Chapter 8: Edge

I got him inside before he could say he was sorry.

My apartment is four rooms and a radiator that has two settings, off and the surface of the sun.

He stood in the kitchen with his coat on and looked at the dish rack.

"It's only a chair," he said. "The seat at the Hall. I've held it a hundred and sixty years and I've never once liked it."

"It's your supply. Your protection."

"I expect I'll manage."

"You're shaking."

"Yes," he said. "I'm afraid I am."

I took his coat.

I hung it on the hook by my own, where it looked like it had always lived.

Then I took his scarf off his neck, a long soft grey wool one, and held it in my hand.

"I have an idea," I said.

"Is it a good one?"

"It's excellent."

I walked him down the hall to my bedroom and sat him on the edge of the bed.

The radiator ticked and hissed.

I had a brass bed, which came with the apartment, and I'd always hated it, but tonight I was glad of it.

"Take your shirt off."

He did.

"Lie back. Put your hands over your head."

He did that too, and his eyes were fixed on me with a kind of dazed attention.

I looped the scarf around his wrists, twice, and tied it through the brass rails of the headboard.

I tied it firmly and not tight, and I checked it with two fingers.

"Can you get out?" I asked.

He tested it.

"Yes. If I pull."

"Will you?"

"No."

"Good."

I stood at the foot of the bed in my jeans and my work shirt, and looked at him.

He was pale and lean on my faded quilt, with his arms stretched over his head and his glasses crooked, breathing hard.

"A hundred and seventy-six years," I said. "Everybody's told you what you can't have. Tonight I'm going to tell you what you can, and when."

His throat worked.

"Anything. Please."

"You don't touch. You don't come until I say. And when you want something, you ask me."

"Ask you."

"Out loud. Every time."

A small shudder ran through him, head to foot.

"Yes," he whispered. "Oh, yes."

I took my time.

I undid my shirt button by button and dropped it.

I took off my bra and watched his eyes go black.

I shucked off my jeans and stood over him in my underwear, then took that off too.

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