Emily's Night

Emily arrived at the Suite exactly at sunset. The light caught the glass on the hallway floor, painting everything in a saturated amber, and made her silhouette a moving splash of gold and blush. Even in the long hall, Andy could see that her blonde hair—cascading all the way to mid-thigh, with pink highlights catching the dying light—was left loose, drifting behind her with each step. She was naked, but the thick curtain of blonde strands strategically concealed her nipples, the cleft between her legs, never quite revealing. Andy had tried to prepare himself, but the reality was different: not provocative, just **** in its precarious coverage.

When Andy used the touchscreen to open the elevator door and let her in, a turn of her body caused her hair to swirl, momentarily exposing the curve of one buttock before settling back into place. He simply smiled, and offered her a cup of tea. "Chamomile," he said, "or caffeine, if you're feeling reckless."

Emily stepped in, all nerves, and Andy felt a strange urge to look away—not out of prudery, but because her vulnerability seemed almost too much to bear. She hovered inside the threshold, a statue draped in hair and sunlight, every inch of her body covered except for the spots where the light pried through the shifting veil of her mane. Her nipples were faint, ghostly smudges behind the gold; her hands hid her groin with a practiced art, though the hair fell in layers over her thighs, like a modern-day Lady Godiva.

“Chamomile is good,” she said, voice so gentle it seemed borrowed from someone else. She looked around, taking in the Suite in a way that was clearly practiced—an artist’s gaze, Andy thought, all composition and lines and negative space.

He tried not to notice how she avoided eye contact for the first minute. Instead, he watched her eyes as they scanned the room: the lighting, the curve of the couch, the way the carpet met the wall in a perfect, seamless edge. He realized, with a kind of slow wonder, that she was cataloguing everything—not as a potential threat, but as a visual feast. Her gaze lingered on the shelves with their handful of books, the coffee table even the window, from which she could see the glittering resort beneath.

“You can sit wherever you like,” Andy said, gesturing at the couch. “Or—if you want something to cover up, I have blankets.” He wasn’t sure if the offer was helpful or patronizing. Emily smiled, and shook her head.

“I’m… used to it,” she said. “But thank you.” She drifted to the sofa, settling in with a precision that Andy found oddly compelling. Every movement was calibrated: the way she perched on the edge, the way she crossed her legs so the curtain of hair hid what it needed to, the way she tucked her arms so that nothing seemed ****.

He poured her tea, brought it over, and sat in the chair opposite. “If it helps,” he said, “I once spent an entire season of my life working in boxers and a tank top. This is… less embarrassing than you’d think.”

Emily laughed—relief, not mirth. “I guess it’s easier when you choose it, right?”

He nodded, watching the way she wrapped her hands around the cup. Her fingers were slender and delicate. An artist’s hands. She sipped, and for a long moment they just let the quiet expand.

The quiet between them lasted a good thirty seconds. Not tense, not awkward—just the kind of mutual pause that happens when both people realize, at once, that they’re being scrutinized and want to do it right. Andy drank his own tea. When he lowered the mug, Emily’s eyes were fixed on the slope of the volcano, her expression a careful neutral.

“I keep expecting to see lava pour down the side,” she said. “But it’s just… perfect. Like a painting you’re not allowed to touch.”

Andy followed her gaze, then let his own eyes wander back to her face. “Most people fixate on the volcano. It’s like it’s there to prove you’re not dreaming.” He hesitated, then added, “Have you ever painted it?”

Emily shook her head, a wave of gold and pink cascading forward, briefly veiling her face. “No. I tried a sketch, but I couldn’t get the colors right. It’s too… extra.” She laughed, tucking hair behind her ear, which immediately fell back into place. “I think I’m too used to grayscale. Or maybe I just got lazy, since I didn’t have to impress anyone anymore.”

Andy smiled at the admission, and for the first time he saw a hint of the woman she’d been before this place: direct, but shy about her own directness. “I’d like to see it, sometime,” he said, and meant it.

Emily glanced at him, weighing the offer, then nodded.

He wanted to reassure her, but didn’t know how, so he changed the subject. “You’ve been here longer than I have,” he said, “but you don’t act like it.”

“Thanks,” she said, grinning, then looked away as if the compliment made her uneasy. “I’m a pro at playing new girl. Old habit.”

He was about to ask what she meant when she beat him to it. “Can I ask you something?” Her voice was lower now, less performative.

“Anything.”

“What’s it like up here? With the others. Is it… better? Or is it just a different kind of weird?”

He considered. “Depends on the day, honestly. Sometimes it’s like college dorm life. Sometimes it’s… a job interview, but every night. I keep waiting for someone to get bored and **** me.”

Emily smiled. “You’d be surprised how few **** plots there are in the Garden. Mostly it’s bad poetry and arguments about cat food.”

“Cat food?”

She gave a tiny shrug. “There are a lot of catgirls. They have opinions.”

He laughed, and the tension broke. For a few minutes they swapped stories—his about Dawn's bunny-manic breakfasts, hers about the time she'd organized an underground art show in the basement of her apartment building, where every piece had to incorporate found objects from the dumpster. Her storytelling was crisp and funny, a little self-effacing, and when she let her hair down (metaphorically), she spoke with her hands, the movement nearly mesmerizing.

At some point Andy realized she had inched further back onto the couch, legs now curled under her, hair draped like a blanket. She’d stopped covering herself so consciously, trusting the veil of gold to do its job. It was hard to imagine her as someone who’d once worn turtlenecks in August.

He said, “So, what did you do? Before all this?”

She considered, sipping her tea. “I was a bartender and a part-time art student. Mostly I painted, but that doesn’t pay, so I learned to pour drinks for people who hated their jobs.” She paused, then added, “I wasn’t one of them, though. I liked the chaos.”

He could picture her, hair up, sleeves rolled, orchestrating a Friday night. “I bet you were good at it.”

Emily shrugged. “I was good at reading people. At knowing what they needed before they said it.” She looked at him, eyes direct. “You’re the same, aren’t you?”

He blushed, not expecting the turn. “I hope so. Sometimes I think I just get lucky.”

She shook her head, certain. “No, it’s a skill. Some people pretend to care, but you actually do. It’s… unsettling.” She smiled, this time for real. “But nice.”

They let that hang for a moment, then Emily said, “Is it weird if I ask about the women? The other contestants, I mean.”

Andy shook his head. “Not at all. I think about them all the time.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. “That sounded almost too sincere, given the context.”

He laughed. “Sorry. I just mean—they’re the whole point, you know? None of this would matter if it was just me. I feel like I’m here to make things better for them, not the other way around.”

Emily nodded. “That’s rare.”

He sipped his tea, thinking of how to answer without sounding rehearsed. "Dawn's the glue. She's like a golden retriever in human form, except with more energy. Marissa keeps everyone from dying of malnutrition. Sam is... chaos in a good way, and the emotional anchor of the family. Chloe's the one everyone wants to hug and tell everything will be okay, even when she's being a little too honest." He paused, swirling the tea in his cup. "Liesa's our resident artist—sweet, creative, but sometimes a bit melancholy. Emi brings this... lightness. She can find joy in anything, even when the rest of us are too tired to try. Claire's our moral compass—quiet until she isn't, and when she speaks, everyone listens. And Norah..." He smiled despite himself. "Norah's the wild card. Half the time I think she's playing an entirely different game than the rest of us."

Emily smiled at each description, but didn’t ask for more. Instead, she looked at him and said, “You didn’t mention any naked women.”

Andy blinked, then realized. “You mean Erin and yourself?”

She laughed—a real, belly-deep sound. “I meant Erin. I assumed I didn’t count yet.”

He smiled. “She’s strong, but she has an incredible heart. She’d die for anyone she loves.”

Emily nodded, satisfied. “That’s a good trait. For survival, I mean.”

He wanted to ask her more, but didn’t know how to bridge from small talk to the question that mattered: why did she want to come up? What was she hoping for? Instead, he asked, “What’s it like, being here? In this place, I mean.”

Emily thought about it, picking at a loose thread on the couch. “It’s not so bad. I mean, it’s better than being dead, right?” The words slipped out too fast, and she flinched. “Sorry, that was dark. I just—sometimes it’s easier to pretend this is normal than to admit it’s all insane.”

Andy nodded. “It is insane. But you’re handling it better than most.”

Emily looked at her hands, then at him. “You think so?”

“I do.”

She looked away, then said, "Jake tried so hard to make things better for all of us." Her fingers traced invisible patterns on her knee. "He was older than me, nine years. Had this way of making everyone feel heard."

Andy waited, letting her find her own pace.

"His last name was Cooper, by the way." Her eyes flicked up, meeting Andy's. "I thought that was funny when I heard about you. Like maybe they have a type." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Good men who care too much."

Andy blinked, caught off-guard. “I didn’t know that.”

Emily smiled, a faint twist. “Either that, or they must have a thing for Coopers.”

He laughed, and the air lightened, then frowned. "Wait, your accent. New York, right? And you said your boyfriend was Jake Cooper?" His eyes widened. "Jake Cooper from the Upper West Side? Dark hair, neat beard, little scar above his eyebrow?"

Emily's teacup froze halfway to her lips. "You knew him?"

"He's my first cousin twice removed. Our grandfathers were brothers." Andy shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "This is insane. We weren't close or anything—saw each other at a few family things when I was younger. I think the last time was some funeral maybe six, seven years ago."

"Are you sure it's the same Jake?" Emily's voice had gone quiet, almost reverent. "That can't be... I mean, what are the odds?"

"Pretty damn slim," Andy said, still processing. "Both of us ending up here? It's like..."

"Like someone planned it," Emily finished, looking away. She set down her cup with deliberate care, as though afraid it might shatter in her grip.

She continued, carefully, "After our season got paused, we were all… ‘redistributed.’ I was given to Arabella. She told me I could stay in the Garden, for a while. I liked the quiet, and there were enough weirdos to keep it interesting." She paused, then added, "And I got to help people, which made it feel less… empty. It's been over two years, now." Her eyes found his again, searching for something—confirmation, perhaps, that this connection wasn't just coincidence but meaning.

Andy was about to ask what she meant when she said, “You ever feel like you’re just a ghost? Like you’re here, but you’re not allowed to touch anything?”

He nodded, slow. “Yeah. More than I like to admit.”

Emily studied him, her artist’s eye dissecting the layers of defense. “I can tell. You hide it well, though.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he just said, “Thank you.”

For a while, they just drank tea and watched the sky outside the window shift from blue to indigo. The resort’s glittering lights became more pronounced as darkness settled, and Emily let her hair spill forward, hiding half her face.

She said, “Is it hard, being the Master?”

He considered. “Sometimes. Mostly, I just want to make sure everyone is okay. But it’s hard to know what that means, for each person.”

Emily nodded, and he could tell she understood. “I think that’s all anyone wants, really. To feel like someone cares enough to try.”

They sat a little longer, and the evening took on a strange intimacy: not sexual, but human. Andy found himself wanting to know more—not just about her story, but about what she hoped for, what she feared. He was about to ask when she said, “If I had one wish, it would be for things to go back. Not to before, but to some place where I could just… start over.”

He looked at her, and the words that came out surprised him. “Maybe that’s what this is. A chance to start over.”

Emily smiled, small and sad, but grateful. “Maybe.”

He watched as she curled her legs tighter, drawing the curtain of hair around her shoulders. She looked more comfortable now, but also smaller, like she’d spent years learning to make herself take up less space.

“You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll crash out here.”

Emily turned, expression blank with surprise. “No. I mean—I don’t want to kick you out. You can stay.”

He smiled. “I snore.”

She laughed, soft and genuine. “When I first arrived at the Hollow Garden, I bunked with a donkey-girl who snored like a chainsaw. I’ll manage.” She hesitated, then added, “You’re not going to do anything I don’t want, right?”

Andy shook his head, feeling his own cheeks color. “Never.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied, and followed him to the bedroom. She slipped beneath the covers without hesitation, hair fanning out across the pillow, body entirely obscured by the veil of gold and pink. Andy left his jeans on, slid in on the far side, and tried to make himself as small as possible.

The bed was huge. For a while, neither of them moved. Then, as the silence stretched, Emily said, “Thank you for not making it weird.”

He smiled at the ceiling. “Thank you for not making it a test.”

She snorted, then turned on her side, away from him. Andy closed his eyes, and soon her breathing evened out, a steady, soft rhythm. He tried to keep his mind blank, but found himself replaying every word of their conversations—what she’d said about being seen, about wanting to be chosen, about the paradox of safety and loneliness in the Garden. He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to live with someone like that, every day.

Andy woke to the smell of coffee, and to a confusing absence of body heat on the other side of the bed. For a second, he wondered if the night before had been a dream—a vivid one, with sunlit hair and nervous laughter, but a dream all the same. The covers on Emily’s side were barely disturbed, the pillow faintly creased. When he sat up, he saw her through the open door: she was at the kitchen island, bare skin illuminated by the morning’s gold, pouring coffee into two mismatched mugs.

Her back was to him, hair spilling all the way to the backs of her knees, and the practiced way she moved—reaching, pouring, even the tilt of her head as she surveyed the kitchen—gave away how many mornings she’d spent like this, arranging her world in increments of half-cup and careful self-containment. It was only when Andy cleared his throat that she turned, startled, and offered him a lopsided smile.

“You’re up early,” he said, stepping out of the bedroom in wrinkled jeans and an old tee. “Or am I late?”

Emily shook her head, hair rippling in a slow-motion wave. “I’m always up before six. Even when I try not to be.” She padded over, setting a mug in front of him, her hands steady despite the slight tremor that seemed to run through her as she stood exposed in the daylight.

He smiled. “You’d have Dawn to keep you company, then.” He took the coffee, sipped, and tried not to stare. The memory of last night—the vulnerability, the deliberate decision to trust—was still fresh enough that he felt protective, but not in the way he’d once felt about women who needed saving. It was something closer to kinship, or the wary respect of two people who’d each, at some point, lost the ability to imagine a world where anyone might want them back.

They sat at the island for a few minutes, drinking in silence. Emily folded her legs up on the stool, using the long curtain of hair to shield herself, and Andy resisted the urge to tell her she was safe. She’d know if she was or not.

He broke first. “You don’t have to cook or clean,” he said. “That’s not how it works here.”

Emily looked at him, face soft, and shook her head. “I know. It’s not that. I just like having something to do with my hands.” She glanced down, then back up. “Otherwise I just… start drawing faces on napkins, or staring at the ceiling.”

He nodded, letting the moment hang. Then, because he’d promised himself he wouldn’t let this conversation slide into avoidance, he said, “Can I ask you something? And you can say no.”

She tensed, not visibly, but in the way her grip tightened on the mug. “Anything.”

He hesitated, not wanting to weaponize her trust. But he needed to know. “Why do you want to be here?” He gestured at the Suite, the window, the world outside. “Not just in this room, I mean. Why do you want to… join my harem?” He said the word lightly, with air quotes, but the gravity of it was obvious.

Emily blinked, surprised. Then she looked away, gathering her thoughts. Andy watched her, resisting the urge to fill the silence with reassurances.

After a long moment, she said, “It’s not the kind of thing you decide on a whim, is it?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to… I mean, you barely know me. You barely know the women here. You haven’t even met the version of me that exists in this context.” He took a breath, then continued, “You don’t have to prove anything. You can say no, or change your mind. I just want to know—if you do want this, I’d like to know why.”

Emily didn't answer right away. She set her coffee cup down and cupped both hands around it, as if the heat could shield her from having to reply. For a minute, Andy thought she might just let the question die, and he would have to rescue it with a joke. But then she drew a long, visible breath, and when she looked up, the blue of her eyes had gone sharp and unblinking.

“You want the honest answer?” she said. “Even if it makes you think less of me?”

Andy nodded, then realized she probably wanted something more than a nod. “Yes. Always.”

Emily gripped the edge of the island. “There’s not a single reason. There’s like a million. Some of them I’m proud of, and some I’m not.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear, and it immediately fell back into place. “In my season, they drafted Jake’s sister into the harem. Megan. And also… uh, his friend, AJ. She was a lesbian. Neither had a choice. They just got told ‘this is your life now’ and were expected to fit in Jake’s harem even if neither wanted to. Even if Jake didn’t want to. Nobody who counted, cared. They were there to fill a slot, nothing else.”

She twisted her coffee mug on the countertop, gaze flicking from Andy to the steam curling up from her drink. “This is not like that. I actually get a choice. Which is why I feel so weird about wanting to say yes.”

He was surprised at how much her uncertainty echoed his own. “What’s weird about it?”

Emily made a face, somewhere between frustration and self-mockery. “Because I don’t know you. Not really. I don’t know what your harem is like, or if the women even get along, or what happens if I end up not liking you, or if you end up not liking me, or if the women end up disliking me. I’ve seen at least one sabotage, you know. I have literally zero way to judge, except the three hours we spent drinking tea and talking about ourselves.”

He let her words settle, then said, “That’s why I asked. I want you to be sure.”

She shook her head, hair sliding in a curtain across her shoulders. “I’ll never be sure. But I also know what the Garden is, and I know what the world up here is. I want to be a part of something again, even if it’s a mess. I want to be seen. Not just—” She waved her hand at her own body, the gesture taking in the nudity and the hair and all the absurdity of her existence. “—not just as a job, or a medical case. I want to want things again.”

There was a silence, the kind that would have been suffocating if either of them was less practiced at living with the void.

Andy broke it first. “That’s a pretty good answer.”

She made a face, but the tension in her shoulders eased. “It doesn’t mean I’m good at this. Or that I even know what I want out of it. I just… I want to try. And I want it to be my choice, this time.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Emily’s lips quirked into a lopsided smile. “You know, when she first came to the Garden, Dinah told us the story of how she had escaped her season, and found her way here. And one of the first things she told us? She said she knew she was in a good season, she knew she could trust Arabella, because the first instinct of the very first person she met in this season was to help her, no questions, no strings attached.”

Andy blinked, surprised. “Isn’t that basic human decency?”

“You would be surprised. And she remembers,” Emily said. “She also told me about Andi.”

He frowned, confused for a split second, then remembered. “Oh. Right. That.” He’d almost forgotten about the shapeshifting, about the way he’d tried to blend into the background of the Hollow Garden by taking on a less threatening form.

Emily smiled, genuine now. “Dinah said you did it so you wouldn’t scare the patients. That you realized they might be traumatized by men, by their Masters, and you didn’t want to bring that trauma up. She said that’s the kind of thing that makes people want to trust you, even if they don’t know why.”

He blushed, but didn’t argue.

Emily’s voice was softer now, and she looked him in the eye. “Arabella told me about you, too. Before she even asked if I wanted to volunteer for this. She said you were different. That you don’t break the way the others do, and you don’t give up on people.” She gave a little laugh. “She also said you could be stubborn as hell.”

Andy grinned. “She’s not wrong.”

Another silence, this one more companionable. Emily looked at him, and Andy saw in her eyes a mixture of hope and fear—like someone peering over the edge of a high dive, not sure whether to jump or climb back down.

He decided to ask the hard question. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to get out of the Garden? Because I get it, if that’s the reason. But I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I want to leave the Garden, yeah. But I don’t want to leave it for just anything. Or anyone.” She sipped her coffee, then set it down. “I actually like you, Andy. More than I thought I would. And I want to see what happens if I just… let myself try. Even if it’s terrifying.”

He could see the effort it took for her to say it, but also the honesty behind it.

He smiled, felt the relief spread in his chest. “I’d like that, too.”

Emily nodded, a little shaky, but determined. “But if I change my mind, or if it’s too much—”

“You can always go back,” Andy said, not needing her to finish.

She blinked, a little thrown. “You mean that?”

He nodded. “As far as Arabella allows it. I’m not here to trap anyone. Or to make anyone stay who doesn’t want to.”

Emily let out a laugh, not quite a sob, but not entirely not. She wiped a tear away, then smiled. “Okay. Then yes. I want to join.” She glanced at the ceiling, as if searching for hidden microphones, then added, “But I’m not putting out on the first night. Just so you know.”

Andy laughed. “Wouldn’t expect you to.”

They finished their coffee in a silence that was, for once, entirely peaceful.

When the elevator pinged, Andy was in the middle of buttoning up his shirt. He called for Emily, and she padded over, hair billowing around her in a cloud that somehow never failed to cloak her exactly as needed. He could see the nerves working through her, but she smiled at him, and he returned it, proud in a way that he couldn’t quite explain.

The doors opened to reveal Arabella, in a dress so black it seemed to devour the light around it, and heels that would have been classified as lethal weapons in any reasonable jurisdiction. She wore her hair up this morning, which made her look both more severe and, paradoxically, younger. Her smile was pure Host, every tooth in place and every vowel perfect.

She surveyed the room, eyes passing over Andy and landing on Emily. For the briefest moment, Andy thought he saw something like pride there—a softening, or maybe just approval.

“Congratulations, Andy,” Arabella said. “You made your choice. And you did it the right way.” She looked at Emily. “You have until your first date night with Andy to change your mind. If you choose not to go through with it, you can return to the Hollow Garden, no questions asked. But if you stay for the date… you’re one of them. Bonded to Andy. For real.”

Emily looked at Andy, searching for confirmation. He nodded, and her face relaxed.

Arabella stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I would encourage you to get to know the other women before then. They’re a… spirited bunch, but I think you’ll fit in.” She winked. “And if you don’t, we’ll blame the Master, not you.”

Andy rolled his eyes, but smiled.

Emily glanced at Arabella, then at Andy. “So… do I have to go back to the Garden now? Or can I just… stay?”

Arabella’s smile was warm this time. “You can stay. In fact, I hope you do. Go meet the others. Eat, drink, enjoy the sun. You’ll bunk in Room 69, with Erin and Norah. It’s your home, now.”

Andy reached out, gently, and touched Emily’s shoulder—a small, careful contact, but it felt like a promise.

Arabella gave him a sly look, then turned to go, the echo of her heels filling the Suite. “I’ll see you both soon,” she called over her shoulder, then vanished as the doors closed behind her.

For a while, Andy and Emily just stood there, unsure of what to do next. Then Emily said, “I’m scared out of my mind.”

He smiled, understanding exactly how she felt. “I get it.”

She laughed, then took a step closer to him, her hair tumbling around them both, a curtain of gold and pink that made the world outside seem far away. She looked at him, eyes wide and honest. “Will you walk me down to breakfast?”

He offered his arm. “Absolutely.”

They rode the elevator together, Andy’s hand on her shoulder, Emily’s hair spilling over her.

“Ready?” he asked.

Emily took a breath, tucked her hair behind her ear, and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

The doors slid open, and together they stepped into the lobby.