Page 20 of Reckless

Who had I been the other night, on my knees, letting him touch me?

What, exactly, had happened?

I hadn’t been afraid, but I had been confused. I hadn’t been drunk, but I’d been floaty and weird, barely in control of myself. I hadn’t been fucked, but I’d left feeling good, everything on the inside finally as quiet as the outside.

And Alastair had taken care of me through all of it. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and what I needed. So, when I went there tonight, maybe I would be Robbie Finch, and maybe that was okay. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about a knock on the door, or hearing Mavis Coldwell’s voice on the other side. I’d be all Alastair’s.

For a little while, at least.

I walked out of the storeroom to see Button John struggling with a thyroid that kept shooting out of his grasp, like a bar of soap in a cartoon. He finally caught it and set it firmly back on its stand as I reached him. “Hey,” he said brightly, as the whole tower of thyroids collapsed beside him.

“Hey.” I got out of his way. That was the safest thing to do when Button John was around.

I went and stood at the side of the church and leaned up against some old brass plate so ruined by the salt air that nobody knew what it said. The church looked strange and new, with all of Alastair’s stuff in it and bright posters decorating the walls. Well, those that were staying up, at least. Most of them tried to curl straight off again, and every now and then a papery rattle as they hit the floor announced their success.

Still, everyone came to the health fair. Even Elias Dinsmore poked his head in for a moment before he glowered and left. Then again, so little happened on Dauntless that anything new or different got our attention. I watched as Alastair tried to explain Medicare to Tall Tom. Tall Tom was nodding along, but he wasn’t enthusiastic. Nobody here would be. It wasn’t any of the government’s business if we got sick. I was uncomfortable at the idea of someone in Sydney tapping at a few keys on their computer and knowing that I’d had gonorrhoea. I hadn’t even told Sam the wall-eyed goat that, and he knew all my secrets.

Dominic the copper gave me a nod as he wandered around the room, his friendly smile transforming into something much brighter, much more real, when he caught sight of Natty. It made something twist in my stomach—something I didn’t want to think about, because then I might have to put a name to it, might have to worry about some other itch under my skin that would soon be screaming for attention. Some other fucking thing I couldn’t get here on Dauntless. So I looked away from Dominic and Natty and followed the rattle of another falling poster to go and put it up again.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I got to Alastair’s. I guess I thought maybe he’d go straight into it this time, that the tea on my previous visit was just him trying to be polite, and he’d be more demanding now because we’d done this once before. But he ushered me into the kitchen for tea and some weird biscuits that had either been on a back shelf in Mavis’s shop since the 70’s, or were some medical thing, a sneaky way to get you to increase your fibre or whatever.

“I’d like us to talk,” Alastair said, as I took my first bite of grainy biscuit.

Crumbs spilled onto the kitchen table, and I hastily wiped them into my hand then looked around for the rubbish. When I didn’t see it, I tried discreetly throwing back my head and pouring the crumbs into my mouth while Alastair was busy adding milk to his tea.

I didn’t respond, because I didn’t know what to say. Talking wasn’t really my forte, and I was drawn to this guy in part because he didn’t talk much. But now, Alastair plunged on, still in that same quiet, direct tone he used for everything.

“So you have no interest in anything remotely public?”

“Public?” I took my next bite of biscuit with my hand cupped underneath it to catch the crumbs. Alastair’s gaze flicked to my hand, and I could swear his lips twitched.

“When we play. Nothing in public, no matter how discreet?”

“Oh. Uh…” I wanted to chew. Or swallow. Or to not have taken the bite in the first place. Play? “Yeah. Nothing public.” The back of my neck heated.

I could feel him watching me, and I stared at the half-eaten biscuit so I wouldn’t have to look into those eyes that seemed to notice everything.

“I apologise,” Alastair said. “For initiating that earlier, in the church. It won’t happen again.”

I set the crumbling biscuit on my saucer and picked up the teacup. “It’s fine. I, er…I liked the idea of it. Just, too many people around.”

“Noted,” he said. I met his eye for a second, and saw something almost like sympathy in his gaze, except subtle. Like you wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know him at least a little. “I know you don’t like me asking a bunch of questions. But I’m afraid this has to be done.”

“Okay.” My gaze roamed and found a wooden clock that sat on a shelf next to what looked like an urn or a really big salt shaker or something.

“You liked what we did last time.”

“Is that a question?” I asked.

This time his lips definitely twitched, and I hadn’t even realised I’d looked away from the clock and back at him. “You said as much. And I asked you to reflect on the idea that there are ways of getting what you want without getting roughed up. Have you reflected?”

“Have I reflected?”

“Yes.”

“Uh…sort of.” I took a long gulp of tea, hoping it would buy me time before I had to say more. But nothing was coming to me. “I guess— I mean—yeah. I see what you mean. Like, that there are other ways.”

“Did you wish, the other day, that I would hurt you?”