Salvation

Chapter 5: Ayano

My first right hand was a spider demon named Nataku. He was an intelligent and ambitious man, which was what drove him to my side, but because of that he was not caring or loyal. I did not mind. The two of us used each other to further our goals, and his lack of interest in me was comforting. He was more concerned with power. Women.

It was because of him that I met Ayano.

Nataku was sometimes difficult to find, but I often would resort to checking his room, and he usually did not care. It would not have mattered if he did, anyway.

That morning he was not there, but Ayano was.

She lay sprawled over his bed, her rich, dark hair tumbling over her unclothed skin, curling against her cheeks and bowing innocently over what would have been her bare chest.

My breath hitched in my throat as a peculiar wave of yearning washed over me. Something about her looked so warm, inviting, perhaps even familiar, but why? I could later only imagine that such feelings were brought on by the woman who had held me in my time of slavery before our relationship had been so abruptly quashed.

"Good morning, my lord," she mumbled sleepily to me, and she smiled.

I wanted to go near her, to touch her, and I had no idea why. It nearly terrified me, the startlingly unfamiliar and yet unbearably appealing notions that assaulted me.

"Did you want something?" she questioned, more clearly than before, further roused by her curiosity. I realized then that I had simply been staring at her, and I also realized that she had made no attempt to hide herself.

"No," I replied, more weakly than I would have liked, and walked out.

-.-.-

Ayano was not Nataku's woman officially. Nataku rarely made anything official unless he was completely sure about it, and women were unlikely to ever be such a thing.

It was because of this that Ayano was apt to search for other company, and, as I came to realize, mine in particular.

Ayano in her entirety was foreign to me. No one since slavery had ever shown such implicit desire to be near me, and certainly no one so soft and beautiful as she was. It was understood to everyone that I was dangerous, and the only beings that associated with me were my underlings.

This woman, however, would often invite me to sit with her when Nataku was away, and she would speak to me about my inferiors and her life. Before long, she was asking to join my company instead of the other way around. If I had followed my ingrained reactions then I would have immediately refused, but for whatever reason, imagining that my rejection would disappoint her stopped me from turning her away.

Eventually I came to spend more of my time in Ayano's presence than not. She never asked me about my past, and never showed too great of an interest about my personal life, but she would often gaze long and hard at my bandages, in a distant sort of way, as if trying to conjure what I could possibly look like underneath them.

I realized only later that this was the effect I had on women—the mystery of my bandages would allow anyone to imagine that I looked however they wanted, and that coupled with my power was part of my allure. But I did not yet understand such things.

I was just as captivated with her, if not more so.

-.-.-

After only a week of prolonged time with Ayano, everyone seemed to know what had transpired between us. Ayano basked in the attention and power that having my favor granted her, but I did not truly notice. Simply seeing her happy brought a very strange pleasure to me.

Once everyone knew, however, Ayano began to metamorphose. She became less of the gentle girl that I had seen draped in silken hair that first day and instead grew increasingly demanding. Things not fit to her specifications—food, clothing, bath water—she threw fits over to be immediately fixed.

She even became demanding of me.

"You rarely even touch me! Do you find me disgusting? Am I unworthy to you?"

"No," I tried to reply evenly. I sat next to her on my bed, and she looked at me with a mixture of sadness and anger.

"Kiss me," she said.

I stared at her for a long time, considering her request and everything that fulfilling it meant, and I was wracked with a terrible emotion that made freeze in place. But I couldn't tear my eye from hers, and at some point in time during that silence, I pulled some of my bandages away.

Ayano's eyes scoured the visible bits of flesh between my bandages, and she reached out her hand. I pulled away.

She scoffed at me. "I don't believe you. You convinced me you were different, but you don't even make an attem—"

"Stop," I commanded. I touched her hair, her shoulder—she smacked me away.

"No! You lied to me!" she screeched. "You're acting like just as much of a monster as they claim you are!"

Something boiling painfully inside of me burst to the surface in that moment, and I stood to my feet, balling my stinging hand. "You idiot. I didn't lie. You know well what I am. And you chose me anyway. You were to blame for putting your trust in me in the first place!"

All I knew was that I could not bear it any longer. The pain, the deceit, losing all hope of anything good that I may have come to own.

I stepped out of my gut-smattered room, slicked in blood, past Nataku in the hall.

Echoing behind me, I heard him mutter, "People always look so different without their heads."