The hand slid over the mask, curling into the eye sockets before dragging it slowly out of view as a painfully low male voice sang about doing unholy things in the bedroom. The Faceless Man’s music selection was always perfect, able to turn even a simple video like this into a clit tease. It was even worse this time because I couldn’t stop picturing him filming it in my bedroom.
Suddenly, the camera snapped up, and I sucked in a sharp breath. There he was, framed in a mirror in all his shirtless glory, phone in one hand as he filmed himself, the other slowly undoing his belt. I hit the pause button again to take it all in. He was perfection – maybe not for everyone, but he was for me – with heavy muscles gained from what must have been hours in the gym, toned and trim in all the right places, wide and dense in others.
I wanted to trace my tongue through the valley between his pecs, worship his abs, and spend an ungodly amount of time memorizing the deep V of his hip flexors.
More than anything, I wanted to replace his hands with mine, undo his belt, pull out what looked like a sizable dick, if the bulge in his pants was anything to go by, and spend the rest of the night doing things with him that would make the Devil blush.
A noise sounded in the hall, reminding me that my time was limited. I unpaused the video and watched the last few seconds, reveling in the slow, measured way he slid his belt loose and wrapped it around his fist while taking deep, labored breaths, his chest heaving. Why was that so goddamn sexy?
Probably because you’re picturing him breathing like that while wrapping his belt around your wrists to restrain you, you horny little bitch.
Damn, I had it for this man, and I’d never even met him, had no idea what he looked like beneath that mask or what he even sounded like. He’d never spoken in his videos.
That was probably the allure. Kinky sex with a hot, faceless man who didn’t speak? Sign me the hell up. I’d had about enough of men’s voices lately.
Something in the corner of the mirror caught my eye, and I hit pause again right before the video ended. The backgrounds of his videos were always dark and out of focus, but I could have sworn I was staring at the edge of my dresser, complete with what might have been the clutter of my makeup containers and hastily discarded hair clips.
I must have had it bad if I was so far gone that I saw a few blurry shapes and supplanted them with my furniture and belongings.
Either way, this was officially my new favorite thirst trap. Because whether it was a coincidence or my mind was playing tricks on me, it was far too easy to imagine it being filmed in my bedroom. God, the things I would do to myself while watching this in the coming days and weeks. I wondered if this guy had any idea of the effect he had on people. Would he be freaked out if he learned how hard I lusted after him? Or into it?
My beeper went off, jarring me out of my thoughts so badly that I almost dropped my phone. Before shoving it back in my locker, I saved the video to my favorites and typed out a hurried, “I have that comforter. This could have been filmed in my bedroom. Let’s goooo, bitches!” knowing all the other people I’d interacted with countless times before in the Faceless Man’s comments would see it and be dying of jealousy by the time I logged back in.
Nine excruciatingly long hours later, I pulled into my driveway and cut the car’s engine, leaning my forehead against the steering wheel. Tonight was shit. Complete and utter shit. Capped off by losing a heart attack patient we thought had been stable. She’d been so young, too, barely fifty, her husband and teenage kids crowded around the bed when the second heart attack hit, watching in horror as we shoved them out of there and tried and failed to save her life.
It was nights like this that made me want to quit. I’d gotten into nursing to save people, and every single death felt like a personal failure. Like it was my fault they hadn’t made it because of some sign I’d missed or test I hadn’t thought to perform.
Logically, I knew that couldn’t be true. It wasn’t like I was alone in treating them. I worked with countless nurses and specialists and doctors, and these feelings were likely caused by my lingering grief over Mom, but it didn’t make it any better or lessen the guilt that wracked me every time we lost a patient.
I made a mental note to bring this up in my next therapy session and got out of the car. Fred came yowling toward me once I was inside, and I scooped him up and smushed him for longer than usual, trying to ground myself in him and trick my brain into thinking happier thoughts.
I put him down when he started squirming, then went straight to the kitchen. Wine was calling my name. I’d held off on drinking since sending that regrettable text to Tyler, but if ever I needed alcohol, it was tonight.
The clock on my stove was blinking, reading 12:00, and it stopped me short. We must have lost power sometime during the night. My house was toasty warm, and the utility company hadn’t sent a message about it like they usually did when it went out, so it must have been a weird blip or something that didn’t last long enough to trigger a notification.
I shrugged and went to the fridge, Fred winding between my legs like he was hell-bent on tripping me. He stayed glued to my shins as I pulled out a fresh bottle of white and poured myself a large glass, extra clingy for some reason. I suppose I had been gone longer than expected again, my scheduled twelve-hour shift turning into sixteen instead. Tomorrow was an off day, so I’d make it up to him then.
Right now, I needed wine and alone time with my phone and vibrator.
You’d think all the blood and trauma I’d seen tonight would distract me from my desire, but I was so used to it that it only did so in the moment. As soon as I had a second to myself again, images of that mask lying on what could have been my comforter swirled to the forefront of my mind. Lust was a natural response to traumatic events, the body wanting a reminder of being alive after skirting so close to death, and I’d long since stopped fighting it.
“I know, buddy,” I said, leaning down to scratch Fred behind the ears. “Just give me, like, ten minutes.” That’s all it would take at this point.
I shut him out of my room, flicked the light on, and froze.
There was something on my bed.
There was something on my bed that I hadn’t left there.
The wine started trembling in the glass as my fingers shook, but I couldn’t force myself to put it down because I couldn’t move. I was completely immobile, held in place by my rising fear. Had someone been in my house? Were they still here? Fuck, was that why Fred had been so insistent? He’d been trying to warn me?
I will not be a victim, I thought, forcing myself to move, to step forward, set the glass and my phone down on my dresser, and drop to a squat as I quietly slid open the bottom drawer and pulled out the gun I kept there.
Living alone in a big city and seeing the worst of what it could do to women on a nightly basis made me paranoid. I had a gun in my car and one more besides the one I now held hidden nearby. I slept with a baseball bat beside my bed and mace and throwing knives on my nightstand within easy reach. Two days a week, I took a hand-to-hand combat course taught by an ex-marine who didn’t go easy on me because I was the only woman in his class. If someone else was in my house right now, they’d be leaving it in a body bag.