Steam clouds her bathroom mirror, sits in a damp mist on its burnished copper frame. I watch my face slowly dissipate in the reflection. There are dark circles hanging beneath my eyes to match the fading bruise under my bottom lip, and my cheekbones sit atop hollows I don't remember carving. My abs and external obliques are more prominent, and my shoulder muscles are bulbous and bunched. This obsession thing is eating more than my brain; its teeth work at my flesh, too. I look like I've been carved out of wax. Normally, I go for a healthier look; it comes naturally from my gym work and diet. I guess I've been neglecting my belly a little lately. I'm not the kind of man who can eat and masturbate at the same time.
Maybe it's knowing that there's a little less fat over my muscles, but the hot water of the shower seems to penetrate quicker, ushering this slow, acrid ache. Various products hang in a wire basket over the glass wall of the shower, and I select a musky, floral body wash called Midnight Tuberose, cover her still-damp flannel with it, and massage it over my skin. The air grows swollen, feeding on the undernotes of her mulled wine scent; the steam is thick and bitter-tasting. When I reach my cock—which has been left untouched today, but strains like it's been far longer—I wrap it in the warm flannel, fist myself, and take long, slow pulls. Jesus. I fall back against the cold glass wall and press my spine into the chill, desperate for something to take the edge off. I can't come yet. Won't. As much as I love the idea of plastering the wall of her shower and even leaving the mess for her to accidentally brush through, it would be a waste.
An image alights in my steam-addled mind: Leo, making her way into the subway station, still coming down from our shareholder meeting earlier and picking things apart. Warm, stale bodies crush against her in the halls, on the elevator; she floats along oblivious. Plays on her cell. Perhaps there's a little black gift box in her handbag—for her sake, I hope so, because it's always messy when I have to improvise. Perhaps she thinks about the way I touched her this morning and her panties stick to the lips of her *. She knows what I want, that I've given her the chance to refuse me; she doesn't know I'm waiting, sick of offering any choice at all. Ill with it. Poisoned. Preoccupied. Ready to hold her down and rip out the kind of virginity that most girls take to their graves.
Does she wonder how rough I'll be when I fuck her?
Does she forget to breathe when she contemplates the tip of my knife on her skin?
Does she stand in this shower each morning and slip soapy fingers over her clit, gasping as she imagines an orgasm conjured by my hands?
I've never made her beg, grasshoppers. Oh, I've tried—with a gun, no less—but even then, she resorted to sarcasm before giving in. Tonight, she'll need stronger weapons. Let her maim me with them, slice me open, tangle her pink tongue in my veins. I want all of it. No more seduction, no more vague menace in the cracked mess of a chocolate or the blunt scrape of a thorn.
Climbing out of the shower, I grab a thick black towel from a pile beside the sink, and sling it around my hips. A swipe through the steam on the mirror reveals a flushed, strange monster of a man, my dark circles plumped away but the angles of my cheekbones still high and mighty. Stubble peppers the line of my jaw. Maybe I should smile? Ah. Much better.
Ha, as Leo would say.
Back in her bedroom, I rub my aching body with the towel and pull on a pair of track pants. Pat my hair down, run my fingers through it. I'm about to pack my clothes away but then decide I like the idea of my things in her space, smothering little pieces of it. Combined with the intimacy of being barefoot on her carpet, it all makes me feel heavier. Like I could pack more of a punch.
On the way to the kitchen, I spy her older phone on the hall table and swipe it up. Of course it requires a passcode; I'll get it out of her later. Time to eat.
Leo keeps a box of eggs near her stove, so I fix myself an omelette in her battered orange pan. While going through her refrigerator for ingredients, I notice that the chocolates are now stored on the top shelf beside a bottle of good champagne. Isn't that interesting? A quick check inside the box tells me she hasn't eaten any, and then I have to leap back to the stove before my eggs burn, but still. The idea that she decided to preserve them, to put them away for best...I like that. Very much.
Leo isn't due home for a half hour at least, so I make myself comfortable on her couch while I eat. Flick through the cable channels, check my networks. NN24 is running an update report on the next JFK bombing breakthrough. Truth Daily, which is aimed at older viewers, is running a debate on next year's election. Both channels play all day in my office, fading into the background on mute; I almost never put them on at home. Viewing them in this setting is mildly unsettling and I put that down to the anticipation churning in my stomach, despite the eggs. Here I am in Leo's apartment, watching the networks that were probably her first taste of my empire. There's a symmetry there that begs to be explored.
Ah, so much to explore this evening.
The possibilities draw closer as the sun sinks lower through her barred window. It hits the horizon not long before eight, cupping the room in its dissolving hands and spurting burnt orange across the walls. When I finally hear Leo's key in the door, I'm watching a football game which I quickly flick off.