Page 44 of Dangerous Silence
She crumpled the cheeseburger wrapper, then tossed it into the can.
“Did you see Heather’s necklace?” she asked. I had, though I wouldn’t consider it a necklace. I nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?”
What was there to talk about? I waited for Demi to say what she wanted.
“It was a collar, wasn’t it? Like a master-slave kind of thing,” she said.
A hint of a smile crossed my lips. Though I had never desired a ‘slave,’ I saw the appeal. To have a woman who saw you and respected you, as her owner, made me stir. Seeing Demi in that cage when she looked up at me had alighted a similar fire inside of me. A darker one.
Master and slave thing? “Yes,” I said.
“What do you think about that kind of stuff?” She shuffled, bringing her knees up, holding her arms around them. “Do you have an opinion?”
Her gray eyes were darker in the dim-lighting, her face pale, a faint glob of melted cheese by her bottom lip. I leaned forward, wiping my thumb across the yellow smudge, brushing it away, then licking it off of my finger. She sucked in a tiny breath, her chest held tight.
I leaned back. “It takes a surprising amount of trust to have a true master-slave relationship like Zaid and Heather have,” I said.
Demi nodded to herself, then mouthed the word ‘trust.’ “But do you like it?” she asked.
“Like it?”
“Do you think it’s hot?”
I smiled then, a full one, my teeth bared. “Why?” I asked. “That’s a curious question from someone who believes in clear cut definitions of right and wrong.”
“Hey,” she shook her head, “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t ‘that kind of stuff,’” I said, emphasizing her words, “bad?”
“People should have the right to explore their sexuality,” she said. “You know, when I went to PGU, I was on a mission to try everything that Dad had kept me from. There are a bunch of dances between my private school with the boys’ school, but heneverlet me go.” She shook her head. “The only time I saw boys my age was if Dad happened to take me to the grocery store and they were there with their parents too. Anyway,” she shrugged, “I got my hands on beer, and tequila, though I never actually drank it. And Ialmostwent to a frat party.”
“You seem proud of this,” I said.
She lifted her shoulders. “That’s when Dad called. Anyway,” she rolled her eyes, giving a deep sigh, “Back in the dorms, my stupid roommate had told everyone I was a virgin with a capital V. No one wanted to fuck me, scared that I’d be clingy or something. It was like she had given me a plague,” Demi said, pretending to shudder, “But I knew I’d find someone to take it at that frat party.”
I pressed my teeth together, glad that I didn’t have to kill any dumb frat boys on top of Muro’s men.
“What did you do instead?” I asked.
“I watched porn,” she said, then she blushed. “Well, myroommatewatched porn with her boyfriend, and I was in the room. The assholes.”
We stared at each other for a moment. Was she lying? Trying to hide that she had sought it out herself?
No… Demi didn’t lie. But she would be shy about unchartered territory.
“What did you watch?” I asked.
“Lots of stuff,” she said, her voice quiet. “You know. They tied the women up. Played with them. Beat them.”
“And?”
“Sometimes they cried. And sometimes, they came,” her cheeks were bright red now, as if her head was a red sun going down behind her cool-colored hair.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, they were trained on me.
“Yes.”
