He pulls into an empty space between a little blue bug and a beige suburban that has seen better days and kills the engine. Says nothing.
I wait. It seems like something is about to happen. Like something should happen. But I can’t think of what. Silence stretches between us, tense and anxious, kind of like the feeling you get when you’re blowing the biggest bubble gum bubble of your life and you just know it’s gonna pop soon. But there’s no pop. No explosion. He stares ahead at the starving bushes. They’d transplanted them too late in the summer in an effort to make the building look more homey. It didn’t exactly work.
I undo my seatbelt and open the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
He’s still staring straight ahead at the pitiful bushes, angry. No, not angry. Anguished. Like the world around him is breaking.
I run my fingers down the side of the door. I don’t close it. With my back turned away from him, I wait for that anger to spill out—for him to yank me back into the car and start screaming and screaming. I wait for him to break like I’ve broken.
It doesn’t happen.
“You can come in if you want.” I shiver, startled by the fact I offered. All of this was a mistake. I even knew it when I first asked him.
It’s better to trust your heart with a stranger when it’s broken. Their uncaring mirrors the numbness you want to feel for yourself. They can’t hurt you because they don’t know you and therefore can’t really touch you. You don’t go to someone you care about, especially when you want to break, because they’ll try to put you back together and that hurts too much. It hurts the most when you try to protect something only to fail.
Trevor doesn’t respond to my offer. I guess I should have expected that. I’m probably the last person he wants to see right now. I turn to shut the door.
As I do, his eyes catch mine. I tighten my grip to hide the fact my fingers are trembling.
He looks like everything I wanted him to look like. Like everything I’m afraid of. For a moment I think he’s going to grab me, that we’re both going to fight and tear at each other until nothing’s left of us but blood and pain.
I shut my eyes, count to three, wait for him to do it.
He doesn’t.
“Goodnight,” I whisper.
I see the muscles beneath his shirt flexing. Everything about him is either barely contained violence or just barely contained. And all that silent anger is directed at me though he does not act on it.
I shut the door and walk up the stairs. I feel his eyes behind me, making my skin crawl and grow hot, but I don’t look back. I unleashed something in him. Something I hadn’t meant to unleash. I was so selfish for asking him to do this for me. And I still am selfish, because I still want it.
***
Trevor
This is a bad idea.
I shouldn’t be getting out of my car. I shouldn’t be stepping through the flower bed or shrub bed or whatever you call it onto the cracked sidewalk. I shouldn’t be going up these stairs. I’m mad as hell and I hate it. The anger makes me feel more powerful than I really am. And indignant. And justified. I have no right to be these things—to even feel like I can be these things. I should leave before I forget that. Anger solves nothing, and up there all I’ll find is more anger over the things I can’t fix. So why am I doing it?
Sasha.
I stop. I have to grip the railing to keep from falling down the stairs.
Sasha.
She’s alone, and she’s hurting.
I shut my eyes. Like a bird that was once free and then built it’s own cage, she’s up there in that small, dark room all by herself. How can I turn my back on her when she reached out to me?
Because she wants to lock you in that cage with her. She wants you to destroy her and yourself.
My grip on the railing tightens.
I don’t care if she thinks she’s broken. I don’t care if she’s lost her sanity. I don’t want her going back out into some bar alone, looking for some random asshole to hurt her because…I don’t even fucking understand it. Why would someone want to do that? Why won’t she just let me help her? Hold her…
Yeah. Why doesn’t she just want you to help in the way you want to help? Why doesn’t she just do what you want?
I feel like I’m swaying, like the stairs beneath are made of wood and rope instead of steel and concrete. I’m trying to make her into something she’s not, aren’t I? Can I really say I love her if I try to do that? She won’t let me hold her, kiss her, love her. She doesn’t want those things from me and she probably doesn’t want them from anybody. What right do I have to tell her what she needs or what’s good for her? Especially when…
I move forward. I can’t think of the reason. I’ll fall apart of I think of the reason. It makes me want to break everything irregardless of my feelings for it or whether or not it’s right. I’m afraid of myself right now—of these angry, antsy hands—of the mindless, aimless rage inside me—of the fact that I’m still moving closer to her when I’m like this instead of further away.
I stop in front of her door. 203. The outside light is so dim, the shadow the door-frame casts is so long, and the numbers themselves are so crooked and grimy, that I almost can’t read it.
I knock twice, then listen. There’s startled silence followed by frantic a scurrying inside. She wasn’t expecting me, but she wants me—or at least she’s hurrying like she wants me. I’ll have to be content with that.
She yanks the door open, pulling the safety chain tight. “Trevor.”
I plant my hand on the door frame. It’s completely dark inside. I can barely see her face—just a pale line of light running down her nose, lips and chin. “You gonna let me in?”
Her eyes go wide. I hear her adjust her grip on the handle.
Am I really that scary? Wasn’t that what she wanted, anyways? “Sasha.”
She sways against the door, almost shutting it.
I fucked up. She doesn’t want me near her. I’m too obviously, intolerably angry. How can I blame her when I can’t even stand being trapped in my own skin?
“One second,” she whispers as she fumbles with the chain. It slides off and she steps back.
My heart races. She let me in. I can’t fucking believe it, but she did. I push the door open before either of us have a chance to change our minds.
Inside, the same dreariness greets me. Light from the streetlights barely penetrate the drawn blinds. The bare walls are an off-white, that eggshell creamy color that tries to look sophisticated but to me just looks dusty. In the dark, it reminds me of puke.
She shuts the door. “I didn’t think you were going to come.”
“Neither did I.”
She slides the safety lock back into place, then pushes past me. “I don’t have much. Some, I don’t know, yogurt. More tea.”
“Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head.
“Why are you offering, then?”
“I just thought…” she swallows. “I didn’t think you’d had anything.”
“Did you eat tonight?”
She looks down. “No.”
“You should eat something, then.”
“I don’t anymore—I mean, I’m not hungry. I can’t keep it down.”
Oh fuck me. Are you serious? She can’t bring herself to eat? “One moment,” I run an open palm over the wall, searching for a light. It takes a moment to find it. Finally, something flickers on above the oven.
There’s one of those 100 value pack silverware boxes on the stainless steel counter. It’s almost completely full. The top looks looks like it was mauled by a small animal; she opened it badly. I grab two plastic spoons and open the fridge. She wasn’t kidding when she said she only had yogurt and tea.
Well, Key Lime’s her favorite. I take one of those. “Come on.” I rip back the foil. “We’ll split it.”
“Trev…”
“For me,” I tell her. I dip the spoon in the yogurt, then stick it in her face. “
Take a bite.”
The ugly, yellow light behind us lends some color to her skin. She wets her lips. Her eyes widen, then lose focus as she shuts them. I see a flash of pink as her tongue touches the tip of the spoon before slipping under the bottom. Her mouth follows, lips curling against it, and she lets out a small, satisfied sound, as if she’s shocked she’s hungry—shocked she wants it.
She steps back, her entire body trembling as she swallows. “Thank you,” she whispers, eyes still closed. It sounds like she wasn’t expecting kindness, like she doesn’t know what to do with it.
My hand is still midair. I clench the handle of the spoon. It’s everything I can do to keep myself from taking her in my arms and slipping my own tongue into her perfect mouth. That’s the last thing she needs right now. I’m an asshole for even thinking it.
“Well, there’s more,” I respond, hoping my voice doesn’t reveal my nerves. It’s hard to talk, to keep my mind off the sudden discomfort in my pants and…goddamn I’m such a pig.
She steps forward again. Opens her mouth. I keep feeding her as her eyes grow softer. She takes each bite slower than the last. Her tongue moves more sensually around the spoon, as if she’s pleasing it. I know it’s wrong wrong wrong, but my cock is abnormally interested in that last bit.
She enjoys her last bite, then turns her back to me. “I think you should leave.”
I think I should leave too. I think that’s an amazingly good idea. But instead of leaving, I ask, “Why?”
Her shoulders shudder as she exhales. “Because.”
I wait for her to continue. She doesn’t.
“Tell me Sasha.”
“No.”
“Come on. I’m dying here. Let me in.”
“It’s not a good idea. You were right the first time. You shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be asking you this.”
I smash the yogurt container with my fist. I’m not even aware I’m doing it, but the sound makes her jump. She stares at the container, frantic, as if I’d just raised my hand against her. She fills the seconds with panicked, desperate breaths.
“You still want that?” I whisper.
She doesn’t pretend to not know what I’m talking about. She nods before looking at the floor.
“You still want to get fucked rough?”
She cringes. “Stop. Please.”
I almost do. The sound in her voice rips me apart and makes me hate myself even more than I ever thought I could. I want to punch my head to make it stop, to smother all these conflicting feelings of hate and anger and sadness beneath a dull throb that drowns out everything else. “No.”
She looks up at me. Startled. Fear etched into her features, making her seem more fragile. Younger. “What do you mean?”
“Tell me.” I throw the yogurt and the spoon on the floor and stalk forward.
She cranes her neck back. Her wide, dark eyes move back and forth, meeting mine and then looking away as if it hurts her to look at me. Her body shakes as I grip her shoulders, pushing her back until she’s pinned against that ugly, eggshell-painted wall.
“Is this what you want? What you really want?” I ask, lowering my head until my lips are right next to her ear. “You really want to go through all that again? You think that’s going to fucking help? Me brutalizing you? Hurting you and myself?”
Her body twists against mine but she’s not pushing me away. “I know it won’t help.”
“Then why do you want it?”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again.”
“Trev—”
“Tell me again!”
I pull my head back. Her mascara is running. It was running earlier this evening, too, but not when I arrived. She must have cleaned up after I drove her home.
“It never stops,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter what I do, it doesn’t stop. Every time I see a man, every time someone gets close to me, I feel it again, like my body is being crushed beneath this gigantic weight no one else can see even though it cripples me.”
My hands start to shake. Futile anger wells up inside me. There’s no one here to take it out on but her and myself.
“I don’t want to be afraid of the pain anymore.” Her voice breaks. “Or, if I can’t stop myself from being afraid, I at least want to get used to it. I don’t want to keep thinking that my body is beautiful because it’s ugly, it’s so fucking ugly. I want you to break me because I want to survive Trev. I just want to survive.”
My ears ring.
It’s ugly. It’s so fucking ugly.
It’s not. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to scream this at her. I want to just scream it. I want to break the person who didn’t think it was beautiful, who didn’t think it was worth protecting, who saw it and knew he couldn’t have it and so he took it because he knew that was the only way someone as ugly as himself could ever touch it. She wants to hurt someone, why couldn’t she ask me to hurt him? Why the fuck did she ask me to hurt her?
I just want to survive.
I just want to cry. I just don’t want this to be real. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it. I don’t want to be conscious anymore. I want to die.
Instead, I adjust my grip on her shoulders, making her wince. “If I don’t do this, are you going to go to someone else? Someone like that fucking hick back there in that seedy bar?”
“What I do doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it fucking matters.”
“Why? It already happened. Who fucking cares if it happens again? Asking you was a mistake. It is better to go to a stranger.”
My rage spills out of me. “Oh, you think that’s fucking better? Some random asshole with his hands all over you? You think I can leave you alone if that’s the image you’re planting in my head, some thick, disgusting, hairy, crooked cock sliding in and out of your perfect pussy, his beer belly pushing up against your stomach, his grimy, rough hands on your tits, taking what it wants and giving you nothing in return, treating you like trash, treating you like you’re fucking nothing but a quick fuck, brutalizing you and not even fucking caring that you’re hurt, YOU THINK THAT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER?”
Her eyes are so wide they don’t look real. “It already happened.”
A weight falls over me. Crushing me. It hurts everywhere. “And you think it should happen again, then? Again and again and again and again…”
I’m choking. I can’t breathe. I can barely even fucking see. I shake her hard, knocking her head against the wall, and she doesn’t even try to get out of my grip, she doesn’t tell me to stop, she just falls against it like a rag-doll.
I stop and throw my forehead into the wall, resting my lips beside her ear. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? How the fuck can you say that to me? How the fuck can you even begin to say something like that? I fucking love you.”
She inhales sharply. “I love you too, Trev. You’re like a brother to me.”
She doesn’t get it. Either that, or she’s trying not to get it. That last bit’s probably it.
“This is why I said you should go home,” she says.
“Why? So I don’t see you sneak back out again? Because that’s where you’re fucking going, isn’t it? Back out there to find some guy who is willing to hurt you because he doesn’t fucking care?”
“Eventually.”
For a second, I thought I didn’t hear her correctly. Surely, she couldn’t have just admit that point blank. But she did. She doesn’t even try to deny it.
I let go of her shoulders and plant my hands on either side of her head. I lean in real close so our noses are almost touching, so I can feel her sweet, Key Lime-flavored breath spilling out over my cheeks. She’s so beautiful. There’s nothing broken about her, no part of her that shouldn’t be worshiped and loved.
“I’m not gonna let you do that,” I tell her.
“Don’t say that,” she whispers. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Why not?”
“Bec
ause when you do, I want it to be you that hurts me.”
I go still. “What?”
She leans forward and places her palms on my chest. “When you talk like that, I can’t think of it being anyone but you. I shouldn’t have invited you over. I shouldn’t have asked. Because when you’re here, I can’t stop myself.”
My shoulders heave. “Stop yourself from what?”
“From taking what I want.”
All the blood in my body rushes to my cock. It’s aching. Agonizing. Pounding. And that same pounding throbs in my head. I’m so dizzy I’m going to fall.
“What do you want?” I ask dumbly.
“I know it’s wrong,” she continues, not answering. She arches her back and her stomach hits the bulge in my pants. I groan.
“What do you want?” I ask again.
Her lips are by my collarbone. Though only her breath touches me, my body reacts as if it were her mouth. I imagine her pink tongue slipping the inked patterns on my chest, her silky, dark hair catching in my fingers, her hands fumbling with the button on my jeans.
“I want you to fuck me hard,” she says in an deep, sultry whisper.
I let out another low sound in the back of my throat.
She continues, “So goddamn hard that I can’t feel anything anymore.”
It is the most fucked-up, stupid, lame pickup line I’d ever heard, and to my infinite mortification it’s working. My cock aches as it pushes against my zipper. “Shit.”
“I want you Trev,” she slurs. Her pupils are dilated, her eyes black. For a moment I think she’s drunk, but I know she isn’t. Her eyes are just filled with that passion I’d always dreamed of but never seen before.
I shut my eyes. “I can’t do this.”
She stands on her tiptoes and brushes her lips against mine. It’s not a kiss. It’s more like she’s just touching me to make sure I’m still here. “Then don’t. But I want it to be you.”
Every muscle in my body tightens. Aches. “This is so fucked up.”
“I know.” She reaches for my face, her fingers soft and delicate over my stubble. “I don’t care. I want you.”
Pray for Darkness Page 4