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I left her without any aftercare, stalked out here, and now, I can’t stand to think of going back in there and attending to her, which is so wrong. But this woman… She’s gotten under my skin to such an extent that if I stood there for one more second, I would have said or done something, revealing just how much I’m affected by her.
"You’ll catch a cold if you don’t put on your shirt." She appears next to me. "Are you sulking or something?"
"I don’t sulk," I snap.
"So, are you angry about something?" she retorts.
"Should I be angry about something?" I set my jaw.
"You tell me." She walks around to stand in front of me. "One minute, I was sure you were going to fuck me. The next, you ran out of there like you were being pursued by your monsters or something."
"I don’t run from anything." Which was the truth, until I met her. "You forget, I am the monster in this relationship." That last? Not a lie.
I’m the person who introduced her to the world of kink, and she took to it like a kid opening up presents on Christmas Day. She may have been hesitant at first, but the more she unraveled the layers of herself that had been locked away for so long, the more she basked in the sensations they evoked in her. Only, she isn’t aware of just how much she has revealed to me… Or to herself, yet.
She peers up into my features, still naked, by the way. The logs crackle behind her, the heat from the flame turning her skin rosy. Her cheeks flush as she searches my face.
"You’re not wearing clothes either," I point out.
"Thought you wanted me to be naked?"
I rub the back of my neck. "Not so sure about that anymore."
A line appears between her eyebrows. "Why, because you feel threatened by how you react to me?"
I scowl. "I’m not threatened by anything or anyone"—I look her up and down—"and definitely, not by an overweight doctor who has so many issues that she couldn’t bring herself to sleep with anyone else."
She pales. The next moment my head snaps back. Pain blooms on my cheek. Before I can stop myself, I swoop down and grab her wrist. "Did you just slap me?" I growl.
"Yes," she spits out, "and unlike you, I don’t hide behind lies."
"You’ve done it now." I bare my teeth. "How dare you raise your hand to me?"
"Oh, I’ll do more than that." She tries to pull free, but I tighten my grasp on her. "Let go of me, you jerk ass, you … you imbecile, you complete wanker. I thought there was something inside you, some part of you which hadn’t been corrupted by your background or the experiences you have been through. Hell, I was sure that you turned away from me because I had touched on something that was sensitive, that I had hurt you; but maybe, I was wrong." Her breath heaves. "You are beyond redemption, and immature, and have the brain of a goldfish."
"What?" I open and shut my mouth. "A goldfish?"
"No, a cockroach. A toad, actually. The kind who is poisonous, so when you lick them, you get high first but then find yourself on death’s door."
"You are not making sense."
"Good, because after how you insulted me, I can’t understand how I allowed myself to feel anything for you."
"You felt something for me?"
"It doesn’t matter now." Her chin trembles. "After what you said earlier… I … I don’t want anything to do with you."
"Good, because I don’t want anything to do with you either."
"Fine," she spits out. "You’re an arrogant baboon who thinks just because his father emotionally and physically abused him, it gives you the right to get off on other people’s pain. You twisted, perverted, weirdo!"
Anger thrums in my veins. My guts twist. Only when she makes a sound of protest do I realize that I have tightened my hold on her. I release her, and she stumbles back. We stare at each other for a few seconds, then I turn and stalk out of the room.
Six hours later, it’s dark outside, and I’ve spent the last few hours working out. After 500 pushups, 500 sit-ups, and as many biceps and triceps curls using the heaviest book that I found in the bookshelf in place of weights, I lie in a heap on the sofa and pick up said book—In Search of Lost Time, a translation of a French novel about, you guessed it, the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world.
All of which I could have told you for free without having to read the book, considering time once lost never comes back, so really there’s no point looking back, for the past doesn’t exist. Neither does the future. And there’s no meaning to events; it’s all one long string of happenstance. Shit happens; deal with it.
Like I dealt with our father’s physical and emotional abuse. I managed to protect Xander from the worst of it. Oh, our brothers thought that he had left us alone because we were too young. On the contrary, he’d wait for Xander and me to be left on our own before he’d corner us, then proceed to tie us up before hitting us. All in the name of disciplining us. I often begged him to let Xander go, and he’d oblige on condition—that I’d take Xander’s share of the punishment. Which meant he’d hit me twice as hard, often until I blacked out.
