Page 60 of The Triangle

“What?” he asks. I cock my head the other way. “Fucking what?” he asks more emphatically.

“Just… I was just thinking… That’s not the first time you and Christine naaied, izit?”

“What? Jesus. Will you just talk—”

“Shagged. Had sex. Fucked, man. That wasn’t the first time for you two?”

He breathes heavily through his nose. Like an angry bull. His chest rises and falls. Then, “It’s none of your fucking business.”

“Hawu! No fokken way, man! Really? And I was there to see it? Well, that is just too fokken perfect for words.”

He leaps to his feet. For a moment it looks like he’s going to bound over the desk and have a run at me. There’s a not insignificant part of me that wishes he would. I’d be curious to see if things would go differently than they did in the past. But he restrains himself. Which, to my mind, is really the only flaw Danny has. A willingness to override his instincts.

I suppose if the three of us were to be seen as one person, I’d be our id, consumed with fulfilling my desires and sating my appetites; Christine would be our ego, a realist, looking for ways to satisfy my demands while keeping harm from coming to her or me; and Danny would be our superego, curtailing, when he can, my feral desires, and encouraging Christine toward something greater than merely survival. Something that feels almost like… morality.

Yes. That all sounds about right. Danny… Danny still believes that there is such a thing as good and evil, fair and unjust, right and wrong.

As I say: His lone weakness.

He stares at me angrily once again. What he fails to understand, I think, is that I like it when he does. I enjoy seeing Danny’s buttons get pushed. Not because it causes him pain. But because he likes it. He thrives on feeling that heat. That rage. Just as much as I do. And he knows it. We both know he knows it.

“I don’t know how fuckin’ long we have to stay here,” he mumbles out, “but do whatever you gotta do to figure out what the fuck. Because we’ve already been here too long for my liking.”

“I will. I’ll get some answers.”

“How?”

“However it is I do the things I do. I’m magic, Daniel. Just enjoy the show.”

He rolls his eyes at me. Which gives me great pleasure. Because it means he still knows when I’m taking the piss. And he’s willing to play along.

I do love him so. I always have. I always will.

He turns and begins to walk out of the office.

“Danny…” I stop him. He spins back around. I smile at him.

“Yeah? What?”

I don’t say a word, just unlatch my cufflinks and begin unbuttoning my shirt. He watches me. Also not speaking. I finish unbuttoning, pull the shirttails from inside my trousers, strip the fabric off and throw it on the table, and stare at him. His breathing accelerates, and his eyes narrow in something that’s not quite anger.

I turn. My back to him. I stare at the glass wall that’s now facing me and can see his reflection floating amongst the trees outside. I speak to the ghost of Danny hovering there on the vitreous partition that gives us the illusion of protection. That, at the moment, is successfully housing us from whatever forces wait for us outside these walls.

“You forgot about it, didn’t you?” I ask.

The reflection looks toward the floor and shakes its head.

“No,” he says, still staring at the floor. “No. I didn’t forget.”

And then I watch as he turns his back to my back, stands there for a second, not moving, deciding—I’d like to believe—whether he should go or stay, and finally…

Exits the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - CHRISTINE

BEFORE

“Dance for me, Salomé! Dance!” Alec exclaims as I twist and turn, moving my hips in front of him and Danny.