“How much did I drink last night?” I whispered, looking over my shoulder to the dining room to make sure Joel hadn’t crept up on me again.

“God, Blaire, you’re such a lightweight. Don’t tell me you blacked out.”

“Well I do remember some things,” I said smiling to myself as I remembered the few good memories that weren’t absorbed by the alcohol sponge that seemed to wipe everything else from the night before.

“Annnnd…”

“Let’s just say he’s big, all over.”

“So he’s got a big dick? Let’s leave euphemisms out of this. Are we talking 6, 7, 8 inches or Guinness-Book-of-World-Records big?”

“It’s definitely porno dick.” I paused, testing to see if she would chastise me for not providing an actual quantifiable number. “I can’t remember much after the third orgasm, but let’s just say I’m still sore.”

“Positions?”

“Jeez, who knew you were a total nympho? You may want to charge your laptop so you can rub one out to professionals instead of a play-by-play of my one-night stand. In the bed—me on top, him on top, him behind, tongue, fingers, the works…more importantly, he definitely has a way with words,” I said, running through the basics. By the time I got to his penchant for talking dirty, I started to feel like the room was heating up.

“Blaire?”

Fuck, he did it again! How did a man of his size move like a snake in the grass, striking without warning? I yipped loudly into the phone and held my hand firmly over the mouthpiece, trying to shield Kerri from the knowledge that he was still there. If she didn’t ask and it didn’t come up, I had no intentions of divulging that of my own accord.

“Yes?”

I imagined my eyebrows were somewhere up by my hairline as I internally questioned his appearance.

“You’re not allergic to anything, are you? I already started seasoning things, but I just wanted to make sure.”

“No,” I breathed, shaking my head.

He returned to the kitchen, and I waited until I heard proof that he’d continued his work before I uncovered the phone.

“Oh. My. God. You have got to be kidding me. He’s still there, isn’t he? You’re stuck there with him. Your own personal sex slave for the next two weeks. Fuck, you don’t deserve it. You’re probably going to let good dick go to waste. I know it. I know you.” Every word was stiff, punctuated. She was more shocked by my circumstance than I was.

“I don’t even know him. I think it’s complicated enough without throwing sex in the middle of all this.”

“Sex is already in the middle of it. The best thing you can do is ride that man through the storm. What’s he doing right now?”

“He’s in the kitchen. We were in the kitchen preparing food.”

“Get out! You’ve got that man in the kitchen already? What the fuck are you doing on the phone with me? I swear, God wasted good parts on you. Get off the phone and show that man around your kitchen.” She said “your kitchen” like it was a euphemism for something else, something I didn’t even want her to explain.

I choked back my laughter. “You know satellite towers may go down, so this could be the last time we speak. Are you going to be OK over there? What about Piper? Have you checked on her?”

“Yes, yes, we’re all OK. Don’t worry about us. Let me say this and then I’ll let you go…you better have more stories for me by the time this storm passes, or you can consider yourself friendless. Bye, my lovely. Mwah.”

When I returned to the kitchen, I quickly put the phone on the charger before returning back to my task. With the dough having risen, I stuffed the loaf pan in the oven before returning to the batter of muffins that I was putting together before I got sidetracked.

Three hours later it looked like Thanksgiving, with dishes overflowing the sink and nearly every spice and condiment I owned covering the countertops. There was a clear distinction of where he worked when in the kitchen and where I did—the right side was littered with various consistencies of spices and herbs, whereas his side had splashes of watered-down blood and white blobs of fat that had been trimmed from the meat. We cleaned everything up and put everything away, both of us looking a little beat from slaving in the kitchen.

“You said you have a brother. Do you have any board games here?”

“What does one thing have to do with the other?” I asked, curious by his line of questioning.

“Typically kids who grow up with siblings have board games. Just something I’ve noticed,” he replied with a simple shrug of his shoulders as he followed me back out to the living room. I assumed he was an only child by the way he spoke. I imagined a cute, little boy with sparkling green eyes and shaggy brown hair playing with his train set alone. Though he looked unaffected by the conversation, there was something sad in his words. Or, it could be that I’d always thought of only children as a bit lonely. Even on bad days with my brother, I was still happy I had a sibling.

“I guess. I think I have some. They’re probably old though, and I don’t know how fun they’ll be with only two people.”

“It’s not like I’m expecting quality entertainment here. I figure it will be nice to have something to entertain us when the power goes out. Unless, you have a better idea of something entertaining to do?”

To be perfectly honest, I’d already started questioning how feasible it was to stay locked up night and day with this man without throwing myself at him, but then he spoke, and his enticing words seemed to lick up my spine with whispers of what I would be missing if I stuck to the rules. The rules I, myself, had set.

He seemed like the fuck ‘em and chuck ‘em type, so maybe our circumstances had no effect on him, but for me, this was something altogether new. I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed in those types of things. There was no one I could talk to about this, and I couldn’t quite Google, “What to do when stuck with a one-night stand?” As much as I would have liked nothing more than to use him to my heart’s content, I knew everything had consequences, and the one time I’d been burned was enough to last a lifetime.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I said when I concluded that it would be best to stick to the rules.

I took time showing him around the house as I made my way to the spare bedroom I used as an office. Walking over to the curtains, I pulled them shut before turning to the adjacent closet. The room was pretty scarce aside from my desk, chair, and lamp. The lack of furnishings allowed me to use the space for my morning yoga, which I could have gone for right about then. I needed to find my Zen.

I turned back to see Joel looking around the room, sizing up the empty space.

“How long have you lived here?”

“A little over six months,” I responded while trying to wiggle the games from underneath some bags. The bags shifted as if they wanted to come down, too, but I was being lazy and continued pulling the games while trying to shuffle the bags back toward the wall.

“Eeep,” I squealed as I ducked down in avoidance of the bag that teetered on the ledge. After a second without the bag hitting the top of my head, I risked looking up. Joel had pushed the bags up and pulled the remaining games out before taking a step back. Removing the other game from my hands, he folded his arms around the varied boxes and stepped aside, waiting for me to lead the way.

Before we left the room, he said, “We should probably get any flashlights, candles, matches, and batteries you have around the house. It’s easier to find those things while the lights are still on.”

***

The power didn’t go out that night, which was how we found ourselves relaxing on the couch watching a Blu-ray of my favorite assassin movie. It was one that was popular when it came out, so when I suggested the movie, I was sure he’d already seen it, but if he had, he never let on.