Page 11 of Wraith

He looks immediately suspicious. As he should.

“I’m going to a party,” I say. “A sex party. A kinky one, with a bunch of guys who are really into bondage.” I lift the basket slightly, presenting the evidence. “Hence the rope. Hence the cuffs. Hence this little thing.” I pick up the whip and give it a little demonstrative flick. “I’m so happy I found this.”

Evan’s face does something extraordinary. It cycles through approximately six emotions in under two seconds, which is a personal record, even for him.

This is exactly what I need.

“June, you don’t need to…”

“There’s going to be like five of them,” I say, warming to this, feeling the particular, wicked joy of a woman who has found her leverage and intends to use every inch of it. “And me. Right in the middle. A full June sandwich. Very multi-layered. Very complex. A lot of different textures.”

“Okay, stop.”

“I’m not stopping.” I tilt my head thoughtfully. “There’s this one guy, he’s very particular about what he wants, which I actually respect because communication is important in any kind of intimate situation. Do you want to know what he likes?”

“June, I swear to God, you don’t need to…”

“You know what? I’ll just tell you. He likes for me to tie him up, put the ball gags in his mouth, clamps on his nipples, on his balls, and he’ll lay flat on his back while I stand over his chest, dressed up exactly as his mother when she was a cheerleader in high school — yes, he’s got a photo of her old uniform — and I’ll whip his cock and balls while calling him a naughty boy.”

Evan makes a sound like a man being slowly lowered into a wood chipper.

“While I tell him he’s been very, very naughty,” I continue, with the serene calm of a woman reading from a grocery list. “And then — this is the part he’s really specific about — he wants me to masturbate with one hand while I do it. Just standing there. On his chest. One hand busy. The other hand with the whip. And then — “

“Holy shit,” Evan says. “Stop. Stop right there.”

“I haven’t even gotten to the part where I pee on him.”

The color drains out of Evan’s face and then comes flooding back in a deeply unhealthy shade of red. He looks like a man whose entire understanding of his family has just been restructured against his will.

“You really are moving on quick, aren’t you,” he says. It comes out less like a question and more like a man talking himself through something at the scene of an accident.

“They have apps for this,” I say pleasantly. “It’s an entire community. Very supportive. Great communication skills, as I mentioned.” I drop the whip back into the basket and pick up one of the coils of rope, giving it an appraising squeeze. “Now. Leave me alone. I have a sex party to get to.”

For a long moment he just stands there, paper bag clutched against his chest like a shield, looking at me with an expression that walks the razor’s edge between fraternal concern and genuine, existential horror, and then he makes a decision. He closes the paper bag. He tucks it under his arm. He looks at me one more time with the eyes of a man who has survived a lot but is not sure he’s going to survive this conversation, and he says, “Be safe,” in a voice that sounds like it costs him something significant to produce, and then he turns and walks away down the aisle, past the wall of things neither of us will ever speak of, past the glow-in-the-dark handcuffs, past the Lover’s Lasso, and out through the front door of The Love Hole without looking back.

I watch him go.

The door swings shut behind him.

The bass-heavy music throbs. Pulsates. Penetrates through my ears into my bones.

The lavender air freshener does its patient, futile work.

I stand in the aisle alone for a moment, basket in hand, whip on top, and feel the particular, complicated satisfaction of a woman who has won something she didn’t entirely want to win. Because the look on his face as he walked away wasn’t just embarrassment. It was worry. It was the specific worry of a man who loves his sister and is watching her do something he can’t stop her from doing and knows better than to try.

I hate that I made him look like that.

I also needed him to go.

Both things are true, and I’m getting better at holding two true things at once. That’s growth. That counts. I’m sure that’s what my therapist will tell me, once I get one.

I carry my basket to the register. Check out, without any comment from the guy at the register except for an approving nod when he scans my whip, which makes me even more sure of my choice.

I did a good thing tonight.

The cab driver is still there when I push out through the front door, the bell above it giving a cheerful little jingle that feels wildly inappropriate for the hour and everything that’s happened in it. He’s got the window rolled down and his elbow propped on the door, and he’s doing a crossword puzzle on his phone, which I find deeply comforting for reasons I can’t entirely explain.

He looks up when I approach.