Page 14 of Don’t Scream

Then the grey coverall turns and walks out. I do not see where it goes.

Rhys Preswood

Thursday, October 30th. 4:00 a.m.

I cannot sleep in that house.

The photo is still on my phone. Me on the couch with the towel in my lap and the glass in my hand. Then the text about the window. Do not touch yourself. That cock is mine now. I tried the bed. I tried the chair by the window. I got up twice and checked the lock I had already checked. At four I take the car and shut the gate behind me. The trees are still black. I leave the radio off. I keep looking at the empty passenger seat like Shane should be sitting there, and then I remember I have not called him. The road is so empty I can hear my own indicator. I think about turning the car around. I do not. If I go back to the house I will sit in the dark with that photo and wait for the next one.

Preswood Tower has one light on in the lobby. The man at the desk looks up, sees it is me, and goes back to his screen. Somewhere above us a cleaner is working. I hear the wheels on the floor. The sound stops, then starts again. I do not go up to thirty-nine.

I go to the gym.

I didn’t come here to train. I came because the house still felt watched, and this water is mine.

The gym is dark except for the signs over the doors. I can smell rubber and metal and last night’s sweat that no one has wiped down. I stop at the bench and take my clothes off. Shirt. Trousers. Watch. Socks. Underwear. I put the phone on the bench next to the towel, screen up. I do not bother shutting the locker.

I go into the shower naked and turn the tap until the heat hurts.

I stand under it until my shoulders drop. Water over my hair. Over my chest. Down my stomach. Over my cock. Forty-two years old and in my own building before dawn like that will take Tuesday off my skin. I soap my neck. My chest. Lower. I wash my cock the way I wash my hands, not as a thing I am offering anyone. There is no one here to make it into something else. I put a palm on the tile and stay there until the water runs clear of soap. My heart is still racing. I stand there and wait. It stays too fast.

For a minute it almost works. The heat. The soap. I feel clean. Then I remember the photo of my own mouth, and the water does not help.

I shut the water off.

Cool air hits wet skin. I step out and bend for the towel.

The phone lights up.

A photo.

My back. Wet. Bent over. The towel in my fingers. My ass in the shot. Taken from the doorway behind me.

I stand up so fast the towel hits the floor.

Another photo lands before I can unlock the first. My face. My chest. My cock. Same room. This second.