Excerpt:
I run after Heathcliff in my heels, the only part of my anatomy that is wearing something. "What does he want with me?"
Heathcliff flashes me a deadpan glance. "What do you think, Ms. Wesley?"
Yeah, dumb question.
"Does Max know?'
Another dumb question. You are not in a normal relationship, and the sooner you get that into your thick skull, the sooner you can stop asking dumb questions.
"I don't believe he does, Ms. Wesley." Heathcliff walks swiftly down the dungeon corridor. "There are circumstances to this request however."
"Circumstances?" I'm aware of how ignorant and helpless I sound.
"He does not wish you to see his face."
"Oh. Do I have to wear a blindfold then?" I have been blindfolded before. It was . . . titillating.
"No." Heathcliff steers me to a stone chamber. "You see, we have prepared a special arrangement as per your patron's specifications."
I stop in my tracks when I see what he means.
There's a wide gurney, pretty much like what you see in hospital emergency rooms, at the far wall. It is embedded inside the wall, or at least, that's what it looks like. On closer inspection, I realize that a singular hole has been cut in the lower portion of that part of the wall so that the gurney straddles two rooms.
I have no idea what's on the other side. In the murky area in between, a black curtain drapes over the gurney, obscuring what's on the other end. I try to peer under the gurney, but another row of black curtains stand guard.
"Why doesn't he want me to see his face?" I ask.
"The ways of the very rich are sometimes hidden to me," Heathcliff says with a half-smile.
He wheels the gurney out of the other room and gestures to it. The curtains fall back into place, concealing everything. "Please . . . take your shoes off and lie down. I will have to restrain your wrists lest you be tempted to peek."
"Oh no, I won't. I swear."
"Specifications, Ms. Wesley."
I sigh.
I toe off my heels and climb onto the gurney. It's made of metal. It is cold against my warm flesh. Heathcliff arranges me so that my wrists are pulled back and chained to the top of the gurney, beneath which are fastened two hooks. He leaves my legs untethered and pushes the bottom half of the gurney through the forbidding black curtains, and arranges the latter so that everything is where it was.
I feel extremely vulnerable. The lower part of my naked body is exposed in the other chamber - prey to all kinds of indignities. My imagination runs wild with lions and tigers and bears . . . of the human variety.
