He needed a friend, or an enemy, or something: someone to shackle these damned hands of his into chains, to hold him back until he calmed from his fury. His anger had, once again, been his downfall; he had moved his arms-heedless arms-against her, and now she lay there, weeping, bruised by his mad hands.
He held nothing sacred but her, and he had defiled the shrine of his only god.
He looked at her, frightened and disheveled, and marveled that she could still be so beautiful: like some warrior princess or mad Bacchante, the displaced locks gave her a wild radiance.
Who would not call him insane, who would not call him savage, to have harmed such beauty? She herself called him nothing, but the tears that still lined her face accused him more eloquently than any tongue.
Fuck! He wanted his arms to fall from his shoulders, useless limbs, he could well stand to lose them, ministers of slaughter and crime! Unholy hands!
He could never have beaten her in a fair fight, he'd had that proved to him time and time again, and now he'd taken advantage of her wounded state to wrangle a perverted triumph. Oh yes, line the streets in praise, dark creatures of the world! This victory was truly great.
He'd bruised her before, more fittingly, in their rough play; he'd called her filthy names, ripped her clothes down to shreds, run his fingernails down her cheeks till they drew blood, held her hair tight in his grip.
But this time...she had been almost as marble-cold as he was, her limbs had fluttered like reeds in the breeze, like ripples on the ocean, and her tears had poured from her in a rush of release before he'd realized he was doing her harm, and in his eyes the tears turned to blood.
He wanted to throw himself at her feet, but he knew she would only push him away; he would have let her hurt him all she wanted, tear his eyes out, wreck his scalp, but he knew she would now recoil from his touch.
And all he wanted to do, looking at her, so pitiful on the cold white linoleum, was to right her disheveled hair, so that no sign of his sins might survive.