Tabula Rasa(37)

I closed my eyes and jumped into the gaping chasm where Shannon had already set up a life of comfortable darkness.

He didn’t remove his jeans, just undid them. My hips surged upwards as he drove into me, his fingers digging hard into my hips. Somehow I knew he wanted to flip me over onto my stomach, but the intricate knotwork he’d made wouldn’t allow for such spontaneity mid-game.

“Shannon, please, the ropes hurt.”

He f*cked me harder causing them to pull and chafe even more. “Good. Cry for me.”

My eyes were still closed, and the tears slid from the corners of them, down my cheeks, and onto the sheets. The ropes dug and burned into my wrists like a branding iron, but I wasn’t crying because of that. I cried because despite the overwhelming relief of Shannon’s body moving inside of mine, of all the tiny nerve endings he awakened with this relentless friction, I was convinced I was going to die.

What if, at the last moment, the known killer in bed with me decided killing me was better than f*cking me after all?

A moment later, I felt a warm tongue on the side of my face, licking up my tears as I cried them. It startled me enough to make me open my eyes.

When Shannon pulled back to look at me, that intense expression was back. It was the look that made me wonder for brief seconds at a time how I could ever fear him. That was the look of a man who wanted me to live forever. Just so he could keep doing this.

That final thrust made me gasp, and pushed me right up to the edge of my own pleasure.

After a few beats, he pulled out of me. I was going to let it go. Even without completion, even with the moments of abject terror, it was far and away better sex than the droopy display with Trevor had ever been. But Shannon knew I hadn’t come, and he wasn’t having it.

He still straddled me, one hand gripped my throat, forcing me to look at him. The other snaked between my legs, stroking me in a slow, steady rhythm until my release came, causing a scream to tear out of me like nothing I’d ever heard. At least not in my known memory.

We stared silently at each other for several minutes. Somehow I knew he’d f*cked a lot of women, but whatever emotion he felt now, it was new. It was mine. His face was filled with the same awe as a baby discovering his own hands for the first time.

Shannon untied my wrists and pressed a kiss against the rope-burned skin. He got up and retreated to the bathroom then came back with a tube of something and some gauze and medical tape.

The way he rubbed the cream into my wrists and wrapped them, it was obvious he’d never done this for someone else before. It must be so baffling trying to heal when what you most craved was to do harm. Like a lion nurturing an injured gazelle back to health.

Finally, he finished. He put the supplies up along with the rope and paddle. Everything in its place. Then he got back into the bed with me and pulled the covers up around us.

“Shannon?”

“Yeah?”

I wasn’t sure if my next question was wise. It might be sensitive. It might make him angry. But I had this burning desire to try to understand him, to find some kernel of something human and sympathetic that I could use to justify my growing attraction to someone who did terrible things to others, and would be doing another brand of terrible things to me. Admittedly things I’d probably like, but I still didn’t want to think too hard about that.

“Were you abused as a kid?” I asked, all the while wondering if maybe I had been abused as a kid. Never mind what was wrong with Shannon. What was wrong with me?

“Why would you ask such a thing? I have zero appropriate social skills, and even I know that’s out of line.”

“I’m s-sorry, I’m just trying to understand what made you like this.” If I could understand what made him like this, maybe I could figure out what made me like this. Because I thought I probably wasn’t a sociopath, but Shannon and I seemed like two sides of the same coin. He was the perfect predator; I was the perfect prey. I was the f*cked-up prey that wanted to be ensnared.

He seemed to be trying to decide how much he was prepared to tell me. At least he didn’t appear angry.

“No,” he said after another moment’s thought. “I wasn’t abused. That’s not why I kill people. I didn’t kill small animals when I was young or burn the wings off of flies. My parents are good people. They raised me in a good environment and taught me good morals. They loved me. I’m sure they still do. I know whatever it is that they feel toward me, it’s something real, even if I couldn’t understand it or feel it myself. I knew even when I was young that there was something very wrong with me—at least by the general population’s standards. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew I had to keep it a secret, so I pretended the best I could and did what the others around me did. But I never felt the things they claimed to feel. And I wasn’t even sure if they were lying or not. I just wanted so much to fit in and be like the other kids.”

“But how could you become this way if something bad didn’t happen to you?” I’d wanted to uncover something in his history that would make me understand so I could say, Ah, that must be it. So much pain almost had to turn him into a monster. Then I could feel pity for him. I could be this light of salvation. Maybe I could heal him. And even if I couldn’t, I could claim that my motives were virtuous. I could pretend I didn’t just like to stand a little too close to the fire.

“It’s not all nurture, Elodie. There are predators in this world, and I’m one of them. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”