Page 33 of Possession

He’s showing me how to use the punching bag properly. He corrects my stance by nudging my feet with his and tilting my hips. Then he straightens my wrist and guides my arm precisely through the motion.

“Okay,” I say.

He steps back to watch.

For the past few days, we’ve been dividing our time between sex, sleep, and calisthenics. I thought I was in decent shape. I’ve been cleaning at the gym for about a year now. Since the owner lets me use the equipment, I’ve recovered some of my lost conditioning from my high school wrestling days, but not as much as I thought, apparently. I’m sore everywhere.

Of course, he sets an impossibly high standard. He almost killed me with the pushups.

That’s all in my mind, I know. He’s just doing his thing. I’m the one trying to keep up with him. He keeps telling me to stop. Figuratively speaking, of course. He’s still not actually speaking.

When I got all shaky and loud during the pushups, he snorted and switched to one hand so he could use his other to push me over. When I collapsed, he shook his head like I was ridiculous and went back to work.

What’s weird is that when he teases me, I don’t feel shitty. I feel like he’s teasing me because he enjoys me.

I enjoy him too.

I punch the bag a few times before he corrects me again. He touches me a lot as he does it. He pets me. Is it bad that I like that? Every time he does it, I just fucking melt.

After a while, I stop hitting the bag to flex my fingers. He steps in and takes my hands in his, inspecting my knuckles. He nudges me away from the bag, telling me I’m done for now.

He points at the pullup bar, suggesting it instead.

I make a face. “Oh hell no. I’m still sore from yesterday.”

He snorts and grabs onto the bar. He has to keep his legs drawn up to use it because he’s so tall.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” I ask. “Your shoulder isn’t healed.”

He pauses mid-hang to give me an annoyed look, maybe because I said the same thing yesterday. He sure can communicate a lot without words.

And I like that. I really do. There’s something kind of pure about the way he communicates. Without words, there are no lies, deflections, distractions. Everything is true and real.

And yet … I want words anyway.

Sometimes, I think he does too. There are moments when he goes really still and there’s this inward look in his eyes, like there’s some question he’s asking himself. Like he’s thinking about speaking.

He obviously can, physically at least. I don’t know what’s stopping him. I don’t know what words mean to him.

When he’s done with the pullup bar, he comes back to the punching bag where I’m hovering. I step back so he can use it.

I watch him for a while. I enjoy it like I always do, but I eventually get bored. I sigh and sit on the floor. He pauses, stilling the bag. He looks a question at me.

“I wish we had a book or something.”

He frowns.

“You know, to read.”

That earns me a very annoyed look. I redden at what I just implied. Of course he knows what a book is for. I was just filling the silence because it felt awkward.

I say defensively, “It’s hard having a conversation by my—” I cut off before I can saymyself. It sounds bitchy, and it’s not really what I meant.

As he frowns again, I see that stillness in him, that inwardness of his eyes, like maybe he does want to talk to me. It emboldens me to push.

“It’s just … it would be nice to talk to you. To talkwithyou.”

His frown deepens. I can tell he’s not going to speak, and it’s so disappointing that I grumble, “I wish I at least knew your name.”

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