3. Chapter 3
The silence after my choice stretches, but it’s strangely not awkward or empty. Just… expectant.
I’m still sitting when something shifts in the mirror directly across from me. At first I think it’s just another distortion; glass warping light the way it’s been doing since I walked in. Then the reflection bends wrong and is interrupted.
A seam I hadn’t clocked before opens and my brows rise as a figure steps through the mirror in the doorway I had failed to notice.
I blink again just to make sure I am seeing it right because—
What the fuck is this place?
The man before me is dressed entirely in tailored black.
Not costume-store theatrical or sloppy underground kind.
Everything fits him far too well for that.
His shoulders are squared off in a nice black button-down that is covered by a vest that buttons neatly, his hands covered with gloves smooth and fitted.
Not an inch of skin is on display down to the slacks that hug his thighs and the polished black loafers that refract light below.
It’s certainly not the most pressing thing about him—no, that belongs to the mask he wears.
A plague doctor’s mask.
Matte black with an elongated beak, rivets at the seams where they catch light just enough to make the shape unmistakable. A matching hat sits low on his head, the flat bill shadowing the upper half of the mask so that the eye lenses glint faintly, reflective and unreadable.
He looks like something out of another century, or an entirely different rulebook. And it’s not just how he looks, but how he sounds that is strange.
When he speaks, his voice carries a subtle distortion—not electronic enough to be obvious, not warped enough to feel artificial. Just… off. Smoothed and bent at all the edges, like it’s passing through something before it reaches me.
“You chose to sit.”
He doesn’t move closer yet, nor does he pace. He just stops a few feet away and folds his hands behind his back nice and composed. Contained, I might even say.
I cluck my tongue against the back of my teeth, studying him openly now. “I did have the option.”
“Yes, you did.” He agrees.
The mirrors hold us both now. Me seated at the center of the room and him standing in black, fractured into a hundred versions around us. From every angle, he looks intentional.
“Why?” He probes flatly.
I don’t rush to answer, and it’s not because I’m afraid. I’m trying to figure out the shape of the question and what it might lead to.
“Because I could,” I murmur. “And standing kinda seems like I might feel like I’m posturing.”
A beat passes and something about him shifts. It’s not in his posture or stance, but in the air. Like his interest is tightening.
“Posturing for whom?” He asks.
“For you or whoever’s watching,” I retort easily.
My eyes flash down to his feet as he takes another step forward, the sound of his shoes near silent on the floor in a way my own hadn’t been. Gravity almost seems to bend toward him without permission and my eyes snap back up to the mask.
“Most people might answer it’s because they were told to.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly ordered, was I?” I challenge softly.
“No.” A hint of amusement slips into his voice, low and restrained. “That you weren’t.”
He tilts his head slightly, studying me from behind the mask. I really wish I could see his damn eyes at the very least. “Do the mirrors bother you?”
I glance around the room at that, and let my gaze take its time before traveling back to him. Some little instinct in the back of my mind tells me that lying might not get me where I need to go from here. “I suppose they are honest.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“They bothered me, but there’s no point in letting them do it for long.” I amend.
“Why not?” He asks.
I shrug one shoulder. “Because I’ve already lived in rooms where everything watched me. Mirrors aren’t going to be the thing that scares me.”
That earns me another step closer, his head cocked to the side.
Almost birdlike in nature and true to the mask that conceals his identity a fair shade better than my own does.
He’s close enough now that I can smell him.
The clean beneath the black fabric and the cologne that reminds me most of the dark amber I had come across on occasion from guys entering the bar.
“Then what does?” he hums, curious now.
That seems like the most honest probe he’s made since we started this strange tangle of smoke and mirrors.
I meet his gaze through the lenses of his mask, my pulse strangely steady. “You’re not going to get the answer you want by asking that.”
“And what answer do you think I want?”
“The one I’m not willing to give to you. I’m quite okay with keeping it.” I retort.
Silence drops hard and sudden and I sit a little straighter as he studies me, my eyes never leaving his beneath the mask as he lifts one gloved hand. It’s done slowly, as if he’s approaching a skittish creature. Not one he cares to hurt, but one he’s curious to find if it’ll bite.
I don’t flinch when his fingers reach for my face. Instead of closing the distance for him, I let them hover just short of my cheek, the heat of him there without contact.
“What if I take it?” he asks, tone darker.
My body reacts before my mind does. My hand shoots up, my fingers wrapping tight around leather and bone, stopping him inches from my skin.
The room goes very still and I suck in a breath of anticipation.
Every mirror holds the same image; my hand on his wrist, his frozen mid-motion, the line between us sharp and undeniable.
For a heartbeat, I wonder if I’ve misjudged this.
Then a deep chuckle rolls out from beneath the mask, and I swallow at the unmistakable pleasure in the tone.
His other hand lashes forward and I yelp as it closes around my throat, my reaction immediate as I shoot up into his grip to get to my feet, our bodies knocking close. I narrowly duck my face to keep his mask from taking out my damn eye and still beneath the pressure he now holds.
He doesn’t completely close the pressure on my throat to still my air, but he doesn’t release me. I don’t bother releasing his other wrist either, not that it’s my immediate concern. His thumb strokes down my pulse and I swallow as his voice comes to me through the mask again.
“Why did you come to Pitch tonight, little fox?”
I would scoff at that nickname if he didn’t have me by the literal throat.
“Is this like the seat question?” I rasp.
“It’s not and it is, I suppose.” He murmurs and his thumb presses in on my pulse.
“Boredom,” I whisper when the wrist I hold slowly lowers. My fingers shift to keep hold of his wrist as it slides to my waist, holding me trapped against him completely.
“You can do better than that.” He growls low and I stumble when he pushes me back a step.
Christ, he’s strong. My feet forcing to give ground as he guides me until my back collides with the cool of one of the mirrors.
Thoroughly trapped as he presses his thumb into my throat again, this time there is real pressure.
“Shit, okay—I know. That’s why I’m here.” I croak and his thumb releases just enough to not be constant.
“Is that so?” I can hear the frown in his voice. His body shifts forward and I jerk slightly as his knee slides between my thighs. Those red flags I ignored? Well, they are now neon fucking signs telling me to behave because something is seriously off about the situation I’ve found myself in.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Because boredom and comfort are how I rot. And I don’t want to rot, I want to feel.”
There is a long silence and his body melts forward, my breath stutters at the way he seems to wrap around me.
His hand slides higher and his head ducks, the mask slipping against my cheek in a way that sends a shiver down my spine.
It also does something else but I’m choosing to ignore that for now, because that truly would be my one way ticket into insanity.
When in Vegas—rather when inside the funny farm in my instance.
“What did you want to feel, little fox?” he murmurs, his thigh pressing up.
I gasp, sharp tingles of anticipation striking through my core as he makes contact.
The leather of my skirt rides up my thighs as my eyes attempt to turn down.
Our bodies are too close though and all I get is more view of him with a side dose of reality on how fucking tall he is. He’s got to have a foot on top of me.
“I d-don’t know,” I stutter out and he adds pressure between my thighs.
Christ.
Warmth floods my veins and my cheeks darken as I stare up his chest at him. My own heaving despite the calm composure he so easily portrays. It’s vexing, this difference.
“We’ve established that I’m not fond of lies.” He murmurs and rocks his thigh just enough to have a groan building in my throat.
This is madness. My fingers clutching at him as my hips instinctively roll up his thigh for—what? Am I really going to play into this?
“Anything more,” I spurt out. “Anything other than complacency.”
He hums and his hand at my hip urges for me to shift. I moan softly and he chuckles, the sound rasping through the mask as he lets my head fall back against the mirror. The pressure is exquisite in the most fucked up way.
It’s clearly been too long since I’ve had sex, because I’m almost positive my pussy has gone and soaked through the scraps of fabric that separate our skin. And there is something immensely pathetic about that.
“Why are you so concerned with complacency?” He asks, his voice deceptively calm for how he grinds me down against his thigh. I squirm, but don’t immediately answer. He presses up harder, his fingers closing tighter against my hips to stall me out.
“I don’t know—I just… I don’t want to be stuck in one place forever, I guess.” I squeak out and he hums in approval. The mind-numbing friction starts anew and I whimper as I push up onto my toes.
To escape it? I don’t know.
His knee of course follows me up and I hear a low groan when my nails bite into the fabric above his bicep.
“How deeply do you want to feel, little fox?” he breathes out and I squirm again at the contact that—
Just isn’t enough.
“Deep,” I rasp and if I was capable of hearing a smile I swear I do.
He spins me and I yelp, my hands shooting out to slap against the mirror as his hold moves to the back of my neck. He doesn’t press my face forward but kicks my feet apart, my cheeks heating as I meet his eyeless gaze in the mirror over the top of me.
I know what’s coming.
Rational me would swing a bat and call it a day.
The captivated, twisted, curious part?
Yeah, she’s got rational me all fucked up.
Because she doesn’t stop him when he ducks the beak of his mask near her ear and his fingers sneak down to her skirt.
“Deep it is then.”