Chapter Eighteen #3
“But you deserve better than what yours is giving you now. My love…” He fills my vision, expression tender.
“Would you please allow me to help you?” His flesh warms. “Even though it’ll be like torture, won’t you put your wings in my hands?
Let me clip them, and trust that once I have, you’ll be able to finally fly. ”
A tear trickles down my cheek. “You want to torture me?”
“Desperately.”
My breath thins. “Malcolm…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t understand what’s going on. Everything is very…
wrong. Inside. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I don’t know…” Why I’m so relieved he’s alive.
In a way that has nothing to do with self preservation.
When he dropped, my organs plummeted. He’s the most horrible man I have ever met, but I’m glad he’s okay. And that makes no sense at all.
He softens. “What’s going on is…you’re falling in love with me.”
Surely not. Surely never. Surely.
My face embodies the peak of revulsion, and he laughs. “You can fight it all you want, it doesn’t make it any less true. And I think I should ask again: why are you fighting it?”
“Because,” I say, “you suck.”
“Sure, sure,” he comments, flippantly. “I suck. I’m the worst. You hate me and want me dead. Because I’m a monster and I’m horrible to you. Or something like that.”
Or something like that? It’s like I’m the only one who’s lived through the past two years of him pressing and prodding and tormenting and commanding and just generally making my work life a headache.
“Use your words,” he murmurs.
“Up, down, sit, stand, stop, turn. You treat me like a dog. You mess with my things even when you clearly know they’re important to me.
You are horrible. And maybe it’s all small stuff, and maybe most of it wouldn’t bother anyone else, but it’s still horrible.
It’s horrible because you know it bothers me. ”
Fondly, he cajoles, “I admit I go too far, but can you really blame me? You listen so well. It’s addictive to press your buttons and see what emotions slip through the cracks of your mask.”
I wrinkle my nose.
“Hm.” He settles, peaceful. “That’s the face of someone who really wants to blame me.”
I grit my teeth. “I’ve put up with you because it’s my job. But you don’t treat me like a person.”
“On the contrary, I treat you like my favorite person.”
“In that case, I wish I weren’t your favorite.”
“Don’t say such terrible things.”
I grip his hands as tight as I can; he matches the pressure.
Breath leaves him. “Little dove. You’re being difficult.”
“If I’m being difficult, it’s because you’re not making things easy.”
He stretches my arm and lays a kiss on the inner side of my elbow, right above where the flowy sleeve of my dress lies. “I suppose you’re not wrong. You’re rarely ever wrong whenever it concerns something that’s actually real.”
My skin heats, and I know I am never going to be clean again.
I know it, yet the usual anxiety and panic to fulfill some arbitrary task that might bring me close are absent. There’s too much adrenaline. Too much other in the way.
What I’d like to know is why.
“May I ask you a question?” he whispers into my skin. His eyes cut toward mine, and he flicks his tongue out.
Eruptions occur, and the heat blazes all over.
Resting his cheek against my arm, he murmurs, “Why haven’t you told me to stop?”
I open my mouth.
But I can’t respond.
Because why haven’t I?
He continues, “Do you believe I wouldn’t? Do you believe a man willing to chance jumping to his death for you wouldn’t obey now? Do you think I’m that kind of monster?”
The truth scalds my throat as I let it free. “No.”
“So…why?”
I don’t know.
I have no idea.
A soft sound exits him, and he frees one of my arms to touch a knuckle to my cheek.
“That’s a lovely expression.” He frees my other hand, pulling back so I’m no longer sitting with my rump on his thighs and my legs splayed around him.
Effortlessly, he scoops me up in his arms and rocks me toward his chest in the cradle.
“Let’s speak very frankly for a moment, my precious Delaware white Azalea… ”
My heart won’t stop pounding.
“Tell me why you’re fighting a man who could give you everything, who would jump off buildings for you, who drops to his knees in an instant at your command, who will stop when told, and who loves you in his own broken way past the brink of insanity.
Tell me, aren’t you smart enough to take advantage of me?
Would your hatred really be satisfied to watch me die?
Does it not require a lifetime of my suffering? Of payback? Of obedience?”
My shoulders bunch, and I look at him. Monster echoes in my head. Monster screams in my soul. He’s messing with my mind. I can’t think clearly. I don’t know what I’m feeling. It’s always better when I don’t feel. My feelings are too big. Too much. Too painful.
They hit hard and fast and leave me breathless, in a sea of bad decisions.
They’re never calm. They’re never rational. They’re never easy to decode.
The jumble of them now exhausts me to my core, weighing on my body and pulling me underwater.
He won’t tell me what he’s after. He’s crazy.
It’s dangerous to be near him.
I know that.
But I also know that he’s the only person I have ever met who has looked me in the eye and said your brain is hurting you, and I’d like that to stop instead of your brain is bothering me, stop it.
I grip his shirt. “I don’t…trust you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Right. You’re only asking for permission to torture me.”
Innocent as a maiden, he murmurs, “Would you let me if I say please?”
If I’m actually being given the choice, I should say a resounding no. All things considered, I’ve spent the past few years already feeling like I’m being tortured. With him handing me the choice now, maybe saying no will end it all.
Maybe saying no will bring me closer to the peace I swear I want.
Unfortunately, he just might be right about us and how alike we are, because I don’t seem to be that sane.
I say, “Will you let me torture you, too?”
The crazed glint in his eye really should stop me while I’m ahead, but it doesn’t. I know I’m playing with fire. It’s obvious. But even though I can feel the burn closing in at my fingers, I don’t drop the match.
He whispers, “Could I even hope to be that lucky?”
“Is that a yes?”
“That, my love, is a please.”