"It feels better than it did," I said and put both feet on the floor. "Must be your miraculous touch."
"Must be."
"But now I have to pee."
"Can't help you with that."
I turned to Pratt. His golden eyes were soft with worry. I pointed to the tunnel and pressed my thighs together tightly, anxiously, and the comprehension was near instant in his exquisitely intelligent face. He nodded and rose to his feet, reaching for Riley's hand.
"Why can't we just all go together?" Riley wondered out loud. "I know I wouldn't mind and it would save time."
I smirked. "I think his head would explode."
"You're probably right."
Pratt guided Riley up the rocks to a shadowy raised area where her chains hung empty. Despite his behemoth size, he was always gentle with us. I watched the easy way his large, hirsute feet mounted the rocks, the peculiar way his knees and hocks bent in unison as he climbed. The mink streamers of his loincloth shifted and swayed against his well-developed thighs and fine chestnut hair covered his body in humanly patterns. He used the key from the belt of his loincloth to lock Riley's wrists into her shackles. Riley was very casual as she let him do it, holding still, gripping the chains nonchalantly and the serene look on her face was almost angelic, even during the obligatory nipple twist with his long fingers and black talons.
At first, I was insanely jealous when he began touching her during our nightly ablutions, but I think I enjoyed watching him manipulate her body. And the way she'd boldly meet my gaze as he was doing it, her lips whispering a smile without an ounce of arrogance or haughtiness, was quite arousing. She had changed immensely in her short time in the cave, considering in the beginning Pratt could hardly approach without her screaming bloody murder. Even now, Riley managed to keep a certain emotional distance from him. She didn't love Pratt the way I did and I think on some level she preferred to stay out of our way. Pratt and I had a bond, and Riley wanted nothing to do with it.
With Riley secure, Pratt returned to me and I took his offered hand. He led me through the dark tunnel to another cavern with a dirt floor and a single flickering candle so that I could do my business. After, he led me back, but stopped me at the fork in the passageway, as he did every morning now after my evacuations, and stood against the wall with his arms staidly folded. The bones in his face were delicate, almost feminine, and despite his aloof posture, his eyes were intensely distressed as they flicked back and forth from me to the exit.
I knew the way out of the cave now. I even knew where he kept the key to the locked door at the end of it. Since the night I found my way out and chose to stay, every morning he let me choose again and I could see how it stressed him, the possibility I might decide to leave him forever. But knowing I could leave made me want to stay and I wedged a hand under his elbow to tug him back towards the firelight with me.
He bared his teeth, his signature smile, and followed me.
We had to walk through the fire pit area to get back to my bed of straw and furs where my chains suspended, but my eyes snagged on something in the shadow of the log bench. Pratt watched me curiously as I leaned over to pick it up and held it up to the light.
It was Amy's bird's foot ring. The delicate black claws were curled around an imaginary perch.
I looked up at Pratt and showed it to him and he looked mildly surprised to see it. For a moment we gazed at each other, sharing a private memory. Pratt had been as angry as I'd ever seen him when he tore the ring from Amy's hand and threw it blindly over his shoulder. The next day Amy was gone. I still didn't know what had happened but I had a few theories.
I handed over the ring so he could put it in his dark alcove of tchotchkes. Maybe someday he could make it into a necklace. But he held up both hands, shaking his head, and then pointed to me.
You keep.
"Really?" I said dubiously.
He jabbed a black finger nail at me again, nodding certainly, his eyes bright.
So I tried it on. Amy's fingers had been thin as jackstraws and the ring only fit on my pinky, but it went well with my rabbit tooth bracelet in a morbidly disturbing way. I offered Pratt a polite smile and he amiably swatted my behind to get me moving back to the bed. It occurred to me we hadn't made love yet this morning and the nagging itch between my legs wanted attention.
I wasn't sure how I felt about wearing Amy's ring, but I wondered if Amy knew of the door at the cave's entrance. Did she know escape wasn't possible, even if she managed to slip out of Pratt's arm at night? All those times Pratt brought her back from her bathroom breaks...had he stopped to give her a choice, too? Maybe that was why she was gone; because she had finally decided to. But then I remembered Amy had been quite adamant about staying. She had locked herself in her own chains in order to remain.
Later, after Pratt brought Riley out for a quick break and gave us both a drink of water, Riley pointed at the ring while my hands were splayed across Pratt's lower ribs for balance.
"Pretty," she said, breathless and flushed.
"Thanks," I rasped, plunging down on Pratt's rigid organ without missing a beat.
"With all that jewelry, you'll be the envy of all the other cavewomen," she jested.
"All I need now is a pair of bone hairpins."
She bit her lip to stifle her smile, closing her eyes blissfully. She moved like a cork in the sea, her fingers digging into Pratt's pectorals. I could see the underside of Pratt's jaw, the sinews of his throat madly flexing as his tongue was buried in Riley's fair shrub of pubic curls. "Oh god I'm close," she groaned. "Kiss me."
*
Changes in the cave had evolved following Riley's menstruation cycle. Now Riley slept with us at night and naturally the early morning romps included her as well. Pratt was not so much of a stickler with the chains anymore and usually only put us in them when he went hunting or to keep our hands out of trouble. Pratt was gone longer in the evening to fetch food, but we spent the time well, cracking jokes or playing an X-rated version of 20 questions that usually had us crying with laughter.
Over the last several days Pratt had become rather logy. He had lost interest in all his other projects, or maybe they were all finished. If he wasn't out hunting, he was usually yawning and stretching by the fire. Sometimes he curled up in bed with us and took long naps. Other days he was content to just dreamily watch us as Riley and I entertained each other. It made me wonder if Pratt had hibernation instincts. He was, after all, still a creature of habit.
Our amusement came in a wide range of activities. I taught Riley some of the games Pratt favored when there was extra food, which wasn't often. And although I wasn't clear on Pratt's change of heart, talking was okay now—whispers when he was asleep. Riley liked to keep her fingers busy when she chatted and was always knuckle deep in my hair, twisting some new elaborate braid. Pratt recognized this the first time she did it and brought us several faded scraps of ribbon to preserve her braids. She began weaving the decorations in the braids as well, which I imagined looked pretty, but I could only feel the back of my lumpy head when she was done. It was the only time in the cave I wished for a mirror. I tried to return the favor, but I only knew how to do a basic braid and something that resembled a sloppy, uneven French braid. I improved marginally with practice. And when we were all talked out and our hair was perfectly braided and we'd already played a round or two of dirty 20 questions, we'd start a new activity. Quietly. So we didn't wake Pratt.
There had been few conversations of leaving the cave. Sometimes I would think back to my first night in the cave, how I once assumed Amy and I might use the chains as some way to communicate and orchestrate an escape. Now, Riley and I enjoyed hours and hours of freedom, much of it alone, and if escape came up, it was almost rhetorical. Like when Riley declared there must be two exits to the cave. She was kneeled up behind me, undoing yesterday's braid, collecting a pile of old, hoary ribbons beside her.
"I told you, there's only one," I said. "And it's locked up tight."
"But the tunnel is so drafty. There's got to be a second way to the outside where the air is circulating from."
So smart.
The smoke was getting out somewhere; it was the only reason we weren't suffocating. I assumed there were narrow fissures in the ceilings acting as air vents, but was there another exit? One that wasn't locked? A second exit meant nothing to me—I knew where the key was—but was it giving Riley just enough hope to keep her going? And how often was she thinking on these matters of escape? I never told Riley Pratt was giving me a choice to stay. I was sure he wasn't extending this gratuity to her and certainly she would try to talk me into leaving. It was in these tortured moments of quiet deliberation I felt the most guilt.
The day after I found Amy's ring, after Riley and I had eaten all our huckleberries and our hair was weaved with ribbons, we reached that restless stage of our company earlier than expected. Still slaked from the morning, we had little else to do but snuggle under the covers and doze together. When I woke, it was with a start and it roused Riley at the same time. "You okay?" she crooned blearily.
"Yeah. Sorry. Go back to sleep."
The fire was low and glowing. I could just make out her face of empathy as her cheek rested on a mound of furs. "Bad dream?"
"Sort of."
