He leads me to the table where, at the end closest to the window are two placemats and a small spread of food.
“Guest, I do like that,” he tells me, directing me to one of the chairs. I’m not even surprised when he then straps me to it, as if I were a toddler and might fall out of the seat. “Sounds much better than prisoner.”
He winks at me, the shade of his eyes reminiscent of snow in the sunshine even on a day as grim as this one. I can’t look away from his face. It’s absurdly symmetrical, yet not entirely perfect. Sevastyan has beauty spots, and one of his eyelashes curls out of place, like the proof that he’s in fact human.
There’s no cutlery in front of me, so I wonder whether I’m expected to eat from a bowl like a dog. For years, I’ve been frustrated by how Sevastyan seems to have everything I don’t, and now he’s taken the one thing I still had. My freedom.
I stay silent because the ball’s in his court. My hands are tied. Literally.
He sits with his body turned toward me, so his warm knee pokes mine as he uncovers the bowl in front of me. The intense scent of chicken and comforting broth comes up along with vapor, and I stare at the green peas and corn floating inside the savory porridge alongside chunks of meat.
“Hope you’re not vegetarian,” he tells me, but when I open my mouth, he quickly scoops a spoonful, blows on it, and shoves it past my lips.
I amnotvegetarian, but it’s still unnerving how he didn’t wait for an answer. Is it any consolation that the food is delicious? Maybe he’s just fattening me up for… for what?
“What’s the meat?” I ask with my mouth full, because my mind doesn’t like where it found itself.
“My previous victim,” he says without pause, but then winks as the morsel expands in my throat. I’m way more worried about him opening my journal in front of me ashe blows on the next spoonful. “I’m surprised you haven’t chosen a recipe for the perfect Sevastyan roast. This level of obsession is dangerous. You must be fanatical about my art.” He taps the pages.
A cloud much darker than the ones outside settles over me. “I’m not,” I lie right before he feeds me again. Is he afraid to give me a spoon? What would I do with it? Throw it at him? “It’s complicated,” I say as I chew. I shift my head a few times so hair falls over my droopy eye. I’m so self-conscious about being around this incredibly gorgeous man. It’s as if this cruel bastard possessed the body of Apollo himself.
“Then why did you imagine—” he moves on by a few pages, then feeds me another spoon of the porridge before rubbing my handwriting with the tip of his finger. “Strapping me to a chair, taping my portrait to my face, and painting me this way?” he asks with genuine curiosity.
Fuck, he must think I’m a complete nutjob.
Maybe I am. I did break into his house based on an elaborate revenge fantasy I constructed in my head over years of unhinged jealousy and anger. And here he is, just as heavenly as his self-portraits, the only lie being that he’s even more perfect in person.
My eye itches, so I rub it quickly with bound hands.
“I just… I didn’t think you actually look like this,” I mumble as he frowns and flips to another page, this one with a crude sketch of a man with his face ripped off and hung on the wall next to him. Under the drawing, I wroteyou get what you deserve.
“I’m confused,” Sevastyan says with a little frown. “You didn’t even bring a knife, so did you plan to do this when you took me wherever you live, or—”
“I wasn’t going to do it! It just… I had a rough day, okay?”
“...because I have very good chef-grade knives right here,” he tells me, pointing out a wooden block on the counter. My chest tightens, and fear must have showed on my face, because he shushes me and squeezes my cheeks, leaning in to kiss my forehead. “I was only joking, pet. Nothing bad will happen to you on my watch. All my days are good, so why spoil them with unnecessary cleanup?”
Isthisa joke too? Sevastyan’s sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired.
He doesn’t seem to notice that the quip didn’t land and browses through my diary, his fingertips lingering on the pages containing sketches. “But there’s more this notebook reveals. More than the crazy,” he says with a vague gesture at the side of his head. “You have talent.”
I’m still stuck on his soft lips against my skin. It was a patronizing peck from a monster, but no one touches me like this. Ever.
“Are you mocking me?” I finally dare meet his eyes. I can take a lot of bullshit, but I take my art seriously. “Just because you have all the money, connections, and exhibitions? You think you’re so much better than me?”
His eyes are so damn blue. He must be wearing contact lenses, because a color so rich couldn’t be natural… or maybe it’s just that someone as gray and washed out as me can’t cope with this level of beauty?
“The only thing worth mocking in this journal are fantasies you claim you don’t actually want to fulfil,” he says, turning the pages to a particularly sexual drawing. “Personally, I like to make mine reality, and since yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the beautiful way you cry.”
I shouldn’t have lashed out.
He sighs. “Once again, I’m baffled, because this looks like me.” He points to the powerful, muscular man kneeling behind the figure he’s fucking. The bottom is smaller,naked, hands bound behind his back, and his whole head buried in the ground. “But I look like I’m having the time of my life, and the other notes suggest you hate my guts, so which one is it?”
I swallow and reluctantly glance at the picture. “It’s you fucking theactual you,” I explain, resigned to my fate. “Which I now know is not true, because you are in fact… you.”
“So, in other words, we could extrapolate that this has now become me fucking you?” he asks, and the corner of his mouth twitches as he leans closer, watching me. “This picture, it’s not meant to be ugly. It’s charged with lust.”
My toes curl. I have never felt so small in my life, and yet I think about that kiss to the forehead, the way he watched my back… Is he…?
