Page 38 of Mayfly

I exhale, “Fucking hell,” and release his hands to cup his cheeks where I can feel the swollen flesh beneath the black eye I gave him earlier.

“Do you like that idea?”

"God, yes."

"So why did you let go?"

“Because…” I pause, getting ahead of myself. "It's more complicated than that."

"Does it have to be?"

I nod my forehead against his. "I need something I know you won't understand."

"Do you want me to take control away from you?"

"Yes."

"So let me."

"Only if…" I whisper against him, my head swimming.

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to scare me… Don't give me any other choice but to…" Curren's hands glide up my arms until his fingers are wrapping tentatively around my neck. "No. Not your hands… Not yet."

"So what should I use?"

"Your belt." The words are abhorrent. They make me a traitor of our pain and everything we've gone through, but it feels so good to say them.

"The hell?"

“I know it's fucked, but—"

Before the sentence is even through, Curren's lifting me off of him. “You’re disgusting.”

“I know.“

“I'm not doing it.”

"You just said you would."

"No, I…" Curren pushes me until I’m sitting back on my heels and he’s kneeling up in front of me. His hand runs over my head and down to hold me firmly by the back of the neck. “You know how sick that is, right?”

Forus,it's more than sick.

"I told you it was complicated."

"But you didn't say it was psychopa—"

"I'm not a psychopath."

Curren slaps me so hard I fall to my side. “Don’t interrupt me!”

I’m so fucked in the head.

I'm perverted, and utterly disgusting.

He can do what he wants.

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