Mesmer, page 4
The messy slurping that started could probably be heard over the actors on the stage, but I was too tense to care anymore. I hadn’t even paid attention to the play, but I tuned back in to see some girl dead on stage. Fitting.
Mesmers followed a pretty simple motto with collectables. Use them, then dispose or kill. Erase them and send them back out or tell them to go kill themselves. They could never talk about it, wouldn’t even be able to point at you in a line-up if they somehow managed to get that far. They were nothing more than prey. All of them.
Including Hannah.
I watched them until my patience frayed to nothing, and then I kicked the attendant away as I put my cock back in my pants and zipped them up. “Look at me, slut.”
She obeyed, because, of course she did. A good little zombie-robot-girl.
My lips twitched. Okay, good sometimes. The way she’d resisted for a while? Fucking amazing. I inhaled, exhaled, feeling the drag in my lungs. A good night, yes, but there was more time. Always more.
“You’re going to put your clothes back on, pick up your tray, and go straight to the bathroom to clean yourself up. Then go home. You won’t remember me, or Hannah. You won’t remember anything about tonight except that the play was boring as fuck. Say ‘yes, sir,’ bitch.”
“Yes, sir,” the girl whispered, another set of tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Go.” I waved her off, and she scrambled for her clothes. Pulling them on fast enough that I couldn’t help but watch her scramble. When she picked up the tray, the filthy bottle fell into the glasses, but she steadied them as she climbed the steps and raced out.
“Want to say something, Hannah?” I turned my attention back to her. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, her hair was a wrecked golden halo around her head, and I couldn’t help but smile. “No? Your turn. Put yourself together.”
Hannah tugged the straps of her dress back into place, twisting to grab at the mangled zipper.
“Oh, that won’t work. I’ll hold the dress together as we leave.” Standing, I beckoned her over, and she stood, wiping at her mouth where her drool and the other girl’s juices had already somewhat dried. Smeared on her face, it made her look like any other collectable.
I narrowed my eyes.
Just get her out of your system.
Grabbing the two halves of the back of her dress, I pinched them together with my fingers and pinned them against the back of her neck as if I were just touching her affectionately.
“Leave the rest. I like the look of a girl who’s been crying.” Especially when I caused it. “Let’s go. I’ve got something much better for you tonight.”
While exiting through the crowded foyer, a tall, fair-haired guy in a suit with a pretentious man-bun stopped and checked out Hannah. From his amused leer when he saw my hand at her neck and how his gaze crawled over her body, I was sure he thought her recently fucked.
This close the smell of come and the ripped threads on her zipper were obvious, but everyone else was looking away.
My mouth twitched up in a snarl, and I had an urge to tear out the guy’s throat with my bare hands. One of those mesmer traits. Sometimes I felt like an alien predator in human skin.
I tightened my grip on her neck, glared at the asshole until he veered off. Her wince and frantic glance said she felt the dig of my fingers. To hell with this guy. I watched him until he vanished into the stampede of people aiming to get to their cars and home.
Don’t mess with what’s mine.
Maybe I should get that tattooed on her ass? I grimaced. I was going to dispose of her, soon as I was bored with her. None of this mine business.
If she could understand what was happening, I was sure Hannah would spit on me. It made me crave one thing over and above all else—seeing her turned into a fuck doll. No. Make that getting her to agree to it being done.
There was this weekly group I’d joined a couple of times, to see how the lesser mortals got their kicks. Only twenty or thirty people at most and they kept a tight rein on who was allowed in. It had a mix of swingers and kinksters and a cute fetish entrance. The main arranger’s sub was a collectable, though I’d never touched her.
Time to pull in one of those noncon favors. Tomorrow.
“Places to go, bad people to see,” I said, low enough for tear-stained, disheveled Hannah to hear, but nobody else. Through the tips of my fingers, I felt her shiver.
4
Tomik
When we got back to my little slice of hell on earth, Hannah was still quiet, sniffling almost silently in the passenger seat as I grabbed my choice spot under the carport and turned off the car.
Hotel Acambo.
Back in the day, it had apparently been fancy as fuck… now it was just out of the way. Off the beaten path, not enough visitors to be worth the upkeep it would have required to be top-of-the-line real estate nowadays.
That would have made it easy enough to take. The fact that the cunt that had inherited it was collectable had just made it especially easy.
I think she shot herself after we finished with her. Shotgun. So messy.
Climbing out of the car, I only cast a single glance over my shoulder at Hannah. But she followed without any nudge from me, back inside, away from any prying eyes on the street, and part of me liked it. Liked watching the way the back of her dress gaped as I let her catch up and then pushed her ahead of me. The red of the carpet burn on her knees and elbows, the mess on her face, it all reminded me of exactly what she was: prey, collectable, nothing more.
I’d had plans when we were in the theatre. I’d wanted to make her bleed, to listen to her scream as I fucked her ass, but as soon as we were in my little suite of a living quarters… I just let her go.
Hands off the controls, little dolly stumbling on her next steps into the room, and then she went down. Onto her knees, hands in her sticky hair, and the first full-volume sob of the night broke past her lips.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it as I unbuttoned my shirt and walked around her, watched her fall apart.
“Wha— Why? Why?” She was babbling, staring at the floor instead of me, but I let her continue as I made myself a drink and dropped into one of the wingback chairs in this place’s version of a living room.
Hiccupping, more broken sobs, and I just tilted my head and took a sip as Hannah Jones fell apart on my floor.
“Tomik… Tomik, why? What happened— what happened to you?” Even through her little breakdown she was asking about me, saying my goddamned name.
Fuck.
I clenched my teeth, rage burrowing through me like a sugar-coated bullet that only made me think of my little bag of tricks in the closet. So many pretty little things I could apply to her mostly unmarked skin. I could flay the flesh from her bones, leave her a blood-soaked skeleton in the basement still babbling my name like it would make a fucking difference to her future.
“Oh God… oh God! That girl, me, you—” Her pretty blue eyes finally flicked up to mine, then away, back to the floor, the wall, the ceiling. “How, Tomik? How?”
“Some things just are,” I replied, empty as I swallowed enough whiskey to make my throat burn and my stomach catch fire. I avoided the urge to cough, but only just barely.
Hannah whined, a pretty sound, and then she started rocking. Legs curled at her side, arms wrapped over her breasts to hold onto the dress, she wobbled back and forth. Babbled under her breath some litany of useless questions.
The mess of her was exhilarating.
I liked to let the collectables lose it sometimes. Let them go when I knew they couldn’t run just to watch them panic.
It was more fun when the bros were around, when we were at one of our little gatherings and pulled back the mesmer shit completely. The girls always went wide-eyed with panic as they realized they were surrounded by men, by a group of men with hard dicks whom they’d often already fucked. Those memories could be like razorblades, already swallowed, too late to stop them from cutting as reality set in and… then they always cried.
Like this.
Like Hannah.
Hannah fucking Jones. My rage tweaked again, not appeased by the shallow, panicked breaths wheezing in and out of her lungs.
“Shut up,” I snapped, and she went silent instantly. Still crying just as hard, just without the accompaniment. Nothing more than that paper-like rasp of air in and out of her lungs, the soft cluck of her tongue, the guttural swallow as she stared at the floor. “Look at me.”
Blue eyes popped up to mine like I’d yanked her leash—maybe later.
“Stop crying,” I ordered, getting a handle on my own anger enough to sound calm, even though inside I was anything but.
It did help, though, when she sniffled once more and then went still. Almost serene on the surface, even though it was false.
Fuck.
I didn’t like this either. She was doe-eyed, like a deer staring down the rifle of the hunter and just waiting for the goddamn trigger pull.
If only it were that simple—even though it could be—but I didn’t want her to kill herself, not yet, not ever? Shit. I wasn’t bored yet, and I definitely didn’t want a blow-up doll.
“Never mind, you can do whatever,” I growled, and she made a small noise, but the tears were softer now. Quieter, like she was afraid I’d shut her up again. No questions now, just her pretty face tilting towards her lap until she was finally brave enough to break eye contact.
Testing her bounds. The limits I’d set… even though I’d removed them.
She didn’t understand that though.
My sweet little Hannah. “How did no one else grab you first?” I whispered, half to myself and half to… the universe.
Her eyes came back to mine, anger pulsing behind the blue, and I bit down on my lip because I liked it too much. I could almost see myself shoving her to the floor, letting her fight as I pinned her, forced her legs wide, and took her without a single command. Just me on top of her, listening to her cry and scream… fuck, that got my dick hard again.
But some piece of me also recoiled.
Weird. I didn’t like feeling that. Some kind of, what, guilt? Was that guilt? Guilt for just thinking about forcing myself between her thighs when she could react, scream? Fuckity fuck fuck. It wasn’t any different than the play, and I hated that my brain reminded me of that. Just because I’d made her come like a good little whore didn’t mean she’d wanted it, wanted me. And before? It had been the same. Pull the cord, listen to her moan, feel her cunt tighten down and her body quake.
“Why did you fucking call me?” I growled.
* * *
Hannah
I tested my tongue, my lips, and found I could use them. Let a small sound escape my throat to see if my vocal cords would obey, but in the gray haze in my mind I couldn’t remember calling him. Couldn’t remember how I’d made it to the theatre, or this place that seemed to be his.
There was a guitar in the corner, behind where he was sitting, and a stack of comic books and graphic novels.
All things my Tomik would have had with him. But this man? This tattooed, violent, terrible man… he wasn’t my Tomik.
“I didn’t call you,” I whispered, prepared to have my vocal cords lock up again, a suffocating sensation—but it didn’t come.
“You did, but it doesn’t matter anyway.” He sighed hard. “Not anymore.”
Swallowing, I risked another glance at him. Those severe shaved stripes in his hair screamed dangerous. Like bright colors in the animal kingdom, they were a warning. Just like the tattoos, the sheer size of him… all of it said run.
And I could.
Right now, I could run.
If I just stood up, I could make it to the door, I could make it outside in this shredded dress. Could go out into whatever city this was, find a cop and— My thoughts cramped, bunched together like someone grabbed them in a fist and squeezed. It was so visceral that I whined out loud, covered my forehead with one hand as I braced the other on the floor.
But the dull headache was nothing compared to the horrible realization that I couldn’t go to the police, because just thinking of describing this… this thing that Tomik was doing made my head pound and my heart race.
“What are you thinking about, Hannah?” he asked, but there was no command to follow it. No pulling of my invisible puppet strings. Still, I waited until his gaze met mine before I spoke.
“I was thinking about going to the police for help.”
Tomik laughed, low and dark, and then he tilted the glass of liquor like he was toasting me before he downed the last of it. “That’s funny.”
“This isn’t funny!” I shouted, and he laughed again. “Stop it, Tomik! This isn’t funny!”
“Oh, really? I think it’s hilarious.” He pushed himself out of the chair, wandering to the liquor stand that was also part of the drawers for clothes, and the television support, and the bookshelves leading up behind it. One endless amalgamation of furniture. “Go ahead, Hannah. Think of yourself in front of a police officer, think of him asking you why you look like a cheap hooker after a bad John. What would you say to him?”
His words sank in, and the headache came back. A dull throb that made me wince, grab onto my face and press against my forehead, my eyes, trying to make the odd, vise-like grip inside my skull let go.
“Nothing,” I whispered, and tears burned at my eyes as I pressed my hands into the thin, cheap carpet.
“That’s right.” The glug-glug of alcohol pouring out of a bottle made it into my ears, along with another soft laugh from Tomik. Then I saw his hand, and a glass, out of the corner of my eye. “Take this,” he commanded, and my arm lifted automatically.
Fingers wrapped around the glass, the lukewarm liquor inside it, and then he was back in his seat. A throne for the man he was now, who was not the boy I’d thought would be my forever. That person was gone, he’d proven that to me at the theatre, but I didn’t want to believe it. Tears swelled in my eyes again as I remembered my Tomik. The boy who’d almost kissed me a dozen times before Edwin whatever-his-last-name-was had kissed me on stage. That had finally made him take action, after all the times I’d tried to hint that I wanted him to, after all the hugs that had lasted just a moment too long, the times I’d grabbed his hand and squeezed… he’d finally kissed me. Made out with me under the stars like some storybook romance.
But this Tomik? This place? This was more like Grimm’s Fairytales.
“You can have a drink, Hannah. It might help.”
Just because he’d suggested it, I set the glass by my knee. I wanted a choice, I wanted to make a damn choice, and if this was all he was going to allow me then I was going to choose not to drink the alcohol… even though I wanted to drown in it. Erase all the heartache buzzing behind my ribs.
“Hannah—” His voice held that edge, that promise of a command I wouldn’t be able to ignore, so I spoke first.
“How can you do this?” I asked, forcing myself to look at him, to not feel the ineffable tug I’d always felt looking into his eyes.
“I don’t think anyone quite knows how, Hannah… it just is.” Tomik took a drink, pulling air in through his teeth as he rested the glass on the arm of the chair. A half-smile tweaked the corner of his mouth as he shook his head. “I’m not him, Hannah. Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that,” he snapped, leaning forward to point at me. “Exactly like that. Like you know me, like you still like me. I know you remember what just happened at the fucking play, Hannah, so don’t look at me like that.”
I swallowed down the bile in my throat, reaching for the alcohol to wash the bitter burn from the back of my tongue. I remembered, but I didn’t want to. I wanted it to wipe away like whatever else was missing from that strange dark hole in the middle of my brain. Something moved near that empty space, that hollow gap in my memories, my thoughts. A gray haze that had the silhouette of a girl.
I drank the liquor just to stop it all. Almost emptied the fucking glass before Tomik was able to shout, “Stop!”
My lips sealed tight, but the glass was still tilted and the last few mouthfuls poured over my mouth and down my front. Not like I cared; this dress was filthy anyway. It needed to be burned. I needed a shower so hot it would take a layer of skin with it.
“Shit, Hannah…” He huffed, climbing off his chair and onto his knees in front of me. Still taller, still so big and masculine and dangerous as he plucked the glass from my frozen fingers and then wiped his hand over my chin. “You can move.”
Free puppet again. Pinocchio ain’t got nothing on me.
I laughed bitterly, and Tomik gave me a side-glance that looked almost as unnerved as I felt on the inside.
“I don’t want you to be broken, Hannah.”
“Yeah?” I asked, unable to stop the slightly insane laugh from burbling up my throat again.
“No, I just want to stop—” He growled and slammed the glass onto the coffee table. “I want to be bored with you.”
For one sentence he sounded like the old Tomik, my Tomik, and it ended my stupid urge to laugh. Assaulted by the memories of the boy I’d grown up with—the quiet boy, the sweet boy, the funny, clever, musician boy who had stolen my heart—I reached forward and touched his cheek. Barely my fingertips, but he gasped like I’d burned him. “I never stopped thinking about you, Tomik.”
“You should have,” he grumbled, swiping my hand away from him as he retreated to his chair to swallow another mouthful of the cheap liquor.
“But I didn’t,” I continued, feeling brave as he let me move, think, feel, speak. “You don’t have to be this person, Tomik. No matter what’s happened, no matter what you’ve done, you—”
“Stop.” A single finger raised, a softly spoken word, and once again I was locked. His eyes trailed over me, top to bottom, and then he sighed. Leaning forward, he met my eyes, gaze flicking back and forth. “There’s no saving me, Hannah. No spell to be broken here, no spell you could cast over me that would fix me. The Tomik you knew is gone. Dead. Buried along with a lot of other collectables. Women just like you.”
Mesmers followed a pretty simple motto with collectables. Use them, then dispose or kill. Erase them and send them back out or tell them to go kill themselves. They could never talk about it, wouldn’t even be able to point at you in a line-up if they somehow managed to get that far. They were nothing more than prey. All of them.
Including Hannah.
I watched them until my patience frayed to nothing, and then I kicked the attendant away as I put my cock back in my pants and zipped them up. “Look at me, slut.”
She obeyed, because, of course she did. A good little zombie-robot-girl.
My lips twitched. Okay, good sometimes. The way she’d resisted for a while? Fucking amazing. I inhaled, exhaled, feeling the drag in my lungs. A good night, yes, but there was more time. Always more.
“You’re going to put your clothes back on, pick up your tray, and go straight to the bathroom to clean yourself up. Then go home. You won’t remember me, or Hannah. You won’t remember anything about tonight except that the play was boring as fuck. Say ‘yes, sir,’ bitch.”
“Yes, sir,” the girl whispered, another set of tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Go.” I waved her off, and she scrambled for her clothes. Pulling them on fast enough that I couldn’t help but watch her scramble. When she picked up the tray, the filthy bottle fell into the glasses, but she steadied them as she climbed the steps and raced out.
“Want to say something, Hannah?” I turned my attention back to her. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, her hair was a wrecked golden halo around her head, and I couldn’t help but smile. “No? Your turn. Put yourself together.”
Hannah tugged the straps of her dress back into place, twisting to grab at the mangled zipper.
“Oh, that won’t work. I’ll hold the dress together as we leave.” Standing, I beckoned her over, and she stood, wiping at her mouth where her drool and the other girl’s juices had already somewhat dried. Smeared on her face, it made her look like any other collectable.
I narrowed my eyes.
Just get her out of your system.
Grabbing the two halves of the back of her dress, I pinched them together with my fingers and pinned them against the back of her neck as if I were just touching her affectionately.
“Leave the rest. I like the look of a girl who’s been crying.” Especially when I caused it. “Let’s go. I’ve got something much better for you tonight.”
While exiting through the crowded foyer, a tall, fair-haired guy in a suit with a pretentious man-bun stopped and checked out Hannah. From his amused leer when he saw my hand at her neck and how his gaze crawled over her body, I was sure he thought her recently fucked.
This close the smell of come and the ripped threads on her zipper were obvious, but everyone else was looking away.
My mouth twitched up in a snarl, and I had an urge to tear out the guy’s throat with my bare hands. One of those mesmer traits. Sometimes I felt like an alien predator in human skin.
I tightened my grip on her neck, glared at the asshole until he veered off. Her wince and frantic glance said she felt the dig of my fingers. To hell with this guy. I watched him until he vanished into the stampede of people aiming to get to their cars and home.
Don’t mess with what’s mine.
Maybe I should get that tattooed on her ass? I grimaced. I was going to dispose of her, soon as I was bored with her. None of this mine business.
If she could understand what was happening, I was sure Hannah would spit on me. It made me crave one thing over and above all else—seeing her turned into a fuck doll. No. Make that getting her to agree to it being done.
There was this weekly group I’d joined a couple of times, to see how the lesser mortals got their kicks. Only twenty or thirty people at most and they kept a tight rein on who was allowed in. It had a mix of swingers and kinksters and a cute fetish entrance. The main arranger’s sub was a collectable, though I’d never touched her.
Time to pull in one of those noncon favors. Tomorrow.
“Places to go, bad people to see,” I said, low enough for tear-stained, disheveled Hannah to hear, but nobody else. Through the tips of my fingers, I felt her shiver.
4
Tomik
When we got back to my little slice of hell on earth, Hannah was still quiet, sniffling almost silently in the passenger seat as I grabbed my choice spot under the carport and turned off the car.
Hotel Acambo.
Back in the day, it had apparently been fancy as fuck… now it was just out of the way. Off the beaten path, not enough visitors to be worth the upkeep it would have required to be top-of-the-line real estate nowadays.
That would have made it easy enough to take. The fact that the cunt that had inherited it was collectable had just made it especially easy.
I think she shot herself after we finished with her. Shotgun. So messy.
Climbing out of the car, I only cast a single glance over my shoulder at Hannah. But she followed without any nudge from me, back inside, away from any prying eyes on the street, and part of me liked it. Liked watching the way the back of her dress gaped as I let her catch up and then pushed her ahead of me. The red of the carpet burn on her knees and elbows, the mess on her face, it all reminded me of exactly what she was: prey, collectable, nothing more.
I’d had plans when we were in the theatre. I’d wanted to make her bleed, to listen to her scream as I fucked her ass, but as soon as we were in my little suite of a living quarters… I just let her go.
Hands off the controls, little dolly stumbling on her next steps into the room, and then she went down. Onto her knees, hands in her sticky hair, and the first full-volume sob of the night broke past her lips.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it as I unbuttoned my shirt and walked around her, watched her fall apart.
“Wha— Why? Why?” She was babbling, staring at the floor instead of me, but I let her continue as I made myself a drink and dropped into one of the wingback chairs in this place’s version of a living room.
Hiccupping, more broken sobs, and I just tilted my head and took a sip as Hannah Jones fell apart on my floor.
“Tomik… Tomik, why? What happened— what happened to you?” Even through her little breakdown she was asking about me, saying my goddamned name.
Fuck.
I clenched my teeth, rage burrowing through me like a sugar-coated bullet that only made me think of my little bag of tricks in the closet. So many pretty little things I could apply to her mostly unmarked skin. I could flay the flesh from her bones, leave her a blood-soaked skeleton in the basement still babbling my name like it would make a fucking difference to her future.
“Oh God… oh God! That girl, me, you—” Her pretty blue eyes finally flicked up to mine, then away, back to the floor, the wall, the ceiling. “How, Tomik? How?”
“Some things just are,” I replied, empty as I swallowed enough whiskey to make my throat burn and my stomach catch fire. I avoided the urge to cough, but only just barely.
Hannah whined, a pretty sound, and then she started rocking. Legs curled at her side, arms wrapped over her breasts to hold onto the dress, she wobbled back and forth. Babbled under her breath some litany of useless questions.
The mess of her was exhilarating.
I liked to let the collectables lose it sometimes. Let them go when I knew they couldn’t run just to watch them panic.
It was more fun when the bros were around, when we were at one of our little gatherings and pulled back the mesmer shit completely. The girls always went wide-eyed with panic as they realized they were surrounded by men, by a group of men with hard dicks whom they’d often already fucked. Those memories could be like razorblades, already swallowed, too late to stop them from cutting as reality set in and… then they always cried.
Like this.
Like Hannah.
Hannah fucking Jones. My rage tweaked again, not appeased by the shallow, panicked breaths wheezing in and out of her lungs.
“Shut up,” I snapped, and she went silent instantly. Still crying just as hard, just without the accompaniment. Nothing more than that paper-like rasp of air in and out of her lungs, the soft cluck of her tongue, the guttural swallow as she stared at the floor. “Look at me.”
Blue eyes popped up to mine like I’d yanked her leash—maybe later.
“Stop crying,” I ordered, getting a handle on my own anger enough to sound calm, even though inside I was anything but.
It did help, though, when she sniffled once more and then went still. Almost serene on the surface, even though it was false.
Fuck.
I didn’t like this either. She was doe-eyed, like a deer staring down the rifle of the hunter and just waiting for the goddamn trigger pull.
If only it were that simple—even though it could be—but I didn’t want her to kill herself, not yet, not ever? Shit. I wasn’t bored yet, and I definitely didn’t want a blow-up doll.
“Never mind, you can do whatever,” I growled, and she made a small noise, but the tears were softer now. Quieter, like she was afraid I’d shut her up again. No questions now, just her pretty face tilting towards her lap until she was finally brave enough to break eye contact.
Testing her bounds. The limits I’d set… even though I’d removed them.
She didn’t understand that though.
My sweet little Hannah. “How did no one else grab you first?” I whispered, half to myself and half to… the universe.
Her eyes came back to mine, anger pulsing behind the blue, and I bit down on my lip because I liked it too much. I could almost see myself shoving her to the floor, letting her fight as I pinned her, forced her legs wide, and took her without a single command. Just me on top of her, listening to her cry and scream… fuck, that got my dick hard again.
But some piece of me also recoiled.
Weird. I didn’t like feeling that. Some kind of, what, guilt? Was that guilt? Guilt for just thinking about forcing myself between her thighs when she could react, scream? Fuckity fuck fuck. It wasn’t any different than the play, and I hated that my brain reminded me of that. Just because I’d made her come like a good little whore didn’t mean she’d wanted it, wanted me. And before? It had been the same. Pull the cord, listen to her moan, feel her cunt tighten down and her body quake.
“Why did you fucking call me?” I growled.
* * *
Hannah
I tested my tongue, my lips, and found I could use them. Let a small sound escape my throat to see if my vocal cords would obey, but in the gray haze in my mind I couldn’t remember calling him. Couldn’t remember how I’d made it to the theatre, or this place that seemed to be his.
There was a guitar in the corner, behind where he was sitting, and a stack of comic books and graphic novels.
All things my Tomik would have had with him. But this man? This tattooed, violent, terrible man… he wasn’t my Tomik.
“I didn’t call you,” I whispered, prepared to have my vocal cords lock up again, a suffocating sensation—but it didn’t come.
“You did, but it doesn’t matter anyway.” He sighed hard. “Not anymore.”
Swallowing, I risked another glance at him. Those severe shaved stripes in his hair screamed dangerous. Like bright colors in the animal kingdom, they were a warning. Just like the tattoos, the sheer size of him… all of it said run.
And I could.
Right now, I could run.
If I just stood up, I could make it to the door, I could make it outside in this shredded dress. Could go out into whatever city this was, find a cop and— My thoughts cramped, bunched together like someone grabbed them in a fist and squeezed. It was so visceral that I whined out loud, covered my forehead with one hand as I braced the other on the floor.
But the dull headache was nothing compared to the horrible realization that I couldn’t go to the police, because just thinking of describing this… this thing that Tomik was doing made my head pound and my heart race.
“What are you thinking about, Hannah?” he asked, but there was no command to follow it. No pulling of my invisible puppet strings. Still, I waited until his gaze met mine before I spoke.
“I was thinking about going to the police for help.”
Tomik laughed, low and dark, and then he tilted the glass of liquor like he was toasting me before he downed the last of it. “That’s funny.”
“This isn’t funny!” I shouted, and he laughed again. “Stop it, Tomik! This isn’t funny!”
“Oh, really? I think it’s hilarious.” He pushed himself out of the chair, wandering to the liquor stand that was also part of the drawers for clothes, and the television support, and the bookshelves leading up behind it. One endless amalgamation of furniture. “Go ahead, Hannah. Think of yourself in front of a police officer, think of him asking you why you look like a cheap hooker after a bad John. What would you say to him?”
His words sank in, and the headache came back. A dull throb that made me wince, grab onto my face and press against my forehead, my eyes, trying to make the odd, vise-like grip inside my skull let go.
“Nothing,” I whispered, and tears burned at my eyes as I pressed my hands into the thin, cheap carpet.
“That’s right.” The glug-glug of alcohol pouring out of a bottle made it into my ears, along with another soft laugh from Tomik. Then I saw his hand, and a glass, out of the corner of my eye. “Take this,” he commanded, and my arm lifted automatically.
Fingers wrapped around the glass, the lukewarm liquor inside it, and then he was back in his seat. A throne for the man he was now, who was not the boy I’d thought would be my forever. That person was gone, he’d proven that to me at the theatre, but I didn’t want to believe it. Tears swelled in my eyes again as I remembered my Tomik. The boy who’d almost kissed me a dozen times before Edwin whatever-his-last-name-was had kissed me on stage. That had finally made him take action, after all the times I’d tried to hint that I wanted him to, after all the hugs that had lasted just a moment too long, the times I’d grabbed his hand and squeezed… he’d finally kissed me. Made out with me under the stars like some storybook romance.
But this Tomik? This place? This was more like Grimm’s Fairytales.
“You can have a drink, Hannah. It might help.”
Just because he’d suggested it, I set the glass by my knee. I wanted a choice, I wanted to make a damn choice, and if this was all he was going to allow me then I was going to choose not to drink the alcohol… even though I wanted to drown in it. Erase all the heartache buzzing behind my ribs.
“Hannah—” His voice held that edge, that promise of a command I wouldn’t be able to ignore, so I spoke first.
“How can you do this?” I asked, forcing myself to look at him, to not feel the ineffable tug I’d always felt looking into his eyes.
“I don’t think anyone quite knows how, Hannah… it just is.” Tomik took a drink, pulling air in through his teeth as he rested the glass on the arm of the chair. A half-smile tweaked the corner of his mouth as he shook his head. “I’m not him, Hannah. Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that,” he snapped, leaning forward to point at me. “Exactly like that. Like you know me, like you still like me. I know you remember what just happened at the fucking play, Hannah, so don’t look at me like that.”
I swallowed down the bile in my throat, reaching for the alcohol to wash the bitter burn from the back of my tongue. I remembered, but I didn’t want to. I wanted it to wipe away like whatever else was missing from that strange dark hole in the middle of my brain. Something moved near that empty space, that hollow gap in my memories, my thoughts. A gray haze that had the silhouette of a girl.
I drank the liquor just to stop it all. Almost emptied the fucking glass before Tomik was able to shout, “Stop!”
My lips sealed tight, but the glass was still tilted and the last few mouthfuls poured over my mouth and down my front. Not like I cared; this dress was filthy anyway. It needed to be burned. I needed a shower so hot it would take a layer of skin with it.
“Shit, Hannah…” He huffed, climbing off his chair and onto his knees in front of me. Still taller, still so big and masculine and dangerous as he plucked the glass from my frozen fingers and then wiped his hand over my chin. “You can move.”
Free puppet again. Pinocchio ain’t got nothing on me.
I laughed bitterly, and Tomik gave me a side-glance that looked almost as unnerved as I felt on the inside.
“I don’t want you to be broken, Hannah.”
“Yeah?” I asked, unable to stop the slightly insane laugh from burbling up my throat again.
“No, I just want to stop—” He growled and slammed the glass onto the coffee table. “I want to be bored with you.”
For one sentence he sounded like the old Tomik, my Tomik, and it ended my stupid urge to laugh. Assaulted by the memories of the boy I’d grown up with—the quiet boy, the sweet boy, the funny, clever, musician boy who had stolen my heart—I reached forward and touched his cheek. Barely my fingertips, but he gasped like I’d burned him. “I never stopped thinking about you, Tomik.”
“You should have,” he grumbled, swiping my hand away from him as he retreated to his chair to swallow another mouthful of the cheap liquor.
“But I didn’t,” I continued, feeling brave as he let me move, think, feel, speak. “You don’t have to be this person, Tomik. No matter what’s happened, no matter what you’ve done, you—”
“Stop.” A single finger raised, a softly spoken word, and once again I was locked. His eyes trailed over me, top to bottom, and then he sighed. Leaning forward, he met my eyes, gaze flicking back and forth. “There’s no saving me, Hannah. No spell to be broken here, no spell you could cast over me that would fix me. The Tomik you knew is gone. Dead. Buried along with a lot of other collectables. Women just like you.”
