Caleb’s truths.
The complicated, labyrinthine tapestry he’s woven of truth and lies, and how I’m not sure I’ll ever untangle the two.
How, forty-eight hours ago, a little more now, I was pressed up against the glass of Caleb’s high-rise penthouse window, being fucked by him from behind.
How I felt that happening, felt him strangling me with his toxic sorcery, his manipulative magic. How I seemed powerless to stop it. I always have the intention of refusing him, denying him, but I never actually am able to, and I do not understand why. What hold has he over me, that I cannot control my own body? What torture have I put Logan through, with this weakness? What kind of future can we have together, if I am so weak?
How can I ever face Caleb again, now that I’ve slept with Logan?
Not slept with—made love to.
I’ve fucked Caleb. Been fucked by him. Had sex with him. Been used by him. I’ve never made love to him.
I had sex with two men in a forty-eight-hour time frame. What does that make me?
It doesn’t really mitigate things that I enjoyed it with Logan and did not with Caleb, nor that with Caleb it was . . . not forced, not involuntary, but—I don’t know. I don’t have the words for it. It felt involuntary. It felt like he was forcing me. But he was not holding me down, was not technically raping me. But yet I wasn’t entirely willing, either. I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to be used by him.
I don’t want to be his plaything anymore. But whenever he’s around, that’s how things end up.
I belong to Logan. I’ve chosen that, chosen him, chosen to belong to him.
But Caleb feels as if he owns me.
What do I do?
I can’t stay in bed any longer.
I need to move, need to do something. Anything.
I slip out of bed, tug on my underwear and Logan’s VOTE “NO” ON DALEKS T-shirt. Pad out of the bedroom, tiptoeing softly, shut the door behind me. There are four doors in this hallway: the bedroom, the bathroom, Cocoa’s room, and one more. I try the one room I haven’t seen yet: an office, a simple but beautiful dark wooden desk with a large flatscreen desktop computer, stacks of envelopes and papers, file folders, a white mug full of pens. The mug has a stylized bear paw print on it, surrounded by a red ring slashed top and bottom and both sides with vertical lines, like a rifle reticle, I think, and the word Blackwater across the top. There are photographs on the walls showing Logan in combat gear, wearing a featureless black ball cap, an assault rifle hanging by a strap, held casually in one hand, barrel pointed at the ground, his other arm around another man similarly dressed; another photograph shows him in more traditional-looking army fatigues, a camo-print cap on his head, surrounded by half a dozen other men posing in front of a mammoth truck. All the photographs are of him from his combat and military days, in pairs or with groups, smiling. Looking younger, harder, and sharper. There is one photograph, though, that stands out. It’s in a little frame on his desk, all by itself. A tiny picture, smaller than my palm. It’s a much, much younger Logan, barely into his teens, I’d guess, with his arm slung around a Hispanic boy the same age, both of them holding surfboards larger than they are, sporting huge, happy grins. His best friend, the one who was murdered by the drug dealer.
I leave the office; it feels sacrosanct.
Upstairs then.
I pause to stare at the print of the Van Gogh painting on the landing, Starry Night. I feel like I should be moved by this, but I’m not. Or, not as much as I once was. It still has meaning, but it doesn’t cage my heart the way it used to. I wish I knew why.
I tread quietly up the stairs and find exactly what I’m looking for: a workout room. The whole upstairs has been opened up, every wall torn down, the load of the ceiling held up by a couple of thick square pillars running the center of the huge room. Every kind of exercise equipment available lines the walls, with free weights in the spaces between the pillars in the middle, and a black punching bag hanging by a thick chain from the ceiling in one corner.
I start with the free weights, doing stretches and lifts in several sets of reps to warm up. I’m not wearing a bra, so my workout will have to be low impact, as my breasts are far too large to run or anything like that without one. I lift free weights for a good thirty minutes, then move to the machines, starting in one corner and working my way around until I’m so weak and tired and sore I can barely move. But it’s a good sore, a good tired. I’m drenched with sweat and smelly, so I limp downstairs and rummage in Logan’s refrigerator until I find a water bottle, and I take it into the bathroom with me, drinking it as I close the door behind me and run the shower.