She’s nothing like the woman I saw in here the first time. She’s grown from there, strengthened and primed for me now. Ready to take me on in the right moment, should she need to. Force me to admit myself, pushing us forward as she does.
Minutes pass, both of us glaring at each other, push and damn pull finding no damn balance at all, and then she walks in front of the main door, attempting to block me from leaving.
“If you leave this apartment without me and avoid this topic once more, you’ll never walk back in it. I want to know about Eloise.” Her tone makes me check the storm inside, push it away and narrow my gaze of her. She’s soft with it, calmed all of a sudden from the venomous insult she was going to distribute. “No touching me. No touching this.” She slides her hands, one of them heading towards her cunt. “No clamps or pain, Blaine. No ropes or cuffs. Nothing. Do you understand me?” There’s another seductive roll of her tongue across her mouth, a tease that could bring me to my knees if I overthought the issue. “It’ll be done. You’ll have lost me and our future. I’ll never walk that beach with you. Never let you on me. Never kneel. Never kiss you.” She doesn’t move as she stares back, nor flinch as I step towards her ready to move the pretentious little madam out of my way, or fuck her for being too tempting for words. “I’m finding you, Blaine. I am and you know it.” Bitch. Loathsome little fuck toy. “Let me.” I growl, more annoyed with myself than her. “I would rather suffer without you than have something half fucking whole.”
Half whole.
Blood pools in my mouth as I glare back at her and chew at my cheek, the pain rendered inconsequential because of her demand on me.
Not one living creature has fucked with me the way she is doing now. Never have I been tested further than by myself until her. And I still don’t understand how she does it. She’s inside me even now, her fluids mixing with mine somehow, forcing information about me she has no right to have until I’m ready to give it to her.
“Fuck you.” It grates out of me, muttered under my breath for reasons I can’t comprehend.
She moves into me, her fucking body mesmerising me as she glides the distance between us. It makes me want to rip her to shreds for daring to intrude.
“You made me this way, Blaine,” she says, her detestable little mouth smiling at me as she stops. I couldn’t adore her more for it. “You pulled all this out of me from somewhere, turned me into a changed me. Made me raw and new.” I did, but it was always there, just waiting for me to help her find it. Fucks like her aren’t made, they’re just enhanced when the right mind finds them to play with. “At least do me the curtesy of explaining why you did if not to let me help you.”
My fingers twitch in my pockets, as my eyes slight further at her petulant little smile. Madam needs beating, and then fucking until she can’t breathe. Clever little bitch. I tap my own thigh, allowing some calm to come back, all the time pushing barriers down to monsters and magicians.
“Get dressed,” I growl out, not knowing what the fuck I’m doing nor caring for the eventuality of it any longer. It will either be or will not be. She wants it all, she can go lay on that odious fucking slab and feel the potential aftermath of such insane manoeuvrings around my mind.
Fucking broken pots with little shards that fit into crevices. Seas with no meaning unless she’s drowning in them. Homes with no warmth unless she’s residing in them. It’s all a fucking lonesomeness of empty and insincere suddenly. Something I was comfortable with before her, safe within, if not bored by. But now, watching as she walks away, a smile still attached to her edible little mouth as she goes to get clothing, I’m not. It’s as irksome as the sight of her ass tempting me with no thought whatsoever. She’ll fucking tempt me with that forever, won’t she?
I snarl at her and walk to Cole again, glaring at his stupidity as I drag him out of the vomit he’s laid in. Fucking delinquent. And what was he doing with her in the first place? Trying to gain information I should think. Dig into me, just like she is doing. He shouldn’t. He should leave us the way we are, at least he holds an element of respect for me that way.
“You’re still there, aren’t you?” she calls.
I grunt in response, not able to form coherent sentences for her yet as I wander to the bathroom and watch her get in the shower. She’s too far inside for me to know the correct thing to say. Too deep for my magician to manoeuvre around anymore, and too entrenched for my monster to stay away from. I snatch a wet washcloth and go back to Cole, wondering why that not so quiet threat of hers was enough to tip me over the edge. Perhaps that’s all I need from her, the continued intimidation that she’ll leave if I don’t cooperate.
The thought galls me more as I wipe at my near comatose brother’s mouth, listening to her hum a triumphant tune, and then lift him to take him to the bedroom. He can stay here while we do this, sleep it off and then explain to me why the hell he was ever within ten feet of my woman.
“Sweet,” she says, as she walks out behind me and finds me covering him with her duvet. “Not so arsehole like.” Bitch. I might even fuck her on that slab for the remark, make sure she understands what’s coming for her should she choose to stay afterwards. “He okay?”
Still I grunt at her, choosing no words at all rather than the confused diatribe that might slip from me should she push any further. I can still smell her from the last time we were here, still sense the feel of her in my hand when I had her against this wall, amusing myself with something I had no comprehension of at the time. Love. It’s misbalancing. It causes an unclear route, one lined with break points and delineations I don’t care to ponder much more.
“This isn’t talking Blaine.”
“You’ve riled me enough for talk to be irrelevant to conversation,” I snap, turning to face her and finding perfection in the guise of fluid limbs and soft skin. That riles me too, the look of her in a floral dress and heels exactly what I wanted to see her in. How does she do that, know what I need from her? Maybe I taught her that without realising I was doing. “Have you eaten?”
“What?”
“Breakfast?”
“Erm. No, not other than your ..” She points at my cock. “You know.”
She sniggers and turns for her coat, somehow not bothered at all by my grunting and aggravated stance. She either can’t see it, or simply doesn’t care for the ramifications of it any longer. It’s something that should worry me. It doesn’t. It actually causes a smile to come from deep inside, forging itself through my frustration until it’s smirking at her as she wanders away.
Perhaps this is what love is for me, a constant riddle of not knowing and second guessing, rather than the constancy of always understanding everything before the rest of the world does.
“You’re ass looks good in that.”
“Why, thank you,” she replies, picking up her keys and swinging her coat over her shoulders to leave. Leave. Yes. We should leave and get on with this, not deviate from the destination at hand. It’s the one thing we both need. The completion of facts. The show of the last final shove. Backwards, only to go forwards. If she’ll have me.
Fuck, I hate her.
~
“You’re still not speaking, Blaine.”
She’s right. I’m not. I haven’t spoken since we left, other than to order some food at this restaurant and be polite. I’m avoiding conversation. I’m unable to make any of it sound rational. Other than the one thing we need to talk about, which I’m not ready to talk about let alone show her. I’m not interested in anything else but fucking her again. It’s why I deviated from my own agenda and let her walk me to this place a few blocks away. Maybe I thought the subject could still be avoided if I ate something, but every time I look at her, or watch her become nervous because of my silence, it makes me furious with my own denial. Something is crumbling inside, tearing me up and forcing me to acknowledge this love of ours, give it its rightful belief inside a bitter heart.
“You know, I had a rabbit when I was little.�
�� What? I look up from my eggs, wondering where that’s come from. “Smitten. That was its name.” I smirk a little and push the plate away, more interested in her talking than any element of this food. “I got bored with it, didn’t look after it properly. It died eventually. I was young. Careless, I suppose.” My brow rises, waiting for wherever this is going. She sits back and folds her arms, a slight wince coming as she shifts her ass around. “I don’t know if it died because of me, or whether it just died anyway. Perhaps I just wasn’t grown up enough to look after something so precious. Didn’t understand the point of it all, you know?” She shifts her body around again and leans in, her elbows resting on the table. “But I do know that things die when you don’t love them properly, Blaine.” I smile a little more, watching her plot through her conversation of inspiration and hope as I gaze into my sea. “But if you do, love them properly I mean, they should thrive, don’t you think?” I pick up my drink and take a sip, not prepared to enter the discussion until she gets it all out and finds the bit I need her to say. “Because if someone offered that amount of commitment, let themselves be looked after without any agenda other than hope,” she fiddles with a knife, tipping it about. “They’d have to be pretty sure that person would look after them, wouldn’t they?” Yes, they would. “Or they’d need to know that that person would try their hardest, show themselves openly and be honest.” Yes. A sane person would. “Because without that confirmation of trust, it would be ludicrous to put yourself in those type of hands, wouldn’t it?” I nod at that, knowing full well what she means. “Stupid really.” My smile broadens. “Do you think I should trust you further than this, with the little you give me?” I don’t answer that. I have nothing to answer it with. How would I know? It would be a lie to tell her she should and yet I will never know unless she does. I pull in a breath and gaze at the way her eyes sparkle in the morning sun, reminding me of those damn stars in the sky at home. “Is it just a leap of faith, Blaine? A hope that I won’t die?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you’ve got to give me?”
“Yes. That and something to show you.”
“Why don’t you just talk to me instead, tell me how you felt, what happened? Why?” She shifts forward, her mouth waiting for discussions I can’t give her. “Just talk, Blaine. Help me make decisions about you. I’m getting lost here and I don’t know how to find my way through you without something being given in return.” I sigh and shake my head, not knowing how to make this point clearer as I feel my own frustration rising again.
“I didn’t feel, Alana.” I mutter, contented with that fact after all these year analysing it. “I have not felt until you. Her skin was nothing but pliability and amusement. As yours is on occasion.” She frowns at me and leans away. Good, she should know the truth along with the facts. “She was my beginning, my creation in some ways. Feelings had nothing to do with anything, other than the want to cause pain.”
“But you must have felt something?” I shake my head at her, knowing she’s not going to understand this, but also knowing it has to come out for her to even try.
“I’ll say this once and hope you understand because there is no other explanation for people like me, Alana.” I stand and throw some money on the table, holding my hand out to her so we can get on with what I’ve been avoiding for too long. She looks at it, and then at me. “Come on, let’s see if you’re as strong as you think you are now.”
She slides out and follows me as I turn, her fingers linking into mine as we make our way out the doors and into the autumn air again. It makes me turn and help her with her coat, the temperature already cold enough for November’s energy.
“Where are we going?” I smile at her, a slight sadness in the pitch of it given the content she's about to see. But needs must, and if she’s to choose this route willingly, if she’s asking for all of me, then she will see the truth this time.
“I shouldn’t be out on these streets, little dove,” I say, wrapping her arm over mine and meandering my way along the avenue. It’s pretty here. This end of Manhattan always is, full of beauty and charm, not like my dirty end. It’s the reason she has her home here, some part of it resonating with who she used to be. I smile at that, remembering her as I saw her in that restaurant the first time. Dirty little smirks into phones, her fingers twirling purple stripes around her fingers. “I should probably be in a psych ward somewhere, having clinicians look over me to test my reasoning and thoughts processes.” She snorts in derision, as her heels clatter the ground beside me. “I am an abnormality of human nature, Alana, unfeeling to its normal characteristics. Probably borderline schizophrenic.” The heels stop, her arm halting me with them. “If I was diagnosing me I would have locked myself away years ago, thrown the key and abandoned all hope.” Her hand pulls away a little. I grab it back, not letting her away from the truth she wanted and turning her to face me so she understands the concept. She frowns as I run a finger along her jaw. “I have hidden in shadows most of my life, waiting for something to pull enough of me through to understand how I should be, little dove. I think you might be it.”
She stands there, her feet stumbling from the moment. Truth lies here. Monsters and magicians, professors. I chuckle slightly, amused at her look of disbelief.
“Are you saying you’re insane?” she asks. I smile again and move us on, laughing and letting the reality hit the air, finally comfortable because of it. “But. You’re a professor, Blaine, I mean…” She stumbles over her words, trying to find reasoning for argument. There isn’t any. Based on clinical conclusions and years spent evaluating my own practical evidence, the only sensible diagnosis is more than likely schizophrenia or some other similar disorder. “I don’t understand. Are you saying all sadists are mad?” I chuckle, thinking of every other one I’ve encountered, remembering their sense of solidity against my own turbulent thoughts.
“No. I’m telling you that the three personalities I have make me insane, Alana. Not all of them.” She gawps and then narrows her stare of me, flicking her eyes across my body.
“Three?”
“Three.”
She walks on with me, thinking as she continues holding my arm and formulating her next question. I smile at her, a sense of relief settling because she hasn’t run to the road to get away from me. She should. I still believe she should, or at least one part of me does. Neither of the other two give a fuck, at least one of them already working out the next vile thing they can do to her skin.
“That’s unbelievable, you know that, right?” she eventually says, little abhorrence to the statement as she processes the information. “I mean, insane, really?”
“Clinically, yes.”
Insane. Quite the word of the hour given her little conversation about trust and dreams of happiness with a sadist. I look sideways at her and carry on, allowing her a quiet moment to take a breath and let the facts sink in as deep as they can. It needs to go in. They’re not changing, and for me to give my all, for her to understand that, she needs to accepts this and become comfortable with its meaning. Learn to love it, find balance in it. Just as I do.
Chapter 19
Alana
I don’t know what to say. I didn’t twenty minutes ago and I still don’t know now as we drive down a narrow track, the rumble of gravel beneath the wheels as ominous as the feeling that’s creeping deeper into me. I’m not even sure why I got in the car with him, let alone why I’m still sitting here quiet as a mouse as he carries on forwards.
Sane people would have run. They would have picked up their things and run like the wind, choosing safety rather than the thought of absurdity. Not me, it seems. I’ve become ever more lost in whatever this is, not caring for nor believing in his explanation of insanity. He’s not insane. Three personalities my arse. Different maybe, certainly a continuing enigma of jumbled emotions, but he’s not mad. Mad people don’t do what he does. They don’t have reasoning and judgements. They’re lunatics, aren’t they? I mean, they d
on’t think like we do. They’re chaotic and frenzied, their moods changing as quick as the wind. They lash out, unable to make rational statements or decisions, let alone fit into society like the rest of us do. They’re not normal, not like Blaine and I are. We’re just a little different, that’s all. Into it, as Cole would say. We enjoy this thing we’re into. That doesn’t make us insane, though, does it? Because if he’s saying he is, then that must mean I am too because I’m still here with him now, still in this car regardless of his confession. I still love him. Still feel like I need him. Still want to reach over and touch him, have him touch me. Maybe that does make me insane. I don’t know. It’s all a bloody mess again.
“We’re here,” he says, his head nodding at a pair of dark gates that loom in the distance. I squint, trying to see the sign before we actually get to it. I don’t know where here is. He didn’t tell me where we were going, nor did I ask. I just followed, not caring for the destination. Rabbit hole or not.
Turlington Cemetery eventually comes into view, bold, loose script depicting the demise of so many.
“A cemetery?” I say, astounded at whatever that means. “Why?”
“So you can choose.”
“Choose what?”
He doesn’t say anything else to aid me, he just carries on, his face a mask of silence and harsh features. I gaze out at the unending rows of graves rather than continue questioning, and let my mind wander the pretty shingle path winding around the circumference of the parkland. It’s vast. Tall trees and planting border the area, smaller snaking paths intermingling the rows, finding their way to loved ones long since passed on. It’s lovely, if one could say that about such a place. Calm and tranquil. I end up smiling at it for some reason, perhaps feeling the sense of harmony lingering around as I watch a couple drifting the edge on their way to the gates.
He stops the car and waits there for a second or two, his fingers gripping the wheel as I look over at him and wonder what this is all about.
The End Page 27
