Chapter 7: Ice Bucket

On Thursday morning we sat through four hours of breakout sessions at opposite ends of a pine-paneled conference room.

I presented the Ridgeline tent poles to thirty people with a laser pointer.

Drake presented the hip belt, and at one point, when he turned to the screen, the back of his neck was red.

I knew exactly why.

It's a hard thing, to know what a man looks like with his wrists tied, and then watch him talk about webbing.

At lunch he found me by the coffee urn.

"It's Thursday," he said, very quietly.

"I'm aware."

"That's my day. I want to cede it."

I put down my cup.

"You can do that?"

"Rule seven. The keeper may cede the day."

"I wrote rule seven."

"I read it very carefully."

He didn't look at me.

He looked at the urn, and his voice stayed level, but his ears were dark.

"Tonight I'm yours," he said. "Do what you like."

I took a long breath.

"I'll think about it," I said, and walked off with my coffee shaking in my hand.

I thought about it all afternoon.

At seven we left the group dinner early, with a story about a call to the East Coast.

And Odette watched us go over the rim of her water glass.

In Room Nineteen the fire was lit again.

It was a different feeling from the night before, heavier and sweeter.

Drake stood by the bed with his hands at his sides, still dressed.

"Take off the tie," I said.

He took it off, a dark blue silk, and held it out.

I took it from him, and wound it once around my fist.

"Undress. Lie down. Hands up."

He lay back on the bed with his arms over his head, naked, broad.

His skin tan against the cranberry quilt and the grey in his chest hair silver in the firelight.

The headboard was pine, with two thick posts.

I tied his wrists to them, one at a time, with the silk and a knot I learned from my father's tow straps.

"Too tight?"

"No," he said. "God, no."

"Pull."

He pulled.

The posts creaked, but the knot held, and his whole body went taut, and I saw him realize that it held.

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