Pandora #3
He lifted me and pressed me harder against the wall. My legs wrapped around his hips. His hands slid under my skirt, his fingers finding my panties. I moaned. I wanted him. I hated him. I needed him. Everything at once. I was completely at his mercy.
No. This was . . . too much. I pushed him away. "Not now.”
He stared at me, his chest heaving. "What?” His body coiled like a spring. "You’re refusing me?”
I walked to the door. "You think you can control everything. Including this. Including me.” I turned back to face him. He was still at the wall, his shirt torn open, his hair disheveled.
"But this time I decide,” I said.
His hands curled into fists. "You’re leaving?”
"I’m leaving.” I opened the door.
"Pandora!”
I stopped but didn’t turn around.
"This isn’t over,” he said.
"No,” I whispered. "It isn’t.”
***
I walked through the streets of Dreva without knowing where I was going. The cold bit into my skin, but I barely felt it. My thoughts were racing. Nothing was real. Nothing.
After a while I stopped. I found myself outside a small church and sat on the cold stone steps, the streetlamps throwing weak light onto the cracked asphalt.
The cold seeped through my jeans. I let the last few hours move through me.
The supermarket. His voice in my headphones.
Him fucking me from afar. And then his confessions, one after another.
The night I had thought was a dream. The crane.
My anger at Adrian that had never been mine.
And still I had kissed Neo. I tried to sort my feelings, to separate them like threads in a tangled knot.
What was real? The anger at Neo had felt real.
The hatred I had screamed at him too. But the desire? I didn’t know anymore.
I stood and walked again, aimlessly through narrow lanes, past closed shops and flickering lamps and an old man with a dog who didn’t look up.
The cobblestones were uneven under my shoes.
At some point I stopped thinking. When I looked up again, I recognized the street.
I had been walking in circles. I stopped at the front door, breathed in once, and went inside.
Neo was standing in the doorway, laptop open in his hands. In the corner of the screen glowed the small symbol I knew by now. He had established an encrypted connection. Without saying anything, he handed me the laptop.
I took it and went into the small bedroom. He would listen, but I didn’t care. I needed to talk to someone.
"Hello?” Isobel’s voice brought tears to my eyes.
"Hello,” I said.
"Pandora?” She said my full name like a reprimand. A short intake of breath, then a pause, as if she was deciding whether to hang up. "I didn’t think you’d call again.”
"Isobel . . .” My voice broke. "You were right. You were right all along.”
Silence. Then she spoke in a softer tone: "What happened?”
"He manipulated me. My body. My feelings. I don’t know anymore what’s real and what he . . . what he programmed into me.”
"Pand.” Her voice went warmer, but I heard the tension underneath. "Tell me everything.”
"He can penetrate my nervous system, send electrical impulses that feel like . . . like touch. Today in the supermarket he . . .” I swallowed. "He made me orgasm while other people were around me. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
She drew in a sharp breath. "My God.”
"That’s not all.” The words spilled out of me. "He changed the temperature in my apartment. Played subliminal frequencies. Everything, to make me more compliant. To draw me toward him. He entered my consciousness while I was sleeping and . . . made me come.”
"Pand.” Her voice was trembling. "That’s rape.”
I flinched. "No, that’s . . . I mean, I wanted it too.”
"You wanted it because he made you want it.” Isobel’s voice sharpened. "That’s what’s so insidious. He hacked your body, for God’s sake.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. "I wish we had a normal relationship. Without running. Without manipulation. But I can’t leave him, Isobel. Despite everything. I just can’t.”
"Because he programmed you to stay.”
"But what if part of it is real? What if I genuinely have feelings for him?”
She was quiet for a moment. "Does that matter? Even if ten percent is real, the other ninety is manipulation. That’s not a life, Pand. That’s captivity.”
My chest tightened. "But he . . . he makes me feel alive, Isobel. For the first time in years, I actually feel alive.”
"That’s the manipulation too, Pand.”
"Is it?” My voice cracked. "He healed wounds in me I’d forgotten existed. He sees me. My deepest longings. My hidden desires.”
"Or he tore those wounds open so he could heal them. That’s what manipulators do. They create problems that only they can solve.”
I shook my head. "No. They were always there. Since I was small. He’s just the first one who saw them.”
"This is madness!” Isobel’s voice broke. "You can’t think clearly anymore. You have to get away from him.”
"No!” The thought of leaving him cut off my air. My pulse beat in my ears. "I need him. It’s like an addiction.”
"If you won’t go for yourself, go for me. For us. Please, Pand. Remember who you were before he swallowed you.”
I couldn’t answer. My throat was too tight. The silence stretched.
Until Isobel breathed, "I’m scared for you.”