BIANCA
Returning to reality is hard, once you’ve had that first tantalizing peek behind the curtain.
There’s an iconic scene in The Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo to choose between taking the red pill or the blue pill. The blue pill will erase all memory of the craziness he’s just witnessed and ease him back into his fake, comfortable life.
If he takes the red one, though, the veil will be lifted. He’ll, as Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus puts it, “see how deep the rabbit hole goes”.
In my case, I’ve taken the red pill, but life keeps trying to convince me I’ve taken the blue one.
No one in my real world knows what I’ve seen. What I’ve experienced.
What I’ve done.
Not my family, because obviously. Not my friends, either.
It’s been a week since that night. Since the huge, masked man with the punishing touch and the voice like sin vanished into the ether after chasing me through that church. Since he brought me to heights I’ve only fantasized about, only to disappear like smoke.
“This was a mistake, princess. I fucking warned you that you were way out past your fucking depth.”
After the rush and the madness of that chase, and the knife, and him brutalizing the most insane orgasm of my life from my body, I actually waited for him to come back. Seconds ticked by. Then minutes.
Finally I was forced to admit that he really was gone, and that I was alone in a creepy old boarded-up church, fuck-knows-where, without a phone, because he’d taken that, too.
When I’d poked my head outside, though, there was a black car waiting for me, with a driver in sunglasses who never responded to a single thing I said, but freakishly drove me right to my front door before handing me my phone.
Milena and Naomi both checked in with me the next morning to see how my “hangover” was. Madame Kuzmina’s made a comment here and there over the last week about me being “distracted”.
But no one knows the truth. No one knows that I’ve swallowed that red pill. And now I can’t see anything the same way.
I’m early to the theater today, so after changing and stretching a little, I sit in one of the empty seats ten or so rows back from the stage. I frown at the web tab on my phone that’s open to my Club Venom account.
No new messages from RaisedByWolves. Not a single peep. I mean it’s not like I’d expect an encounter like ours to merit a “hey I had a great time the other night” follow-up. It’s not like we went to the movies or shared a milkshake, for crying out loud.
But still. The absence of…anything…makes me feel almost hollow inside. Not quite put back together right. It’s not like I feel ditched or discarded—well, maybe a little. No, the thing is that this is the one other person on Earth who knows what I did that night. The one person who could maybe at least sort of understand what I’m feeling right now, after diving headfirst into my darkest fantasy.
And he’s gone. No messages, I haven’t even seen him online at all since that night.
He’s disappeared like a half-remembered fever dream. What’s even weirder is that I don’t have any messages or other chat requests at all.
I mean, I know my profile is a little bare bones, but still. I’m on a kink website advertising that I’m into primal play, and I don’t have a single response aside from him? I even went back and added to my profile, trying to see if that made a difference. I added my age. I elaborated on my kink. The other day, I even uploaded a picture of my ass in yoga pants.
And not to toot my own horn, but I’ve been sculpting that butt through brutal ballet classes for like fifteen years.
Not a single response.
I exhale, making a face as I stare at my last few messages to him from the past few days.
BrokenBee
Hi again
A day after that:
BrokenBee
Not trying to be weird, I just wanted to thank you for the other night. It was perfect
A few days later, after three glasses of wine:
BrokenBee
If you didn’t have a good time, would you mind giving me feedback? I’m new to this and I’d love to know what I could do better
God. That one in particular makes me cringe when I read it. Hard. But then I glance at the last one, from two days ago:
BrokenBee
You didn’t break me, you know
“Ooo, what’s that?”
I almost have a seizure as I all but throw my phone up in the air. I manage to catch it, my breath, and my runaway heart before I turn to look up at Milena with a white, blank expression.
“Um, what?”
She arches a brow, smirking at me.
“Who were you messaging, and what app is that?”
