Page 55 of Grave Love
I should tell her to shut up. Remind her that dead girls don’t talk.
I stay quiet.
I want her to talk. To tell me what’s on her mind. I want to know, even if it’s the last thing she tells me before she dies.
“I never really knew my mother,” she says as she scans the dark waters. “I just knew that she hung herself. I guess I started using the noose because I wanted to understand her. To know what it was like when she died. Then I started having these feelings. This—” she motions in front of her, too ashamed to say the words. Her cheeks redden. “You know what I mean.”
“Arousal,” I say.
“Right,” she nods. “Then Mrs. Richmond caught me. I came home, and my drawers and closet were empty. She replaced everything I had with new things. Itemsshechose. Ones that weren’t tainted by my perversion. And for a long time, I repressed that need. Even when I got a boyfriend.” She points to the beach. “My ex never got me wet though. Not like you do.”
Instinctively, I lick my lips. Ren keeps her attention forward, a bashful smile flickering across her face. She’s using the literalwetocean as a transition into this topic, like we’re on a romantic date where we talk about our pasts and our futures.
Why the fuck is she telling me this?
Why don’t I tell her to shut up?
I wait for a response. For an explanation. For a connection between this story about her grandmother and the information about her ex. If she’s randomly talking about her ability to become aroused as a way to break the silence, inspired by the body of water in front of us, then it’s not important. It’s a mere thought.
And if thereisa goal to it—if there’s a reason she’s telling me this—then it means something. An uncomfortable rope holding us both in limbo.
The silence eats away at me, my own questionsneedinganswers.
Finally, I speak up: “Oh?”
“We started dating in high school. Kept it going through college too. Every once in a while, he would tell me I was letting myself go. That I needed to wear makeup and exercise more. That I needed to love myself likeheloved me,” she says, her voice flat. I look closer and narrow my eyes. The only makeup I can see is dull gray around her eyes, left over from the night before. “Mrs. Richmond said stuff like that too. That maybe my ex would propose if I actually tried for once.”
Of course that bitch said shit like that. I prefer itthisway though. There’s an appeal to fucking the makeup off of her face, but there’s a stronger appeal knowing that this is therealher. That she doesn’t hide herself from me.
“It made me feel like I was lucky to have him,” she says. “Like I should be grateful, happy that we were together. Becauseat leasthe loved me, you know? And if I didn’t change, then he’d leave me, and where would I be?”
She’s small, then. Curled on the grass, her arms wrapped around her legs. Protecting herself, even though all of those memories are from her past. I doubt her ex or even her bitch of a grandmother ever laid a hand on her, but the damage is ingrained in her mind. That need for perfection. That desire to be good enough. The failure of it devouring her soul until there’s nothing she can do to stop it.
“He’d chase away those insecurities by giving me a sliver of his attention. Asking me to suck his dick so that he could get rid of his migraine,” she adds, her voice matter-of-fact. “Told me that I wasn’t the prettiest or smartest girl he had dated, but I was the only one who could get rid of his headaches. Who would suck his dick without asking questions. And honestly?” Her voice falters, and my fists curl, eager to punch the life out ofsomeone.But not her. “At first, it made me feel like I had a purpose. Like I was worthy.” I force myself to stare at the black waters. To not let her words affect me. To just fucking listen. “Maybe there was something about it that made me useful, you know? Even if he never gave me the same thing in return.”
“Because he couldn’t get you wet,” I say, anger simmering in my tone.
“You know, it’s kind of funny. He got angry at me for that. Said that if I couldn’t get wet, then there must be something wrong with me.” She clutches her knees to her chest, practically coiling into an upright fetal position. “I even saw a doctor about it once. It was a condition of our engagement. We ran tests and everything. But my numbers came back normal, so the doctor said it was in my head. Told me that mybrainneeded work. That maybe I wasn’ttherewith my fiancé.” She turns to me, her eyes glistening with tears. “But that’s not it, is it? It was about what I was repressing. What I wanted. I get wet with you.”
My jaw loosens, and her brown eyes stab straight into my fucked up soul. I rub a thumb over her bottom lip, pretending to wipe away a fleck of dirt.
Ren has caked my hand in dirt and come. Soaked me with her arousal until my fingertips wrinkled.
Rencanget wet.
The fucker never had it in him to give a shit abouthowto get her there. He was too self-absorbed in his own image of what he imagined a fiancéshouldbe, that he didn’t give a shit about her needs. Hell, there’s a chance that if he had justaskedwhat she wanted, she could’ve been okay with a good spanking every now and then, but he didn’t even try. Her ex is like her grandmother, onlyworse.
And that irritates me.
“You know why I dropped out of graduate school?” She laughs. I grind my teeth; I highly doubt whatever she’s about to tell me is funny. “I know it’s stupid. I shouldn’t have done it. But the only place I could masturbate without Mrs. Richmond or my fiancé knowing about it was in my office at the university. He snuck in though. Took videos on his phone of me with a rope around my neck. Shared it with our classmates.”
She huffs in irritation, and it becomes clear to me.
That’s why she wears the bag over her head. To cover her face in case someone takes pictures. She knows she needs the brutality to come; she doesn’t want to suffer the shame. Doesn’t want to completely give in to that vulnerability.
She doesn’t use the bag with me. I won’t let her. She knows she can look me in the eye, that I’ll see her in all of her morbid depravity, and I’llstillwant her.
“Word got around to the dean. My grandmother,” she says. “My ex said that’s why he broke off the engagement with me. Because I was a pervert. And he couldn’t be with someone who he didn’t trust around his future children.”
