Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 514

I dried with the towel and wrung out my hair. I returned to the wardrobe. Five dresses, and two pairs of underwear set out in it like a mercy. I chose the simple blue dress that did not bare everything at once, and the cream underwear, and the clean cloth against the clean skin felt like paper.

I went back to the mirror to face the woman again.

I looked like a different woman now. Less broken, but pale. I had lost weight, my cheekbones sharp. I still had the old bruises: a deep print on my upper arm shaped like a hand, a fading smudge on my ribs, a long, slanting bruise on the inside of my thigh, gone dark. My body kept an inventory of everything that had touched it in the meadow, and each mark had a name.

I did not go near the makeup box. I didn't want to look beautiful here any more. I wanted out.

I went to the door and beat on it again, "Open up. You hear me? Open this door." I beat until the noise hurt, but no one came, and I slid down the door to the floor and let the hunger in. The hunger was like an animal, kicked and sharp. The thirst too. And under them, the low, familiar flame already starting in the pit of my belly, between my thighs. The one I knew. I had not taken the happy pill in days. I did not know where my bag and my pills had ended up, and my body had begun to ask for them.

It was exactly then that I heard the lock turn.

I jumped to my feet before the door was fully open.

A tall, plus-sized woman walked in, built wide in the hips and the shoulders, wearing what looked like thirty pounds of makeup and a pink dress so loud it could have counted as a personality. She smiled when she saw me.

"Already clean. Good, you saved me the trouble."

"Who are you?" I asked, folding my arms. "And how did I end up in this place?" Most importantly, I needed to get out.

She laughed, a sound that seemed genuine. "Sweetheart, I do not think you understand what is happening to you yet."

"I don't care about your friends." She turned and headed for the door.

"Wait, what am I supposed to eat? I'm starving and..."

She pulled the door open. I was after her, my hands up before she could shut it.

"Stop. Just stop." I lunged for the door, grabbed the handle, planted my whole weight against the frame to hold it open.

"I'm not finished speaking to you and..."