Page 109 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Oh, never,” I say quickly, not wanting her to get the wrong impression. “We always come together, and she’s coming tonight too. She had to stay at work late, so I’m just waiting for her to arrive so we can go in together.”
“Ah, of course,” Emily says. Her voice is smooth and easy, a Hollywood voice, and it’s hard not to watch her mouth as she speaks. She’s painted her lips in a deep matte black, and it highlights how soft and full they are. How flawless her skin is.
She’s dressed for the occasion too, wearing her usual black boots and fishnets, but with a red vinyl miniskirt and matching halter top. It hides nothing of the convexities and soft places of her body; there’re swells of skin between her skirt and her top and where the top cuts into her back and near her armpits—and yet she’s not shy or self-conscious in the least. She knows she’s totally lush, she knows everyone around her thinks so, and she receives it as her due.
“I’ll wait with you,” Emily continues. “No sense in walking away from the prettiest girl in the club.”
I shouldn’t flush again at that. She’s being flirty and I have a Mistress slash girlfriend slash . . . something.
But I do. I do flush. It’s strange to feel, because my face is still tight and swollen from so much crying yesterday, and I spent today feeling numb and odd and like maybe I wasn’t even real. But Emily is the first person since yesterday to make me feel human and not all empty and gummy. And if not full again, like I could be full again. Someday.
“Will you and your Mistress take part in the exhibition tonight?” Emily asks.
It’s small talk, I know it is, and Emily has no way of knowing that her casual question has an anything but casual answer. I try to respond in a steady voice, a voice of someone who didn’t spend the day listening to her eyelashes scrape across a pillow. “Yes, I am very much hoping so. But we haven’t—we haven’t scened publicly here before.”
Emily’s dark eyes dip over my flouncy white skirt and sheer white top, which reveals the black lacy bra underneath. “A shame,” she murmurs. “The people here have been missing something truly special.”
If only Rebecca felt the same way, a disloyal voice whispers, but I quash it as fast as I can. “We simply haven’t had the time,” I explain. It sounds weak, even to my own ears, and Emily’s eyebrow rises the smallest bit.
“But you’ve had time to scene privately?” she asks. Then she holds up a hand. “I’m being nosy, I’m sorry. Not everyone likes to play in public.”
But I think I do, I want to say.
I think I’d like it more than anything.
“At any rate, you look like it would do you some good,” she says bluntly, and again, I should bristle at that, but I don’t, because she’s right.
“It would do me some good,” I reply. “It would be marvelous.”
The lobby is starting to empty of people now—most of the guests are heading toward the theater below—and I glance at my phone again. It’s almost time for the exhibition to begin and Rebecca isn’t here. Nor has she answered my phone calls or texts.
I’m starting to feel strange again, and I know, I just know, that if I could kneel in front of Rebecca, I’d feel better. If she were here, if she could bite my jaw or swat my bottom or tug my hair—if I could see her glimmering eyes and barely there smile—I’d feel okay again, capable, clear.
But she’s not here. And as Emily and I stand in the now-deserted lobby and the minutes pass, I realize that for the first time since I’ve known her—the first time in at least twelve years—the ever-punctual Rebecca Quartey is going to be late.
Applause and music drift up the stairs from the theater, and I glance at my phone again.
“Maybe there’s traffic?” Emily suggests kindly.
“Probably the traffic,” I agree. Rebecca would never be late unless something was totally out of her control. “She’ll be here any minute.”
“Of course she will,” Emily says. “But there’s no sense in you being late to something you want to attend. Why don’t you text her that she can meet you inside? I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“I don’t know,” I say, wavering. “She really will be here any minute . . . ”
“You’ve been looking forward to this?” Emily asks.
“Very much.” Very much doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Emily nods. Her black hair is hanging over her shoulders in full, shiny waves, and when she nods, it slides over itself like a fairy-tale princess’s. “Then she wouldn’t want you to miss any of it on her account.”
I could easily see Rebecca walking in, already tutting when she sees me standing here like a twit. She’d tell me I should have gone in without her, and she’d be right, because it is rather silly to miss something I want to do merely because she was late.
“You’re right,” I declare, and Emily’s black lips curve up in a smile.
“I’m always right,” she says.
I lead her to the desk in the lobby—which looks like the front desk at a smart hotel—and arrange for her guest membership. While she gets that sorted, I text Rebecca.
