Atlas
MY LEGS STAY SNUGGLY tucked under my ass where I sit on the large, oversized chaise in the library. An original copy of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak sits open, cradled on my lap as I skim the pages for the millionth time.
It was a gift I received on my eighteenth birthday, just hours before that first night. That first night when my dreams turned dark and swampy, and I felt it—that inexplicable pleasure, the pain, the fear, and the confusion that had me shaking and crying when I woke.
And now, two years later, the fear has faded into the background and has become a lingering anxiety. But the pleasure? The pain? They’ve combined into one, and into something that I chase with my guilt heavy on my shoulders.
I am no longer confused. Sure, I’m unsure what is causing my condition, and I’m unsure when this cure will appear, but I’m no longer in a constant state of desensitizing confusion that depresses me. I’ve just… accepted it, I guess?
I will gladly accept the cure if and when it comes to me, and I will wish for it sincerely, but until that happens? I will drown in this pleasure, in this pain. And then I will beg for forgiveness.
Though I do find my symptoms to be quite annoying. The heated skin, the insatiable desire. The need.
When it gets bad, I feel trapped in a body on fire. I feel like a demon on the verge of damnation, and my dying wish is to get fucked hard.
I want to be free of this curse, of this condition, but—Lord forgive me—I can’t help but enjoy it sometimes.
The door to the library opens, and my mother floats in, wearing one of her many silk lounge dresses. It’s just after dinner, and she’s carrying a medium-sized white box with a lacy, baby-blue bow wrapped around it.
“It’s not Christmas for a few more days, Momma,” I say with a soft smile, shifting slightly when she gracefully settles onto the chaise and places the box between us.
“I know, darling, but I have something for you.” Her bright eyes are trained on me, and I can see the pure joy in them. If there is one thing this woman loves almost as much as she loves her children, it’s spoiling them.
“Let me open it, then.” I grab my leather bookmark and set my book on the table next to me.
Then, I grab the box and settle it on my lap, pulling gently at one of the long, lacy ends of the bow. It unravels easily, and my mother takes it from me and wraps it around my wrist in a smaller bow, the ends hanging long and loose.
She grins, and I tear my eyes away from the pretty thing and how nice it looks on my skin to open the box.
Sitting inside, atop a soft, silk pillow, is a top made of white lace, similar in pattern to the bow I’m now wearing. It looks flowy, yet tight, and appears to have a plunging neckline.
“Do you love it, darling?” my mother asks me, and I release a soft, quiet breath.
“I do,” I tell her. “It’s beautiful.”
“You can wear it on Christmas, yes?”
“Of course.” I turn to face her, placing a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you, Momma.”
“You’re welcome, Atty.” She pats my hand briefly, then leans back on the chaise elegantly. “Now, read to me, won’t you?”
Grabbing Where the Wild Things Are from the table beside me, I begin to read aloud.
As I’m heading to the west tower, with the sun setting in the distance, I see Julian out back through the window on the second-floor landing.
He’s hunched over his phone, a soft smile on his face as he types away. Then, he laughs and shakes his head gently.
Who is he talking to? Why does he look so giddy and… excited? I stand still, watching him for a long moment.
“Atty, darling?” Atticus speaks, catching my attention. He appears beside me, following my line of sight to where Julian still stands.
“Hello,” I respond, not bothering to divert my gaze.
“Why are you watching him?” my brother asks.
“Because I’m curious as to what he’s doing.”
Atticus makes a humph of acknowledgement, his hand rising to lay itself on the nape of my neck. “But it’s sunset. You should go upstairs.”
Rolling my eyes, I shake his hands away. “It’s not going to get me right here, in front of everyone, Atticus. I’m not asleep.”
“I know,” he sighs. “But what if you fall asleep out here? What if Abigail comes out of her room and finds you here, indecent?”
Indecent.
I sigh, ripping my gaze from Julian’s figure.
“Okay,” I concede. “Good night, then.”
Atticus places a kiss on the top of my head, another reminder of his love, and gifts me a sweet smile. “Good night.”
I’ve made the trek up the steep staircase of the west tower so many times now that as I walk, I don’t bother watching my slipper-covered feet.
Back before my eighteenth birthday, I slept in Atticus’s room.
The west tower was the guest room, and Atticus slept in the room where our visitors now sleep.
Once my condition presented itself, I was moved up here, partially to give me any semblance of privacy, and partially to see if it would help by confusing… it.
Luckily, my father had already added on a bathroom for our guests, so I have everything I need. But sometimes, I feel isolated. Abandoned. Alone.
I understand why it has to be this way.
When we were in the panicked phase, when this was new and terrifying to everyone around me, a priest recommended that I just never sleep alone. That if I don’t, maybe it won’t invade my dreams.
But that night ended horribly. It ended with Atticus screaming and running for our father, claiming he had seen… it in the bed with me as I groaned and whimpered helplessly.
That is why Atticus is the only one I can fully confide in. He’s seen it—he’s been there in the thick of it. And he didn’t judge me or condemn me. Only, having seen it, he’s become so protective that he’s cut himself off from the world outside and all the people who occupy it.
He barely leaves the castle, and when he does, he makes sure to keep everyone around him at arm’s length.
I shut the door to my bedroom behind me softly, heading toward the bathroom.
I take a shower, dress in my night clothes, and just as the moonlight begins to seep into the space around me, I slide under the duvet.
Will it come tonight? My symptoms haven’t been too bad today, but there’s never a pattern. No discernible sign I can cling to to prepare myself.
And if it comes, and I find myself enjoying it, how long will I have to spend on my knees in the chapel tomorrow?
Everything around me is dark. As I become aware of it, this never-ending darkness, I sigh out a large, deep breath.
It’s always dark here—I’m not allowed to see it. There’s blinding sensation only, and some part of me feels grateful for that. I can’t even see my own body, though I can most definitely feel it with heightened clarity.
I can hear, too. I can hear the groaning of my wooden floorboards as it approaches, the sound of my bedframe creaking as it sinks onto the mattress at the foot of the bed.
I’m shaking; I can feel it. I’m anticipating a pleasure-coated pain, a release.
Long, cool fingers wrap around my right thigh, and I shiver, the sharp fingernails catching my skin slightly. It pulls my leg to the side, spreading me.
A small, half-scared, half-interested noise leaves me. And as I stare into the pure darkness above me, I’m overwhelmed with the sensation of its cold tongue dragging over my hipbones.
When the long fingers of its other hand brush over my nipples, my cock lengthens, and a loud, low growl fills the room around me.
I can’t move.
Something wet and almost slimy in sensation drips onto my erection, and soon after, the fingers on my chest travel downward until they’re wrapped securely around my shaft.
“Ugh.” I can hear my own voice. It’s startling every time, but there’s nothing I can do to stop the onslaught of noise that leaves me throughout the night. It happens every time.
It fists my cock several times, the fingers on my thigh holding me in a bruising grip. The pleasure and the pain shift into one sensation, and I choke on it, leaking onto its hand and my own stomach.
Then, far too soon, the hand is leaving my length and traveling lower, two wet fingers circling the rim of my entrance before slipping in without hesitation.
I cry out at the sudden stretch, the sting, and the feeling of being filled with something foreign. It’s intoxicating, and my mind can focus on nothing else.
It’s so distracting that as the fingers pump into me suddenly and harshly, I’m shouting as sharp teeth begin to nibble on my pebbled nipples.
Another finger is added, far too soon, and I’m staring wide-eyed into the pitch-black as I heave out heavy pants and incoherent noises.
“Ahh,” I cry, wishing with everything in me to move. Not to run, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to anyway, but to react.
To arch my back, or to grip the duvet below me. Anything I can use to ground myself. But I cannot. I am being swallowed by sensation, just as I always am. Swallowed up by the feel of these cold hands, the all-consuming darkness that surrounds me.
The long fingers leave me, and I sigh in a mixture of relief and disappointment. Then, not even a moment later, the smooth head of something cold and pulsing is pressed against my hole. In the span of one second to the next, the steel-like appendage is buried to the hilt.
Cool, clammy skin is pressing into the back of my thighs, and a loud hiss presses into the walls and drowns out my own cry.
The head is soft and round, but the shaft is ridged, almost as if a thousand little balls are embedded in the skin of this thing. It’s long and thick, and as it begins to move, I can feel it drag against every inch of my inner walls.
This goes on for a while. I’m not sure how long I lie here, taking each punishing thrust after thrust, as time has no meaning here in my nightmares.
But after some while, as it shoves back into me, because we’ve done this one-sided dance so many times, the thing angles upward and slightly to the left, slamming straight into my prostate.