“Your whole existence is filled with nothing more than a pretence of who you are,” I say, wandering over to the dressing table and opening a bottle of perfume. She doesn’t argue or speak at all. Instead, she just keeps sniffing a little, letting me focus on the perfume in my hands. It reeks of high-end stores and pretentious social climbing, nothing like the scattered writings of an author in full flow. Another bottle catches my eyes, crystal topped and filled with a concoction of wealth, no doubt. I grab at it, walking it back towards her and twisting the top off. “Where are you, Alana?” I ask, standing above her and starting to pour the liquid into her face. She flicks it off, her fingers smearing the lotion around as she tries to move away from me. I chuckle, throwing the empty container to the floor as I walk away, more interested in the rest of her property and what it has to offer my mind about her pretence. I end up stroking my cock’s weight as I wander the apartment, still searching for elements of her I can use to bury in further. Still there’s nothing. It’s simply an empty shell, barely resembling anything of the woman who fucks on church floors, or the one who called me Daddy and manipulated my thoughts, certainly not the one who sucked me off in a back alley full of garbage. But one thing does catch my attention, a framed picture quietly sitting in the corner on top of a scantly filled bookcase. I wander over to it, glancing out of the window at a pair of curtains that twitch in my eye-line and smirking in reply. The older faces stare back at me as I pick up the gold frame. It’s clearly her parents. She’s the image of her father, with traces of her mother’s femininity curbing the harsh lines, but the lips, the eyes, even the blonde hair is the same. It makes me consider my own parents for a moment, barely remembering their love for the years I’ve not seen them alive.
“Put it down,” she says, harshly, her body suddenly appearing by the back of the sofa, a dressing gown in place rather than the nakedness I prefer.
“Why? It says more about you than this whole place does.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“Oh, you’re wrong, Alana,” I reply, stalking the room to get to her. She flinches, backing away a little as she glares and pushes her cream sodden hair back. “I know you. I know what you really are.”
“Stay away from me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to—”
“Why?” Push, push, push.
“That was... In there… I’m not doing that again.”
“Why?”
“It’s wrong. This is all wrong.” I smile in reply to that, remembering when the word meant anything to us, still carrying the frame in my hand and wondering what Daddy would think of such things. Wrong. What a fucking word. I’m tired of wrong. Tired of fighting it everyone’s opinion of it, my own included, and too far down this emotional road to even try anymore.
“Why is it wrong?” She frowns, her body still trying to get away as I keep moving and countering any direction she makes. “Can’t you answer the questions, Alana?” She shakes her head, her arms folding around herself. Good, now she knows how it feels to be pushed, and I’ll keep pushing. I’ll push her resolve, her pain limits, and her ability to defy me. I’ll push it all to get that dimming fucking light that eggs me on. “You asked me why I always back away from you. This is why. This is what happens when I move forward. See?” I cross the floor with such speed it makes her jump, frightening her back to a wall again as I stretch my arm out to touch her. “It’s always so easy for me to move forward. Are you understanding now?” She quivers again, her eyes flicking anywhere other than at me. “It’s the backwards steps that are hardest, Alana. The retreating. And I worked so hard for you. I tried, didn’t I?” I discard the frame, choosing to cage her in instead and draw my thumb down the length of her neck. The reddened imprint of my hand still lingers there, making me smile at my version of love. “But backwards stifles me. It all fucking stifles me, Alana. I don’t want to be stifled anymore.”
It’s all so quiet for a minute or two—just the two of us standing here in an apartment that lacks anything real but the two of us. Truth lies in the two of us. Nothing is wrong here. Everything is perfect. She only needs to realise it and we’ll both be free. She can come and live with me, be there for me. I’ll give her a room she can explore her mind inside. She can sleep with me, let me hold her and cradle the noise away. She can even hold me, tell me it’s alright to be as I want to be. We’ll evolve into something other than what we currently are.
She says something, but I don’t hear it. I’m still too consumed with thoughts of my den and the ocean crashing behind it as I look at her neck, my finger still wandering the artery that pulses in front of me. “Is this for you or me?” she murmurs.
I look up into her eyes, really hearing her voice for the first time in a while. It applies some rationale back into my mind, reminding me of the things I’ll do to her, or rather the things I shouldn’t do.
“Is there a difference anymore?” She still looks frightened, her lips trembling, something that should turn me on, make me needful, amused even, but it causes a frown to descend as I watch her eyes sadden. The fire’s gone from them. Where has the fire gone? My venomous little snake has left me alone again, all the power in her eyes suddenly lost in fear or trepidation. I pull in a breath and look at her as one foot backs away, my fingers leaving her skin at the same time as my second retreating step heaves away, too.
“One more chance,” I mutter, my body turning from her as dismay wracks my every nerve. I’ll give her one more chance to see before I consume her. I promised myself I’d give her that. Regardless of all this I should offer her that freedom first. Delaney was setting it up, had set it up.
I walk to the bathroom and begin pulling on my sodden clothes, chastising myself for my own erratic thoughts and still remembering the feel of others in my hands. I should tell her something, explain more appropriately. She’s given so much already. The need for hesitation infuriates me, riling me into a wreck of balled energy again, one that needs to expunge on something, anything.
“You’re leaving?” she says from the other side of the room. I watch her fiddle with her dressing gown, closing the top of it and backing away. It makes me snort, unsurprised at her abhorrence but irritated with her scared appearance. “You do all that and now you’re leaving me? I don’t understand, Blaine. I don’t know what’s happening here. I just ... I gave you …”
I heave in a long breath as I look at her, desperate to show her more and yet holding myself back from the very thing I want most.
“You need to see. Before it begins, you need to see, Alana.”
“See what?”
“This. Me. You need to see it and understand what’s coming for you. I need to know you’ve seen it, that you accept it. Love or not, I will not stop because you feel pain. I will not let you in any further than I care to do. I want you aware of that before you profess any more love for me. Because that love you offer, it condemns you. It means I own everything about you. And I’m not sure you’re ready for that, or even if you want it. So make your choice,” I say, scribbling the address on a piece of paper and tossing it on the table as I back away from her, the room, and her life if she wants. “But make it wisely. Once it begins, it doesn’t stop. I don’t offer safe words. I don’t let up until I’m finished. I’ll bask in your humiliation, manipulate it, and enjoy your torment all the more because of it.” She looks shocked. I don’t know why, she should have felt it in my hold ten minutes ago. “But I do love you, if that makes it easier for you to hear. And I’ll help you right yourself again, if that’s what you want. We both will.” She just stands there, stock still, her eyes as wide as she can make them and her hands holding the belt on her robe.
“What did you say?” she asks, her mouth a line of expectation.
“All of it, or just the words you wanted from me?” I stand as still as her, staring with little remorse and wanting nothing more than for her to drop the robe, walk over and kiss me for being so honest. I simply
want honesty, to be accepted. I realise that now. I can feel it all coming together in my mind, winding a path for a future built on trust and love, one filled with pleasure and those fucking walks I crave.
“Just those words again.”
I stare, perhaps amused that she only needs to hear those words again, but still too wound up to give them any real credence. They must make the rest seem bearable somehow. It makes me back away again, sneering at the thought of it all, one hand reaching for my jacket and the other reaching for the handle on the door as I watch her reassemble herself. She shines in front of the rain that still pours outside, tempting me, just like the stars I watched when I thought of her last night. She glints, her body framed by a cascade of water tipping down the window’s surface. Her eyes as blue as my ocean, more so because of the tears she’s cried. And her hair, slicked back, those rebellious purple stripes beginning to match the prints around her throat already. She’s stunning in her disarray. More so in her elegance as she stands and waits for honesty, waits for me to help her through the confusion she’s caused herself. She’s everything I need. Perhaps more.
“Come to the club,” I snarl out, taking one final sweep over her neck before I turn and open the door. “See what you’re letting yourself in for before you ask me to say it again.” Because those bruises, the reddening that lingers just a little under her hair, is nothing compared to what I will do to the bodies Delaney has waiting for me. She needs to see that, needs to understand. I won’t lie anymore, not even for her.
Chapter 22
Alana
I ’ve walked all day, not really understanding where I’m walking to or why. I thought when I started this it would all just be research, something I needed to do to write the story correctly, but it’s far from that now. I feel like I’m floating as I wander through all these people, neither caring for nor interested in their lives. Nothing is sparking an idea. No stories unfolding on the streets of New York like they usually do, other than the one that’s carrying on in my own mind. Everything just seems pale and insipid now, as if it’s bare of taste or flavour, no solidity even. It all feels like my apartment out here, lacking warmth or charisma. It’s cold, regardless of the streets flying by and the hustle and bustle of everyday life around me. I haven’t even got my laptop stuck to me as usual. For the first time in however long, I didn’t want it with me. I just wanted me, on my own, wandering with no sense of timing, no meetings, no notifications bothering me. Just me, whoever that is. Not Val, not Peter, not even this new pen I’m trying to find. I just wanted Alana to walk about, taking in life and seeing how she chose to view it. She’s more lost than I thought she was, perhaps pushed aside by the other voices in my head. I’m not sure I ever contained them like I thought I did. Maybe they just all overtook at some point, making me forget who I am.
I didn’t follow him or say anything other than a quiet goodbye after the door had closed behind him yesterday. I wasn’t sure what to say. He loved me. He said it. But how can someone love like that? How can someone be in love with someone who wants to do that? And irrespective of the confusion in that hour or so we spent together and the way he touched me, hurting me each and every time, it nearly made sense. Something began clicking into place like it had done while I sat on the terrace in that back end town. But then he left leaving me bruised and raw, and within thirty minutes of that happening, I started questioning again, searching for reasons and answers as I waked around the room, examining the result of all my labours in life. He was right. There was nothing of me to find, not the real me. Not the Alana who used to sit in college and scuttle the keyboard furiously, investing her every free moment into a story and letting it rip my soul to shreds. It was as barren of me as he professed it to be, bleak in comparison to the feelings associated with him.
I find myself turning into midtown and heading for, well, nothing really. I’m still just wandering aimlessly, the only consideration of direction aimed at the club he wrote on this piece of paper I’m gripping. I’m not sure why it’s in my hand. I know it off by heart. I’ve looked at it all day, slept with it by my bed last night. It’s comforting, giving me a direction to follow, until an hour from now. Eight pm. The address and eight pm. That’s all that’s written on it. I even looked at the handwriting for a while, having never seen him write a thing before. It’s as beautiful as he is. Long positive scrawls. No mess, no fuss. Simple and direct. Not unlike him, I suppose, but I know so little about him. Where he likes to go, what he likes to do. I don’t even know what he likes to drink. That’s what started it all last night. I didn’t know what he liked to drink. And I still don’t understand how I can love someone, be in love with someone, without knowing that information. It all seems so backwards. It’s as if we’ve lost our innocence before we’ve even found it. The thought makes me chuckle as I stare at the traffic, people walking around me on the corner. I’m unsure if he’s ever had any innocence to lose. He’s so rooted in his being, not deterred by any other interference. I want to know why. I want to know who he is, why he is. His parents, more brothers, sisters? His life before this started—was it happy, loving? I don’t even know if he has hobbies. Not that I’m sure if men like Blaine have hobbies, other than the causing pain type, but I want to know. I want to find our innocence. Prove it’s there maybe. I need that. We need that.
I set off again along the pavement, not really thinking anymore, just being. One step in front of the other and following my body’s impulses as I watch the people hurrying around me, their bags crashing into each other as they give little thought to anyone else. It’s like a primal rat race. Who gets there faster, who wins the most, who gets the better job. None of its real, though. It’s not based in sweat and tears. No one feels their footsteps grinding the same pavement. They just continue in their pursuit, but it’s all a lie, isn’t it? A fabrication of the same story over and over, hoping to better what didn’t need fixing. Every fucking race to achieve more is just a screwed up measure of self. Yes, perhaps it‘s done dressed in a killer suit, but it accomplishes so little other than money. I know that now. I can feel it in the air now he’s set me on the road to realizing it. How many of these people have lost themselves in their quest of success? How many left their dreams behind, forgetting them, or seeing them as insignificant as they scaled higher walls and battered doorways for advancement? It makes me question everything as I wander by my publishers and stop to stare up at the building.
Why I wandered this way, I don’t know. I should be thankful for them, for the people in this building, certainly for the opportunity they gave me, but I’m not anymore. I feel used by them, degraded. Like they’ve taken my soul, not allowing me any freedom with it anymore. They’ve chained it to a desk and wrapped a lock over it, refusing to let me breathe through my words anymore. They’ve contained me, made me contain myself for them. I’ve contained my whole existence for them. Fuck, I’ve even made my home as they would need it to be. Clean, edited. A canvas organised and categorised into perfect folders. I thought I was doing it for me, thought it made everything easier, but I didn’t, and it doesn’t. It stifles me. He used such a good word last night. He said he was stifled. So am I. This whole life has become nothing but stifled and suffocating.
“Where are you, Alana?” That’s what he said.
I don’t know.
I sneer up at the building, staring at the windows and willing one of them to walk out here now. Especially Barringer. I’d throw the towel in now if he did, tell him exactly what I thought of his attempt at threatening me. What could he do? Fire me? I snort out, amused at the notion that his opinion, his wants, his desires are relevant in any way to me or my existence. They’re not. They weren’t really before Blaine, let alone now. I’m different now. I can feel it as much as I can still feel his fingers around my neck, and the others inside me, pushing me to an orgasm I’d never had comprehension of before him. Perhaps I should walk up there and let his father know what’s happened. I’d barely remembered it all unti
l I stood here. That night seems so long ago now, like a lifetime has passed between it and the present, my mind changing along with it. I’m as new as I can be and as close to the old me as I’ve ever been. I’m even in a dress and long, heeled boots like I used to wear rather than the jeans I’d usually go for. My make-up’s as light as a feather, barely covering the marks Blaine left on me, and this material flows along my skin, relaxing me rather than constricting me inwards. I feel free, my mind wandering as aimlessly as my feet.
My hand scrunches the address in my grip, feeling him there and wondering what he’d do if he knew of Barringer’s advances. I’m not sure if he’s the jealous type. It seems unreasonable to suggest jealousy has anything to do with this scene I’m falling into, but then Priest said love didn’t either. He was wrong, so wrong, from my point of view anyway. It has everything to do with it.
I turn and sit myself on the frontage of the small wall that surrounds the building, just staring again and remembering the way he looked at me as Blaine took what he wanted, forcing me to admit I wanted it, too. He was as invested in the idea as Blaine was. His fingers may have been restrained and his body languid as he stood and watched, but he was in that moment too. We all were, the woman included. And he wants me as part of it, doesn’t he? He wants me to love him and tell him it’s alright to be the way he is. “I do love you, if that makes it easier to hear.” What a statement. If that makes it easier to hear? It did, for some ungodly reason. For something that could only be described as reckless, it did. It made the whole explanation seem as pallid as these streets have become, the only relevant thing in it the professing of love and the way his eyes begged for it to be returned in some way. He looked as lost as I felt, still feel.
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