Page 96

The sensory explosion of color, scent, touch, sound.
The depth of the gift.
I walk further in. The air is warm, like this room expects you to take your clothes off and stay awhile. My perfume is here too. Familiar and personal. It weaves around me, tells my deeper parts that this is my space. Because, of course, what my perfume clings to is mine.
The music in this room isn’t something I composed. But it feels like it could be. Low, intimate, layered in strings and seduction and heat.
And then there’s the red.
Not lipstick red. Not lingerie red. This is deeper. Darker. Richer. A crimson you don’t wear; you sink into. It’s in the velvet of the blanket on the chaise. In the low-lit corners. In the faintest tint of light cast across the mirrors’ edges. It doesn’t scream. It hums.
The amber lighting continues into this room. A soft spotlight highlights the chaise. Candles flicker. Shadows dance. My skin glows under it like it’s been waiting for this specific hue all its life.
Amber saysyou’re safe here.
Red saysyou won’t leave the same.
And together, they saythis room was built to worship.
I trail my hand along surfaces as I walk through the room, fingertips skimming over velvet, silk, cool leather, steel. Over the hanging velvet robe that has my initials embroidered in silver on the pocket. Over furniture that looks functional. Very much not the kind you’d find in a living room.
There’s a bench that’s low and padded, with shaped curves and straps that make my brain spin. A tall chair that’s less about sitting and more about watching—luxurious, oversized, the kind of throne a man like Gage would sit in while turning me inside out with just his eyes.
Mirrors are everywhere. A tall one behind the throne, which means if I’m watching him touch himself, I can see both himandme watching. A low angled mirror near the chaise for a voyeuristic perspective from below. Panels of mirrored shelving reflecting the sensual toys. Horizontal mirrors positioned near furniture for viewing pleasure. And a mirror stretched across the ceiling above the chaise—the room centerpiece—its edges kissed with that same deep crimson light.
But tucked between the kink and the luxury, the Gage of it all?
There’s me.
Photos. Not blown up and framed like a trophy. No. He’s scattered framed photos of me on the walls, tucked between shelves and candles and mirrors like pages from a secret journal. Three in this corner. Two over there. Single photos every now and then. Photos he’s taken when I wasn’t aware or have simply forgotten. He’s caught me mid-laugh, hair wild, happiness all over my face. Shots taken from behind while I’m playing the piano. The tiny moments in life where I’m just being me, all seen through his eyes.
Then, leaning in close, I see the thin brass strip, mounted to the wall. A single bar of music etched into it. It’s mine. One of my favorite progressions, one I never finished, but he must have heard me play a dozen times.
Near that, I spot pages of my sheet music. My handwriting scribbled all over, splattered with coffee stains, corners curled. Discarded drafts. Things I threw out because they weren’t perfect. Gage saved them.
I move to the last shadowed alcove and still.
A black velvet box hangs on the wall, lit by soft light. Inside it, resting with care, is a single ivory piano key.
I turn into Gage, who is still just watching me without a word. “You did all this?”
It’s not even a question I need answered. I know he did. But I ask anyway. Because I’m standing in a room that feels like a sanctuary where nothing is random and everything means something,and I am not okay.
He nods. “You said you wanted a room.”
I stare at him.
Blink.
Forget how to breathe.
I’m over here in sensory and emotional overload, thoughts in a tangle, emotions in whatever is more than a tangle, and he’s just over there saying, “You said you wanted a room,” like he just shrugged at my request and thought to himself,okay, I’ll take a crack at it, see what I can build.
“Okay,” I blurt as I fling an arm at the room, “thisisn’t a room. This is so much more than a room, Gage. This is”—I struggle to find the words as I glance around—“chaises, and mirrors, and leather, and silk, and velvet, and candles, and mood lighting, and color, and my music that I don’t even know how you got, and my perfume.” I stop to catch my breath, finding his eyes again, and slowing all the way down at what I see there. Atthe look that I don’t feel ready to name yet, but,oh god, I feel it too. All of it.
“This is,” I continue, but the words get caught in my throat.
This could have just been a kink room. Just a fantasy space.