“Just . . . here,” I throw down twelve dollars that I can ill afford to spare.
It’s the wrong thing to do. Josh is more offended than if I’d just stuck him with the check.
Too bad— I hurry out of the restaurant, back down Frederick Street, all the way back to my house.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been irritated by the way a man touches me—actually, it happens a lot. I have sensory issues, sound and touch affecting me worst. Tonight I’m keyed up ten times worse than usual. I feel like Peter Parker right after he gets bitten by the radioactive spider, when the onrush of super senses almost makes his brain explode.
I can still feel the hot moisture of Josh’s breath in my ear, and the patch on my arm where his fingers tickled me.
I can hear the shrill sound of Frank’s electric toothbrush, and the irritating buzz of the ceiling fan in the living room. Even the irregular clank, clank of its little metal chain swinging against the light.
I clamp my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t block out the sounds.
Breathing hard, I grab my headphones and turn on my music full blast.
Flopping down on my mattress, I try to lay still.
Sweat begins to trickle down between my breasts. This room is fucking stifling; it must be a hundred degrees.
I’m sleeping outside tonight. I have to.
Throwing the glass door open, I drag my mattress out on the tiny porch.
I lay down on my lumpy futon, headphones on my head, arms and legs outstretched.
A light sea breeze dances across my skin. The sky is thick with clouds, piled up in deep drifts of purple, ash, and indigo.
I close my eyes, sinking into the music, finally finding peace.
9
Cole
I had a meeting for the SF Artists Guild I was supposed to attend, but I skipped it in favor of further reconnaissance.
I found the house directly behind Mara’s listed on Airbnb for eight hundred dollars a night. After messaging the owner, I convinced him to cancel his next three bookings so I could take the place for a month, starting immediately.
So intense was my desire to spy on Mara that I probably would have bought the damn thing.
I drive over to the townhouse early in the evening, parking my Tesla at the curb.
The three-story Georgian isn’t nearly as nice as my own house, but it’s ten times more habitable than Mara’s. The pale oak floors look freshly polished, and the host left a bowl of foil-wrapped chocolates on the kitchen island, as well as stocking the fridge with bottled water.
As long as the house is clean, I don’t give a fuck about anything else.
Strike that—it’s the view I care about.
I climb the creaking stairs to the third floor, which includes an office, a small library, and a sitting room.
The library window is the one that looks across the back garden to Mara’s house. The beveled glass offers a watery view into the protected alcove of Mara’s balcony.
She could be forgiven for thinking that she has complete privacy in that space. The library window is small, set high up on the wall, divided into a dozen diamond panes.
I cut out the entire window with my glass cutters. Then I cover the space with black paper, leaving only a hole for my telescope.
From a distance, it will look like nothing more than a dark window into an empty room.
My efforts are rewarded when Mara rushes into her bedroom only twenty minutes later, before I’ve completed my preparations.
She rushes everywhere she goes, running from job to job, always late.
I respect the hustle, but her existence is tawdry and depressing. The thought of waiting tables, taking people’s orders, and serving their food is offensive to me. Picking up dog shit in the park for mutts you don’t even own is worse. I’m surprised she wanted to save herself the night Shaw took her, if this is all she had to come home to.
My interest in this hectic, desperate girl baffles me.
My desires have never been mysterious to me. In fact, they’ve always felt rational and natural.
Danvers irritated me, so I removed him from my sphere. I put his bones inside my sculpture as my own private joke. The art world is always looking for the symbolism behind the work. Fragile Ego proclaimed a statement that every viewer felt all the way down to their own hollow bones, without consciously understanding what they were perceiving.
This is the first time in my life that I’ve desired something without understanding why.
Out of all the thousands of women I’ve encountered, how did Mara catch my attention like a hook through the gills of a fish?
It’s not because Alastor threw her in my path. Or not only for that reason.