11. Cera
ELEVEN
Cera
The Fève: The fève is the small charm hidden inside the Carnival cake, and whoever bites down on it is bound to provide the next one. The sweetness always carries something concealed, and the one who finds it owes a debt they never chose.
Locke drops his mat next to mine with enough force to make the woman on the other side glance over. His energy is already dialed too high for a Saturday morning class, and I know I made a mistake the second he settles cross-legged and leans in.
"So."
I fold forward into child's pose and press my forehead to the mat.
"Cera."
"We are not doing this right now."
"You texted me at one in the morning, saying something happened at work. There's only one kind of work thing worth a text at that hour."
"I was just checking in on my way home."
Locke stretches his legs out in front of him and rolls his ankles. "You lie like a rug. Spill it."
Heat crawls up my neck. I sit up and reach for my water bottle, buying time.
Around us, bodies fill the studio. Mats unroll with soft thumps.
Someone adjusts the blinds, and pale morning light cuts across the hardwood.
The scent of lavender and cedar hangs in the air, meant to calm. It does nothing for me.
"Fine. Something happened," I whisper. "But now isn't the time."
His entire face sharpens. "What kind of something?"
"The kind I am not discussing before class."
"You cannot drop that in my lap and expect me to become spiritually evolved."
I turn my head and look at him. "You just spent three weeks at an ashram. You're more spiritually evolved than most. Practice your patience."
The instructor walks in before he can extract anything else. She moves to the front of the room and sits, her voice low as she starts the opening meditation. I close my eyes and try to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.
The first inhale pulls sensation into my ribs, my belly, lower. My body remembers before I can stop it, and I am back at that desk last night, his hands on my hips, his breath at my ear, the sharp edge of wood against my thighs. I press my palms into the mat and try to ground myself.
The instructor cues us into downward dog, and I push up, grateful for the work of it. The stretch pulls through my hamstrings and shoulders as I hold it and breathe.
Locke shifts beside me, but I don't look at him.
In warrior two, I step my right foot forward and sink into the lunge, arms extended.
The burn starts in my thighs and radiates out.
I'm supposed to be present, to breathe into the discomfort.
What I am doing is replaying Wells, the look he gave me after, the one that neither apologized nor shrank from what we did, and how I walked out as if it cost me nothing while my thighs were still shaking.
Locke mouths something at me from his mat. I can't make out the word, but the grin on his face tells me it is filthy. I wobble and have to reset my stance.
"Focus on your breath," the instructor says.
We move through the sequence: reverse warrior, triangle, extended side angle. Each pose asks me to open, to stretch, to sit with sensation. My body cooperates and betrays me at the same time. Every inhale pulls heat into places I am actively trying to ignore.
Pigeon is the worst. I fold my right leg under me and extend the left, sinking into the deep hip opener. There is nowhere to go in pigeon. You just sit with it. There is the stretch, the discomfort, the slow ache that builds until you either breathe through it or bail.
I close my eyes and press my forehead to my forearms. Calm the fuck down.
By the time we reach savasana, I am wound tighter than I was when I walked in. I lie flat on my back and stare at the ceiling, willing my heart to slow. The instructor's voice floats over us, guiding us into rest.
We walk to the Fly after class, our favorite spot of green grass behind the Audubon Zoo, to finish our flow after our Saturday morning classes.
Locke swings by the corner store for king cake, and I carry the blankets. The air smells like river mud and sugar. Somewhere past the park, drums sound in the distance. There must be a parade today.
The grass along the levee is damp and cold.
I spread the blankets and sit, stretching my legs in front of me.
The Mississippi runs wide and flat beyond the stones, carrying barges south.
Beads hang from the oak branches overhead, purple and green and gold, leftover from parades that rolled through days ago.
Carnival turns the city half feral this time of year.
The light is gray-gold and too thin, winter hanging on past its welcome.
"There you are."
Locke drops next to me and opens the box. He holds out a slice of king cake without a word.
I take it and bite through the cinnamon and icing. The sugar sticks to my fingers.
"Start talking before I start guessing, because you know I will make it worse."
I stare at the river. A gull lands on the rocks below us, then lifts off again. The drums roll closer, then fade.
"I can't believe I'm about to say this out loud, but I had sex with Wells last night."
Locke doesn't react. He pulls off a chunk of cake and chews. "And?"
"And nothing. It happened. We were working late, and I honestly don't know how it happened, but I didn't stop it."
"Um, I'm going to need more than that."
"I wanted him." The words catch in my throat, sharper than I expect.
"I honestly don't know what to say. He kind of grates on my nerves, to be completely honest. But he's hot as fuck, and all of this shit going on with Midnight, I guess my body needed some real skin for once. It's like it all just exploded."
The cold air hits my cheeks. My fingers worry the edge of the blanket, pulling at the frayed corner. My stomach drops because telling him makes it real in a way I didn't expect.
"Midnight pays me to be what he needs. Cas needed me to be useful until I stopped being worth the effort. Even the job, I am hired to make Wells's work digestible for people who do not want to think too hard."
The parade drums thump somewhere beyond the trees. I swallow and keep going.
"But last night, I wanted something just for me. Not because he asked, not because I was earning my place or proving I could handle it. I wanted to fuck, and it felt good."
My throat tightens. I press my palms into the blanket and try to breathe through the sharp twist in my chest. I turn into pigeon pose and prop my chin up on my hands.
The river slides past below us. A barge horn sounds, low and long. He doesn't make a joke or try to make sense of it beyond what I'm telling him.
"Well, that's fucking amazing," he says finally.
I nod. The honesty sits between us, too naked to leave alone.
Sitting back up, I reach for the cake box and tear off another piece. "Anyway. It was just, you know. A desk. Friday. Done."
He breaks off a piece of cake and chews slowly, still watching me. The parade drums thump somewhere past the trees, closer now, then fade again. A jogger passes behind us on the path. I watch the river and will the conversation forward.
"I say good, girl. It's high time you do something because you want it, not because you think you have to for some goddamned man."
The guilt sits in my chest. I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them.
"But," I bite the word off, hating how it sounds before I even finish the thought. "It feels like I cheated on Midnight."
The silence that follows is so complete I can hear my own heartbeat.
Then Locke sits up, his face lighting with pure delight. "I'm sorry. Did you just tell me you emotionally cheated on a black screen?"
"Shut up."
"He's a faceless man living god knows where, probably fucking a hundred women."
"Locke, I swear to god."
I grab a piece of cake and throw it at him. He dodges, laughing, and I want to shove him off the levee.
"You're the worst."
"I am the best, and you know it."
The humor cracks before I can hold onto it. My throat tightens, and I look away. The barge on the river moves slowly, cutting through the current. The beads overhead sway in the breeze.
"Cera." His voice is softer now. "Guilt does not attach to a stranger. It attaches to a person. That means Midnight is not nothing to you, even if you want him to be."
I close my eyes. The drums roll closer, then fade.
"I don't want him to be a person. But at the same time, I really enjoy our time together. I know that's so fucked up. I seriously have something wrong with me."
"No, you don't. It's natural. Y'all spend a lot of time 'together'," he says with air quotes
"I need him to stay what he is. A transaction, a screen I can close when I am done."
Locke waits, and when he speaks again, his voice is careful. "Okay. Let me ask you something."
I look at him. His face is steady now, the teasing gone.
"If Midnight walked in here right now and told you he spent last night with another woman, would you be angry?"
My chest tightens. I open my mouth to answer and stop.
"You can't be," Locke continues. "Because he pays you. You perform for him."
He's right, as usual. He's a crass ass, but he has a way of spelling things out that I can't organize in my head.
"For all you know," Locke says, "he could have a wife. A girlfriend. A whole life you are not part of because you are not supposed to be part of it. That is the whole point, for both of you. He pays for your time, you stay exclusive to him on camera, and the rest of your life is yours."
"You're right," I agree. The thought of him with someone else does pull at my heart a little for some ridiculous reason. I don't tell Locke that, though, because he would rip me to shreds for it. I know how pathetic it would sound.
"So there is nothing to feel guilty about," he repeats.
"Exactly."
Locke shifts on the blanket. He’s being careful in a way that means he is about to name something I have been trying not to see.