The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(99)

He rolled down and pulled her up onto him, a cartwheel of limbs and a seamless, unbroken kiss. And then she was over him, leaning on his wrists, holding him down, onto him and all over him and so damn good at him. He could writhe here forever, gripped from within and without by her body on top of his. Firm flesh and soft skin, shifting muscle and bone. So small but so strong and coaxing from him emotions he didn’t even know he had. They burst from him unbidden as he gasped out of their kiss, holding her head, holding her mouth still against his, fighting for breath. I love you, Dais. I love you, I love you…

Then the dream turned dark.

Pitch black. Thick, tangible black. His back burning under the rake of her fingernails. The taste of blood in his mouth. Her hair damp and sweaty in his tight fist. His weight pinning her to the floor, to the wall, to the bed. Her wrists crossed in her back. Holding her down. Hurting her. His teeth on the back of her neck as he tore her up because she needed it.

Down into the black.

Down…

Erik woke up coming, sweating and trembling, a lap full of sweet, strong wetness and the taste of blood on his tongue as his mouth cried Daisy’s name out to the dark. The thin dark of his room. He was awake. Alone and cold. She wasn’t there anymore, she had sent him back.

I’m useless to her.

He crawled back into the shower, literally crawled and sat under the spray, curled up against the wall of the tub. He had the hot water full blast, steam billowing in clouds around him, but he was freezing again, drowning in the icy rapids. He could not get warm, could not get out of his own head. He put on his warmest clothes, even a hat, made tea and warmed up some soup but he could barely tolerate a sip or spoonful. He was sick.

He was crazy.

He pushed the bowl away and picked up the phone. He got Diane’s voicemail, left what he hoped was a coherent message, and then resumed pacing around and sipping plain, hot water. She called him back in five minutes.

“Help,” he said.

“Help is here. Tell me what happened when you went home.”

He sketched it out for her, too anxious to be embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, Erik,” she said. “We didn’t leave off in a safe place.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s difficult to end a session in a place where you feel safe, in a place where you can put down whatever we were discussing and leave it there. We were in the middle of something rather intense, and you took it with you.”

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “I can’t tough it out another week.”

“Of course not. I’m glad you called. I can meet you at my office in ten minutes, can you come?”

“You’d see me?” he asked. “Tonight?”

“Erik,” she said, “it’s my job. You’ve hired me. I’m on your team now.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“See you in ten minutes. Drive safely, please.”



*



He told her. Unloaded all of it—the cocaine and ecstasy, and all those nights in the pitch dark when he and Daisy tried, it seemed, to kill each other. To f*ck each other to death.

“The last time,” he said, “when I had her in the shower afterward. Her body… She was like this broken thing. The scars on her thigh and the scars on her calf. And then the scratches down her back and the bruises on her arms. Her hair was collecting in the drain because I had pulled on it. It was horrible.”

“It must have been frightening.”

“But it felt so good. Violence made the sex amazing and I didn’t understand. I still don’t. Well, maybe I do a little. I see how they were tied together in our minds. Maybe… Maybe we were trying to connect back with the night before the shooting. Because the night had such a raw edge to it.”

“But remember it was deeply loving as well. And since feelings of love only brought anxiety, possibly you had to jettison it and focus solely on the raw savagery.”

“I have no memory of thinking that way.”

“Of course not, it was purely subconscious. You were simply trying to take control any way you could. And losing control simultaneously.”

“I remember I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “Be violent in bed. But I think she still needed it. And then I was useless to her.”

Diane inclined her head. “You feel that?”

“I do. I really believe Daisy needed the violence. She was hooked on it. Just like coke. I wouldn’t give it to her. And she went to David to get it. To ask him for it. Knowing he would do anything for her.”

“You must have been devastated.”

“She killed me,” he whispered.

“It seems you’re still angry with her,” Diane said after a moment.

He opened his mouth to reply of course, but then stopped to think about it. Was he angry with her? Of course he was. At least he had been. Was he still?

“Am I?” he said.

“Are you?”

He put his head in his hands, pulling the hair back from his temples. “I just don’t understand,” he said, sighing. “I just don’t understand how she could do it.”

“She was traumatized as well, Erik. I’ll play devil’s advocate for a moment and say she may not have been entirely in her right mind when she slept with your friend.”