There is no need for prefacing because it'll all be crazy in the end anyway.

Chapter Something / Hungry and Hated

She spoke mindlessly into the telephone receiver, verbalizing grandiose stories she'd made up some time ago during her formal captivity between cerulean and azure stone. The stars burned brightly on the other end, listening to the storyteller, envisioning her own form of the plot twists, thinking that maybe she was the one telling them and all was to be okay. Finally, though, the conversation came to a close and the cordless technology was switched off and the ever shrinking violet sat hunched in the coat closet hugging the lifeless phone that once buzzed in hope and promises.

She couldn't remember time anymore. She preferred to step away from the idle day counting and tallying of scores that always seemed to defy even the most deep-rooted postulates and theorems. If she was to recall anything, it would be maybe a month – maybe two, who knew? – since she'd escaped from the land of medical diagnoses and happy lemon pills and taken up shelter in an icy abode and with a man she was beginning to hate despite how much she hated herself for thinking it. She found in the minutes and hours she laid awake next to him a sense of melancholy spitefulness. She felt as if she was a captive in the love he proclaimed and took pity on him just as she was beginning to take pity on even the most mundane things in life – the dying flowers in his urbanized garden, the paint scratches along the fender of he precious car, the worn spots in the oatmeal rug he'd made pacing back and forth in his worry for her and the condition she was in. In this pity she found a common streak of masochism and an even broader stroke of sadism. She hurt herself with the sadness it all caused and hurt those around her when she became overly emotional from it. She couldn't escape the loops that threw everyone for a tailspin but the worst part was that she enjoyed it just a little too much.

It was evenings like these – just after dinner and before bedtime, the twilights of primetime television watching – that she'd forgo the nighttime dramas for studying his face while he scanned the day's newspaper. Every so often, he'd look up and smile in her direction, often times telling her about her stars for the day gone by and comparing Scorpios to Geminis. Sometimes he'd find a particular article in the paper that mentioned something that would be beneficial to them in the long run but made no sense at the time and discuss it in short length. She'd try and hide the look of boredom that crept onto her features but it was of no use and he'd sigh, going back to paper and ink yet again.

She'd grown hungry since she went crazy and nothing she could find would sate her. She had a foreboding need to taint his very existence, to show him what the brink of unconsciousness really felt like. She needed for him to be predatory in her vulnerable state. She needed him to feed off of the temptation she knew could rival apples and gardens of Eden. The placidity he presented to her – the unyielding protection he gave her – wouldn't do for any longer. She needed him to be a man. She needed him to be the man she knew he was capable of being. She would never get out if he didn't get in with her.

He looked up at her as he always did only this time she wasn't dissecting him piece by piece but was walking to him in stealth precision, wide-eyed and expectant. There were proverbial flashes of light and everything turned to muted platinum as her warm hands held his face and brought it to hers. There was no time to calculate errors in decorum or think about responsibilities. There was a peculiar amount of sanctity found in the volatile kiss she gave him. She poured over him like quicksilver, flushing his body in warmth he hadn't felt in a long time.

She felt his resistance, his restraint, his self-sacrificing ability to keep the kiss as chaste as any hot-blooded male could. She would break him. She would possess him in the end.

And she did.

It was to be a moment of sheer weakness on his part and of complete control on hers, but as she lay on top of him, her sweat moistened brow falling into the contour of his bare chest, reality crumbled above her. While she'd never felt more alive, she knew something had changed as she felt his body shake softly beneath her. She didn't need to look up to know that he wasn't cold or spent but that salty tears were causing the tremor. Why would he cry in a moment as beautiful as this? Did he find fault with her? Did it not live up to the fantasies and expectations she knew he had?

She slid from on top of his body to press herself securely to his side. She brought his arm over her naked breasts and placed small, loving kissing along the bicep of the pitiful man sobbing after their final coupling.

"Do you regret it, Tommy?" She whispered to him in a matter-of-fact tone, not sad that he could possibly regret what had happened but hurting for him more than anything. It was a strange thing and it wasn't matching up to any romance novel she could recall. "Are you ok?"

He sniffed softly, half-laughing next to her in an even stranger way that was even harder to figure out. "I should be asking you that." He sighed a bit, breathing coolly once more. "I don't regret anything. I just... I'm sorry. I shouldn't... I... How? I..."

His boyish stammering endeared her. "You didn't. I mean... If you think you were hurting me in anyway, you haven't. Don't regret it. Don't think of it as a bad thing."

"I didn't think we'd go there and we did. This game we've been playing... it's all changed now. You're..." He couldn't put the words together and she couldn't speak for him. She honestly didn't know what he was saying neither did she know what she was trying to say or get across when she went after him as she did.

"I wanted it. I made it happen. I needed to happen is what I mean."

"I'm afraid that you'll get worse, though. As much as I may have liked it, I'm afraid that this will hurt you in the end."

"It hurt more knowing you'd withdrawn from me, denied yourself the way that you have been." She gave his arm another peck, wrapping her hand up with his. "This was the only way I knew of to get you to come back to me. It was a good thing even if I can't explain why I did it. I know it doesn't make sense and it doesn't seem to fit into anything I can find to fit it into, but it was my last card. You shouldn't feel bad for that. You should never feel bad for us."

He was right when he told her the game had changed. It was as if a single act of animalistic humanism had been the breaking point she'd needed to reach for the day and tomorrow would be a new day. Calls to make, people to explain things to, stories to smooth out, demons to battle, songs to write, and things to take care of; for the moment though, she was content lying next to him and telling him tales that would aid in the bigger picture she was working on and would finally finish in the days to come.