Free Sample
Preview from chapter one
Transformation, I always believed, was an act of will. The capacity to reconfigure a space, or a soul, or a moment: that was the essence of civilization and its discontents, as Freud once opined. I took comfort in that as I regarded my bedroom. My former sanctum of queenly solitude, now unrecognizable as the surgical theater I’d made of it. Or a gothic version of that.
Black satin sheets: check. Plastic drop cloth, as much for ease of postmortem cleaning as for visual contrast: check. Candles, arrayed by color and melting point, forming constellations of threat and possibility atop every available surface. The overhead lights extinguished, I allowed the candlelight its soft reign, the entire room seeming to pulse faintly with orange and blue shadows. The mineral, faintly acrid scent of hot wax already overwhelmed the usual notes of perfume and laundry detergent. I inhaled, banishing my usual nerves with the professional certainty that this, all of it, was a controlled experiment.
On my nightstand, a silver tray gleamed: medical-grade thermometer, cuticle scissors, a row of glass candleholders with fresh wicks and imported wax in blue, red, and white. The thermometer, digital and boasting a rapid-read feature, was my security blanket—a nod to my first career as a biochemist. I took a moment to ensure everything was precisely as I wanted it. I even smoothed a wrinkle from the velvet pillow in the exact center of the drop cloth. That was where he would kneel.
Right on time, his knock rippled through the door. I did not answer; a queen does not beg her servants’ entry. Instead, I let the silence work, ten full seconds of it, before the door opened.
All mothers think their sons are handsome, but since we’d had our discussion last weekend, I’d seen him differently. He wasn’t just the fruit of my loins. He was now the one who made me hot and wet. Tall and broad-shouldered, a strong face and easy smile, and big hands at the end of muscular forearms.
He wore exactly what I had commanded in the prelude text: his old running shorts, white T-shirt, and nothing else. Barefoot, skin a half-shade pale under the shifting candlelight, and already blushing up the neck. I made myself meet his eyes and found them just as hungry with anticipation as my own.
“Close the door,” I said, not quite sharply. “Remove your shirt. Fold it and put it by the wall.”