Page 68 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
“I can’t do this.”
I expect him to get angry, but he just seems defeated as though the last hope of salvation has just passed him by. He’s still blindfolded, and I take this moment to caress his jawline and kiss him. He opens to me and groans against my mouth. I know there are words bubbling to the surface, things he wants to say, but I keep him busy with my tongue’s steady invasion.
Then I release him from the Saint Andrew’s Cross and guide him back to our room.
I turn back to see him about to remove the blindfold.
“No,” I say, my voice clipped and sharp.
I wait to see if he’ll do as I ask. His free hand drops back to his side and he follows me where I guide him.
“Sit,” I say, when he’s in front of the bed, and he does.
I put the vinyl record on the turn table. The sound crackles gently just before Chopin’s Nocturne number 2 begins to play.
I go to Brian’s dresser and pull out clothes. I help him get dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants and then socks and running shoes.
“Mina… running won’t help this.”
“Brian? Do I need to gag you?”
He hesitates a moment, but then shakes his head. He tenses when I sit on the bed beside him.
“I like the games we play,” I begin. “I like that they flow in both directions now, but there is something light and playful about it. What you’re asking me to do… I understand the logic behind it, and I thought I could do it for you, but I’m not willing to be your stepmother.”
“That’s not…”
“Yes it is.”
Brian has been closed off for years, buried under the sociopathy that still protects that small boy inside him. But I’m not going to make him feel again with pain. I’m not going to be the next person who hurts him, no matter the justification.
I take his hand in mine. “I don’t want our relationship to be based on hurting each other. There’s no justification for this, and I’m not going to re-traumatize you based on some psychobabble armchair amateur shrink theories about healing through pain. I know you’ve done a lot of bad things, and I don’t expect that to change. We both are what we both are at this point, but what we have together is different. It’s special. And I’m not going to break that tonight over some misguided notion of you paying for a crime I haven’t convicted you of.”
“I carved the wordMineinto your back, Mina. All we understand is pain.”
“I know, but it was more about the marking than the pain. Did you do it because you like hurting me?”
I study his face, watching as he seems to be thinking it through to give me the real answer.
“No,” he finally says.
“No. So let’s go run.”
“Running won’t fix this,” he says again.
I remove the blindfold and stare into his eyes. He doesn’t try to look away. I don’t think he realizes that I’m the only person he can do this with. Sure, he’ll stare people down until they avert their gaze, but it’s intimidation, not trust, not vulnerability.
I cross to my dresser and pull out my own gym clothes. He watches me as I change. I turn off the record, which has long since moved onto another Chopin piece. I extend my hand to him, he takes it, and we quietly go upstairs to the gym.
The party is still going on out at the pool. No one even knows we’ve returned to the house. We run together on thetreadmill, and then I take him to the kitchen and make him some scrambled eggs just like he did for me the first time he shared this ritual with me—and many times after. Then we shower together, and by the time we’re lying in bed, he seems more calm.
He moves up closer to me, his head leaned on my shoulder.
“We’re going to be okay,” I say.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. I love you, Brian.” I hate that the first time I said these words to him was when I thought he was about to let me die. But I’d needed him to know.
