nothing as far as he could tell. Sometimes he wondered if his father wasn’t his real dad. No one on either side of the family had his color eyes. But he knew it was wishful thinking. He looked a lot like his father’s youngest sister, so he knew there was no loving, forgiving real father out there waiting to be found.
“Can I help?” Michael had learned to ask before he helped with anything involving the kitchen. No matter where he put things away, his mom always came back and moved them to their mythical “right” place.
“Almost done. How was your day?” His mom opened the cabinet over the stove and rearranged the pitchers and jars on the shelf to make more room.
“Good. Glad to be out of school. I took your books back to the library. You were done, right?”
“I was. Thank you.”
Michael shifted from one foot to the other. His mother’s stiff posture and her refusal to make eye contact with him did not portend anything good. He wasn’t sure what he’d done this time, but he decided now might not be the best time to tell her he was leaving for the summer.
“Okay, I’m going to go read, I guess.”
“Michael, are you missing something?” his mother asked before he could leave the kitchen.
“What? No, I don’t think so.”
His mother gave him a long, searching look, a familiar look, a look he’d been getting from her for the past three years. He’d even named the look—he called it the Who are you and what have you done with my son? look. The long hair, the incident over the websites and the burns, the night he’d tried to kill himself … Michael knew his mother was convinced he’d lost his mind a few years ago and she’d given up all hope he’d ever get it back.
She shook her head and walked to the back door. She pulled his skateboard out from behind the open door and handed it to him.
“Thanks. I left this somewhere.”
“You left it in the backseat of Nora Sutherlin’s car.”
Shit. Michael took a breath, decided to try a little deflection on his mom, a survival strategy Father S had taught him during their counseling sessions.
“It’s a BMW Z4 Roadster. It doesn’t have a backseat.”
Her eyes flashed with anger.
“What were you doing in Nora Sutherlin’s BMW Z4 Roadster that doesn’t have a backseat, Michael?”
“Nothing. She gave me a ride home from church.”
Michael’s mother continued to stare at him.
“You know she’s old enough to be your mother, right? I know she doesn’t look like it and God knows she doesn’t act like it, but she is.”
“It was just a ride home, Mom. She’s nice. She’s not like you think she is.”
“I think she’s a very dangerous woman. And I think you could get hurt if you spend any more time with her.”
Michael thought about Nora, how she lived so brazenly. Would he ever be as fearless as her? Michael remembered a few months ago he’d been lurking around the hallways after church, eavesdropping on Nora’s conversations. One of the resident old bats had been going on about the abomination of sodomy. Nora had patted the woman on the back and said, “If it’s an abomination, it’s because you’re doing it wrong. Bear down hard, then relax. It’ll fit better.” Then she’d breezed off, leaving the old ladies blushing and huffing. Michael had run into the bathroom and laughed his ass off in one of the stalls.
Fearless. He could do that.
“I like getting hurt,” he said.
His mother shook her head. “Don’t remind me.”
Michael started to turn and walk away. He felt as though he’d spent most of the past two years turning and walking away from his mom. He’d much rather run up to her and hug her than walk away from her yet again. But that didn’t seem to be an option anymore.
“I’m going to be gone this summer. I leave on Thursday. That’s okay, right?”
“Fine,” his mom said. He thought he heard a note of relief in her voice. “If that’s what you need to do. You’re going to be a camp counselor again?”
“Something like that,” he said. “I’m good on money and stuff. So you don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’ve been worried about you since the day you were born. Won’t stop now.”
Michael tried to laugh but the sound didn’t come out quite right. He started to leave.
“Michael?”
Slowly Michael turned around and faced his mother.
“You aren’t really going to camp, are you?”
“Mom, I—” Michael said and stopped.
“I don’t think I want to know what you’re doing this summer, do I?”
Michael weighed his words.
“No, probably not.”
Søren placed the first cut on her hip.
A shallow cut only an inch long, it bled out slowly. Nora’s blood welled up and slid in a thin line over her hip, drying on her skin before it reached the black sheets.
Second, Søren cut her stomach right at the edge of her rib cage.
“Talk to me, Eleanor,” Søren ordered as he made a third cut, only a half inch long, on her chest.
“Ow.” Nora laughed a little. Søren looked down at her, love and desire burned in his eyes.
“It will hurt less if you talk to me. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we haven’t done this in a long time, sir.”
The last time they’d done blood-play was over a year ago, just two weeks after she’d returned to him. That night they’d recommitted themselves to each other—Nora pledging to belong to him again, and him promising that he would do everything in his power to make her happy and keep her safe. Like their first night as lovers fourteen years ago, blood was spilled that night, her blood. Their very first night together, the blood of her torn hymen had stained his sheets; the night one year ago, the blood came from eighteen cuts all over her body. Eighteen … one cut for each year he’d known her, one cut for each year he’d loved her.
“It’s for the best we do this rarely,” he said, gently caressing the side of her face with the back of his hand. Søren seemed perfectly calm right now, his face a mask of utter serenity. But she knew him like no one else did. Under the surface of his placid demeanor rippled dark, dangerous and barely restrained desires.
Nora looked down as Søren brought the blade just underneath her right breast and made a deliberate cut.
“You
