Page 26

TWENTY-SIX

AMETHYST

After picking up my prescription, I walk over to Wonderland. Wonderland is a sex supermarket designed to look like a red room of pain with its black furniture and scarlet walls. It sells everything from dirty books to dungeon furniture, including fetish clothes and toys.

Myra appears from behind a table crammed with dildos, only to disappear behind a pair of mannequins dressed head to toe in leather. I try the door, but it’s locked, so I knock on the glass.

Up until last year, Myra worked for a literary agent, but then her boss was caught embezzling clients’ funds. The entire team got fired, including Myra. No other company in the industry would employ her after the scandal, forcing her to give up her downtown studio. Now, Myra does this part-time gig to pay off her student loans while she builds her freelance business.

The owner of Wonderland made her audition for this new job in one of their basement playrooms, where she discovered he’s a Dom with a pierced cock. Apparently, he’s really hot, comes from old money, and lives in a mansion at the top of Alderney Hill. He’s our age, and his family owns all the stores on this block. She thinks he’s the ultimate catch, but I can’t get over his red flags .

What kind of man demands kinky sex from a woman to qualify her for a job?

This is where Myra and I are different. I have sexual hangups and she’s a free spirit. I’m coddled by Mom and Dad, while she’s fiercely independent.

Myra could have turned to her parents for help while she was building up her business. They’re both wealthy lawyers with a real estate business and live in a mansion in Queen’s Gardens. She won’t accept a dime from them because they want her to go to law school, like her older sister, Martina, who’s a high-profile attorney.

When she reappears from behind the mannequins, I knock on the glass again and wave. She startles before jogging over to me with a broad smile. The door opens, letting out a cloud of rosemary and sage.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Just came from the therapist.” I hold up my bag from the pharmacy.

Her smile fades and she moves aside to let me in. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I step into the store and set down my drugs on the counter. “Just wanted to get back on my meds so my mind could sift through what’s real and what isn’t.”

She nods. “Good idea. Are you still seeing ghosts?”

“Dreaming about them, now,” I mutter. “Any word from your boss?”

“Cesare hasn’t called,” she replies with a sigh. “I’m beginning to think he’s found someone else.”

“You said he runs lots of businesses…” I leave the rest of the sentence hanging. A man who has sex with one woman as part of their interview process is likely to do the same with another.

“Maybe he’s found fresh meat,” she replies with a shrug. “I’m already over him. Have you completed the manuscript?”

I shuffle on my feet and grimace. “I have writer’s block.”

She frowns. “Because you didn’t go to the wedding?”

“That’s part of it,” I reply with a grimace.

“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about making your story public? Not after I bought us tickets for the book fair?—”

“No…” I raise my palms. “It’s nothing like that. People don’t want to read about me wallowing in my guilt.”

“But they might want to read about the ghosts.” She rubs her chin.

“There’s only one,” I lie.

She waves away that comment. “You said Xero’s ghost sent you a text about Kayla keeping one of his sex toys. Why not include that in the book?”

“And profit from her death?” I whisper, trying not to sound scandalized.

“How is this different from writing about Xero’s?”

Guilt claws its way through my chest, and my shoulders sag. She has a point, but something about this situation doesn’t sit right.

“What’s wrong?”

“Xero said my relationship with him was a sham to sell a book.” I mutter.

“Was that before or after his execution?” She disappears into a storeroom and emerges with a cardboard box.

I fold my arms. “What are you saying?”

“Answer my question. When did Xero accuse you of faking your relationship?”

“A few hours after his official time of death.”

Myra sets the box down and begins pulling out crotchless panty sets, marking their quantity off on the inventory sheet. “There you go,” she replies with a nod. I raise my brows, prompting her to continue, and she adds, “You’re devastated for letting him die alone, and now the guilt is manifesting as his ghost.”

“Since when did you become an expert in mental health?”

She turns around, places both hands on my shoulders, and looks me in the eyes. I can’t stand to see myself reflected in her irises, so I focus on the bridge of her nose.

“Who do you see every time you try to sleep with a man?” she asks .

Stepping back, I turn toward a rack of leather cuffs. “It’s not every time.”

“You’re too afraid of intimacy to try hooking up with anyone else. What Mr. Lawson did to you was grooming and abuse. He deserved to die, but you still have unresolved issues.”

Someone needs to tell my subconscious, because it hasn’t gotten the message. It would find a way to screw with my happiness even if I met Mr. Perfect, who was alive and not behind bars.

“I know,” I reply, “That’s why I’m going to take my meds.”

“Don’t they make you dizzy and sleepy?” she asks.

“And a bunch of other unwanted symptoms.” I run my fingers through my curls. “But I’ll put up with anything as long as it helps me sift through the delusions and what’s real.”

With a sigh, she opens another box containing silver nipple clamps, and I help her put them on the shelves. I really want to finish that manuscript, but writer’s block is real. Sometimes, I wonder if she thinks I’m a lost cause. After completing the restocking, she leads me behind the counter.

“Have you read Dracula?” she asks.

What kind of question is that? Have I read a staple piece of Gothic literature among the dozens I have on my shelves? Myra knows my favorite subject at school was English Lit. She might as well have asked if I’m familiar with Poe.

“Of course,” I reply with a frown.

“And Frankenstein?”

“What are you getting at?”

“What do they have in common, apart from being about monsters?”

I chew my bottom lip. “They were both written in the eighteen-hundreds, both major players in the horror genre?”

“What else?”

“Umm… There’s at least a hundred movies based on both?”

She shakes her head. “Think about the structure.”

“Dracula had a few chapters at the beginning like a regular novel, then it was journal entries, newspaper clippings, and letters. Then Frankenstein also used letters and different points of view? ”

She claps her hands together. “Do the same. You’ve scanned the letters, right?”

“Yes?”

“So we’ll include those in the manuscript. I’ll forward you the emails I sent Kayla to set up the mailing address and that kind of thing. We’ll reprint transcripts of your viral videos where you comment on newspaper articles, along with the letters you both exchanged.”

I rub the back of my head. “There’s a lot of personal information about my past.”

“Then we delete anything you find intrusive.”

“What about all the work I’ve done so far?”

“Shove it in. I’ll cut down any duplicates.”

“And the ending?”

“Write your speculation on what happened to his soul.” She makes jazz hands. “We’ll include text message exchanges between you and me about what happened to Kayla, and then?—”

She freezes.

My brow furrows, and I wait for her to complete the thought, but her eyes go wide. I turn to see what’s gotten her so spooked, but all I see is a rack of canes.

“Myra?” I tap her shoulder.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“What?”

“I drove to Gavin’s apartment after work and rang the bell. The guy next door said he left the day before in an ambulance but hasn’t yet returned.”

My breath hitches. I already know the rest of that story, but still ask, “What happened?”

“He says a masked man broke in, and forced him to drink two bottles of cognac, but he passed out after the first. He woke up later, covered in vomit and booze, with his hand burned. All five of his fingers were missing.”

After leaving Myra at work, I drove straight back to Mom and Dad’s, where I took my medication. Within minutes, I went straight to sleep and spent the rest of the morning in bed. They say it takes several days to see its effects,but in my case, the delusions rolled away by the evening.

The drugs numbed the shock of Myra confirming Gavin’s injury, and by the time I thought to check the overnight bag, the envelope and the fingers inside it were gone. I tried calling to check on his wellbeing, but I think he’s blocked my number.

I probably shouldn’t have flown into a rage at Dr. Saint. She was obviously rattled about something other than me, and had agreed to an emergency appointment, despite reeling from whatever happened to her bandaged hand.

Mom had gotten my hopes up with the suggestion that I might be able to listen to my recordings, and getting turned down by the doctor ignited my temper. It’s no excuse for lashing out, but I need to uncover the mystery of that photo.

The next few days pass in a drowsy haze as the drugs work their magic on my mind. In between lengthy naps, I type Xero’s letters into a document, along with my replies. I rework parts of the original manuscript into journal entries until I have fifty-thousand words of content.

One night, I awaken tangled in sheets and covered in sweat from erotic nightmares. My clit throbs so hard that I have to relieve the pressure with my fingers and bite down on my bottom lip to stifle my moans. Every dream involves the same creature—a masked and hooded figure with glowing eyes.

During bouts of lucidity, I type out transcripts of my viral videos to add to the manuscript, along with some of the worst troll comments. Since I can’t come up with a satisfying ending, I’m using a bit of creative license with a cyber-stalking subplot about an unknown copycat.

The transcribing goes well until my entire account gets banned for community guidelines violations again, making my videos, along with the troll comments I needed to pad out the manuscript, go poof.

All that bullshit I went through with Gavin was for nothing. I’ve lost my account, along with a large chunk of my cash.

Mom continues to keep me separated from Uncle Clive, but I catch glimpses of him sitting in the garden with his gaze fixed on my window. Meanwhile, my stalker sends disturbing dick pics set against a black backdrop.

On the seventh day, she comes in under the pretext of changing my sheets and asks about my plans to return to Parisii Drive. I mumble something about needing a safe space to complete my manuscript. When she continues pressing me to leave, I ask her why Dad hasn’t come home, which has her rushing out.

That night, I bolt awake in the middle of the night to the thud of heavy footsteps. Cold air swirls around the room, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

Pins and needles prickle across my skin, awakening every nerve ending through the fog of drugs. My heart races in a sluggish rhythm, and my stomach roils with cold dread.

It’s happening again.

Every nightmare returns to full clarity. The Grim Reaper who haunts my dreams will step out of the shadows to demand answers. Then, after he’s interrogated me until my voice is hoarse, he’ll begin the sexual torment.

He’ll edge me until I’m on the brink of release, and then he’ll leave me humiliated, frustrated, and begging him to let me come. When I’m crying out for release, he’ll drag me into unconsciousness and return the next night to continue the eternal edging.

Just when I think I’m in sleep paralysis, I twitch my fingers, but they respond to my command. My eyes snap open to a dark figure obscured by one of my bedposts.

Alarm squeezes my chest. This isn’t the tall, hulking grim reaper who teases me in my sleep. He’s shorter, more slender, more sinister.

“Who’s there?” I ask, my voice catching.

Uncle Clive steps out from the shadows, the whites of his eyes glowing in the semi-darkness, his bony hands clutching a pillow. His tawny hair stands up at all angles like he’s run his fingers back and forth through his scalp the entire night.

I scramble back across the mattress until I’m pressed against the headboard, then I scream, “What are you doing?”

He rushes at me with the pillow and snarls, “I know what you did!”