Chapter 6: Dead Air

By Tuesday I had eleven hours to record forty pages, and the man under my floor had stopped banging.

He didn't need to.

He came up the stairs at ten with two bowls of pasta and a roll of foam tape.

I let him in without a word.

"You're recording tonight," he said.

"I have to finish The Duke's Last Mistake by morning or the publisher fires me."

"Then I'll stay quiet."

"You've never been quiet in your life."

"Watch me."

He sat on the end of my bed and ate his pasta in total silence.

I took mine into the closet with the quilt and the mic.

For two hours it went well.

I read the duchess's long speech to the duke, the one where she tells him exactly what she thinks of his family.

Costa stayed on the bed.

Once, I heard the springs creak when he stood.

At midnight I got to chapter twenty-two.

I knew what was on that page.

I had read it three times that week, and every time I had stopped on the same line.

The duchess has just been caught in the duke's library, in her nightgown, with a book in her hand.

He walks to her slowly.

He takes the book out of her hand.

I put on my headphones, I leaned into the mic, and I started to read.

"He put the book down on the table behind her," I said, in my low duchess voice.

"And then he put his hands on her waist."

The quilt moved.

Costa stepped into the closet.

He didn't say a word.

He just stood over me, huge in that tiny space, his head bent under the slanted ceiling, and his eyes fixed on my mouth.

I kept reading.

"He lifted her onto the table."

Costa took the headphones off my head, set them on the shelf, and put the microphone's foam closer to my lips.

Then he knelt on the closet floor between my knees.

I nearly lost my place.

I was sitting on the tall stool, in leggings and a thin tank top, with the pages in my lap.

His hands slid up my thighs.

He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my leggings and looked up at me, a question and a promise.

I held the page in front of my face with one hand.

With the other I pointed at the sentence.

Then I pointed at him.

And I mouthed, don't stop.

He smiled, slow and wicked, and he pulled my leggings and underwear down to my ankles.

"His mouth was hot on her skin," I read.