They don’t get to see anything from us anymore. There’s no forced acts we have to lie through. Everything we have is for each other from now. And there’s no shame as I beg her, “Kiss me.”
She doesn’t deny me as she seals her lips over mine. Banding my arms around the back of her thighs, I lift her up. She doesn’t fight me or grimace as I use my left arm to hold her thigh, so I kiss her harder like I can chase away my own self-loathing at how easily I was manipulated with her lack of disgust.
Biting across her jaw to her neck, I stumble up the stairs we’ve never used.
“Helene’s room is up here,” she whispers, looking over her shoulder.
“I want to see what she’s hiding.” I kiss her cheek just because I can. It’s the small, innocent things I’ve missed, like holding her, being able to turn my head and see my wife, or feeling the warmth of her skin beneath my lips. She’s always so warm.
Whatever’s in her hand becomes an extension of herself when we reach the small landing where the staircase splits. She unwraps her legs from my waist, threading her fingers through mine to pull me along to what looks at the normal bedroom.
“It’s weird,” she mutters. “She’s a real person. She eats, sleeps, like the rest of us. But she isn’t like us. Monsters shouldn’t be able to do those things.”
“I know,” I whisper into her hair. “It makes you question if the capability to be like her is in you too.”
“No.” She slowly shakes her head. “It’s not. We wouldn’t do the things she did. We’re not like them, who defile the living and dead, causing as much misery as possible.”
I am like them.
I’ve shown it time and time again. Despite my disgust at what I was doing, I still did it. I still held out my hand to take the pills to provide Rowan with entertainment. I killed, enjoying the body count I was racking up like it was a game because I don’t believe there’s a sanctity to life. Worst of all, I tormented my own wife, lied to her so she didn’t even know the world just like they did. It all came easily like it was second nature—because itismy nature.
I step forward, slowly marching Delilah into the room perfumed with peonies. The scent triggers a memory of my mother violently throwing up when someone sent her flowers. Delilah opens drawers as I look around the room at the antique bed with a lion carved into the high headboard and spines crawling up the thick spindles of the four posts.
“My mom hated this smell,” I whisper. “She’d be in her room for days after smelling it.”
I remember researching depression because she’d always have heavy days. That’s what my dad called them when she’d lock herself away. It wasn’t depression though. It was PTSD from her childhood. She never had an opportunity to be the mother she wanted to be. There was always going to be something small, a scent or a word, forcing her to remember being here.
The older I get, the more I understand, and the more hate is chipped away about my parents. Fuck, I want to talk to them now. One conversation so I can apologize for hating them, tell them I still love them despite their faults. To tell them no matter what biology Helene tampered with, they will always be my parents.
Swallowing my grief, I help Delilah open a drawer in a tall dresser. “Do you want to see her panties?”
“Trust me, they’re not granny panties. I’ve already had that disgusting image burned into my memory. She keeps those things downstairs.” She gags. “You’re lucky you didn’t see her walking around with a dildo strapped to her while one of the guards crawled beside her.”
“What the fuck?”
“Exactly.” She looks up at me. “She’d make them suck it while they were trapped in the corner with the cabinets behind them when she was preparing her tea. Just this bright blue fake dick going in an?—”
“Okay, I fucking get it. Why are you being so descriptive?”
“Hey, I’m sharing my experiences with you so you don’t feel left out.”
“Keep fucking going, koukla mou. I’ll choke you with my dick until you’re so full of cum you’re foaming at the mouth like a rabid fucking whore.”
Mimicking my voice, she says, “Why are you being so descriptive?” then turns to the open drawer.
I kiss her nape, nosing her hair out of the way as I grind into her ass. My voice drops, suppressing a groan at the feeling of her in my arms. “I’m being descriptive because all I’ve had is the thought of what I want to do to you for years. Every detail has been refined while I waited for you to complete the image.”
She rests her head on my shoulder as she looks up at me. With her eyes soft and her tone gentle, she says, “I love you, Kane. But I’m not fucking you in your sadistic grandmother’s room. Who knows what spirits are hiding in here?”
“I’ll fuck you wherever the fuck I feel like it. Spirits be damned. I didn’t say my thoughts were only of your body. No, we’re going on a date, pretty girl. We’re having another wedding, a proper one where you have to stand in front of everyone whenyou admit you love me. I’m going to love you openly, no shadows or deceit.”
“Steak and chocolate,” she agrees softly with a smile.
We go back to the drawer. One side is full of polaroid photos. I hug Delilah tighter with my left arm as I reach into the drawer, taking the photos of my parents. The worry on my mom’s face is stark while my dad smiles, discreetly checking on her as they stand away from each other at one of Harkin’s parties.
“Kane?” Her voice shakes along with her hand as she reverently pulls an aged polaroid from the stack. “This is my baby.” She looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
They’re so small, with light downy hair sticking up in different directions. I can’t see their hands or feet due to the thick swaddling, but their eyes are huge, like dark marbles. I’ve never held a baby before or seen one, unless it was a movie. I can’t imagine what it would be like to hold our baby.
