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powerful man.
    As much as I scorned the clothing, my fingers still trailed over the dresser drawers filled with lingerie. It was hard not to remember the way Alexander’s eyes had heated up when I had worn the pieces of silk and lace. It was impossible to forget how many of them had ended up ripped or cut away by shiny scissors as our lust overwhelmed us.
    The house was quiet. If Jean-Luc had posted guards, they weren’t inside. Outside, I could hear the street noises of Paris and I could imagine what the city would look like. People would be rushing to and fro in the gathering twilight, trying to do all their holiday shopping. The stores would be packed, the bars filled with weary shoppers setting their bags down and enjoying a moment of respite.
    My life had been divided into segments. Pre-Dylan, my mom and I would celebrate a festive, but low-key Christmas. There was a store in Cleveland that handed out free hams around the holidays, and we’d stand in line for hours in the cold, trying to get one.
    During my time with Dylan, there were no holidays and no celebration. What was there to celebrate? Captivity was grim and bleak and depressing. Lucien had never celebrated the holidays either. Once, in response to my question, he’d tersely mentioned that his sister had killed herself in December and the month would never be anything other than painful. I’d held off on the festivities out of respect for his grief.
    But in San Francisco, for the first time in my life, with the help of the money that Alexander had given me, I could have the kind of holiday I wanted. The first year, the idea of celebrating had seemed surreal. Old memories of working during the rushed holiday season clashed with the markedly grey Christmases that Lucien had insisted upon. But, urged in part by Dr. Wilson, I’d gone to a neighborhood lot packed with Christmas trees for sale and I’d bought a small fir. I’d relished shopping for ornaments to decorate my tree and I’d bought many beautiful glass globes in jewel tones of green and amber and blue.
    Of course, Midnight had climbed up on the tree and broken the ornaments. The next year, I’d smartened up and I’d stuck to plastic.
    Jean-Luc had hustled me into the house and to this room, but in the brief glimpse I’d had, the space appeared to be bereft of decorations. Alexander had mentioned that he’d been shunted to Dylan during the holidays. I wondered if those memories still haunted him, still prevented him from fully enjoying the joys of this season.
    I exhaled. We’d been through so much together. Every encounter with him was vividly etched in my soul. My heart ached for him and my body yearned for his touch. Yet I knew so little about him, about his past, about Dylan. He’d killed Sylvia but I didn’t know why. Alexander was a mystery to me.
    I’d been wandering through the house absently, lost in my thoughts. When I looked up, I realized my feet had led me instinctively to Alexander’s bedroom, the setting of so many pleasant memories. I closed my eyes for a second. This was it, the moment of truth. If he was seeing someone else, there would be signs of her presence in this room. Maybe a pair of earrings on the side-table, maybe a book from the library.
    I didn’t think my heart could bear that.
    The door stood open, inviting me in, but I hovered at the threshold, almost paralyzed by the prospect of oncoming pain.   You are a survivor, I scolded myself. The truth can’t be hidden and it can’t be avoided. Just go in and find out.
    I took a tentative step in, then another one. My eyes darted to and fro, searching for signs of a girlfriend, but the rumpled, unmade bed didn’t provide any concrete answers. My feet marched of their own accord through the bedroom towards the playroom door.
    The door was shut, but when I turned the handle, it swung open.
    I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Would it be a dildo showing obvious signs of recent use? A crop set on the