Page 23 of Monarch

“Don’t stop,” I look over my shoulder to tell her. “Just keep hitting me until I say one word.”

“Your safe word?”

“Yes.”

“Well?” She dangles the ends of the tresses over my thigh. It’s gentle and teasing and makes me feel nauseated. “What is it?”

I swallow. “Mari,” I say with closed eyes. “Now please. Make it hurt.”

“Very well, you strange little creature,” she says, and she lifts her arm.

I face ahead and take exactly what’s coming for me.

METAMORPHOSIS PART THREE: CATERPILLAR

Chapter Nine

Lex

Now

“What the fuck?” I say. Because what else is there to say?

Am I high? Did I take something at QISS? Was there a tab on someone’s tongue when I kissed them? Am I hallucinating? Because this can’t be happening. This is…impossible.

But I know I’m not high. I know I’m stone cold sober because I can feel everything I’m not supposed to be feeling as I start to really accept my reality, that Mari is really standing in front of me.Mari. I feel the coolness of panic. I feel the heat of surprise. I feel the warmth of looking into their blue eyes again, at taking in their soft, curvy body, at recalling what it felt like in my arms.

“Lexi?” they ask, a deep frown stitching their eyebrows together. They have a very short fringe, and the rest of their hair is an earlobe-length bob of messy curls, the ends dipped in purple. They look almost exactly the same as the day I last saw them, apart from the fact they’re wearing little more than a T-shirt, and that’s when I notice that the T-shirt is mine.

“Lex,” I respond eventually, not sure how I feel about them wearing my clothes, especially when only half a glance at their body makes me suspect they’re not wearing anything else. Not even a bra or binder.

“Lex,” Mari repeats, and it sounds like each letter stings their tongue.

“What the fuck is going on?” I raise my voice, hoping it will summon Roos.

For a second, I entertain the idea that they found each other because of me. That one of them – I’d put money on Roos – had the idea to put a post on social media about people who’ve been fucked over by Lex Williams, offering a ‘safe space’ to share their stories and commiserate together. And of course, Mari would reply. Mari would inform Roos that they were the original scorned lover, my villain origin story. Considering that Mari was my first and Roos was my last, it almost has some air of kismet or fate that they would find each other.

Not that I believe in that horse shit.

“I could ask you the same question.” Mari crosses their arms and leans against the side of the open door, effectively blocking my entrance into the flat.

“You’re standing in my ex-girlfriend’s apartment,” I tell them, and when their face becomes slack with shock, I know that my silly little fantasy was exactly that.

“You’re Roos’ ex?”

“Yes,” I confirm through gritted teeth. “What isn’t very clear is what you are to her.”

By the blush in Mari’s round cheeks, I already know the answer before they speak. “We hooked up.”

My stomach sinks. No, plummets. I feel winded by a knife piercing through both ventricles of my heart.

“Since when?” I decide to stick the knife in a little deeper.

“Last night,” they answer, and I know they’re being honest because I’m pretty sure my face is giving enough away that they could have said much longer if they wanted to, just to hurt me. Suddenly, they turn away from staring at me coldly, and they rest their forehead against the door. “The gallery… Of course.Fuck.”

“What about the gallery?” I demand. I feel ridiculous standing in the corridor like a fool wearing yesterday’s clothes and the arousalof at least three other people on my skin, but I’m not about to push Mari to let me in. I keep expecting them to slam the door in my face.

“I bumped into Roos there,” Mari says, still more talking to themself. “She must have been there to see your exhibit, just like I was.”