LEARNING THE RULES OF THE GAME.
The forest.
It is huge and dark and the trees are widely spaced and huge. We walk side by side but we are not talking. We haven't been talking for a few hours now and I'm OK with that I think. I don't know if it is OK with Spencer, but at least he has stopped moaning at me.
I would love to give him all the answers but he doesn't need them. I glance sideways at him and he is walking staring ahead. I can see from his profile that not only is he very beautiful but also very confused.
'We need to eat soon.' I say to him, but he just mumbles something about not being hungry and stumbles on a few more steps as I stop and watch him.
Let me give you some visuals here so you can imagine the scene a bit better.
Spencer, he has on a pair of black jeans. They fit him wondrously. They are slightly low slung, but not too much. We are after all not clubbing. His shirt is very dark grey. It is almost black but you can see the contrast against the inky blackness of his jeans. He has this shirt tucked in and he had a wide black belt on. You can't see the buckle from the back but I'll tell you – he has my "Whore" belt buckle on. It's a chunky buckle. I'll tell you also that he had his top shirt button undone and he had a narrow tie on loosely around his neck. He is wearing black lace up boots on his feet. His shirt sleeves are rolled up. His hair is not long enough to tie back and is kicking up is curls on the back of his head.
Me. I have on a looser pair of dark jeans. They are ripped on the left knee and grass stained on the right. I have a checked shirt on in shades of blue. Dark blue and over that I have a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and over that I have a long almost ankle length black coat. I have my hair all one length now and it's level with my jaw, but I have on my head a bandana to cover a nasty scar on my forehead and the hat I was given. I'm smoking. I'm chewing on herbs and fungi and I must admit to feeling light in the head.
I don't often feel hungry. Not for food, but now I am watching that tall skinny person walking in front of me and stumbling over nothing and my hunger drifts from my stomach to my groin.
I bite on my bottom lip. 'Spencer, we need to ear something at some point.'
He stops and I see how the muscles in his backside tense. He turns and looks at me. 'I'm not eating anything you've given me.' He tells me.
I have noticed how he is becoming increasingly stubborn. I pull a yellowish grey lump of something squashy out of my front pocket and hold it up between two fingers so that he can see it. 'It will make you feel better.' I tell him.
'I'm not eating it.' He begins to turn away from me. I know I am going to have to force him. I don't like doing it.
Damnit. I am a liar even when I talk to myself.
I will love doing it.
'Spencer, really I'm not giving you a choice.' And I see this back stiffen slightly as he begins to walk away from me.
-o-o-o-
I don't know where I am.
I don't know what I am doing here.
I've tried to figure it all out and work out why I would be here and at first I thought it was a nightmare or a vivid dream, but it's not. This is real. I know Floyd has been drugging me. He has been feeding me strange tasting things. I don't know what it is and at first I was fine with eating it, but today I don't want to. Today things are becoming less cloudy and not so confusing, though I'm still not sure why I am here.
I have memories which feel like they are a million years old. They feel displaced. As though the filing cabinet I keep my memories in has been tipped out onto the floor and everything has been put back in the wrong order. Some bits missing. Thrown away.
'You need to eat.' He keeps telling me, but I don't want to eat what he is giving me. I want to clear my head and try to work things out. I want – I want to remember.
'I really am not going to eat it.' I tell him.
I don't know what it is about me. I don't know if this happens because I have a secret desire for it to happen or if it is because I cannot prevent it. Really the reasons right now don't matter. His hand is on my shoulder and he is dragging and pulling me around to face him. He is shorter than me by a good few inches. I know I am skinny but under the layers of clothes he has on so is he. I should be able to defend against him. I know how to defend myself. I have been shown. This really shouldn't be a problem, yet somehow it is. I allow myself to be pulled around and my stomach jumps in a strange sort of excitement as I see his face and those dark eyes looking at me.
'Eat it.' I am told again and I slowly shake my head and inside my boots I am curling and uncurling my toes. My fingers tap irritably on the side of my legs waiting. Not defending. Wanting what happens next.
The punch takes me on the side of my face and I stagger side ways. I bit the inside of my mouth and made a small noise of surprise. That noise though, that was for Floyd. He likes my little noises. He likes me to cry out and moan. There are no exceptions to this part of the game.
My right hand comes up and I rest it on my face where he hit me. 'Not in the face.' I tell him.
'It doesn't matter now. No one but me can see it. Get your hand out of the way.'
And so it drops to my side again and I stand and look at him and I start counting. I close my eyes and I count to ten before the punch to my kidneys has my down on my knees on the forest floor. I cry out in pain and put my hands down into the leaves on the ground. I feel his boot make contact with my shoulder and he kicks me back onto the ground.
'Eat it.' and though I squirm and wriggle he is able to sit astride me across my hips. I don't want to eat it but his fingers are pressing it between my lips and the way he is sitting across me brings back flashes of memory from somewhere, I don't know where and I reach up and place my hands on his upper arms and I look into his eyes and open my mouth.
I know he is not going to kill me. I know in his own way that he loves me, or needs me. I know he protects me from everything from the mid day sun to the monsters in the dark. I feel the chewy lump in my mouth and watch Floyd as he smirks at me.
'Well done babes.' And his fingers run slowly over the growing bruise on my face. 'But I wouldn't have to do this if you just did what you are told.'
I chew slowly on the thing but I don't answer him. Obviously he is right. I should just do what he tells me. I do it in the end anyway, but this feeling, being pinned down and my jaw hurting and now his tenderness showing his own vulnerability makes my heart pound harder. I grip hold of his arms tighter and his hands are pulling and twisting at my tie.
'The things I want to do to you.' He tells me.
'Really?' I chew and smile and wonder why I resisted this in the first place.
Somewhere in the back of my mind is a memory trying to push its way through. It is warning me. Telling me not to eat anything he gives me, but I cant remember why anymore and when his own squirming and twistings stop and he lets go of my tie and he hands me a small cellophane bag with bits of meat in it, sticking to the sides and to each other, I take it without question.
-o-o-o-
'Give me something!' I have to shout at them. I have to. I don't want to because I know I am what I am and I know they don't want to listen to me but I am a pushy little son of a bitch and I cant do this without just a bit of help. 'Just give me something to set the ball running!'
I am standing with my heels together and my arms out in front of me, palms up. Because I am leaning slightly back and I am looking upwards calling out I see it. I see it drifting in what would normally be a strange and eerie manner, but this is here and so when it is within reach I take the length off dark wood in my hands and pull it to my bare chest. I don't say thank you. I don't even acknowledge it. I hold it tightly in one hand and run my fingers along it. I can feel its age. I can see even in this dark red light that it has been used before. A second hand bit of two by two about three foot in length.
He has been watching me. I don't know if he saw what I plucked from the air and it will be best if he doesn't really. I turn and look over at him. He is watching me. 'Are you going to do what I asked?' I say to him, but he doesn't answer. It takes me about, no exactly, five steps to reach him and I am sure he can now see the weapon I have in my hands. 'You need to defend a bit.' I tell him, and by the look on his face he is going to defend a lot.
And he does defend and really I knew he would but I wasn't expecting him to be so damned good at it. My first strike catches his right forearm. He makes a noise of pain which is quite satisfying and then with his left hand he is grabbing hold of my length of wood. He tugs at it and twists it and I am strong. I really am surprisingly strong considering I'm not fully grown yet and I am going to be a runt anyway. I feel it being ripped from my hands. Now I know I have to move fast. I bounce in closer.
'Stop it!'
He shouts out to me, but I'm not listening. I am trying to find his shoulder so I can dig in my teeth and start ripping and my hands are trying to find the weapon, but he has thrown it.
'No!' I bellow at him 'You have to let me do this!' But he is a fool. He won't listen to me. He just doesn't understand.
I feel his hands on my waist trying to push me away from him and I like it. I like him touching me and so I hold on even tighter and wrap my legs around him. I can hear he is shouting at me. He doesn't want me on him I can feel his hands pushing me but the more he pushes the more I enjoy it and the harder I hang onto him.
My hands though – they have made their way to his throat and I am hissing at him in his ear, 'Don't you go getting me too excited now, I might want to screw your arse as well as whop it.'
'Get off!' He is shouting back though. I think maybe he has realised that I might be a scrawny little shit but what I lack in height and weight I make up for in spite and general all round malevolence. I can taste his blood I my mouth as I suck at the wound I have ripped in his shoulder.
'Just let me. Let me do this and we can go home. Let them think I've got you."
He is still pushing me back and he is swaying and moving slowly in a small circle shouting and pushing and pulling at me. I grip tighter with my thighs around him. It gives, you see, a false reading for Hotchner. He wont be able to predict my next move if all he can think about is tying to remove me.
I have to time it well and I am good with time. Usually. I count down in my head, five, four, three, two, ONE and then allow his hands to push me off him. I drop to the floor and make a small sound of pain even though it didn't really hurt. I lick my lips and roll backwards. I move quickly. I grab the length of dark wood. I stand and as he moves his hands to inspect the damage done to him I swipe him across the face with the bit of old dark oak. The edge catches him. This is purposeful. I want to hurt him. I need to make him see he can't win here. I have to have control and he's a fucking control freak and isn't going to give in easily……
But it catches him in the face. I did a little jump of joy when it hit him and he flailed with his hands and took a step back putting his hands to his face as I now went for that soft bit of skin under this arm on the side of his chest.
He howled in pain.
I howled with delight as I see the flesh tear and blood cast off and go flying into the dark red light of this place. He staggers back and I am there again and this time his hands are up to cover his face and I know he wants to fight me. 'Don't hide from me Hotchner!' I shout and crack his across the shins. A small yelp but enough for me to use that surprise to use the wood and jab hard into this stomach and he starts to bend over and I smack him as hard as I can across the side of the head.
I heard something crack and at first thought it was the wood, but it wasn't. He slumps forwards and to make sure that I give him all I have I bring the end down on the back of his neck.
I win.
He is mine.
'Can we go now?!'