Page 36 of Shattered
CHAPTER 11
Rourke
Her confusion was laughable. Her jaw hung down, her mouth open wide in a circle, the dashes of paint splattered her chest. She was in old clothes this time, an oversized shirt and shorts, her thighs filling up her chair. My mind wandered to what it would be like to rip off her clothes, smearing the paint on her body, fucking her until neither of us could see straight.
“You said you weren’t coming back,” she said.
“No,” I said dryly. “I said that I shouldn’t be here. That doesn’t mean that I won’t come back, only that I know, logically, that it’s a mistake to keep coming here.” I paused, letting that sink in. Her eyes washed across me, but she stayed still. “Logical reasoning has never been my strong suit.” Which was why I was here with my dick figuratively in my hands, ready to shove it inside of her at the first chance.
The candle jar’s lid was on, but the faint scent of vanilla wafted through the air, mixed with the harsh smell of the paints. The window slats were closed, the overhead light shining down on us. I imagined it wasn’t an optimal set up for her work, but it was night time, and she made do with what she had. It was the most light I had been in with the mask. With her. The urge to flick the switch off was strong, to light that candle once again, but not until I gave the painting a proper look.
Green snakes with their jaws unhinged turning into the black and brown branches of a tree, almost like the hair of Medusa, meeting at the trunk, branching out once again into green roots. The strokes were bolder, more vibrant than her other works.
“This is different for you.” The few paintings that I had seen of hers were in an older style, one that I knew wasn’t contemporary. The lines on this one were thick and harsh, more modern. “Why snakes?”
“There’s this guy at work,” she said. I clenched my fist tight, and she eyed the movement. I slowly relaxed my fingers, one by one, and she bit her fingernail, then looked back at my mask. “He has a tattoo. A serpent eating its own tail.”
“The ouroboros,” I said. “How original.”
She straightened. “You know it?”
“It’s an ancient symbol, meaning life and death.”
“And rebirth.”
I would have rolled my eyes if she could have seen them. “Is that what he told you?”
“Yes.”
The muscles in my body tightened, but I settled into relaxation. That was a different part of her life, separate from what we did here. Just as I had a separate existence after I left her bedroom. A balance we understood.
“And the tree?” I asked.
“Life and death.” She pointed at the branches. “I was just going to paint a tree, but the snakes seemed fitting.”
I begged to differ. The snakes didn’t seem right. They might have fit the situation, but not her. “It has an Adam and Eve vibe.”
She turned to the painting and nodded. “I can see that.”
“Except this time, Eve has nowhere to run.” I gestured at the branches that wrapped around the edges of the painting, scooping down towards the ground. “Anywhere she turns, there’s another.”
“You’re right,” she murmured. “The snake is always there.”
Like I was.
“Eve is missing though,” I said, “And yet it’s always about her, isn’t it? We can’t forget that it was her choice. No one force-fed her that fruit. She plucked it off of the tree and sunk her teeth into its flesh.” I leaned down, leering into her. This wasn’t about Eve. We were discussing Melissa. “The painting is inspired by me. What I’ve shown you. How my presence has changed you.” She didn’t disagree. “The difference is that I’m not a serpent tempting you to take any forbidden fruit. There was no convincing or coaxing with us. Youaskedfor the fruit.Youdevoured it. I’m simply the man who killed your roommate.”
“And how many others?”
I smiled then. She was bold.
“Do you feel like a snake?” I asked.
She swallowed, the gulp traveling down her throat. “No.”
“Or are you Eve? Or something else?”
“If I had to pick,” she studied the painting, “it would be the tree.”
