Cole wakes me up nice and early, already looking bright-eyed and freshly showered. He doesn’t seem tired at all, but invigorated.
“Get up, sleepyhead,” he says. “Time for your TV debut.”
He’s already got blueberry scones and a latte waiting for me, both warm and fresh.
“What time did you wake up?” I say, stumbling out of bed.
I’m still a little groggy from the Ambien, though my body feels warm and relaxed.
“I didn’t sleep at all,” Cole says.
“What? Why not?”
“No point when we had to get up this early. I’ll catch a nap later if I feel like it.”
I guess that makes sense. Cole rarely goes to sleep before midnight, so it would only have been a few hours’ rest at most.
I wouldn’t be that chipper on zero sleep, but good for him.
I climb into the shower, luxuriating in the hot, pounding spray, which feels particularly sensual after my hibernation.
“What do you think I should wear?” I crack the glass door to call out to Cole.
“What did you bring?”
“The blue dress and the velvet jumpsuit.”
“Wear the jumpsuit. It’s sexier.”
“Do I want to be sexy, though?”
I’m shampooing my hair, eyes closed, trying to picture both outfits. I do love the jumpsuit, but I don’t want to give the wrong impression. The world is so much harder on women than on men when it comes to our looks and our clothing. Especially when you’re competing in a male-dominated field.
Cole comes into the bathroom, leaning up against the doorframe so he can watch me.
“Which one do you like wearing? Which feels the most yourself?”
I consider, standing still under the spray.
“The jumpsuit.”
“There you go.”
I’m not used to someone agreeing with me, supporting my decisions. I don’t feel like a fuck-up with Cole. And I don’t agonize over the little choices so much. It feels like it doesn’t really matter what I wear—everything will work out just fine.
“I’m kind of looking forward to this,” I admit as I step out of the shower, vigorously toweling my hair.
“Of course you are. It’s exciting.”
Cole is in the most energized mood I’ve ever seen. His dark eyes roam everywhere at once, and he can’t hold back his grin as he thrusts a scone into my hand.
“Eat it while it’s hot—it’s fucking delicious.”
I laugh. “Since when do you eat scones?”
“I eat everything now.” He winks at me. “Remember last night?”
It all comes back to me in a rush. I shriek with laughter and outrage.
“Don’t talk about that!”
He chuckles, grabbing hold of me and pulling me close, not caring that I’m not quite dry yet and my damp body spots the front of his shirt. He kisses me, his mouth pleasantly warm from the coffee.
“You’re going to fucking kill it today,” he says. “I can’t wait to watch.”
As always, Cole is right.
The entire experience passes by in swift flashes, like a snapshot.
We’re hustled through the studio at lightning speed, with barely enough time for me to goggle at the brightly lit stages and the bustling desks full of people, before I’m back in hair and makeup, a paper bib tucked into the neckline of my velvet jumpsuit to protect my clothes from the thick layer of powder being dusted over my face.
“Don’t worry,” the makeup artist tells me. “It looks like a lot, but under the floodlights, you won’t see it at all.”
The hosts pass by to introduce themselves. I don’t watch much TV, but I’ve seen clips of Roger Roberts and Gail Mason, who have been running the DBS morning show for the better part of a decade. Like most celebrities, they’re much shorter in person than you’d expect. Roger is barely taller than me, and Gale is so petite you might mistake her for a fifth grader if you only saw her from behind, and her helmet of highly-teased hair didn’t give her away.
Both are wearing even more makeup than I am, their microphones already clipped in place and a folder of prompts tucked under their arms.
“Where’s your beret?” Roger ribs me in his broadcaster voice.
I wondered if that was something he turned on for the camera, but it sounds like he always speaks at top volume with careful enunciation.
“She’s not a mime!” Gail laughs. Then, patting me on the arm, “We’ll see you out there in just a minute!”
The producer gives me a brief rundown of the show, including the point at which I’ll be brought onstage and a few of the questions I’ll be asked.
“We’ll show slides of your paintings on the TV screen behind you,” she explains.
“Right, yes,” I nod my head like I understand, while glaring lights, bright colors, and ten different conversations scream at me from all sides.
Cole remains calm and steady, his tall, dark figure so familiar to me that I look at him for comfort every time my anxiety threatens to explode.
I watch the show from offstage, marveling at the hosts’ ability to talk and joke with each other while their producer continually barks orders into the earpieces nestled in their ears.
“Twenty seconds till the next segment,” she warns them.
With the speed of an auctioneer, Roger rattles off, “And that’s why I don’t cook turkey dinners anymore! Up next, we’ve got a little culture for you—an up-and-coming artist from San Francisco! She just had her first solo show at the Frankle Gallery, and she’s here to explain painting to us! Let’s give a warm welcome to Mara Eldritch!”
The producer shoves me forward. I feel myself striding across the stage, my body moving like a puppet on someone else’s strings.
Even though I was warned, the overhead lights press down on me like heat lamps. I can already feel myself starting to sweat.
I forgot where the producer told me to sit. I take the chair closest to Gail, hoping I haven’t made a mistake.
“Nice to meet you, Mara!” Roger booms, like we haven’t already met before. His capped teeth and spray-on tan compete with the glittering red holiday top worn by Gail, and her matching lipstick.
“Now, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life!” Gail trills. “How did you get your start in art?”
They’re both staring at me, eyes bright, teeth gleaming.
Under the glaring lights, with the muffled motion of the cameramen all around us—everyone trying to be quiet but making the tiny shuffles and breathing sounds that humans can never entirely contain—I’m thrust back to the last time I sat on a stage, expected to perform, while my mind emptied out like a sieve.
I can almost hear my mother snapping her fingers at me, ordering me to start.
I don’t know what to reply. I’ve forgotten how to speak.
The silence drags on for several agonizing seconds.
Wildly, I cast my eyes around until they land on Cole.
He doesn’t look nervous in the slightest. He stands next to the producer, hands tucked in his pockets, smiling at me with perfect confidence. He mouths, “You got this.”
I turn back to Gail.
The words flow out of my mouth like I rehearsed them. “I’m mostly self-taught. I never went to art school. But I watched a lot of YouTube videos and took books out of the library.”
“YouTube videos!” Roger laughs. “If that’s all it takes, then how come I’m not an expert at golf yet?”
I give him a sly smile. “Well, I’m not three beers in when I paint.”
Roger roars with laughter and Gail shakes a finger at him. “She’s got your number.”
“Too true,” Roger chortles. “The more I shank, the more I drink.”
The rest of the interview passes by in an instant. The questions are easy. I know exactly what to say.
The commercial break is my chance to escape. Roger and Gail give me a brief handshake, already preparing for the next segment. The producer hustles me off saying, “Nice work! You’d never guess it was your first time.”
“She’s just being nice,” I say to Cole, as we pass through the green room once more on our way out of the studio. “I froze up at the beginning.”
“It just looked like you were thinking,” Cole says.
“I wasn’t thinking. I was lost—till I looked at you.”
Cole gives a small smile. “You must be the only person in the world who finds me a calming presence.”
“I certainly didn’t at first.”
“What did you think when you looked over at me?”
“I thought … even if I fuck this up, you won’t be embarrassed by me. You’ll still hold my hand on the way home.”
“I knew you weren’t going to fuck it up. You always find a way through.”
As Cole and I gather our bags from the hotel and head back to the airport, I think to myself that humans don’t learn things all on our own. Someone has to teach us. It might be necessary for someone to believe in us before we can believe in ourselves.
Unloved children are crippled because no one shows them the way.
Cole is so much more than a lover to me. He’s the teacher I never had. In some ways, the father I never had.
I blush, remembering what I called him last night when I was blitzed out and half asleep. I’ve never called anybody that word before.
I don’t want to be another fucked-up girl with daddy issues.
But god, it’s nice to have a daddy.
Returning to Seacliff feels like coming home. I run ahead of Cole into the house, practically skipping up the steps. Throwing open the doors and inhaling that familiar scent, increasingly mingled with my own shampoo, my perfume, and the old books Cole let me put on a shelf in the living room, even though the battered paperbacks clash with his hardcovers and leather-bound books.
I cook dinner for us both, delighting in using Cole’s heavy-bottomed copper pots and wooden spoons. Almost nothing in this house is made of plastic. Even the items Cole never uses are the finest quality, as much for decoration as for the formerly-unlikely chance that somebody would make real use of the kitchen.
Cole only cooks the simplest meals for himself. Still, he’s a keen student and watches carefully while I mix four egg yolks, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and Italian herbs in a small bowl.
“That’s a lot of bacon,” he comments.
“If it’s not half bacon and peas, then it’s not carbonara,” I laugh.
“I think the Italians might disagree.”
“I’ll tell you a secret that will shock you … I don’t always like the most authentic food.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know this is sacrilege, but sometimes I like the American version better. We take all these foods from all over the world, amp it up, put it on steroids. San Francisco has the best food of anywhere, I’m convinced of it.”
“How would you know,” Cole laughs. “You’ve never been to Italy.”
“That’s true,” I admit.
I must look forlorn, because Cole quickly adds, “I’ll take you.”
“I wish,” I say, trying to laugh it off.
“I mean it.”
I hesitate, my throat tightening. I have a desperate desire to visit Europe and see the most stunning art and architecture of human creation.
But I shake my head.
“You’ve done too much for me already.”
“I’ve done exactly what I want to,” Cole says, his expression stern. “Don’t try to prevent me doing more of what I want. You should know by now it’s impossible.”
I never know how to deal with Cole. He really is relentless.
I change the subject, saying, “Look at this—you can use the hot pasta water to thaw the frozen peas.”
“Genius,” Cole says, with a small smile.
When I’ve stirred the sauce into the hot noodles, and divided the two portions onto our plates, Cole twirls the carbonara around his fork and takes an experimental bite.
“Well?” I say, bouncing in my seat.
“I take back what I said. This is really fucking good.”
“Better than Italy?”
“You tell me after you try the real thing. You’re the one with the best palate.”
I flush with pleasure, attacking my own plate of food.
I’ve never enjoyed compliments as much as Cole’s. Men have always told me I was pretty, but that’s the blandest of tributes. It says nothing about me as a person.
Cole compliments my taste, my opinions, and my talents. He notices things that nobody ever bothered to notice about me before, like the fact that I can taste and smell more acutely than most people, which really does make me a better cook.
It’s the silver lining of my sensory issues. While I’m often distracted or stressed by light, sound, smell, and touch, I also take deep pleasure from music and food, rich colors and textures, and the right kind of touch on my skin. It’s a blessing and a curse. When everything is wrong, it’s pure torture. But when all goes right, it’s a gift I’d never give up.
Cole is more considerate of my sensory issues than anyone I’ve ever known. While he occasionally uses them to manipulate me, he’s never tormented me like Randall used to do. Instead, he calls me his pleasure kitten and puts me in a state of such comfortable bliss that I feel I’d do anything to be his pet and live in this house forever.
When we’re finished eating, and Cole has washed and dried the dishes in his meticulous way, and I’ve put them back exactly where they belong, he says:
“I have something to show you.”
“What is it?”
“Come with me.”
He takes me into the dining room, where we never actually eat, preferring to sit at the high countertop in the kitchen.
My laptop still sits in the same place. I suppose I’ve made this my office, not that I spend much time on my computer.
Cole opens the laptop, flicking through windows so quickly that I can hardly follow what he’s doing.
Watching Cole navigate technology is eerie, his brain and fingers operating more rapidly than the machine itself.
“Have a seat,” Cole says, gesturing toward the chair next to his.
I slip into it, feeling uneasy.
When Cole has an objective in mind, he becomes highly focused to the point where he doesn’t blink and hardly seems to breathe. His face is smooth and unsmiling, his dark eyes fixed on my face.
He holds up a small black cylinder in his elegantly-shaped hand.
“I have something for you to watch,” he says.
Silently, I take the flash drive, our fingers briefly meeting with an electric spark, static passing between us.
“What is it?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond, pushing the laptop toward me. Waiting while I insert the flash drive into its slot.
The drive contains only one file: a video, twenty-eight minutes long.
My mouth has gone dry. When I try to lick my lips, my tongue rubs across them like cardboard.
My index finger hovers over the cursor. I’m frightened, and I don’t want to see whatever Cole is trying to show me. I know it won’t be good.
He stands up from his chair, coming around the back of mine. Watching over my shoulder.
There’s no way out of this.
I click the video to make it play.
The image that flickers onto the screen is dimly lit and grainy. It appears to be the interior of some kind of small house—wooden floors and walls, only one room that includes the kitchenette, single bed, and the door to the outside. It could be a cabin or a shack.
A man kneels directly in front of the door, shirtless, wearing only boxer shorts, his legs bent beneath him and his large, misshapen feet splayed out below. His graying hair is scruffy and his back hairy and sagging.
I recognize him immediately. I’ll never forget the shape of that blocky head, with its roll of fat where the skull almost meets the shoulders.
The wave of revulsion that washes over me is physical, so strong I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to prevent the carbonara from making another appearance. I want to jump out of my chair, but my legs are rubber, bent under the table.
I thought the video was silent, but now I hear Randall let out a low moan.
His nose is pressed against the door. He appears to be kneeling on something—possibly marbles. He squirms with discomfort but doesn’t dare take his nose away from the door.
“I can’t …” he groans. “I can’t do it anymore … you’re gonna break my fuckin’ kneecaps.”
“You spoke,” Cole’s chilly voice cuts through the video, clear and unemotional. “That means another hour.”
Randall lets out a strangled sound that is part sob, part snarl of rage.
I’m mesmerized, staring at the screen. Watching this man endure the same punishment he inflicted on me at seven years old. I know how his kneecaps feel. There were no marbles in my case, but the wooden floor became agonizing all on its own as the hours crawled by.
Once, after three hours of punishment, I passed out and hit my head on the floor. Randall made me finish my time the next day.
I stare at his nasty old back as his hands begin to shake, bound at the wrists with zip-ties.
A maelstrom of emotions whips through me: guilt, fear, disgust, anxiety … and also a dreadful spitefulness that whispers, Serves you right, you motherfucker.
I thought I had moved past this.
Now I’m finding that the rage was always there, deep down inside me.
What I told Cole was true: I hate Randall. I fucking hate him.
He delighted in tormenting me.
When my mother would frustrate him, he’d take it out on me.
He loathed me, but couldn’t leave me alone.
And always, that skin-crawling edge to his attention—his eyes roaming over my body. His orders to put on the plaid skirt so he could whip me in it.
Even at seven, I knew. He was my stepfather, but his interest was anything but fatherly.
Randall can’t hold the position anymore. His legs collapse beneath him, and he rolls over on his side.
Cole appears in the camera frame, striding forward, dressed in an outfit unlike anything I’ve seen him wear before—a plaid shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap. In his hand, a pair of bolt cutters.
The punishment is swift. He snips off Randall’s thumb.
Randall howls and howls, animalistic screams of pain that buzz with distortion in the shitty speakers of my laptop.
I jerk in my seat, instantly breaking out in a sweat, my heart racing at a gallop.
“Jesus! Fuck!” I cry.
I don’t know what I expected to see, but I’ve never witnessed anything so graphic. Every cell in my body screams at me to turn away, but my eyes are locked on the screen with sick intensity, my hands clamped over my mouth.
Cold and pitiless, Cole orders, “Kneel on those marbles. Your time isn’t up.”
I look up at Cole, the real Cole, standing beside me.
He’s watching the screen with exactly the same expression as before, hands clasped loosely in front of him.
I can’t believe those are the same hands that wielded those bolt cutters just … just how long ago, exactly?
“When did you do this?” I whisper.
“Last night. While you were asleep,” he replies.
My mouth falls open. I understand now why he booked that morning show for me—it seemed to come out of nowhere, but I’m sure he pulled the strings behind the scenes.
“Was Randall in Burbank?”
“Close by.” Cole nods.
I’m pulled back to the screen by a fresh round of cursing and screaming from Randall. He was only able to hobble back into position for a moment before falling over again. This time he loses his left thumb.
“Fuck,” I cry, covering my face with my hands. “How long does this go on?”
Cole checks the time ticking away on the video.
“Looks like twenty-two more minutes.”
“Oh my god.”
I don’t think I can watch this.
“Did you kill him?” I ask Cole.
“Of course I did.”
My heart races, the underarms of my shirt soaked in cold sweat. I can’t believe I’m watching this. I can’t believe I’m participating.
I had come to terms with the idea that Shaw had to die, but this is something else entirely. Randall wasn’t a threat to me. This is nothing but revenge.
More screams. Another finger gone.
“Why did you do this?” I ask Cole.
“I told you,” Cole says, his black eyes fixed on mine. “I need to prepare you. You think you know what it means to set yourself against another person. To lure them, to hunt them, to overpower them, and take their life. But you don’t know. You don’t know how they’ll beg and plead. How they’ll do anything to survive. How they’ll stick a knife in your eye the moment you lose focus, the moment you even think about offering mercy.”
Randall is begging and pleading. He alternates between cursing at Cole, thrashing around, trying to escape his bonds, then sobbing and sniveling, offering money, secrets, anything and everything he can think of to save himself.
“What do you want?” he howls. “What do you want?”
The Cole on the screen looks down at Randall: an avenging angel, dark and pitiless.
“I want you to give Mara her childhood back.”
“FUCK Mara!” Randall snarls. “Fuck that little bitch and fuck her mother and fuck YOU! She deserved everything she got. I hope she fucking rots in hell!”
“Wrong answer,” the Cole on the screen says.
What follows is a bloodbath.
I stare and stare, all feeling draining from my body. All emotion, too. I become strangely calm, my head floating above my shoulders, my body a block of ice below.
I watch Cole murder Randall slowly, brutally, with obvious pleasure.
I watch my vengeance unfold in front of me.
When it’s finished, Randall is nothing but meat on the floor. Those heavy hands can’t hurt anyone anymore.
I feel hollow inside, all the anger, all the pain, all the resentment scooped out of me.
It’s over now. Truly over.
I close the laptop screen and turn to face Cole. I can’t tell if he’s a monster or my savior. He looks the same as always: stark, beautiful, serene.
“Did it feel good to do that?” I ask him.
“Yes. It was deeply satisfying.”
“Why? I already won. I’m happy now. I moved on.”
Cole raises one black slash of an eyebrow. “There’s no moving on. I learned that with my father. If Randall died of old age, the anger wouldn’t die with him. You have to kill it. I killed it for you.”
I don’t know how I feel.
Or perhaps I feel everything at once.
It’s wrong, so incredibly wrong.
And yet … it also feels like justice.
I wanted Randall dead. Now he is. He made me suffer. And he suffered in return.
Cole plucks the flash drive out of the laptop and holds it out to me once more.
“You put your life in my hands once, the night you came to my studio. Now I’ll bet mine. Here’s the tape. You won’t turn it in. You know this was right.”
He pushes the flash drive into my hands, forcing me to close my fingers around it.
I could leave the house, and carry this directly to Officer Hawks.
But just as I knew Cole wouldn’t hurt me, he knows exactly what I’m going to do.
I walk into the kitchen and drop the drive down the garbage disposal.
The next morning, I wake up alone in the bed.
Cole is giving me space to process what happened.
I understand now that all of this was planned out by him, probably beginning weeks ago. All through dinner, he knew what he was about to show me. He probably knew how I’d react. Even what I’d say.
He once told me that there are very few surprises for him. In social situations, he always has a quick reply at the ready because he plays out the entire conversation in a fraction of a second, already knowing what he’ll say and what the other person will respond, back and forth a dozen times, before either of them ever opens their mouth.
Everything is chess to him, eight moves ahead.
When his opponent plays by the rules, he almost never loses.
I throw a spark of chaos into the game.
Perhaps, so does Shaw.
Or Shaw becomes less predictable when I’m in the mix, distracting Cole, forcing him to make decisions against his best interests.
We’re entering the endgame now. Am I a valuable asset—a queen to his king? Or only a pawn that Cole can’t bear to sacrifice?
I keep waiting for guilt to overwhelm me.
The people Cole killed before were faceless avatars to me. I never met any of them. Most seemed to deserve what they got.
Randall is different.
I knew him. We sat at the same table. Ate the same food. I knew his favorite sports teams, the names of his sons. Which movies he liked, and even what he sounded like grunting and puffing as he fucked my mother.
I hated the intimacy between us, but it was there. I knew him as human, as a man.
And I watched him die.
Should I be sorry for him?
I felt some pity last night, in the moment. Seeing his graying hair and his wretched begging.
But because I know Randall, I’m well aware how little goodness lived inside of him. I can’t remember a single instance of kindness to me. Not one, not even when I was very small. Whatever he gave, he gave grudgingly. Angrily. Always rubbing it in my face afterward, lording it over me.
He was a petty tyrant.
Does anyone care when the tyrant’s head is put on a spike on the city gates?
Does anyone shed a tear?
I’m certainly not crying.
In fact, as I rise from the bed, I feel clean and whole. A little bit lighter, as if I shed off a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying.
I float out of the room and down the stairs, looking for Cole.
I find him down in the kitchen, readying his customary breakfast.
It’s nice starting the day with the same meal every morning. Knowing that you have control over the day ahead.
He passes me my latte, fresh and flawlessly prepared. Cole would never slap milk and coffee into a cup. Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well. He perfects his art, even when that art is only a latte.
I sip my drink, naked under my silk robe. Feeling the fabric against my skin, and the clear morning light streaming in through the windows.
Cole stands behind the counter, sleeves rolled to his forearms, damp waves of hair neatly combed back.
He looks like a man ready to work.
I say, “If we’re really going to do this, then you’re right, I have to be prepared. Tell me everything. Tell me how you met Shaw.”
