He takes one of my hands and turns it palm up. “How did you get these?” he asks, stroking my fingers.
I try and pull away, but I’m too relaxed to move. It’s almost like my body is out of my control. “The Aedox did this to me, just before I was selected for The Litarian Battles,” I say without even thinking. “But I don’t know how or why.”
Frey takes my hand, brings it to his lips, and kisses it. He leans over touching my cheek before kissing me on the lips. I fall backwards onto the couch, Frey following, lying on top of me. He throws the blanket to the floor, unfastens my robe, and begins kissing every scar he sees. I find myself enjoying his touch, his closeness. His hands search, finding areas I didn’t know needed tending. I know this is wrong, but I’m allowing it to happen, at least I think so.
Heat builds between us and I don’t want it to stop. Part of me is hoping that Brink finds out that I slept with someone. I want him to feel rage at my actions. I want the thought of me having sex with Frey to anger him, taking him to the breaking point. This thought drives me on, heightening the pleasure. Frey kisses me hard on the lips, then pulls the blanket from the floor to cover our naked bodies. He holds me tight against his chest as he runs his fingers up and down my spine. My euphoric feeling turns into tiredness and I find myself dozing off.
When I wake, I’m wrapped in the blanket on top of my bed.
Did what I think just happened, happen? I would never succumb so easily like that. Could I’ve been drugged? Why would Frey do that?
The storm outside has diminished to a slight drizzle. I get up and head into the bathroom for a quick shower. It takes me over thirty minutes to clean the sand from my toes and legs. After I’m dry, I pull on black cotton lounge pants, a gray sweatshirt, and a pair of socks since my feet are unbelievably cold. I find Frey sitting in the common room watching a music video and dressed in almost the same attire as me, but instead his sweatshirt is dark blue.
“Did you drug me?” I ask when I enter.
“What? What kind of question is that, Max?” he responds, clearly irritated by the suggestion.
“I’m just making sure that I was acting of my own free will and not being manipulated, which is something everyone in Tarsus is good at.”
“I would never force anyone to do something they didn’t want to.”
I don’t know if I fully believe him or not, so I let the air settle before I speak again. “How can you watch that stuff?” I ask, pointing to the display and trying to diffuse the tension now in the room.
“You don’t have this in the Outer Limits? It’s entertainment. It takes real talent to put something like this together.”
“The only programming ever on is The Litarian Battles,” I answer. “It’s on all the time.”
“Huh,” is his only response.
I try and watch the mess on the display, but it’s starting to hurt my head. I get up, head towards the kitchen, and open the fridge and cabinets looking for something to snack on, but nothing looks appealing. I locate glasses in the upper cabinet next to the fridge, and as I reach up to get one Frey wraps his arms around my waist pulling me into him. I didn’t even hear him approach.
“Will you stop?” I say.
He lets go, allowing me to take the glass I’d been reaching for. I fill it with water and go back to the common room, but Frey stays in the kitchen. He returns a few minutes later with crackers and cheese. We munch on them while looking for something else to watch. I clean up the plate while Frey goes towards the bedrooms, emerging a few minutes later with shoes on and a pair in his hands for me.
“It stopped raining, so let’s head outside,” he says, handing me the shoes.
I glance out the window and see that night has set in. “Why now? It’s dark. We won’t be able to see anything.”
“Trust me, Max, there’s something I want to show you.” He extends his hand out to me after I’ve secured the shoes on my feet.
I take it and he escorts me to the front door. Lights illuminate the damp pathway to the entrance and down to the main road. We follow it, turning right at the end of the drive. Each house along the road has some kind of light shining at the end of their driveway and all the way to the entrance. People are milling about inside their homes. We can’t see much, but it’s enough to know that no one here thinks about privacy or curtains. We continue north for about twenty minutes, coming upon a large complex, only it’s not a complex, but a house. One so large it makes Frey’s look like a shack.
We turn up the path and are still some distance from the entrance when I hear music thumping through the open windows. Frey takes my hand as we step on the porch, and he rings the bell. The door appears to open automatically and we step forward into a great foyer containing marble statues, pure white tile floors, and a staircase ascending three stories. Frey pulls me to the left and we follow the music down an elaborately decorated hallway to a large common room on the right. We have to descend two steps before we can fully enter the room. The carpet is lush and I almost sink into it. The walls are paneled in maple, with various displays hanging all around, each one playing a different music video.
There are only a handful of people mingling about, but one stands out to me
