for everything. “I’m not.”
Slowly they pulled themselves apart and tenderly tended to each other’s wounds. Nora cleaned S?ren’s cuts with alcohol and gauze. The S on her stomach had stopped bleeding. A little antiseptic ointment, and she was good as new. She started to ask him if he wanted some water when a small squeak sounded through the door.
S?ren turned his head.
Nora said, “Was that your pussy or mine?”
“Mine, I think.”
He rose up off her, opened the door, and the little black cat sashayed into the bedroom like the guest of honor. She hopped onto the bed with one nimble leap, sauntered over to Nora and let out a meow.
“Guess she’s made herself at home,” Nora said.
S?ren sat on the bed, scratching the cat under her chin.
“Are you all right?” Nora asked him.
“I am. You?”
“Still in shock.”
He smiled, almost shyly. “It went better than I thought it might. But if you tell Kingsley, it’ll be foot torture for a month.”
The cat, still unnamed, sat between them. Nora reached across her and touched S?ren’s hand.
“Eleanor?”
“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were cold from the second I put the handcuffs on you. Cold sweat. Cold skin. Symptoms of panic.”
He said nothing. The cat shook herself, seemingly for no reason, then leapt onto the pillow. She turned in circles to soften a place for herself, and laid down again, making herself into a soft black donut.
“You were scared the entire time,” she went on, “but you didn’t stop me.” He stroked the cat, long gentle strokes from between her ears to her happy twitching tail. “Things happened to you as a child so awful you begged me once to never even think about it. And I’ve never even asked you what this has done to you.” It seemed fitting they would have this conversation, both of them naked.
She waited. Still, he stroked the cat. Still, he said nothing.
“S?ren?”
“Should I have taken you to my mother?” He looked at her once, then returned to petting the cat.
“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe I would have loved being with her. But, knowing me, I would have run away eventually and come back to you.”
That got him to smile. A little. A very, very little.
“I got your postcard,” she said. “That split-second I thought you had left again, I think my heart stopped.” She laughed at herself. “Then I saw the postmark and it started again.”
“I won’t leave without telling you again. There was something I wanted to say to you, but it wouldn’t fit on a postcard. I only wanted to say it to you when you were ready to hear it.”
“What is it?”
“What I wanted to say was this. If you ever asked me to choose between you and the Church…”
“I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t. But if you did, I would choose you. When I was trying to stop you from calling the media, it was only because I was afraid it could come to that. If the Church turned on you, accused you of something, made you the into their scapegoat—”
“I know you’d leave them if they did that to me.”
“I wouldn’t leave them. I would destroy them.”
He met her eyes so she could see he meant it. The threat hung in the air, sweet as perfume, and she fell in love with him again, like she had a thousand times before, like she would a thousand times again before their story was over.
The cat rolled over again, leaving a hundred black hairs on the bed. The spell was broken.
“Blood, come, and cat hair on the antique white counterpane,” S?ren said with a sigh. “I’ll have to ask for black sheets as a housewarming gift.”
“It’s fine. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
The cat began licking her own stomach. It was not a graceful procedure.
“Cats are very strange,” S?ren said.
“You like your housewarming gift?”
“I do. Both of them.” He picked up the handcuffs, twirled them once, just to show her who was boss. He was. Of course he was. Now. Always.
“Wait. I forgot the last present. Stay here.” Nora grabbed her panties off the floor and her tank top, pulled them on. “Hope it’s still warm.”
“Warm? Eleanor, what’s warm?” he called after her.
She ignored him, went into his kitchen, returned with two mugs. He’d put on his clothes again and sat in the armchair, the cat still on the bed, cat-napping. She sat on the floor at his feet and offered him one of the mugs.
“Drink,” she said. He stared at her. “Please?”
He drank. At the