Page 21 of The Darkest Half

“Mr. Gustavsson,” she said, stopping me in my tracks. “Please”—I looked over my shoulder to see her nod toward my stool—“sit with me for a while.” It wasn’t a request; she was confident I would “sit with her for a while.”

For a moment longer than it should’ve been, I was fascinated by her dark eyes and plump Cupid’s bow lips. I had never seen a woman so beautiful, and as crazy as it is, I admit I would’ve done anything she asked me to do in the brief few seconds she’d spoken to me—anyfuckingthing.

And so, I sat down, just as she’d asked. Little did I know it would be the fork in the road that would change everything in my miserable, pathetic life.

Present day…

Willa still sits naked on the chair near me, the sharp features of her face lost in the shadow as she gazes off at the wall. But with my fading words, she appears to come alive again, her features becoming ever-sharper.

She looks right at me, her eyes haunting and full of need; it’s as if she wants something else from me other than a story. Sex, perhaps? That would be my first guess looking into dark eyes like that, but no, it’s something else. I don’t want to know what it is.

“Vy did you stop, Freedrik?”

“Because I…I don’t want to talk about Seraphina.”

“But you must.”

Her soft lips slowly dab the ceramic rim of her teacup; her searching eyes follow mine in a way that appears they never really move. She doesn’t seem to blink except on purpose; everything she does is methodical.

When I don’t continue, Willa calmly sets the teacup on the nearby table, and she gets up from the chair. She takes the knife up again and stands over me.

“Is it because I frighten you?” She puts the blade to my chest and cuts open the buttons of my shirt one by one. “Or do you vant something in return?”

I say nothing; any answer I give, I feel like it will be the wrong one. I am threatened by her, knowing she will not hesitate to kill me. But at the same time, something about her would never harm me. Because I can’t possibly understand why, there is nothing I can do to figure out a way out of this predicament.

With the knife, she cuts my pants away, down the center—and for comfort—and then cuts off my underwear, exposing me fully to the fluorescent light humming within the ceiling.

“What are you doing, Willa?”

I try not to look at anything but her face, but it’s difficult to do when she takes my cock into her hand and squeezes it roughly. Not too hard, but almost to the point of pain. I’m hard within seconds.

“Is this vat you vant?” Her eyes never move from mine, never blinking, and the more I witness it, I realize how unsettling it is.

I shake my head and look up at the ceiling, eyes watering from the pain. And the pleasure.

“No, it’s not what I want from you,” I tell her.

“But it is vat all men vant.” Her hand moves up and down the length of me, and I grow harder. When I feel her warm, wet mouth sliding over my cock, I gasp quietly, and my body tenses.

But it’s hard to focus on pleasure when not so far in the back of my mind, I know she could, at any moment, cut my cock off with the flick of her wrist.

“No, Willa, just stop. I’ll tell you about Seraphina, but only if you stop.” Never in a million years would I tell a woman to stop, but there’s a first time for everything. Because letting her continue feels…dangerous.

She raises, and I feel her hand move away, and only then do I open my eyes to look at her again.

“Continue the story, Freedrik,” she demands in a tone that could easily be mistaken for an innocent request by anyone unaware of what she’s capable of.

“What about Seraphina do you want to know exactly?” I probe. Telling her everything, from the moment I met her to the moment I killed her, would certainly buy me a lot of time, but it’s just not a story I want to relive, even to save my life.

Seraphina was my heart and soul. No matter how dark, she was the love of my life. No matter how twisted and insane, she was mine. And I killed her. And when I killed her, I killed a part of myself—if not all of myself.

Yes…I killed myself.

Suddenly, I’m starting to understand. Not Willa—I doubt I or anyone else will ever fully understand her, but out of nowhere, I’ve realized something that’s been staring me in the face all along: I am different. I have changed since Seraphina’s death.

(You’ve changed back into who you always were.)

“Vy did you love her? Vat made her so special to you? She vas mentally ill, vas she not?”

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