Mine(32)

Then I thought of what he had done to me the first time and tears stung the backs of my eyes.

“Don’t inject me with anything,” I said, closing my eyes as though it would make the darkness go away. In my mind, the syringe was coming at me in the dark. I didn’t know where it would come from. My heart pounded in my ears. “Please. No needles.”

“No needles,” he agreed. His voice was a soft whisper in my ear. For a moment, he sounded so gentle that I forgot to be afraid of him. I was scared, yes, scared of the darkness, but not of him. His hands softened on my arms, caressing my skin. “But don’t fight me.”

“I won’t,” I said. As terrified as I was, his words gave me a measure of relief. No needles. No paralysis.

If it got too bad, I could defend myself.

I didn’t know what he was doing, but then he wrapped an arm around me, over my chest. His chin rested against my neck and he nuzzled my hair out of the way.

“Were you asleep?”

He talked to me like a lover. A crazed maniacal lover who was keeping me hostage in a library, but a lover nonetheless. His voice promised honeyed sweetness with its lilting words.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Were you dreaming?”

“No.”

Rien rocked me slightly back and forth, and in the total darkness my sleepiness began to catch up with me again. My heart slowed down, no longer pumping adrenaline through my body. He brushed my hair away and pressed his lips against my neck. A long, slow thrill seized my nerves.

“You were unconscious,” he whispered. His breath skimmed the nape of my neck.

“Yes.”

“It’s like death, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. The image of the scalpel flashed again in my mind and I blinked it away. “I’ve never died.”

“Descartes said it: I think, therefore I am. When you’re not thinking, then, what are you? Isn’t unconsciousness the same as death?”

“You’re the anesthesiologist. You tell me. Or at least, that’s what you pretended to be.” He might’ve been lying to me about that, too.

“I am an anesthesiologist.”

He was telling the truth. What was it about his voice that made me know he was telling me the truth? His thumb rubbed the side of my arm and I shivered.

“You’re a murderer,” I whispered.

“What’s the difference? I put people under. Sometimes they come out of it. Sometimes not.”

“You torture them.”

“I tortured you.” He hugged his arms around me a bit more tightly.

“Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“I don’t deal in comfort. I deal in pain and pleasure. Specifically, other people’s pain. My pleasure.”

“But not for me.”

“No,” he said. There was something strange in his voice when he said it, a kind of unease that I hadn’t sensed in him before. Rien, who’d been utterly confident from the beginning, sounded unsure for the first time. It drew me even closer to him.

“What do you think?” he asked. The confidence in his voice came back as he changed the subject. “Do you lose your identity when you sleep?”

I leaned against him so that my head rested against his collarbone. His body was relaxed. I breathed in deeply.

“I’m not sure I’m awake now,” I said. I let myself drift off, my heartbeat slowing. “This doesn’t seem real. I might be dreaming. I might not exist right now at all.”

“Are you a different person now than you were this morning, Sara?”

I opened my eyes. It was dark; nothing had changed. But I felt his muscles tense against my back.

“I’m nothing right now,” I said. “I don’t have an identity. I’m just a prisoner.” A survivor.

His arms moved across my chest, pulling me against him. I gasped when he lay down onto the couch underneath me, pulling me back with him. His legs slid under mine, my feet grazing his ankles.

He was under me completely. I lay on top of him, my back against his chest. The back of my head rested on his shoulder.

His hands began to unbutton my shirt. One button at a time. I lay there, frozen, unable or unwilling to move. I’d just decided to pretend, hadn’t I? But this didn’t seem like pretending. His hands hypnotized me, caressed me. I breathed in deeply, feeling the pressure of my lungs as they swelled against his chest. Then his breath came back, resounding.

His cock was hard already. I could feel his erection pressing against the back of my thighs as I lay on top of him. Then he unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. His hands drew the fabric apart. The chill of the library air made my nipples hard. He cupped one breast with his hand, his thumb smoothing circles around the hard button.