Page 85 of Caution Tape

“Caution tape,” I finish. “Very clever, Cora.”

I’m already giving in… I can feel it. It’s easy to dismiss her when she’s not around. When I’m not holding her in my arms and feeling her against my skin. When she’s a problem, an obstacle to be stepped over—

But then she bites my earlobe and forces me down onto the bed and I’m not fighting it. It is nice, letting her take control. To disengage the whirring, maniacal brain and watch Cora work, let her be devoted and worshipful. She makes me feel like a god.

She loops a strand of the tape around each of my wrists and urges me to raise my hands above my head, tying them to the headboard. They’re a bit too tight, and they’re cutting off my circulation. It’ll take me a minute to get out of them.

It’s pretty basic. Plain, really, but she’s eager. The last few days have shown that I can teach her.

I’m telling myself this as she leans back and moans, guiding my cock into her. And yeah, the way she works her hips and smiles when I groan makes my resolve to leave without her seem foolish.

Why end this? I want to fuck her in every corner of the globe, leaving a trail of corpses behind us at each one.

“Do you like this?” she pants.

“Yes, baby. I fucking love it. Keep going.”

“Say please. I like it when you beg.”

“Please, Cora. Don’t stop.”

“You like it when I’m your good girl?”

“Yes. Yes.” I close my eyes and lean my head back and let her do the work. Give this up? What was I thinking?

She’s still holding the knife as she grabs my face with both of her hands, her teeth gritted together as I begin thrusting my hips upward to meet her.

“Oh, Cora, when I get out of this, the things I’m going to do to you…”

“Yeah? Like frame me?”

Her words come out in a moan, but the expression on her face is that of wicked triumph. The knife is flush against my face, and the bolt of exhilaration I feel is the same as when you run a red light and narrowly miss getting decimated at an intersection.

It’s a lightning strike of mortality.

I lunge against the caution tape and hear it strain, but it holds me just long enough for her to flip the knife around and slam it into my side. The blade scrapes against my ribs as it wedges between them, and suddenly I have no air.

A whistling sound drifts out when I try to scream in pain, but it’s like I’ve been punched in the chest and I. Just. Can’t. Get. My. Breath. Back.

One hand works free, and I shove her off me. It goes to the knife, buried in about halfway. I grip the handle, groan, and lean back again, bouncing my head off the wall.

Get it out, get it out, get it out, get it out, it HURTS!

I want to. I want to appease that shrieking voice, but I need to leave it in. It might be the only thing keeping my lung from deflating completely.

“I heard you,” Cora says, tears streaming down her face. “I heard you report the bodies. I heard you with Jay. You were going to leave me.”

She doesn’t care about being framed. She’s mad that I was going to leave her. Huh.

Blood is leaking hotly down my side. It feels like someone spilled coffee all over me.

She’s stomping around the house, pulling on clothes. She waves the wad of cash in front of me while I try to crawl off the bed, but every move sends horrifying, blossoming black dots before my eyes. I can’t pass out. If I pass out, I die.

“Cora, baby, I—“

“I thought we were going to do this together. Be together.” There’s a stillness in her voice the signals a dichotomy in her. Even as tears well up and pour out of her eyes, even as she clenches her fists around the money, her voice remains steady. As if she expected this.

“C-Cora—“

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