Chapter 12 #2
"Not that far off normal? What kind of support is that?
" My voice climbs higher with every word.
"It's OK, Emmaleen. You crave demerits like they're cocaine and pedagogical instruction on how to spread your legs for display like it's this week's yoga pose, but don't worry.
Forty-seven percent of crazy people cite sexual frustration for their spiraling, so you're actually, basically in the majority if you just ignore all normal people who've ever existed and concentrate exclusively on the deranged.
Oh, and also, you've developed a documented Pavlovian response to punishment notebooks.
So really, you're doing great. Totally fine. Not concerning at all."
I'm pacing again. Gesturing wildly. I turn on my heel and stop. Lorcan is smiling at me. "What? What the fuck is that smile? Why are you smiling? This isn't funny."
"No," he agrees. Except he's still smiling. "It's not funny, haha. But… you know. It… you… you are kinda funny."
I point at him. "I feel like this is a completely inappropriate time to make Goodfellas jokes. Apropos to… well, everything."
Again, he smiles. "Would ya like to put your clothes back on, Emmaleen?"
"What?" I look down at myself. Then sigh, because again, I'd forgotten to be ashamed of my nakedness.
"No. Actually, I don't. I like this." I point to my body.
"I like walking around naked in a perpetual state of readiness for when my master or my monster comes home. But… thank you for the check in."
The smile is gone. Lorcan actually shakes his head at this revelation. Like comparing spankings to heroin and demerits to cocaine isn't the shocking thing here. The shocking thing is my method of display.
"You call him that like it's a good thing."
My eyebrows furrow. "What?"
"Monster." The word comes out of his mouth with a bad taste. "Yer monster. Do ya have any idea at all what you're talkin' about? Because I know that monster too, Emmaleen. He's nothin' to be proud of."
Something in my chest cracks.
Not breaks. Not shatters. Just—cracks. Like ice on a windshield that spreads in fractals you can't stop watching.
"You don't—" My voice comes out wrong. Too high. Too thin. "You don't know him like I do."
"Don't I?" Lorcan takes a step into the room. "We were roommates at St. Augustine's for five years, Emmaleen. I've seen what Giovanni does when he thinks no one's watchin'. I've seen what he's capable of."
"Stop." My hands come up. Defensive. "Just—stop."
But he doesn't stop.
"I've seen him dissect people like they're fuckin' lab specimens. Break them down into pieces he can catalog and control. And you're standin' here callin' him your monster like it's a term of fuckin' endearment—"
"It is." The words rip out of me. Desperate. "It is because he told me about the monster. He showed me. He didn't hide it. He didn't pretend. He said 'this is what I am' and I—I chose to stay anyway."
"Because he gave ya the illusion of choice—"
"No." I'm shaking my head. Backing up. "No, you don't understand.
Tyler never gave me choices. Tyler made me feel crazy for even wanting choices.
Giovanni gave me a key. An actual fucking key on the wall.
Cash. A passport. A plane ticket. He gave me everything I needed to leave and I stayed.
That's different. That has to be different. "
"Is it?" Lorcan's voice is quiet now. Gentle. Which is somehow worse. "Does it? Or did he just make the cage pretty enough that ya wanted to stay inside it?"
The crack spreads. "You don't—" My breath catches. "You don't get it."
"Then help me get it, a stór. Make me understand."
And that's when it happens.
That's when the past twenty-four hours hit me all at once like a train I didn't see coming.
Giovanni's face when I told him I loved him.
The notebook filled with seventy-three pages of poetry.
The throne. His cock inside me. Yours, my King.
All yours. Jino's hands on my body. The riding crop.
The feather. Position Three until my thighs screamed.
The key on the wall that I stopped seeing.
The library. Colliding with Lorcan. His hand on my throat.
The trunk. The cabin. The car ride. This room.
These handcuffs. The Display position. Begging for my King. Begging for my Master.
Two days ago everything was fine. My world was small, but complete. My mind was contained, but happy.
I was fulfilled.
And now I'm standing naked in a stranger's bedroom in Boston trying to convince Giovanni's childhood friend that I know the monster better than him.
It's… absurd.
Insane.
Tragic.
Pathetic.
Sad.
My knees buckle.
Just—give out completely.
I hit the floor hard, catching myself on my hands, and the sob that comes out of me doesn't sound human. It sounds like something dying. Like something being torn apart from the inside.
"Oh Jesus—Emmaleen—"
"I don't know." The words come out broken. Fractured. "I don't know if I chose this or if he made me think I chose this and I can't tell the difference and that's—that's—"
I can't breathe.
Can't get air past the thing lodged in my throat.
My whole body is shaking. Trembling so hard my teeth are chattering.
"And then I took the key and I went upstairs because I wanted demerits. I wanted to be punished. I wanted him to hurt me so he could put me back together and I'd feel—I'd feel—"
"Shhh." Lorcan's voice is right next to me now. "Shh, a stór, I've got ya." His arms come around me. Strong. Solid. Pulling me against his chest as I completely fall apart.
I'm crying so hard I can't see. Can't think. Can't do anything except sob into Lorcan's shirt while he holds me on his bedroom floor.
"I miss him." The words are muffled against his chest. Pathetic.
"I miss Jino. I miss the dungeon. I miss the rules.
I miss knowing exactly what was expected of me, and how to earn rewards, and what the consequences were for failure and I hate that I miss it because that means something is so fundamentally broken in me that I crave being owned like it's—like it's—"
My voice cracks completely.
Lorcan's hand comes up to the back of my head. Fingers threading through my hair. Petting me. Soothing me.
"Yer not broken," he murmurs. "Yer just like all the rest of us, really. The whole world's fucked up, Emmaleen. It is. Your fucked-up place in this fucked-up world is nothin' but a speck. That's all it is, just a speck. And… this reaction, yer havin' here…" He hugs me. "It's classic withdrawal."
I hold my breath. Let that word roll around in my head for a moment. Then push away from him just enough so I can see his eyes. "Withdrawal?" I scoff. "It's not literally cocaine, Lorcan. It's just—"
"It is," Lorcan says, placing his hand on the side of my head and guiding my face to his chest. "It is, darlin'. It's a real fuckin' thing. Jino explained it to me."
"Jino?" I try and sit up again, wanting to hear everything.
But Lorcan holds me in position. His arms tightening around me.
"Power-exchange withdrawal," he says. "It's simple, really.
Your nervous system adapted to Giovanni's control—the structure, the discipline, the rewards, the punishment.
Your body learned to regulate itself through him. Through Jino. It's a feedback loop."
I suck in a shaky breath, trying to process.
"Last night," he continues, his accent softening the edges of the words, "when ya took that key and went upstairs—ya weren't just breakin' rules for the sake of it.
Ya were collectin' demerits. Stackin' them up.
Because the more ya failed, the more intense the punishment would be.
The more Giovanni would have to notice ya. Touch ya. Correct ya."
"Yes," I say. I've already admitted this to myself, but hearing it come from him makes it hit different. Harder.
I wanted Giovanni's hands on me. Wanted the crop. Wanted to be bent over the punishment bench until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't exist as anything except his. I wanted him to see me failing so he could put me back together.
I was pushing his limits.
Testing him.