Chapter 12: The First Night Call
The silence after Aidan left was a physical thing. It pooled in the corners of the flat, thick and watchful. Catriona cleaned the kitchen with a frenetic, clinical energy, scrubbing the counter until the ghost of whiskey spills and the memory of her own fingerprints were gone. She bagged the condoms, washed the mug, straightened the cracked mirror so it reflected only the empty room. As if she could erase the afternoon.
It didn’t work.
Every tick of the clock was a countdown. Dave would be home from his conference in a few hours. Aidan’s plane was in the air. And her journal, her most secret self, was in a bag hurtling toward Scotland.
She took a shower so hot it scalded her skin pink, trying to wash the feel of him away. It was futile. The phantom ache between her legs was a stubborn reminder. The scent of him—clean sweat and plain soap—seemed to have woven itself into her hair.
Dave’s return was a blessedly normal catastrophe of luggage and tired smiles and a crushed box of conference pastries. “You alright?” he asked, pecking her cheek. “Flat feels weird.”
“Just quiet,” she said, turning to put the kettle on, avoiding his eyes. “Missed you.”
The next day was a special kind of torture. She shelved books at the library, her fingers tracing familiar spines, while her mind replayed the cold press of the fridge against her back, the ruthless rhythm of Aidan’s hips. She jumped every time her phone buzzed. A reminder for a dentist appointment. A newsletter. Nothing from him.
The first call came on the second night, just past ten. Dave was in the living room watching a football match, the muffled commentary a dull drone through the wall. Catriona was in her bedroom, wearing pyjamas that felt like a childish costume. The phone vibrated on her desk, an unknown Aberdeen number lighting up the screen.
Her throat closed. She swiped to answer, bringing the device to her ear without a word.
For a moment, there was just the hollow sound of a poor connection, the faint echo of a television in another room. Then his voice, low and textured with fatigue. “Cat.”
Just her name. It coiled in her stomach.
“You’re in your room,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Door shut?”
“Yes.”
“Dave home?”
“He’s… watching TV.”
“Good.” A rustle, like he was shifting, settling in. She could picture him in a sterile hotel chair, the city lights a blur outside his window. “I have your book.”
She closed her eyes.
“It’s proper filthy, you know that?” His tone was matter-of-fact, almost conversational, but it stripped her bare. “All this neat handwriting. Paragraphs and diagrams. Looks like a lecture on tectonic plates until you read the words.”
“Aidan—”
“Open your desk drawer. The one with the old receipts. There’s a pen. Get it.”
Confused, she did it. Her fingers closed around a cheap biro.
“I marked a few pages before I left. While you were packing my bag. Did you wonder what I was doing?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I dog-eared the corners. Open it to the first one. The one with the folded bit at the top.”
“I don’t have it. You have it.”
“Use your memory, Cat. You wrote it. You know the one I mean. Page seventeen. Read it to me in your head right now.”
She knew. Of course she knew. The pages were etched behind her eyelids. Page seventeen was simple. Brutal. No set-dressing, no elaborate scenario. Just four lines about being tied to her own bedstead with the silk belts from her dressing gowns. Unable to move. Completely open. And used. The word she’d used was ‘used’. Repeatedly.
“You there?”
“Yes.”
“Say the first line out loud.”
Her mouth was desert-dry. “I can’t.”
“You can. Or I hang up, and we pretend this week never happened. Dave never has to know a thing. This is the line, Cat. Right now.”
The threat was clean, sharp. It cut through the fog of her shame. She swallowed, and the words fell from her lips in a breathless, monotone whisper. “I want to be tied. So I can’t get away.”
“Better.” His approval was a tangible warmth through the phone. “Now tell me how. Detail. My hands doing it, or yours?”
“Yours.” The word was a gasp. “Always yours. You’d use the belts. The dark green ones. You’d loop them tight around my wrists first, then to the wrought iron bits of the headboard. You’d check the knots. Pull on them.”
“And my hands would be steady.”
“Yes. You wouldn’t be hurried. You’d be… sure.”
“What next?”
She was falling into the rhythm of it, the script of her own devouring. “My ankles. The same. Spread. Not cruel, just… definitive. No way to close my legs.”
“And then you’re laid out.” His voice had dropped, gone gravelly. “And I’m standing at the foot of the bed, just looking. What do you feel then?”
“Exposed. Terrified. Aching.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Touch me.” Her confession was a rush now. “Anywhere. Everywhere. But not gently. Not to make me feel good. To prove you can. To prove I’m yours to… to use. Like you said.”
“Use how?”
“Just… fuck me. However you want. For as long as you want. Don’t ask. Don’t care if I come. Just take it. Take me. Until you’re done.”
The line was silent for so long she thought the call had dropped. Then, a sharp, shaky exhale. “Jesus, Cat.”
She buried her face in her free hand, her entire body burning with humiliation and a desperate, clawing need.
“Are you touching yourself?” he asked, his voice ragged.
“No.”
“Do it. Now.”
Her hand trembled as she pushed the waistband of her pyjama bottoms down. Her skin was fever-hot. She hesitated.
“I can’t hear you,” he said, a hard edge returning. “I need to hear you. Let me know you’re there. Let me know you’re doing as you’re told.”
Her fingers brushed through the wetness already gathered there, and a tiny, broken sound escaped her. It was microphone-quiet, but he heard it.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Like that. Keep going. Think about the belts. Think about being pinned. Think about not having a choice.”
She did. Her movements became less tentative, more urgent, guided by the vivid, shameful pictures his words painted. The pressure built, a tight coil in the base of her spine. She could hear his breathing on the other end of the line, harsher now, syncing with her own.
“When I come back,” he growled, the words strained, “that’s the first thing we’re doing. I’m making that page real. You understand?”
She couldn’t speak. A whimper was her only answer.
“Come for me, Cat. Now.”
The command shattered her. Pleasure ripped through, violent and overwhelming, leaving her thighs shaking and the phone slick in her sweaty hand. She heard his own sharp, choked-off groan through the receiver, followed by a long, slow sigh.
For minutes, there was only the sound of two people relearning how to breathe, separated by hundreds of miles of damp Scottish night.
“Dave still watching the match?” he finally asked, his voice returned to its usual, softer register, though edged with a new intimacy.
“I think so.”
“Go wash your face. Get a glass of water. Be normal.” A pause. “You did good. I’ll call tomorrow. Same time.”
The line went dead.
Catriona lay there, sticky and spent, the echo of his voice still vibrating in her skull. The mundane sounds of the flat—Dave’s faint cheer at a goal, the hum of the fridge—crashed back in. They felt like sounds from another life. A life that had ended the moment Aidan walked out the door with her journal.
She got up, legs unsteady, and followed his instructions. Washed her face. Drank water. The girl in the mirror had wide, dark eyes and a mouth that looked thoroughly kissed. She looked like a stranger who had just agreed to be tied down and used.
She climbed back into bed. The cold sheets felt different now. Not a place for sleep. A future crime scene. She reached out and touched the wrought iron headboard, her fingers tracing the cool, scrolling metal where a green silk belt might soon be knotted.
Down the hall, the football crowd on the TV roared. Catriona curled onto her side, facing the wall, and waited for the night to swallow her whole.