Chapter 7
Butterfly Man
“I’m cold. Can I, at least, have a blanket?” Reagan slurs angrily.
A blanket would be a wall. It would hide the beautiful tremor of her thighs, the desperate climb of her ribs with each breath. It would grant her a sense of false privacy that I can’t allow in here.
Her skin is a map I’ve memorized, but its terrain never ceases to fascinate me.
In this light, it’s a landscape of winter plains and subtle ridges.
A scar on her left hip, shaped like a comma.
A burn mark like a star on the inside of her right forearm.
The faint cuts. The fractured bones underneath that haven’t healed right.
But no tattoos.
In a world where people, including myself, stain their skin with ink to claim ownership, to tell stories, to hide flaws, her canvas is clean. All her stories are written in the scars and the memories that come with them.
Reagan lies to the world, but she stays true to herself.
“Did you hear me?” Her teeth chatter.
“No blanket.” The distorter flattens the possessive finality of my decision.
I want her naked, always, for my pleasure, yes—the sheer aesthetic of her restrained form is a masterpiece—but more than that, I need her legible.
I must read every shiver, every goosebump, every pulse of fear or rage that flushes her skin.
“I’m not one of your dead butterflies you’re preserving in the cold, afraid of decay. I’m human and alive. I need warmth or I’ll die.”
Appealing to the logic of a collector? I smile. “People get tattoos to hide scars.”
Her eyes dilate a fraction, disoriented. “What?”
“Your skin. It’s clean. No ink. Why?”
A shudder runs through her body, and she wets her now purplish lips with her tongue. “I… I don’t like needles.”
She doesn’t like needles. A simple, practical truth.
It’s almost disappointing. Not a poetic statement of authenticity, just a phobia.
But I know Reagan well enough to read between her lines.
To hear the stories hidden in the pauses before the answers.
Like she always says, everything is a story, and there’s a story in everything.
I glance at the pins in her flesh. The irony… She doesn’t like needles, and I have a case full of them.
“I’m freezing. I need a blanket.” Her voice is a thin scrape in the silence now.
“There are so many other ways to keep you warm, my little butterfly.” I peel off my right glove, finger by finger. Her breath catches, a tiny, sharp inhale that speaks louder than any of her screams. The glove drops to the floor.
Her eyes lock on my hand, horror dawning in them. “What are you going to do?”
I reach out slowly, letting her anticipate it. “I can do anything to you, anything I want, whenever I want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Her body stiffens and then strains against the straps. A whimper escapes her as my fingers hover over her sternum. “Stop.”
“I haven’t even started yet, darling.” My palm lowers. The contact is electric, her skin like ice-silk. I let my hand rest against the frantic beat of her heart. It drives me crazy. I missed her. God, I fucking missed her.
I can’t hide my swallow as my hand slides up over the swell of her breast. She gasps and tries to twist away from my touch, but her body isn’t helping yet. A tear breaks free and tracks into her hairline.
“You look so pretty when you cry.” I love her fear and her tears.
Those belong to me, only me. “But I want your real tears, Reagan.” Reagan doesn’t cry; Birdie does when she needs to.
“Not the ones you gave me when I touched you for the first time, not the ones you gave me when I pinned you to this table, and not the ones you’re giving me now. ”
My hand moves down her side and traces the line of her ribs. I feel every tremor, every involuntary flinch. Her eyes squeeze shut. She’s retreating inward. I can’t have that.
I lean close. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
I tap the pin in her shoulder, a light, precise flick with my fingernail. Her eyes fly open with a silent scream.
“Look. At. Me,” I command.
The hatred in her gaze is fire, pure, blazing, and it’s all for me. Hate me all you want, my little butterfly. I don’t care as long as you’re mine. I hold her gaze as my hand slides over her hip. When I find that comma-shaped scar, I trace it with a caress.
“Please,” she breathes. “You won’t believe me when I tell you I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Because it’s a lie.”
“Perhaps, but believe me when I tell you I don’t want you touching my scars.”
I glance down at the marred skin. Not a doctor’s work.
Deep and uneven. A wound that was left to close on its own.
“You don’t like needles, and you don’t like hands on your scars.
” I turn my own bare hand over between us.
The pale, ropey texture of old scars climbs from my wrist into my sleeve.
A set I earned long before I learned to hide behind ink and leather and masks.
“Because it makes it real again. It drags the memory out of the past and paints it right onto your skin.” My fingertips return to her hip, but this time, I don’t trace the scar.
I lay my palm over it, completely covering it, as if I could absorb the memory through my skin.
“It’s not a mark anymore. It’s a wound that opens fresh. ”
“Yes.”
That’s why I hide mine, so that no one will touch them or call them ugly again. At least, that’s what I was taught. To be so ashamed of them that I’d have to cover them. Until she taught me differently.
When the world strips you bare, when power abandons you and only scars remain, do not hide them, wear them like iron brands across your skin. They sing of a soul that refuses to break. In their darkness lies a force unmatched, an unyielding power that no blade, no betrayal, no despair can erase.
Scars are the crown of the powerless.
I finally pull my hand away. Then I reach past her head, down to the side of the metal table. She flinches, expecting another touch.
My fingers feel for a small switch I’ve built in the table and flip it.
A low, deep hum vibrates through the quiet. A wave of radiant heat begins to emanate from the steel surface beneath her. A heater I’ve installed for this moment.
Her gaze darts from my face to the place my hand disappeared, then back. She must feel it, the warmth that penetrates her back and through her freezing muscles.
“Th-thank you,” she says.
“You’ve earned it. You told me two truths. They earned you two hours of warmth.”
“Two hours? What happens after that?”
“I’ll turn it off until you tell me something else I don’t know about you, then I’ll turn it back on.”
“I hate grapes. There. Add another hour.”
“Something authentic, Reagan. A secret, a truth you haven’t told yet.”
“Have you not been stalking me for years? You must know all my secrets.”
“I thought so, but I was wrong.”
“Well, I’m not clairvoyant. Unless you tell me exactly who you are, when you started stalking me and what secrets you know about me, I can’t give you an answer. So why don’t you keep that fucking button on and start talking, Butterfly Man?”
I chuckle. “I’ll tell you everything when the time comes, little butterfly. For now, I have a better deal for you. I’ll ask you a question. If you tell the truth, I’ll keep the heater on for one more hour.”
“What’s the question?”
“Who is Shane Fletcher?”
She blinks. “You already know who he is. Was.”
“Do I?”
Her inhale carries a heavy weight. “I’m not going to play any other game of yours, Butterfly Man.”
“You’re gonna have to because if you don’t answer, you can kiss the heater goodbye, and if you lie…” I bend my head to hers, savoring the attention she’s finally giving me.
“What happens if I lie?”
“If you lie… I fuck you.”