Chapter 16 Eternally Damned
ETERNALLY DAMNED
Afew nights later, I stretched luxuriously on the square beige sofa in Einar’s living room, feeling my skin extend over my ribs.
The sofa may not have been the most comfortable piece of furniture to sit on, but due to its width, it had proved more than sufficient for lying down.
As well as for engaging in all sorts of activities while in a horizontal position.
I took a deep breath, the fabric coarse under my bare back.
The perspiration on my naked form had begun to cool down, and I shivered, erupting in goosebumps.
It was almost dark in the room, the only light provided by a few candles.
Einar sat on the ground beside me, his face level with mine. Noting that I was cold, he made to cover me.
“No, not yet,” I declined. “I like the chill sometimes.”
In the sparse light, his body looked firm and sculpted, the lines between the muscles on his torso like darker valleys made by a painter’s brush.
“Alright.” He set the tartan-patterned blanket aside. “But I have to warn you, lie here like this for a bit longer and my cock is going right back inside you and I don’t care how sore you’ll be tomorrow.”
I wouldn’t have cared either, but I didn’t give voice to the thought.
“Oh?” I smiled at him instead, rolled over to my belly and bending my knees, lifted my crossed feet up behind me. “What if I lie like this then? Is that a safer option?”
He chuckled, the sound a carnivorous grumble coming from deep within his chest.
“On the contrary, my girl. Now you’re just asking for trouble.”
He leaned over, tracing my lower spine with his fingertips. His breath was warm on my skin as his teeth closed around my flesh firmly, but without inflicting any pain.
Bite me harder, I thought as my head swam with revived lust, and you’ll be the one asking for trouble.
My nocturnal activities with Einar were the only part of my life during that time that wasn’t routine, and their excitement was all the more accentuated for the invariable order of the days that preceded them.
No two nights were the same. I had moved my things into his apartment and not only was there barely an inch of space that we hadn’t defiled yet, but there were also a fair few spots in the surrounding nature that we visited for similar purposes.
The danger of being caught was all the more thrilling for the additional risk of being attacked by stray roamers, a risk that Einar seemed to enjoy as much as I did. But even though I always brought my bow, I had never needed to use it yet.
“Another one?” Einar asked, indicating my empty wine glass and lifting the bottle to refill it.
“Will you have one with me?”
“Nah.” He shook his head resolutely; he always drank very modestly.
“Then no. How could I possibly indulge when you are so frugal?”
He made a sound at the back of his throat, suddenly looking discomposed.
“I’m not being frugal,” he said, setting the bottle down.
“Drink brings out the worst in me. It got me into all sorts of fights. Most of them I won, though not without souvenirs to take away from them.” He indicated the slightly crooked bridge of his nose.
“I caused a lot of trouble like that when I was younger.”
“It’s lucky you’re such a brute. Or there may have been more of those souvenirs,” I told him lightly, nonchalantly, even though the tremor in his voice and the unrest in his eyes showed that he had wanted to tell me more and was hesitant to do so at the same time.
“No, it’s not lucky. Because the worst thing I’ve ever done drunk—the worst thing I have ever done at all—that didn’t happen in a pub.
” He took a shaky breath, and I grasped his hand in both mine, encouraging him to go on even though I myself was becoming scared to learn whatever it was he wanted to share with me.
“I had a girlfriend in my second year of uni. That was when I still lived in Iceland. She was a smaller woman, like you. And what’s worse, she was about the gentlest person I’ve ever met ...”
I sat up abruptly, cold dread spreading through my body.
I had been prepared for an account of how he inadvertently injured another man in a fight.
But I could already tell this was going to be a much darker tale, and all I wanted to do was cover my ears.
Even as I realised how cowardly it was that I didn’t want to hear it.
It pained me to see that Einar had gone pale and that his voice trembled.
“We got drunk together one day, after our exams ... and we started sort of play-fighting. Which already sounds nefarious as hell because of the word fighting, but I swear it wasn’t.
She instigated that sort of thing more often than I did, and I was already well aware of my own strength and mindful of not hurting her.
We were practically still teenagers and she gave me every indication of enjoying this . ..”
He sighed heavily, rubbing his face. I reached for the blanket and covered myself with it. I had long forgotten about the cold, but suddenly I felt inappropriately exposed.
“I don’t know when exactly or even why, but it got rougher that night.
And it became abundantly clear she was not into that sort of thing.
Suddenly, she wasn’t play-fighting me anymore, she was genuinely fighting.
And I didn’t stop straight away. Because her rejection, her feeble fight, the absolute power I had over her . .. fuck, it excited me.”
He raised his eyes to look directly into mine. I felt as if my blood turned cold, each heartbeat sending an icy burst throughout my chest.
“Did you rape her?” I whispered a question I was so terrified of asking that a bout of potent nausea crashed through me.
“No,” he replied immediately to my great relief and with earnestness that made me trust his answer.
“No, I didn’t. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have done that.
But I only stopped when I got her undressed and pinned underneath me, completely defenceless.
It was as if a switch had gone off in my mind.
It was only then that she started crying . ..”
His lips curled in self-loathing so intense that I was shocked by it even more than by his confession. I felt an unwelcome stab of pity for him. For the villain whose warm embrace I craved even as he spoke of his crimes.
“Understandably, she wouldn’t see me afterwards. I wrote to her the next day and assured her that if she were to press charges against me for the assault, then I would plead guilty and accept whatever consequences. I almost hoped she would go through with it. But she didn’t.”
His tone and eyes left little doubt as to the sincerity of his guilt.
“I could not stay after. We were both students at Reykjavik University, and she would leave the room if I came in or cross a street not to share the pavement with me. She would flee at the sight of me. It was unbearable. And so, I transferred to Edinburgh University and left the country so that she wouldn’t have to keep running into me.
I wonder if she ever knew that I was sorry.
I wonder if it made any difference to her. Probably not.”
“It may have,” I told him softly, but I doubted my own words.
“I hadn’t gone back to Iceland ever since, no matter how much I wanted to. Not even for my dad’s funeral. I had convinced myself too thoroughly that I had no right for as long as she was there.”
I blinked and tears spilled from my eyes.
“Do you know what happened to her?” I asked him hesitantly. “Did she have an okay life?”
“Well, she graduated and became a therapist like she always wanted. And she got married to someone who I know was a much better man than I’ll ever be. Not a year later, she was pregnant.”
I smiled and, for the first time since I could remember, I felt neither jealousy nor resentment for this woman who had an easy path to parenthood.
“I hope she was happy. Shortly after the Outbreak, I got a message from my dad’s old neighbour, Gunnar, you remember I told you about him? He told me she had been killed. An infected tourist attacked her. She was in her third trimester.”
We were both silent for a few moments.
“That’s why, when I am alone with a woman, I never drink enough to feel intoxicated,” he said after a while.
“I don’t want to do that to anyone again.
But I cannot lie to you or myself. That dark part of me that did it then, that got off on doing it .
.. that’s still inside of me. It’ll always be there.
I’m in control of it and not the other way around.
But there will be times when I’ll want to act upon it. ”
He bound me with his gaze, forcing his harsh words upon me without mercy.
“I’m telling you because, contrary to all my expectations, I think you’re falling for me. And you really shouldn’t. I’m not exactly a good man.”
“You never pretended to be.”
“Aye, and because of that, I never expected to see anything close to trust in your eyes when you look at me. Hatred? Yes, to start with. Fear? Definitely yes. Thrill? Hopefully. But never trust. And it’s mad what it does to me.
Ren, I want to deserve it, that’s the reason I’m telling you all this.
Because you think you don’t care who I am. But I know you will when I hurt you.”
I scoffed.
“I won’t care if you hurt me. It’s you hurting others where things get ... complicated.”
I took a deep breath, pulling the blanket even tighter around myself.
“What does that mean?” he asked, with aggression in his voice, which I realised signalled panic on his part more than anything. But when I didn’t reply, the combative note evaporated from his tone, leaving undiluted fear in its stead,
“Ren, answer me.”
The crooked bump high on the bridge of his broken nose was more pronounced in the shadows, giving it a hawk-like, predatory appearance. But his mouth had gone soft, his lips full and fragile like a young boy’s.
And then, when I still wouldn’t respond, a distinct note of pleading entered his voice: “Ren, I only meant you should guard yourself. Not that you should get ... any ideas. I won’t tolerate that.”
It was so easy for me to come up with excuses for his wrongdoing. He was drunk, and it was a very long time ago. He stopped. Many men do worse without ever admitting they have done anything wrong. He owned up to it when he didn’t have to tell you at all.
It was easy because I couldn’t find it in myself to care nearly as much as I knew I should have. Whether he was a good man or a bad one mattered about as much to me as air pollution would to someone gasping for breath while drowning.
For the first time in years, I didn’t loathe waking up and realising that, unfortunately, I hadn’t ceased breathing during the night. I was a walking corpse before meeting him. I needed him.
And that, more than anything, caused the bone-chilling horror that crept over my skin like a myriad of ants.
Because I didn’t want to need anyone or anything.
Having nothing to lose had been my one power for so long that, ironically, it had itself become a thing I was scared of losing.
Especially to someone so unpredictable and full of contradictions, just as likely to make me regret my surrender as to rejoice in it.
“If you’re not lying about wanting to earn my trust, will you give me some time to think about all this?” I asked tentatively. “Just a bit of time, nothing more.”
Anger flashed through his face, briefly and darkly, and his lips hardened into a line. But when he replied, it was without malice or impatience.
“Fine, I will. I don’t like it, but if that’s what it takes, I will.”