up into her eyes. There was something he had to know.
“I did not fuck him,” she said. “I would have, true, but I didn’t. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I know that.”
“He couldn’t have performed, anyway. Not without an audience. It’s his thing.”
“I know. Hegel told me.” Val said.
“He got that from Kurt,” she said. “Kurt liked that. So, of course, Georg fixated on it. Kurt was God for him. I think what Georg truly wanted was just, well, Kurt. That was his way to get…closer.”
Val flinched, dragging himself out of her body. “Please. No more details. I cannot stand it.”
That infuriated her for some reason. She felt thrown back upon herself. “Why? Can’t you handle it, Val? Do I disgust you?”
His head swiveled around. “Shut up,” he said fiercely.
His harshness startled her. She curled up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Fine,” she said distantly. “So we won’t talk.”
Val seized her by the shoulders and gave her a short, hard shake.
“I cannot stand the thought of anyone hurting you,” he said. “Not now, not in the past, and not in the future. Is that so fucking offensive to you, Tamar?” His eyes bored into hers, daring her to object.
She gaped at him, disarmed. “Um. I see.” She cleared her throat, and said the first thing that popped into her head. “Val? Could you get that handcuff off your wrist? It’s bugging me. Sort of like, ah, as if you were walking around with your fly open.”
He made a frustrated sound and got up, puttering around in the dimness to search in his discarded jacket on the floor. He pulled a tiny kit out of the pocket, smaller than a cigarette case, full of small tools.
He came back to the bed and switched on the flickering fluorescent light by the bed, and scowled with concentration as he picked the lock mechanism.
She rolled closer to him and stroked the dips and curves of his muscular thigh with her fingertips. It took him only a minute before he leaned over and snapped one of the open cuffs onto a wrought iron loop that decorated the painted metal headboard.
“It looks perverse, hanging underneath the Madonna Addolorata,” she said. “Sort of sacrilegious.”
He snapped off the light. The darkness seemed much deeper now. “It seems appropriate to me,” he said. “Under the circumstances.”
She didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. She got up from the bed—and stopped cold, as hot semen trickled down her thigh.
She stiffened in shock. “We didn’t…” Her voice trailed off.
Val’s dark gaze was unapologetic, and unsurprised. “No,” he said flatly. “We didn’t.”
She stood like a statue, her hands flat on her belly. There was nothing to say. She couldn’t blame him, despite his aggressiveness. That carelessness was mutual, and they both knew it. If he hadn’t jumped her, she would have jumped him. Without a thought of protecting herself.
Fear swept through her like an icy wind, weakening her limbs. The dark got abruptly darker, the air swirling through the door colder against her sweat-chilled skin.
She felt so fucking vulnerable.
“Is it a dangerous time?” he asked in a carefully neutral voice.
She harrumphed. “Who the hell knows? This is me, Val. This is Tam. Do I look like a woman with a predictable cycle? Could anything about me be characterized as regular? Get real.”
His chest jerked with dry laughter. “Ah, sì? And what does a regular woman look like?”
Her shoulders lifted, dropped. “Not like me, that’s for sure,” she muttered. “I don’t even eat. I go for months with no period. Nothing about me is normal.”
“Yes, this is so,” he agreed, a little too readily.
She slanted him a cool glance and hurried into the bathroom.
The water from the bidet was icy cold, and there was no soap, but it didn’t matter. She washed until her private parts burned from the cold, all too aware of the futility of the gesture. She dried off, wrapped the threadbare towel around herself. When she came out, Val was motionless on the bed.
“Promise me something,” he said.
“I don’t make promises,” she said. “To anyone.”
“I demand it.” His voice hardened.
“Demand all you want,” she replied. “Feel free. It changes nothing.”
But he persisted. “Never do that to me again, Tamar.”
“Do what?” She injected a fake lightness into her tone. “I’ve done a lot of unforgivable things lately. Help me keep them straight.”
“Do not use your body as currency.”
Anger boiled up inside her like lava. How dare he. He, of all people, should know better. “Do you think I ever wanted to, in my life?” she demanded, incredulous. “Did you ever want to, Val? What are you telling me? That you can protect me from the greed and lust and cruelty of all men forever? Do you think I can be sure I won’t be in a situation where I have to trade sex for the chance to live for another fucking ten minutes? Like today, for instance? Don’t be stupid! It makes me angry!”
“Just…promise it.” He bit the words out slowly.
“No,” she said.
He wrenched the towel off her body. His cock was lengthening. His eyes gleamed in the dark with undimmed intensity. Oh, God. Men. As if his huge, waving erection had anything to do with anything.
She clenched her jaw. “I will not lie to you,” she said.
“I’m not asking for a lie.” His voice vibrated with intensity. “I’m asking for you to change the truth.”
She shook, a tremor of laughter that was closer to tears. “Oh? Like it’s so easy? The truth is the truth, Val. You can’t change it. You can’t control a damn thing. There is no limit to how bad things can get. If you accept that, you’ll be stronger. Maybe you’ll survive. That’s the best a person can hope for.”
“I love your strength,” he said quietly. “Your strength excites me. Your cruelty exhausts me.”
She shook her head. “It would be so easy to lie to you.” Her voice trembled despite her best efforts to steady it. “I could have said, oh, sure, baby, you bet. I promise, cross my heart. But I didn’t. Not to you, Val. I’ve given you what I’ve never given any man in my life, you thick-skulled, ungrateful prick. What I never imagined giving anyone. And you call it cruelty.”
He grabbed her hips as she began to turn away, and jerked her close, pressing his face
