Chapter 2 Kieran
Kieran
“Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem, That my days have been a dream…” Edgar Allan Poe
The hospital has a particular kind of silence at night. It isn’t peaceful, it’s the kind of silence that hums with dread. Machines beep at irregular intervals. Nurses walk past with tired eyes and clipboards. The scent of antiseptic clings to my coat no matter how many times I leave and return.
Claire and I have fallen into a routine of taking shifts being with Deirdre.
Sometimes Gabe pops in to break up the monotony of being alone, bringing snacks we don’t touch.
The coffee, though, we’re basically surviving on.
She takes mornings. I take evenings until the nurses kick me out after visiting hours; however, one nurse is a little more lenient than the others and lets me stay longer now.
When Claire is here, she talks softly to Deirdre, sometimes reading aloud from a book or painting her nails in shades she insists are healing.
Mostly, we sit in the silence of not knowing.
Before Claire left for her shift today, she gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
“She’s fighting,” she says, her voice cracking.
I don’t respond. For a man who lectures for a living, I’ve lost the ability to express myself. I’ve retreated into this shell that is still my body.
But then, her fingers twitch.
Just once.
It’s slight, nearly imperceptible, but I see it. A flutter of life in her stillness.
Claire sees it too, and a breath of relief escapes her lips. “See? Don’t give up on her, Kieran. We’re losing you, too.”
I nod, but I don’t say anything. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll fall apart all over again.
I keep my chair pulled close to her bed, her hand in mine like it is a lifeline I don’t deserve.
Her skin’s warmer now, the color gradually coming back to her face.
The bruises are still there, but the swelling has gone down.
Every blink of the monitors, every flutter of her eyelashes that doesn’t lead to her waking, feels like a promise being held just within my reach.
It’s on Saturday night—Claire and Gabe are at Salvation working, that I attempt to doze off in the corner chair, but as the hospital lights dim for quiet hours, I let my mind wander.
Back to room seven.
Back to Salvation.
The space that was once my graveyard.
That room held a decade of self-destruction. Nights blurred by alcohol, pain, and faces I never remembered. It’s where I went to forget Alexis, to bury the guilt, the love, the wreckage of who I was before her death. But now…
I glance at Deirdre’s face. Peaceful. Unforgivingly still.
Now I want that room to become something else. Not a burial site, but a rebirth.
I think of her the night I first saw her on the club floor—rigid, eyes darting like prey, but with a kind of fire barely held together by fear. And me, behind the glass of the VIP room, recognizing that fire.
Back then, I’d wanted her.
Now, I want to build something for her.
Something elegant. More intentional. Still dark, still sensual—but layered in meaning. A room where touch isn’t laced in shame. Where she can be in control, or surrender, and both are sacred.
I think changing the room for her while I wait for her to wake up is the last sliver of hope I am holding on to.
I fish my phone out of my coat pocket and type a message to Vincent.
Kieran: I want to make some changes to room 7.
Vincent: It’s yours to do what you want, boss. Just let me know what you need.
Kieran: I think all the VIP rooms should be renovated.
Vincent: Expensive. But I’m open to hearing your thoughts. Meet me tomorrow night after close.
The music has faded to a dull pulse behind the walls. Most of the crowd is gone, just a few stragglers clinging to the edge of the night.
I pass one unwelcome straggler in particular as I walk through the VIP lounge to the hallway.
Miss Legs for Days.
I still chuckle at the nickname Deirdre donned for her. She had been a regular fixture of room seven for years, a symbol of what that room used to mean to me. Comfort in my grief and chaos. She became familiar with the form of practiced touch and rehearsed submission. It was just an act.
But tonight, I walked right past her. I didn’t stop.
Her voice followed me down the corridor, sultry and sensual, laced in confusion.
“You’ve been distant, Professor.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t look back.
Because all I could think about was her.
Deirdre and that first night she waited on me.
Jesus, it was supposed to be a normal night.
LeAnne would show up, I’d told myself I’d fuck her until I filled the void.
She would feel like she meant something more to me than just therapeutic sex, and I would wave her away when we were done, while I would sit and wallow in my grief.
For the three months that I had been seeing Deirdre around the club, this is what I would tell myself, like a pep talk of sorts.
But it never failed, I couldn’t bring myself to fuck LeAnne with this woman over taking my mind like a hurricane barreling towards an unsuspecting shore.
That night, when I walked in, Vincent told me my usual cocktail waitress, Precious, had called in, so the new girl would be waiting on me. I hadn’t divulged to him that she had caught my eye. I knew what he would say, so I just acted aggravated that I was being inconvenienced.
“It’s that new college girl. Tip her well. She needs it if she wants to pay for that snooty University of yours.”
I wasn’t paying attention. I knew who he was talking about. My stomach lurched into my throat. It was one thing to see her across the bar, but to be in that close proximity to her. I would have to convince my hands and dick to behave.
That was until she walked in with that damn tray and those guarded eyes. The look on her face was enough to shoot daggers into my soul, a warning not to touch her, to barely breathe in her direction. It was her only defense.
She was nervous. Not in the way most of the girls usually are when they wait on me for the first time, desperate for money, flirtatious, a little drunk on the dark, mysterious vibe of the room I had built for myself.
No, Deirdre looked like she’d rather be anywhere else, like she wanted to bolt out of that room as fast as possible.
But she was trying. Trying to appear unbothered and invisible.
I watched her quietly, from my seat in the middle of the room, as she timidly walked in. All she knew about me was that I was just another high-paying regular whom Vincent held up on a pedestal. She didn’t know the power I had over that place.
She set the wine glass down on the table in front of me—I was impressed she knew what I drank, but of course she did.
Gabe made sure all of the girls were well prepared before they came into my room.
But the way the words rolled off her tongue with ease, the way her voice was dripping with honey as she said something so simple as the name of the wine, it was hypnotizing.
I knew then I was utterly fucked.
Then she stood quietly for a moment. I tried my best not to engage until I couldn’t hold it anymore. “Is there a reason you’re still standing here?”
That did it. Then she sat down in the chair across from me and fired off another defense mechanism.
Her sharp tongue.
It was amusing. I fought the corners of my mouth from curling upward.
Fuck. I liked her.
And then she walked in.
Miss Legs for Days.
Practically vibrating with entitlement. She walked over to me, making it clear she was here for me, marking her territory like I was hers to claim.
It was a futile attempt; we both knew it.
The last three months consisted of failed meetups.
She would try to arouse me, and I would end up cursing and telling her to leave.
Then just like every other night, I’d sit in the darkness of the room and sulk.
Feeling the vibrations of the music, reveling in the one glass of wine I would drink.
Then, I would leave.
She tried to slide into my lap like she used to, all breathy and performative.
“Kieran,” she purred.
Before I could even answer, Deirdre caught the look on my face and began to turn away, clearly done with the awkward scene. She quietly walked out of the room and shut the door.
And that’s when it happened.
“LeAnne, this will be the last time we meet up,” I remember saying to her. My eyes focused on the shut door behind her.
She knew.
She scoffed, looking toward the door, “That frumpy thing, Kieran, really? Good luck with that.”
I could tell she was furious. She flipped her hair, making some biting remark under her breath.
She got off her knees and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.
I didn’t chase after her. I sat there in the dark room, frustrated that I had let Deirdre under my skin.
She probably thought I was yet another creepy regular, looking for entertainment before going home to an unknowing wife, like quite a few of the clientele here did most nights.
Room seven used to be the place I went to forget Alexis.
Now…
Now I want to rebuild it to remember Deirdre.
Not the version of her I first saw, timid, defenses up, but the version she has grown into in the last few months, whether she realized it or not. Stronger. Still soft in places, still figuring out how to trust the dark without being consumed by it.
If she ever returns to that room, it won’t be to serve drinks.
It’ll be to explore. To reclaim herself. To let me worship her the way I’ve wanted to since that first goddamn night.
Room seven is hers now.
Vincent meets me at the roped-off VIP entrance, arms crossed, eyes pointed. “You look like hell.”
“Feel like it too.”
I follow Vincent through the dark hallway, past rooms with lingering perfume and laughter, until we reach the door.