Page 24 of The Spiral
The whole thing sends an eerie feeling through me, all my power suddenly evaporating at his demeanour. I try to move the gun away from him, knowing this has turned into something I don’t understand at all, but he snatches it back, pulling his hand from my face to cover mine with his and hold the gun where he wants it to be.
“Jack, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I mumble, unsure what’s going on as I try to lever my hand from his. I’m not shooting him no matter how much he might appear to want it. That’s not why I’m here. I need to go, not be here doing this. I need revenge. I need to find Lewis, kill him and stop this happening to me again.
The sigh that comes from his mouth as he eventually opens his eyes is never-ending. It matches his look as he gazes at me. If someone had ever tried to get inside me before now, they failed compared to this stare. It’s filled with love, adoration even. Why, I don’t know. We hardly know each other, but his shadowy brown eyes just sink into mine, somehow connecting us. I can feel it as we linger in this moment. It’s odd, almost unearthly. As if we’ve known each other a lifetime. And I can sense something, something that’s not mine. Distant thoughts circulate in my mind, ones I can’t latch onto for fear of losing whatever this is between us.
“Neither do I,” he says quietly, finally letting me inch my hands away from the gun and then taking it from me to droop in his hand.
We just stand there again, looking at each other. I don’t know what to do or say. Everything’s gone strange. Even the air smells different. Freesias, or certainly spring flowers of some sort, permeate the room instead of the dusty wood smell that’s normal around here. And I swear to god there’s a tear in his eye. They’re welling with them, subtly maybe, but the influence he normally holds so well, the one he held only a few minutes ago, is disintegrating around him. Vanishing.
My hand moves to his face, just wanting to comfort him in some way. I’m not even sure why. It’s like my arm has its own mind as I run my fingers into his hair, gently brushing it about. He instantly closes his eyes again, letting his body give in to my touch with no thought of stopping me. And for some reason, it all feels alien yet instinctual, the way my hand moves, and the way he moans beneath it, tilting himself into my fingers as he finally lets his body fall to the floor beneath us. It’s like a memory, like I’ve achieved that same reaction before.
I follow him down, still running my skin over his and bringing us closer together, unable to stop myself for reasons unknown. My other hand gently touches his shoulder, for the first time feeling his frame with no clothes on. It’s solid, toned to perfection and yet lithe under my touch, warm and pliable as it oozes masculinity and reminds me of a love I once felt.
“I love you,” he muses, tentatively reaching his hand forward to my body, unable to see it yet knowing exactly where he’s going.
Love?
I frown at the word as his fingers reach the back of my neck, perfectly placing themselves without any vision to get him there. There’s no love here, none that I know of anyway. There is something, though. I can feel it, no matter how much I deny it. But I don’t love him.I hardly know him. Yet there’s a presence, a force maybe, something drawing me to this man that I can’t describe. It’s fragile. Delicate. It’s faint in the back of my mind, like a tunnel that’s not quite opened, filling me with connotations of joy as I continue stroking his hair.
His fingers pull me closer, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips. Kissing. It seems so personal, such a close thing to do. And I can feel myself pulling back from it, hoping to keep the distance we’ve created to keep me safe and isolated. Sex would be okay, easy, simple. Just like the killing I hope to achieve. Final and non-descript, but nothing about this sensation is simple. I can sense complication and barriers, feel their challenges ahead of us, their hurdles, but I can’t stop myself moving forward into him.
It’s so very gentle, so hesitant, a bare whisper of touch as our lips meet, dry and feathering. My breath shakes out of me, the muscles on the back of my neck fighting a little but giving no real resistance to the movement other than fear. It’s not even fear really. It’s more like trepidation, like part of me is desperate to deny connection of any sort. It’ll weaken my resolve to do what’s necessary to Lewis, perhaps remind me that beauty does exist.
“I love you,” he whispers again, the words blown between our lips, and I so want to believe them. I feel the sentiment catch in my throat, my own words wanting to rise out of me and repeat back to him. My head shakes softly, barely containing lucid thought in the middle of whatever this is. I don’t know him. I know nothing of Jack, nothing, and yet his mouth’s on mine now, slowly moving us into a deeper kiss as his hand grips tighter and his tongue gently traces my bottom lip. It’s all so beautiful. It’s so perfect that I can feel my own tears coming, writhing their way behind my closed eyelids and threatening me with some madness I don’t understand.
“I want to feel you again. Let me,” he says, rubbing his hand into my neck and drawing me closer. It’s everything a perfect moment should be. It’s filled with sentiments of hope and courage, optimism. A future worth living and people worth loving. It’s not something I’ve felt for a while, if ever, certainly not beneath the hands of a man, and I can’t help but revel in the sound of his words, hopelessly loving him for them.
