Bell Tower Redemption

Kristin saw him before she was ready to.

Varian Stahl, twenty-eight years old now, three years older than the last time she'd seen him, standing at the base of the lift with a clipboard. Ski patrol jacket. Serious face. He looked exactly the same and completely different and she hated that her stomach did anything at all.

She grabbed Ollie's sleeve.

"That's him. That's Varian."

Ollie, twenty-seven and calm as ever, looked where she was pointing. He didn't know the face. He only knew the stories, and there were a lot of them.

"Okay," he said. "So that's the guy."

"So that's the guy," she said. "Three years, Ollie. Three years of me drafting texts I never send. And there he is. Holding a clipboard."

"What are you thinking?"

She was thinking it out loud before she could stop herself. "I want to walk over there. I want to make him explain it. I want him to stand there while I say what he did, in front of everybody on the lift line. I want him to feel small."

Ollie was quiet for a second. Then he turned her gently by the shoulder so she had to look at him instead.

"No," he said.

"No?"

"I'm not going to help you hurt somebody. I'll be honest, Kris, that's not revenge, that's just you carrying it around and handing him a little piece of it. He doesn't get a piece. He doesn't get anything."

She pulled her arm back. The lift ground overhead, then shuddered and stopped, chairs swaying in the wind, half full of skiers going nowhere.

"So what, I just let it go? He ended it by text. By text. I was twenty-one, we'd been together two years, and he couldn't even call."

"I know what he did."

"Then you know why."

"I know why." He took her mitten in his. "But I've watched you all week. You've been sharp with me. Sharp with the girls at work. That anger's not going anywhere, it's just moving house. So here's what I'm offering instead."

She waited.

"A scene. You and me. Tonight. Except it goes the opposite way from what you're planning. You don't get to take control and use it on him. You give control to me. All of it. For one night. And we see what's left of this thing after."

Kristin stared at him. The lift clanked. Somewhere a kid was crying about a dropped mitten.

"You want me to submit," she said.

"I want you to stop carrying it. That's how I know how to help. It's not how you'd do it, I know. But it's what I've got."

She thought about saying no. She thought about the walk across the snow to the lift line and every word she'd rehearsed for three years. Then she thought about the sharpness in her own voice that morning over coffee, over nothing, over toast.

"Okay," she said. "The bell tower?"

"The bell tower. It's cold, so dress for it. And we go now, before I talk myself out of it."

They didn't have a lot of time. Both of them were on shift at seven. So they cut through the back of the lodge while the light was going copper on the peaks, and the tower was just where she remembered it. Old church, deconsecrated decades ago, now a private observation deck for guests willing to pay for the view. Nobody was renting it. The stone walls stood above the tree line and the door was the heavy oak kind that made a sound like a vault when Ollie pulled it shut behind them.

The staircase was a spiral. Narrow. Her shoulder brushed the wall going up.

"This is already a bad idea for my knees," she said.

"Complain all you want. It's the last thing you're allowed to complain about for a while."

She laughed, and it surprised her, and she kept climbing.

The platform at the top was small. Stone floor, wooden rail, tall windows on every side showing the whole valley. The lift below them had stopped dead on its cables, chairs hanging in the cold, and that was the only sound. No wind up here. Just a chair knocking on its hanger now and then, and their own breathing.

Ollie stood her in the middle of the platform.

"Rules," he said. "You listen, and you don't talk unless I ask you a question or you need to use the word. Are you tracking?"

"Tracking."

"Safeword is 'red.' Anything goes wrong, anything at all, cold, fear, a cramp in your foot, you say red and we're done and I hold you and we talk. There's no penalty. There's no disappointment. Say it back."

"Red," she said. "And everything stops."

"Good." He was looking at her with a face she knew. The steady one. "This is your yes? Plain and out loud?"

"This is my yes."

"All right. Hands?"

She put her hands out. He didn't tie them. He just held them a moment, warm through the mittens, then let go.

He took a strip of black cloth from his jacket pocket. He'd packed it this morning, she realized. He'd been planning this since before she ever saw Varian on the lift.

"When did you decide this?" she asked.

"When you started saying his name in your sleep. Two weeks ago. Turn around."

She turned. He fitted the cloth over her eyes and knotted it at the back of her head. The world went dark, and instantly the sound of the stopped lift got louder, and her own heartbeat got louder, and the cold came up through the stone floor into her boots.

"You see nothing," Ollie said, close to her ear. "That's the whole trade. I take your eyes, you give me the wheel. You don't decide anything. You don't plan anything. Nothing in your head tonight is about him. Can you do that for me?"

"I think so."

"Try again."

"Yes," she said. "I can do that."

"Good girl."

The words landed somewhere low in her and stayed there. She felt him step away, felt the air move, heard his boots on the boards. Then nothing. Just the stalled lift, far below, a chair knocking now and then, patient as a clock.

She counted her own breaths. On eleven she heard him come back.

He circled her twice. She could track him by the sound, boards creaking, a pause at the window, boards again. He was in no hurry and that was the point. Nobody was rushing her. Nobody was asking her to be anywhere.

"Still with me?" he asked.

"With you."

"Say what you feel."

"Cold. Weirdly calm. Kind of embarrassed that I'm this turned on already."

He laughed, low. "Save it. I'm just getting started."

Something touched her cheek. Not his hand. Smooth and wooden, the end of a handle. The long-handled ladle that had been sticking out of his pack all the way up the stairs, which she had assumed he was returning to the lodge kitchen. He ran the handle down her jaw, slow, along her neck, and stopped at her collarbone.

"Last question," he said. "Whose is this? All of it. Say the name."

"Yours," Kristin said. "It's yours, Ollie."

The ladle lifted away. The stalled lift hung below, going nowhere, and she stood in the dark and waited to find out what came next.

The ladle came back. Not on her skin this time. She heard it swish through the air, a slow arc somewhere near her hip, and she flinched at nothing.

"Not yet," Ollie said. "Just me moving the air around. Breathe."

She breathed. He did it again, closer, and the cold air off the bowl brushed her thigh before anything touched her. Then the bowl landed. Light. A tap on the outside of her left thigh, barely a gram of force, and the metal was so cold through her snow pants that she gasped out loud.

"There she is," he said. He tapped the right thigh. Same height, same little kiss of cold. Another gasp. Her legs actually stepped wider on their own, which embarrassed her, and he must have seen it even in the dark because he said, "Good. I didn't ask, but good."

"You're enjoying this."

"I asked you a question. Answer it."

"Yes," she said. "You're enjoying this."

"Correct." The flat of the bowl pressed against her lips. Cold enough to sting. She stood there with it against her mouth, understanding it a half second before he said anything.

"This is the signal," Ollie said. "When I put it here, you kneel. I'll take it away, you go down slow, no hurry, knees first. Say red if the stone's too hard and I'll find you something to kneel on. Clear?"

"Clear."

He pulled the ladle back. Kristin went down. Slow, one knee, then the other, the stone cold coming straight through her pants