Page 67 of Suite 7

I cared. About his trust. About what I’d agreed to and what that agreement meant. About who I am in this — not the rule itself, but the choice behind it. Whether the surrender is real, or something I only perform when he’s watching.

And I used his own words to do it. Took the instruction he gave me and picked it apart like a contract clause, like a press release that needed a better angle. Found the gap in take care of yourself and walked straight through it.

He told me this lesson lives everywhere. Even when I’m alone. Even when he’d never know.

Especially then.

I already knew that. I just found out I’m not there yet.

I turn off the water with shaking hands. Wrap myself in a towel.

I don’t recognize the woman in the mirror, not because she looks different, but because she watched herself do something she’d already decided to do and called it logic.

My phone sits on the bathroom counter.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I pick it up.

Me: I need to tell you something.

Send. Then:

Me: I touched myself in the shower. I know I wasn’t supposed to. I took what you said, take care of yourself, and I built a case for why it counted as permission. I was very thorough about it. Very logical. And I knew the whole time it wasn’t the point. I’m sorry.

The messages sit there, read receipt appearing almost immediately. Three dots. Disappear. Appear again.

Then vanish entirely.

Five seconds. Ten. Thirty.

Is he done with me? Did I ruin everything?

A full minute. Then two.

Not a text.

A call.

Kane’s name flashing on the screen. My thumb hovers. I swipe.

“Hello?” My voice comes out small.

“Tomorrow. Seven PM. My place.” His voice is even. Controlled. Not cold — but stripped of everything warm. “We need to talk about what trust means.”

A beat of silence. Then he’s gone.

I lower the phone slowly, standing there with my towel damp and my hair dripping and the tiles cold under my feet.

This was Kane with all the softness pulled out, and I don’t know what’s waiting for me on the other side of tomorrow.

He didn’t say it was over. Just gave me a time and a place.

Tomorrow. Seven PM.

That’s all I have. And it has to be enough.

11 Sloane

Wine poured, the good Burgundy, the Gevrey-Chambertin I’ve been saving since September for a Friday that actually deserved it. Takeout ordered from the Thai place three blocks over, the one with the inconsistent pad thai I keep ordering anyway because the green curry is transcendent and hope is a powerful force.