“Is that a doorbell?” he asks on the morning of the fourth day. I’m in my kitchen making coffee, doing what he refers to as “boiling water and dumping it through mud,” and he’s right. My doorbell’s ringing.

“Call you back.” I hang up and hurry down the hall, not sure who the hell is bothering me right now. Simon knows better than to show his face at my house—maybe he’s safe in his office, but this is my fucking turf, and I won’t hesitate to kick him in the throat.

“There she is, my little sister the traitor.” Angelo leans against my porch railing with a vicious smile. His tone is halfway between serious and joking.

“What do you want?” I cross my arms, not inviting him inside.

“Simon told me everything. We should talk.”

“Did he mention the part where he took my car and grounded me like a fucking teenager?”

“Can you blame him?” Angelo’s smile fades away. “Marco Vitale was a Santoro Capo. He was the fucking enemy.”

“Emphasis on the was in that sentence. The Santoro mafia is dead and buried, remember?”

He grunts and pushes off the railing. “How the fuck did you even meet the guy?”

“Funny you ask. It was at Cage during the first gallery opening.”

Something crosses his expression. Surprise, anger, maybe a little guilt. But he shuts that down. Angelo’s always been good at hiding himself, especially around me, and I wonder how long he’s been doing it. Since long before he went to prison, though I think going away toughened him up.

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