Chapter 27: The Girls
The text came through on a Tuesday morning, just as I was pouring cereal. My phone buzzed against the granite countertop, a single, invasive tremor.
Nora: Spa day. Saturday. You, me, Chloe, and my friend Mia. My treat. Don’t even think about saying no.
I stared at the words. The demand was absolute, packaged as a gift. Since the night in her bedroom, our interactions had been a careful pantomime. Polite questions about homework passed over dinner plates. Muttered ‘goodnights’ in the hallway. My father, beaming at his reunited, harmonious family, saw nothing. But the silence between Nora and me was a live wire, humming with everything unsaid.
I couldn’t say no. The photo was still a phantom in her phone. My obedience was the price of my father’s ignorance.
Me: Okay.
Nora: Good boy. I’ll pick you all up at 10.
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The spa, ‘Aqueous,’ was a minimalist temple of pale wood and towering fiddle-leaf figs. The air smelled of chlorine, essential oils, and money. Chloe, looking adorably out of place in jeans and a nervous smile, squeezed my hand as we walked in.
“This is insane,” she whispered. “Your stepmom is, like, next-level cool.”
“Yeah,” I managed. “Next-level.”
Nora was already there, standing with another woman near a bubbling water feature. Mia was a sharper contrast to Nora’s soft curves—all angles and a severe black bob, her smile quick and assessing. She looked at Chloe and me like we were artifacts under glass.
“There you are!” Nora trilled, air-kissing Chloe’s cheek. She wore a cream-colored linen set that looked both expensive and effortlessly thrown on. Her eyes met mine over Chloe’s shoulder. They held no warmth, only a quiet, calculating ownership. “Mia, this is Ethan and Chloe. Guys, this is my chaos agent, Mia.”
“The famous Ethan,” Mia said, shaking my hand. Her grip was firm, her gaze lingering a beat too long. “Nora’s told me so much.”
A cold trickle of dread worked its way down my spine. What had she told her?
The plan unfolded with military precision. Couples massages first. Chloe, pink-cheeked with delight, was led away by a therapist while I was paired with a silent, hulking man named Stefan. As I lay face-down on the table, Stefan’s thumbs digging into muscles coiled tight with anxiety, I heard the low murmur of Nora and Mia’s laughter from the next room over. It was a private sound. A knowing sound.
After the massage, we regrouped in the communal relaxation lounge, sipping cucumber water wrapped in plush white robes. Chloe, relaxed and chatty, tucked her feet under her on the oversized chair. “That was amazing. Thank you so much, Nora.”
“It’s just the start, sweetie,” Nora said, crossing her legs. The robe fell open just enough to reveal a smooth, tanned calf. “The co-ed sauna and steam rooms are the main event. We can all go in together.”
Chloe blinked. “Together? Like, all of us?”
“It’s all very European,” Mia added, her tone dry. “Very enlightened. Don’t be a prude.”
“No, it’s cool!” Chloe said quickly, shooting me a wide-eyed look that was equal parts panic and intrigue.
I just nodded, my tongue a dead weight. This was the game. This was the move. Out in the open, but hidden in plain sight, clothed in steam.
The heat hit me first, a solid wall of it that stole my breath. The sauna was a cedar cube, the air laced with the piercing scent of eucalyptus oil poured over hot stones. We found a quiet corner on the highest, hottest bench. Chloe sat close to me, our damp arms touching. Nora and Mia sat opposite, two queens on a throne of towel-covered wood.
It started innocuously. Nora talked about the benefits of infrared heat. Mia argued for traditional steam. Their debate was light, fizzy. Chloe ventured a shy opinion. I just sat, sweating out my nerves, watching the beads of moisture trace paths down Nora’s neck, into the shadowed hollow of her collarbone where the white robe gaped.
Then the dynamics shifted, almost imperceptibly.
Nora, in response to something Mia said about tension, stretched her arms high above her head. The gesture was languid, feline. The robe’s belt loosened, the fabric parting further. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Mia. But the display was for an audience of one. I felt a familiar, hated heat rise in me, unrelated to the sauna. I shifted on the bench, trying to discreetly adjust my robe.
Chloe, sensing my discomfort, leaned in. “Too hot?” she whispered, her face flushed and pretty.
“A bit,” I croaked.
“We can go soon,” she said, and her hand found mine, giving it a sympathetic squeeze.
From across the room, Nora’s eyes flicked to our joined hands. A smile played on her lips. She didn’t say a word.
“You know what I love about this place?” Mia said, her voice cutting through the humid silence. “The anonymity. You can just… be. No judgments.” She let her own robe slip off one shoulder, revealing the thin strap of a black swimsuit beneath. Her eyes were on Nora, a challenge.
Nora met her gaze, then slowly, deliberately, reached for the small wooden bucket of water. She dipped a ladle in and poured it slowly over the searing rocks. A great hiss erupted, and a new, blistering wave of eucalyptus-scented steam billowed out, enveloping us in a thick, opaque cloud.
For a moment, we were all ghosts in the fog. I could barely see Chloe beside me. The world shrank to the sound of hissing rock and my own pounding heart.
Then, as the steam began to thin, I saw her.
Through the vaporous haze, through the fogged glass of the interior window that looked into the even hotter steam room beyond, I saw Nora. She must have slipped out in the seconds of zero visibility. She was alone in the other chamber, a blurred figure of pale skin and white cloth. She had her back to the glass, but her head was turned, her profile in silhouette.
Her hand was moving.
Slow, deliberate circles on her own arm, over her shoulder, down the line of her spine where her robe had fallen open. It was a casual, self-soothing gesture. It was also profoundly, agonizingly intimate. Her breath fogged the glass in front of her lips—short, shallow puffs. Her lips were slightly parted.
My own breath stopped. The sauna, Chloe beside me, the entire world dissolved into that square of foggy glass. It was a private moment stolen, broadcast on a hidden channel only I was tuned to. A performance. It had to be. She knew the sightlines. She had engineered the steam.
It was a taut, silent scream across the space: I own this. I own you. Even here. Even with her.
Chloe nudged me. “Ethan? You’re zoned out. You’re bright red, we should go cool off.”
I jerked, tearing my eyes away. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”
As we stood, the door to the steam room opened, and Nora stepped out. Her skin glowed, dewy and perfect. She patted her face with a towel, her expression one of serene satisfaction. She looked directly at me, her eyes clear and cool in the heat.
“All done, you two?” she asked, her voice light. “Mia’s going for a plunge pool round. So invigorating.”
“I think I need some air,” I mumbled, avoiding her gaze, clutching my robe closed.
“Sure,” Nora said. She reached out and, with a casual flick of her fingers, straightened the collar of my robe. Her knuckles brushed my throat. A public, proprietorial touch. “Don’t wander too far.”
Chloe led me by the hand out of the sauna suite, into the comparatively cool hallway. The air felt like a slap. I was trembling.
“You okay?” Chloe asked, her brow furrowed with concern. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
I forced a laugh, thin and brittle. “Just… too much heat. Not used to it.”
I had seen something, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was a map of my own entrapment, drawn in steam on glass, and I was already lost, following its lines deeper into a forest where I knew, with a certainty that chilled my sweat-slicked skin, I would never find my way out.