Taylor guides me against something cold and metal, binding my tied hands to it so that I am squatting low to the floor with my legs spread open. Now, deeper in the shadows, I cannot see the eyes on me, I cannot view the stares of arousal, but I feel them all over, prickling like needle points on my skin.
He slides two fingers inside of me and rubs the pad of his hand against my clit. The sensation is overwhelming; I have so craved his touch, that even though it’s not his dick, I am desperate to have him inside of me in some way. I moan, thrusting my hips towards him. I do not to call out his name, but it stays on the tip of my tongue as I mouth it without uttering it out loud. His fingers curve up massaging inside at the exact spot that will make me come, but I know that would be too soon, he will draw this out as long as he can.
I am not sure what it is; if the adrenaline has worn off, or the fugue of my shock has dissipated, but I feel exposed. One moment I am in a cloudy haze, desperate to feel through Taylor, to have no ownership of myself and then in the next it’s like an ice cold bucket of water is splashed across my face. As though someone switched on all the lights and forced us all to remove our masks.
What am I doing here? Why would I allow these strangers to see every vulnerable part of me while I am in such a fragile and confused state? In a flash I go from numbness to sensory overload, and sudden paranoia strikes me. I was right, Taylor bringing me here would make me feel something other than the melancholy, fear and confusion, but it’s too much at once, and all the new sensations are coated in a film of shame.
“Red,” I say, but the word barely makes it out of my mouth. “Red,” I call loud enough to feel Taylor stop.
I feel him crouch beside me. He whispers: “Shy, did you say?”
“Yes. I want to leave this room. Please.”
“Yes, hold on. You’re okay.” Just like that, Master Holden is my Taylor again. I feel ashamed that I begged him to travel all this way, but this is too much too soon. I thought I wanted to do anything, but the eyes of the gallery I cannot trust the way I trust Taylor. Behind their masks, they judge me for the murderous whore I have become. Taylor grabs his shirt and places it over my shoulders, covering my body, and takes me into the anteroom, locking the doors so that we are in privacy.
He whips off my mask, tossing it on the nearest chair. The glow of his bluish eyes through the eyeholes of his mask reflect the dim light in the room as he looks at me assuredly. “It’s okay. We’re done.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I want to be this for you, for me, and I thought…I thought I could do it. I liked it and then suddenly I was terrified. All those people.”
“It’s my fault. I pushed you too far.”
“I told you to.”
“That doesn’t matter. I should have known better. We don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to do. This is for both of our enjoyments. You have to remember that.”
I nod. “I want to, but can we just take it back home? To our darkroom? I’m not saying we can’t come back here. I just…my mind isn’t clear.”
“Of course.” Taylor extends his hand out to me, pulling me into his chest. The firmness of his muscles and the gentle thud of his heartbeat calm me. But something inside of me is aching, it’s the nagging questions, the ones I am afraid could be true. How can I feel so safe in his arms yet at the same time wonder if Taylor is keeping something from me? Is it so wrong to love the devil if he loves you back?
He sits on a chair and pulls me onto his lap. I curl up into a ball and then the tears flow. “I didn’t mean to push you,” he says softly.
“It’s not that…I…it’s what happened yesterday.”
Taylor sighs, “It will pass. In time, the memories will dull. Eric was trying to hurt us. You know that, Shy. I don’t understand why you’re so torn up over this.”
He doesn’t, he’ll never understand. “He said things…Taylor, he said things that you did.”
I feel Taylor catch his breath, his whole body goes rigidly alert. I have to tell him; I can’t sit with these things.
“What did he say?” Taylor asks firmly.
“That…that he thinks…that you set him up as a child…that not everything is as it appears…”
“This is not the time or place to talk about this shit.” Taylor helps me to my feet and stands up. We’re going home.
“I just want to talk.”
“We will not fucking discuss this here. What did I say about your behavior in this place?”
“My behavior? I—“
“Not another fucking word,” Taylor says with an eerie calm that stops me in my tracks.
We dress and I follow Taylor back to the car in silence. Then the dam breaks once I sit in the passenger seat, as another bout of uncontrollable sobbing pours out of me. Taylor knows I cried earlier, but when I see the look in his eyes, I realize he had no idea of the depth of my melancholy.
“Shyla? Hey, Shyla…” He reaches over to caress me but, I cannot be consoled. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what is real and what is a lie. I don’t know who I can trust. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong. I just don’t know anything anymore. Everything about the world I knew is worthless. It’s like I was born all over again and I have become a new version of myself.
There are no tangible feelings I can grasp. I just want to vanish for a while.
I cannot express where the tears are coming from, they just are.
All I can do is cry.
Chapter 3
Seven Days After Eric’s Death
I am in the field again, drowning in terror. My legs have gone numb, the air around me inaccessible as I swallow desperately. This time, the field is dark; in fact, I can’t see anything, but I smell the dewy grass and damp earth around me. That used to be one of my favorite smells: the scent of the world cleansing itself, but now it will always make my heart race like it wants to self-destruct. Despite my inability to see my surroundings, I know who is in my presence. Beneath the numbing cloak of horror I feel one thing: the hard, cold barrel of a gun to my temple.
“Please don’t hurt him!” I call out. There is no answer, the hand around my arm tightens its grip. “Just take me, I can’t live without him!” I cry. The paralyzing fear causes my knees to buckle, but the hand on my arm pulls me back up. “If you kill him, I’ll kill myself. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking make you regret you ever touched him!” The barrel of the gun butts against my temple.
Then silence and blackness.
And while I am standing in a pitch dark field, I know what is happening all around me. I know Eric is holding a gun to my head, I know Taylor is feet away, trying to figure out a way to get me back. But I can only wait.
Then the sun begins to rise, a ray of light cuts across the field, and I squint my eyes as I focus on the men across from me.
There is not one, but two of them. I gasp as I realize Taylor is neither. It’s Eric and Rick. They are waving their hands in the air in desperation, screaming, but no sound emerges from them, as if they were muted.
“Where’s Taylor? What have you done with him!” I scream, fearing I am already too late. Their movements are in slow motion, slow enough for me to recognize the despair in Eric’s clear blue eyes. His eyes are alive. Just as quickly as I marvel at the life in Eric’s eyes, I realize both Eric and Rick aren’t looking at me, they are looking behind me, begging someone to stop.
Quickly, I whip around to face the person gripping my arm, the same person who is holding a gun to my head.
It’s him.
His eyes grow dark, the green dominating the blue, the black of his pupils overcoming the color in his eyes. He smirks devilishly, and then before I can say a word, he pulls the trigger.
***
Taylor presses his body against me as I flail, trying to calm me, but seeing it is him who is holding me down only triggers greater panic as I am unable to separate the nightmare from reality.
>
“Shhh…shhh…” He cradles me when I finally submit and realize he is not the person in my dream. This is my Taylor, not the Taylor of my nightmares. His scent soothes me, the warmth of his long arms engulfs me. “Shyla, you need to tell me about these nightmares.”
I simply nod. I don’t want to tell him he murders me in my dreams. It would make him think Eric had some sort of victory before his death.
“I don’t remember…” I lie.
“It’s the same one every time, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know…” I say, shivering in his arms, drenched in sweat from the intensity of the terrors.
“Let me help you. Shyla, you can’t go on like this.” A concern creeps into his voice, not general concern for my well-being, but I sense he is beginning to think something is terribly wrong with me.
“I’ll be fine. I just need some time. The antidepressants, the doctor told us they would help.” Two days ago Taylor insisted the doctor make a house call. I knew he was right and held myself together long enough to schedule the appointment. I didn’t even know my doctor did house calls, but I guess money opens up access to everything. She was my regular gyno who I had gone to for years. She knew my history of cutting, and she mentioned that while many women were afraid to see a psychiatrist, short-term depression is normal and often responds to antidepressants. I always assured her that I was fine, that my mental health had been stable for a long time. I was so foolishly confident and scoffed at the idea of ever being in a position to need such things.
And now, here I was calling her, telling her about the “assault,” and how I haven’t been the same since. It wasn’t difficult to get the antidepressants after that. After all, that’s what this had to be: some sort of acute depression or shock. I had seen it in all the commercials, the bouncy ball that walks around with a cloud over his head. It felt a lot like that, except it was more like I was buried in sand up to my neck, and I waited in terror for the tide to come in, and then it would, just below my nose, so that I could breath, but barely. The tide of sadness was suffocating when it came, and I found little relief when it went. Some moments were more bearable that others, but even in the moments when the intense tide pulled back, I was still buried up to my neck, waiting in helpless terror for something horrible to happen.
“You need a shower, you’re soaked.” I nod, and pull away from him to walk to the master bath. “No,” he tightens his embrace. “Let me do this for you. Please.”
A lamp on his nightstand casts a gentle white hue onto his tender expression, so far from the sinister demon who stared down at me from the barrel of a gun.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Taylor is just in a pair of boxers, so that his skin touches mine at every possible point of contact. My thin spaghetti-strap slip sticks to my damp skin. He shifts so that he can plant his feet on the floor and then he stands tall with me still in his arms. I clasp my hands around his strong neck and bury my face into the safety of its crook. His smell is more calming than any aromatherapy. In the bathroom, Taylor gently sets me down. Instead of switching on the lights, he lights a few candles. He turns on the taps, and as the deep soaking tub begins to fill, he adds fragrant bath salts and oils from jewel-like glass jars to the water.
Taylor turns to me, the orange flames of the candles dancing against the blue of his eyes, and despite how dead I feel right now, my heart skips. I have no doubt that he is the most beautiful person on the planet. Slowly, he paces towards me, and I involuntarily tense just from his presence nearing me. Finally, we are eye-to-eye, just an inch away, as I feel his breaths against the tiny hairs on my hairline.
He takes me in carefully, sadly, and pushes away a few strands of hair that have stuck to my cheeks.
“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to talk. I’ll take care of you. I know you are hurting, but the nightmares, the fear, it will all get better.”
How can he say this? He has lived with the nightmares for 25 years. How can he honestly tell me they will stop? But I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to question him about these things. I really do just want him to love me, to make me forget right now, even if it’s just for a short while.
He glides his middle finger across my collarbones and my nipples betray me by firming up against the thin fabric of the slip. He traces a trail up to my shoulder and slides against the thin strap. He does the same on the other side, and the slip wilts to the floor.
Now I am bare, completely vulnerable to him. My body wants him and I can tell, by the pitch in his boxers, that he wants me too.
“You are so incredibly beautiful. And I don’t think you will ever understand how I see you. Every time I look at you it’s like it’s the first time,” he says, kissing me softly on the forehead. I press my chest up against his torso, and he holds me for a moment, but then turns back to the tub and turns off the flow of water. He sits on the edge of the tub.
“Come here,” he says, offering his hand. I take it and he guides me into the steamy water. At first it stings, but once the it reaches my neck, I am glad he chose the hot water. It feels safe and melts the deep tension in my muscles.
“Are you coming in?” I ask.
“No,” he says, grabbing a huge sponge. He selects one of the glass jars from the side of the tub, studies it for a moment, and then tips out some of its aromatic contents onto the sponge. “Want to stand up?” he asks, somewhat playfully.
Though the bathroom is warm, goosebumps bloom all over my body from the contrast of the steamy water as I stand. He squeezes the soft sponge until an abundance of suds erupt and then he drizzles them over my shoulder so that a warm soapy trail finds its way down my torso like a small brook. He does it again over my other shoulder and then drops the sponge so it floats listlessly along the faint waves of the bath. With his large hands he spreads the slick, soapy mixture along my arms, across my back, my stomach, the mounds of my bottom, my legs.
I watch in admiration of his tenderness, and it tears at me. How could I ever think he would harm me or lie to me? How can he be capable of the most selfless and intimate acts, and yet also gun down someone with out a hint of regret?
My thoughts quickly come back to the present moment when his thumbs slick over my nipples, forming gentle circles. My breathing becomes shallow. There are so many sides to Taylor that make him sexy, but this side, this one here, where he makes me into the singular focus of his world, might be the sexiest. I reach out to him, but he gently stops my hand.
“No,” he says with soft firmness.
We haven’t been with each other since the night at the club, and while I have been distant, sleeping most of the day away between nightmares and giving in to uncontrollable fits of melancholic crying, I now realize how much I miss having him kiss me, and touch me, and the unity of our bodies as he thrusts himself inside of me. I know he misses it too. Let’s face it, while he has been patient, he’s perfectly happy to get a sexual release every day, several times a day.
I nod, letting him take care of me the way he does. One of his hands glides over and squeezes the flesh of my left breast, while the other glides down past my belly, over the soft mound between my legs, and three of his fingers effortlessly glide into me.
I let out a quiet moan. The pad of his palm rubs along the outside as he makes a beckoning motion with the fingers inside me. He presses so deeply into me with his strong hand, that I feel he’s almost elevating me from the floor.
“Taylor…” I moan, opening my eyes for a second to witness his restrained passion. He is just a man, and I know he wants nothing more than to slide inside of me, but he has already made some sort of internal commitment not to. “Please…” I beg. I want to touch him.
“No,” he says again, but this time his voice is breathy. I can tell his will is waning.
He continues massaging with his fingers inside of me, making me moan and purr weakly, surrendering to his masculine, firm hands as they play with my nipples and pussy. Because there is nothing I
can do with my own hands, I run them through my wet hair and glide them all over my slick body, squeezing and pinching at the taut flesh, completely overwhelmed with the desire to have Taylor but unable to follow through.
I choke out another weak moan, dipping my head back and sliding my hands up my neck, over my face and gripping my hair at the roots. “Please Taylor…I want to feel you,” I whisper.
“Fuck,” he says, like my last plead somehow snips the final thread restraining his desire. He pulls his fingers out of me and the water violently crests and splashes over the tub and onto the bathroom floor as he grips me by my ass and pulls me out of the tub. I wrap my legs around his hips, water cascading off of my legs, soaking his boxers. His chest quivers underneath mine as if he has been holding in his own emotions and desires for so long that they are bursting out of him faster than his body can control, like pressurized air bursting through a tiny puncture. His feet slip and slide along the tile as he leads me to a wall, landing against it with a thud.
“I didn’t want it to happen like this tonight…” he says into my neck, as his voice trembles under his sexual desire.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think you’re ready. I didn’t want to make this about me.”
“It’s not about you, it’s about us.”
“Fuck,” Taylor says, biting my neck as I arch it forward. “Shy…”
“Please, just let go Taylor. I’ll be okay.” Those words are lies, but I need him right now, like this, right this instant.
He nods as I slide one leg down to the floor. Then Taylor guides the hand that was inside of me against my cheek, as I close my eyes and rub my face against it, mouthing at the flesh under his thumb. Then he glides his fingers over my mouth, their weight distorting the plump flesh, allowing me to taste myself on his fingers as I suckle on the tips.
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