Blaze
"It will feed you, it will ravish you, it will not keep you alive."
—Louise Glück
It's freezing in homeroom, the auditorium dark and a little damp, like there might be a leak somewhere. It's the middle of December, and the air conditioning is set to full blast. Taylor pulls her jacket tighter around her middle, but it's just a windbreaker, something she picked up after school one day from the thrift store on Belmont. It's garish. Mustard yellow and maroon. She feels like the condiments that are left out on the tables in restaurants. It's not cute, but it was three dollars. It cost her more money to take the bus back home afterwards.
She'll need a new winter jacket soon.
She's annoyed thinking about it. She is tired of always having to ask Mr. J for things. He's always given her whatever she's asked for, as long as it was within reason, but lately she itches with greed—she wants more. She wants freedom from always having to ask for his permission first, and she wants to buy things without having to tell him exactly what the money is for.
She still remembers the shame and embarrassment of having to ask him for money for a bra, unable to meet his eyes as she did, folding her arms a little higher across her chest than she normally would, as if knowing his gaze would be drawn there.
Mr. J had looked at her, and she swore she caught the tail end of a smirk curled along the corner of his mouth. His dark eyes met hers.
"What for," he said.
It wasn't a question.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Jaw clenched. She wanted to punch him.
That was a year ago. She was fifteen then, and she had stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Usually he left her alone when she did that. But that day he followed after her. She was belly-down on her bed, face buried in her pillows. The blinds were open and it was sunny, and it annoyed her that the sun could be so happy when she was not.
There was the sound of the door clicking open, and then the dip of the mattress, his sudden weight on her back, and her lower back and hips encased between his torso and warm thighs. The taste and smell of him suddenly lodged in her throat—fire and smoke—and the startling warmth of being enveloped in his cocoon. She couldn't help the involuntary sound of surprise that slipped out. He felt like a sheet of hot steel on her back. She squirmed underneath him to test his strength, and her heart pulsed in her throat when she realized she couldn't budge, her mouth going bone dry at this simple demonstration of his power.
"I didn't mean it," he purred, his hot mouth on her ear.
She had huffed in response, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of giving in, but it came out more shuddery than she had intended.
She felt his long fingers curling over her ribs, her soft belly, and then he was tickling her. She gasped in surprise, but she was defenseless, immediately dissolving into giggles despite her reluctance, Mr. J drawing her laughter out of her with both hands, tickling her until she was breathless from it and begging for him to stop.
"Say 'mercy'," he said. He wouldn't let up.
"Mercy!" she yelled, still trying to twist away from him. She was flipped over onto her back now, tears leaking from her eyes. "Mercy, mercy—!"
He stopped then, smirking down at her, satisfied, his eyes bright dark and glimmering.
She panted beneath him, trying to catch her breath, suddenly hyperaware of the way he was straddling her hips and of where her t-shirt had ridden up, exposing the sharp notches of her rib bones. Her pale belly. She flushed, meeting his eyes, and when she went to pull down her shirt, he captured both of her wrists in one hand. He pulled her arms up over her head, nice and slow as he pinned them to the mattress, almost as if wanting to gauge her reaction, test if she would resist him. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, holding her breath as he carefully slotted his body over hers. His breath was on her neck. His warm lips on her ear. She felt the naked scar on the left side of his face brush up against her cheek. She kept very still.
"So easy," he murmured.
Then there was something being pushed into her open palms, and his weight was gone, and she suddenly felt cold without him. He left before she could say anything else, and she was dazed, blinking up at the ceiling, trying to slow her breathing.
When she lowered her arms and looked at the item Mr. J had pressed into her palm, her lips parted at the sight of a fifty dollar bill.
She wishes now she hadn't been so idiotic as to spend it all on a stupid bra.
The girl two seats over smacks her gum loudly. Taylor can hear all the wet sounds her mouth makes as she chews; she glances over at her, watches her tap on her phone with both thumbs, rapid-fire, her face cast in artificial light that is milky blue, highlighting unpleasant features and crevices. The zit on her jaw. Her double chin. Taylor wonders who she's texting. What they're talking about.
She sighs and picks at a loose thread near her thigh, a soft strip of maroon from the velvet auditorium seat. She's always hated these seats, the way they so eagerly snap back up the moment you go to stand, like the hungry jaws of some wild animal trying to take a bite out of your ass and thighs.
Their guest speaker is either late or caught in the chaos of the blizzard that swirls angrily outside. The snow is blinding. She managed to catch a glimpse of it through the window when shuffling to her next class. They should have canceled school this morning.
There are no windows in the auditorium, just the white, hot lights all pointed at the empty podium on the stage, as if to highlight the fact that nobody is there. The rest of the auditorium is bathed in shadow and dust. It smells like mothballs and old sweat.
She watched a production of And Then There Were None here last fall, remembers marveling at the sets. The costumes. And her classmates, memorizing all those lines, moving across the stage with the practiced ease of someone who had done it a hundred times before. Nobody seemed nervous. Nobody fumbled their lines. Their confidence was breathtaking. She had left that night feeling envious—mystified—wondering how it was possible to bottle up so much confidence, even in the midst of a crowd-hot room, knowing all eyes were on you, knowing your cast mates were depending on you, knowing that the entire production hinged on your ability to do what you were supposed to do.
Two girls stumble into the auditorium late—giggling—and Mr. Delbi from the front row hisses at them to keep it down and then noses back into the Gotham Inquirer. They're supposed to be using this time to study while they wait for the speaker, but nobody is.
The girls shuffle into the empty seats directly in front of her, and Taylor averts her gaze so they don't think she's a freak for staring. She picks at the loose velvet thread, pretends she's not listening.
"I don't know why they're making us come to this stupid thing," the girl on the left says, a half-hearted whisper. She has her long blonde hair put up in smooth ponytail that cascades down her back. She pulls down the seat and heaves a sigh as she sinks into it. "I already know what college I'm going to."
"Yeah, the University of Sucking Dick," her friend mutters. Her brown hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she's wearing gray sweatpants that she's tucked inside her fur-lined UGG boots. She bends to reach into her backpack, and Taylor stares at all the handmade bracelets on her wrist, a braided rainbow of color.
"Ha, ha."
The girl with the bracelets pulls out a pack of gum. She takes one for herself and then offers one to her friend. "I still can't believe your parents are going to let you go there. It's a party school."
"Yeah, but it's close to home, so they don't care. They'll come visit on the weekends or whatever."
"Just so long as you're not doubled over the toilet in some frat house puking your guts up."
The blonde girl shoots her a look. "You're so crass sometimes." She snatches the stick of gum. "At least I know where I'm going."
The rest of their conversation peters out when Mr. Delbi jumps up from his seat and offers an overeager handshake to the woman who just entered from the bottom left of the auditorium.
She doesn't know what the speaker is here to talk about, but from the conversation she's just overhead, she guesses it has to do with applying to college.
She bites her lower lip and sinks a little farther down into her seat. The woman is pretty. Young. She introduces herself as a college admissions counselor for GSU. She looks out at the pockets of students scattered throughout the auditorium, some with their feet propped on the seats in front of them, some still texting on their phones. A kid near the back is passed out with his neck arched at an awkward angle, hoodie pulled low over his eyes, one loose earbud dangling near his chin. Taylor looks back at the counselor and is overcome with such overwhelming secondhand embarrassment that she can feel her own face growing hot. She is sorry for her, standing there at the podium, looking hopeful and bright-eyed, her jacket-skirt combo just a little too big, almost boxy. Her flats make her look like a little girl. Maybe this is the first time she's done this.
Taylor listens, but only because nobody else is and she doesn't want the counselor to feel discouraged. She thinks the woman might look at her a couple of times, but it's hard to tell for sure because of the glare from the woman's glasses. Taylor offers a feeble smile of encouragement anyway. She'd hate to stand up in front of these people, knows she would wither under such intense disinterest, the hot scrutiny of bored, judgmental stares.
The bell rings, but the counselor isn't finished. She hurries through her final parting spiel, but everyone is already getting out of their seats, stretching their arms over their heads, yawning open-mouthed, gathering their books, backpacks, pocketing their cell phones. The counselor tells everyone she has pamphlets if they're interested. Nobody is.
Taylor bites her lip and watches everyone leave. The girls in front of her left their gum wrappers shriveled on the floor, and the silver wrappers gleam in the dim light, looking like the warped, hard shells of a beetle or some other shiny insect. She waits a minute to shoulder her backpack, and then she ambles down the aisle towards the stage.
Mr. Delbi is talking to the counselor about something, energetic in the way he way he moves his arms—covered in a thick blanket of dark, wiry hair—and the woman looks mildly uncomfortable, nodding stiffly, but polite. She doesn't see Taylor approach at first, but then she glances over Mr. Delbi's shoulder and seems relieved.
"Hi there!" she says. She uncrosses her arms and steps off the stage to meet her. She is even prettier up close. Blonde hair and blue eyes. She has dimples in her cheeks and a tiny, cute nose. Taylor's always liked girls with small features—probably because all of hers are so big and too loud. "Were you interested in applying to GSU?"
Taylor nods even though she's not. She's never thought about applying to college—she's never thought about college.
"That's great!" she says. "What are you looking to major in?"
Taylor reaches for her own elbow and holds on because she doesn't know what to do with her hands.
"I don't know," she says, and then clears her throat and says it again when it comes out quiet and croaky. She hasn't said anything to anyone all day.
"That's okay," the woman says, smiling. She's so bright she would put a forest fire to shame. "You still have time to decide. What kinds of things are you interested in?"
Taylor blinks, mildly panicked by the question. She doesn't know what kinds of things she's interested in. She likes food, especially sweet things, like the gummi candies you sink your teeth into and the goo inside bursts all over your tongue, first sour, and then sweet. She likes when it's summer, especially that one time Mr. J took her to Cape May and she got to swim in the Atlantic. Her first time in the ocean. Her hair full of salt, her skin tight and warm from an entire day spent playing in the sun. He had watched her play in the waves for hours—maybe the one truly kind thing he has ever done for her, that trip—sitting in the sand, knees pulled up to his chest, legs spread so he could drape his forearms across the hills of his knees.
She thinks that she likes waking up early sometimes and feeling Mr. J still in bed behind her, big and warm and safe. And she likes gently plucking the steel guitar strings in the band room when no one's paying attention, likes the feel of the vibrations under her fingertips, their soft hum. She likes bending down to pet the black cat with milky white paws, the one with the tip of its left ear chewed off who lazes outside the convenience store she gets candy from sometimes. She likes watching Logan play softball after school. And she likes when Mr. J stands behind her in the kitchen when she's making something to eat, gently skirts his knuckles along the knobs of her spine, looking over her shoulder like he's interested in what she's doing when she knows he just wants to touch her. She really likes that.
"I don't know," she shrugs. She digs her fingernails into her elbow, feels the prick of her nails through her jacket. "I like to draw, I guess." She draws on the back of old homework assignments that have already been graded and returned to her, using colored pencils she borrowed from school. She wants one of those sketchbooks with buttercream paper, thick enough that markers won't bleed through—but they're expensive, and there's always other things to spend money on.
"That's great!" she says again, like that's her automatic response to everything. "Have you ever thought about majoring in art?"
Taylor bites her lip. "Like, be an artist?"
"Sure!" she says. "Why not? There are lots of things to do with an art degree."
"Oh." She is still chewing on her lower lip, where her teeth have left little indentations. She looks up at Mr. Delbi who is still on the stage, staring at her. He looks annoyed. She reddens. "I'm really not that good."
"Well, GSU has a great art program, our professors are some of the best in the state—"
Taylor nods, finally releasing her lower lip from the sharp prison of her teeth. The counselor is friendly, but she really wants to go now. She doesn't know why anxiety prickles up her spine all the sudden, why she feels clammy, why her intestines feel as though they've twisted themselves into a tangle of wet knots, why bile crawls hot and unwanted up her throat.
"I have to go," she blurts, interrupting the woman's speech.
The counselor's brows pull together, concerned. Taylor feels awful for being so rude.
"That's okay," she says, not unkind. "I know you have to get to class. Let me just give you one of these." She steps back to the stage and reaches for one of the promised pamphlets, and then digs in her purse for a moment. She comes back to Taylor and offers the items to her. "Here's my card if you have any questions, you can call me or even text." She looks at Taylor and offers a smile, a smaller one, one that almost looks a little sad, like she already knows she won't be hearing from her again. "My email's there, too," she says.
Taylor nods. She takes the pamphlet and the cream-colored card and hurries up the aisle, desperate to escape the hot lights, the dank smell of the leaky auditorium. Mr. Delbi's irritated frown and his ugly, hairy arms.
Her next two classes pass in a blur. She doesn't remember them. She can't stop thinking about the counselor's questions and her startling inability to formulate an answer. What does she want to do when she grows up? What does she want to study? Where does she want to go? Who does she want to be?
And why has she never thought about these things before? Did she think she was going to live with Mr. J for the rest of her life? Did she think she wouldn't have to work, that he'd take care of her and she'd never have to worry about anything ever again? Has she really been so consumed—so obsessed—with chasing after his love and attention that she hasn't given any time to cultivating her own self? Has everything she's ever done, everything she's ever felt and thought and said, has it all been in hapless pursuit of Mr. J? Did her own desires outside of his orbital sphere ever even exist?
She feels nauseous the whole way home, and it takes forever; the busses are delayed and there's an accident in Colgate Heights that's slowed down traffic. Everyone is on high alert because of the snow storm, which is poised to worsen overnight. She gets home two hours later than usual. It's already dark outside. She leaves her backpack on the floor underneath the counter. Doesn't care that she tracks slush into the house. She kicks off her sneakers at the foot of her bed. She'll do her homework later.
Mr. J isn't home yet, but that isn't unusual. Sometimes she likes to have dinner ready for him by the time he gets back—she knows he likes that—but she doesn't think she can stomach anything right now, and unease still slithers around in her belly like it can't find a comfortable place to lay its head down and rest.
She's still thinking about the counselor, and college, but she doesn't want to. Her sudden self-awareness for her own naivety is startling—it frightens her. She feels stupid. Ashamed. She thinks of the two girls who had sat in front of her in homeroom, the next step of their lives all planned out—not perfect, but still pretty. In retrospect, Taylor's future barely extends into tomorrow, as even that isn't promised to her. She doesn't live in constant fear of Mr. J killing her, not anymore, but she knows someday this will all end, that eventually he will get bored with her, that she will have served her purpose. They aren't soulmates. They're soul something, tethered together by some tenuous thread of his own design, but they're not bound for eternity like certain other lovers are. What they have will not be kept alive by memory, and one day it will be forgotten—she knows she'll take their love with her when she goes, to some place where it will cease to exist entirely, because it has to. Her love for him is pure, without restraint, and yet sometimes she feels so full of sin she is sick with it, forced to perform regular purges of her own self-disgust. She knows she loves a monster. She knows she's wrong for loving him. She knows there is no room for that kind of depravity in Heaven, and even Hell will throw her out. Even they will not want her. You're unwelcome here, they'll tell her. She'll exist only in the tepid in-between, an imagined space—maybe there her love for him can finally thrive, where it can bloom unhindered, unburdened by the inherent toils of good or evil. Some place where it might be allowed to just be.
She stares at her unmade bed, where the sheets look cold and unfriendly. She ends up falling into the couch instead, curled up into a ball, facing the back cushions. The snow comes down heavy outside. It's quiet. Lonely. She sleeps harder than she has in a long time.
She doesn't know why she's so tired lately, why it's so hard to stay awake. It's the kind of exhaustion that's burrowed somewhere so deep inside her she can't pinpoint its exact source. Sometimes it's a challenge just to make it through the day. She naps almost every day when she gets home from school, and when she wakes she's still on top of the covers with her shoes on. She thinks maybe it's because it gets darker earlier in the day now. Sometimes Mr. J will be home when she wakes, and her bedroom door will be open a little wider than she had left it. Other time when she wakes, he isn't there, and she spends the evening trying to focus on her homework, though her mind wanders, and some of her homework is hard to do without access to a computer.
A little while later, she wakes from a dreamless sleep, feeling groggy and stiff. She sits up and stretches her arms, yawning, and when she's done she sees that the light under the stove in the kitchen is on, and she knows Mr. J is home. She slips off the couch and goes to him. The door to his bedroom creaks when she pushes it open. He's sitting at the desk that's pushed up against the far wall, the gooseneck lamp pitched low, illuminating a small patch of splintered wood and the furled corner of a map. She always wonders what he's working on when he sits there at night, hunched over for hours at a time, but she knows better than to ask.
"Mr. J?" she says, a little tentative, because she's not sure if it's okay to interrupt.
He spins around in his chair, slowly, and she swallows when she sees he's in his face paint, though patches of skin are starting to peel through. His jacket hangs off the back of the chair. His vest is on the floor. It helps some, seeing him stripped down like this, to his shirt and suspenders, but she's still frightened—uneasy—still has to make a conscious effort not to take a step back.
She realizes then that he's not looking at her, his eyes drawn instead to his lap, where she sees that he's clutching the pamphlet to GSU she'd gotten at school. She must have left it on the counter. He does look up at her then, and his heavy eyes on her make her mouth part with uncertainty. Fear. She'll never get used to the intensity of his eyes, especially when they're slathered in black. Seeing him like this—it's like every time is the first time.
"Big plans?" he asks, cocking his head—just slight, just enough for her to know that she should phrase her reply very carefully.
"I—no. No." She steps in front of him now. She doesn't want him looking at that. She doesn't know why it makes her nervous, him knowing about GSU. Why it feels like a window is closing before it was ever really open. She hugs her own waist. "I mean, not really. It was just this thing at school. I had to go. They gave me one of those. I meant to throw it away."
She tries to make it sound flippant. Mr. J's head cocks even further, and she knows from the dark glimmer in his eyes he can see straight through her lie. She doesn't even know why she's lying about it, why it's so bad for him to know. There's no reason why her possibly going to college has to be a secret. Right?
Mr. J doesn't say anything. Something in the air feels charged, though, like one wrong move and she might find herself pinned on the floor beneath him. She ventures another step closer.
She goes to take it from him, tentative, but she is surprised when he doesn't relinquish his grip. She looks at him, brows drawn together in confusion.
"Why don't you let me hold onto this," he says, "since you won't be needing it. Hm?" He tosses it somewhere on the desk behind him. She tracks its movement as it slides across the desk, and somehow she's knows that's the last time she'll be seeing it. With his other hand, he pats his lap. "Come here. Sit."
She exhales through her nose. Tries not to let the shock of his request show, even though she knows it's written all over her face. She steps closer, and she lets him pull her into his lap, where she sits on his thigh, like the way you would with Santa at the mall or something. She shifts a little, and he curls an arm around her waist. Casual.
"Am I in trouble?" she asks. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, pumpkin. No. Of course not," he assures, and Taylor bites her lip, searching his eyes. "I'm, uh, just surprised, is all, that you'd want to leave your Mr. J—"
"I don't!" she blurts. No. She doesn't want him to think that.
"No?"
"No… no. I don't want to leave." Her words bleed sincerity. Sincerity that is so honest and unflinching it's almost painful. Honesty that is unfettered, uncontained. It embarrasses her, sometimes, how much she would give to him. How much she has already given. "I want to stay here. With you."
"Yes," he says. His eyes burn her, but she can't look away. "Yes, you do. You know I'll take care of you, don't you?"
She nods. She feels his arm slip lower, his hand trailing further down, until it rests on her hip. She feels him skirting the hem of her shirt up, and she shudders when she feels his bare fingers there, tracing over her ruined flesh, the place where he had permanently staked his claim. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday.
He leans closer, fits his mouth near the shell of her ear. "Don't want you forgetting who you belong to."
She nods. Unable to speak. Her heart thuds in her ears. It feels so good, the warmth of his hand there, searing through her flesh, like he's branding her for a second time. She forgot how good it feels to be wanted. Owned.
"Please keep touching me there," she whispers.
She meets his eyes only briefly, searching for the whites in his eyes inside all that black, and then he's pulling her against him, further up his thigh, so she's flush to his abdomen. She dares to reach up. Winds her arms around his neck.
He lets her.
He traces the J with two fingers, then switches to his thumb, and she can do nothing but cling to him, let him touch her. She lays her head on his collarbone, exhales against his neck. Closes her eyes, lost in the sensation. The rough pads of his fingers awaken a prickling wave of goose bumps beneath their touch.
She hears the wet sounds his mouth makes when he licks his lips. Feels him exhale, the slight way his chest expands and then recedes.
Of course she doesn't want to leave him. She never wants this to end. She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing she could just be in the moment and enjoy it, but it's hard when she spends so much time prematurely dreading the second it'll end.
She wakes sometime later, when he shifts. She blinks into the darkness, smells gasoline and something else, maybe sweat. She forgets where she is for a second, hadn't even realized she had fallen asleep. She lifts her head from the crook of his neck and looks up at him, sheepish. His hand is still under her shirt, the warm, rough skin of his palm covering the J in its entirety, pressed so tight it's almost as if he hopes to absorb the brand into his own skin. He looks down at her with an expression she can't read.
"Sorry," she murmurs. "I don't know why I'm so tired all the time." She rubs the sleep from her eyes with both fists and has to wait a minute for the fuzz to clear out. She doesn't want to break this spell, but she knows they can't stay like this forever, and she is always afraid of pushing her affection towards him just one step too far. She makes a point of always withdrawing first, before he has the chance. A little piece of her heart always breaks off when he pushes her way, so she always removes herself from his embrace before he can.
She slides off his lap. Hopes he isn't angry. She stands in front of him and clasps her arms behind her back. He goes back to his work. She knows she's taken up his time, knows that it's late now, but she can't help but wonder why he didn't wake her sooner.
"Good night, Mr. J." She bites her lip, and when it becomes clear he is not going to echo it back to her, she leaves.
In the doorway, his voice stops her in her tracks.
"You wouldn't get in, you know."
She turns around to face him, holding onto the edge of the doorframe.
"Your art," he clarifies. "It's not good enough."
She swallows down her disappointment, which tastes even more bitter than usual. "Oh."
He gets up, and she watches him approach. "The truth hurts, princess. But it's better you hear it from me. Don't want you getting your hopes up for no reason."
She takes a small step back as he advances. "Oh… okay."
He grins at her, but it feels full of condescension. Mirth.
"Sweet dreams," he says.
He shuts the door in her face.
She stares at the closed door, and her shoulders sag with the sharp sting of rejection, and something else, something that feels almost like betrayal, although she can't figure out why.
In her room, she changes into her pajamas. Slips under the covers. She sleeps in her own bed that night. And she refuses to cry.
It's almost Christmas. But finals first, and then winter formal after the new year.
Mr. J has been more affectionate than usual of late, ever since he found the college brochure. One night he brings her home a box of hot chocolate which she immediately sets to making, heaping a generous helping of fluffy marshmallows on top after the chocolate powder is all stirred, and when she offers him a sip from her mug, he accepts, much to her surprise and delight. It makes her heart race when she watches him touch his lips to the mug where she had just put hers—and then moments later, when he returns it to her, for her lips to touch where his had been. They share a look, and she wonders if he knows what she's thinking about, if he is lit up with the same thrill.
And a few nights later, he joins her on the couch. She's lying down, watching Home Alone, her homework abandoned on the coffee table. It's a cold, rainy evening. The rain has turned all the snow to slush, impossible mountains of it stacked in the school parking lot, the kind that'll freeze into hard chunks and then take weeks to melt, and brown walls of it are piled waist-high on the sides of the road, hurriedly shoved out of the way. It's supposed to snow again later. It's like it never stops.
Mr. J is dressed down—his face stripped free of paint, completely bare. He's wearing brown pants. A black t-shirt. It's the first time she's ever seen him in black before, and she tries not to stare. She's always thought he was handsome, even if the idea of having such a thought has always felt too taboo to acknowledge. It feels wrong, somehow, to admit her attraction to him, even if it's a constant thought in her peripheral mind. It is wrong. She knows she's shouldn't like him. And yet, there is an undeniable thrill she gets from knowing that he might like her a little bit, too. She likes feeling wanted by him. Likes feeling needed.
Don't want you forgetting who you belong to.
She doesn't mind his scars—they fascinate her, especially when she gets to see them bare and up close. She thinks sometimes his eyes are a little too intense, too frightening, and she supposes she doesn't really like his teeth, but she likes when he smiles at her, the way his eyes light up, likes knowing she is at the center of his undivided attention. And sometimes she wishes he would wash his hair more often, but she does really like his arms—surprisingly tanned—and his hands, which are so much bigger and stronger than hers. His calloused palms and the pads of his fingertips. She likes the warmth that radiates off him, fire-hot, like he's lit up from the inside by some invisible furnace. And she likes that in the sunlight, sometimes his eyes look chocolate brown instead of black, and she likes the way his hair curls at the nape of his neck, and the little curls around his ears. And she likes his mouth, the things he is always doing with it. She likes how he can never hold himself completely still. She likes when he teases her, or when he makes her blush. She likes the length of his body, his long legs, and the shifting muscles in his thighs when he's pressed up against her. She likes him hovering just a little too close, especially when they're in public, some part of him always touching her, like he knows she's touch-starved and needs physical contact. His upper arm pressed against her shoulder, his knee touching hers when they're sitting side by side, or the way he locks his legs with hers beneath a table if they're across from each other, kind of playful, kind of territorial, like he thinks someone might come and snatch her away if he doesn't. The way he bends to touch his forehead to hers sometimes, smiling, and it feels like a secret when it's like that, like his grin is meant just for her. She likes that he smells like gasoline and smoke, even if she doesn't like to imagine why he smells that way.
He plops down near the arm rest with enough force to disrupt the cushions, and then he's pulling her into his lap, so she's laid out across his thighs, her head pillowed on the arm rest. She turns a little to look at him, but he's staring ahead at the TV, so she does too. She sinks her fingers into the cushions when she feels him sift a heavy hand through her hair. She has her hair in a ponytail, and he pulls it free so it fans out across her shoulders and back. He scrapes his fingernails against her scalp, and it feels so good her toes curl in her socks. She tries to remain indifferent, but she's afraid he can feel where her heart beats feverishly against his thigh.
They're at the scene where the two bumbling burglars slip through a pile of little toy cars at the bottom of the staircase.
Kevin crouches victoriously at the top. "You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?"
Taylor bites her bottom lip. It's hard to focus with his nails scraping through her scalp like that. Hard not to go completely boneless and just close her eyes, sink into the sensation.
Mr. J has been more affectionate with her, but he's also been more generous with her allowance as well. She's been able to buy more food, and she even saved up to buy a new pair of jeans, a couple of tops. The jeans are nice—brand new, not secondhand—and they fit her like a glove. She's never worn something that hugged her thighs so much. Her favorite new shirt is something floral—white, with blue flowers—and little scalloped sleeves. There are strings that tie in a thin bow in the back. It's feminine. Pretty. She feels older when she wears it, more mature.
She knows Mr. J notices, too. She sees him just before she steps out the door for school one morning, having woken up late, and she's hyperaware of his gaze on her, lingering for longer than usual. She feels naked—exposed—beneath the weight of his gaze, and she hurries to put on her coat. When she opens the door, it suddenly slams closed in front of her. Mr. J behind her, his arm outstretched next to her head. She spins around to look at him, afraid he'll make her change or something, like some overbearing parent. He wouldn't do that, would he?
"Aren't you going to say goodbye?" he prompts, unsmiling.
"Oh—yeah." He still has one arm propped above her, the flat of his palm pressed against the door, and she awkwardly moves in and folds her arms around his waist in a hug.
He doesn't hug back.
"I'll see you later," she says when she lets go, a little unsure.
"See you later, doll face."
He removes his arm from the door and cuffs her chin, but it doesn't feel as affectionate as it usually does. He watches her until she's out of sight—she knows because she cranes her neck to look back at him when she's on the sidewalk, some fifty yards away, and sees that he's still standing in the open doorway.
The exchange unnerves her, him demanding her attention like that. She doesn't understand it.
On Friday, he tells her to cut school. Fridays she has art history with Logan, the only class they share together this semester. She frowns at him in the kitchen, where she's bent down near the door to lace up her shoes. Her backpack's already on. The bus is coming any minute.
"Why?" she blurts, which is probably the wrong thing to ask.
There's something predatory in his eyes, something that sets her on edge.
"Because I want you to," he says. She sits up when he approaches, and he tugs on her backpack. She lets him slide it off her shoulders, and then watches as he tosses it near the closet door. Out of the way. She looks up at him.
"Okay," she says, her heart pattering a little faster at the thought of him wanting her to stay home so he can spend more time with her.
But he doesn't want to stay home. He piles her into the car with a sly smile, quiet about their destination as they drive a half hour in the snow. It's been a while since she's been this deep into the city, and she enjoys seeing it lit up, all the shops decorated for Christmas, garland and velvet red ribbons and shiny bows, pretty Christmas tree displays and golden lights strung in the windows. The hustle and bustle of people, all the briefcases and purses and colorful shopping bags. She likes seeing everything coated in a fresh blanket of snow, the sky overcast and grey. She feels cozy in the warm car with Mr. J. Safe. Blanketed by snow, sandwiched on all sides by skyscrapers and other city buildings. Mr. J rests his arm on the center console, and she does the same, laying her arm next to his as she stares at the passing blur of gray and white, watching the snow fall. She has a flash of déjà vu, being here in the car with him, all this snow—but she cannot pinpoint the exact memory.
They park in some nondescript parking garage, and she still has no idea where they are or where they're going. She's practically vibrating with excitement as they squeeze into the elevator.
"Please just tell me," she whines. She knows she's being obnoxious and a little petulant, but she just wants to know.
"You'll see."
"Will I like it?" she perks up, even though she already knows she will.
He pretends to think about it, narrowing his eyes in thought.
She tugs on his arm in exasperation, not usually so hands-on with him, but for once she feels like he won't mind. "Come on! Just tell me!"
The elevator door chimes when they reach the first floor, and when the doors slide open, her face breaks into a smile, hardly believing what she sees. She can't help but to do a little jump, clasping her hands near in chest in excitement. She turns to face him.
"We're going to the aquarium?" she squeals. She's never been before—but maybe he knew that. She thinks she might have told him once before, a long time ago. She can't believe he remembered.
She bites down on her lower lip, giddy as she wraps him in a tight hug. She closes her eyes and smiles with her face pressed against his chest.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
She grabs his hand and tugs him towards the entrance where he shells out the money to pay for their tickets. She giggles, and she feels like a little kid when she steps inside the dome-shaped lobby, the way the room opens around her, everything so massive. It's all she can do to take everything in, her eyes wide with amazement. There's a Christmas tree in the center of the room—the biggest she's ever seen—that nearly touches the skylight. The ornaments are all different kinds of sea animals; sharks and penguins and crabs, seals and stingrays and seahorses. The lights blink blue and gold. The ribbon wrapped around the tree is made of faux seaweed, and instead of gifts, there are plush stuffed animals beneath the tree, little otters and penguins and dolphins. Her face lights up at the sight of it. She hopes Mr. J will let her get one of those from the gift shop later.
She eagerly pulls him into the first exhibit, a black room with low-set ceilings, a winding room the shape of a large S, displaying all the different species of jellyfish. He follows behind her at a slight distance as she moves from one display to the next. She stops to read all the plaques, silent for several long moments before piping up to excitedly share some interesting fact or tidbit.
"Did you know that jellyfish don't have brains? That's so weird!" and, "Wow, Mr. J, look at this one!" as she eagerly ushers him closer.
There are cylindrical glass tubes housing some smaller, more delicate jellyfish that stretch from floor to ceiling scattered throughout the room, and she slides up to one to stare at a tiny pink jellyfish barely the size of her pinky finger. She watches it for a long time, tracking its easy, languid movements, thinking about how content it looks, floating there in the still, blue water, it's long, slender tendrils floating like silk. She wonders how they don't all get tangled.
Her eyes lose focus for a moment and she looks beyond the jellyfish to the other side of the glass, where she notices Mr. J staring at her. She hadn't realized he had been standing there. She flushes and goes to the other side to meet him, a little embarrassed at having been caught in such a mesmerized trance.
"Let's keep going," she says.
He lets her drag him to every exhibit, even the dolphin show, where they sit on the bleachers in the back so they don't get splashed. The shark portion of the aquarium takes some coaxing on her own part, and she paces around the entrance while Mr. J patiently waits for her to make up her mind. She kind of likes it once they're inside. The tanks are huge, and the room is massive, a sprawling, dark labyrinth of tanks to wind around. Their feet barely make any sound on the carpet, and everything is dark and blue and kind of ethereal. She feels like she's underwater. She doesn't get close enough to read all the plaques this time, clinging to Mr. J instead, catching him on the back of his heels more than once, her hand curled around his forearm as the sharks glide through the water on either side of them, smooth and powerful, like they're barely exerting any effort at all.
"You know," he says, drawing her out of a murky reverie, "they say sharks can smell blood from up to three miles away." He throws it to her over his shoulder after a long period of silence has passed, and she's clipped the back of his heel for the sixth time.
She swallows, unnerved by this information. "That's so creepy."
Artificial beams of pale sunlight filter through the tank on her left, and she watches for a moment as the stripes ripple over her forearms. The light is cold.
Mr. J stops halfway down the carpeted ramp to stare at a passing shark, and she nearly bumps into his back. He looks down at her after the shark has glided away. The right side of his face is bathed in an ethereal blue light from the tank. She can't help but stare for a moment at the furled edges of scar tissue, the deep crevices that have been crudely sewn shut. She fights the urge to reach out and run her fingers over it.
"They'd like you," he says, leaning down suddenly—too close—his voice pitched low, a conspiratorial whisper meant just for the two of them. "Your blood's sweet."
Taylor blinks up at him, and she meets his gaze head on. It's intense. Unnerving. She knows he's just teasing—but there's a flicker of doubt when she is thrust into the memory of his bloodied fingerprints on the sheets, waking up to a pool of her own blood. She hasn't allowed herself the terrifying possibility to wonder what if until now. What if he had touched her while she slept? What if he had put his fingers inside her? What if he had touched her and then licked his fingers clean—tasted her?
"Why do you always look at me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like… like you want to eat me."
"Don't know about that. Don't know what you taste like."
Does he know, now? Had he coated himself with her essence? Taken her inside his mouth?
She sees a flash of those ruined sheets in her mind's eye—her brain helpfully having stored an image of it there, one she'll probably never get rid of—and she has to make a conscious effort not to wither beneath the overwhelming weight of his gaze. He has a way of bearing down on her when he looks at her like that, until the world and all its edges in her peripheral begin to fade, until all she sees is him, and nothing else.
She has to ignore the possible implications of his statement. It's easier this way. So she laughs but it's short. Clipped.
"Blood's not sweet…" she mumbles, trying for exasperation in her tone as she brushes past him. He doesn't say anything in response. She stops when she's on the opposite side of the ramp, where they're separated by the handrail, and he towers above her on the higher strip.
"Are you coming?" she asks.
He looks down at her. "I will be."
She furrows her brows a little at the way his eyes glitter, thinks she sees the tail end of a smirk, but she can't be sure. She finishes the rest of the exhibit alone, Mr. J always just one room behind her, and she keeps catching him in her peripheral each time she steps into a new room and he enters the old one. It makes her spine curl, the way he looks at her from a distance, and something hot pools in her lower belly, something she doesn't think she's ever felt before. She marvels at the way she can still feel the electrifying heat of his presence, even when she can't see him. There's something cat-and-mouse about it that makes her heartbeat throb in her ears. She wonders if she could hide from him in here, if he'd find her in this shifting blue labyrinth.
Mr. J's dark eyes aren't the only ones that track her. She can't help but feel like the sharks are following her, too, studying her with their shifting, beady eyes. It feels predatory. Like she's being hunted.
She doesn't see Mr. J when she enters the last room. She turns in a full circle, afraid that she's somehow missed him. She exits the exhibit feeling confused and a little worried. Has he left her? Where would he go if—
A warm hand curls around her nape, and she knows it's him. She spins around to face him, relieved.
"I couldn't find you," she says.
He cocks his head at her. He keeps his hand cupped around the back of her neck. "I was right behind you the whole time, princess," he says innocently. With his other hand, he reaches up and presses a finger against the space between her eyes. "Maybe you need glasses."
She swats his hand away and ducks to hide her smile. He grins at her.
Their last stop is the gift shop, which Taylor flits around excitedly, jumping from one display to the next. She wants everything, but she doesn't want to be greedy. She picks out a plush sea otter. She saw it under the Christmas tree in the main lobby, and it's so cute and soft, and it's clutching an orange starfish between its furry paws. When the cashier goes to put in the bag, Taylor reaches for it instead. She hugs it to her chest the whole way to the car. She can't stop smiling.
She sighs once they're on the road, the city soft and white and quiet. Snow is falling again. She turns up the heat and cuddles her sea otter.
"This has been the best day ever," she exclaims, happy but exhausted.
"You think so, huh?"
She nods. She tells him about all of her favorite animals on the way home. She doesn't shut up the whole hour it takes to get there—bumper to bumper traffic—but he listens to all of it. He gets her a cheeseburger. She munches her food happily and shares some of her fries.
She falls asleep on the couch when they get home. It's six PM, so it's already dark out. She wakes up a couple hours later, cold and a little disoriented. All the lights are off. She sits up and rubs the dark out of her eyes. She shivers as she tiptoes to the bathroom. Her pajamas are still there from the night before, on the floor, so she puts them on and brushes her teeth.
In the hallway, with her stuffed otter tucked under one arm, she pauses, her gaze sliding between Mr. J's closed door and her own. She thinks about the way he had looked at her in the shark exhibit. What he had said to her about her blood being sweet. Thinks about how nice he's been to her lately, all the stuff he's given her, her increase in allowance. How much he touches her now, always initiating contact when before it was so rare, or she had to be the one to touch him first.
And she thinks about GSU, how she couldn't find the pamphlet after he'd taken it from her—and she'd looked. Why would he throw it away? Doesn't he want her to go to school? Does he really not think she'd make it, that she's not good enough—or is it something else?
It's all so confusing. She sighs as she goes to her own room. Slips under sheets that are ice cold, pulling them up to her chin. She tries to sleep, but can't, too wound up from the day. She fades in and out of dreams. She's in a forest, and she's chasing after a little white rabbit. It disappears down a narrow hole in the ground, and she doesn't know if she can fit through, but she tries.
It hurts, but she manages to squeeze through the opening. On the other side, everything is upside down, but the colors are brighter, and the air is sweet. She's happy here, she thinks, or she will be. She knows she is looking for somebody, but she doesn't know who. She feels like they're just around the bend, just behind this tree, but every time she turns, there is no one there. Is she going the wrong way? Maybe if she just—
She startles out of her dream when something warm settles in behind her. She jerks awake, feels Mr. J fitting himself behind her. An arm curls over her waist. He pulls her back against him.
"Go back to sleep," he murmurs.
She pants, out of breath, startled at having been woken up. She grips the forearm that's draped across her. He's never come to her bed before. She doesn't understand.
"I—I had a bad dream," she whimpers, confused. She feels so disoriented.
"I know."
She tries to relax into his embrace as her breath returns. Guilt piles itself all around her, and when the weight of it is finally too much to bear, it lays itself down next to her instead, in a way that makes it impossible to ignore. She stares, wide-eyed, into the blackness of her bedroom.
She doesn't know who or what it was she was looking for in her dream, but she knows with startling, terrifying certainty that it wasn't Mr. J.
To be continued in Part ll…
Author's Notes: Had to cut this chapter in half due to length. Your reviews for the last chapter were absolutely incredible. I've been rendered speechless by some of your comments. Replies are still forthcoming. Thank you for your patience, and as always, thank you so very much for reading.