Page 5 of Little Author

I used to think fear and arousal lived on opposite sides of the map.

It turns out, they ‘rented’ the same flat.

The morning arrived, and I still hadn’t cried. I didn’t report last night. I didn’t call anyone. I just held that damn black button like my life depended on it, and masturbated with it.

I was in my reading chair, the one I only ever used for editing and rereading the same sentences fifty thousand times over, before eventually leaving them unchanged.

I sat there in nothing but a robe, legs spread, wet fingers moving in slow, indulgent circles while I held the black button in my palm like a gift.

I was going to hell. I already knew that, and I think my mother knew it too, so she was constantly reminding me of Sunday brunches.

Someone was watching me last night.

I didn’t have proof. Just the hum in my veins. The chill up my neck. The knowing that they saw what I was doing and liked it.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone back to that damn crime scene, knew I should have kept walking when the guys broke off into a weird silence. But I was a stupid feral bitch that craved excitement like my novels.

I imagined Roux there. Maybe he was on the roof across the street, or in the alley beside the bus stop. Or, maybe he was under my skin, licking at the space between my spine and my soul.

His eyes were always so cold. So calculating. Having only seen them behind glass, it was still enough to make me feel the ice in my veins.

Could he see the fire he set inside me? Would he even remember who I was?

I was basically an annoying student to an underpaid psychologist. For all I knew, Roux would not have bothered even looking at me.

He barely spoke while he was in there. The man probably kept his delicious dark words to himself. The entire hour I spent trying to get information about cases was spent with just that silence and cold stare.

God, what does his wicked mouth sound like? Do his victims get to hear his words before he kills them?

I came hard and loud…without shame. Singing for my obsession before his cages. And after, I sat there trembling and flushed.

“Roux,” I whispered his name without realizing I’d said it aloud.

I never said it out loud, not in interviews, not in therapy, and definitely not in bed.

My character, Rue, was the closest people knew to the truth.

I dressed carefully, ready to go back to the prison. Ready to try to piece together how exactly Roux did it. He must have bribed a guard or threatened them. He was the one who’d killed that girl.

Not the patsy they were pinning it on…a dumb student with a bomber jacket did not randomly kill a woman and drag her to a fountain, even if he was actually guilty of murdering his friend, which was plastered all over the news this morning.

I couldn’t believe the media and the cops seemed to settle with this story rather than the obvious mark of Roux—The Maestro!

I knew Roux liked women. His kills were usually women.

Maybe the reason I felt so obsessed was that I fit into his perfect category.

I lived alone, not even a damn cat to warn me if someone broke in.

I had light brown hair and lighter eyes.

I wasn’t a supermodel blonde who looked flashy.

I blended into any supermarket, the same as the rest of his victims.

Maybe I was truly crazy, and the more I kept checking my outfit, dressing it down to look more ostentatious and slutty, the more I realized just how much my fiction bled into my reality.

Stockings. Lace. A skirt short enough to feel like a dare.

No panties. Just the soft threat of exposure between my thighs, a white shirt that showed how badly I needed to stop skipping fitness day, and advertising my brand of bra was the icing on the lust trap cake.

He wouldn’t be able to be quiet with this look.