Page 9

You know I have them. You know why I wanted them. You know what I did while I had them in my hand.

Just for a moment I want you to close your eyes and imagine what I was seeing and feeling when I had your lace underwear wrapped around my cock. I want you to imagine the things I was imagining that had me coming all over my fist and that pretty lace.

That's it.

No pretending you don't know what happened.

Will you make yourself come to those images? Will you imagine hearing me call you a good girl when you do?

I like that more than I should.

I want you to know the effect you have on people, particularly me.

You walk around acting like attention happens to you by accident, like compliments are people being polite and anybody who thinks you're beautiful must have caught you on a particularly good day. I'm getting really fucking tired of that.

Be pleased with yourself once in a while. Actually, be smug, I think I'd like you smug.

I want to see what happens when you stop apologizing for taking up space and finally understand that people notice when you walk into a room, sweetheart. I noticed once and apparently never fucking recovered.

Be angry about the underwear if you want to be, because stealing them was objectively fucked.

And if some inconvenient little part of you likes knowing exactly what I did with that lace in my hand? Keep that too, you don't owe anybody an apology for being turned on.

Until tomorrow, gorgeous.

The bastard who owes you a pair of underwear.

P.S. If you call yourself ugly in that June photograph again, I'm making copies and leaving them everywhere you look. Bathroom mirror, fridge, inside the book you're reading, maybe one taped to the fucking ceiling above your bed if I'm feeling particularly petty. Consider yourself warned.

October 28

Hey pretty girl,

You and your friend didn't speak today, and yeah, I fucking noticed because every time your phone lit up you grabbed it too quickly, then tried to act like you hadn't when it was somebody else. You miss her even though you're still pissed off, and I know that because I watched the disappointment in your face whenever it wasn't her. I hate that I'm part of the reason the two of you are hurting, mostly because there isn't some other bastard I can blame for it this time and this one is on me.

I saw you had the black ribbon from the dress box sat on the coffee table until you picked it up while dinner was cooking and started playing with it.

At first you only looped it around one wrist, but then you brought both hands together and wound the ribbon around them, loose enough that you could slip free whenever you wanted. You looked down at your wrists for a few seconds, tugged against it experimentally, untied it, then did the whole thing again a little tighter. Fuck, pretty girl. I watched you turn your hands over, flex your fingers and study the black ribbon against your skin like you were trying to work out whether the sight did anything for you, and judging by the way that tiny smile showed up, I'm guessing the answer wasn't no. You even tried crossing your wrists once, pulled against the ribbon again and then laughed under your breath like you'd caught yourself doing something ridiculous. I didn't think it was ridiculous. I thought about it for the rest of the fucking evening.

That's what has me so wound up tonight. At the beginning of this I decided everything. I decided when I watched, when I followed, when another envelope appeared and how much of the ugly shit in my head you were allowed to see at once. Now you keep doing things I didn't arrange. You bought the mask after knowing what it made me imagine, touched yourself while reading something I wrote, smiled when you found out I stole the black lace you wore while getting yourself off, and now you're sitting in your own apartment testing how ribbon feels around your wrists because some part of you wanted to know. Every possessive part of me wants to take those things and call them proof you want me, but I know myself too fucking well for that. Give me half a reason and I can turn it into whatever answer I'm desperate to hear, so tonight I'm asking you for one I can't fake for myself.

There are three parts to the invitation, sweetheart, because I'm not leaving room for either of us to pretend later that we misunderstood. If you want me inside your apartment after you fall asleep tonight, leave the orange Halloween lights in the living-room window switched on when you go to bed. I'll be able to see them from outside, and if they're dark I stay the fuck out. If they're glowing, I'll come through the door, but I only come near the bed if you've tied that black ribbon in a bow around the bedpost. Then, before you fall asleep, put something over your eyes. Use the black sleep mask from your travel drawer, a scarf, whatever you want, as long as you can't see through it. It's still too early for you to see my face, and if you wake while I'm there I don't want recognition stolen from you because your eyes opened at the wrong time. If the lights are on but the ribbon isn't on the bedpost or your eyes aren't covered when I reach the room, I leave. No argument and no second interpretation.

If all three are there, I'll sit beside you for a while and touch only what I'm telling you about right now: your ankle through the blanket, because I've watched you curl one foot beneath the other whenever you're comfortable and I have spent a stupid amount of time wondering whether you'd do the same thing in your sleep if somebody rested a hand there; your hair, because it is always falling across your mouth or getting caught in your coat and I have wanted to push it back for months instead of standing ten feet away watching you fight with the fucking stuff yourself; your hand, because I know every little thing you do with it when you're nervous, the way your fingers tap against a coffee cup, twist your rings or curl into your sleeve, and I want to know what that hand feels like when it is completely relaxed and you aren't thinking about what anybody expects from you; and your wrist, sweetheart, because I have wanted to feel your pulse under my fingers since before I ever wrote Hello beautiful.

That one might be the hardest to explain without sounding even more fucked up than usual.

I have watched that little beat in your throat when you get angry, seen it jump beneath the skin of your wrist when somebody startles you and noticed how fast it gets when you're excited enough to forget you're supposed to look composed. I have spent months knowing your schedule, your coffee order, the stupid books you reread and which fucking side of the pavement you prefer, and somehow the thought of putting two fingers against your wrist and feeling proof that you are right there, warm and alive beneath my hand, has always felt more intimate than half the filthy shit I've imagined doing to you.

That is all I would do tonight, no matter how badly I want more.

I won't kiss you, get into the bed, put my hands under your clothes, move that ribbon from the bedpost to your wrists or turn this into anything sexual while you're asleep. I know exactly how badly that disappoints the part of my brain currently replaying you binding your own wrists, but you saying yes to me being in the room doesn't mean I get to keep adding shit because I want it, and I want you to know that before you decide whether those lights stay on tonight.

And yeah, my head has already taken that little scene somewhere much dirtier, because apparently watching you tie your own wrists once was enough to completely fuck my concentration. In that version we've already talked about it while you're awake, you've told me exactly what you want, and you're the one who puts the blindfold on and offers me your wrists because you liked the way the ribbon felt when you tested it tonight. I keep imagining you lying there knowing I might come in after you fall asleep, already turned on by the waiting, and knowing you chose every part of it is what makes me lose my fucking mind.

And fuck, pretty girl, once I started imagining the version where you actually give me that ribbon, I was useless for the rest of the night.

In my head we've already talked about everything while you're wide awake, so there's no guessing and no convenient little misunderstanding afterward. You tell me you liked the way the ribbon felt around your wrists tonight, liked pulling against it and feeling that little bit of resistance, and then you sit on the edge of your bed with the black sleep mask already covering your eyes and hold your hands out to me.