“You belong to me.” It’s the only answer to that question. And the truth she already knows. She’s already accepted it. I know she has.
“What would you do if I told you no? That I don’t want you?” She steadies her breathing as best as she can and straightens her back. “That I don’t want to be your whore anymore?”
“I would know you were lying. And you’re not my whore.” My heart pounds accompanied by a prickling along my skin.
I expect her to come back with some quip asking what she is to me then. But she doesn’t. Instead, she tries to destroy what little goodness she’s given me.
“What if things changed, and I didn’t want you at all?” she asks me with each word clear and just as sharp as the knife it feels like.
“Why would you? Why would you lie?” I dare her to tell me it’s the truth. That she doesn’t want me anymore.
“You would have sent me back after the bath if I’d said ‘no,’ wouldn’t you?” she asks me and I have to take a minute to realize what she’s even referring to.
“Our first night? You didn’t sleep with me because you wanted to stay out of the cell,” I practically spit the words out of my mouth, brimming with outrage. “You didn’t even know you weren’t going back.” My voice rises and I feel it scrape up my throat. “Your heels dug into my ass that night, spurring me on. You fucked me because you wanted me.” I emphasize each word, taking a steady and dominating step closer to her with each one until I’m so close to her, I can feel the tension radiating from her. “You wanted to know what it would feel like to have my cock inside of you.” Lowering my lips to hers I whisper, “Or am I wrong?”
She stares into my eyes and I stare into hers. The mix of greens and blues and golds are vibrant and alive amongst the shards of blotchy red and white.
“Did you want it or not?” I harden my question just as my gut twists with disgust and I start to question if she never wanted me at all. If I was so fucking obsessed with her that I was wrong all this time.
“Yes, I wanted you!” she screams at me although her last word crumbles before it leaves her lips. “And I shouldn’t still want you.” She doesn’t hide the pain when she tells me, “I should hate you.”
Relief, sweet relief, is short and minuscule, but there’s so much relief in her admission.
“Why’s that?” I ask her softly, wanting her to keep going. To work through this because, in weeks, this fight will be meaningless. She’ll forgive me. She already knows she will.
“Because you’re going to kill my family and everyone I love. That’s why.” The fight leaves her with the last sentence.
“Yes.” I keep my voice strong, although I don’t know how. “I am.”
“Please don’t,” she whispers her plea and I wish I’d already done it. I wish I’d already shot the bastard, so she would stop this.
“Is your father a good man?” I ask her, knowing this is going to hurt her, but she’s already so low, there’s not much lower a little more truth can take her. “Do you think the men who protect him deserve to live long enough so they can try to kill me?”
“They won’t,” she tries to tell me, shaking her head vigorously and reaching out to take my hand with both of hers but I rip it away. I won’t let her beg for his life.
“They’ve already tried,” I say, and my nostrils flare as I tell her. “Right after his drug addicts killed my father. They murdered him for forty dollars and a bag of pills.” I remember how my father looked on the metal table in the morgue. How his knuckles were bruised from fighting back.
“And your father was pissed that I dared step onto his turf to kill them. To get revenge. He protected them!” I scream at her and wish I hadn’t. Tears flood from her again and she gasps for air. “Your father sent four men to our house. Our rundown, piece of shit house. The house my mother died in. The house you love so much.” I can’t help but sneer at the thought. “We weren’t there. Thank fuck we weren’t there.”
She’s barely breathing through her hands that are covering her face as if they can shield her from the hard truth as I tell her, “He had them burn it down with incendiaries. I should have killed him then, but I couldn’t get to him. I sure as fuck can get to him now.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpers, and tries to calm herself down. And I almost reach for her, to hold her, because I want to. Right now I need to hold her too. But then she speaks.