Page 31 of Love of the Egoist
Kuon swallowed, realizing he had never been particularly interested in women but never looked at men either.
You aren’t like him. You are not this deeply twisted. You’re a victim here, not a fucked up pervert who enjoys being violated.
“A victim.”The word felt heavy in his heart.
Kuon’s head fell backward, meeting the door with a dull thump. His burning eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.
How can a police detective be a rape victim? How can I fail to defend myself and still claim the right to defend others? I don’t deserve to be called a police officer. I don’t deserve to be called a man. I came from his hands. My body reacted to him… twice.
Blood rushed to his face, flooding it with heat. Shame and humiliation squeezed his air passage as his eyes roamed about the empty room.
“Nooo…” he breathed and shook his head, swallowing bile in his mouth.
You are getting aroused by your rapist’s touch, and you dare to call me a pervert?Yugo’s words rang in his head. Kuon’s heart froze. The unshed tears disappeared as an obliterating white hate inflamed his blood.
This bastard is fucking with me. He is fucking with my brain. This is some kind of twisted psychological warfare. He raped me, then made me cum, pushed me toward questioning myself.
Everything made sense now.
Isolation, keeping him from basic needs, time disorientation along with humiliation. Good food and the assault, Yugo’s constant presence and fake kindness.
He left me in a freezing basement. Then brought a heater, to show he cares. He raped me. Then tended to my body. He is fucking with my brain, trying to justify his actions and portraying everything he does to me as my fault.
Kuon got up when his body demanded he move. His brain seething with the speed of his thoughts.
He produced the reaction he planned, and now I am a mess. He wants this. He wants to dominate and humiliate me. To punish me. I’m doing exactly what he wants, feeding his manipulative needs.
Lines from textbooks surfaced in front of his eyes—types of rapes, types of rapists, methods of avoidance.
Kuon closed his eyes.
With his selfish, non-negotiable behavior, Yugo was a living example of an anger rapist with a twisted mix of poor anger control and sadistic tendencies, at least this is how the first rape appeared.
But today was different.Kuon paced the room back and forth.Sadistic, anger types don’t do foreplay. Damn, why did I never pay much attention to rape cases?
He stuck his fingers in his hair, trying to squeeze information out of his brain but failed.
He’s not insecure, so he isn’t seeking power reassurance, and he doesn’t have a possessive motivation. He is taking pleasure in manipulating and humiliating me. Fuck, my head hurts.
Unable to label Yugo as any type, therefore failing to pick up his tactics, Kuon kept pacing the room. His head was splitting apart with a severe headache; his nails scratched his arms as if he was trying to scrub the dirt off his skin.
CHAPTER 9
YUGO RETURNED FROM THE MEETINGwith a potential client only after the night muffled the birds’ songs. Never bothering to rid himself of the jacket he’d worn all day, and which had suffocated him for the last two hours, he went to his secret room. Closing the door behind him, he flopped down on the seat, searching with dilated pupils for the right monitor. The screen was dead.
“Already asleep?” he mumbled; fingers reaching for the night vision button. The screen changed, lighting up green, as his eyes found the figure of his prisoner lying in the middle of the mattress.
For a long minute, he watched the sleeping man as if seeing him for the first time. Something in the picture was off, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. It looked like Kuon wasn’t sleeping, but his eyes were closed. His muscles twitched in constant spasms. He shivered, shoulders jerking, as if trying to shake something off. His head rolled, lips parted, and he said something.
Yugo froze.
His eyes glued to the monitor, trying to read his pale lips, but couldn’t. Kuon rolled his head again.
“He is talking in his sleep, so what?” Yugo reasoned with himself, but curiosity had always been a sticky thing for him to deal with. Discontent spread through his chest with the fluidity of spilled milk. He zoomed in on Kuon’s lips. They endlessly repeated a single word—no.
He waited for Kuon to stop suffering the nightmare. Waited some more and after another five minutes went to take a shower. But even after he came back, dripping water all over the floor and drying his hair with a towel, Kuon didn’t stop tossing in his bed. Yugo frowned, went to his bedroom, lay down on the bed, and lit up a cigarette. Silky, blue sheets turned a darker hue and lost their gloss as they drank the moisture from his naked body.
The pleasant coolness of natural silk wrapped around his shoulders as he closed his eyes, filling his lungs with sweet smoke. His muscles relaxed, but anxiety jerked his nerves. No matter how hard he tried to switch off his head, his thoughts swirled around Kuon sleeping in the room next to his.
