Birds of Paradise

by Anne Malcom

  Nowhere.

  That’s exactly where I would’ve gone. Because nowhere was all there was. Black nothingness. Heaven was only created as a concept for the living suffering loss and the dying presented with the end.

  But I knew better.

  He was still looking at me. The man who would’ve taken me nowhere, who still might. But somehow, right then, he was making me feel like I was somewhere. Like I was somebody, not the empty shell haunting the skeletons of a farmhouse for a year.

  “No, I don’t save people either,” he said, voice flat. Cold. Chilling. “I kill people.”

  “That can’t be true,” I said softly. “Because I’m not dead.”

  His eyes froze my blood. “You’re not quite alive yet either.” The words were flat and emotionless on the surface. Their composition, their meaning was so much more. Because he was saying that breathing—like I was right then—that wasn’t living. That I was out of that bed, but my mangled and torn soul was still in a room, withering, drugged, hanging between this world and nowhere.

  “But you only love dead things,” I whispered. “So maybe I don’t want to be quite alive. Maybe I need to be a little bit dead so you can love me too.”

  I wasn’t exactly shocked at my words. Or maybe I was. Because it was only here, sitting between this world and the nowhere, that I realized it.

  I would keep my soul withered and mangled and almost dead if that was the only way I could be loved by him. Or maybe I knew I could only be broken and mangled, and he knew that too and that was why he didn’t kill me. I couldn’t say he cared. Definitely couldn’t say he loved me. My soul, battered and broken as it was, was barely capable of love. And it could only love this dark monster without a soul.

  I was grasping at emotional straws, scraps really, with my feelings for him. But they somehow filled me up, more than anything when I was whole.

  So maybe I was meant to be broken.

  Whatever it was, my feelings were there. He was filling up all the jagged parts of me.

  But I couldn’t say what I was to him other than an anomaly of the normal world, able to be preserved because of my not-quite-alive status. Because of the fact that this sprawling house worked as some sort of cage in which to keep me. View me. Possess me.

  But he didn’t love me.

  The closest he would get was not killing me

  But I didn’t care. Not one bit.

  Especially when he crossed the distance between us, took my face in his hands and kissed me.

  Especially not when he ripped every piece of my clothing off me and fucked me on the floor of the dead room.

  “Are you suffering from hybristophilia?” he asked, the strange question breaking the silence that had comfortably blanketed the air in the hours after our mutual orgasm.

  We had migrated from the dead room to his bedroom at some point. My mind only remembered flashes of that period, after he’d used my body so exquisitely I was borderline delusional. But the question shocked me into lucidity.

  I immediately glanced down at my naked body for some sort of rash or sore, flushing with the prospect of the embarrassment that might come with it.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I mean, I don’t—what is hybrid—”

  “Hybristophilia is a paraphilia in which sexual arousal and attraction are contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed some kind of atrocity,” he explained. “The aforementioned atrocities can range from something as simple as lying or to more sinister actions such as rape or murder.” His finger trailed lazily on my shoulder. “Otherwise known as Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome.”

  I turned fully to face him so I could gape at him. Of course, he was impassive, blank, bored even. Of course, that was only on the surface. He didn’t give me time to speak, and I didn’t try to because I knew he was far from finished.

  “A book by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam explores the issue further,” he continued, proving me right. “A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire. A needlessly long-winded name, I’ll admit, but some good points are raised,” he said. “They argue that women desire a dominant man. Ties to evolutionary needs that have followed us into the twenty-first century.”

  I listened to his words, every one of them, but it was around this point that I started seeing the words behind those ones, started realizing Lukyan was distracting himself with drawing patterns on my shoulder to avoid giving me his full attention.

  “This dominant male fantasy is a popular plot device in most erotic writings and movies aimed at women. Popular examples, and more radical ones, are the women who wrote letters to Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer—the serial killer Richard Ramirez even married a female groupie in prison,” he said without surprise. “The cause for this condition isn’t really defined. Some experts believe that hybristophiliacs are submissive victims, while others believe they are narcissist enablers attracted to power.” His hand stopped. “My opinion is these women want to die. They’re not suicidal, most of them at least. But their fascination with death has moved them to people who may offer it one day. Or at the very least, they can test what the grave feels like when they’re fucking someone who’s sent people there. Who resides there, for all intents and purposes.” His eyes didn’t move. “Death is the allure, the attraction that is just too sickening to face, so instead they focus that sickness on the closest thing to it. A personification of it.”

  I let the silence last for well after he’d spoken, giving him time to say more, spout more facts.

  He did not.

  “And you think you’re my personification of death,” I surmised.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You think that because of what happened to me, the man I’d been under the control of for so long, the man who lorded my death over me, you think now I’m broken for life and I’m seeking to…” I searched for the word. “Replace my husband with you because I can’t have him?”

  “No,” he said. “Though you are broken for life. That’s the truth. I don’t think you’re unhinged enough to construct some kind of emotional shield, convincing yourself you’re attracted to torture or abuse in order to cope with it. You’ve employed other methods.”

  I scoffed. “You mean agoraphobia,” I said. “Of course that’s not enough. I need another physiological condition to add to the collection. Want to go with post-traumatic stress disorder too?”

  “Yes,” he answered, even though the question was rhetorical. “You’re not obtuse enough not to realize that PTSD and agoraphobia are extremely closely related, and one is almost conditional for the other.”

  I pursed my lips. Why didn’t I pick a more obscure condition that my intelligent boyfriend couldn’t explain away?

  Did I just think of Lukyan as my boyfriend?

  I shelved that for later inspection.

  I opened my mouth to argue more, but then I stopped myself when I picked up my earlier train of thought. The words beneath the words. The lazy trail on my shoulder.

  This man. The one who’d come to kill me. The one who killed people for a living and showed as much emotion as a hunk of rock, who was cruel and cold and dangerous, was insecure. He was shielding it behind a million layers of complex lexicon and scientific findings, like he always did when he was feeling an emotion he wasn’t comfortable with, but that’s what he was doing.

  I moved, pressing on Lukyan’s shoulder so he was on his back and I could straddle him. This was my new favorite position. The one where I held the power. Controlled things.

  But it wasn’t for that now.

  Lukyan let me do this mostly because I’d surprised him. I was sure he was expecting more of an argument, based on my previous tone.

  “I’m fucked up,” I said. “I’m broken, like you said, beyond repair. My past defines me as someone who is never going to be human again, not in the ways you’re meant to function as a human. Do you consider me a victim?” I asked.

  He blinked once, only with confusion,
before he answered. “No.”

  I nodded. “A narcissist?”

  “No,” he said dryly.

  “Well then, logically speaking, we’ve ruled out both of those causes of this condition you’re slightly convinced I’m suffering from.” I put my finger to his lips to stop him from arguing multiple causes or inconclusive studies. “I’ve suffered from a lot of things. My whole life has been a practice in suffering. And that hasn’t stopped since I met you. It’s changed. At first, for the worse. Maybe there’s still worse to come. I’m sure there will be. But the condition that defines me more than the agoraphobia at this precise second, and a lot of seconds before, and most likely more after this, only has four letters.” I leaned forward to nip at his lips to hide the slight tremor to my own.

  His hands fastened at the back of my neck.

  “Do you need me to explain this condition?” I asked, breathless as his arousal pressed into me.

  “No,” he growled.

  Growled.

  “I’ll show you this condition.”

  Maybe that was the closest he’d ever come to hinting he might love me back.

  Though the way he fucked me after that rode the thin line between love and hate.

  Like everything with Lukyan.

  13

  Three Days Later

  “What is this place?” I asked, looking around the sparse room.

  A boxing bag hung solitary in the corner, almost menacing in the way it lingered above the ground without moving. The floor was slightly springy beneath my bare feet. A small fridge was on the other side of the room, a stack of towels beside it.

  There were no windows.

  Obviously, since we were underground.

  It was after breakfast. Lukyan had told me our plan for the day had changed. Not that we really had plans for our days. He’d sit with me in the library while I worked, either working himself, reading, or fucking me.

  There was no routine. There were no conversations about the elephant in the room: my inability to leave his rooms. There weren’t many conversations at all, actually. We didn’t need them.

  But right then, in a basement room that was sparse and chilly, I needed some form of explanation.

  Lukyan stepped forward. “This is where we’re going to start to train you,” he said, his fingers pressing into my hipbones.

  “Train me for what?” I asked, ignoring the pleasure in my pain. “I’m not exactly competing in the Olympics anytime soon.”

  His eyebrow rose at my dry tone. He enjoyed it, even if he didn’t betray it. Such things like humor couldn’t be enjoyed by big bad hit men. It was bad for their street cred.

  “Violence,” he said.

  “Violence?” I repeated. “The violence of what?”

  “The violence of life. In the face of death,” he answered. “I’m going to train you so you can match it. So you can best it.”

  His hand flew through the air before I rightly knew what was going on, my back slamming into the floor. It had felt soft, slightly springy to stand on. It was concrete to get body-slammed onto.

  I tried to suck in air as the impact robbed me of it, panic running through my body like an electric shock.

  I knew Lukyan hadn’t even put his full strength—heck, half his strength—into it. I knew this because I was only slightly winded, my back protesting. I wasn’t dead, or at the very least paralyzed.

  “That. Wasn’t. Cool,” I croaked, his hand still at my throat, though it was loose enough to let my frantic gasps of air in and out of it.

  His eyes were ice chips, no sympathy to be found in them. “I know you think you’ve got nothing left in you to fight.” He searched my eyes. “That you don’t want to. But I’m going to prove you wrong. Because I’m not having you more vulnerable than you need to be. Not going to let you continue to be the victim.”

  “I’m not out in the world, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I said dryly. “So unless you plan on deciding to kill me once more, I don’t need to learn how to fight.”

  Lukyan’s eyes shuttered as he wrenched both of us upward. “You’re not going to be trapped in your own cage forever, Elizabeth. That’s letting him win. Letting them all win. It’s being weak when I know you’re not.” He regarded me. “Just because you stay in here, shutting out the world, doesn’t mean the world is going to shut you out. It’s not going to respect the boundaries you’ve enforced. Not this world. Especially not my own. Danger knows no bounds, Elizabeth. Neither does death. It’ll come for you no matter where you hide. And you’re hiding.”

  I knew what he was doing. He was taunting my anger, trying to tease it out.

  “I’m not going to force you to take those first steps out into the world you’re so sure you can’t survive, but I’m going to make sure they happen,” he declared with certainty. “And so are you. So fucking fight. And don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. You’re better than letting yourself rot in here.”

  I squared my feet and narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ve got no other choice but to rot in here!” I yelled.

  He circled me and I moved with him, not letting him move around me like I was helpless prey. “You know you have a choice. There’s always a choice,” he argued.

  I let out a sound of frustration that sounded remarkably like a growl.

  He darted forward, his fist flying with him. Again, I didn’t move away in time, so his knuckles smashed into my cheekbone.

  White pain exploded in my vision, my teeth clashing together and sinking into my tongue. I tasted coppery blood.

  My hand instinctively went to my cheek, my accusing gaze to Lukyan.

  He didn’t blanche, didn’t even blink at my pain. “I’m not going to handle you like you’re going to break, Elizabeth,” he said. “You’re already broken. Whatever’s left in you isn’t going to break any more.” He continued to circle me. “So don’t think this is going to be easy because of what we have.”

  His fist darted out and this time, despite my throbbing cheek and bruised emotions, I dodged it. His eyes flared with something resembling approval.

  “I’m going to make this as hard as possible precisely because of what we have,” he said. “I’m not losing you.”

  And then he punched me again, this time in my stomach.

  I doubled over, my breakfast threatening to repeat itself. Again I realized, in some dim and detached part of me, that Lukyan was holding back. He was checking himself right before he made impact. It wasn’t even the pain that hurt me, that angered me. It was the impact itself. His lack of reluctance to strike me.

  But this wasn’t like Christopher, who hit me to make me weaker. Lukyan was doing it to make me stronger. I knew that. It didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt. It almost hurt more.

  I spat thick saliva tinged with blood at my feet and then straightened.

  “Okay,” I croaked. “Let’s do this, then.”

  His lips twitched into something resembling a grimace. Lukyan’s version of a smile.

  So I let him hurt me.

  I let myself fight back.

  And it felt good.

  Two Weeks Later

  From then on, our days did turn into some warped, sick, brilliant routine. One that kept me excited for the next day, somehow anxious for the new discoveries I’d make, even when I’d been sure, after a year of being stuck inside a house, that there were no new discoveries to be made. Only old, decomposed, rotting memories to be trudged over.

  But I was learning. About Lukyan.

  About myself.

  That I wasn’t as weak as I thought I was.

  I was still covered in bruises. Over half of them were from the times I didn’t dodge Lukyan’s strikes. He was beginning to hold back less. Hurt me more.

  But only because I was getting better.

  Only because I could handle it.

  It was a good feeling, the pain I knew I’d recover from.

  A great feeling, in fact.

  I was rolling up my yoga mat when I sense
d it. Sensed the warmth and ice battling together on the nape of my neck with the force of his stare. It did something to me still, the sensation of his entire intense focus, even when I was merely feeling it. I wondered if it would fade away, like a photograph exposed to the sun. That thought brought about unease of whether this was going to last long enough to fade. Or whether it was going to burst into a supernova, burn away in the stark, intense reality of it all.

  I put my mat away in the corner, deciding not to taunt myself with such things. At that moment at least. I had to steel myself before turning, inhale roughly, prepare myself for the absolute fullness that came with Lukyan’s gaze. The one I’d been so sure was removed from emotion, from humanity.

  He was leaning against the doorjamb when I turned, unperturbed by the length of time it took me to give him my attention. He gave the impression he would’ve leaned there all day, waiting for the object of his attention to turn him into the object of hers. And that impression was right. He would have. Many times I’d been in this very room, stretching, so deep in my zone that I didn’t notice he was watching until the end.

  “I like watching you,” he said by explanation. “Watching you start to live instead of just exist. Watching you stop decomposing and start… evolving.”

  But this time wasn’t that. There was something inscrutable about his face, something that caused unease to bloom in my stomach and crawl up my throat. I didn’t ask him what it was; that wasn’t how he worked. He spoke when he decided to. So I waited. I waited in the silence and the distance, despite the fact that I hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard from him in three days, and my body itched to feel his once more.

  Normally it didn’t bother me. The fact that we spent more time in silent contemplation of each other than we did conversing. Because we said more—discovered more—in those silences than we ever could have with words.

  I also liked to look at him. There was no suit today, another strange thing. He wasn’t a man to lounge around the house in sweats and an old college tee. He was almost always in a sharply and expertly tailored suit. The only time he wasn’t was when he worked out, wearing sleek black sweats, or when he was in bed with me, when he wore nothing at all.