The Shape of Night

But fear is part of your game, isn't it?" I look at him. "The fear that you might hurt me. That you might actually use that thing on me." I glance at the billy club, lying a few feet away, and I shudder. "Did it not excite you, just a little?" He smiles and I see the gleam of cruelty beneath the surface of those dark eyes. "You wouldn't really use it on me, would you?" "That is the mystery, is it not? How far will I go? Will I use the whip too savagely and tear your beautiful back? You do not know. You cannot predict what I will do next." He slides his fingers down my cheek. "Danger is intoxicating, Ava. So is pain. I give you only as much as you want. As much as you can bear." "I don't know what I can bear." "This we shall learn.

Have I not taught you that pain is merely the other face of pleasure? That a cry of agony sounds no different from a cry of ecstasy? Tonight you will enjoy both, without guilt, without blame, because I am the one in command. Do you not feel yourself craving it, longing for it Are you not already wet, your body preparing itself to accommodate what is to come?

Ben may be a skeptic, but he's curious enough to be at my house Saturday afternoon when Maeve arrives along with her ghost-hunting team. "This is Todd and Evan, who'll handle the technical aspects tonight," she says, introducing the two burly young men who are unloading camera gear from a white van. They are brothers with identical red beards and they look so much alike that I can only tell them apart by their different T-shirts. Evan's is Star Wars, Todd's is Alien. I'm surprised that neither is wearing Ghostbusters. A VW comes up the driveway and parks behind the white van. "And that'll be Kim, our team sensitive," says Maeve. Out of the VW emerges a stick-thin blonde with cheeks so hollow that I wonder if she has recently suffered an illness. She takes a few steps toward us and suddenly stops, staring up at the house. She stands motionless for so long that Ben finally asks, "What's going on with her?" "She's fine," says Maeve. "She's probably just trying to get a feeling for the place and detect any vibrations.

This time I avoid Commonwealth Avenue and instead take an alternate route, so I won't have to drive past Lucy's apartment. My no-go area is expanding. In the days after Nick's death, I forced myself to step through Lucy's front door only because she so desperately needed my comfort. Then I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't tolerate her hugs, couldn't look her in the eye, so I just stopped going to see her. Stopped calling her, stopped returning her voicemails. Now I can't even drive past her building. My no-go areas keep expanding, like spreading blots of ink on the city map. The area around the hospital where Lucy works. Her favorite coffee shop and grocery store. All the places where 1 might run into her and be forced to explain the reason I've dropped out of her life. Just the thought of encountering her makes my heart pound, my hands sweat. I imagine those black blots enlarging, spreading on the map until the entire city of Boston is a no-go zone. Maybe I should move to Tucker Cove forever and lock myself away in Brodie's Watch. Grow old and die there, far from this city where I see my guilt reflected back at me everywhere I look, especially on this road to my own apartment.

What’s done cannot be undone. Lady Macbeth’s