Page 74 of Make Me Scream

“Thank you for understanding.”

“You’re welcome. Like, I know that you were trying to… help me develop, as an artist,” I add. “You meant well. That matters.”

He gets up and starts bringing food to the table.

“I thought if I told you what to expect, it wouldn’t work. I spent a lot of last night wondering if there was a way I could have prepared you without giving away what I was going to do.”

“We can work on that together,” I say. “We’ll figure it out. I trust you, Lane.”

He smiles.

“I’m glad.”

I watch as he brings over plates, silverware and a carafe of water. Then he takes a key out of his pocket.

“Do you want to eat first, or take off the belt?”

Well, he did apologize. I guess I can stop pretending.

“Take it off, please,” I reply, getting up and unzipping my jeans.

Lane works quickly to release the locks; I groan as the belt pieces separate and finally let me go. Relieved beyond thought, I sigh as the rod comes out coated in my fluids. I can practically feel the warmth radiating off it. As happy as I am to be free of the device, I’ll also miss it.

However, I’m also hungry as hell, so I don’t dwell on it for very long.

The food turns out to be Indian: butter chicken, lamb korma and spinach paneer, with sides of rice and naan. I serve myself nice heaps of fluffy basmati rice, then drizzle on all the different sauces.

“I’d like to pick up where we left off now,” Lane says, serving himself after I finish. “I want to hear your thoughts on our experiment. You should be honest.”

If he wants the truth, that I can do.

“Well, I think it was kind of a failure, honestly. I didn’t really spend much time on introspection. I just drew you, and I wasn’t getting tired of it. Maybe if you’d given me more time I would have gotten to a place you wanted me to be, but I don’t know.”

“I see,” says Lane. “You were in there a long time. It sounds like the isolation didn’t really bother you.”

“Have you done this experiment with someone else before?”

“No.” He smirks. “You’re not the first person I’ve put in that sarcophagus, but this was the first time it was for… educational purposes.”

Yeah, I can’t imagine he’s had too many students who are open to these kinds of lessons.

“How long did they last in there?” I ask.

“Until yesterday, the record was thirty-four minutes.”

Holy shit.

“You could try to improve on your time, if you want,” he says.

I cut into a cube of butter chicken and eat it, thinking over the offer. Would I be crazy to even consider going back in that box? I did enjoy it, up until the end. And as long as Lane promised no tricks…

Of course, it doesn’t have to be about art.

“I’ll think about it,” I say after a beat. “One thing I want to know: how much of my time in there were you watching?”

Lane chuckles.

“Almost all of it. I had to watch at the very beginning in case you noped out right away, which I didn’t think likely. When I knew you’d be good in there for a while, I kept the audio on and did a few sketches while checking on you here and there. But, when you started drawing me, I couldn’t help watching the whole time. They were very flattering; it killed me to interrupt you. I wish I’d skipped the fake-out and pulled you out of the box to fuck you until we both passed out.”

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