Page 42 of Dance of the Phoenix
She looked at me with her beautiful, mesmerizing eyes and said, “I don’t think you can handle it.”
I felt affronted by her assumption. “I can, Leenie,” I said, calling her by the nickname I’d given her years ago. “Anything you want, just tell me.”
Studying me, she said nothing for a few long moments. Then, she said, “Okay.”
At first, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. She tied my hands to the bars attached to the shed’s wall and then straddled me, caressing my body until I struggled against the shackles.
By the time she reached for my hardness, I was drowning in lust, and all I could do was plead with her. “Leenie ... please ...”
She let go and caught my gaze. “This is what I want you to do to me,” she whispered as her hands closed around my neck, her nails digging into my skin so painfully, I couldn’t help but gasp, excitement and fear warring inside me.
And then she strangled me.
At first, I didn’t realize what she was doing exactly. I knew Aileen had some kinks, even though most of our sex was more fumbling than anything else. But the moment I’d asked her to all but let go, it seemed I allowed a dark side of Aileen to show. A side of her I was faintly aware of but never gave too much thought to.
I thrashed against the restraints as I felt the air leaving me. It was impossible to breathe. Tears clouded my vision as I begged her with my eyes to stop. But when I saw the euphoric look on her face, I realized something I should have figured out a long time ago.
Alarms went off in my head as I thrashed harder against her. It was only when I felt myself growing limp, my consciousness threatening to leave my body, that Aileen finally released the pressure and sat straight.
Breaths coming in short, wide eyed, and full of fear, I stared at her. I was reminded of the few times Aileen had taught me some of the martial arts she knew. It was a particular martial art called Iovan’s Imperium, and I remembered how delighted she was when she executed the Behests on me under the guise of showing me how it worked.
She had the same exhilarated look on her face then as she did now, seeing me in pain.
“More,” she whispered, pressing her lips against my cold ones. “I need you to do this, and more ...”
Before that evening in the shed, I’d never known what real pain was. Growing up in a somewhat sheltered environment, I’d never experienced pain as a part of my life.
But when Aileen showed me the horrors that she wanted me to do to her, it was the first time I knew true pain.
The strangulation was almost child’s play in comparison to what she later did to me.
I begged her to stop. I begged her to show mercy. To see that I hated what she was doing to me. That she was right—I couldn’t handle the things she wanted.
But every time I saw her elated look as she inflicted pain worse than anything I’d ever felt, my fear trembled under the weight of my love for her. I loved her so much that seeing her so happy made me want to make her even happier.
And because I was so gone for her, it reached the point where I passed out and later woke up in a hospital bed, the painkillers barely numbing the thudding ache I could feel throughout my entire body.
My parents didn’t let me see Aileen after that. If I were in their position, I wouldn’t have let myself see her either.
But I was still a confused seventeen-year-old boy who was deeply in love, despite everything, with a girl. I wanted to see her,neededto see her, and get some answers. Because by that point, I knew Aileen was not the fragile little girl I’d always perceived her to be.
By that point, I knew about the crimes Aileen’s father committed. I knew what he’d done, and what Aileen had had to go through her entire childhood. And yet I always refused to see what she truly was because I wanted to believe people could change. That blood didn’t dictate shit.
It took me a few months, until just before I turned eighteen, to finally reach out to her and ask to meet. I was terrified of seeing her. There was a discrepancy in my mind between Aileen, the girl who hurt me so badly I had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks, and Leenie, the girl I was in love with, whom I wanted to protect and cherish.
She’d tried to text me, call me, approach me in any sort of way she could. But I didn’t know what I would feel the first time I saw her after what she’d done to me. I was scared to find a monster in place of the girl I loved so much.
It took everything in me to finally agree to see her. We settled on meeting at her home, in the backyard, but not in the shed. I couldn’t handle the shed.
The moment I walked into the backyard and saw her was a moment I would never forget.
She was sitting on the grass, staring at the woods beyond the yard, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. She seemed so small and dainty, her olive skin pale under the moonlight, as if one gust of wind could blow her over.
She did not look like a monster.
She looked like the girl I wanted to hold in my arms and never let go of.
Gritting my teeth, I settled down next to her. She obviously knew I was there, but she kept her gaze fixed ahead, wrapping her arms around her folded knees.
