Page 25 of Mayhem and Minnie

She smiles expectantly at me.

I shake my head, flattening my lips, but she continues to push the morsel of food against my mouth.

“Come on,” she encourages, leaning over the table and all but lying on top of the food.

From the corner of my eye, I note the end of my coat dipping into the oily food. The sleeves are already stained with sauce. Now the entire coat is getting dirty.

She waves the fork in front of me, moving it from side to side almost as if she were trying to hypnotize me with it.

I don’t eat sugar. I don’t eat processed food.

It’s not a matter of diet. It’s simply a matter of discipline.

Sugar is addictive.

I don’t partake in addictive things, since I know that one taste would ruin me forever. With my obsessive tendencies, I’m prone to addictions of all sorts—something I learned early on in my life and which therapy later confirmed.

I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t do drugs.

My only vices are murder and trashy TV—the only ones I find it hard to part ways with.

The maddening sweetness coming from the pancake bite confuses my senses. It’s especially potent when coupled with the way Minnie is looking at me with those beguiling eyes of hers.

I gulp down as I stare at the fork, then at her.

Goddamn it.

Why is her smile so wide? Why are her lips so full? And why the hell am I not that disgusted when there’s still white powder smeared around her mouth?

She’s moving the fork around like an airplane. As if I were a toddler in need of persuasion.

My features harden when I realize she’s getting too close to being persuasive.

“No, thank you,” I grit out.

But just as I open my mouth to speak, she takes advantage of it to shove the piece of pancake in my mouth.

I freeze.

A shudder racks my body.

I taste…sweetness.

My atrophied tasting buds roar back to life as the strong flavor of the pancake bathes my tongue. It’s soft. Chewy. And sweet.

So fucking sweet.

No!

I must not give in. I need to retain control over myself.

Yet the more I chew, the more I find myself closer to the edge of the cliff and ready to dive off it.

I begrudgingly swallow.

“Good, isn’t it?” she speaks while the wheels in my mind turn and turn, trying to find a proper excuse for not indulging in that sweetness—for not consuming it all.

My lips twitch in annoyance.

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