Sebastian:

I have her below me. Her. Kathryn. On her knees. Her hands behind her back in the classic ready-for-handcuffs position, but not tied together, not yet. I've decided to make her keep them there like that for a bit, to strain her arm muscles and teach her obedience. Her head is down, submissive, a good girl.

I abruptly reach under her skirt and start playing with her pussy. Stimulating her before she's comfortable with being touched, before she's ready. She winces but doesn't move.

Magnificent.

I sniff my fingers, comparing the scent in my mind to the memory of her scent when my head was between her legs. I want to catalogue all of them.

"Good. Now take off your clothes."

The dress comes off quickly, no attempt at striptease, she only like to tease when she's in control and she's not in control tonight. As she's getting her high heels off she puts one foot on the floor and her head rises slightly. I can't tell whether it was done for leverage or a deliberate provocation.

"Stop." She freezes. I wait, saying nothing as the moment stretches out, wanting to see her get tired and stumble and fall on her ass. She remains in position. "Did I say you could get up off your knees?" My voice silky, threatening.

"I'm sorry," she says in a mumbly, little-girl voice. She's acting: Kathryn was never a little girl.

I want to slap her across the face. Instead I reach out again and take one of her nipples and twist it until, her hands still kept obediently behind her back, she hunches over in a futile attempt to shield herself. I tell myself this is better anyway, more painful.

"That was for lying," I say. She nods, understands.

I circle her, inspecting the scene before me. It's the beginning of the night. She's still again, waiting for me to act. Dress off, bra and heels partly off, but makeup still on, breathing steady, limbs strong, hair presentable, submission bullshit. No panties, by my request. I'd originally toyed with the idea of taking her to a restaurant and making her slip her soaking wet panties to me under the table. Had pictured the restaurant as one of those neighborhood Italian bistros: low lighting, middling prices and a semi-decent wine list, the kind my college friend Andrew goes to about once a month with his wife. Date night. I'd called him up to reconnect just before seeing Kathryn again at that Hollywood bar. He lives up in Vermont or some shit, asked me what it's like living in LA. I told him I go to pool parties and fuck models, which is true. Kathryn is also supposedly a model, although her name didn't come up when I searched for her on Model Mayhem. Kathryn, who isn't my wife and doesn't go to restaurants. Now I've got her on her knees, her bowed head directly in front of my crotch. She will deep-throat my cock right now if I tell her to. Satisfy me. I don't want to be satisfied.

I crouch down and lean forward, as if to kiss her. Unhook her bra and take it off her, slowly, cupping her breasts in my hands and massaging them. Whisper into her parted lips. "Lean back. Spread your legs wide." Move my lips to her neck, to the delicate shell of her ear. "No other movements."

She complies with her usual grace. I move my hands down her inner thighs, light, barely-there touches, and take her shoes off myself. Her toes are manicured and pretty, but the bottoms of her feet are calloused stone-hard. I don't remember them being like that in high school. Her pussy is fully on display now, a void-eye I stare into. Pink lips surrounding the blackness of absolute nothing.

I run my hands all over her at will, lightly, lightly, pinching her wherever I feel like it. Breathe softly onto her exposed pussy. Flick my tongue on her clit once, twice, then ignore it for a while, then return, my hands never once leaving her body. Round after round of this, until she starts to shake, to vibrate with the effort of holding her body still.

I fist my fingers through her hair, yank her up to her feet, drag her to the edge of the bed and lay her out on my lap.

"Did you really think that was going to be your only punishment?"

"No."

Her naked body lies hot on my clothed one. I run my fingers over her bare bottom, preparing mentally for what I'm about to do. Her ass clenches.

"You're afraid. Has this been done to you before?" I feel her shrug.

"Just as a kid."

"Did you like it?"

"No."

"You're going to like it with me. First you're going to beg me to stop..."

Begging me to stop is part of the game; if she really wants me to stop, there's a safeword. Although I have a feeling that Kathryn, being Kathryn, wants to think of herself as too tough to use it.

"...then you're going to beg me for more."

She doesn't say anything.

I begin, slowly at first, smacking each ass cheek in turn, building up a rhythm. Her legs start to kick out, her body squirming in place. The movement quickly causes my cock to get hard and press up against her stomach. How humiliating it must be for her, I think, to know how much I'm enjoying this, and my cock gets even harder.

"Poor Kathryn," I say. "Out there you act like the queen of bitches, but in here you're nothing but my slutty little girl. Do you like that, feeling like a helpless little girl?"

"Mother used a hairbrush," she mutters under her breath.

"Hmm? What was that?"

I give her ass a resounding spank, the hardest I've hit her yet.

"I'm your slutty little girl," she recites. "Your slutty little helpless little girl."

"And does that turn you on?" I whisper, reaching into the folds of her wet pussy, playing with the labia.

She stays silent.

"Answer me slut," I say, my grip tightening.

"I can't...this is pointless. You're just going to punish me again. No matter what I say, there's no correct answer."

I deflate. "Shit Kathryn. You should have said something. I've known you for way too long for you to feel you have to prove anything to me. Especially in bed."

"It's fine. I wasn't traumatized or anything. The other stuff you did before, you know, teasing me, the bondage stuff, I liked that better. But it's fine."

"Look, forget the scene, I just need you to be honest with me. Why didn't you say something?"

She says nothing.

"Kathryn?"

"I wasn't doing this for me."

I turn her head so that her face is angled towards mine. I'm clothed, she's naked and in pain, teeth still gritted against the next smack, her ass practically glowing, but there it is: pity.

"You were right," I tell her. "There is no correct answer." And I begin again.

I spank her until her writhing atop me becomes so frantic I can barely hold her down on my lap, then fuck her from behind. After that, I bring out the nipple clamps. I finger her clit with one hand and twist the clamps with the other, watching her face for the reactions. Which are real? Pain and pleasure can be felt, so much that they overwhelm the body and mind. Or they can be faked.

She calls me Sir and Master and herself my little slut. Later in the night she starts calling herself my little toy. I tell her damn right that's what you are, and take off all of my clothes and push her legs all the way up and fuck her hard from the front, my body crashing into hers with big, slow, brutal thrusts.

She never sucks my cock, but I bring her off with my tongue multiple times. Until she can barely stand it anymore.

Her Sirs and Masters become frayed at the edges, tired and desperate sounding. I pull her into my arms, for cuddles not sex, and she nuzzles up against me gratefully.

We just lie there on the bed together, catching our breaths. I stroke her hair.

"You did good, Kathryn."

"Thank you," she says, too tired to remember to add Sir or Master.

This is happiness. Fleeting, as all our happiness is.

"It's funny," I say. "You move to Los Angeles, and you think that when you get there you're going to go to the beach all the time. And then you don't."

"Yeah."

"We should do that sometime. Just go out to the ocean, make a day of it."

Her muscles tense slightly.

"Kathryn?"

"Sebastian. You just worked my body over brutally for, like, several hours. I am so not up for having this conversation right now."

"You're never up for it." My touch on her hair remains gentle, but the words come out harsh. A recent memory shoots through me, of Kathryn crawling towards me on her belly, kissing the toe-tips of my oxfords, calling herself my toy without being told. "I bet I could make you. In a few more hours."

"Yeah, you probably could. I don't actually like pain, you know. Rough sex, sure, but not real pain. So you could probably torture me for another few hours, and at the end of it I'd break and tell you whatever you wanted to hear. But then you'd have to get me to put my clothes on and get in the car with you, and at that point, the answer would still be no."

"Why?"

She pulls her head up to look at me, then turns away sharply, gets off the bed and starts looking for her clothes and bag.

"Come on," I say, getting up as well. "It's a simple question."

She whirls around to face me.

"Is it?"

"Yes, it is."

"All right, then I'll give you the simple answer. It's just sex, Sebastian. I thought that you of all people would understand that, I don't see why you have to make it so complicated. I mean, I already told you this. All the way back in high school, what was it I said? You're my sex toy, or something like that? I mean, okay, I could have phrased it nicer. I'm mature enough to realize now that it was a cheap thing to say and that I shouldn't have tried to hurt you unnecessarily. And I'm sorry for that. I really am! But the point is—"

I slap her on the face. As hard as I fucking can.

She doesn't stumble, but the force of the slap swivels her head around. She puts her hand to her reddened cheek and just looks at me. Silent.

"I'm sorry," I say, which is true. "I didn't mean to hurt you," I say, which is a really extremely obvious lie.

"Where's the Leica?" she says calmly. Hint of a smile on her face. I remember that smile: back when we went to Manchester it was the only real one she had.

"The what?"

"The Leica, the vintage one you got for your birthday. We both know you still use that thing. I want to look at it."

The pit of my stomach drops. "That's not happening. I'm sorry."

"Fine," she says, her voice shockingly close to tears. "Forget I said anything."

She runs to the bathroom and locks herself in.

I knock on the door, "Kathryn, come on. Open up. Please. Let's just talk about it, okay? I'm sorry, I told you I'm sorry. Kathryn, stop being ridiculous. Let's just talk..." I stop when I realize I sound like the villain in a Lifetime movie.

After about a half hour I speak again: "Kathryn? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Sebastian."

After about an hour she comes out, looking put-together and perfect, a vision of sterile loveliness. "No bruising. You got lucky this time, Seb. Try it again and we're over." And then she walks out.

I lock the door behind her, feeling sick. I am sick. Dependent. Obsessed. With Kathryn and her lies. There was a time, a brief glorious time, when I thought we knew each other inside and out. That was over a decade ago.

I know she's not actually happy, even if she smiles when she greets me at the door. I know she's not where she wants to be. Where she wants to be is obvious: the back of the limo, the direct from limo red carpet walk, dress by Dior or Givenchy and given gratis for publicity reasons, the morning after walk to get coffee in baggy hoodie and sunglasses because paparazzi, the Oscar night speech expressing deep gratitude to production crew, friends, family, God.

There's a part of me, the arrogant naïve teenage part, that still can't understand why she isn't there already.

I have no doubt of her talent, her cunning, her ruthless ambition. I've seen it, all of it. That's the problem. I used to sit beside her on the couch as she spoke on the phone to her "friends", the fake sympathy, the fake comfort before drawing out the info she needed to destroy them socially, it was a thing to behold, the acting jobs she did. The way she spoke to her boyfriends too, stroking their worthless egos. Manipulating boys was even easier for her, because she could use sex to do it.

(I remember the way she'd kick her shoes off and lay her head in my lap, tell me she was sick of all of them and I was the only one she could actually talk to. The way she'd tease me on the phone by pretending to be one of my conquests, imitating everything from their vapid conversation to their orgasm voices. The way she'd come to my door in the night, half in withdrawal, saying "please let me in I know I've been a bitch to you lately but please" and slide her body over mine in the dark and cover me with kisses that could almost be read as affectionate, before coming to her senses last minute and fleeing my room. It was a thing of beauty—"You're just a toy, Sebastian"—the acting job she did.)

My Hollywood star. No compunction about using her body to get what she wants, no conscience to stand in her way, she should fit in great here. So why don't you have a social media page? I did ask her, at one point. She said:

"I got rid of it. Too much of a time suck."

I knew she was lying.

Who did you fuck, who did you fuck over, who did you...worse? I have scars on my body that say she's capable of anything. Mostly faded by now, but still. I picture Mafia deals, hitmen...no, that's not real life, that's the plot of fucking Mulholland Dr. Get it together.

The next morning I start methodically searching through the episode cast lists for Law & Order on IMDb. There's no Merteuil but two Kathys, two Katherines and one Kathryn, a Kathryn Pike, no photo or bio available in the cast list. I watch her episode. She looks about as different from Kathryn Merteuil as you can get, but still, somehow I know it's her. Her. She plays a college freshman, best friend to another female college student who just got murdered. With bleach-blonde hair, bubblegum lips, punk rock boots, a nasty sullen attitude, and improbably, a deep Southern accent. The accent sounds authentic enough to my ears, although as a New Yorker, I'm not exactly the one to judge. She shows up during the investigation, and again at the suspect's trial. I watch it for a second time, then a third. Can't stop thinking about it afterwards, that TV episode, what she looked like in it.

On Facebook, "Kathryn Pike" is a veterinarian, or a recent law school graduate, or a proud wife and mother, or a student "majoring in Dildo Studies at Hoe-vard University" which sounds like a joke Kathryn would make, but ends up being a chubby redheaded teenager from the UK. On Instagram, "Kathryn Pike" posts pictures of landscapes and dogs. I try to put it out of my mind, to tell myself it isn't her. But I can't. I go back to IMDb, to the episode cast list. I start looking up the social media profiles of the other bit actors in that episode. Then I start sliding into their DMs.

I'd rather talk about this over the phone, one of them tells me.

Plum Bainbridge. She played the murderer's girlfriend. A stranger's name, but with something familiar in it, because it's only a certain specific type of asshole that gives their daughter a name like Plum.

"Is she dead?" the voice on the other end of the line says. And that's when I know I have her.

"Are you with the police?" she says.

"I'm her boyfriend."

I tell Plum my girlfriend has gone missing, she failed to show up to our dinner date at the Italian restaurant and has been unreachable since, I went by her house in Toluca Lake and she wasn't there, but I didn't want to involve the police just yet because maybe it was nothing and besides, she hates cops. I didn't want to get her into trouble if she was alive and didn't want to be found, but at the same time I was worried, because she'd called the day before our dinner date to confirm the time, and anyway it wasn't like her to ghost anyone. We'd met in Los Angeles but she was a New York girl, very direct. I'd never felt like there was anything she couldn't tell me.

"Fuck. Please tell me this is a joke."

I picture Kathryn coming to my door with a bottle of champagne and a smug grin. Silly rabbit. Ha ha, you actually thought we were at war? Kansas turned you into such a complete pussy that you can't even take a joke anymore? That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Now hand over those car keys 'cause your Jaguar is mine now, and grab your swim trunks and sunscreen while you're at it because we're driving over to Malibu in ten minutes. Oh and Seb? I mean it about the sunscreen. The last thing I need is someone taking our photo and me having to explain why I'm apparently dating a giant lobster.

I ask her why she thought Kathryn was dead.

"Are you really her boyfriend? If you are, you should already know the answer."

"Cocaine."

"Yes."

"If there's anything you know, anything at all..."

"I don't know what to tell you." Her voice relaxes into what I suspect is its natural cadence, the calm precise enunciation of someone who believes with all her heart that she went to a better prep school than you. "We were friends for a bit, but then she moved out of state and we sort of drifted apart from each other. I don't even have her number anymore." She drifts into a reverie: "I was surprised when you told me you were her boyfriend. When I knew her, she really wasn't the relationship type. Now I like being in a relationship, I think it's important to be vulnerable and I find it inspiring to be in love, but to her, romance was just a distraction. She told me she used to date rich and powerful men for ego reasons, but their care and feeding proved to be more trouble than it was worth."

"It wasn't like that with us. Did she go by other names besides Kathryn Pike? Other stage names, I mean."

"With me she mostly went by Kathryn Pike. She did tell me her real name once, but I'm assuming you already know it."

"Kathryn Merteuil."

"That's it. She said she'd changed it to Pike because casting directors could never pronounce her real name correctly. But she also said it wasn't her ideal choice, and that she might change it again once she managed to get to LA."

"Did she tell you what to?"

"I don't remember the exact name. Something French, but more pronounceable. Curtsy, or something like that."

"Did she talk a lot about moving to LA?"

"Only all the time."

"And did you know any of her, uh, drug contacts back in New York?"

"No. Sorry. I just know that staying sober was a struggle for her. She went to meetings at this church in Brooklyn." She lets out a big stagy sigh. "I just hope she's okay..."

She gives me the church's name. I don't contact them.

Curtsy...Coeurcis...Coursey...Courcy...no, my princess would never forget the aristocratic de. Kathryn de Courcy.

I scroll through Kathryn de Courcy's Facebook page. The latest post is a crowded shot of her in a multiracial group of women, all in minidresses, all with big smiles on their faces and drinks in their hands. The comments:

Happy 26th!

Here's to your best year yet!

Happy bday Kathryn!

Party on gurl [balloon emoji champagne emoji balloon emoji fireworks emoji heart emoji]

Of course.

Kathryn is now officially ten years younger than I am.

I get out of my apartment, take the elevator down, and go outside to pace around aimlessly past the homeless tents, needing to walk off some of my excitement before I text my former step-sister to make arrangements.

When Law & Order Kathryn got on the witness stand to confront the boy who murdered her best friend, she'd cried: real, ugly tears.