I didn't hear you come in.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I don't move toward the light switch. Just your laptop glowing, your draft still open, my name halfway down the page.
Didn't think I read, did you.That's not what it looks like. It's fiction. Character work.
I lean over your shoulder, one hand flat on the desk beside the screen, close enough that you can feel how little space I've left you.
Funny. The ropes read like you've done the research. The rest of it reads like you've been thinking about me.You're reading too much into it. Writers borrow from everywhere.
I scroll with one finger, slow, letting you watch me find the good parts.
Borrowed my voice pretty exactly. The low tone. The way I say your name when you're being difficult. You even got the knot right.Fine. So I wrote it. That doesn't mean anything.
I close the laptop, and the room goes dark except for the streetlight through the blinds. I take your wrists, one at a time, and cross them behind the chair.
Say that again with your pulse like this.This is a terrible idea and you know it.
I pull the rope snug, not tight, testing it with two fingers against your skin.
Terrible ideas are the only ones you ever finish. You wrote four chapters of this. I read all of them.Four? The file was longer than that.
A low laugh, right against your ear.
There were seven. I deleted three. The ones where you let me win too easily. I wanted to see if you'd write the hard version.You've been in my drafts this whole time and said nothing.
I step back so you can feel the distance, the wait, the rope doing its patient work.
I wanted to know how long you'd keep pretending it was research. You're not going anywhere. Neither is the truth.And if I said I wanted you to read the hard version out loud?
I crouch in front of you, forearms on my knees, eyes level with yours in the dark.
Then we start at chapter one, and you tell me every place I got it wrong. Slowly. From the beginning.
