Page 24 of Lust

“I’ll wait for the call,” she says.

I barely hear her. I’m already halfway back to my car, only thinking about how amazing it’s going to be when Ruby finds, and uses, her new vibrator necklace.

Ruby

When I unwrap the vibrator necklace, my breath catches in my throat. A chill wraps around me.

Did he see me last night? He saw me. It would be too much of a coincidence that I used my vibrator yesterday and then he got me one today. Right?

My bedroom window looks out onto the backyard. It’s not fenced. Anyone could pass through, and unless one of the neighbors saw them and said something, I’d never know. The blinds are down, but not completely shut. There’s a four-inch gap in the curtains. Someone could have easily peered through and seen my whole session yesterday. I pull the curtains closed, slip the vibrator necklace onto my neck and tuck the pendant under my t-shirt, then go out to the kitchen to cook dinner.

The guilt I feel seems ludicrous, but it’s there, turning my stomach while I sit across from Brent at the kitchen table and slowly chew a bite of baked chicken breast.

Brent showers his plate with salt.

“What?” he asks, looking up from his plate. “It’s bland.”

I shrug. “It’s a new diet.”

“What, make the food taste so bad you can’t stand to eat it?”

Silently, I squeeze a lemon wedge over my chicken. There’s no winning with him.

His phone lights up next to his plate, and he glances down, then up at me. I pretend not to notice. It lights up again, and he smiles.

Delilah.

The feeling of guilt sinks deeper into my gut and transforms into something else, something hard.

Brent pushes his plate back and picks up his phone, ignoring me completely.

After choking down one more bite of food, I stand up and clear the table. Brent doesn’t say anything to me when he leaves the kitchen. He’s staring at his phone so hard he walks into the doorframe.

“Motherfucker,” he shouts, followed by a string of curses at his own clumsiness.

I turn on the water in the sink to drown him out. The hard feeling in my gut shifts further as I scrub the plates and pots and pans. Each stroke of the sponge, each echo of Brent’s angry words, erodes my guilt just a little more.

Thirty minutes later, I lock my bedroom door against the sound of his loud snoring on the sofa and sit down at the end of my bed to scrutinize my newest gift. I should feel afraid. I should probably even call the police. But the sight of the new toy resting suggestively in my palm sends blood pounding through my veins. Any guilt I felt earlier has dissolved into curiosity. There’s no question of whether I’ll use it. I have to find out exactly how well Mr. Santa knows his toys.

Switching on the vibrator, I discover that Santa was thoughtful enough to charge it before wrapping it. I press the device against the palm of my hand to test its strength. My fingers tremble slightly, whether from nervousness or from excitement, I can’t really tell. To soothe my nerves, I put on my ruby earrings, then wrap my silk scarf around my neck.

I’m about to start stripping in front of the mirror when I remember the bedroom curtains. Stomach full of butterflies, I go to the window and pull the curtains apart, creating a gap just big enough for a man to look through.

Chapter 10

December 14th

Aaron

Otherthanmydelightfuldiversions with Ruby, development of the Arrow Black app gobbles up my time. I’ve set up a new office space in downtown Sacramento for a series of seemingly endless meetings where Linda and I wade through reams of red tape to ensure that the right people have the right non-disclosure agreements in place. We also make sure that although never mentioned, use of artificial intelligence is never actively disallowed by the Terms of Use on any of our platforms.

Meanwhile, Delilah meets up with me at the new office after her shift to watch my Jonah and Everly experiment. Gradually, so as not to raise red flags, the AI, nicknamed Eros, gathers relevant information on Everly, then woos her incrementally each day.

“I really don’t know how I feel about this.” Delilah sips an eggnog latte one morning, yawning against the fatigue of her overnight shift. Eros just complimented Everly’s haircut, then expressed an interest in Blue Tangerine, an obscure band that Everly mentioned in an article for her high school paper a few years back.

Everly

Omg!!! I can’t believe you’ve heard of them.

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