Power Bottom Page 7

  “You have quite the imagination,” I said, the corner of my mouth twitching into a grin. Maybe it was a good thing to have a partner that was a chatterbox. I thought it would chase away criminals, but instead, it chased away the loneliness.

  “Me and my boo talk about opening a business all the time,” she said, plucking her flashlight out of its holster and waving it towards the wall. “But it’s mostly for his sake. I know I’m always gonna be a cop.”

  Her flashlight shone on some grease spots streaking the walls.

  “This is where they found the first body, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, the first one. A few months ago, before you got here.”

  “And where did they find him?” I asked, a lump in my throat forming.

  “Over here, near this pipe,” she said.

  I walked over and merged my flashlight beam with hers. Our lights formed a Venn Diagram on some filthy-looking water pouring out from a large pipe in the wall.

  “What did the detective say about finding him here? Did the killer just… dump him? Or did he, you know…”

  I dragged my fingers across my throat, and they snagged on my bandage.

  Uneasiness turned over in my gut.

  “Detective said they dumped the body here, and they killed him somewhere else.”

  I nodded slowly, feeling a little shaken for the first time in a long time.

  But there was no way I was going to show Claire that.

  I asked her a few more questions about the body while we continued our sweep around the factory. It was fruitless; I knew that right after they found the body, the station would have had every forensic specialist in the city swarming this place. Every tiny detail would have already been collected, examined, and stored safely in a thick plastic baggie.

  The obvious question to anyone that wasn’t a cop would be, “What do you expect to find?” But to us, the police, we weren’t looking to find anything. Not really. We were looking for things that were out of place. Details that seemed off. Sometimes we learned more about a crime from what we didn’t see than what we did — like we were looking at an inkblot test, focusing on the negative spaces.

  I swished my flashlight past the machinery and walked along the side of the wall, taking peeks into the office spaces.

  The tingling intensified. Something wasn’t right.

  “Hey, Big Guy! You about ready to head out of here?” Claire called, her voice echoing in the big space.

  “Give me a minute,” I called back.

  I was close to something; I could feel it.

  My eyes zipped along the bottom edge of the room, and I noticed the shadow of the flashlight looked a tiny bit different when it shone at the base of the door nearby. It was like something shiny was stuck under there, fragmenting the light into small, brilliant spears.

  “There’s nothing over there — crime scene was way over here,” Claire said.

  “I think I found something,” I called back.

  I got on my hands and knees, then peeked under the door.

  Wedged in the thin crack between the base of the door and the floor was a small metal button-looking thing.

  Claire appeared at my side, dropping to her belly.

  “The fuck is that?” she asked in a hushed whisper.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I stood up, looked around, and found a long, thin piece of metal nearby. Then I was back at the door, sliding it underneath.

  “Don’t touch it; it might have fingerprints on it and shit!” Claire said quietly as if the button might be able to hear us.

  “I won’t,” I said as I finagled the strip of metal this way and that, trying to dislodge the button.

  “You got it!” Claire cried.

  We watched as the spherical metal thing whizzed across the smooth concrete floor as if it was prey trying to escape us.

  I chased it until it ran out of momentum, trying not to touch it.

  When it finally rolled on its shiny side, I could make out what it was:

  A stud. An identical stud to the ones in my studded Dom outfits.

  “Luke?” I called into the house as I stepped through the threshold.

  There was a mumbled cry from the top of the stairs.

  It put me on high-alert; Luke sounded like he was sick or tired or… or in trouble!

  I raced up the stairs, taking two at a time and scanned our house.

  “Luke, where are you, babe?”

  “I’m in here,” he said.

  His voice sounded like it came from our bedroom.

  I stepped inside and saw him curled up in his blanket, poking at his glowing phone.

  The sigh of relief that I pushed out of my lungs had never felt so good.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” I said, taking a step towards the bed.

  His eyes were on mine, and then they fell to the bandage on my neck. “I’m happy to see you too.”

  But the sparkle was missing from his words.

  “Are you feeling alright?” I asked as I sat on the bed next to him.

  He nodded quickly like his head was fluttering. “I saw the therapist today.”

  “Oh? And what was that like?” I asked, desperate to keep him talking about his day. Desperate to keep the subject off of mine, which I knew I’d eventually have to tell him.

  I felt like I’d betrayed him somehow by going back out into the field.

  “It was… good. We talked about what I wanted to work on, and the goals of therapy and all that, and mostly just chatted. To see if we’re a good fit. He seems like a cool guy.”

  Something was wrong. I could hear it in the spaces between Luke's words.

  “Did you talk about… any BDSM stuff?” I asked.

  Frankly, I’d been ravenously curious about what set this therapist apart. Even people in the BDSM community back home raved about him.

  “He said he specializes in it, but that we would only talk about it if and when I wanted to. We didn’t talk about it this time.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of disappointment in my gut. “I see.”

  The air between us was tight, and I didn’t know what to do or say to loosen it.

  “Is there… is there anything wrong?” I asked.

  God, I sounded so needy. But what else could I say to close all of this distance between us?

  “No, I’d like to be left alone,” he said, his eyes glued to his glowing phone screen.

  I felt like a door had been shut in my face; I was locked out of Luke’s mind.

  “No can do,” I said, snuggling against him. “You’ve been alone since you got back from class. I know that when you spend too much time alone, your anxiety—”

  “DON’T LECTURE ME ABOUT MY ANXIETY!” He shouted.

  I withdrew sharply as if I’d just snapped my finger in a mousetrap.

  Luke was sitting up, nostrils flaring, his phone a glowing rectangle on the bed. It illuminated him from below, making him look exactly like his terrifying bipolar mother — Sarah DuPont.

  Just as quickly as it had come on, his angry expression morphed into a teary-eyed one.

  “I’m so sorry, Adam!” he sobbed, dropping his face in his hands. “That wasn’t for you!”

  I wrapped him in a tentative hug. “I know, I know.”

  He cried into my shirt.

  “Anything you need,” I said gently.

  “I…” he started. “I… you’re right. I want you here, next to me. I’m just so scared, Adam.”

  I could feel my heart breaking for him; breaking in all the ways it never broke for myself when I went through my own trauma. Then, I was hit by the memory of my own therapy.

  “Luke, did Dr. Brinkman talk to you about… possible sources of your trauma? Like, did you guys talk about what happened when Kirk left you in that basement for three days?”

  Luke nodded vigorously. “And my dad cheating on my mom, and some stuff that happened to me when I was a kid…”

  My eyes narro
wed. “They’re not supposed to do that during the first appointment.”

  “He didn’t ask! I went into his office, sat on his shrink couch, and after the usual greetings, he asked me what I was seeing him to work on. Then it all just… came out.”

  “Oh, Luke. That’s perfectly normal,” I said gently, cuddling him close. “Normal that you’re feeling like this now.”

  Luke snuggled into me, and I felt pure happiness. All I knew was that I would do anything to protect this beautiful creature next to me.

  He was quiet, just this warm, delicate thing in the crook of my arm, breathing.

  “When I went to therapy years ago, my first day went like this, too. I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling like the air on top of my chest was heavy. Like my PTSD had taken the form of an overweight cat, and it settled onto my body and kept me from moving.”

  Luke chuckled. “I’ve been picturing mine as a fat dog.”

  I chuckled and kissed him on the temple. “Cat or dog — the metaphor works both ways. So I would be lying in my bed after my appointments, not able to do anything. My thoughts felt like they were covered in molasses; they were sticky and heavy. I would stay like that for the entire evening, not even thinking about my trauma. But somehow, it was there, physically on top of me.”

  “…that feels like what’s happening to me right now,” Luke admitted.

  “Well, you’re not alone. It’s completely normal. At least, that’s what my therapist told me when I talked about it with her. She said the trauma is like a cut—” My hand went to my neck and rested on my bandage. “And as time passes, it heals over by itself. But if it’s something especially traumatizing, it gets infected, and there’s pus that builds up inside.”

  Luke was listening to me carefully, laying completely still.

  “Anything that reminds you of the traumatic event — for me, it was hearing rushing water — cuts at the wound a little, and then the pus leaks out. You don’t even have to remember the details of your trauma, but your body does. And your body feels the pus and thinks it’s happening again. So it bathes your body in stress hormones.”

  “Like when I hear an ambulance,” Luke said. “That’s a trigger for my anxiety.”

  “Right, exactly. That’s just some of the pus leaking out. And today, you talked about what it sounds like several wounds coming open at your appointment. Even though you might not be thinking about them, your body is trying to seal them shut. That’s why you’re on this bed in the dark, alone. Your body is extremely stressed out, even though your mind might feel clear.”

  Luke was quiet for a bit. Then, after I thought he’d gone to sleep, he said softly, “What happens when all the pus is gone? Do I have to keep pressing at my wounds until I squeeze it all out?”

  I shifted my body to get more comfortable. “That’s what worked for me. It was like torture, but it nulls your body’s response to the stressful stimulus. My therapist kept telling me that we were ‘making it extinct.’ But I don’t know what’ll work for you — I don’t know Dr. Brinkman or what he’ll have you do.”

  “Well, all I know right now is that I feel worse.”

  “Try again, and if that doctor doesn’t work for you, we can find you a different one. Regardless of what happens, I’ll be here for you, Luke.”

  I could feel a shift in Luke’s facial muscles as he smiled. “Solid.”

  “Solid,” I said.

  After a while, Luke’s breathing slowed and he fell asleep.

  I stayed awake, feeling his warm, heavy weight in my arms, thinking about that factory. There was a guilty feeling that tugged on the edges of my mind, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d gotten away with something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

  I’d gotten away with not telling Luke about my day.

  My last thought before I fell asleep was that I had to keep the details of my job under lock-and-key; otherwise, I’d risk upsetting Luke. He was already going through so much stress… the last thing I wanted to do was to pile the burden of my own fears, my own uneasiness, onto him.

  Though, the line between protecting him and feeling close to him was widening. I couldn’t help but feel a shade of my old loneliness settle onto my chest.

  Luke

  After that night following therapy, I started to feel better. Loads better.

  I couldn’t help but feel what Adam told me about the emotional wounds and pus was right. Was I starting to squeeze it out? Was that why I yelled at him?

  I took a moment to look around the room at the other fashion design students, wondering if any of them had ever experienced anything similar.

  Part of me was jealous that Adam got to spend all day with his new partner, Claire. Even though he said she was a chatterbox, it must have been nice to talk to someone. As a student at Parsons, all of my classmates were my competitors. Making genuine friendships was even harder than usual because I was surrounded by either big-ego artist types or incredibly insecure students who channeled their trauma into their work. Sometimes it was all they talked about — their trauma. Like it had become them, overshadowing their personality like poison ivy climbing up a tree, completely obscuring the bark.

  I thought about something Dr. Brinkman said to me at my last appointment: That some people hang on to their trauma, carry it in their heart like a precious jewel. That they wouldn’t know who they would be without it. They sabotaged themselves by letting it rule their lives and were reluctant to shed the layers of the cocoon of fears and face their own identity without it.

  That wasn’t going to be me.

  “Today is critique,” Professor King announced happily over her shining red frames. “You all know what that means— get ready.”

  My heart fluttered with something else that wasn’t fear. Something that was its cousin:

  Excitement.

  For once, I couldn’t wait to show off what I had put together. In the past, there was nothing I dreaded more than public speaking. And when I read about the description for Parsons and learned that instead of tests, they had these things called ‘critiques,’ I thought I might just die.

  Critiques were the backbone of how design school functioned. Every week, students would have to stand up in front of the class alongside their work. The rest of the students would sit in a half-circle around the work. Then, the professor would make every single person criticize their creation.

  I’d seen students ripped to shreds.

  Crit sounded like an absolute nightmare when I read about it, but I’d learned that it wasn’t so scary in practice. Everyone in the classroom was familiar with each other, and it was good practice in separating your ego from your work.

  …also, I couldn’t help but feel that I got to show off a bit.

  A young woman with platinum blond hair had to go first.

  She dragged the bust with her partially-constructed dress on it to the front of the classroom. There was the sound of chairs scraping the floor as the other students pulled their stools into a half-moon shape around her work.

  I could see from where I was sitting that the dress had an interesting-looking design; tiny pleats were zigzagging over it, and what looked like a notebook paper pattern. If I squinted, I could make out some handwriting-looking text on it.

  Once we were all settled, the professor pulled out her notepad and a pen and called out, “Description.”

  I watched the platinum blonde girl jerk to life as if the professor had shocked her with that word.

  “Well, um, I’m Lily, as you all know,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “And this is… the start of my first piece of my collection.”

  My eyes slid over to the professor. She pursed her lips, then scribbled something on her notepad.

  Lily’s eyes flicked nervously to the professor’s pen.

  “I… uh, well, you see…”

  She turned bright red.

  I tried to send mental vibes to her to soothe her. Being in the hot seat was never fun, especially
if you had unfinished work.

  …which was how her piece looked.

  “Description,” the professor repeated, her pen poised.

  Lily took in a deep breath and then said, “This dress was inspired by an image I saw on Instagram.”

  “Which image?” Professor King asked, her voice a little gentler now. “We’re here to learn how to harness inspiration, so it would be helpful for us to see it, if possible.”

  Lily turned white. “Well… I don’t remember the handle—”

  “That’s fine,” the professor said. “Describe it to us.”

  Lily cleared her throat, seemingly to steel herself. “It was a picture of a naked woman. She looked perfect to me, but all over her skin, someone had written in pen all of her insecurities. Like on her arms, there were the words’ fat,’ ‘wrinkly,’ ‘sausage,’ on her stomach, the words 'rolls’ and ‘cellulite,’ and on her face were a bunch of other words.”

  The professor scribbled something down in her notebook, nodding. “Very good, Lily. So how does that relate to this piece?”

  “It made me think of my insecurities,” she said with a sigh. “I write those words down in my diary all the time. So I scanned the pages of my diary, sent them to the fabric store, and had them print this fabric for me.”

  A few students leaned forward on their stools, myself included. I could tell that the interest of the class was piqued.

  “Those are your words?” the professor asked, the hint of interest on the tip of her question.

  Lily nodded, then blushed. “I redacted some of the more… private things. But I was playing with the idea that I would wear everything I’m afraid of on the outside. Not like armor, but like something I wanted to show off. Clothing. Fashion.”

  There were students around me nodding, and I felt my head bob up and down in agreement.

  She was brave.

  “Is it all right if the class takes a closer look?” the professor asked.

  “Yes,” Lily said, the single syllable sounding like a word of power.

  The class rushed off of their stools and crowded around the piece. I craned my neck, trying to peer over the heads in front of me.

  Her handwriting was neat and crisp, so her words were legible. There was a roundness to them like she was writing in half-cursive. It was as if the thoughts were pouring out of her head, through her hand, and then onto the paper in one unbroken line of ink.