Free Lies & Lullabies by Courtney Lane

screws me without the lube often and at the wrong times. This is a situation with two choices; worse and worser.”
    “We all have choices. It’s whether or not we want to face the consequences of our choices.” His eyes flickered as they darted around the carpet. “I’m not your hero. I’ll never be one for you.”
    I shook my head as if trying to shake myself free of his umpteenth attempt to muddle my mind. “If…I go with you, are you going to protect me?”
    Without blinking. Without a single solitary doubt draping his face, he said, “Whatever needs to be done to protect you, it will be done. That’s a promise, and I never make empty promises. I take very particular care of the things that belong to me as long as they treat me with respect.”
    The discontent swirled inside my stomach and threatened to make me fold. “Taking care of me and protecting me would make you my hero.” The sullenness in my words was unexpected and uncontrolled. I gave him hints to the nature of my life without intending to.  
    “A hero does things for selfless reasons.” He picked up my hand and gave it a soft kiss.
    I cursed the man for being incredibly skilled at the way he moved me.
    “Nothing concerning the things I do to and for you will ever be altruistic.”
    I appreciated his honesty, and took it on faith that because he admitted to the bad, he wasn’t the worst option I had. Unfortunately, when the weekend was over, my time in an alternate world, while dressing in the personality of an alternate woman, would come to a cutting end.  
    I slid my hand from his grip and sidestepped his emotionally suffocating presence.
    Without looking back at him, I headed into the bathroom. “I’m going to take another shower.”  
    With my hand on the door to the bathroom as I stared at the emergency exit map on the suite door, I planned my escape.
    “Take your time.” He disappeared around the bend.  
    The moment Catch’s movements were no longer seen or heard, I slipped out of the door.

-6-
    A R IGGED G AME
    The clock inside the cab driver’s car blared 6 a.m. in glowing red print. It was Monday, and I was just in time to return to the house, shower, and get ready to start the day.  
    This weekend would definitely go down as the most eventful. I thought the reason I began fighting was due to an obligation—the reason I remained was for the thrill and the freedom. Meeting Catch made me question everything.
    The cab driver pulled up to my house in Bel Air Ridge. Sam wasn’t standing watch as he always did at the front pathway lined by square trimmed bushes.

    As my heels tapped against the freshly waxed, dark wood floors in the foyer leading to the major room, which opened to the grand stairs, an unknown force grabbed ahold of my heart and strangled the life from it. Breathing freely became a task. I had returned to my prison and all the feelings I tried to wash away during the weekend came flooding back to drown my identity and my autonomy.  
    I slipped off my heels and peered into the room with a piano, a couch, and nothing more. Every weeknight, I played the same song for an audience of one. It was one of the few times I felt unencumbered while standing inside a place that represented everything I hated.
    I padded upstairs toward my bedroom. My hand touched the knob of my bedroom door. I relaxed my shoulders only to tense them again when I heard Sam call out to me from behind me.
    I plastered a smile on my face to meet the man I had an arrangement with.
    “Don’t flash your pretty smile at me and think we’re okay.” Sam shook a finger at me like a father who waited up past curfew to catch their child in the act.  
    I roamed around inside my room for an envelope, and found cash hidden in my drawer to place inside it. I would be short this week due to Temple’s antics.  
    I handed the envelope to Sam. “I couldn’t meet her this weekend. Some things came up. Can you do it? You know where to go, right?”
    “I