iSub

Life is short on concrete. Most of us have to make do with continuity. Everything we think of as us can end up being totally transitory: our health, our sexuality, our beliefs. You can go from a marathon to a wheelchair in seconds flat. Your faith can be shattered, or found. And you’d be surprised how many politics I’ve seen changed by a simple mugging.

For most people, that change is slow. You keep thinking of you as you because you don’t change all at once. That’s not how it is for a zombie, at least if she wants to pay it forward for all the brains she’s nomming on by at least solving their murders.

My latest was a recluse, but I wasn’t feeling very reclusive. There I was, in a bar somewhere in Capitol Hill, one of those trendy places where all the artists and the people who want to fuck artists go at night. All night.

I’d been having brain on rye all week, but no flashbacks. Nothing jarred a memory, though I’d been all over the murder scene and the victim’s residence. I wondered if someone could have some kind of neurodivergent condition that meant my zombie brain couldn’t do its thing. Then I wondered if it might be contagious. That seemed ridiculous, but so did the fact that my eyes could glow red and I could lift cars if I got hungry enough.

I’d felt depressed lately. Like something was missing. It was a strain to get myself to go clubbing, but as soon as I walked in, I felt electricity in the air. Please don’t tell me my newest diet had secretly been a club kid.

There was some kind of charge that wasn’t just me and wasn’t just this place, that much was clear. I went to the bar to try and figure it out. What was I responding to? And was it me or the brain?

Lately, there seemed like not much me, just a lotta brains. Whatever I ate, I became. So the biggest chunk of me was that I solved murders with my zombie psychic thing. If I couldn’t solve this murder, what was I? Just a grave robber.

A cannibal.

Maybe that’s why I kept solving murders. I had to repeatedly be someone else to avoid being me.

Yeah, I’m not as fun at parties as the goth look suggests.

I ordered a kamikaze and waited, looking through the room, checking out the men and women, hoping for something to click. Would I rather be a murder victim for a day than ask Liv Moore the hard questions of who she really is? You bet your ass.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and the touch was so sudden, shocking me out of my malaise, that it seemed like an answer to my prayers.

I turned slowly, trying not to give away how… connected… I felt.

It was Peyton.

God, she was gorgeous. I’d always known she was pretty, but she looked really good that night. Black leather jacket. A tight black dress. No bra, and she didn’t need one. I couldn’t look at her without intoxicating myself on her curves, her height, all the perfection she just… wore like Chanel No. 5.

And she was a goddamn civil servant. What sense did that make? She looked like she should be a supermodel. And she was undressing me with her eyes, drinking in how I looked so completely that I just about creamed my panties. I look nice, sure, but I’d never felt like some kind of pin-up until just then. I swallowed hard and tried to smile, though I felt so obscene I shouldn’t have been allowed out in public.

“Peyton, hey. Glad you could make it. Is the apartment alright?”

Is the apartment alright? What was I even talking about? Peyton was my best friend. She’d always been the easiest person in the world to talk to. How come now—

This was the brain talking. Don’t tell me that this total shut-in had some kind of stalker crush on Peyton Charles, my best friend in platonicness… platonicality… you’d think either me or the brain would know what the real word for that was.

Peyton put a hand on my shoulder and spoke softly, “The apartment’s fine. Maybe a little lonely. Perhaps we should head back and… fill it up.”

Her hand drifted from my shoulder to lightly, very lightly, brush against my breast.

I felt faint. There, right there in the crowded bar! How could I not blush?

She smiled at me and I blushed harder at having gotten that lovely look on her face.

“You look like a deer about to bolt,” she whispered, although I heard her just fine over the din of the bar. “Maybe I should tie you down, since you really don’t want to go anywhere.”

I couldn’t believe it! Just like that! I hadn’t said anything about suddenly finding her attractive, much less wanting to get kinky! She’d just known!

Of course, someone as perfect as Mistress Peyton would just know.

We’d spent enough time—wasted enough time—getting to know each other. All that mattered now was that I was tied up and that she… she was Mistress Peyton. I wanted it so bad that I’d do anything for it. I swallowed hard, feeling my face flaming with a blush, and nodded my head slowly.

Peyton chuckled to herself and finished her drink.

“I can always tell. You’re all so alike…”

“No!” I blurted out, hating the thought of being compared to others, that there should be anyone else that had the honor of serving Mistress—I had to stop thinking of her like that. We hadn’t even kissed yet. What was wrong with me?

The brain? No, this was too deep, too much a part of me—I’d thought a lot about being dommed by Peyton when we needed me to flash on to a sub’s murder. I’d thought about it through carny brain, author brain, photographer brain, assassin brain. This brain might be letting something out of me, but it was the key to a lock that had already been there.

For her part, Peyton stared at me like I was absolute filth.

God, did that turn me on.

“That’s the last time you ever say no to me,” she told me.

I believed her. I dropped my head, embarrassed, and she wrapped her fingers around my chin, holding it up to the light.

“Don’t worry, precious. I’ll give you plenty of chances to say yes. You’ll like saying yes to me. Or at least I’ll like it. That’s what’s important, that I like it.”

“Yes,” I moaned, and it felt revelatory. Like that was the first time I’d ever said the word and truly meant it.

Peyton turned around and walked away. She didn’t have to tell me to follow her. I knew I was wanted. I was enthralled because she wanted me enthralled. Like a cartoon character floating through the air towards the scent of a pie.

Silly, maybe, but there’s nothing real to compare to how I felt just then. It felt too big for simple reality. More like magic, this depth of feeling that I’d never accessed before.

Maybe it was real me, underneath all the shifting inconsistencies. Of course I’d never found the true Liv Moore before. She was tied up in Peyton… waiting for me to realize my place…

I finished my drink, only because I needed something to wet my dry mouth, and straightened my dress before I went after Peyton. I felt like every eye in the place was on me, seeing me for what I really was, able to spot the neon sign I felt inside myself spelling out that I was a Bitch.

Not a bad idea, advertising that. Maybe I should get a tattoo. Or a dog collar. Or just kneel at Peyton’s feet all the time in case she felt like having her toes licked.

Outside, I saw the driverless cab. Peyton leaned against it. My heart sung at a chance to serve her.

“Keep up now,” Peyton gently chided, and I felt something go through me, awakening every nerve it touched. Would she punish me if I didn’t? The thought was so incredibly alluring—but I couldn’t chance her displeasure, not yet, not before I’d shown her how good I could be to her.

I ran to open the door for her, then climbed in after her. There was no driver’s seat. The whole car was like the lounge of a stretch limo. The front windshield formed a touchscreen—Peyton punched in our address on it.

Ours. We already lived together. As roommates, true, and friends… now something else.

A frustration I hadn’t known was there had resolved itself, like a final puzzle piece clicking into place, even though I’d had no idea the puzzle wasn’t finished. Yet all along, my life had been lacking the key ingredient.

“Put your hands behind your back,” Peyton told me.

I did what she wanted, because it was what I wanted. I felt so entranced by her that there was no difference between her wants and mine—she just needed to tell me what mine were.