Tabula Rasa

by Kitty Thomas

  As far as I was concerned, losing my memory was perhaps the best thing that had ever happened to me, and even the ugliness of the theme park months with Trevor didn’t erase the soundness of that basic principle.

  Shannon caught my hand and pulled me back. “What is it?”

  Could there really be concern in his eyes? Concern for my welfare? Or did I just want it to be there? Was it a fake emotion he’d practiced with the dedication of a theatre major, or was there the kernel of something genuine behind it? Weren’t even actors so good at faking an emotion because they understood how it felt to begin with?

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just... I’m going back to sleep.”

  But Shannon wasn’t having it. He pulled me into the bedroom with him and nudged the door shut behind us, which set off shrill outrage from the white cat, who by this point had come back only to realize I was being allowed into the one room in the house she was consistently barred from.

  “Shut the hell up!” Shannon barked at the closed door.

  The cat made one last angry snippy yowl, then shut up.

  Without another word, he guided me to the bed and pulled back the blankets. He wrapped his body around mine like a guy who understood how comfort worked.

  And in that moment, I believed him.

  He didn’t push or pry or ask for anything, either physically or emotionally, from me. He just held me and let me sleep. In his arms, I didn’t worry about Professor Stevens coming back, not even in dreams. Because if he did, I knew Shannon would fucking kill him without a second thought.

  Chapter Eight

  I woke the next morning to a tray of coffee and toast in bed. This might seem like the most mundane and bland thing. For a normal man in a normal household, this would be just something moderately nice and considerate that nearly anyone would do for someone they cared about if they were sick or had a bad night. But Shannon wasn’t exactly normal by anybody’s metric. It was huge that he’d broken his no food outside the kitchen rule for me. At least I thought it was. If I hadn’t been sure before that he truly did feel something toward me, I was sure now.

  I was beginning to see sociopathy as not a black or white—either you are or you aren’t—kind of deal, but rather a spectrum. On one end were your serial killers who didn’t have a single thing in their life that wasn’t entirely for show—every displayed emotion carefully calculated for the maximum socially appropriate impact. Then on the other extreme were the people so empathetic that they were too sensitive to ever watch even a single bit of news on TV without bursting into tears and being depressed for the rest of the day.

  Most of us lived somewhere in the middle of all this. We didn’t cry when random people got swept away in a tsunami on the other end of the world, but we’d be upset if our neighbor’s kid skinned his knee in our backyard. In a way, human nature seemed to have designed us for sociopathic indifference toward distant strangers from other tribes and caring empathy toward our own small group. Toward that end, Shannon was just extremely fine-tuned for survival.

  Being with him made me wish I’d majored in psychology rather than botany. Knowing with more authority than hunches and mere guesses how the human mind worked might come in handy here. But if it was like the other sciences, nobody really agreed on any but the most basic principles. There were theories and notions and people in this camp and others in that one. Nothing prepared one for the live study of a thing or person right there in front of you.

  I was beginning to firmly believe that Shannon did in fact feel real emotions, and not just selfish ones that only pertained to himself and his own outcome. He might not have a big circle of people he would protect and defend, but he had one. I still didn’t fully understand—and I don’t think he did either—how I came to be in it, but nevertheless, there I was.

  And despite his warnings to scare me before going to his parents’ house, I was convinced he felt more than casual disinterest toward them as well, even if the feelings were vague and not strong enough to fully quantify. Like he’d said, their parenting had made a difference in the type of monster he’d grown into. He had to feel something with regards to that. Didn’t he? Also, I was pretty sure if his house were on fire, he’d grab the white cat on his way out the door.

  Shannon sat in a sleek gray chair across the room, quietly observing me while I had my coffee and toast.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He just nodded.

  The tray was a simple white porcelain. Plain. Zen. Minimalist like everything else he owned. The plates were square and white as if ready for gourmet edible art to be splashed across them to the delight of some food critic somewhere. The coffee cup was plain and white as well, steam still rising up off the hot black brew.

  Along with the toast, he’d brought raspberry jam. He’d already slathered the butter on, so that it would soften and melt against the heat of the bread. I spread the jam on top and poured some cream he’d brought in a tiny white creamer into my coffee. He knew by now that I didn’t take sugar, so he hadn’t brought any.

  Shannon watched me like this for a while, but he didn’t speak until I had finished both my toast and my coffee. When the last crumb of toast and the last drop of coffee were gone, he finally spoke.

  “What was it about this new nightmare that was bad enough for you to come to my room? You never came to my room before.” His words didn’t seem accusatory or annoyed, merely curious.

  I looked up, startled. “You knew I had nightmares before last night?”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard you scream in the night.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d called out in my sleep.

  “And you didn’t say or do anything?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “You didn’t call for me. You didn’t come to me. I assumed that you wanted to deal with it on your own and that you required space.”

  This was exactly why I wasn’t a useless ball of human rolled up in the fetal position on the floor all the time. Shannon had the most amazing sense of space I’d ever encountered in another human being. It occurred to me that some measure of his coldness wasn’t garden variety coldness because he was dead inside or whatever, but was instead an expression of trying to project what he would want onto someone else. It just seemed to him like the natural thing to do.

  I had the sense that, in general, Shannon didn’t give a damn what other people wanted in any circumstance really, but if he did give a damn, it seemed more likely he’d think about what he would want instead of trying to guess at how other people’s minds and emotions operated.

  It was only the fact that what he wanted was so very different from what the general population wanted that someone could interpret it as a total lack of empathy—or at least this was what I kept telling myself.

  “What was different about this nightmare?” Shannon asked again.

  I hesitated, unsure if I should tell him. But in the end, I faltered beneath his hard, expectant stare. “The other nightmares were about the park. This one was something that happened in my life before the park.”

  His position against the supple leather shifted ever so slightly, his calm exterior disturbed by the tiniest ripple... of something. “You remember? Your life?”

  I nodded. “A lot of it is still fuzzy, but I imagine that’s probably true of a lot of normal people, too. Nobody remembers everything that ever happened to them. But I remember who I am, and all the major highlights of my life, and all the important things leading up to the accident.”

  The thought suddenly struck me that before my memories came back, I had been a pure human expression of minimalism. Just like his house. Simple. Clean. But now I was complicated and messy, and I wasn’t sure how Shannon would take that.

  “And this dream...” he persisted... “What happened in it?”

  The way he asked the question was as if the option not to answer him didn’t exist. He expected to know. He demanded to know. And yet I knew that if I told him, I would be at least partly responsible for what happened n
ext, because I couldn’t pretend there wouldn’t be something that happened next. Shannon loved to kill people, and he had a whisper of feeling toward me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where that magical combination would lead. Telling him would be like giving him a big present with a giant red bow on it. I might as well gift wrap Professor Stevens and hand Shannon a knife or a gun or whatever it was he liked to kill people with.

  Against my better judgment and my better angels, I told him the dream. Telling it seemed to unlock more details of the memories I’d been trying not to see when I woke, memories that had fled in Shannon’s arms the night before but came roaring forth now that I allowed them.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as tears slipped down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop hearing the belt coming down on me. I couldn’t stop feeling the violation that I would have given anything to forget about, and for a brief shining moment in my history, I actually had. Why had it come back after so long? I knew things I’d done with Shannon must have triggered it, but why did it have to be triggered at all?

  I’d been hopeful that everything would just stay dead and buried. Some part of my subconscious must have been well aware of how much I wanted to forget and keep the past locked away in boxes I could never open again. Why hadn’t my mind listened? Things had been just fine as they were. It had seemed so unlikely after so long that I’d have to worry about any memories surfacing. But then, I’d never been in the situation to have it triggered by just the right activity before.

  “He touched what’s mine,” Shannon said quietly.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that response. It made him seem even more inhuman than he ordinarily seemed—and yet, a deep dark part of me liked that irritated sense of possession in his voice.

  It didn’t seem to matter to him that I hadn’t been his back when these events had originally unfolded. As far as Shannon was concerned, I’d been set aside for him from the moment of my creation. And someone else had the gall to touch me. I felt it would probably be unwise to go through the laundry list of men I’d consensually fucked, lest they end up on Shannon’s shit list as well.

  I looked up to find his blue eyes burning with an icy-hot intensity I’d never seen there before, and quite honestly hoped to never see again.

  “I have to go away for a few days. I have business to take care of.”

  At first I thought he meant my professor, but then I remembered he had a job this week. I’d forgotten it in everything that had recently happened between us.

  “Will you be okay alone a few days? Or do you want to come with me?” he asked.

  Part of me wanted to go with him, but I had the sense that he wasn’t going to not fuck me on this trip if I joined him. I’m not sure it would even occur to Shannon that such a thing might create more damage in me. I wanted to believe he cared—at least where I was concerned—but I wasn’t sure how his mind processed such things.

  I remembered the night in the castle, how intense he’d been after killing Trevor. And that had been self-defense. I imagined the whole event was even more of a rush when he stalked and hunted his prey first, when there was a bigger intentionality behind it. I wasn’t sure I could deal with being his victory fuck right now.

  “C-can I stay here?”

  Shannon nodded. “I think that would be best.”

  Without another word, he got up and dragged a suitcase out of the walk-in closet and started opening drawers and pulling out clothing. He neatly folded several nondescript and mostly black outfits and put them in the suitcase, then he pulled out a few large hard black cases that contained several guns and a few knives.

  I sat dumbfounded in bed, wondering if he’d forgotten I was there altogether while he checked each blade—for what, I couldn’t imagine... sharpness? Acceptable murder ability? Then he went through some kind of function or safety check for each of the guns. I’m really not sure. I watched as he dropped magazines, pulled parts of the gun back and looked inside, flipped small plastic switches on and off, racked slides, and finally pressed each trigger. Satisfied with whatever he was checking for, he replaced his weapons in their cases. He added several boxes of ammunition to the suitcase with his clothes and sealed everything up. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be flying commercial with this load of weaponry—if he was going far enough away to fly at all. Maybe he’d take the car.

  He lined his bags up by the door and peeled his clothing off. I flinched at his nudity. And it made me angry at myself. I was starting to not even give a shit what he did for a living or how much he liked it. I’d wanted Shannon. I liked Shannon. Way more than I should. And I still wanted him, but in light of my memories... I just wasn’t sure if my present with Shannon and my past traumas could play well together—or at all. I was hoping to have a few days’ break from him to sort myself out somehow.

  He came over to my side of the bed, moved the breakfast tray out of the way, and offered me his hand. “Come shower with me. Then I have to leave.”

  If he noted my hesitation, he didn’t say anything. He just patiently waited for my inevitable capitulation. Finally, I took his hand and let him lead me to the bathroom. I leaned against the counter while he got the water to the right temperature and got towels ready for us.

  When he was finished, he gave me a once over. “Are you planning to shower with your pajamas on?”

  It didn’t seem to occur to him that my memories might now affect what happened between us. I mean, Shannon is not a stupid man. Surely, if he sat down and thought it through, he could at least intellectually grasp the situation. Or maybe he was already well aware and just didn’t care because he’d determined that I was his and that was that.

  When I didn’t reply or start to remove sleepwear, he came over and did it himself. Again, I flinched, and again he ignored it. There was a part of me that was somehow offended that his entire reaction to my traumatic retelling of what had happened with my professor had elicited nothing more than mild pouting on his part.

  Even though I knew it was wrong, I’d briefly fantasized that he would go kill that bastard. And a part of me liked that fantasy. I very much doubted Shannon would let me leave to go finish my degree, but Stevens should fucking pay either way. And I knew there was no way he’d end up paying through the criminal justice system. I wanted him to have to pay through Shannon’s justice system because I imagined it was far more satisfying and that it was a system that wouldn’t victimize me yet again in the quest for a fair trial. Fuck a fair trial. I knew what that monster had done, and that was all that mattered to me. Why should I have to prove it to a bunch of random strangers who weren’t there? Why couldn’t this be my business? Mine and Shannon’s.

  It was unnerving to fully realize I felt this way because I’d told myself that I didn’t want Shannon to do anything. And yet... with his reaction so minimal, I found I really did want him to do something. I was tempted to flat out ask him to do it. Hell, I had money; I could pay his fees. I mean, he had access to my money, so he could just steal it, I guess. But I could be a paying customer, no problem. It didn’t have to be some personal favor or lover’s vendetta.

  “Elodie,” Shannon said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Get in the shower. I don’t have time for this.”

  By this point, I was past flinching and cringing. I mean, realistically, I shouldn’t be. But I was so caught up in this revenge fantasy that I couldn’t be bothered with the supposed trauma of Shannon touching me.

  I can say one thing with certainty. If Shannon were a normal man handling me like something breakable, trying to soothe all my damage and trauma, trying not to trigger me, I would never have been able to let a man touch me again. I would have built it up too far in my head. I wanted to believe Shannon knew this, but I’m not sure he did. I’m not sure he cared. And I’m not sure I cared because the fact that he wasn’t coddling me and treating me like a fragile piece of china was likely the only thing that made his touch okay.

  He took m
y hands and pressed my palms flat against the shower tile.

  “Do not move your hands. Do you understand?” he growled against my ear.

  “Y-yes, Sir.”

  I lowered my head to let the hot water hit my neck and roll down my back as Shannon ran his soapy hands over me. I tensed, waiting for something dramatic. A panic attack. A sobbing fit. Begging and pleading.

  But instead of crying or begging, what came out of my mouth was a low, throaty moan. My body reacted to him just as it had before without even the slightest hint that there was any reason for it to behave differently. My body and mind stubbornly clung to and affirmed Shannon’s possession of me.

  He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and to the side out of the way of the spray. “You are mine. My filthy little whore. Say it.”

  Those words shouldn’t have had positive results, but when Shannon said it, he wasn’t judging me. There was no hatred or disgust in his voice. It reflected nothing more than a sexual kink that helped him get nearer to feeling something more human.

  My body happily skipped along to his beat, the warmth and tingling already starting between my legs. My nerve endings didn’t give a shit what Professor Stevens had done and refused to let my conscious brain fuck up whatever this thing with Shannon was. Good. Because before that incident at school, I’d secretly and maybe not-so-secretly longed for a relationship like this one. Private kinky parties at the frat house and a little bit of play at a few clubs here and there just hadn’t been enough. I’d wanted something more stable and lasting.

  “I’m your filthy little whore, Sir.”

  “No one else will ever touch you again, do you understand?”

  “Y-yes, Sir.”