Page 7 of The Deer and the Dragon
He tightened his hands around me, fingers pressing into me as he pulled my back against the hard wall of his chest, enveloping me. “You don’t mean it.”
“I do.”
His voice dropped an octave as he said, “Don’t make a rash decision, Love. Think about this. If you say—”
“The visits, the sex, whatever it is we have…it has to stop. It’s ruining my life. I’m losing my mind, Caliban—what’s left of it, anyway. My heart can’t belong to…” My voice splintered.
A sharp stab of pain shot through me as I opened my eyes and looked at the neat row of orange prescription bottles that rested on my bedside table. Store-bought serotonin helped make the world a little more bearable, but only a little. I looked so put together on the outside. I paid my bills, I went to therapy, I brushed my hair, I didn’t scream at strangers on the sidewalk. The world would never guess that my vivid imagination—one that had proved grossly profitable as an author—had slowly eroded me from the inside out as fantasy splashed over the cup, soaking my life.
He exhaled, and a feeling akin to lying on the misty forest floor encompassed me once more, his breath the cool chill of a fern leaf dragged along my skin. The silence rattled between us. He allowed the pause to stretch, late spring windwhipping from the north as it howled against my window. Its music nearly lulled me into sleep before he responded.
“May I make you a counteroffer?”
I held my breath, waiting for him to continue. He could be very persuasive. When I said nothing, he went on.
“Nothing you don’t explicitly ask for.”
A memory scratched the back of my mind as I thought of deals with the devil.
I chewed on my thumb and considered his proposal. I wondered how many times we’d negotiated. He was quite good at it, after all. His tongue, like his eyes, was silver. I wondered how many times I’d been locked in a heated debate with my burgeoning psychosis, speaking to the empty shadows. I contemplated the wisdom of refusing to tell friends or therapists about him. Maybe I just didn’t want to add a new set of pills to the tiny orange army that kept a vigilant watch over me. Maybe I didn’t want to risk alienating my already-dwindling friend group. Maybe, irrespective of my feeble attempts, we both knew that I didn’t want to let him go.
“You mean, unless I say the words…with everything? Sleeping in my bed? The kisses? The…” I couldn’t bring myself to mention our sex again. If I pictured it, if I spoke of it, I’d crave it. I’d want his fingers moving against me. I’d want him to suck an earlobe into his mouth, to drag his teeth along my throat, to use his cool fingers to explore my body. He’d sense the shift the second my mind switched to memories of him teasing my entrance, murmuring approval at how I opened up for him. His cock made everything else feel like eating ashes after experiencing caviar. Nothing filled me, nothing overpowered me, nothing worked its way into my limbs, blood, my soul the way that he did. He consumed me like cold fire, and he knew it.
“Nothing you don’t ask for,” he repeated.
I rolled toward him and regretted it. There was nothing there, save for the reminder of my insanity. I closed my eyes, preferring the blindness of shut lids as I felt every part ofhim. His hair, his smooth skin, the cut of his jaw, the strong shoulders that had held me, the arm that relaxed around me. He already had me at his mercy. The only thing I hated more than having him here were the nights he stayed away.
I felt so real. It always did.
“I’m crazy,” I said, voice broken.
It took him a while to respond. We’d gone back and forth on my sanity over the years, and I’d said on no uncertain terms that arguing with a figment of my imagination only made things worse and further proved my point. I’d conceded that, yes, I’d always had a terribly lifelike imaginary friend, but I rationalized that it was normal and healthy for children to have inventive imaginations. I’d told myself it was an asset, that the same love for fantasy that had given itself to fiction and novels and gods and powers had simply been poured too strong, splashing over the edge and drenching my waking mind.
But I was no longer sure if that was true.
His fingers moved in slow, tempting patterns along my back, then slipped around my arm once more, holding me like a vice. “Then be crazy in my arms. What do you say, Love? Do we have a deal?”
Chapter Three
(EG) The marketing team needs your permission to run this blurb about sex work. We want to weave it into your narrative.
(Marlow) Did they decriminalize it between now and the last time we had this conversation?
(EG) It’s empowering, Marlow. It’s best if you take control of the story before anyone tries anything.
(Marlow) You mean, before anyone tries to dox me. But this is part of why I used a pen name for the books and had a stage name for my clients. I should be layers removed from this, don’t you think?
(EG) You’re smart, Mar. You know it’s going to come out. You told the company about your former line of work when you signed for a reason.
The phone became a blank sheet of black glass once more as I locked the screen without replying. I tugged the duvet up higher, groaning against the worst way to start the day.
EG was right.
I’d told her on our second meeting, long before the ink dried on our contract. I’d insisted that the meeting be over video chat. I needed to see her expression when I told herwith a proud, cheery face that I’d been able to write the firstPantheonnovel because I’d saved up from years of sex work. I’d planned to decide whether to give Inkhouse my partnership based on any flicker of judgment, any twitch, any hesitancy. EG’s face had lit with the only brand of validation that could have won my business.
It wasn’t the sort of conversation I liked to have before caffeine, but my editor’s work hours were eternal. Before shutting off my phone I reemphasized that my decision was final. I’d enjoyed escorting—it was talking about it that I didn’t like. At least, I enjoyed eating like royalty, the connections to society’s upper echelon, and abusing the metallic, limitless cards of any man foolish enough to think he could impress me by taking me to an upscale shopping mall. I made them all pay, literally. Financial domination was my favorite flavor of the girlfriend experience. It meant charging exorbitant prices for my companionship, expecting only Michelin Star restaurants, Birkin bags, and jewelry worth more than what either of my parents made in a decade.
I hadn’t told EG all of the details, nor was I convinced I wanted to. I wasn’t sure where I’d start if I were to make it a part of my publicly available backstory. I didn’t exactly want to create a how-to handbook for young women. It had been empowering for me—life-changing, even—but the dangers of being groomed into a life beyond your control weren’t something I wished on anyone.
