The click of the lock was a sound of absolute finality. It was not the loud, violent slam of a prison cell, but something far more insidious: the quiet, oiled turning of a well-made mechanism designed for perfect, inescapable closure. The sound sealed the world out and sealed me in with him. In the reflection of the lit mirror, I saw the room shrink, the walls closing in until it was just my face, pale under the stage lights, and his dark figure looming behind me.
My heart, which had been a frantic bird against my ribs, went unnervingly still. The terror was so immense, so total, that it transcended panic and became a kind of crystalline, cold focus. Every sense was heightened. I could smell the cloying scent of the hairspray I’d used, the faint, clean aroma of the starch in his tuxedo sh
