Chapter Forty-Four
Mari
One Month Later - November
“Fuck, Mari, you look…” Roos’ words drift into silence, and her eyes drift down my body, looking hungrier by the second.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.” I nod at her from across the changing room in QISS.
She’s in lingerie – black satin with lace – and the rope work I did on her layers over it perfectly, accentuating her breasts, her slim waist, and her long, lean legs.
Her make-up is flawless, and she’s wearing a new blonde wig that’s a sharply cut bob with a heavy fringe, making her look both elegant and sexy as fuck.
Feeling more masc today, I’m in boxers and a tight, flattening sports bra, but the ropes on my body provide definition to my chest, hug my waist, and frame my hips.
I love to feel both masc and submissive, and that’s exactly the gender euphoria I’m experiencing in this moment as Roos continues to stare at me.
“I think that shibari course was the best thing we ever did,” I say.
“Just wait until I have your hands tied behind your back and you bent over my knee.” Roos steps closer, but the fact she doesn’t touch me, just lets me feel her body heat while giving me a meaningful look, is hotter than if she grabbed me by the neck and shoved her mouth on me.
It’s while I’m looking up at her that I see something flash in her eyes, breaking her composure for a fraction of a second.
“You’re still hoping xe comes,” I say. We talked about it at length last night.
We played the Imagine game that Roos and Lex play, creating endless imaginary scenarios where Lex shows up at QISS tonight and xe takes us both in hand. Xe shows us just how much xe has missed us by flogging us, hurting us, pushing us, teasing us, taking us to our edge and beyond.
I haven’t told Roos that in the warm autumn light of this morning, I didn’t feel so confident.
I still don’t feel confident. I feel like if Lex shows up, and that is an if of a great magnitude, it doesn’t mean we’ll get what we want.
It doesn’t mean Lex has an explanation that will satisfy us.
It doesn’t mean we will all three of us waltz into the sunset hand in hand in hand.
“I feel it in my bones,” Roos says, her eyes wide and bright. “I can’t explain it, I just know xe is going to be here tonight.”
I understand what she means. I’m a person who looks for signs and feelings and omens everywhere. But I’m not feeling it tonight. Fate is not giving me any clues, and I’m grateful for it. It’s keeping my head clear and my feet firmly on the ground.
“And is that enough?” I ask. “If xe is here but doesn’t have apologies or reasons or excuses?”
Roos blinks at me, and her brightness dims a little. “Why wouldn’t xe want to apologise or explain?”
I give Roos a look. “Because it’s Lex.”
“But xe was changing. Those months we all spent together…” She trails off, and I know why. Because she’s starting to doubt herself, too. What are a few months compared with years of avoidant behaviour?
I lift my hand and cup Roos’ cheek. She immediately leans into it. “Just please don’t get your hopes up. I don’t want you to get upset when xe isn’t here.”
Roos nods into my hand. “Okay.”
Right on cue, there’s a knock on the door, and Joel’s voice carries through it. “Roos, Mari, we’re ready for you!”
I frown at Roos. “I didn’t know we were on a schedule.”
Roos shrugs. “Maybe they’ve organised something special for my birthday.”
“We’re coming,” I call out, and after checking myself in the mirror one final time, I hold my hand out to Roos and lead the birthday girl out into the lobby.
It’s only when we’re halfway up the stairs that I realise the club is very quiet.
Not that there’s usually much activity in the lobby and along the staircase and corridors once it hits a certain time, but normally, there’s the noticeable hum of people in the building.
Tonight – at ten minutes before midnight – there’s just me and Roos walking up the stairs behind Joel, the silence in the building quiet enough that I can hear each one of our footsteps.
“Where is everyone?” I ask Joel.
“You’ll see,” he says without looking back. I can hear the crafty smile in his voice.
Joel and I have become good friends over the last few months.
It’s hard to imagine him and Roos playing together, which apparently they have in the past, as now he’s much more like a brother to her.
I have to trust therefore, that whatever is happening, he’s not leading us into something we aren’t ready for.
When we get to the first floor and the double doors leading to the public playroom, I’m surprised not to see Bo or anyone else manning the doors, which are wide open.
Joel turns just before the entrance and faces us, looking devilishly handsome in his black suit. “Are you both ready for this?” he asks.
“What’s going on?” I ask, and Roos says something to him in Dutch, which I think is of a similar vein.
“I’m not permitted to say, but you will find out soon enough. I just want to let you know that you are going to be alone in there – ”
“What?” I interrupt. “That’s not what we wanted.”
“I know, which is why you can leave at any time. I will be just outside, right here, the whole time, so if you need me, you only have to say my name.”
Roos says something else in Dutch that I don’t understand, and Joel simply smiles at her and replies in English, “All will be revealed.”
He moves to the side and gestures for us to step inside.
I look at Roos before I move. It feels like my ribcage is compressing with anticipation, making it difficult to breathe normally.
I think Roos is experiencing something like this, too, when I see her throat working as she swallows and gives me a nod that can only be described as brave.
We walk into the ballroom together.
It looks nothing like it normally does. All the tables and chairs have been removed, and the floor of the auditorium is completely clear but for six wooden easels on each side, each one carrying a painting, and each one illuminated from a spotlight above.
The stage is completely in the dark, the curtains pulled closed ominously.
In between the paintings, wall-mounted candelabras provide more light, each one boasting six lit red candles, but contrasting with the spotlights, it’s a warm and subtle and sensuous glow.
The ballroom has been transformed into a spacious but cosy art gallery.
Even the bar is closed, and there isn’t a single other person in the room.
I recognise the art on display immediately. On one side of the room, the six paintings on display are of me. On the other side, they are Roos. All painted in the same style as the painting I saw that night Lex couldn’t sleep and xe painted me.
Lex. These are Lex’s paintings.
I look at Roos, and I know she knows it, too.
I’m not surprised when she drops my hand and drifts over to look at the paintings of herself. I’m relieved because I wanted to go and study the ones I am depicted in.
The painting nearest to me is the one I’ve seen before, a profile view of me smiling, although more colour has been added since I last saw it.
The blue of my eyes is virtually the only true-to-reality colour on the canvas, and it makes them shine all the brighter.
All my life, I’ve wondered if Lex knows just how stunning and inviting xir eyes are.
It strikes me now, looking at this painting, that maybe Lex was wondering something similar about me and my eyes.
The next painting is one of me much younger, around seventeen years old.
My hair is longer, and I’m wearing these thick, plastic-framed glasses that I thought made me look older, more intelligent, more interesting, and Lex would tease me for having non-prescription glasses on.
Again, the colours don’t match reality apart from my eyes, and the lines that make my face and body blur with the background which is an explosion of different shades and shapes.
And it’s not just my face in the painting, it’s my whole body, curled around a sketchpad, that has my whole attention.
I’m breathless when I recognise my surroundings: Lex’s childhood bedroom.
I recognise the floral pattern of the duvet cover, although true to the other paintings, the colours are completely different from the creams and pinks it was actually made of.
Maybe it wasn’t just me watching them make art. Maybe it wasn’t just me imagining all the places Lex’s art would take xem.
I walk to the next painting with a new tightness in my chest, but it’s not uncomfortable, and I’m taking as deep breaths as I ever could. It’s more than I’m acutely aware of air getting pulled in and out of my lungs, and I’m aware of the miracle each breath is.
I’m also not smiling in this painting. In fact, the bottom half of my face is covered with a mask, like it is when I give tattoos.
My bright blue eyes are filled with focus, and my hand is painted close to my face, wearing a black glove and gripping a tattoo gun.
I look lost in concentration but not lost to it.
If anything, I recognise myself completely in this painting.
It’s who I love to be. An artist, just like Lex.
The next one is of my hand and the X-tattoo.
On my fingers are rings I recognise – vintage pieces I bought in my teens – but have long since lost or given away.
I’m breathless as I realise Lex has depicted them perfectly.
Just before I look away, I notice the outline of another hand touching the fingertips of mine.
Just like Lex and I did that night we both submitted to Roos.