Page 100 of Grave Love
“You ought to choose someone with more vigor next time,” he teases.
He doesn’t mention Mrs. Richmond in the other shipping container; we don’t talk about her anymore. There’s nothing to say. She has enough food and water to live, and she stopped trying to talk me out of her captivity after the sixth month. Blaze says I should just kill her, that it would be more satisfyingthan what I’m doing to her now. But to me, her death would be too easy on her. I don’t want to kill her. I want her to live a life where she’s alone. Dismissed. Not good enough. Like she made me feel.
How my mother probably felt too.
“I figured I’d give you a break after the last one,” I say with a smirk. He laughs.
These days, I help find people who remind Blaze of his mother. Men. Women. It doesn’t matter, as long as they embody the neglect of others. When I can’t give him that high through sexual sadomasochism, killing those victims satisfies his need. He doesn’t fuck them though; he kills them,thenfucks me. Sometimes at the same time.
I like to choose people from the funerals. The death of a loved one tends to bring out the best and worst in us, and though I don’t judge, I know what Blaze is looking for.
Blaze will never change. Being a killer is who hechoosesto be, and though I used to think that I would choose to leave this world, like my mother, I choose the other option now.
After all, death is just like life. In death, you give up control to the natural world, letting the earth rot your corpse. You can’t control which kind of bugs decide to decompose your remains, nor can you decide whether or not your loved ones—or a serial killer—cremates your body or gives you a natural burial. We’re all bags of rotting meat, and in the end, not even a final will and testament can change that.
But in life, we have the power to surrender to the chaos of the world, to the imperfections, to the ugliness, to the loss of power. We can accept that there is beauty in what we cannot contain.
Blaze grabs my hair, twisting his fist until I whimper in pain, his tongue searching my mouth, making me promise that this is enough for me. And itis.Blaze is enough. And I am enough. Together, whether it’s good or bad or straight up fucking miserable, in our little screwed up piece of paradise, thislifeis enough.
Blaze carries me to our bed, biting into my fresh wound again. He fucks me relentlessly until the bleeding stops. Then he takes a wet washcloth and wipes it across my skin with tenderness, stroking my hair with his free hand. A slow heat builds in my stomach. I’m cherished. Loved. And he’s helped me love myself too.
Right before we fall asleep, he puts the choke chain around my neck and attaches it to the leash. I lock the other end of the leash around his choke chain too.
It’s funny; both of us could take the choke chains off any time we want, and to be honest, wearing chains like that while we sleep—it’s not safe; we could accidentally choke each other to death in our sleep. But when one of us pulls, the other wakes up, and we crawl back into each other’s arms, finding safety in that proximity.
It’s not safe. It’s not sane.
But we aren’t either.
The chain clinks around us, and Blaze kisses my forehead. I smile up at him, then glance at the nightstand. On top, there are two mugs of cold coffee and a gun full of blanks. Sometimes, we use it for the thrill; I still like knowing that death is around the corner any time I come. And these days, Blaze trusts me to handle the bullets—to put in blanks, leave it empty, or even actually load the gun—and he always tests the first bullet on himself.
I don’t need the gun, or the rope, or the knife, or even pills like that anymore. Sometimes, life isn’t what you expect, and it’s shitty waking up. Day after day, you feel like no matter what you do, you’re a burden to the world and everyone in it. That your breath isn’t worth the wasted air. That you have no power, no control. That your life is meaningless.
And maybe lifeismeaningless. Maybe there’s no concrete, meaningful reason for Blaze to love me, or for me to love Blaze. But I do. I love him, I love us, I love myself, and I love our life together. And he showed me how everything is possible.
Killing Blaze, just so that I can end my own life, won’t happen.
I snuggle into his neck, grazing the scar on his side with my fingertips. We’ll probably die in some boring way, like old age, or perhaps a disease associated with it. And I know us; when that time comes, we’ll laugh at the pointlessness of it all.
And I’m okay with that.
THE END
