Page 35 of Salt Kiss
I eat my cold steak and some dessert.
I put my shirt back on and then sit on the couch.
I fall asleep there, in front of the food and champagne I ordered, fighting the urge to feel like I’ve been stood up.
But I can’t fight it, and the bitter loneliness of it follows me into my dreams, where I don’t dream of Sims exactly but of standing with Sims in an alley, the alley where McKenzie died.
He hadn’t been there, not in real life—but also in real life I hadn’t been miserable over a man I hadn’t even met yet.
We stand there over McKenzie’s body and I can’t feel anything other than Mark’s rejection, even with one of my dead best friends at my feet. And Sims turns to me and says, with blood running out of his mouth,What, you thought he might change his mind about you?
When I flutter my eyelids open a few hours later, it’s to the blue haze of pre-dawn, and there’s a tall figure standing in front of the couch, looking down at me.
My body must already recognize him because I don’t jolt up with adrenaline. My heart speeds in a very different way than with fear.
“I hope you treated yourself to the good champagne,” says Mark. He’s wearing different clothes than yesterday: a T-shirt that looks brand-new and cheap, and jeans that look brand-new and expensive.
I straighten up, blinking fast. He looks faintly amused and also tired. Smudges stain the skin under his eyes and his jaw is rough with stubble. His hair is tousled and loose, hanging over one side of his forehead. It makes him look younger.
“Sir,” I say. “I didn’t realize you’d left until after you’d gone.”
He waves a hand, stepping around me to examine the room service cart nearby. “I didn’t want to wake you. I just had a place I wanted to visit while I was here.”
“A place,” I say, looking at his clothes again. The lettering is in Thai. I think it’s advertising a brand of beer.
Mark lifts a metal lid to look at the hours-old steak underneath and then grabs a roll. I notice that the tattoo on his arm is gone...but a smear near his elbow reveals the trick. Makeup. He’s covered his tattoo in makeup.
“I haven’t seen very many T-shirts in Thai here,” I say.
“Hmm,” Mark says noncommittally.
My father’s words come back to me right then, shimmering amidst the shirt, the uneaten meal.Surely there are times he goes missing that you can’t account for...
Shirtless with the shower running, that’s how he wanted me to take the food. Just enough to make the moment memorable and embarrassing for the hotel employee.
“Last night, sir...was I an alibi?”
“Technically, the person who delivered your room service is the alibi,” says Mark easily, taking a bite of the roll. I’ve never seen him eat like this, fast and chewing hard. “And let’s make sure you’re packed. Our flight is in three hours.”
Thirteen
Absolutely nothing changeswhen we get home except for one thing—sometimes, at the corners of a conversation or as he passes me when I hold the door for him or as we say goodbye after another night in the hall, I catch him looking at my mouth.
I will degrade you. I will enjoy it.
I haven’t forgotten a single syllable of that conversation, and I don’t think he has either. But my pride makes a delayed appearance and insists on guarding itself from future rejection.He’ll just say no again if you try, it says, sulky and pouty in my thoughts.If he really wanted you, he’d fuck you anyway.So I don’t bring it up again, and neither does he, even though I sometimes can’t think of anything else but long, strong fingers, the dip of his Adam’s apple when he drinks his gin. The way his cock gleamed ruddy and thick under wet latex in his office.
Two nights after we get home from Singapore, I hear a knock on my door, the first visitor I’ve had since I moved in. Curious, I go to answer it, wondering who it could be this late in the evening, and then my heart stutters behind my ribs when I see Mark through the peephole.
“Sir,” I say, opening the door, “do you want to go back up to the hall?”
“No,” Mark says, stepping inside, and he’s not wearing hissuit anymore. He’s in dark tactical pants and a black turtleneck. Black boots and no watch. “I thought we could take a trip.”
I glance down at my phone, see that it’s two in the morning. Remember that it’s my job to do whatever he wants.
“Yes, sir. Should I change?”
“You should. Dark clothes, and be quick.”
