11. Camille #3
I nod and step back. “I’ll get you something to drink,” I tell him. “When you’re finished, come to the bedroom.”
He says nothing, but as I towel myself dry and dress, I hear the careful rhythm of his own movements. He is rebuilding himself.
I go to the kitchen and pour cold water into two glasses. I slice a peach and arrange the pieces on a plate; fruit and water are the best cure for syncope, for the post-adrenaline crash.
When I return with the water and fruit, Ryan is already out of the shower, standing on the bath mat, towel hitched low on his hips.
The bruises at his neck have darkened to a wine-stain purple, my handiwork rendered in unrepentant color.
He’s brushed his hair flat and slick, exposing the long sweep of his jaw, the faint shadow under his chin.
He looks unsteady but determined, and also—absurdly—like he’s preparing to flee.
He startles when he notices me, but catches himself. “Hey.”
I set the glasses and the plate on the vanity. “You are finished so soon?”
His mouth twists. “Yeah. I, uh, must use less product than you.”
He reaches for his overshirt, shrugs it on over bare skin, and fumbles for his shorts I left on the counter. “I’ve got to get going, by the way. I’m… supposed to call my brother.”
We both know he does not have a brother.
I step in front of the door, not to bar it, but to force his attention. “You shouldn’t leave so soon after. You will feel worse after a few minutes.”
He tugs the towel free, friction-roughing the skin at his neck, then wraps it around his hair. “I’m literally fine.”
I pick up the glass and hand it to him. “Drink.”
He scowls at the water, then at me, but drinks. His lashes cling together in wet spikes, and his lips are still swollen from where he bit them—again, my fault. These marks, this aftermath, are all that’s left of me on him, and I hate that he’s already working to scrub them away.
“It’s not like I didn’t have dinner,” he mutters.
“It is not about food,” I say. “It is a chemical thing. You will crash and feel bad.”
He pretends to ignore the peach slices, but his eyes linger on them before skipping away.
“You don’t have to do the aftercare routine with me, Camille,” he says, voice flat. “I know the drill. I’ll be fine.”
I cross my arms and lean against the vanity, watching him get dressed as if at any moment he might vanish. “You are used to being choked and fisted?” I ask skeptically.
He chokes on air, then splutters, “No, of course not—I just… I’m just fine. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“It would be best—”
“Camille.” He finishes the water in two gulps and sets the glass back with a clang. “Not to be a dick, but… I should really go. I don’t need anything more from you than sex.”
A long, cool moment passes between us, the kind that usually precedes the click of a lock rather than an invitation closer.
I consider whether to press the issue and force him to acknowledge how much he craves care, or whether to let him slip away, pretending that what we did wasn’t a disassembly and reassembly of his entire self.
But there are agreements, after all, and I have always preferred the precise honor of contracts over the mess of human emotion.
“Fine,” I say, voice as dry as the glass he’s just drained. “If that is what you wish.”
“It is.”
I watch him lie. He can’t meet my eyes. There is a tremor in his fingers that has nothing to do with withdrawal and everything to do with what I just did to him—what I let him become.
“Ryan,” I say, just before he can bolt. He pauses. I reach past him and set the peach plate into his hands. “Take this with you. For the chemical thing.”
He glances at the fruit, then at me. For a moment I think he might hand it back, but—perhaps out of spite—he snags a wedge between his teeth and bites down, juice running over his lips. He chews, swallows, then says, “Thanks. For the… hospitality.”
“My pleasure,” I answer, and it’s not even a lie.
He turns away, shoulders set, and I let him walk out. I listen to his footsteps echo down the corridor, the front door opening, the click of it closing behind him. Only then do I let my body go slack, the tension draining away so suddenly that I have to brace myself against the marble.
Outside, the rain has started, staccato against the glass.
I picture Ryan, walking across the estate with his hair damp and his shorts still clinging to his thighs, eating my peach slices out of pure stubbornness.
I imagine the taste of me still thick in his mouth, the pressure of the belt ghosting his pulse, the row of bruises I left on his neck.
I want to call after him—to say something about the next time, to warn him that it doesn’t get easier, that the hunger only expands to fill the vessel you give it. Instead, I gather the evidence and return to the lab to clean and to finish the work I’d abandoned.
The venom has congealed at the bottom of the collection cup, a viscous golden bead, and for a moment I am reminded of the tear that clung to Ryan’s eyelashes as he came apart for me, refusing to ask for anything he could not take himself.