Chapter 7 Perry
Perry
We don’t say anything for a while after I ask. We just lie there in the mess—sheets twisted up, the room smelling like sweat and sex. He keeps tracing circles on my hip, and I let him. I don’t know what else to do.
Eventually, he says, “I should get you something to eat.”
That’s not really an answer to 'now what,' but it kind of is. He’s thinking about the next hour, not the next three months. He’s here, with me, and his first instinct is to take care of me—same as he’s been doing all night.
Water when I needed it, hands gentle when things got rough.
Now he wants to feed me, probably because he knows how much energy I burned and he’s already doing the math in his head.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re shaking.”
I look down at my hands. He’s right. I’m shaking, just a little, the kind of shake you get when you haven’t eaten in hours.
I’ve seen it in clients who sit for six-hour tattoo sessions and forget to eat.
I know what it means, and I know he’s right, but I still don’t want him to leave.
Some dumb part of me is sure that if he walks out, I’ll never get to smell him again.
“I’ll be quick,” he says, and he’s already moving, swinging his legs off the bed, and I watch the muscles in his back shift as he stands, and I think about how I watched those same muscles last night in a completely different context. My face gets hot.
He finds his pants and pulls them on. I can see the scratches I left on his back—red lines across his shoulders. I did that. My hands were on him while he was inside me, and I was too far gone to care what my fingers were doing.
He glances back at me from the door. His eyes behind the mask are warm. Not the intensity from last night, not the locked-on focus. Something quieter. Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in the room for the first time since I walked onto the floor.
I sit up. Everything aches. I grab the sheet and wrap it around my waist because I’m naked and freezing, and the room feels different without him in it. Smaller. Empty.
I think about the guy in the leather mask.
I think about how he touched the small of my back at the bar.
How his scent was cedar and warmth, and how I leaned into it, feeling my body settle.
How he got me a drink without asking. How he was patient and easy and good, and how my body threw all of that away in ten seconds because something better walked onto the floor.
Better. That’s what my body decided. My brain isn’t so sure.
I look at the bruises on my hips, the scratches on his back, the fact that I cried on a knot in front of a room full of strangers, and I wonder—was this actually better, or just more?
Is this what I want, or just what my body tricked me into wanting?
I don’t have an answer. Might not for a while.
But I do know this: if I leave this club and never see the black mask guy again, my next heat is going to suck.
My body’s locked onto his scent, the way it was supposed to with the leather mask guy, and there’s no getting rid of it.
I know because it happened before—the first time, when I spent three months thinking about cedar every time I got horny.
That was manageable. It was a craving, but not a bad one. Easy to live with. Easy to come back for.
This isn’t going to be manageable. His scent is burned into me, and I’ll feel it every time I close my eyes for the next three months.
The worst part is, I’m not sure I want it to fade.
Part of me wants to go home, take a boiling shower, scrub him off, and pretend this was just a bad heat—something that happened to me, not something I chose.
But another part of me, the part that lost it in front of a dozen people, just wants to crawl back into his lap and breathe him in until I forget what cedar even smells like.
Both of those are me. That’s the problem. They want totally different things, and I’m lying here at six in the morning trying to figure out which one of me gets to decide.
I can either deal with it alone or I can do something about it right now, before we walk out of here like strangers.
The door opens. He comes back with a protein bar, a bottle of orange juice, and a t-shirt that’s way too big for me—probably club staff issue.
“Beta at the bar gave me these,” he says. “She said—” He pauses. “She said to tell you the jeans are in lost and found whenever you want them.”
I stare at him, then I laugh. A real laugh, first one since yesterday, and it hurts my throat, but I don’t care.
Of course, the beta saved my jeans. Of course, this place has a lost-and-found for clothes that didn’t survive the heat of the night.
That’s the most ridiculous, human thing about all of this.
He’s looking at me, and I can see his eyes crinkling behind the mask. I think he’s laughing too, silent, his chest moving the way it did last night when someone moaned on the floor, and we both found it funny instead of hot.
I eat the protein bar, drink the juice, and pull on the giant shirt. It smells like laundry detergent, not him, which is honestly a relief. I need to be able to think for five minutes, and his scent makes that impossible.
He sits on the edge of the bed, close but not touching. Just waiting. He’s good at that. He’s been waiting all morning, letting me set the pace, not pushing. The leather mask guy was patient too, but his felt like it was just who he was. This guy’s patience feels like something he had to learn.
“The rules say masks stay on until the omega leaves,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“And no names.”
“Yeah.”
“Those are good rules.”
“They are.”
I look at him. He looks at me. The morning light is brighter now, coming in around the door, and I can see more of him than I could before.
There’s a scar on his collarbone. His hands are big, resting on his knees.
He sits with his shoulders square, back straight, even though we’re on a bed in a sex club at seven in the morning.
He looks like he’s always ready for something.
“I’m going to break them,” I say.
He goes still.
I reach up and pull off my mask.
The elastic gets stuck in my hair, and I have to yank it free.
Not exactly a dramatic reveal, but I’m not trying to be graceful.
I’m just being honest. My face, bare, in the ugly morning light of a room that smells like sex.
My eyes are probably red. The tattoo on my face, the one that curls around my eye, the one clients always ask about.
My real face, the one that belongs to someone with a name and a job and a life outside this place.
I hold the mask in my lap, look at him, and let him look at me.
He doesn’t move for a long time. His eyes go over my face, the way I’ve been looking at his body all morning, taking it all in. I see his breathing change. His hands clench on his knees.
Then he reaches up and pulls off his own mask.
He’s younger than I thought. Late twenties, maybe.
Strong jaw, tired eyes, a mouth that looks like it doesn’t smile much.
There’s a scar through his left eyebrow, his hair is dark and messy from the mask, and he needs a shave.
He’s looking at me like he just found something he lost. Like he’s scared and relieved all at once.
I look at him, and I think: oh. There you are.
The same words he said when he pushed inside me. Except this time it’s his face, not his body, and this time I’m choosing it with my brain and not my biology.
He’s still staring at me. His eyes linger on the tattoo, then back to the rest of my face. I can see him putting it all together, filing away details. His mouth opens, then shuts again. The guy who talked me through two heats and a gallery show doesn’t know what to say to my real face.
“Hey,” I say. Because somebody has to start.
“Hey.” His voice sounds different without the mask. Closer. More real.
And then I see it. His hands. They didn’t shake once all night—not during the first knot, not during the lull, not when he carried me here.
Now they’re shaking. Just a little, fingers trembling on his knees.
You’d miss it if you weren’t looking. But I am, because I’ve spent eight hours memorizing how his hands move, and they’ve never done this before.
He sees me notice. His jaw tightens and he curls his fingers into his palms. He’s not hiding it, just letting me see. Like he knows he’s been holding it together all night, and now it’s morning, and we’re both bare, and he can finally let go.
I don’t say anything about it. I just file it away with the scar on his collarbone, the way he said 'there you are,' and the scratch I left on his back. Evidence. The start of a person I don’t know yet. Then he does something I don’t expect—he looks down at his hands, the ones that were steady all night, and laughs.
It’s short, quiet, almost like he can’t believe this is happening.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I don’t—” He stops. Starts again. “I’ve never done this. The mask thing. I’ve never wanted to.”
It’s simple. He’s not saying he loves me or making any promises.
He’s just telling me that whatever happened between us messed him up too, and he has no idea what to do about it.
Just a guy with messy hair and a scar through his eyebrow, looking at me like I’m a problem he can’t fix by keeping cool.
I reach into my jacket on the floor—at least the jacket survived, even if my jeans didn’t. My hand finds what I’m looking for: a Micron pen, 005 tip. I always carry one. You never know when a client will want a sketch on a napkin.
I take his hand. He lets me. His fingers are warm, same as they’ve been all night, and I turn his forearm up and uncap the pen with my teeth and write my number on his skin.
My handwriting is good. Always has been.
I’ve been writing on people’s skin for a living since I was twenty-one.
The numbers come out clean and even on his forearm, dark ink on warm skin.
I take my time. This is what I do—I mark people.
Usually it’s permanent, but this will wash off in a day or two. The offer behind it won’t.
I cap the pen and look up at him.
“Call me when this isn’t just biology,” I say.
He looks at the number on his arm. Looks at me. His jaw works, and I can see him thinking. I can see the exact moment he decides.
“Beckham,” he says.
Just that. Just his name, offered the way I offered my face. No last name. No context. Just: this is who I am behind the mask.
“Perry,” I say.
He nods. Looks at the number again. Touches it with his other hand, gentle, like he’s checking if the ink’s dry.
“You ruined my night, you know,” I tell him.
He looks up. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Yeah.”
“I had a plan.”
“I know.” He catches himself. Shakes his head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I stand up. My legs are shaky, the giant shirt hangs to my thighs, and I’m wearing boots with no jeans because my jeans are in lost and found.
That’s going to be a fun walk to my car.
I look like a disaster. I feel like one, too.
The kind of disaster that started when a stranger’s scent hit me across a crowded floor and ended with me writing my number on his arm at dawn.
I could have had worse disasters.
I stop at the door and turn back. He’s sitting on the bed, mask in one hand, my number on his arm, his face bare and tired and open. It makes my chest tight.
“Three months,” I say. “If you don’t call before then, I’ll be back here. And I won’t be looking for someone else this time.”
He meets my eyes. “I’ll call.”
“Okay.”
“Perry.”
I stop. Hearing my name in his mouth is new and weird and warm, and I want to hear it again. I want to hear it somewhere else, in real daylight, not this warehouse morning, not like this.
“Yeah?”
“Your number.” He holds up his arm. “I’m not washing this off.”
I look at him. His face, finally. A real face, a real name, a real voice, and those steady hands that got me through the worst and best night I’ve ever had. I look at him and think, I’m going to make a new plan.
“Good,” I say, and I walk out into the morning.