In the Absence of Monsters

by Jp Barnaby

  “What am I going to do, Ethan? I don’t know what to do…” he cried softly into my chest. I didn’t answer. I had no answer for him. Instead, I held him, absorbing some of his grief and loss through our contact, murmuring words of encouragement, and love. Finally, he fell asleep, but I stayed awake for a long time, thinking about where we would go from there.

  * * * *

  “Ethan, you need to talk about it, you need to let it out,” Gabriel said from behind me as I rested against him on his couch. Jayden had gone back to work in hopes it would distract him, so I had taken the opportunity go to Gabriel's. It was the first time I had seen Gabriel since Lexi’s funeral when he had waited quietly in the back throughout the service and had given me one long, tight hug when it was over. After giving Jayden sincere condolences, he left, knowing that Jayden would need me. Gabriel always seemed to know what I needed without me telling him, and that day was no exception. I needed to talk and get it out. It was like a poison, seeping through my veins, invading every corner of my conscious and subconscious mind, and it infuriated me.

  “What do you want to know, Gabriel? You want to know how I can still feel her blood on my hands? I tried so hard to control her bleeding, but it was just…everywhere. I stood at that ER sink for what felt like hours washing, and I could still feel it!” I raged at him, knowing that none of it was his fault, but I was just so angry. Anger I had held inside since the moment that Lexi had stepped off of that fucking curb that I just couldn’t contain any longer. Gabriel's face was full of sympathy, of compassion, it dialed up the rage even further. I didn't want his sympathy.

  “What else? You want to know that I wish with all my heart it had been me? Lexi was beautiful, sweet, and kind. She was affectionate, and playful, and caring. She always made sure that the people around her were cared for, that their needs were met before her own. She was selfless.” I took a deep breath as the tears started to fall. “She was everything that I’m not. I am so fucking selfish. My best friend is dead, her life cut short in an instant, and all I can think about is what it means for me. What am I going to do without her? How am I supposed to get through this? I could really use her help with Jayden right now. He’s still screaming in his sleep. It breaks my heart how completely devastated he is right now.” Gabriel tightened his arms around me, and I felt comforted for the first time since the whole nightmare had started.

  “God has his reasons for everything, Ethan,” he said in my ear, and I turned around completely to stare at him, incredulous.

  “You can’t possibly think that after everything that has happened to me in my life that I believe in God?” I asked him in a slightly mocking tone. “If there is a God, he is a sadistic…” I stopped, noticing the look of hurt and shock on his face. I couldn’t do that to him, mock something he obviously believed in. Pressing my face into his chest, he held me. “I’m sorry, Gabriel – maybe this isn’t the best time to talk to me.” Stroking my hair, he let me rest against his chest. I felt him take a few deep breaths before he spoke.

  “I want you to tell me whatever you’re feeling, whatever is on your mind, Ethan. That is the only way this is going to work.” He kissed the top of my head, and we just sat there, trying to comfort each other in something where neither of us had a hope of finding reassurance. I knew I had to find my strength from somewhere; I needed to be there for Jayden. He wasn’t holding up well under the weight of his grief. Yet again, I had seen Jayden sitting at the kitchen table trying hard not to fall asleep, doing just about anything he could to avoid sleeping and dreaming about the accident. The circles under his eyes were proof that he was succeeding, at least in part.

  Other than trying not to sleep, Jayden appeared normal – everything he was feeling, he internalized. Jayden wasn't an emotional person, but I had expected some kind of reaction from him. So far, however, it seemed he was running on autopilot. When reminded, he ate at regular intervals and responded when spoken to, but you could see he was empty. All the light had gone out of his eyes; he was hollow. I hadn’t even seen him really cry since the funeral, perhaps he was beyond tears. As devastated as I was over Lexi’s death, I knew that Jayden had been hit so much harder by it. Then, I heard Jayden calling me from another room.

  I had left Gabriel’s early in order to be home before Jayden. Since Lexi’s death, he had become increasingly agitated and it didn’t take much to upset him. Gabriel was a sore subject already, so I usually didn’t chance even talking to him with Jayden around. I knew that it was unfair to Gabriel, and he deserved better, but I was trying to keep a bad situation from getting worse. When I walked into the living room Jayden was sitting on the couch.

  “What’s up, Jayden?” I sat in a chair next to the couch as he looked at his hands. The thought struck me that the conversation was not going to go well. Unmoving, he continued to sit there. While I considered prompting him, it seemed he was having some kind of internal debate, although I was unsure if it was because he didn’t want to tell me something, or he was unsure how to begin.

  “I can’t stay here,” he finally said. “I talked to Josh this morning, and they’re going to let me leave. They're going to release me from the one year I signed on for. I'm fucking useless to them now anyway. I want to go back to Washington.” I gaped at him. It wasn’t good for him to make such a big decision so soon after losing Lexi.

  “Jayden, maybe you should take a little time to—”

  “No,” he said rather loudly and my eyes widened. Then, he mastered himself again and continued, “Everything in this damn house reminds me of her, I have to get out of here. I can’t fucking sleep. I can’t function.” He took a deep breath, and sighed. “I wanted to know if I can stay at your house until I find something else.”

  He was leaving?

  His eyes were wild, restless and full of emotions tidal waving on top of each other. It was then that I realized he was barely keeping himself together. Maybe he was right, maybe getting away from the reminders, away from everything that focused his attention on Lexi and her absence would do him some good. Sighing, I nodded, and he relaxed.

  “I’ll…I’ll call Nicole and tell her that you’re coming,” I murmured, standing to leave. I wanted to go upstairs to my room, lie on the bed and never move again. My heart began to break at the thought of not seeing him every day, after all we had been through, and now – at one of the darkest times of our lives, he was deserting me.

  “Ethan…” he started, grabbing my wrist as I started to walk past him. “I know that I have no right to ask you this. You’re getting your life back on track here, developing a better relationship with your parents. You are in a new relationship with Gabriel, and you looked to be pretty happy. I don’t… I can’t…” The anguish in his face made me reach out to him. Not hesitating this time, he pressed his face into my chest as I put one hand on his back, the other in his hair to calm him. Then I heard his voice, muffled into my shirt. “Will you come with me?”

  And with those five words a choice was laid out before me, almost as if it were in black and white. Gabriel or Jayden? Security or passion? Friendship or love? Stability or uncertainty? Happiness or the potential for true heartache?

  Even if Gabriel and I weren’t headed in a direction toward a real relationship, he was really a good friend who I depended on. My mother would be so upset and disappointed if I left after we had just started to get to know each other as adults and connect with something more than just a superficial relationship. I had even started thinking about practicing there, knowing my father had a few friends who could help to get me in with a local hospital; it would help me start feeling useful again.

  Could I uproot my life again to leave with him?

  “I need to think about it, Jayden. When were you planning to leave?” I asked him, not releasing him from my arms, which I felt trembling under the weight of the decision facing me.

  I’m sure it would be one of the hardest of my life.

  “In a few days.” His reply was muffled into
my chest.

  Journal Entry – My Lexi

  How could this happen? I have suffered so much in my life, why take away my best friend? Thoughts like that make me feel so selfish; I am such a horrible fucking person. But, if there is one place that I can feel selfish, that I can focus on me, it’s in my head and in this journal. This journal is the one place I can be completely honest, and candid. It’s the one place I never have to hide— not my lifestyle, not my past, not the nightmares in my head.

  Unfortunately, right now, I wish I could hide. I want to hide from myself, from the world, from this impossible decision I have to make, and from the staggering grief of losing Lexi. She deserved to live her life, she worked hard for it. I’m the one that should have been cut down in my ‘prime’. My ‘prime’ – what a fucking joke. I’ve never had a ‘prime’. My life was over at eight-years old, I’ve just been existing ever since – a barren excuse for a man.

  An empty shell.

  The days that followed in the aftermath of Lexi’s death were like a blur to me. I had nearly forgotten about the boy, Connor, until he showed up at the house about a week after the funeral, looking haggard and worn. I knew this couldn’t be easy on him either. Lexi was his friend, his collared relationship with his Doms had just imploded violently, and now he had to find a place to live. Knowing that it would mean a lot to Lexi, I called Stephen to see what I could do for Connor.

  We talked for nearly two hours.

  It was good to get everything off my chest. He didn’t have any advice about the romantic aspects of my relationships, but he was able to help with other things. He had a contact in the BDSM community in Chicago, a fellow psych professor named Dana, who agreed to either take Connor on as a sub or help him transition to a new Mistress. Connor had always favored submitting to Lexi, it was evident that he would prefer a female Dominant.

  Stephen also let me know that after Nicole had gone to Master Cyrus about Dominique and Claude, they were ostracized by the community. Every member, all of the people that consider themselves my friend, contacted all of their associates in other groups and posted warning messages on all of their related boards, effectively cutting them off from being accepted in any other community. Any submissive who researched them before accepting a collar would know immediately that they were not to be trusted. I felt better knowing that I wouldn’t run into them if I decided to return to Washington with Jayden.

  I was back to the question at hand. Washington with Jayden or Chicago with Gabriel – it seemed like everything in my life had come down to this.

  Jayden wanted me to move back to Washington with him. He asked me to go, not just suggested that I should. It was almost a plea. Jayden needed me, but what about Gabriel? Should I follow the man in love with a ghost or stay with the man who offers the more stable chance at happiness? After everything that has happened to me in my life, I deserve a little happiness. I could see myself staying with Gabriel and being perfectly happy. But it would be wrong. I can’t give myself to him like he deserves. He's a good guy; he needs someone that is going to appreciate that and give themselves to him completely—a true partner. I would always be in love with someone else. That isn’t fair to Gabriel. At all.

  What about Jayden?

  Lexi once told me something that gave me hope. The day Jayden had left Washington, after our night together, Lexi had called to tell me her idea for trying to get Jayden to collar her. She was going wrap herself up as a gift in his playroom.

  ‘I know there are things I need to work out, but I think I can get Josh to help me. He seemed like a good guy.’ I remembered that she rambled on for a while as my life fell apart around me. I knew I could have talked to her about it, but she sounded so happy. It was the first time I’d ever considered hanging up on her.

  ‘I’m sure you two will be very happy together,’ I told her, trying to hold myself together. Without conscious thought, I had crossed my arms in front of me. It was odd for me to remember something like that now, but I had just felt so empty. They were both leaving me and would be together, playing BDSM Barbie and Ken in their perfect little house and their perfect little life.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Lexi had said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked and sat down at the kitchen table with my head in my hands. I wasn’t in the mood for her epiphany. I just wanted to crawl back in bed and stay there.

  ‘I think Jayden would rather have you go with him to Chicago than me.’ I remember being exasperated at that point, with little understanding as to why. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say.

  ‘I think—’ she started, and then after a long pause, continued, ‘I think Jayden is in love with you, Ethan.’

  NO.

  That couldn’t be it, at all.

  I wasn’t gay – I couldn’t be. I’d fucking kick his ass if he said anything like that to me. He would have to know that there was no future with me. I couldn’t give him what he wanted. Even if I were … gay, I’m not capable of that kind of romantic attachment. It would be a fucking waste of his time.

  And there it was.

  I remember the feeling of dread starting to life at her words, but then I really didn’t understand why.

  Now I do.

  The dread lifted until I heard him confess his feelings for her in his own playroom. Then, the dread, and everything else, came crashing down on top of me.

  I thought back to what Lexi had told me when we talked about Jayden just a few weeks ago. ‘Yearning for someone who’s in love with someone else is the fastest way to a broken heart’? Now I have to wonder if she wasn’t talking about herself, that it was she that was in love with someone who was in love with another. Even after all that time?

  Then I remembered how Jayden was when he showed up after my session with Dominique. He was so passionate about helping me, so determined. When he cared for me physically – both during the shower and after, he was very … loving. Lexi had an infallible gift for reading people. Was she right about Jayden? What difference did it make now? He was obviously devastated over Lexi’s death. Whatever Lexi thought about his feelings for me, they obviously changed into feelings for her. What kind of pain was I looking at if I went ahead and followed him to Washington?

  Why would I do that to myself?

  Because I’m in love with him.

  I don’t know what caused me to come to this conclusion when I did. It seems like it was always there within me, just below the surface. Watching Lexi, my best friend, die in front of me, it blew apart the final remnant of that wall inside me. It stripped me, reducing me to my most primal self; something I didn’t think was possible. But with nothing separating Ethan Bryant from Ethan Hughes – the two have merged into a single man.

  I was the boy on the milk carton.

  I was the tortured soul.

  I was the doctor.

  I was the Master.

  I am Ethan Richard Hughes Bryant.

  Now I am all of them. Lexi, more than anyone else, would have been proud of this development. She was the one who had encouraged me from the beginning to find that boy in the box, to find Ethan Hughes, the abomination that I had hidden so deep inside of myself that I hoped never to find him.

  But now I have.

  He is a part of me – something that hasn’t happened since college.

  It’s taken the weeks since Lexi’s death for me to realize this, to understand it. Since I haven’t been spending time with Gabriel, and Jayden has been virtually silent, I have had a lot of time to analyze myself. I have finally found a single self. Now I am just left with questions that I can’t answer yet. Where do I go from here? Am I still the Dom? Am I still the doctor? Do I want to walk back into Ethan Bryant’s life? What will happen when I do?

  I miss Lexi so much.

  I closed my journal and set the pen on top, steeling myself for what I was about to do. Taking a deep breath, I pushed away from my desk and stood up. Then I walked throug
h my bedroom door and down the hall to where he was. I had heard him moving and shifting things while I wrote in my journal, a few times, I think I even had heard him throw things. When I knocked lightly on the doorframe, he looked up from the box he was packing, even though he could have just left everything here, and bought new stuff in Washington. It wasn’t about the money though; he was trying to find something to occupy his mind until he could get out of here.

  He looked disheveled, his hair a mess, and a light sheen of sweat on his face and arms from working so diligently. A look of hope passed across his face as his eyes met mine. I held his gaze for just a moment before nodding. He dropped the box he was holding and made his way over to me. I was surprised when he threw himself at me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and burying his face in my neck, I hesitantly wrapped my arms around his waist.

  We stood like that for a long time.

  Then I heard his soft murmur into the hollow of my throat.

  “Thank you, Ethan.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Hey,” Gabriel said quietly as he closed the door, wrapping his arms around my waist as he kissed me softly just below the ear. I let him hold me for a long time while I worked up the courage to have the talk. He must have noticed that I was stalling, because he pulled back slowly to look at me. “Ethan, what is it?” he asked, far more gently than I deserved. I pulled him against me one last time, squeezing hard before I met his eyes and wondered if I was about to lose my oldest friend.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Clearing my throat, I gathered my resolve and sighed. It was going to hurt him, and I didn’t want to be the one to do that. Although, he had said that no matter what I decided to do, he would always be my friend, he deserved so much more than just a postcard from Seattle.

  Upon my admission, he paled, but led me into the living room, trying to pull me down onto the couch with him. I refused, wanting to stand; it seemed an easier way to distance myself from the situation a little. I couldn’t be wrapped in his embrace when I told him, I needed to do it and get it over with. When I looked down, I was startled to see the fear in his eyes, his body tense, as if he was waiting for some kind of attack.