Wouldn't it be nice if I could just cut it clean here, and say that we decided to forget about each other and move on with our lives? That I regained my old life, became best friends with Lana again and found a successful career?
I apologize—I know that I should stop taunting you with a relatively happy ending to my tale.
Give me a moment.
*
Okay...
I'll cut to the chase.
Months went by without a thing changing. There was more shallow conversation, more covetous fucking, more secrecy and shame. As the time passed, I became more desperate for a back story. I wanted to know more about Pavi Largo. In different fits of drunkenness, or sometimes just loneliness, I had divulged pretty much all of my life to him. It wasn't like it mattered to him anyway. As I told my stories, he would just stare into his mirror, face thoughtful and frozen like the dead skin it was. The more I told him, the more I longed for reciprocation, for understanding. There had to be reasons for his nymphomania. I couldn't imagine that anyone would be born like this.
In some perverse way, I think I wanted to help him.
It was a cool night when the downward spiral of things began. The sun was just setting, and the clouds skimming the horizon were igniting the whole sky. Pavi had pulled back the shades, and we sat on a loveseat he had pushed to face the outside. His arm was propped around my shoulders, his mirror still in hand.
The dull sight of the city was disheartening. Though the twilit atmosphere would have been beautiful over any other landscape, it only likened our city's appearance to that of hell. Revenge, anger, debt, lust and murder...it all ran unchecked in our streets, and nothing was being done to stop it.
I leaned my head on Pavi's shoulder, and his fingers brushed lightly against my arm. He kissed my temple with waxy lips that didn't belong to him. A shiver crossed my body, but I snuggled closer. This was the moment I had been waiting for.
"Pavi," I murmured.
"Hm?" His face did not turn. He was observing the sunset with what I would call excessive interest, as though he had never seen one before.
"How come you never talk about yourself?"
"But I do, bella," he replied, perplexed. "We have-a both talked about ourselves—"
"No," I cut him off firmly. "You talk about stupid stuff like your Genterns and your faces and GeneCo, but you've never told me about you, Pavi Largo." I straightened up and forced him to look at me. "Like, when you were a kid. What was it like growing up as an heir? Did you get along with your siblings? Did you have any girlfriends when you were young? Or was it always just lovers?"
What happened next was unexpected. It appeared I had touched a nerve. His eyes widened and he recoiled, withdrawing his arm. For all the times I had insulted him and he had taken it in stride, this was the strongest reaction I had provoked. At that moment, he seemed to shut down. Although I could only really tell his expression from his eyes, it looked as if his entire face had crumpled. Something else was behind the mask, and I could just barely recognize it—fear.
"Bella..." He clasped his hands in his lap and kept his gaze downwards. "Bella...the Pavi...he..." His voice trailed, and I could see his fingers trembling.
"Pavi," I whispered again. "What happened?"
Here it was. I was finally getting what I wanted: the excuse for his personality. Something had indeed happened. Did this mean he had at one point been relatively normal? And...the deities help for thinking it, could he be fixed?
"Bella...the Pavi has never told anyone this..."
He was shaking so badly, I placed both my hands over his. It was barely fathomable. I was trying to soothe the man who had essentially commenced the destruction of my life. My heart was going out to a face-thief, a rapist, a promiscuous womanizer. My self-hate flared, but was soon doused by sympathy. Like I said...unfathomable.
"Ten-a years ago, I was out-a talking with the people. The Genterns, they were still around, but I honestly had-a no interest. I just-a wanted GeneCo...just-a wanted to be famoso." His eyes were distant. "I stepped away, off-a the main road, just to-a...relieve myself." He giggled weakly. "Someone had-a followed me...a man. He began-a kissing me...and then..." His eyes shut then, as did his lips. The shaking was near uncontrollable.
I was stunned. The face-thief, the rapist, the promiscuous womanizer...he had been raped.
"Oh, Pavi," I said softly, and wrapped him in my arms. At first tense, he relaxed in my embrace, and clutched at me with a kind of desperate fervour. He had never shared this secret with anyone, and he had told me, just another one of his lovers. Of course, by now, I was reconsidering that fact. Had he seen something in me that attracted him? Though I had never been violated in such a way, I was still broken inside. Maybe he had needed me after all.
We sat there for an hour with him nearly weeping in my arms. I cooed soft words of comfort in his ear and ran my hand over his hair. When he finally pulled away, he offered me a small smile, more realistic than anything his mask had ever shown, and I smiled back.
This is where the healing could begin. Now that I knew what had gone wrong in his past, I also knew his motives for becoming what he was. It had obviously disturbed him greatly, and because he had chosen to share it with me, I could help him.
Or so I believed.
--
-to be continued-
