Page 23 of Deliver Me

“I’d like to hear yours, too, but what about James? Or your dad?”

“What about them?”

“Will they be mad? I know you said there was something between you and James—”

“There isn’t anymore,” she said quickly, having decided right that moment that she wouldn’t be going out with him again.

“There isn’t?” he sounded … surprised maybe, or relieved. She wished she could see his face, the look in his eyes, so she could know for sure. “Why not?”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “He just … he doesn’t make mefeel. I don’t think I make him feel anything, either. That’s important, right? For a relationship?”

“Yeah, I guess you should love them.”

“Yes, definitely.” She agreed, foot tapping away as she hedged. “But you should feel … other stuff. Intimate stuff?”

He paused and she was afraid she’d said the wrong thing, but then, “You mean, should you want to fuck the person you’re in a relationship with? Is that what you’re asking?”

She laughed, embarrassed and almost hysterical. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

“I’ve been in here for a long time but, yeah, I know that’s definitely something you should want. Do you …” He coughed, hesitated, “Do you not want to fuck James?”

She shook her head before she remembered that he couldn’t see her. “No,” she said quickly. “At least, I don’t think I do. He’s nice to look at but …”

“But he doesn’t turn you on.”

“I’ve never really been turned on, so I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.” He made a strangled noise on the other end of the line and coughed quickly to cover it up. “Gabriel, are you okay? I’m sorry I’m even telling you this, I just don’t know what I’m doing at all and I needed someone who wouldn’t think I was making a big mistake by breaking it off with him.”

“I don’t think that,” he promised.

“Thank you.” She glanced at the clock on her phone. Not much time left for today. “I’ll send you my schedule,” she reminded him. “But maybe you could call Saturday next time? I’m free that day.”

“Yeah, I’ll call Saturday.”

“Gabriel?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you probably can’t but … is there any way you can take pictures? Of you, I mean? I’d like to know what you look like these days.”

“It’s not unusual for friends and family to want pictures and I can have some taken, but on one condition.”

She frowned and sat up straighter on the bed, prepared to fight him for that photo. “What’s the condition?”

“You send me another one of you.”

She relaxed back against the pillows with a smile. “Oh, I can dothat.”

He kept his promise to call her Saturday and the picture came the following week. She studied it carefully before tucking it out of sight in her bedside drawer, away from the prying eyes of any visitors. The man in the photo was nothing like she’d expected, he was older and far more attractive than anything in her imagination. The skinny teen she’d seen in the videos had filled out into a large man that had grown into his big ears and prominent nose. His skin was still pale, and his hair was still black, now curling softly down to the collar of a white prison jumpsuit. His posture was awkward, unsure, and she knew this was the first time in a painfully long time that anyone had cared enough to ask him what he looked like.

His own mother didn’t know what her son looked like as a man and now Mia couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She nibbled her lip, trying to concentrate on her homework at the dining room table, but she had reread the same page three times, unable to keep her traitorous thoughts from drifting back to the image and how big Gabriel’s hands were, or the thickness of his neck and thighs, the plump pink pout of his lips.

“Hey.”

She jumped, startled and embarrassed, and pasted a bright smile on her face as she turned to face James. He was still handsome, but her pulse remained steady as she looked at him.

“Hey, haven’t seen you at the house for a while.”

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