Safe Word

Glasses clinked. The sound of their union persisting in a continuous, low ring. It persisted through the small talk that followed, the cab ride, the ascent up the stairwell. It persisted into the powerful and unexpected fatigue and darkness that followed. The ring never ceased, not until the world of the living summoned him once again.

He resurfaced into consciousness after a long and slow ascent. The weight of slumber left him, now awake, with a lingering exhaustion–the kind that comes after having slept too long.

He opened his eyes to a world that was alien in all ways but one. Beyond the four walls surrounding him, he heard his own voice singing a muffled tune. The song was an old pop classic emanating from a stereo just outside; a “Starboys” ballad seldom heard.

Scanning the surroundings, Connor Owen’s situation became clearer with every uncovered inch. Vision returned details that confused and shocked the man the more he spent time coming to. Connor lay hunched over in a bathtub, immobilized. He noticed his arms and legs were bound with twine. A bid to move both sets of limbs proved fruitless. Cold panic settled in his breast when he then felt the strip of tape holding fast to the lower part of his face. To breathe was laborious and stressful.

The song changed to another off the same record. His voice once again sang to him from the other room.

Time moved in pace with his heart’s new, frantic rattle. His attention turned outwards, beyond where he lay. The glow of various candles bathed the room in warm orange to reveal rose petals covering the tile floor and the bathtub’s rim. Connor shifted his gaze to the wall above the adjacent toilet with hastened breaths. Poorly cut-out photos of himself from promotional “Starboys” images, a boyhood yearbook photo, family vacation pictures and various social media posts blown up hung in a mindful display. It looked like a shrine.

The idea of fanaticism to this level once left Connor with a sense of intrigue. To be reveled as something more than human excited him; stroked his ego. He daydreamed of obsessed fans on more than one occasion and enjoyed the thought each time. The shrine had a different effect when beheld in real time, causing him instead to sweat with adrenaline.

He struggled against the twine again in feeble attempts to liberate himself. The movement shot pain through Connor’s bound limbs. Though he could not see the deep purple of his fingers and toes, Connor was able to deduce enough. He must have been in this tub for hours. He continued to struggle with desperation and tried to piece together the night before.

The last thing he could remember was the clink of fragile glass and the ring that persisted after. Before that he recounted dim ambiance, a bass-heavy song underscoring the wine bar’s lounge, plush booth seating, a woman in a black dress. Shutting his eyes, Connor forced an image of this woman to materialize inside his head. He recounted pale skin, long dark hair, jagged fingernails. Connor opened his eyes with a start. He willed her voice to return to him from the haze.

“…it’s got a nice fruitiness to it. Y’know, a bit sweet for a red.”

He remembered her laugh like a bee’s sharp sting. It cut through his amnesia to deliver its venom and return the missing series of events. Images from their tryst came back in a rush. The chance encounter with the woman in his favorite wine bar, the charm and sex appeal that lured him in. She showered him with an attention he once got in spades. Connor Owen: the boy bandmate that had failed to make a solo career out of his group’s success. Getting recognized at all nowadays was flattering enough to keep him interested.

She had seemed familiar when she first approached. Connor chalked it up to her conventional beauty at the time. Girls like her were a dime a dozen in the heart of LA. He remembered having many encounters with women he thought he’d met before. Names to these young and beautiful faces often failed to return to him; not that he had ever cared.

Thinking on it in his current predicament revealed an alternate reason to her familiarity. She was not merely conventional but a frequent background character to his outings about town. Always in the periphery, she was present on his trips to various downtown squats, the gym, even his favorite co-op grocery store.

The embarrassment over his own naive ignorance was enough to turn him hot with rage. Connor’s muscles responded in kind, willing his body up and over the tub’s rim. He fell to the tile floor with a thud, rose petals sticking to his bare skin. His feet planted themselves on the side of the tub, springing him towards the door. The hinge hadn’t connected, enabling Connor to open it despite his immobility. As the door clumsily swung, he met the individual waiting just beyond the bathroom’s threshold with an inhuman hybrid of a shriek and a moan.

Thin ankles, feminine and sheathed in dark nylon met a sturdy set of calves, knees, thighs. She was tall and wearing all black. Her hands ended in jagged fingernails; the same as before. Craning his neck, his eyes met hers. Her name came back to him in an instant.

“It’s Rosalina but I prefer Rose. It’s pretty, it’s sharp. Everyone I think conjures a similar image when they hear it. In a way, it’s kind of iconic. Kind of like Connor Owen, Starboy…”

“Hi there, Connor.” Her face lit with a radiant, all-teeth-bared grin. She looked like she’d just won the lottery and was currently staring at her new riches lying at her feet. The sight had Connor breathing hard in response. Adrenaline flooded his system, instilling temporary confidence. He could take her, he thought. She was tall but thin and relied on conniving to gain the upper hand. Connor was 180 pounds of well-maintained muscle.

Suddenly she descended to his level and gripped either side of his face with firm hands. Her strength made him flinch in shock. He yelped at the rip of the tape from his lips. All ideas of overpowering her left him to be replaced by a yearning for divine intervention. He was a washed-up celebrity, not a man capable of securing his own escape.

“Sorry I had to do it this way.” Rose cooed, stroking the sides of his face with either thumb. It was a tender touch, betraying the context of the situation. “It’s just that…” Rose’s face eclipsed his vision, her breath hot on his exposed features. “You would have never given me a chance if I didn’t.” She said sadly.

“It’s ok. It’s alright…” Connor stammered, racking his brain for the password to freedom. Her lips met his own; warm and soft and disarming.

“Yes, baby. It’s ok.” She repeated, brushing his cheek with her own. She cradled him now, her arms having drifted from his face to about his shoulders. With a slow exhalation of breath, she drew him closer to her in an awkward embrace. With arms bound and numb from no blood flow at all, he could do little to resist. Connor pleaded further.

“Rose, Rose. Please. This isn’t good, what you’re doing. This will get you into trouble-”

She swallowed his pleas with a long-held kiss. His protests were weak in response. Even when free to breathe, his coherence devolved to moans. Rose reveled in his deterioration. She peppered him with more unwarranted caresses from fingers and lips.

Her touch was hot and frequent on his exposed chest. Connor's protestation started with vigor but began to peter out. No longer did he flinch and whine with such gusto. Finally, he looked up to her and cleared his throat. Rose, drunk on molestation, paused.

“I’d like… a glass of Merlot please.”

The words were soft and swift and their power over the situation was clear at once. Rose’s hands fell from him and retreated with the rest of her. She eyed him in a way devoid of the queer maliciousness that colored them upon meeting him at the bathroom door. Now, they were filled with concern.

“Are… are you sure?” She asked him, hesitant.

Connor nodded with a dejected look of his own. His head, now laying flat on the floor, signaled to his wrists with a tilt. Two thumbs wiggled when directed at. Rose eyed them too.

“Ah, shit. Too tight.” The light caught the deep discoloration of his fingers and toes, flaunting it in a way the candles could not. She went to his bound arms and worked to free them with the careful unwinding of twine from limb.

“It’s distracting is all. I was so lost in it up until...” Connor winced before continuing. “Can't even feel my toes beyond painful reminders they're still down there..”

“Whatever, pussy.”

The twine came loose and freed him moments after his request. Rose lit from beside him at the bathroom’s threshold and fetched two glasses of ruby red wine. Connor accepted her offering, having propped himself up against the doorframe. He winced at the reawakening muscles but brought the glass to his lips and sipped anyways. One long pull of velvet red Merlot washed over his senses and dulled his aches. He sighed with relief.

“I will say, That… was incredibly sexy, Rose. That whole thing. I wish I could explain it further but all I can conclude is,” he sipped at the Merlot with renewed vigor in his freed hands, "you're a goddamned witch with magical powers."

Rose sat across from him with a glass of her own, swirling the Merlot and watching him. His compliment eased her posture and made her smile. She let out a sultry giggle at the compliment.

“You're kind to say so. I’ll try and use less tension next time, Starboy.” They clinked glasses, shared a kiss, and drank.