Betty
It was dark when I woke up, with a throbbing head and a dry mouth. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. My memory was thrown back, though, in pieces. Duke’s lake house. Dinner with him and Love. Wine. A lot of wine. Love giggling. Duke put his hand on my arm, and we went somewhere. I sat up, slowly, feeling my body heavy and laggard. I was in bed, but not in the moderate room where I put my bag earlier. That was a distinct space. Gloomy. Cold. I reached for a light, found a switch, and my heart ceased. This wasn’t a bedroom. It was a room of red. More intricate than the Duke’s top floor space, some machinery that anyone wouldn’t understand mounted on the wall. Plungers clung from the ceiling. A chair with belt. A table with tools like operating instruments. I stood up too quickl
