A Voyeur Story Gone Right

by Evangeline-Sibeliah

Have you ever wanted to read/watch a story about a voyeur picking a woman who won't freak out and kill him once she finds out? Imagine a voyeur, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who meets his match, a woman compatible with his courtship disorder and interested in him as much as he is in her, played by Mia Kirshner.

3. Part 3

A Voyeur Story Gone Right – Part 3

"The Max Shreck project, interview number 4, January 2. I've just shown you three cyberstalking devices and I'd like to hear your opinion on them, Max. First, I introduced you to Twitter. How did you like it?"

"I did, I mean I like the concept, but you don't have it, so I've got no one to follow."

"What if Audrey Hepburn had Twitter back when you discovered her movies, would you have followed her?"

"Yeah, I guess I would."

And so they discussed Twitter, Facebook and Max's reaction to advanced googling.

"You seemed to like Google Maps, didn't you."

"It was a one time thing, I wanted to see the house you grew up in."

"So far you've only shown interest in cyberstalking when it could be used on your current object of affection – me. But can you imagine yourself finding an object of affection over the internet?"

"I don't think so," Max said after some thinking.

"Not even if you looked through the list of women living nearby and then found their social network profiles...?"

"I guess...I could use it as an aid, but I'd still need to see them for myself before I decided to..." Max hated spelling out his sleazy behavior, but he was doing his best to provide Danica with good research material. To be useful.

"All right, so it all comes down to personal, real life experience. Would you say that watching a woman with binoculars in an apartment across the street is more precious than reading through her Facebook profile?"

"Well, I wouldn't know because I've never done that. All I can tell you is that watching you from the secret corridor, being able to see you and hear you from up close, is where the magic starts. All this internet information only becomes precious after I start watching you."

"Wow. We might've just found the difference between old-school voyeurs and 21st century cyberstalkers, Max," Danica gave him an excited smile.

He loved satisfying her. It was such an intoxicating feeling to give and see a positive feedback. Such a simple thing, but he almost never had that before. He wanted to keep giving her things. Dinners. Presents. Free rent, anything. He had to keep himself in check because for some reason, too many presents scare women away.

"Finding out that you acquired the habit of watching from your grandfather is a game changer," she interrupted his inner monologue – and crushed his elevated mood immediately. "It means that you didn't go through the typical self-discovery phases like acknowledging your voyeuristic desires, making the decision to act upon them, creating your ritual of watching from scratch... Correct me if I'm wrong, but you started out copying your grandfather's behavior and then you reinvented yourself...?"

"Yes. I mean, I could never do everything he did. Not when I was a kid – and not when I grew up, either."

"How was he different from you?"

Max hesitated. August was still alive, he could still be hurt by this revelation if Danica decided to do something about it. Then again, one of the reasons he didn't like this world was that men like August could get away with doing what he did. Being brought up by August in general made him the recluse he was, Max had been realizing lately.

"He...He watched for a couple of weeks, and then one day, when the woman's husband was away, he put on black clothes and a ski mask and locked me in the bathroom. For hours."

He hoped he wouldn't have to say what he thought August did to the women. He could see that Danica understood.

"He then kept watching. The women changed. He seemed to like that they changed. I hated it."

"You saw them break down, didn't you? You nod yes. They refused to be touched by their husbands, I suppose...? You nod yes. They became jumpy and afraid of their own home, but they didn't want to go out either. You nod yes. Did any of them tell their family or friends or the police? No? Why not?"

"It was a different time. The women that lived here were socialites – and telling anyone about this, this taboo thing, it would destroy them. The police wouldn't help much, not to mention the husband."

"How many women, Max?"

Max paused.

"They often moved out after it happened. Some of them stayed, and to them, after two or three months, he did it again. Of those, two tried to kill themselves. They were sent into a mental institution after that. There was one lucky lady, her husband was an NYPD vice detective, I think Aug-grandfather was scared of him. She lived here for five years without anything happening. But that made him full of pent-up anger..."

"Let me guess – which he vented on you. You nod yes. Max, how many women do you remember going through his hands?"

"I'm not sure, over a dozen before I went to war; seven after I came back. He had to stop when he had the stroke."

"But he already knew what he was doing when he first took you with him, didn't he? You nod yes. So there were more women before that. Why do you think he showed you this side of him, anyway?"

Max shrugged: "Practicality. He was gone for a long time every day and I often got myself into trouble when I was alone. I was five the first time he took me into the corridor. He also always said I was weak, and maybe he thought this would make me...more of a man."

"Praying on women would make you a man? Oh, the joys of toxic masculinity. When did you realize he was wrong?"

Max sighed before answering.

"It doesn't matter. It was too late for me anyway. He laughed at me because I couldn't hurt them; but I couldn't stop watching, either."

"It wasn't too late for the women he was going to attack," Danica pointed out gently.

"I know. I know," Max made a face as if he was disgusted with himself. "I wish I could've saved them. When I came back from the war, all I did was save myself. And then after he had the stroke, I refused to help him continue, that's it."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Max...Does this cycle of humiliation and self-abasement ever end?"

He looked at her.

"When I fall in love, it does. For a while."

"Because you gain worth by affiliating yourself with someone you idealize."

"Yeah, when I love you I'm connected to you, and when we're connected I'm not just me anymore, I'm a part of something that's good."

On that note, they ended the fourth session.

"You all right?" Danica asked Max who was rubbing his temples.

"Yeah, I just feel like I've been to a shrink."

"Have you ever been for real?"

"Are we continuing the interview?" he asked.

"No, we're just talking," she showed him the switched off voice recorder and then put it away. "This part is off record," she smiled and sat sideways into his lap again. But this time, she laid her head on his shoulder so that he could feel her breath on his neck.

"What're you..." doing? Max stopped himself in the middle of that question, knowing it would make him sound dumb, insultingly uncomfortable, or even virginally scared. He wasn't, he just – didn't know how to behave and was afraid of ruining everything. Were they together now? Could he hug her close, put one hand on her hip and the other into her hair? Could he kiss her?

"Well, the research is almost finished and I think I can afford being a little unprofessional," she murmured into his ear and he shivered. "Was the interviewing bearable? I was thinking about doing a few more sessions, just in case I found a way to milk the research for more academic purposes," she said, fingers playing with the neckline of his T-shirt.

Max stuttered. But before he managed to squeeze out an answer, Danica's attention went somewhere else. See, they were in Max's apartment – hers was busy because Hope and Venus decided to stay in New York during the break between semesters. And now, her eyes were frozen to a door in his bedroom. It didn't look special in any way, but she knew exactly where it was going.

"Is that the door?"

"Yes."

"To the secret corridor."

"Or the observation passageway, as you call it," he teased her.

"It is a mouthful, isn't it," she snickered.

"August calls it the hollow walls."

"Catchy. Why did you change it? Was it a part of your disassociation process from his kind of voyeurism?"

"You sure the recorder's not on?" he said wryly.

"Sorry, I do it all the time."

"It's all right, you're just smart and inquisitive."

"I know," she took the compliment like a pro. "But if I was even smarter, I'd know when to cut down on the lingo and when to stop pushing. So, is it a sacred place, am I not allowed in?"

"No, I mean yeah, I guess, if you're sure you want to..."

"I want to."

Again, he wished she'd given him time to mentally prepare for this moment, like a day or at least a couple of hours. But he told himself that this was how normal human interaction worked – and he wanted a normal human relationship, right? A normal human relationship between an antisocial man and the woman he idealized to the point of worshiping. Max was starting to see that there might be a catch in this life-long dream of his.

He opened the door. He switched on the dim red light inside.

"Why red?"

"Low visibility from the other side. Just in case I let a peephole open," his voice dropped lower than a whisper on the word peephole.

"It's already all tight and crooked, but add the red, call it hollow walls and you get potential nightmare material," she remarked.

Max noticed that she still hadn't stepped over the treshold.

"It did give me nightmares," he admitted. "Maybe that's why I stopped calling it that."

"Good choice."

She took his hand. They entered the red space together.

"This is next to your kitchen," Max mumbled as they passed certain parts of the corridor. "The door into the wine cellar, you've been here. The big bedroom. The bathroom." He thanked God when she didn't comment on the perfect view he got from the two-way mirror there. "And your bedroom."

She stopped.

"The chair looks uncomfortable," she said.

"I made it from one piece of wood. It doesn't creak."

"Impressive. May I?" she asked, circling the chair.

When she sat down, Max felt as if his two worlds were crashing together. Here she was, on the other side of the wall, in his chair, leaning over to sneak a peek at her own bed.

"How do you...?" she chuckled as she fumbled with the peephole cover.

"Oh, here," he kneeled down and opened it for her. He watched her from up close as she looked through the holes in the old electrical sockets.

"You're lucky I like old things, otherwise I'd have asked you to get rid of these," she smiled at him.

Their faces were really close.

Could it be...a first kiss opportunity?

"I'd really like to know more about the history of this place," she murmured intimately. "When do you think you'd be ready to tell me about the other women you watched?"

Max's face fell. He really thought they were having a moment there.

"No." He said it firmly.

"As in never?" she asked with her brows hiked.

"Never."

"Why don't you want to tell me about them, Max?"

"I just don't."

"But why? I don't understand."

Max was getting upset. He never had to formulate it in words, he just knew he really didn't want to. This was a little too much introspection for one day.

"Because it's just you now, and when there's you, there's nobody else, I don't want to talk about anybody else, it's like they never existed. Let's just leave them in the past. In the ugly years."

"I think it's absolutely natural to think that your old relationships pale in comparison with the new one when you just fell in love," Danica tried to interpret his answer.

"That's not what I mean!"

"Then what do you mean?" she was keeping her voice down as if they were having a casual conversation, not their first argument.

"I don't know! I just don't want you to know about them, I don't want them to exist, I just want it to be us two and no one else..."

Danica observed him in silence. He could almost hear cogs turning in her head.

"That's romantic," she arrived to a verdict. "But there's nothing impure or shameful about not being each other's firsts, Max. Do you know what I find even more romantic? Two people who are fully formed by their experience, who know what they like and dislike, what they want and what they need and how they react in a relationship, who find a good match in each other. I want you to have a past, Max, just like I want to keep mine. Maybe that's the thing – I'll tell you everything about my past and you'll tell me about the women. Deal?"

It was his turn to just gape at her.

"I...I don't know. I'll need to think about it."

"Ok," she rose up on her tiptoes, cupped his cheek and kissed the other one.

Huh?

She left the corridor pretty quickly after that. He slowly followed her out and found her getting ready to go home.

"Take whatever time you need," she said with a gentle smile and Max finally understood. She thought he wouldn't want her around until he decided? But that's not what he meant! Or did he?

"Uh," he tried to stop her before she went out the door. He didn't want her to leave like this. "Please don't be mad at me," he tried to fathom a reason for her quick departure.

"I'm not," she came up to him. "But you're right, I've been too pushy." She then put a hand on his chest and tapped her cheek in an inviting gesture. Max bent down and kissed the place as lovingly as he could.

"I'll see you when I see you," she sent him a wink and left.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

What followed were a few days of good old watching, except it felt different because she was throwing glances in the direction of his peepholes now. Sometimes she gave him a smile. After two days, she started sending him long looks full of thought but void of emotion and Max wondered if she maybe missed him. This was confirmed when she got out of her bath one day and stood in front of the mirror, unbothered that she was only clad in droplets of water, and gave the mirror a longing kiss. Max was right on the other side, kissing back, so hard in his pants that it hurt.

He had to give her what she wanted. He had to. He couldn't live without giving into her.

The fifth night without her, Max found Danica and Blake texting to each other when suddenly, Blake exclaimed:

"Jesus Christ Danny, if you can't draw the line, I will."

"You? Why would you draw any lines?"

"Because this is exactly what we were talking about when we agreed to be each other's family. This time you're doing something stupid and I'm watching out for you, so here I go: You've gotta stop this thing with Max."

Danica's eyes shot to the nearest peephole and she hissed at Blake to keep it down.

"Now I don't care about your psych profile of him or whatever statistics you shove in my face. He's dangerous, period. You admitted yourself that the red corridor freaked you out. Letting you go this far was too much already and now you're telling me you wanna keep going? And let him touch you?! Are you insane?!"

For a moment, Danica looked about ready to slap her best friend for spilling the contents of their texts so loudly, but then, she changed her tune.

"He's hot – and cute. He's passionate, and shy at the same time. He's built like a sailor, but he's also vulnerable. He's devoted to me body and soul and I'm the first woman in his life who knows him like this. You can't expect me to resist that forever."

"And here I thought you didn't want to talk about it in case he overheard."

"I hope he overheard," Danica answered proudly.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Didn't have the best of days, got Blake mad at me. Bed is cold and lonely. Feel free to join me anytime, said the message on his cell phone.

His eagerness defeated his nerves this time – he entered her bedroom mere minutes after she switched off the lights. She kept her eyes closed until the bed dipped next to her. She gave him a smile and nestled closer.

Did he mention he was in love with her? So in love with her. Especially whenever she made a move towards him. The way she defended what they had when Blake questioned her...It made his hair stand on end with excitement.

You can do this.

Max opened his mouth.

Nothing.

No, no more lapping on air like a fish, you can do this.

"Would you like to have a date with me? A real date," he stuttered into the dark silence around them.

"Yes," she whispered.

The rest went out much more easily.

"Somewhere special? A restaurant?"

"Your place," she said wistfully as if that was somewhere special.

"You sure?"

She opened her eyes. Those big blue eyes framed with long black lashes. He wondered whether she kept them closed until now because she knew that her looking would've made him even more nervous.

"Absolutely."

Danica fell asleep in his arms that night. He got to stroke her hair and breathe her scent and such. He was so happy he didn't sleep the whole time.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Everything was ready.

Was it?

Max checked again.

Movies and snacks; check. Alternative entertainment: an old record player and a small collection of vinyls from the attic; check. Teeth brushed, beard trimmed, neck shaved, hair good, deodorant on, cologne on, white shirt still crisp and clean, jeans ok, palms sweating like hell. Crap, the flowers are still in the kitchen!

With seven roses of various colors in hand, he waited for a knock on the door.

It came eight minutes later.

When he opened up Danica took one look at his shirt and groaned: "Oh my god."

She came in before he managed to say hi and took the flowers before he remembered to give them to her. She took one whiff and laid them on the nearest counter. Then she grabbed the back of his neck while her other hand went to the skin his open-neck was revealing.

"That shirt on you is my kryptonite," she moaned before pulling his mouth right onto hers.

They kissed. It was a long kiss. He had more than enough time to pull himself together and kiss back. He wished it would last forever, and for about five minutes, it did. She led them to a sofa, made them sit down and pulled him on top of her, all the while kissing him.

She wanted him.

She licked his upper lip and when he remembered to use his tongue as well, she made a satisfied "mmm" sound.

She wanted him.

His hands automatically seeked her skin, which was how he noticed the strip of flesh between her hot pants and thigh-high socks. She was also wearing a tuxedo-like vest with a bare back. She came to seduce and/or be seduced.

She wanted him.

When her phone rang, he refused to let her go. What if whatever waited on the end of the line changed her mind about their date? When she reached for her back pocket, he took her wrists and gently held them on the sides of her head while kissing her ever so passionately. She just chuckled amusedly and let the phone ring. Yet once it stopped, she squirmed her hands out of the hold.

"Oh, sorry," he mumbled. Don't be weird, Max. Don't scare her.

"I like to keep at least one hand free," she smirked. She threaded fingers with his and used the other hand to pull him closer.

They kissed some more.

The phone went off again.

Whoever it was, Max wished them long months of sexual frustration followed by a kick in the balls.

"Shit, what if it's Blake freaking out," Danica suddenly mumbled.

She sat up and Max reluctantly pulled away to give her a little space.

"Yeah?" she spoke into the phone while playing with the top button of his shirt.

"Yep, we're at his place like I told you." She got the button opened and moved to the next.

"Everything's great. Nope, no problems. I swear. I promise, Blake, seriously. When have I ever stayed some place I didn't feel comfortable, hmm? I'll be back in an hour or so. No. I mean it, no. Have you been listening to what I just-" Danica's eyes snapped to the cell phone in confusion.

"He hung up," she realized.

Then she shrugged and went back to kissing Max. Her hands sneaked into his shirt and onto his chest while his went to her naked back. Their kisses deepened until they had to break apart for air. Max took the opportunity to trace kisses up her neck and ear, which she reciprocated by kissing down to his collar bones, toppling him over onto his back in the process.

She quickly finished undoing his shirt and eagerly tugged the sides open.

"Me likes," she purred as she ran a hand down the middle of his torso appreciatively. He gave a fake chuckle and pulled her flush against him, almost clashing his nose into her glasses. She wasn't making him nervous by looking at him like that, of course not, this wasn't his scopophobia acting out at all.

She hummed agreeingly at the feeling of their bodies matching like puzzle pieces, chest against chest, groin against groin, her being on top compensating for their height difference.

"I feel like breaking my first date rule," she murmured into his ear and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and groan; the wood in his pants was killing him.

Cue loud banging from the door.

"What the...?"

"Danny!"

"He can't be serious," she fumed. "Go away, Blake!" she yelled in an almost ugly shrill voice.

"Either you come with me or I'm calling the cops on him, Danny!"

"Did he just try to threaten me?!" she growled.

Witnessing her anger up close, Max hoped to God he would never end up on the receiving end. His beloved could be a hostile creature.

"I mean it!"

She rose from the couch.

"Danny!"

She opened the door. There was murder in her eyes.

"You're going home with me," Blake said on a gulp.

"Or what? You're gonna make me? Tell me I'm grounded? Guilt-trip me? Slutshame me? What the fuck is wrong with you, Blake? I'm a grown-up, thank you very much. Just because you lose control with every single guy doesn't mean that I do. I'm fine. I'm great. And I'll be home in an hour," she slammed the door in his face.

Max watched her as she stared at that door and mulled over everything she just said.

"Shit," she whispered, "I should've handled that better. Now he's gonna get all the roomies on his side and play the whole thing as me being a bitch, not as him sticking his nose where it doesn't belong."

She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. Max knew the mood was ruined.

"I found some vinyls in the attic and I have a vintage record player, would you like to check them out?"

She gave him a sweet smile and nodded.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Come to the wine cellar door at 23 pm, said a message on his phone. Max was yet again anxious. Being the masochist that he is, he stayed in the secret corridor for hours after Danica left his place and heard every single horrible word her roommates said about him and his perversion. Blake, Venus and Hope ganged up on her in what she soon identified as an undeservedly staged intervention. She fought back like a lioness but the argument dragged on and on and Max could see how sick and tired she was of it all. Once they finally left her "to think about what they said", Max couldn't say whether she was still interested in continuing their relationship or not. There was a probability he was getting dumped tonight.

She was in pajamas and slippers, no make-up on, hair braided, which looked adorable in combination with her thick-rimmed glasses. Instead of sneaking him into the apartment, she entered the corridor and went to the part that spied upon her bedroom.

"Usually, I need a lot of me time after an argument with a friend," she said, "but I realized, with the way you adore me, being with you is me time. And I love it."

It was the closest thing to an actual love confession that he'd ever heard from her. It was full of brutal honesty about both him and her, but Max was happy to take anything she gave him.

She made him sit on his wooden chair. She threw a leg over his thighs and straddled him as if that was the obvious next step.

"Have you witnessed my intervention?" She made a sour face.

"Yes, all of it," Max breathed while his hands went to her hips.

"And what do you think we should do?" she asked while her fingers raked through his hair and massaged his scalp.

He closed his eyes and moaned: "Whatever you want."

"Ts, ts, ts," she made a disappointed sound. "What if I didn't want to see you anymore, Max? Would it still be all about what I wanted then?"

Max looked into her penetrating eyes. He couldn't tell whether she was serious or just teasing him.

"Yes," he said deflatedly.

"You sure about that? That your desires wouldn't crush your honorable intentions? That you would neuter them for me?"

"I swear."

"Interesting," she murmured before kissing him. He kissed back, switching from gentle and loving to rough and desperate depending on which state of confusion his mind was in that particular second. Was this a reward for a correct answer? Was this a goodbye kiss? After a couple of minutes, Danica tore away.

"Here's what I want to do, then. I want to pretend we agreed to take a time off, while we're secretly still dating. We'll continue the interviews and the daily reports as well. Once my friends are ready to accept us, we can stop hiding. You ok with that?"

"God, yes," Max released a breath and gave her one of those smiles she loved.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Sneaking into her room, be it through the wine cellar or the balcony, was now more suspenseful than ever. But on the end of every terrifying moment, Danica's welcoming arms and soft lips and cozy bed were waiting. They couldn't do anything noisy which was why Max assumed she hadn't suggested making love yet – that could be the only reson, right? She seemed more than willing during their first date and he hasn't done anything wrong since then, right?

"I'd like to come over tomorrow and do another interview," she whispered. "I'd like to talk about the other women. But I remember our promise, so I'll tell you about myself first."

Max had hoped she would forget about that suggestion, but the opposite happened – now, it became a promise.

"What would you like to know?"

"Tell me about the Great Escape from your hometown," he decided.

"Do you want the short version or...?"

"Make it as long as you can."

And so, she quietly shared her story.

"You remember how small my town is, right? Well, my father was the public figure. The reporter, the spokesperson, the event host. Hell, he volunteered as the school play director every year just to get his face on the stage and in the yearbook. Most of these workplaces, you could imagine, were dominated by women – and he charmed every single one. One of the last gentlemen in the world, they said, one of the last men with real class. His wife must be such a lucky lady," Danica mimicked them bitterly.

"He was different when he came home," Max induced.

"He was a monster. The physical abuse wasn't that bad: he grabbed mom all the time, by the face or by the hair or by the shoulders to shake her, but actually slapping her or doing anything worse – that was rare. He didn't need it. What he did to her mind was more than enough."

"Did he ever lay a hand on you?" Max was afraid to ask.

"When I was a little girl. But I don't even remember that. As much as my mom let him do all those things to her, she drew a line when it came to me. Apparently, she threatened to cut herself if he hurt me again, and she did, twice, until he got the message. I only found out about that when I was seventeen."

"And the mental abuse?"

"He directed most of it at her, only some of it at me. Eventually, I started telling kids at school, so he had to shut me up. That was when he came up with the 'you're making me do bad things because you're a bad daughter' shtick. He kept saying it for years, it was the one way he could control me."

Max saw no tears in her eyes, but he rubbed a hand over her upper arm to comfort her anyway.

"I became a really silent kid. I started watching people from afar instead of joining in. I really think that's where my interest in psychology began. Later, as a teenager, I created this little clique at school and – I have to admit – I became a bit of a manipulator and a bully. Now that I look at it analytically, the clique provided me with a perfect platform for self-assertion. I gathered enough courage to try to do something about home again. I hoped to get grandmother on my side, but when I told her, she said I was exaggerating and that ladies never speak of such things."

"Was that when she made you the black sheep?"

"No. That was later, after I called the cops. I waited for a really bad episode just to make sure, and I know they could hear his screaming before they knocked and could see tears on mom's red face, but they still didn't do a thing. The neighbors talked, grandma saw that as hurting our family's good name – and that's how I got into her black books."

Max wasn't surprised, but he still shook his head in disappointment.

"I kind of expected it. I wasn't stupid, I knew the risk when I was picking up the phone. I had my shields up and ready from then on – ready for my father, for grandma. What I didn't see coming was my mom," she murmured.

"What?" he tried to keep his voice hushed.

"Yeah. Of course when I look at it now, it perfectly fits her abuse victim profile. You see, in her eyes, it wasn't her husband who was destroying the family, it was me by telling the world. I was a threat and she had to stop me."

"How?"

"Just like life with her husband taught her. She started telling me the cruelest things. Screaming in my face how she should've aborted me instead of giving up her career. How she had to cut herself to get me out of trouble when I was being a brat. How my ugly mouth ruined people's lives. How I grew up into a selfish, spiteful, violent, dirty whore. The ironic thing was that the more she described me, the more she unintentionally painted the picture of her husband."

"That must've hurt so much."

"Only the first few times."

He raised his head and gave her a look of disbelief.

"I was seventeen, I was already quite a bitter bitch by then. Honestly, I'm glad she did what she did."

"God, why?"

"Because it set me free. She was the only reason I never even considered running away from home. Who knows what he'd do to her if I wasn't in the house – I have to stay and protect her, I thought. She was the one family member that mattered, the one who fed me and loved me and actually tried to bring me up. I always thought I owed her for that. When she turned on me, that clause went off the table. I could wash my hands of her and do whatever I wanted to my family before I left them for good."

"And what was it that you did?"

Danica paused. A small cunning smile appeared on her face.

"What would you guess now that you know me?"

He gave it some thought while looking into her eyes.

"Something smart. Something that injured him right then and also in long term, preferrably for the rest of his life. Something painful. I want to say something classy, but I can imagine you stooping to his level just once to make him feel what it's like."

She gave an impressed gasp: "Bravo. Are you sure you wouldn't like to try college after all? You've got some enviable profiling skills..."

Max chuckled: "I don't think your teachers would like my methods. I only know because I watch you. And I watch you only because you're...you."

This time, it was Danica shaking her head. She cupped his stubbly cheek and whispered: "You still idealize me? But you know that I'm not a good person."

"Maybe, but there's so much beauty in you, even in your cruelty. And I'm not a good person either."

"You're a flawed person, Max, there's a difference."

"I love you," he randomly confessed in a husky voice.

She took off her glasses, buried her head back into the pillow and rolled him on top of her to make him kiss her. And again. And once more. She grabbed his hand and pushed it under her tank top, right over her breasts.

Oh yes, Max sang inside his head. He imagined a thousand times how she would like to be touched there, and he tried to do his best while he kissed down her neck.

"Mmm," Danica scored his effort with a little moan.

Suddenly, the unlocking of the front door made them snap their heads toward the sound.

Max's instinctual reaction was to flee.

Danica's was to lock her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck to prevent it.

He looked at her with question marks in his eyes. There was hunger and dominance in hers, as if they were saying Don't you dare, I was just enjoying that.

As impractical as it was at the moment, he still couldn't believe his luck – that she desired him.

The sound turned out to be Blake coming home from DJ-ing a dance party. Danica rolled her eyes and let Max hide under the bed. Blake recently developed a habit of checking up on her and he did so again this time. He found her in bed with a book.

"Hey, I'm back. Can't sleep?"

"Hmm. Guess I don't feel comfortable in my own home now that I'm considered a second-rate citizen who can't make her own decisions," she muttered.

Blake just gaped at her for a few seconds, then he sighed and closed the door again. Once the sounds of him getting to bed stilled, Max came out.

"You haven't been nice to him once since the intervention," he observed quietly.

"I know. Don't worry, we'll eventually make up. Blake's a bit of a drama queen, and if I want to deliver a message, I have to speak his language. I need him to remember this so that he'll never do it again. It's one thing to give me advice, and another to try to control my life."

Max didn't say anything in response. He wondered if she planned her behavior around him as well, if she strategized, if she calculated his reactions. It sounded so ugly, worded like that. And terribly close to lying, which he despised.

"Yes, I'm manipulating my best friend," Danica once again proved to be as good at reading him as he was at reading her. "It's who I am – except usually I tell him because I promised myself to be honest about it. Is this the last drop to break your disavowal, Max? Am I finally not perfect anymore?"

Max was silent for a while.

"Why the honesty promise?" he rasped.

"Why? What's to stop me from becoming my daddy otherwise? From getting lost in the powerplay?"

"You would never be anything like..." he rushed to assure her.

"Of course I would. I've got all the potential right here," she tapped at her temple. "I've got my mother's eyes and my father's brain. Mom wasn't completely wrong; his and my mentality are so similar it's scary. Except for one thing. I know I'm a bitch. And I'm as truthful about it as I can," she said quietly but proudly.

Max stared at her in awe. He had never met anyone like her and he never will, not only because he was a bit of a hermit, but probably because there was no one like her in the world.

"So what was it that you did to him before you left town?" he whispered.

"Ah, what I did in the end is going to sound a little underwhelming," she grinned and invited him back into her bed. "The truth is that I considered all the possibilities you suggested. I wanted to use my little gang at first, to beat him up, or stalk him, or blackmail him; but I realized I couldn't because he'd know it was them, and most of them were staying in town after graduation. In the end, I decided to let my father do all the work for me," she sneered.

"Cameras," Max took a guess.

"Mmhmm," she slid a hand down the front of his T-shirt and tugged at the edge, signalling that he should take it off.

So he did. No reason to get nervous. So he was never completely shirtless in front of her, so what. Right?

"I bade my time, too. Discarded two of his freakouts because they were partially off-camera with bad sound. But the third one, oh the third one was pure gold."

She stopped inspecting his tattoos when she got to that part. In fact, she stopped touching him whatsoever.

"It doesn't sound like much when I describe it to you, but when you actually see the tape, the way he humiliates her, the way he presses on when he finds what hurts her most, and the way he enjoys himself doing it...You can see the monster right there. It starts with them watching TV, chatting about some stupid show, and disagreeing about a contestant. You can see it on his face when something snaps inside him."

Danica gulped and Max realized that this was the part she had trouble talking about.

"He escalates the fight and then starts screaming insults at her. She backpedals, defends herself, she's obviously afraid of what's to come. She eventually shuts down and stops responding, but he's on a roll and that only makes him angrier. His yelling is so ugly and so loud that the audio spikes a couple times. When he's out of insults, there's a moment of quiet when you can hear the TV and her crying. It annoys him, so he grabs her by the hair and drags her out of the room. 'Look at yourself, you're disgusting,' are the last words on the tape, I believe. The whole thing takes twenty-four minutes."

Max blew a long shaky breath when the description was over. He never wanted to hear it again. The way it distressed her was hurting him, too.

"I used the recording for a project during my first semester in college," Danica shocked him yet again. "I hated that it made me cringe and tear up. It doesn't have that much power over me now that I've seen it so many times."

She went back to touching him, playing with his chest hair, tracing his tattoos. She took her time to finally reveal the extent of her revenge:

"I sent a copy to his employer at the newspaper, to the mayor's wife – the event organizer, and to the sheriff – all women, of course. The next copy went to his mistress. The girl was only five years older than me, but I think he really liked her. And finally, one copy for his mother, our matriarch, and one for his wife, if not to open her eyes, then to show her what the fuss was going to be about."

"Did you tell him in person?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world. It had to be in public, of course, so that he couldn't hurt me. And guess who of all people hosted our graduation ball," she smirked triumphantly. "That moment when his mask crumbled and he tried to stick the shards back onto his face and look like a loving father when all he wanted to do was kill me...I still regret not taking a picture. I had my bags packed and waiting for me at a friend's house, so I left town right after telling him, while he had two more hours of hosting to do."

"Do you know what happened afterwards?"

"My friends told me. Sadly, he kept all his jobs, but he started complaining about workplace harrassment. The sheriff didn't let him sue. He lost the mistress, of course. He tried to win her back, repeatedly, even after her dad had beaten him up. Grandma didn't do anything at first, but when months went on and mom wouldn't leave him, she apparently encouraged them to divorce, which they eventually did."

"Are you happy with that result?"

"I wish it'd crushed him a little more, but I guess he's almost as resistant as me. So I'm not exactly happy, but I'm satisfied with my part."

Max smiled.

"What?"

"I just feel really sorry for Eton. If he keeps doing what he's doing, you will rip him to pieces, won't you?"

Danica slowly copied his smile.

"Yes, I will."

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Since it was rather rare for all five roommates to come together in their apartment, they had a rule to always celebrate the occasion by going out. Right now, Danica, Blake, Venus, Hope and Margie were returning from a good two-hour stay in an Indian restaurant.

Danny considered the evening well spent because she got her roomies to feel a bit guilty about their intervention and planted a seed of doubt into them considering Max.

As they approached their home, they saw an ambulance in front of the building. They had no idea what was going on until Danny's eyes fell on Max, nodding to whatever a paramedic was saying, then sitting on the front door steps and craddling his head, shoulders shaking.

"Oh no...August," Danny sighed.

Her roommates did the math. The ambulance had its lights off. There was no hurry anymore because there was nobody to save.

"Let me go to him," Danny demanded.

Her friends exchanged a few looks.

Blake was the first to yield.

They watched as she hurried to sit next to their landlord, who despite being in his forties crumbled into her arms like a baby.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

She stayed the night, sharing his bed. She hugged him and carressed him and kissed him and stroked his hair and it helped, kind of.

Instead of filling his night with immediate and unyielding sadness, his grief was often interrupted by long stretches of relaxed pet-like peace and flashes of crippling fear. The latter came whenever he thought of her leaving him as well, of him returning to his solitude, now absolutely alone with the memory of their relationship, with the awareness that he would never experience that kind of intimacy again, that the last few months were the best part of his life and that the remaining years would be just pain and emptiness and obsessive nostalgia.

Please, don't leave me. Don't leave me alone. Please, not now, not when you hand in the research, not after that, never, it would kill me. Just stay, you don't have to pay me any rent, you can stay here for free as long as you want. I can't lose you, too, I'd rather die...

Normally, he ran his thoughts through a filter before speaking them, editing red flag words like forever and death and anything shaped like a command. But this time, after accepting every single drink Danica poured him, he voiced them all.

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered.

He hoped she meant that as a promise, but she said it with a rather conflicted look on her face.

#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#Danica#

Packing August's things and cleaning up his apartment was something Max wanted to do alone and something that put him in a pensive, uncommunicative mood. Danica understood; moreover, she suggested he needed a the comfort of his routine in order to deal with his grief. That's how they came up with a combination of watching, short messages over the phone and in case loneliness got to him, shared bedtime. Difficult conversations, research interviews and social activities including meeting her roommates were off the table.

To him, it didn't feel like growing apart at all – and he hoped Danica felt the same.

All alone on a Friday night with a broken internet connection, what's a girl to do...

Max stared at the message on his phone for a while. Did she mean...And she was inviting him to...?

Hoping he interpreted her right, he hurried into the secret corridor and uncovered the peepholes to her bedroom with as loud a click as he could make, letting her know he was there, watching.

Danica was on her bed in her underwear, hands lazily running over her body. She heard the click, smirked and let her fingers slip under her bra, straight to the nipples. She closed her eyes.

They must be so sensitive, he thought.

Her other hand dipped under her panties, touched the desired spot and found a sensual rhythm.

When will she ask me to touch her like this? Is she waiting for me to make the first move? But I can't! What if I touch her and she slaps my hand away and her eyes go cold and she tells me to leave? Or worse, what if it freaks her out?

"Max," she moaned, dispersing his anxiety instantly.

Oh dear God. She's imagining him. Oh dear God.

"Max..."

Said Max was going to explode into his pants if she kept calling his name like that.

Her breathing hitched, her fingers sped up as her climax was approaching, and then...

Then she heard a weird noise coming from her front door. Like a cat scratching something metal, except there were no cats allowed in the building.

Danica cursed and groaned in frustration. She threw on a bathrobe and went to check. As soon as she looked out the front door peephole, she ducked and tiptoed back into her room.

"It's Eton, it's Eton picking the lock," she announced to him as well as to herself, looking around the room in a frenzy.

Max froze.

"He's going to jail this time," she stage-whispered and dialed 911. "Shit! No signal! Seriously?!"

She moved one of her tasers into her bathrobe pocket.

What do you want me to do? He wanted to ask, but his throat was dry and nothing came out, just like in the old days. He realized he hadn't spoken a single word in over 48 hours.

"Be my backup, ok? Wait till I tase him, then come into the room," she whispered into the old electrical sockets before going to hide under her bed.

"Ok," Max rasped.

For a college student, Eton wasn't a very smart man. One, he broke in while under a restraining order, which made the crime that much worse. Two, the way he moved around the apartment showed he thought himself alone in there – he clearly didn't spend any time observing the windows and the main entrance or counting how many roommates left. Amateur.

In his defense, though, Max must note that Eton looked drunk and/or high on something. Numbing his senses also made number three on the list of his stupid decisions that day.

Max sneaked in through the wine cellar a little too late – the sound of a scuffle warned him that Danica must've pulled the trigger and failed to tase him. He rushed into the room just as Eton managed to backhand her in the face. That got his blood running. He grabbed his collar, kicked him in the back of his knees and put him in a chokehold.

"Get him to the radiator!" Danica exclaimed as she fumbled for something in a drawer. She pulled out plush handcuffs and cuffed both Eton's hands to the solid metal pipe.

"Phew!" she immediately relaxed while Eton coughed to get his normal breathing back. "Did you see the way he ducked when I tried to tase him? You're a ninja, Eton! Too bad Max here is a soldier," she gave Max a big smile and then winced. "Ow," she touched her aching cheek. "I'll get some ice for this, you try 911 again," she casually handed him her phone and strutted out of the room.

And the award for the most well adjusted 25-year-old goes to... Max thought with a smirk.

"Still no signal," he reported. "There's a working telephone downstairs in the reception booth, though. I'll stay and watch him while you go."

She came back and her eyes studied the scene before her, her ex, her voyeur, the distance from the radiator to the bed, everything.

"Or do you want me to go instead?" Max rarely misinterpreted her silence. But this time, her thoughts were so unthinkable to him that he did.

"I'm not going anywhere and neither are you."

She came up to him and pulled at his shoulders to get her lips onto his.

"Oh come on!" Eton croaked.

"I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you," she repeated with emphasis. It reminded him of the words they exchanged the night August died.

"You mean...?"

"I mean we're doing this long term."

"Even after the thesis...? You said you get rid of useless things."

"I do. But now that I think about it, the thesis is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more research to do, not just about you, but about us, about what ways we found around your courtship disorder, and how our psychological profiles compliment each other. I'm gonna...I'm gonna write a book, Max," she seemed to get that idea just then and there.

"A book," he parroted.

"It takes a long time to write a book. I'm gonna have to look into more fields than just forensic psychology, I'm gonna need to find some experts to consult, I'm gonna have to read mountains of literature on the topic…" she purred while her hands smoothed up his shirt, up his neck and into his hair. She dragged him down for another kiss, which at last got a positive reaction out of him. He wrapped his hands around her, hugged her close – no, squeezed her close, and kissed her back with endless gratitude.

Not going anywhere. Long term. Us. Music to his ears.

"I'm gonna be fucking sick," Eton groaned.

Max looked at him. There was as much disgust in his face as there was hurt.

"I feel like I'm owed an orgasm from before," Danica murmured into his ear.

"Here? But he's looking," Max blurted out. As if her eyes weren't enough to make him nervous!

"Exactly," a beatifully malicious smile bloomed on her lips.

Max understood. Being touched by another man in front of Eton was the most painful thing she could do to him right now. The final punishment before she hands him over to the police.

"I don't think I'll be able to...Not in front of him..." He hated to disappoint her, but getting it up in front of another man was simply impossible for him.

"Oh, no, Max, our real first time will be much more special than this. Right now, I'm the only one who needs to perform a finish. You just help me with the touching."

She pushed him until his legs hit the bed and he sat down.

"But..."

"Don't we deserve to celebrate? Ok, and maybe rub our victory in his face, a little? He won't get to see much..." She untied her bathrobe and held it open so that Max would be the only one to see her underwear. "But he'll know exactly what's going on."

"Are you kidding me?! You fucking whore!" Eton was yet again ignored.

"And then we call the cops?" Max asked with a gulp.

"And then we call the cops," she assured him. "They wouldn't believe his story even if he wasn't as high as a kite."

"I love you," Max slipped in another one of his love confessions.

Eton made a gagging sound.

"I know. You make me feel loved. It's really hard to do that, Max. You're special. You might just be the only one."

"She's lying! She's only saying that to fuck with you! Next time, she's gonna ask you to do stuff you'd never do, and you'll do it! She will make you ruin your own life!"

"I'm already doing something I'd never do," Max breathed. His hands went to her thighs and his lips to her belly button.

She gave a pleasantly surprised gasp and a giggle.

He looked up at her, wondering what she'd like next.

"Are those puppy eyes? God, you're fourty-two, how can you still have those? Puppy eyes make me wanna do all kinds of things to a man," she pouted.

Oh yeah? What's the worst thing you wanna do to me? he wanted to ask, but considering his stunted verbal skills and inability to appear confident even when he kind of was, he had to make do with: "Like what?"

"Like..." She bent down and whispered something into his ear.

Max went red all over his face. The sentence itself wasn't very sensual; it's not that erotic to tell someone that you were going to sit on their face. But it was the image that went with it that had Max panting and sweating and stuttering.

"Ok."

So far, this was turning out to be the best day of Max's life. And coincidentally, the worst day of Eton's. It was probably a formula he'd see again and again over the months, or maybe even years that he would get to spend with Danica, his lovely and vengeful she-demon.

The End

Author's Note:

The point of this story was to show a self-obsessed woman dating someone with a courtship disorder that actually matched her own needs. However, I don't think this relationship would last forever and I can only imagine how it would end:

With Danica's desire to be in control at all times, she could become too commanding for Max to feel comfortable with...

Her manipulation could tip over to lying once, which would make Max snap and become aggressive, scaring Danica into ending their relationship...

And of course, she could always dump Max for someone as devoted to her but much more impressive. She's a bitch like that.

Original Story Rewrite?

Of all my fanfictions, this is the most AU (it revolves around an OC with four OC friends, Max and August have different history and are sort of out of character). It partially existed before I've seen The Resident because it's a commentary on the voyeur trope we see in movies and on television. It's the only fanfiction that can, with some changes, become an original story – and I think I'm going to do it!