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Just like that night last week, he stands a few feet away from me, his hands thrust into his pockets. And again just like that night, I’m glued and trapped to this spot.
With his head bent, he asks, “But first why don’t you tell me what you are doing here.”
I swallow, my fingers digging on the wall. “Was she your girlfriend?”
He breathes sharply at my non-answer. “No.”
“So then why were you kissing her?”
“Because she’s not my girlfriend.”
“She was awful,” I say truthfully.
“Beyond.”
“How did she know my mother?” I ask, fully expecting him not to answer. “What did my mother do to her?”
But he surprises me and replies, “She stole Cynthia’s boyfriend. Back in high school.” Then, “Or something similar.”
“What?”
“And since those were the best years of Cynthia’s life, she’s still not over that.”
“Oh my God,” I breathe out. “Charlie stole Cynthia’s boyfriend?”
“It’s okay. She survived.”
Did you?
Because from the looks of it, he didn’t.
He hasn’t.
He’s still living that, whatever it is that my mother did.
“And what did my mother do to you?” I ask, this time knowing that he would never tell me.
And he doesn’t.
Instead he asks, “How about you answer my question now and tell me what you’re doing here?”
I’m here to know all your secrets.
I’m here to ruin you.
“Is she your fuck buddy then?” I ask. “Cynthia.”
His jaw hardens at the F word.
“What,” I ask, lifting my chin and inching up my glasses, “you think I don’t know the meaning of a fuck buddy?”
His nostrils flare. “Start talking.”
I don’t. I keep pursuing this for some reason.
“You think I’m too innocent and young to know about these things,” I provoke. “For your information, I’m not. I’m not too young or innocent to know about these things. I know what fuck buddies are.”
His jaw begins ticking again.
But I don’t stop. “I know what kissing is.”
Another tick.
“And I also know what fucking is.”
Another tick, this one harder.
“In fact,” I add, craning my neck and going up on my tiptoes, “I’ve done it myself.”
Wrong thing to say.
So very, very wrong.
I’m not even sure why I said it.
Except I couldn’t not.
I couldn’t not bait him in this moment. I couldn’t not mess with his control.
With his ticking jaw and flaring nostrils.
But now that I have, he’s awake.
I’ve awoken the beast and his chest expands on a wave of a breath. He takes his hand out of his pocket and puts it on the wall up above my head, hanging over me, pushing me down on my feet without even laying a hand on me.
Then, hanging there, looming, he rumbles, “You’ve been fucked.”
I wince, clutching my skirt. “I have.”
“When?”
“M-many times.”
“Where?”
“A lot of places.”
“Who?”
This question is growled.
This question has been ripped out of his chest. I can tell.
I can feel the vibrations of it in my own chest, and it makes lying to him even harder.
Because I am lying.
I haven’t been fucked. I haven’t even been kissed yet.
I’ve been waiting for it.
For my first kiss, since I was fifteen. Since I fell in love with Jimmy.
But in this moment, it’s imperative that he knows, that my devil guardian knows, that I’ve been fucked and I’ve been kissed and I’ve been around the block many times.
So I say, “A lot of guys, okay? A lot. I have experience. I’m not some naive little girl who doesn’t know anything.”
Now his fingers are vibrating, the ones on the wall.
I can see them in my peripheral vision.
And his voice goes even lower. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” I swallow. “You didn’t think that you’d tear me apart from the love of my life and send me here, and that would be it, did you? That I’d sit in a room, all trapped and crying. No. I went out. I did things. I met guys and I seduced them all. I’m quite the seductress.”
“Seductress.”
“Yes, and guess what, I liked it, too.”
“You liked what?”
“Seducing them,” I say, although I have no idea now what I’m saying. “I loved seducing them. I loved bringing them to their knees. I loved it when they begged me and cried out for me. Yes, I did and —”
“Shut up.” My breaths are all jumbled up now, all scattered as he leans in further. “Shut the fuck up, Poe, or I’ll make you. And I’ll do it in a way that requires you to be on your knees in front of me. Because I don’t like girls who run their mouths, who tease. I like my girls wrecked and ruined. I like them to soak my shirt with their tears and my sheets with their juices. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop talking bullshit and you’ll start telling me what the fuck you’re doing here.”
My heart is beating in my ears.
My heart is beating on my tongue.
And the words are right there.
The truth.
That I came here to find out things about him. That I came here to spy. That I’m plotting something, planning something.
