Chapter 5: The Morning After
The morning light through the skylight was a pale, forgiving gold, striping the rumpled black silk where they lay. Aidan woke to the scent of it—linseed, vanilla, and the musk of their tangled sleep. His arm was numb. Catriona’s auburn curls were spread across his bicep, her breathing deep and even. Keziah was a warm line against his other side, her back to him, her dark hair a chaotic fan on the pillow.
He didn’t move. The memory of the previous night arrived not as a flood, but in precise, vivid fragments: the darkness beneath Catriona, the relentless click of the shutter, the feeling of being both instrument and musician. A low hum of embarrassment warred with a thicker, more potent curiosity. He stared at the unfinished canvas on the far wall, a swirl of charcoal and impatient crimson strokes.
Catriona stirred. A soft sigh, a shift of her hips. He felt the exact moment she woke to the reality of their arrangement. Her body went still, then deliberately relaxed. She tilted her head back just enough to look up at him. Her eyes, bleary with sleep, found his. No smile, just a quiet, searching look that held a thousand unspoken questions. Her cheek was creased from the fabric.
“Morning,” she whispered, her voice raspy.
“Hey.”
A beat of silence. The air between them vibrated with the ghost of her weight over him, the pressure of her thighs.
“I think my jaw might be permanently shaped like your pelvis,” he said, the words out before he could filter them.
She snorted, a sudden, ungainly sound, and buried her face against his arm to stifle a laugh. The tension shattered into something lighter, fragile but real. “You’re such an idiot,” she mumbled into his skin.
On his other side, Keziah rolled over. She was already awake, her green eyes clear and assessing. She’d been watching them in the oversized mirror across the room, he realized. Studying their morning-after tableau. “Don’t move,” she said, her voice morning-rough but focused. She slid out from the sheets, naked and unselfconscious, and padded to where her camera lay on the floor. She picked it up, powered it on, and raised it towards the bed.
Catriona tensed. “For god’s sake, Kez. Give it a rest.”
“It’s not ‘it.’ It’s a new series,” Keziah said, zooming in with a soft whirr. The shutter clicked. She captured Catriona’s annoyed glance, Aidan’s bemused expression. “I’m calling it ‘Aftermath.’ The space after the act. The negotiation.”
“There’s no negotiation,” Catriona said, but she didn’t pull the sheet up. She held Keziah’s gaze through the lens, a challenge.
“There always is.” Keziah lowered the camera, scrolling through the preview. She nodded, mostly to herself. “Last night was a triad. A closed circuit. This morning… it’s different. The dynamic shifted.” Her eyes flicked to Aidan. “You’re waiting for one of us to tell you what this means. What happens now.”
He didn’t deny it. He just watched her.
“Cat’s pretending it was just a weird favor. A laugh.” Keziah’s lips quirked. “But she’s lying. To you and to herself.”
“Shut up, Keziah,” Catriona said, but there was no heat in it. Just a tired acknowledgment.
Keziah ignored her. “I want to document that. The lie. The performance of normalcy.” She came closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. The camera hung between her knees. “So. Let’s reenact.”
“Absolutely not,” Catriona said, sitting up. The sheet pooled at her waist. “I need coffee. And pants. In that order.”
“A reenactment of what?” Aidan asked, propping himself on his elbows.
“Of power,” Keziah said, her gaze locking with Catriona’s. “Last night, you were technically on top, but you were still reacting to me. To my direction. What if it was yours?” She let the idea hang. “What if you called the shots? Not as a subject, but as the artist. Just for a few frames. I’ll photograph. From a low angle. Make you look like a queen on a very indecent throne.”
Catriona’s protest died on her lips. Aidan saw the intrigue flicker behind her eyes, quickly masked by skepticism. “You’d never give up control. Not really.”
“Try me.” Keziah’s offer was a dare. “Use him. However you want. I’ll frame it.”
The studio grew very quiet. The scent of last night’s wine rose from the glasses on the floor. Catriona looked at Aidan, a slow, considering look that traveled the length of his body under the thin silk. He felt seen in a new way—not as a friend, not as a cooperative model, but as a tool to be wielded. It should have felt cold. It didn’t. It felt like a current switching direction.
“However I want?” Catriona’s voice was low.
“Within the bounds of his enthusiastic consent, obviously,” Keziah said, waving a hand. “But yes. Your vision.”
Catriona chewed her bottom lip. Then, with a decisiveness that seemed to surprise even her, she threw the sheet back. “Okay. Get on the floor, Kez. Low angle, you said. From the foot of the bed.” She turned to Aidan. “You. On your back. In the center.”
Her commands, so direct and unfamiliar from her, sent a jolt through him. He complied, shifting to the middle of the vast silk expanse. The fabric was cool where their bodies had warmed it.
Keziah, a strange smile playing on her lips, slid off the bed and crouched on the floorboards, camera ready. She looked up, the perspective instantly transforming the scene. The bed became a plateau, Aidan a landscape.
Catriona knelt over him, but differently than before. She didn’t straddle his face. She placed a knee on either side of his hips, her hands coming to rest flat on his chest. She studied him, her curls falling forward. Her touch was firm, possessive. She wasn’t hiding from the lens now; she was confronting it, using it.
“This is ‘Aftermath?’” she asked, not looking at her sister.
“It’s a new beginning,” Keziah whispered, and the shutter began to click, a staccato beat.
Catriona leaned down, her mouth close to Aidan’s ear. Her breath was warm. “You good?”
“Yeah,” he breathed.
“Then don’t move.” She didn’t kiss him. She pushed herself up, shifting her weight back, her hands sliding down his torso. Her gaze was intent, clinical for a moment, then it softened with something like wonder. She took him in hand, guiding him, then lowered herself onto him with a slow, deliberate control that made his vision splinter at the edges. A thick, shuddering sigh escaped her. She went still, fully seated, her head falling back.
Keziah kept shooting, the clicks rapid-fire, capturing the arch of Catriona’s throat, the defining lines of her shoulders, the absolute dominion of her pose.
“Look at me, Cat,” Keziah murmured from below.
Catriona’s head lolled forward. She looked down at Aidan, her eyes dark and focused, then directly into her sister’s uplifted lens. Her expression wasn’t one of ecstasy, but of profound, unsettling ownership. A quiet, triumphant certainty. She began to move, a slow, rolling rhythm that was all her own. No direction, no choreography. Just feeling. The camera documented it all—the flex of her thighs, the flutter of her abdomen, the way her fingers dug into Aidan’s skin, marking him.
Aidan could only watch her, transfixed by the transformation. This was the Catriona who organized parties, who always knew the right thing to say, who held everything together. Unleashed. And she was terrifyingly beautiful.
The rhythm built, not toward a frantic peak, but toward a sustained, powerful intensity. Keziah stopped shooting. She just watched, her artist’s gaze hungry.
When Catriona finally cried out, it was a short, sharp sound of victory. She collapsed forward, catching herself on her hands, her forehead touching Aidan’s, their breath mingling in ragged sync. The room was silent save for their panting.
After a long moment, Catriona pushed herself up. She dismounted with the same practical grace she’d used to remove her clothes. She didn’t look at either of them. She walked, naked and unhurried, to the kitchenette and filled a glass with water from the tap. She drank it all in one go.
Keziah finally stood, her knees cracking. She looked at the camera’s preview screen, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Perfect,” she breathed. “That’s the lie. The performance.” She glanced at Catriona, who was leaning against the counter, watching the morning light on the brick wall outside. “You weren’t pretending at all, were you?”
Catriona took another sip of water. She didn’t answer. But when she finally turned, her eyes found Aidan’s. There was no awkwardness now. Just a simple, frightening clarity. The negotiation was over. Something had been decided.