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That night, I had a dream that I was back in the 1600s, being tried as a witch in some back-ass-ward little village. I’d been lashed to a stake in the center of town, and all of these old white men were carrying torches, shouting that I was a mistress of Satan.
“Heretic!” they cried, shaking their fists. “Heathen!”
I never did find out what I’d done wrong because, seconds before I woke up, they gathered around me, chanted a prayer, and held their flaming sticks to the brittle straw beneath my feet.
I gasped and sat up with a start. Ken’s comforter was hot to the touch when I grabbed my toes through the puffy down, causing my half-conscious mind to assume that the bed was actually on fire. Looking around in a panic, I realized that I was not about to die. The bottom of the bed was simply hot because the sun was shining directly on that spot through the arched window above the bed.
Ken didn’t seem to mind the whole ants-under-a-magnifying-glass effect because he was curled up in a ball on the top corner of the bed where the sunlight couldn’t reach him. His back was turned toward me. His arms were clutching a pillow. And there were at least two feet of open space between us.
So much for cuddling all night.
I glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was a little after eight thirty. Too shaken from my near-death experience to go back to sleep, I curled up behind Ken, molding myself to his warm body, and planted a kiss on his shoulder blade.
“Ken…” I whispered.
“Hmm…”
“You have to get some blinds for that window.”
“Nuh-uh.” Ken shook his head and curled up tighter around his spare pillow.
“Why not?” I whispered.
“Custom,” he grumbled. “Expensive as fuck.”
I pouted even though he couldn’t see me. If I was going to spend the night there with any regularity, I’d have to get creative. A sheet over the window maybe? Or newspaper? That was what serial killers did, right? Ken would love it.
“Hey,” I whispered a little louder. “Do you want to go to the museum today? They have this exhibit that’s on loan from Paris…”
Ken grunted and pushed himself up into a sitting position, his back still turned toward me. The morning sunlight illuminated every red, raised laceration I’d inflicted upon him the night before, causing my hand to fly to my mouth and my heart to plummet into my stomach.
“Can’t.” He yawned, rubbing his face. “I have to work.”
“Ken, your back!” I squealed into my palm. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!”
Ken shrugged sleepily and stood up, revealing even more welts marring his perfectly high, tight ass.
Jesus Christ. I’m a monster.
Ken turned and looked at me for the first time that morning. His eyelids were heavy, his features relaxed. “It’s fine.”
I winced. “Does it hurt?”
Ken looked at me as if I’d just asked him the dumbest question ever uttered. His head tilted an inch to one side. His eyebrows rose fractionally. “You can’t hurt me,” he stated. As if it were obvious. As if I should have known better. Then, he walked his tall, toned, beautiful body across the room and out the door.
“You can’t hurt me.”
I stared at his open bedroom door, blinking away the sting from that offhanded comment.
“You can’t hurt me.”
His words echoed in my ears as I heard a shower turn on somewhere beyond that doorway.
YOU…can’t hurt…ME.
I knew that he was probably just referring to his pain tolerance and hadn’t meant anything personal by it, but that was not how it felt.
It felt like a slap to the face.
