No One Knows Us Here(39)

My hands reached toward him to caress his arms. I scooted closer to him, expecting him to make a move, to wrap his arms around me, to kiss me. He didn’t do anything. Maybe he wanted me to do it. Maybe that was why he had hired a girlfriend—because he didn’t know how to do these kinds of things. I leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. He didn’t respond, and I tried again, more forcefully this time, parting his lips with the tip of my tongue.

Leo placed his hand on my leg. His hand felt hot and soft. I met his eyes. He tightened his grip around my thigh. “Hey.” His voice was low. I kept expecting his hand to travel farther up my thigh, but it didn’t.

“Hey yourself.” I gave him what I hoped was the right kind of smile, something between shy and seductive.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

I closed my eyes. I felt his hand leave my thigh and move to my face. He ran a finger along my jawline. I waited. I waited for him to pull me toward him, to kiss me. Instead I felt his fingers on my eyelids. He tugged at the end of my false lashes and then, one after the other, he ripped them off. Quickly, like they were Band-Aids. It was a strange sensation, feeling each eyelid break suction with the eyeball. Pop. When I opened my eyes, they felt lighter, empty and strange.

If this had been a regular date—if it had been Steele instead of Leo—I would have yelled at him. Maybe, if I felt like making a statement, I would have slapped him across the face. It wasn’t Steele, though, so I just sat there, waiting for some kind of explanation.

Leo smiled at me. “That’s better.”

I wanted to yell at him and storm out. Instead I smiled at him. Instead I said, “Thank you.”

“Let’s go to bed,” Leo said.

In his bedroom, he handed me a stack of clothes. “You can get ready in there.” He gestured to the bathroom. The bathroom was huge and modern, everything clean and glistening. Nothing was out on the countertop or in the shower. Not one toothbrush or bottle of shampoo. I tried to open the drawer under the sink, but it didn’t open; it was a false drawer. I tried the cupboard next. Inside was a rattan basket filled with rolled-up towels. That was it.

I changed into the clothes Leo had given me. A pair of his sweatpants and one of his Tshirts. They hung off me. When I raised my arms, my breasts peeked out through the sleeves. I rinsed my mouth out with water and washed my face. In the mirror, my reflection stared back at me with wide, scared eyes. A young, frightened girl. Maybe that was what he was into.

When I got to Leo’s bed, he was already asleep, lying on his side, his mouth slack. I debated with myself for a moment. I could put my clothes back on, rush out. It wasn’t even that late. Wendy and I could watch Dirty Dancing and eat the lasagna. It would be like old times, like a slumber party.

I decided to stay. Slowly, careful not to rouse Leo, I lifted the covers on the other side of the bed. I slipped in beside him and lay on my back, unable to sleep. Unable to even close my eyes. I texted Wendy several times, but she never answered. I didn’t know what to do. I briefly considered calling the police, asking them to do a wellness check. I quickly thought better of it—how would that look, on my very first night? What on earth would I say? She was fine. I had to believe she was fine.

Hours later, when it was still dark outside, I found myself alone in Leo’s bed. I must have fallen asleep because I didn’t remember hearing him get up. His side of the bed was already made. “Leo?” My voice bounced off the cement walls. My bare feet felt cold on the ground.

The loft looked eerie in the dark, illuminated by distant streetlights, the furniture casting shadows over the polished concrete floors. I felt along the base of the lamp on an end table and couldn’t find a switch. There was no switch near the bulb, either, or along the cord, which disappeared through the table and plugged into an outlet underneath the couch. I searched the whole loft and couldn’t find one light that worked. The walls didn’t have light switches.

The sky shifted from black to a dull gray. A sunrise without the sun, like so many Portland dawns.

My clothes had disappeared, and so had my shoes. My handbag was resting on a bench—like a minimalist wooden box—near the door. Leo wouldn’t respond to my calls through the Mirror, leaving me no choice but to rummage around the loft like a madwoman for my clothes.

His entire apartment felt empty, unlived in. No jars of dull pencils or stray coins under the cushions. It occurred to me, as I ran around the loft scrambling for my things, that he might be watching me, that this might all be some sort of weird experiment, but during my very thorough search of his apartment, I didn’t run across one Glasseye. Of course, a camera could be almost invisible. It could fit in the tip of a pen, in a woman’s earring.

Finally I gave up and threw one of Leo’s navy-blue hoodies on over the T-shirt, planning to go outside in my bare feet, but I couldn’t leave the apartment; the door refused to open. I was locked inside. The door had no latch, no knob. It was one of those rustic barn doors made out of slats of weathered wood. It slid open—or it was supposed to slide open—on heavy iron tracks. I pressed my hands against the door and tried with all my strength to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

I tried again to use my weight to force the door to move along its track, but it refused. Kicking didn’t help. Nor did pounding my fists against it. I screamed for someone to let me out, to help me.

“Leo,” I cried into the voice messaging system on the Mirror. “Let me out. You have to let me out.” He wouldn’t pick up. Where did he say he was going—Brussels? I closed my eyes, trying to remember if he had told me when he planned to leave, when he planned to arrive. He was going to be gone for weeks. I could die in here.