I took another step forward and then another, and, in no time at all, I found myself brushing up against her back with my chest. Selene trembled. I only noticed because of the almost imperceptible motion of her shoulders. Then I breathed in the sweet scent of her coppery hair, and my eyelids grew heavy. In just a few hours, she’d be going back to Detroit, and I’d be back to my everyday life. Even though I knew she needed to leave, I wished I could bottle up that smell and take it with me.
“Will you stay here with me a little while longer?” I whispered in a tone that was anything but dickish. I’d even surprised myself: That girl could make me do the craziest shit. Like what I was doing right then.
Selene turned to look at me, and her face, even in the dim moonlight, was perfect. The moonbeams, bouncing off a calm, flat ocean, and the stars scattered across the sky were both obscured by her beauty.
“I’m not going to let you mock me.” She shook her head and tried to walk away, but I grabbed her arm to keep her there with me. With my other hand, I pinched the cigarette between my fingers and took a drag, blowing the smoke into her pretty little face. Babygirl coughed and shot me an irritated look. Honestly, it was adorable.
“I’m not mocking you. I’m just trying to make you see that this can’t work…” I murmured, using the tone of voice that had a hypnotic effect on women. I meant what I said, even if my behavior earlier suggested otherwise. I realized that I was contradicting myself and that my shifting attitudes were confusing. I wasn’t sure whether to blame it on my damaged psyche, on what I was going through at the time, or even on what she was going through, which was somehow affecting me as well.
In short, I didn’t understand a fucking thing.
“Why can’t you just admit that you want me?” She spoke too quickly, and I could tell she regretted it because she looked down, chewing on her lip. I frowned for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I wasn’t sure where her certainty on this was coming from and also…
What was that she said? I wanted her.
I did, true, but not the way she was thinking. Selene thought I was like the other boys she’d known, but she’d gotten that all wrong.
We weren’t going to walk in the park hand in hand with each other. We wouldn’t go for ice cream like a happy couple. We wouldn’t talk about books, TV shows, or any other random bullshit over a pizza for hours on end.
“Because I can’t be in a real relationship. A woman can’t be a…partner in my life.” Still, without consciously directing it, my hand remained firmly clasped on her arm, unable to let her go.
I sucked on the filter of my cigarette, hoping for a little more nicotine as I stared at Selene. I stared at her for what felt like forever.
“Oh, no? So what can a woman be to you?” she asked in a low, challenging tone. She had also realized that I was still keeping her there by force, but she didn’t fight me. Maybe because she was exactly where she wanted to be.
She wanted to be…with me.
“Revenge,” I said softly. Women were a means through which I could take my revenge for everything that had been done to me. A way to take revenge on all of humanity and its evil.
“Revenge for what?” she continued, becoming more and more intrigued at the idea of pulling answers out of me. All I wanted to do was pull off her clothes and put an end to this shit.
After one final drag, I tossed the butt away and concentrated exclusively on her.
“Would you like it if I used you to get my revenge?” I answered wickedly, lowering my tone to a seductive register. I knew the power my voice had over her.
I was confident that the deep, shadowy tone would caress her between her thighs and sneak into her thoughts, igniting her desires, sweeping over her until it reached her brain and caused a total blackout.
As if to confirm her theory, her arm trembled underneath my fingers, and she swallowed drily, putting on a false show of confidence. She surely knew exactly what I meant, and the idea of it thrilled me.
“No, I don’t think I would,” she answered after considering it for a moment.
“But I did it before and you were the one who allowed me to…” I advanced on her small body, brushing against her breasts with my chest. She was tiny, but she had curves in all the right places. I remembered all of them, and I also remembered the way my hands had to study them to learn where she liked to be touched and how.
“You liked it when I used you…” I whispered into her ear before sucking gently on her earlobe and making her shudder. She smelled so good, and it had me shaking at the thought of tasting her, tasting all of her right there, not wasting any more time.
“Why do you talk to me like that?” she asked, but her voice was shaky, and she was breathing heavily.
The way I expressed myself had provided her with several orgasms, and I was confident it would again if she would only bend to my desires.
“Do you think other men don’t talk like this?” I asked challengingly. “Do you think they don’t also use women for physical gratification? Sex is just a natural impulse, baby,” I lectured, like a professor trying to explain the galaxy to a student who didn’t know the first fucking thing about astronomy.
“There are also men who actually love their women,” my sweet dreamer replied.
“That’s how it goes in those romance novels,” I whispered only a short distance from her lips. It was proof of how well I knew her. I paid attention to the details. I knew that she loved to read and that she was deluded by stereotypical, fabulist tales of love.
“Men need to fuck; it’s part of their essential nature. For men, love is just a possible side effect of sex. For women, a lot of them need love to fuck, or at least the illusion of it. That’s how you are.”
Scarlett had been like Selene.
