Something new and exciting to look forward to every single week. Now that she’s gone, I’d be bored to death if not for the other thing she gave me:

An addiction to erotic asphyxiation.

Of course, it’s different doing everything without a partner. First, it’s more dangerous: am I going to get caught? Am I going to lose consciousness and strangle myself? It’s scary, but as Nicki used to say, that’s a big part of the allure.

Second, I had to find a different stimulus. While porn can never match a live sexual partner, it’s an acceptable substitute for those willing to elevate the risk factor. In that regard I learned that by adapting Nicki’s slip knot I could create a method that would allow me to save my own life after orgasm: by holding the knot in my teeth, I can actually loosen it at the moment I’m getting off. And it works every time. Sadly, when something works every time it ceases to be dangerous. And even though my orgasms are intense, they’re nothing compared to what I experience when I’m convinced my life is truly in danger.

And so I’ve started taking more chances, just to—you know—make it more interesting. I stopped holding the knot in my teeth, which means after achieving orgasm I now have to turn my head and grab for it, and if I miss, I’m that much closer to death. Believe me, this is far harder than it sounds, since I’m gasping like crazy, trying to breathe, while trying to turn my head in order to grab a moving lifeline with my teeth that I can’t even see!

But as dangerous as that was, after a few tries I became proficient at it, and so I had to come up with a way to step up my game. I decided to purposely miss the lifeline on the first try.

And that nearly did me in.

But it was so exhilarating I continued to do it that way for weeks. Now, once again, I’ve mastered the move, and so the danger has minimized. So today I’m going to purposely miss the lifeline twice.

Can you just imagine?

Two weeks ago I cashed in a mutual fund and wired $1.2 million to Nicki’s account. Since then I liquidated a couple of stock positions, but the bank made me wait ten days before wiring the money from my account to hers. So tomorrow I’ll wire her the remaining $800,000 and she’ll break up with Michael, move away, and she’ll become part of my past, and Alison and Michael will never know what happened. Meanwhile, she’s leading Michael on, pretending their relationship is better than ever.

So here we are: it’s a cold November Wednesday, and Alison and Jessie have left for the afternoon. I’ve tossed the rope over the beam in my den, tied it off to a sturdy doorknob, turned on my porn, tied the slip knot, placed the rope around my neck, positioned a towel under the rope just like Nicki taught me, so I won’t show any burn marks.

Now I tighten the slip knot as far as I dare, and focus on the porn while standing on the stool and stroking myself, and…

Part Four:
Nicki Hill

1.

Present Time

SO HERE I am in Alison’s hotel room, experiencing the very definition of irony: I’m getting a severe tongue-lashing by Alison while sitting on the same bed where I tongue-fucked her underage daughter fourteen hours ago.

Aside from that, her lecture’s pretty similar to the one David gave me two months ago, except that instead of paying me two million to walk away from Michael, Alison’s gonna pay me five million to walk away from Jessie.

As I watch her rattle on and on about what a horrid child I’ve been I find myself wondering what she’ll do after getting her share of the inheritance. Will she sell the house and move away to make it harder for Jessie and I to hook up? Will she dump David’s insurance agent or marry him? And how will she react if she catches Jessie and me seeing each other? Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to give Jessie up if she wants to keep seeing me after I tell her I’m Michael’s sister.

Call me optimistic, but I don’t think it’s gonna matter to Jessie. After all, she and I are completely unrelated. Yes, I fucked my biological brother. But when I explain I only did that so I could eventually be with her, I think she’ll be moved, just as David was. And why shouldn’t she be? It’s true. And if Alison had the hots for me instead of the others, I would have stayed with Michael just to be with her. My point is, I love them all except—not so much Michael—and if sex is their preferred currency, it’s easy enough for me to give. That’s because I don’t look at it the same way most people do. To me it’s like anything else you’d do to make your loved ones happy. I don’t enjoy sex, but I’m willing to do it to be with the person or people I love. It’s like getting a job to support the family. You might hate the job, but you’ll show up every day for eight hours and do the best job you can because you love your family.

So why did I have to go after David? Why couldn’t I just stay with Michael and give him the sex he wanted?

That would have solved all my problems. I could have spent a lifetime of weekends and holidays with the Thornes if Michael had been a different person.