Days blurred into weeks, leaving Thad in a strange, shifting limbo. At first he buried himself in work, developing and testing new ideas, forecasting numbers, taking prep work from his station cooks just to occupy his hands. He kept his headphones dialed in to infinite podcasts of people just talking, talking, talking. He didn’t listen to the content, but the noise kept him from thinking.

When he did think, he wondered big, contemplating not being rooted to this one restaurant forever. He’d traveled a little after getting out of the service, stupid, reckless traveling, but he had more money now. Maybe he could go to Europe, or East Asia, eat around, talk to chefs, learn.

He’d even called Gerard, the angel investor who’d been pestering him for months. Gerard was Mateo’s contact, but Thad didn’t care. He invited Gerard to the restaurant one night, and they’d eaten together, drinking good wine and talking about a potential future restaurant, something Thad would normally have avoided like the plague. But he was starting to see the allure of selling the place and starting something different, somewhere else. Who did he have here to keep him feeling rooted? No one.

Alice missed a few days of work after the blowup. She didn’t call, and he didn’t call. He wondered it fairly likely she’d never come back. So when she did come back, smiling weakly at him and biting her fingernails, he reciprocated the smile, saying nothing, putting his earbuds back in. They worked in silent tandem together as they so often did, speaking only when necessary. While he worked, Thad told himself that Alice was strong and resilient, that she didn’t need him to protect her anymore. She had chosen Mateo for that now, and Thad would be grateful for whatever little space she left for an old friend. Who knew how long Mateo would let her work for him, or how long he’d let her work at all. They never spoke of Mateo, or of Elena.

At night he’d keep the TV on, even while he slept. He watched porn every night, jacking off mindlessly, two, sometimes three times, rubbing himself raw to images of big tittied bottle blondes take it up the ass.

He went to the club every weekend, partly to watch the scenes, but also for the deafening noise and the feeling of being surrounded by people who were just as fucked up as he was. He didn’t even try to take anyone home. A few women approached him and he halfheartedly listened to them, let them grind up a little against his dick as they stood together watching the scenes. But when the moment came for him to buy them a drink, take them into a private room, he let the opportunity pass. No, the club was just live porn for him these days. Something he watched instead of participating in. He’d come home late and crash, struggling to go to work the next day, fueled only on coffee and energy bars.

But he couldn’t keep up his frenetic pace forever, he knew that the crash was coming eventually. And it came in the strangest of places, a young man playing a violin as Thad exited the streetcar one morning on an expedition to discover a particular brand of mushroom powder.

The sound of the strings had hit him like a brick in the face when he stepped out of the streetcar, surrounded by people busily walking past. The bow caressed the strings, the long, plaintive notes slicing cleanly through his daze. He stood there, unable to move, watching the man’s hand perch over the bow, his figure swaying as he played. Thad closed his eyes, all too aware of the ridiculousness of it, and it was Elena, in an emerald green dress, rocking back and forth as the music swelled from the instrument between her thighs. Elena’s dark skin, luscious and exposed. Elena’s hair, its waves cascading, calling out to him like a siren song. Her little half smile when she found his eyes at the party, when she wiped her mouth after deep throating his cock.

Thad had turned around, boarding the same streetcar he had just exited. He went home, even though he had planned to return to work after his shopping trip. He stripped and got into bed, pulling up the covers, and tried to sleep.

It was silent in his room for the first time in over a month, but it somehow didn’t bother him. He still heard the man’s violin, and it summoned the faint memory of Elena’s song that night. He’d never figured out the name of it. He reached down, holding his dick in his hand, asking it if it wanted to be touched. But his cock lay limp, and Thad slept.

He woke to the sound of his phone ringing, and the desperate urge to pee. He took the call while standing over the toilet. It was Alice.

“Hey,” he said gruffly, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“Hey,” she said cautiously. “You ok?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s . . . it’s almost 4. You coming in today?”

“Jesus,” he swore tiredly. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there in an hour.”

“You don’t sound good, Thad.”

“I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

“Maybe you’re sick. You should go back to bed.”

“No, I’m not sick,” he insisted, but his voice sounded pathetic even to him.

“Remember your cardinal rule.”

Thad’s cardinal rule was Don’t come to work sick. It was negligence of the first order for a restaurant worker to handle food while sick. Whenever anyone in the kitchen sneezed twice in a row, he sent them home.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll stay home.”

Alice was silent for a moment, apparently surprised at the readiness with which he gave in.

“Take a few days. We only have the platters going out this weekend, the guys and I can handle that without you.”

“We need stuff from the market though.”

“As if I’ve never gone to the market without you,” she said drily.

He wanted to laugh, but he had nothing in him.

“Ok, I’ll call you Sunday.”

“Alright,” she said softly.

He stood there naked, holding his dick over the toilet bowl, Alice still on the line. He should hang up, take a shower, eat something. But he just stood there.

“Are you okay, Thad, really?”

Thad sighed. There was nothing he could say to that.

“Go back to bed,” she said in a motherly tone. “And if you don’t answer my texts over the weekend, I’m coming over.”

“Ooohh, I’m scared.”

Alice laughed, and he felt the relief in her voice to hear him tease, even just a little.

He ended the call, crawling back into bed as Alice had commanded, thoughts of a shower disappearing as the urge to burrow was stronger than all else.

***

He woke again to the chime of his phone, groaning. He peeked his head out of the covers, and the sun was down. He’d slept all fucking day. Maybe he was sick.

He flipped his phone over, saw Alice’s name, and groaned again. His stomach growled, and he knew he had to eat. But an unanswered text from Alice apparently meant business, and that he did not want.

The notification read simply: “Don’t be mad at me for sending.”

Thad frowned, confused, and opened his message app. As he started to type a reply, another text chimed.

It was a video clip of Elena.

Thad stared at the small rectangle on his phone, too surprised to press play. She was dressed in black, her cello poised. Behind her was a red velvet backdrop, like the kind at old theatres. He could make out banners of text on the top and bottom of the screen. It was a produced video clip, not Alice’s personal recording.

He looked at his phone, holding it midair, doing nothing.

Then he put the phone down, took a long, hot shower, and ate a bowl of noodles. He drank a glass of cold water, and then another. He put on clean clothes, and brought his phone out to the kitchen island. Sitting on a barstool, he pressed play.

It was her showcase, he realized belatedly. Only a minute or so of a song, then it faded out, fading back in to her playing another. Just snippets, with her name in the top banner, and the name of the song and composer on the bottom. No sound from any audience. At the end there was a white screen with her program’s name, and a link to watch the showcase in full.

She’d been so nervous. And while he knew next to nothing about classical music, he knew with certainty that she’d done well. Exquisitely well.

But she’d looked somber, the tight smile on her face at times not precisely one of happiness, but of pleasantry. She had worn black slacks and a black blouse, a far cry from a backless green silk dress with slits to mid-thigh. And she hadn’t looked out at the audience at all. She had known he wasn’t there.

Another text from Alice.

“?”

Thad exhaled a short breath, a fragment of a laugh. He typed a reply.

“Thank you.”

Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then Alice rewrote, and sent.

“She did amazing.”

Thad hesitated.

“I knew she would,” he typed eventually, locking and silencing the phone right after.

He got up, and put shoes on. It was time for a walk.

***

Thad couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt as he entered the club a few nights later, knowing that Alice and the crew were prepping the catering without him while he watched strangers fuck each other in a sex dungeon.

He didn’t even really want to go, but he’d had several more relapses of lying in bed for long stretches, avoiding air and light and humans. It had begun to feel like the begin of something worrying, so he had decided to go out. He’d wondered maybe a hike, but it had rained, and had considered a movie, but couldn’t discover anything worth seeing. So it was back at the trusty fuck fortress.

It was a glow party night. Had Thad known this, he wouldn’t have gone. The club took on a stupid vibe during glow parties, with people painting their faces and bodies, and idiotic giant glowing balloons being tossed around all night. A different crowd came out then, young people who liked to dance, and there was less of the real stuff to see. It was hard to flog to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.”

He was watching a scene halfheartedly, distracted by the strobing colors. It was a professor/student detention setup, not exactly Thad’s cup of tea, but it was better than a damn balloon. The girl had a great ass, and she wore a collar. She belonged to someone then, though not necessarily her “teacher” in the scene. She was a pretty good actor, looking truly repentant for whatever homework she’d failed to turn in, gazing up at teacher with eyes as big as saucers as she started to blow him.

Thad focused on the woman’s mouth as it wrapped around her teacher’s cock, the man’s hand resting heavily on her head, holding her chestnut hair in a loose bun, the pressure encouraging her deeper. It was good, a little too close to Thad’s sore spot, but he couldn’t look away.

A chorus of loud feminine shrieks pulled the audience’s attention, and Thad rolled his eyes at a group of women smearing glow-in-the-dark paint all over each other’s naked breasts. When he turned back to the scene, his eyes caught.

It was Elena.

Thad blinked forcefully, distrustful of his eyes. But it was her, and she was dressed like a slut.

His breathing increased as he took in her getup. Her tight white crop top glowed an otherworldly bright blue in the blacklight, exposing half her stomach. Then a short, black leather skirt, black sheer tights, and the combat boots she had worn to the restaurant that night. He stared at that skirt, practically just a leather napkin, his gaze catching on the shine of a belly chain at her waist. Her mass of hair was slicked back into a high ponytail, and her lips were painted dark. On her wrist was a glowing white band, a sign that she was here on a vetted guest pass. A white bracelet meant she was off limits to men, untouchable. But every man here could see every curve of her body on display.

Where the fuck had she gotten that outfit, Thad wondered, flooded all at once with irrational anger. Had she worn that out before?

She hadn’t seen him, she was watching the same scene as he had been, the blowjob having moved on to doggystyle sex with some generous spanking. She seemed transfixed as she watched the couple, the schoolgirl moaning over the booming music, her plaid skirt around her waist. The woman’s face was pressed into the rug on the floor, her hands bound behind her with the professor’s silk tie.

For a long time, Thad watched Elena watching the couple fuck.

He felt torn. Half of him wanted to watch her like this, follow her around, see where she lingered, what turned her on. The other half of him wanted to shove her out the front door and hurl her back into Mateo’s house.

As he looked around, he noticed several men watching Elena with the same obvious interest as he had been. The second half of him won.

He strode over, but she was so engrossed she didn’t notice his approach.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

At the sound of his voice she turned, then jumped a little, as if he had appeared out of nowhere. But her surprise was quickly masked, and within a moment she was glancing back at the scene. The idea that he didn’t even warrant her full attention was enraging.

“What?” she asked, cupping a hand behind her ear to signal she couldn’t hear.

He bellowed his question again, damning the infernal booming music.

She nodded, having heard.

“America is a free country,” she shouted, shrugging nonchalantly.

“You don’t belong here,” he insisted.

She held up her tan arm, showing off her bracelet.

“Someone thinks I do.”

“Who vetted you?” he demanded.

She shook her head, frowning. Thad wasn’t sure if she was refusing to answer, or if she couldn’t hear him.

“Who gave you that?” he rephrased it, pointing at the bracelet.

Elena flashed her coy, witchy smile, and Thad’s entire body tensed to see it. It had been so long since he’d seen her, but to his body, it was just yesterday.

“Maybe I have a new boyfriend,” she said loudly, her smile wide.

Thad wasn’t gonna deal with much more of her horseshit.

“Where is he?” Thad asked, feigning curiosity and looking around.

Elena said nothing, and turned to look at the couple acting the scene instead. It was missionary now, both of them fully naked and working hard. It wouldn’t last much longer.

“You’ve got to go home,” he pressed, stepping in front of her line of sight.

Elena shook her head firmly.

“No, I’m staying.”

“You’re out of your depths, Elena.”

“I can’t hear you,” she said loudly, waving as if to shoo him, and he almost throttled her. It was a coin toss whether she actually couldn’t hear, or was being facetious.

“Let’s go outside then.”

“How about up there?” she asked prettily, pointing at the red staircase leading upstairs.

Thad shook his head firmly. His hand was somehow gripping her upper arm, unable to let go. Upstairs were the private rooms. No fucking way he was taking her there. Besides, he couldn’t.

“Look,” she exclaimed, pulling her arm out of his grasp as she turned again. Thad watched distractedly as the professor ejaculated over the naked student’s belly, pumping his dick hard as white spurts of semen spilled on her breasts and stomach. The woman rubbed it into her skin, luxuriating in it, talking softly just to him. The man shuddered, bending over with the force of his orgasm, as the woman arched off the ground, offering herself even now.

Thad glanced down at Elena, hardly caring about the scene, but she was biting down on her lower lip. He thought briefly if she’d slept with anyone since that night at the restaurant, sure the fiction of a new boyfriend was a lie. He’d watched her for a long time, she had come alone. And strangely he was sure he’d know if she wasn’t alone, he’d smell another male on her body.

“We need to talk,” he said gruffly.

Elena put on an exaggerated pout.

“I don’t want to talk. I want to dance!”

She started swaying her hips to the rhythm of the music, lifting her hands up to play with her ponytail. She wiggled her eyebrows at him to coax him to dance, and it was the closest he’d been to laughing in a month.

“I don’t dance.” As if the fact had to be stated aloud.

“Well, goodbye then,” she said daintily, swiveling her hip and making for the dance floor on the other end of the space.

Thad watched her take a few steps, calling her bluff.

But amazingly she kept going, not looking back. Thad felt a simmering anger inside of him. Never in his life had he fucking followed a woman like this, but he wasn’t about to let her grind her sweet little ass up on some stranger. God knows what sort of trouble she’d get into, white band or no.

He cut off her path and she stopped, still dancing in place, smiling up at him as if she’d expected him to follow. They were at the edge of the dance floor now, dense with bodies. Thad could smell cologne and sweat.

“Enough, Elena,” he said, exasperated.

“You are no fun,” she laughed, running her hands over her own breasts and waist as she danced. Thad felt another rush of anger.

“Let’s go.”

“I’m not going,” she said more firmly. “I can find someone else to dance with me.”

“Stop it,” he growled, grabbing her by the waist to still her movement. She looked up at him, surprised.

“You want to talk?”

“Yes,” he snapped. Actually, he wanted her to leave, but he’d settle for getting her off this fucking hotbed of B.O. and pheromones.

“Take me upstairs.”

“I can’t.”

“Then leave me alone,” she huffed, pulling his arm off from around her. But he caught her wrist in his hand and thrust it in front of her face.

“I can’t,” he said again. “You’re not allowed up there.”

Elena’s smile grew, a smile that was decidedly worrying. She started sashaying again to the music, and Thad’s frustration was becoming difficult to contain. She pulled her hand out of his gently, dancing away.

Thad growled to himself, unable to believe what was happening.

But Elena didn’t go to the dance floor. She danced right up to a group of couples, leaning in to talk and gesture to them over the booming music. One man in a tight white tank raised his hand briefly before reaching into his back pocket, and Thad took an involuntary step forward. She was fucking gonna do it. She was gonna dance right in front of him with this tall Nordic motherfucker. Thad was absolutely, utterly enraged.

Yet before he could intervene, Elena leaned closer, extending her hands to the man who now bent over her.

What the fuck?

Then she tilted her head back, giving the Nordic guy a beaming smile, and Thad felt his rage turn swiftly into something else. Something unfamiliar, sharp and painful in his chest.

The physical pain of it gave him pause, and he blinked, suddenly wanting to leave, go home, crawl in bed.

But there Elena was, back in front of him, waving a naked wrist in his face.

“Am I allowed now?”

Still the pain lingered, and Thad glared at the man in the wifebeater who had cut her bracelet off. He wasn’t even looking their way. He was taking a swig of beer, his arm draped around the shoulders of a brunette.

“Or maybe you want to dance now?” she goaded him, swaying, and Thad grabbed her by the forearm, dragging her over to the stairs.

***

Thad saw red the whole time he checked them into a private room, giving his member ID to the concierge. He’d opted for a half hour slot only; they wouldn’t need long. He just needed some answers, and to convince her to leave. He’d even drive her home if that’s what it took.

Elena walked around the space casually, her hands tracing the leather and wood surfaces. The room was cast in a subtle red light, making Elena’s exposed skin seem to glow.

“Are these always here?” she asked curiously, gesturing to the sex accoutrements on one table as she kicked off her shoes.

“Yes. They’re cleaned.”

She ran her finger over the rounded head of a hitachi wand, then picked up an anal plug and examined it. Thad felt his anger draining, finally alone with her. When she picked up a flogger and gave it an experimental flick, he bit his lip to keep from smiling.