Chapter 24 Aila
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aila
This deception has hung heavy on me for so long. But I belong to Theron now, and there can no longer be lies between us.
Oh, it feels so good to be able to say that. I belong to someone. Not because I think I’m entitled to bask in his glory. Not because he is the big man on campus with a billion-dollar net worth family. Not any of those shallow tokens of prestige I thought I needed in university.
I want to be with Theron because I am tired of lying to myself. If he can forgive me for what I am about to tell him, it will make me the happiest I’ve ever been. It feels like my final step into adulthood.
We are lying naked inside the lavvu, resting our heads on our arms with our mouths only a few inches apart. Theron seems to radiate a pale gray light; a bioluminescent creature of the night.
“I went back to Piers after we broke up the first time, Theron.”
He takes this new information in like a stone-cold machine processing data. I am starting to see the benefits of being with a vampire. Theron is unemotional and non-reactive as he crunches the numbers.
“Explain.”
He wants to understand why I did it. How can I tell him that not even I know why I did such a stupid thing?
“He tracked me down to my college in Canada. I guess time and distance had taken the sting out of my bitterness… it made me weak and susceptible to his salesman patter. He even brought his parents to say that it was their idea to sic their lawyer on me and contact the university. They took all the blame. It was quite overwhelming to have all three of them begging me.”
Theron’s eyes narrow in focus.
“Let me guess. You never really trusted him, that’s why you didn’t share all your secrets with him. When you tried to imagine yourself being with him in the future, you couldn’t. He went back to his old ways relatively quickly. You dropped out and got off the radar. Does that about sum it up?”
Groaning, I look up at the tented ceiling so I don’t have to look him in the eyes.
“Ugh! Yes. That’s why I’ve been on the run, Theron. I couldn’t stand to face the truth. I’m a failure and a fool.”
Falling onto his back, Theron offers me the nook of his arm to snuggle against. He knows how much I love the smell in there. That special masculine whiff reassures me that this vampire was once human like me.
“It is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind whenever she wants to, sweetheart. It’s up to those who love her to sway her opinion if they think she’s making the wrong move. Isn’t that how it’s meant to go?”
That gets my attention.
“Is that what you were trying to do with me?”
Theron has no immediate snappy comeback to that. I can hear the wheels turning in his mind as he tries to make sense of how our conversation led back here. I want to prompt him to say something, but I think it’s time for me to listen.
Eventually, Theron speaks.
“Maybe I used the wrong words. It should have been ‘offer advice.’ Perhaps ‘swaying someone’s opinion’ sounds too manipulative.”
For a vampire, he is very insightful… but then he continues to muse out loud.
“However, I believe it would be foolish of us to forget that part of my arsenal of seductive weapons is to be able to charm a woman into offering herself to me. I’m not allowed to satisfy my hunger with her otherwise.”
How is it possible for him to be so attractive and yet repulse me at the same time? I must never forget that Theron is a vampire first and a lover second.
“You sound like a complete psycho when you say things like that, Theron.”
He cuddles me. “Thank you.”
I have to laugh. I mean, what else can I do? I get back to explaining about one psycho to the other psycho lying next to me.
“I hadn’t changed my mind about Piers when he popped back into my life. I think he just wore me down. I kept saying to myself, ‘One more week and his true nature will show itself,’ and damn if I wasn’t right.”
Theron stays quiet. He’s leaving it to me to elaborate if I want to.
This is so embarrassing.
“I gave him a long list of our new boundaries. No abuse. No invasion of my privacy. And no pushing me to commit. Strictly one day at a time. No exceptions. Like probation.”
“Sounds fair.”
Trailing my fingers down the line of dark hair that grows from his belly to his crotch, I think back to that crazy day I went on the run.
“I will tell you what it was that made Piers lose it. After all his hard work stalking me down, pleading for me to take him back, accepting all my rules—basically humiliating himself—it didn’t go back to how we were before.”
Theron accepts this.
“Yeah. How could it? He was in love with his memory of you, not the real you.”
“A fantasy. Yes. For Piers, it was all about the hunt and the possession. The trophy girlfriend, not the person. When we first met, I was the hot new girl on campus, and he was the social director. Everyone wanted to be near us or be us.”
“Guess he was pissed he fucked it up.”
That makes me giggle. “Maybe so, maybe no. Second time around, the discrepancies manifested pretty damn quick. Like, if he did something I didn’t enjoy in bed, I would tell him. I was determined not to be Little Miss Nice and Understanding again.”
Theron pretends to wince. “Ouch. But what about his male pride?”
We both laugh, feeling so close in our similarities.
“I’d had sex with other guys since being with Piers, so I had a yardstick to measure him against, and he did not measure up.”
More laughter, but somehow I manage to set the record straight.
“I don’t mean it like that… well, not exactly!
I’m talking about his technique. Lousy kisser.
All that thick tongue lobbing itself down my throat with no finesse.
Yuk. And when he went down on me, he would insist on twiddling my nipples at the same time as if he were trying to tune a radio and lick me out simultaneously. ”
“Multitasking during cunnilingus is not recommended.” Putting on a pilot voice, Theron pretends to be steering a plane. “Keep your hands inside and brace for impact.”
“When were you ever on a plane?” I get sidetracked.
He smirks. “Luna downloads movies for us. We have to stay current with our general knowledge, darlin’. It makes us better hunters.”
I should have known. Theron is, and always will be, the ultimate predator.
I’m tired. A delightful lassitude is spreading over me as I get ready to spend the night in my lover’s arms.
But Theron won’t let me.
“Finish the story.”
“I struggled to have orgasms. Not eventually. Immediately. Piers couldn’t wait to renew the physical side of our relationship, but I was not that keen. Comparisons hurt, so I tried hard not to prompt him to try something new.”
Sitting up, I know that actions will describe things better than words. Slotting myself in between Theron’s powerful thighs, I kneel before him.
“He would hold me like this and ram himself into me. And he always wanted me to play with myself using my fingers if I wanted to get myself off. No foreplay. He said he preferred the rough texture of my pussy when it was unlubricated. And then he would bang in and out with his eyes wide open, ordering me to rub my clit and make all these fake porno moans of pleasure.”
Falling back, I hide my eyes with my arms. “I’m sorry, Theron, but I just couldn’t pretend to like it anymore.”
“Heh.” That gruff laughter that lured me into Theron’s orbit from the first time I saw him. It tickles me pink and just like that, I’m back in a good mood.
This confession is so cathartic. I have never told a living soul about this before. It was the painful secret I carried around with me like a stinking garbage bag.
“So, about a month into our second time around, I think I snapped. He came back to the apartment he had rented for us reeking of booze, high on God-knows-what, and in the mood for love.”
My skin crawls at the memory of Piers’s sweaty, fetid touch.
“I insisted he shower. I prayed he would slip in the bathroom and knock himself into a concussion—that’s how toxic my feelings for him were—but he was too drunk to remember the deal he made.
When I pulled away from him, he punched me in the face.
I was gone before he woke up. And this time, I made sure to stay gone. ”
Hugging me close, Theron murmurs as he strokes me. “Poor child. So brave.”
It feels like heaven in his arms as I mumble. “I wasn’t a child anymore the second time around. I should’ve known better.”
“A couple of years living your adult life makes you more of a child than a grownup to me, Aila.”
He makes a move and stands up. The action is so fast that I get vertigo as he suddenly towers over me.
“Sleep. I’m going downhill to the inn.” Theron starts to pull on his dark denims and buckle them loosely. He then sees the look on my face. “What’s the matter? Are you scared to be left alone? No one’s venturing to this part of the forest, darlin’, not at this time of the night.”
I have a thousand questions. Which one to ask first?
“I’m not that girl, Theron.”
“And what girl would that be, Aila?”
Again, I am struck by the uncanny way his face and body glow soft silver in the dark. It’s a very subtle glow, pale and gray, but it’s definitely not coming from another light source.
“I’m not the girl who talks smack about her exes to her new lovers, trying to stir up shit on both sides.”
“That ship has sailed, don’t you think?”
Suddenly I’m panicked. “You’re not going to go full vampire on him, are you? I mean, Piers is an asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to die.”
Shrugging into his leather jacket, Theron stares down at me.
“There you go again.”
The way he says it irritates me.
“There I go again what?”
“You were terrified when you ran away from the jetty, Aila. Or have you forgotten?”
Sulking because this is not how I wanted our post-coital love-talk to go, I shake my head. “No, I have not forgotten. It… I was in shock.”
He ignores my rationalization. “Why were you afraid?”
There is a long silence as my brain wrestles left side against right. The animal side of my brain wants me to tell Theron my deepest, darkest fears. And the sensible side insists that I’m exaggerating.
“I can’t tell you, Theron. I think it’s best if you form your own opinion about Piers without my input. My mom says he might have changed, that he might have come here to apologize. Or maybe it’s a coincidence.”
“Let me get this straight. You want to give your ex-boyfriend—the one who’s been stalking you for ten years—the benefit of the doubt. In case this is a coincidence?”
God, it just about kills me to have to say it, but I must. I never wanted to be a drama queen, that girl who likes to stir up trouble.
Now is not the time to tell Theron about the threats Piers promised me.
“That’s what I am hoping.”
Ducking out of the tent flap, Theron growls. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”