Neil was all alone, after all. Just like me. He had built up a suit of armor to protect him from everyone; he had isolated himself and frozen all his feelings, and no one was able to look past his appearance.
His other lovers wanted to compel him, to strip him down and own him, if only for an hour.
But I wanted more.
“Talk to me about Schopenhauer. What about his work appeals to you?” I pulled off my reading glasses and arranged myself cross-legged, ready to listen. Neil frowned and leaned back against the desk, narrowing his eyes at me. He was trying to decide if I was messing with him, but I wasn’t. Everything about him interested me. “Come on, I want to know. Seriously,” I prompted him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he agreed.
“The world is just a representation, a kind of stage on which we are all acting. In every situation, we act out a role,” he began, gripping the wooden edge of the desk until his knuckles went white. “Even in sex, which is all deception, power, and seduction, there is a force that affirms the self and denies the other… It is a manifestation of man’s will to life. Sexual desire allows us to achieve a kind of physical fulfillment that cannot be matched by anything else.” He licked his lips, staring into the middle distance. “But sex never makes anyone happy. After fucking, man recedes into his limited existence, into an emotional crash, and all the original pain returns. Everything slips away like a dream in favor of a tortured reality,” he finished, still just standing there and staring at me. Even in a philosophical theory, Neil saw Kimberly and the sick species of love he’d experienced with her.
He was trapped in a repetitive suffering machine.
He lived and relived what was happening again like it was the only way he had to keep from losing his mind.
What could have possessed that woman to so completely destroy the psyche of a little boy?
I didn’t know if I should question him or how to get him to open up if I did, but I still had so many questions: Did he take any medication? Was he still in therapy? If not, should he be in therapy?
I wrung my hands and looked down at my folded legs, plucking up my courage. “When Drew mentioned the…” I cut myself off, looking up at Neil to find him staring at me, waiting for me to keep talking. “He talked about the dark web and how Kimberly was associated with it…and…” I said in an anxious babble.
“Kimberly molested the kids to get them ready for it. When she thought they were prepared, when they were sufficiently ‘educated’ and didn’t have normal inhibitions, she would film them,” he admitted, surprising me. I had never expected him to tell me about it so readily. I scooched down to the end of the bed and gave him my undivided attention. “The dark web is a shadow internet that requires certain software to access. It’s part of the deep web, and it’s very dangerous,” he explained, his tone cool. He was still determined not to show any vulnerability.
“Everything’s on the dark web—arms dealing, drugs, hackers for hire, terrorists. It’s just like a black market in real life. Kimberly, along with her boss, dealt in child pornography videos. Together, they sold digital files full of heinous content to dark web users depraved enough to want them. They paid for the downloads with untraceable transactions. Kim accidentally admitted to the police that she was an administrator on one of those sites. She regretted that right away. Usually, the admins remain anonymous,” he explained baldly. He was rubbing my face in this reality, such as it was, so that I could feel the gravity of it. Not just an isolated case of abuse but a full criminal enterprise. “I was lucky. I stopped her in time, but there were other kids, victims like me, and they were filmed, and those videos were sold to pedophiles online. When I called the police to keep Kim from filming me, it blew up into this huge scandal that involved my whole family. We ended up in all the newspapers. New York was talking about it for a long time.” Neil swallowed hard and looked down.
I could see the awful memories weighing down on him again.
Now it all made sense: He was afraid of being photographed. That was why there were no pictures of him as an adult in his mother’s house. Only ones up to the age of ten…
“Did the police catch the sickos?” I asked, disturbed. The reality of what had happened to him was so much worse than I’d ever imagined.
“They arrested Kim, but trafficking in child pornography is still a widespread crime. There are lots of sites that exist specifically to host files temporarily. The material will be available for a day or so and then get taken down. That severely narrows down the window in which authorities can act, and most online pedophiles work hard to stay anonymous and never reveal their IP addresses,” he said, sighing, his miserable face illuminated slightly by the light from my desk lamp. His lips were twisted in a bitter expression. Instinctively, I stretched out an arm and offered my hand to him, trying to banish some of that anguish.
“Come here.” I gave him an understanding smile. He looked down at my hand and then back up at me, uncertain.
“I don’t want your pity,” he answered tartly and stayed where he was.
“And I’ll give you anything but,” I answered, and he narrowed his eyes at me. A flare of naughtiness flickered in his golden eyes, and I blushed. As usual, he had willfully misunderstood me, but I also knew that sex was a tool he used to keep himself under control.
“Actually, we have some unfinished business, Tinkerbell. Enough about ancient history.” He pushed off from the desk and strode toward me, rendering me breathless. He had given me another piece of himself, a very painful one, and now he wanted something in return. I hoped he didn’t want to have sex because we wouldn’t have had enough time. My mother would be back before dinner, and Neil’s stamina was unreal.
It took a long time for him to be able to relax and…
He met my eyes when he got to the side of the bed, trying to figure out what was happening in my head. I chewed anxiously on the inside of my cheek.
“Get closer,” he ordered, staring at me with a devouring passion. He’d probably already used someone else back in New York, or else he would have pounced on me much earlier. Still, he cleared his throat, waiting for me to make a move.
I moved slowly over to the edge of the bed, sitting back on my heels. He watched me, pleased.
“I liked the glasses on you. Why’d you ditch them?” he said softly as he touched my cheek. His thumb traced the contours of lips, and they partedfor him. He leaned closer to me, and I leaned into him, seeking more physical contact to block out the cruel reality that always sought to break us down.
“I only wear them when I’m reading,” I whispered against his mouth, which quirked up into a clever smile.
“Someday, I’m going to fuck you while you wear nothing but those glasses,” he said, a lewd promise, and I closed the distance between us with a kiss. I clutched his neck, pulling his head down to me to show him just how much I wanted him. His tongue slid past my teeth, demanding my kiss. I complied ferociously, and Neil responded with passion. He still seemed a bit worked up about our conversation—I could feel it in his tightened shoulders—but I wanted to show him that I was there for him. He could trust me, and I would give him whatever he wanted. When he broke our kiss and pulled away, I let out an irritated groan.
He smiled at my visible disappointment, and then, with one hand, he unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down the zipper.
“Let me feel those lips where I want them most, Tinkerbell—around my cock,” he told me, tugging his jeans and underwear down slightly to release his sizable hard-on.
I blinked hazily for a few seconds, appreciating how thick and stiff it was for me.
