Page 35 of Blinded By The Sun
King
Ifinally get Ciro out of the shower. He says nothing to me as I remove his clothes while he stands in the middle of the enormous bathroom. Ciro is staring at me as if I’ll disappear. I don’t know if I can look him in the eye right now. I don’t know what to say to someone in a situation like this. I’ve never been equipped for something like this. This is unfamiliar territory and it’s confusing. How does one convey how they feel to another person? Do I just open my mouth and say that I’m sorry?
As I open the buttons on Ciro’s dress shirt, he stops me by placing his arms over mine. “You’re shaking,” he says. “You don’t need to do this. Go back to bed,” he commands.
I shake my head. I pull my hands out of his hold and continue what I was doing. “Sir,” I say, but there’s nothing else coming out of my mouth.
Ciro is still glaring at me. I can feel the intensity of his gaze. I take a deep breath in and release another one without looking at him. I can’t look at him at all. Minutes go by and the silence is deafening. “Why aren’t you looking at me?” Ciro asks me.
I glance up at him, then back down, finishing my task of his shirt. “I am looking at you.”
“Kingsley…” He calls my name out but I have nothing to say.
“Yes, sir?” I ask as I remove his belt buckle and then unbutton his pants, finally unzipping them as well.
“Look at me.” He pleads this time. It’s odd hearing that coming from him. I don’t know why he’s acting like this.
I clear my throat and look at him. We say nothing for a minute but I’m the first one to break again. There’s just something about looking into his eyes that has me losing my focus. What is it about him that makes me feel things I’ve never felt before? I’ve never looked at someone and seen my future. Especially with someone who wants nothing to do with me. I remove his pants, getting down to my knees. I take one leg out, then the other. I look up at him. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I say finding the courage being down here on my knees.
I gaze up at Ciro as if he is some god. This may be wrong for everyone else but for me, seeing him, how he is in his perfect form, that is all I can say.
“What?” His brows furrow. “You lost something too. How can you look at me and say that? What about you, Kingsley? Do you not deserve to hear those words?” He asks.
I blink. “Do I deserve that?” I ask, not understanding why I should feel like I lost something.
Ciro sighs and gets to his knees, mimicking me. “Yes. You deserve that. You deserve the chance to be sad and angry, someone took that from you. I know you didn’t know and neither did I but I put you in a position where you had to experience something that I’m sure you never really looked to experience.”
I nod. “Hmm, I didn’t think about it like that. So, if you were me, what would you do?”
Ciro shrugs. “I don’t know. Slap me or curse at me. Be mad, I guess, or sad. You can cry.” He whispers.
“I don’t know how to cry.” I answer honestly. “I’ve always been told to shut up or stop crying and that those who cry don’t get far in life doing that. The customers hated it when they would hear a child cry, so I learned not to cry.”
Ciro opens his mouth to say something, but he says nothing. He shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair. “Okay, no crying but you can be mad.”
“So, if I’m mad, I should hit you?” I ask, trying to place it all together.
For the first time since he flipped Ciro laughs. “No, I’m saying that in this circumstance, I’d understand why you would feel inclined to hit me.”
Without thinking about it I slap him hard. Ciro’s head turns to the side as if he just experienced whiplash. He slowly turns to face me with unfiltered anger, so raw that I choke on it. Ciro shuts his eyes for so long, I feel like maybe I should stand and run away to my room, but then he opens his eyes. He smirks. “You hit hard, fuck, that hurt. Next time, let me know before you slap me, yeah?” He states.
“But you said to do it. I feel nothing by doing this. I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do this. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t keep on pressing when I said no. You didn’t pretend not to hear the terrifying screams or sit on me causing me pain. That wasn’t you, that was Jones. Someone who doesn’t care about me or how dirty I would’ve felt after that, to where I know you wouldn’t want to even touch me. I feel dirty right now and he never even got the chance to get far. The ghost of his touch burns me right now. I feel him all over my body and my skin still feels like it’s crawling because when I shut my eyes all I see is him. The way he looked at me from the moment he spoke to me to the way he wanted to give me better, when I didn’t want it. I may not feel as I want to for what happened to me after the entire ordeal, but all I feel right now is that I want his touch to disappear.”
Ciro just watches me but doesn’t give his input. I grab his hand and he looks down at it. “You can help me. If you touch me and take over what he did, you can replace it. I won’t think of it as an awful experience,” I say. The crazy idea forming in my head.
“You want me to do what exactly?”
“I want you to do what Jones did but because it’s you, I know the outcome will be different. Replace one dreadful nightmare with something much more dangerous. Something so sinister, so potently evil that it rocks me from the soles of my feet to the hairs in my scalp. I want you to take over it. Take over me and change it. Change the narrative.”
Ciro stands. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Kingsley. You’re asking for something that you can never recover from. That’s not the way you fix this. That’s not how this should be. Fuck, how am I being the reasonable one? When the fuck did that happen?”
I stand with him, and I remove the fluffy robe that I’ve been wrapped up in. “Hurt me, Ciro. It’s the only way.”
His eyes go wide and he takes another step back. “No.”
“Please,” I plead with him. “It’s the only way.”
“I said no.” The stern look in his eyes could freeze hell.
“I don’t want to have to ask anyone else, please. It will only take away the nightmare if you do it.” I don’t have proof of this but I want to try this. I concluded and decided already.
Ciro growls like I stole something from him. He marches up to me and grabs me by my jaw. This time, it’s not as rough as before. I don’t like this. He pushes me up against the wall and makes me look up into his eyes. “Don’t you ever fucking threaten me like that. You’re my toy and nobody else will do anything for you but me. Don’t test my patience, Kingsley. I said no. Don’t you dare ask me or anyone else for this again!” He roughly lets me go and he walks out of the bathroom.
I stand there at the wall breathing hard because for the first time, everything is clear. It doesn’t matter whether I have enough research; I don’t have time for that. All I know is that Ciro has to be the one to take over so that the feel of Jones isn’t there anymore. It’s the only way. Isn’t it?
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