13. Chapter 13
Asher
Fuck! Why did I do that? Why? This is so messed up. Not just to myself, but to Noah too. He just told me he was a virgin, yet I humped him like a dog and came with my hand around his throat, and his whimper … Oh god. Why was that so hot?
When he gets up and leaves, the relief is so stark it’s frightening. I can barely face myself in my guilt, let alone him. He didn’t even understand how wrong it was, how unfair it was to him?…?He didn’t even seem to mind, and he’s wrong in that too, just like I’m wrong in doing what I did.
I can’t even recognize myself. The normal me—the outside me—would never do anything close to what I just did. I’m not a selfish lover. I’m the opposite; I let people do what the fuck they want to me, and I thank them for it.
Lilith used to pin me to the bed and ride me until she came, and sometimes she wouldn’t even get me off afterward. The drugs made it hard for me to get an erection sometimes, let alone have an orgasm.
I don’t do things like this. I don’t choke virgins and tell them to whimper—not even virgins who have taken my freedom away.
I suppose the frustration is getting to me.
Beyond my lack of freedom and drugs, I’m frustrated with Noah’s assertiveness in some things and his total lack of confidence in others.
Beyond the frustration, I guess it’s a huge fucking turn-on for me—one I could never have guessed.
I suppose I’ve also been aching for some sort of control, and when Noah gives it to me willingly, the temptation is too vast to resist.
I’ve been here for what, two weeks? Three at most? And yet it feels like I’ve been here for months. The days bleed into each other. Noah and I bleed into each other.
I feel like I’m being manipulated to become something I’m not, but at the same time, I don’t think Noah even knows how to manipulate anyone. He’s a lousy liar, but he’s willing to keep me here. He’s willing to kill. Animals, at least.
Fuck, I don’t understand him. I don’t understand anything.
Not myself, not this place, not why I did what I did, and not how to fix it.
Noah didn’t deserve that to be his first sexual encounter, but it doesn’t seem like he shares my sentiment, and I don’t know how to make him understand—or if I can even stand to try.
I sling my arm over my forehead, feeling the clammy sweat on my skin and the result of my mistake drying in my pants. I’m at the mercy of Noah to get clean, and I don’t know what the hell he’s getting up to, but when he comes back, I’ll have to ask him for a bath and new clothes.
God, why does it feel like the hardest thing I’ve ever done? Again, he’s the one who kidnapped me, yet I’m the one who feels like I’ve done something wrong. Fucking insane is what it is.
I don’t have to wait long. The sun is still shining when Noah comes downstairs with a bowl of soup and a few slices of bread.
I’ve felt my appetite returning day by day, but thoughts of the conversation I need to have with him are making me nauseous.
I force a few spoonfuls into my mouth and take a few bites of the bread before I set the bowl aside.
“Didn’t like it?” Noah asks.
He looks the way he always does—his long black hair a little messier than usual, maybe, but his expression is the same. Blank and unfeeling.
“It’s not that.”
“Then what? Are you cold?”
“I need a bath.” There. My cheeks heat furiously, and I feel like a child who’s wet the bed.
“Oh.” His eyes flit to my crotch, and my cheeks heat up even more. “Okay.”
He unlocks my wrist and leads me into the bathroom. Just like last time, he closes his eyes as I undress. Getting rid of my soiled underwear, I step into the tub, and for once in my life, I keep quiet.
Noah watches me, equally quiet. It feels like the cracks are showing between us. We’re different now; I’m different. Maybe I’m becoming as much of a weirdo as he is.
“Wait here,” Noah says. “I’ll get you some new pants.”
And he just?…?walks out.
Without handcuffing me.
It’s only now that I realize he hasn’t got the knife either. I should be ecstatic about this revelation—that he, what, trusts me enough that I won’t escape?
But I’m not ecstatic. Not even close.
A jolt of anxiety shoots through me. Not the adrenaline of fight or flight, but something else.
I could escape right now.
I could stumble naked up the stairs, out the door, and scream for help.
I could leave this dank basement behind me. I could leave Noah behind me, but I?…?Fuck, I don’t know what to do. Every option I can think of feels wrong, but somehow, the one that feels least wrong is staying in the warm bath and waiting for my captor to return.
Again, I have to ask myself what is wrong with me, and again, I can’t think of an answer. Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, and I wipe them furiously away.
Did he do this on purpose? Face me with this choice? If so, it’s cruel, and I?…?I?…
“Why are you crying, Goldilocks?”
He’s back. I’ve been sitting here for so long, panicking over a choice I don’t want to make, that he’s returned with a fresh pair of pants and a puzzled look on his face.
Pushing away my tears, I ask, “Why did you leave?”
“I?…?I had to get you new clothes. You told me to.”
“Stop lying,” I sob.
“I’m not lying, Asher.”
What, then? Was he hoping I’d stay out of my own free will?
Or was he hoping I’d come to my senses, hoping I’d realized I can’t keep destroying myself with drugs and that I might as well stay here with him, in this basement void of temptations, except for the temptation to crush my body to his and?… and?…?what?
Choke him? Fuck him? Let him fuck me?
I don’t know. Maybe all three.
What I should want is for him to suffer at my hands and pay for what he’s done to me. Not only for my captivity, but for the feelings he’s evoked in the darkest corners of my mind. The Asher I was before he captured me I can’t recall, and it’s all his fault.
We’re both estranged from the world. Lonely. So fucking lonely. Even when I’m surrounded by people, I have always been alone. Even when people press their bodies against me, I’m unaffected by their closeness. All my life, people have never cared about trying to get close to me, to see the real me.
But Noah has.
Noah wants to open up my chest and see what lurks inside, and I want to do the same to him. Maybe that’s what makes us the perfect pair in hell. Maybe that’s why I should stay here with him.
Fuck, what are these thoughts I’m having? I can’t stand them. I can’t stand him . I can’t stand any of it, but I can’t escape it either.
Noah leads me back to the bed, and once he’s got my wrist back in the chains, I crawl up to the wall and sit there, curled up, tormented by my own thoughts.
There must be something off about the air in this place.
The water I drink, the food Noah feeds me.
It’s poisoning my mind and giving me these fucked-up ideas I have no business having.
I shift my gaze to Noah, and he just keeps looking at me with that blank, leveled stare. It’s driving me insane.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Noah blinks. “How?”
“Just?…?staring at me like that. What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Stop lying.”
“Asher?…” Noah approaches and sets his knee on the bed.
“Don’t come any closer!” I yell, and he stops at once. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“You can touch me if you want. If it will make you feel better.”
My chest heaves as I glare at him, unable to speak, unable to say yes or no.
“It would make me feel better,” he adds, in barely more than a whisper, and his hair falls in front of his face as he hangs his head.
“Oh yeah?” I throw myself at him, grabbing him and slamming him to the bed. Out of surprise or just plain submission, he doesn’t struggle as I straddle his hips, and my voice is shaking as I ask, “Who said you’re the one who should be allowed to feel better in this situation, huh?”
His eyes gleam in the darkness, drinking me in, telling me nothing but giving me everything.
I grab his throat then, pushing down on it hard. “Why did you just leave me in the bath without restraining me, huh? Are you mocking me?”
“No,” he says, voice raw. “I just forgot.”
“Just forgot, my ass! Did you know I wouldn’t escape, and that’s why you did it? You wanted to prove it to yourself? To me?”
“No.” His throat clicks against my palm as he gulps and shakes his head. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you would stay. But?…” His hand slides up to my cheek. “But I’m glad you did.”
“Because you’d kill me if I tried to escape, would you?” I snarl, anger and fear and the surge of anxiety fueling my every muscle, every shift of my tone, every glare. “You’d take your knife to me and slit my throat like you do those rabbits?”
“No?…?No, I would never do that.”
I bear down again, clutching his throat with both hands. “Fuck you. Fuck you. I hate you so fucking much. I hate you for doing this to me.”
“For doing what?” Noah heaves. His hand slides down my arm—a featherlight caress.
“You want me to stay with you, huh? You want me to kiss you again?” I let go of the pressure on his throat as I dive down and capture his mouth, biting down hard on his lower lip.
That makes him panic, at least a little bit. He squirms under my hold and whimpers into my mouth.
“You want me to choke you?” I press down on his throat again, reveling in that power he’s giving up to me.
“I think you do.” I slide my hand down between our bodies and grab his clothed crotch.
“Your dick says you do.” All the while, I ignore my own rock-hard erection—how it aches with every shift of our bodies.
Noah tilts his head back, whimpering.