Sadness overwhelmed, left me rocking on a sea of might-have-beens.
Damn them both.
“Let me show you my ritual. It helps me keep myself under control.” Said the man who stole away women’s minds and bodies. The gorgeous hunk of blond-haired Viking man with the scars on his forearms from cutting – including one fresh one. With the twitchy wild eyes. With the big hands that scared, because I felt sure he’d strangled or hit or killed with them. He had a ritual to keep him sane? It didn’t seem to be working.
“Yes, please.” I tried to look Bambi-eyed, calm, interested. “Show me.”
It might be ammunition. Either way it gave me space, what with my ass still feeling the effects of a man trying to shove himself in uninvited.
After getting me to scoot backward, he pulled out drawers and stacked things along the edge of the desk. I pushed up onto my forearm, and my breasts reminded me of their presence by their weight. His eyes followed my nipples.
I had writing on me there. When? What had he done?
Ignore, ignore. Later I would look.
“Show me,” I repeated. This was like urging a child to a task.
He brushed back hair from his face and placed another item between us, on the glass – a few begrimed, stapled pages with the corners curled.
He tapped each and recited. “The account of the day in Cuba when I first met you and Wolfe.”
So Wolfe was someone new to him, back then.
“The drug he uses to control his urges.”
“Why not –”
“I’m good without drugs. Not good with them.”
Oh shit yeah, you really are good as you are. Asshole.
The unopened blister pack would tempt a saint who hadn’t been mauled by Isak. If I could get him to swallow them, would they work? How many?
He kept them in this desk.
“Your photos.”
God, that was me, younger, less worried, less raped. And me, looking like I’d been at a party for porn stars, with cum on me. Lovely memories.
“The knife. I cut regularly, because it helps.”
He went from one object to the other, touching, murmuring. His ritual. The whispers, the whispers. The sounds of a horror movie where something dark waits around the next corner, or the next.
Open-mouthed, I considered that he cut himself. I knew people cut but for him to do it to stop himself from going even crazier, it seemed more bizarre than ever.
I shivered.
Stress made ants crawl my skin, buzzing. My lips seemed numb, my brain at times blanked with violent nothingness. I was falling, falling, and couldn’t stop myself. Fall too far and I’d be gone, like the other women he talked about.
“Now...” His hand found my face and he caressed me gently, though his eyes telegraphed little. “I have the real you and you’re much better than a photo. I should never have let you go.”
A chill sank deep, occupying my bones.
“I’d rather leave. If you like me that much, let me leave.”
“Shhh. I’m still considering what to do.” His fingers found my breast and grasped it. The pressure grew until I was hissing my pain through my teeth, and wincing. “Come with me.”
The relief as he let go...I grabbed at my breast, as if that would protect me from more assaults. His fingermarks were outlined in red.
Taking my hand as courteously as a prince with a princess, he helped me down from the desk. He held my hand as he led me toward the brightness that was the outside and the deck. Naked, I padded forward. The sky, the ocean, the wind was out there. For all I knew there were people too.
I hesitated at the brink, where room transitioned to deck. My bare feet felt the lip where the cool of the tiles gave way to timber. The deck was mostly in shadow since the sun lay behind us. Sea to the West, sun to the East.
After one glance, Isak laughed and towed me out. “There’s nothing out here.”
Laughter was so incongruous.
The roof above was part sailcloth, part timber and mottled glass – a modern architectural statement. The colors were Mediterranean – white, blues, and aquas, with hints of gold.
“Sit.” Isak lowered himself to a cane lounge then pulled me onto his lap. Still naked, I felt vulnerable to anything – men, neighbors, the weather, an oncoming tsunami. A seagull could startle me after being messed around with by the man I came to kill.
After sitting a while, waiting for something terrible to happen, I allowed myself to relax. Or did I? Was it him making me? What was my own volition and where did his will begin?
I’d experienced this before, at the room in Cuba. The world had slowly blurred from my existence, and I’d wondered if with enough time I might vanish altogether and become nothing. Push me to the wall and I blend into the paint.
Perhaps he had women he’d done that to.
“There.” He kissed the top of my head. “Maybe you’re not my talisman, maybe you’re an angel from above. Maybe you’re a cure. I’m tired of my monster.”
His monster – as if he were two people.
He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed gently, for a man of his size.
This transformation into kindness was more surreal than when he’d told Vitor to fuck me.
“I don’t think I want to be your cure.”
“No? The tool does what it’s told to do.” His hand found the cleft of my ass. His fingers lingered in the region of my asshole, circling, though I squeezed myself tight.
There were times I could resist.
He heaved himself upright, wrapped his fist around the back of my neck and dragged me with him as he walked to the
