Page 84 of The Cartographer

I could say the same. I’d like to think if my parents’ genes hadn’t combined in this particularly freakish way, I’d still enjoy it. It’s not just that, though. It’s difficult to untangle the threads, but I’ve tried.

“Some of it’s the same as you. I enjoy it. But I suspect some of my motives are more…sinister.”

“You don’t have a sinister bone in your body.” His scoff pulls up the corner of my mouth in a skeptical smirk.

“Says the man I had in so much agony you were begging me to stop?”

“Not the same. You’re not malicious.”

Oh, my darling Allie.

“No? What if I told you I fantasize about beating people to death? That there is the thinnest thread that keeps me from violence at any minute? That I take only men as play partners not just because I prefer them for sex, but because their bodies can take more abuse? There’s an animal inside me, Hart, and it should scare you. Because it sure scares the living hell out of me.”

He studies me, his eyes so dark in the dim light I can barely tell the irises from the pupils. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“That’s the only answer you’re going to get.”

He stares at me, unblinking. If he thinks he’s going to intimidate me into answering, he’s wrong. His jaw tenses, the fine muscles flexing, his broad chest rising and falling too far for normal breaths. Frustration pours off him.

“Could you, for once, tell me you want me?”

“I tell you that all the time.”

“Yeah, you want me for sex. You want to hurt me. Control me.”

I swallow the “everything” that wants to push out of my mouth, and instead I let that cold, indifferent part of me show. I don’t like that he’s rendered me so vulnerable, and though I should be seeking his affection and sympathy—because that will make him like me, he won’t hurt me if he likes me—I can’t do it. “What else is there?”

“You feel affection for people. I know you do.”

“I’m quite fond of you. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No.”

I expect him to climb out of my bed, pull his clothes onto that beautiful body of his, but he sits there, his gaze unwavering. How has he not left yet?

“How’d you get so good at this? If you don’t know what it feels like?”

My eyebrow tugs up, and I smile. “You think I’m good at this?”

“You know you are, you narcissistic bastard.”

True on both counts, I suppose. He should try walking around effectively bulletproof and see if that doesn’t give him a bit of a swelled head. I should scold him for his impudence, but we’re not playing right now. He can, and should, ask me whatever he likes, however sick it makes me.

“I think that’s precisely what makes me so good. I can’t rely on howIwould feel. I have to pay attention to how my partner is actually feeling. That’s the only information I get.”

I gather up the scraps like a magpie. A starving, bewildered, wrathful bird.

“How’d you end up doing this, anyway? It’s not like it’s a major in college or something that would come up during career day or some shit.”

It surprises me that he’s taking us down this path instead of steering me back to more prying questions about my-so-called “condition.” Makes me grit my teeth when anyone refers to it that way. If I have to deal with this thing that makes me extraordinary, then let it make me exceptional instead of afflicted. The big cat’s out of the bag now, so may as well let the kittens follow. “Well, it was either this or be Batman.”

I’d given that a try while I was in high school. I was angry, so goddamn angry for being different, for being separate, for not being allowed to confide in anyone other than my mother for fear it might literally get me killed. My mother, god love her, was trying to keep me safe. Had moved to Philadelphia after I was old enough to know better than to tell anyone so I could have a normal life. Well, as normal as life gets for the inexcusably wealthy.

I missed my father. And because I was an idiot—okay, teenager, but honestly, same difference—I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t talk about it. No, instead I got it into my thick skull to devote my days to making a dead man proud. So I played vigilante around 13thStreet in case some idiots wanted to prey on the less-than-sober leaving the gay clubs.

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