The Enigma (Unlawful Men)

My other name.

I pad slowly to the entrance, finding him sitting on the edge of the impressive egg-shaped glass tub as water pours from a waterfall faucet. “I remember saying more many times,” I remind him. I goaded him. Begged for it.

“You did.”

“You asked me to give you what I had, and I did,” I go on.

“You did.” He tips a small bottle of oil into the water, and the waft of lavender is instant. Isn’t lavender supposed to be calming? Does he think I need calming?

“James?” I ask quietly, and he looks at me. His eyes aren’t so cold now. They’re sorrowful, and it throws me. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know yet, Beau.” He rises to his full six foot four and eats up the distance between us with three strides of his long legs. His palms rest on my shoulders, and a few flexes nearly has me folding to the floor in pleasure, his firm fingers working deep into my screaming muscles.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean what I said. I’m yet to determine if I’m going to be okay.”

“Your scar,” I breathe, compelled to touch it. Feel it. Show him that it doesn’t bother me.

“You think it’s ugly.”

I lift my arm. “This is ugly.”

He stares at my damaged skin, stroking my arm, his eyes flicking to mine. “You’re yet to encounter ugly, Beau,” he whispers, dipping and kissing my scar. I breathe in deeply, caught between enchantment, wonder, confusion, and lust.

It’s so much better than being caught in limbo, between life and death.

My head falls back as James returns to working my muscles. Part of me wants him to leave them tight and painful; the ache will last a long time. The longer the better. But his touch on my skin is like nothing else.

He starts walking backward toward the tub, and I follow robotically, powered by his working fingers. “There,” he says, flipping the faucet off and feeling the water. He takes me under my arms, lifts me from my feet, and places me in the water. “Take as much time as you need.”

And then he turns and walks out, leaving me alone in the bathroom. I look at my naked body. At my scars. At the welts on my wrists.

Need. Take as much time as you need. I don’t need anything.

Especially not time. Especially not to think. And I definitely don’t want to lose the intense ache I’m feeling on every part of my body. It’s masking things I’ve struggled so hard to mask for too long.

I wash quickly, leaving my hair, and get out to dry myself with one of the crisp white Egyptian cotton towels. I go to the bedroom to find my clothes, snatching them up from the floor and tugging them on. I approach the mirror hanging on the wall. The whole of my front is exposed, my tattered shirt gaping open. I can’t go out in public like this. I glance around the room, not holding out much hope of finding anything to wear. This isn’t even his bedroom. It’s his kink room. The room he brings many people to and fucks them wildly with an audience.

Of their own volition, my teeth clench, and I hate myself for letting foolish resentment cloud the serenity. I spot a closet across the room, and, desperate, I go to it, pulling the doors open. I’m presented with another room. A walk-in closet. Floor-to-ceiling rails and various width drawer units span the circumference, and an enormous snuggle chair sits on an angle in the center. His closet. This is his bedroom?

I look back over my shoulder to the various contraptions attached to the walls, the cabinet full of toys, the leather chaise in the window.

Clothes.

I work my way through the rails trying to find something suitable, an old T-shirt or something. All I can see are suits, dress shirts, and jeans. I can’t go waltzing down in any of those. “Shit,” I mutter, starting on the drawers. I yank the first open. Boxers. The second. Socks. The third. “Watches?” I murmur, casting my eye across dozens of timepieces resting in cushions. I slam it shut. Where does he keep his plain old T-shirts?

I turn, seeing another unit of drawers. Wider drawers. I hurry over and pull the first open, being presented with a perfect pile of perfectly folded, crisp black T-shirts. There must be a dozen, all the same style. I grab one, discard my shirt, and pull it over my head as I make my way downstairs.

As my feet hit the staircase, I hear voices and see a couple sitting at the island with James. He’s leaning on the glass counter, supported by his forearms, and he’s now dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt to match the one I’ve just taken from his stash. They’re talking quietly, and my steps falter, my hand taking the metal rail. A couple. A man and a woman.