Shut them up…keep them locked in your head…
“Do your demons not drown you, Ryan?” I ask, already knowing the answer… nothing could drown him.
“I am my demons, and I know how to swim.”
His reply was one I expected from him and how I longed to feel that way about mine. The way he spoke it was so confident, he was so comfortable with who he was. I thought I was where I belonged so why was I so disturbed by ghosts when I closed my eyes at night?
Things were so good for a while; I was painting more than just Ryan, more than just Hannah and Tom dying in a pool of blood. I’d been painting the landscape and architecture of all the beautiful places he had shown me over the three years we’d been travelling together. Ryan filled the void inside me and in a small way I believed I did the same for him. Sometimes when my demons troubled my dreams I felt a burden to him. He was so comfortable in the dark, within himself, that I was jealous of his freedom and longed for him to help free me of them.
“Teach me,” I begged.
His domineering presence in the room caused the air to heat around me, he was a force so strong even the air around him appeared to tremble.
That’s just your quivering thighs.
My mind was like a washing machine set on a spin cycle. I could never stop the turbulence in there lately.
Focusing solely on him, I will the storm inside to calm.
“Until you accept who you actually are, you’ll never be free of those dreams Cereus.” His leg unfolds, dropping to the floor where he leans forward to pick something up at his feet. He holds up a sketch I did yesterday, it’s of a girl I’d met briefly at the beach a couple of days before. Thinking of her brings turmoil and annoyance to the surface. She was wearing a string bikini and she mocked me for my one piece in front of a crowd of men she was with. I rarely ever ventured out to do normal things like going down to the beach but I wanted to swim in the ocean. I liked swimming; it was freeing and helped soothe the madness inside.
It wasn’t the fact she was trying to be a bitch in front of men, I didn’t care what they thought of me. It was the fact she had the cheek to even approach me just to be a bitch. It was like looking in the face of Hannah all that time ago.
Some people are so insecure about themselves that they need to target others.
She was found dead the next day on the very sand she mocked me from.
… She deserved to die
“Until I accept who I am? What does that even mean?” I ask, confusion worrying my brow.
When he rises to his feet it makes me startle and shift on the bed. He comes striding towards me and I have to hold my breath until he’s hovering over me, his shadow wrapping itself around me.
Sucking in a deep pull of his scent my body becomes on high alert, my nipples peaking. He knows how I feel about him, and although it’s perversion in the eyes of ‘normal’ people…we were so much more than normal. Ryan was anything but normal, he was a king amongst men to me. A dark king forged from sin and he carried that aura around with him like a cloak, dousing him in a warning.
Beware the devil walks among you.
Only I didn’t see it as a warning, I saw it as an invitation.
The pad of his thumb combs over my brow and then swipes down my cheek to rest under my chin, digging into the skin slightly, commanding me to rise to my knees.
His lips move over mine, barely touching but I can feel them as if he pressed down hard. They are hot and soft. His rumbling groan vibrates against them making my lips tickle. I never wanted the feeling to end; I could stay just like this, me breathing him and him breathing me, forever.
“I’m going to take you out tonight, I want to show you something.”
I needed him to shut up and stop teasing me. To just give me what I needed already, morals wasn’t something we cared about so why he kept me wound up tight with sexual need was just cruel.
He is cruel, it’s part of the reason you love him.
His presence fell away from me as he backed away towards the door. I couldn’t even wait for him to leave, if he could tease so could I. Dropping back down to the bed with a huff, I slip my hand straight into my panties and swirl the wetness there against my clit. A moan leaves my lips and I scan the doorway to find him leaning against the frame with a smirk on his face. Once again holding up the drawing, he taps it with his hand.
“This has to stop. What would I do if they took you away from me?” Even from across the room I can see the droop of his eyes and the frown lines marring his brow, he was genuinely worried about me being taken away.
They can’t, I’m yours, and you are mine… we belong together.
“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything, what do you think I did, do you think I killed her? One of the guys she was with probably did it. He came over to me and told me she was a bitch afterwards. Roberto or something his name was.” I inhale in a rush. I just spew out words, which I know sound way too defensive. She was in my dreams… there with Tom, Hannah and other faces who have no names. Did I kill her? Did I kill them all? …No, I wouldn’t, I’d remember doing something like that… wouldn’t I?