Page 31 of Creatures Like Us
He returns with a first aid kit and proceeds to clean my wound and cover it with a Band-Aid.
“There.” Discarding the first aid kit, he rejoins me in bed, and we lie on our backs, staring up at the ceiling.
Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel awkward or even scary to be next to him like this. Maybe I’m just too numb to feel much of anything. I felt something when I kissed him though. I felt too much.
His thumb grazes the edge of my shoulder—a thoughtless touch but a tender one. A jolt goes through me, traveling from where he’s touching me, to my chest, to my gut, and finally, my?…
I rip my arm away. “Shut up.”
Noah blinks. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I meant?…?let go.”
Letmego. Let me leave.The words hover at the tip of my tongue, but a great sadness washes over me at the thought of saying them out loud. What’s the point of begging if no result will come of it? I’ve tried fighting him. I’ve tried so hard. And I’m tired. I just want to rest for once.
As usual, Noah withdraws his touch whenever I ask, and another wave of silence washes over us. I sigh, squirming a bit to make myself more comfortable, but the bed is so small it only scoots me closer to him. I turn to my side, while Noah stays on his back. His eyes are closed. He looks relaxed, peaceful, the pale line of his throat bobbing as he swallows.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“For what?”
“For taking care of me.” As if he wasn’t the one to cut me in the first place, even if it was by accident.
“You’re welcome, Asher.” His voice is soft, and a shiver goes through me—a sweet, tingling sense of relief.
Shit, this is getting bad.
It would be so easy to just let go. Give in. Every fiber of my being is begging to let him take control, to let go of my own will, my own self?…
It’s what I always do when people like me. Lilith pursued me, so I let her. That guy in the bar wanted to jerk me off, so I let him. I always thought I was straight, and that time in the bar bathroom didn’t really convince me otherwise, but maybe I was just too high back then to properly live in the moment.
I can’t deny it was kind of hot when that guy gripped my dick much harder than a girl would, growling in my ear, “How’s that feel? Good, yeah? Are you going to come for me now?”
I did come, quicker than I usually do, and the guy chuckled and wiped me down with toilet paper. He gave me his number after, but I never texted him, so that was that. I didn’t reflect any further on it. It was just a thing I did for fun, just like I always do shit for fun when I’m high. I just go through the motions.
I only went to college because my friends were going. I only got together with Lilith because she pursued me. I only let Kayla kiss me and then almost kiss me again because I was too fucked up to stop it.
I let people do with me what they want, because at least they want me. My sexuality is something for other people to enjoy—a value I can bring to them, as little as it is. God knows I don’t have much else to offer.
But Noah?…?Noah doesn’t let me give myself to him like I give myself to others. Ikissedhim, for fuck’s sake, yet he claimed I didn’t want it. What if Idowant it? Fuck, I can’t make sense of anything anymore. This place is playing tricks on me. You’d think my thoughts would be more coherent now that I’m sober, but no.
I grit my teeth. This isn’t good. In fact, it’s fucking awful and wrong. I’m wrong to want him, and he’s wrong in everything else. At every angle of our fucked-up relationship, he’s in the wrong.
Except?…?Except when he’s tender with me. Except when he sees in me the same wounded creature that seems to reside in his own heart—that curled-up little thing that begs for affection but doesn’t know how to ask for it.
Part of me wants him to ask for it. Part of me wants to ask him the same.Beghim. But I can’t. I can only lie here, silently, in bed with my captor, feeling our strange connection grow deeper and deeper. That connection comes with the desire to know more about him, where I never wanted to know anything about him at all.
I’m not even sure what has shifted between us. I’m not even sure anything has. Maybe I’m just losing my mind. Maybe the drugs have eroded my sense of self, and without them, I’m nothing. An empty husk. Maybe I need Noah’s help to fill me up and make me feel something again.
“What was her name?” I ask, picking a subject at random.
“Who?”
“Your aunt.”
“Carol.”
“What was she like?”
