I nod, matter-of-factly. “You are indeed. You’re a lie, Little Baby Darkness. And even though I am made of you, which makes me a lie as well, I need more than the lie. I need…”
Well, what I need is a partner. Someone to love.
Which is exactly what the Darkness appears to need in me. But it’s… different. It’s too ‘other.’
“Well,” I continue, “I just don’t see us together, Little Baby Darkness. I would like Real Little Baby.” I shrug here, feeling good about my authenticity. “You just don’t do it for me.”
I’m expecting outrage. Hell, if I’m being honest, I’m expecting it to kill me. I would like to play the game and win. I would love to be as invested as Paul. That man, my God, he’s driven. But I lost interest in life so long ago now that I can’t even muster up the illusion of interest.
Little Baby is a tiny prize. If I have to be here, I would like her to be here with me.
But I don’t actuallyhaveto be here.
Everything we’re doing is a distraction. It’s a game. I’m playing but I don’t care about the finish line. It’s just a way to prolong the inevitable.
The Darkness knows this. It knows I have a bottle of the Black blood in my bunker. It also knows that Little Baby is mine. Something all mine because I made her. So it took her form, notjustto trick me, but to experience whatever it is I feel for this remnant of a girl.
Which is… nothing. It’s not personal. I don’t feel anything, ever. I’m gone. I’ve been gone for so long now, I doubt I was ever here.
Little Baby Darkness pets me and gazes into my eyes. “I can be anything you want, Josep. Anything at all.” And then she morphs into Paul and strokes his hand down my cheek.
“Is it me you want?” These words come out of Dark Paul’s mouth and in his voice.
Eating and fucking Paul, as basic as it sounds, has been enough to content me. He’s bigger than life. He fills up every empty space when he’s around. And he’s energetic. He never gets tired of trying new things. He’s always busy. He feeds this energy to me and I drink it up. The blood and the sex is enough to keep me interested. If it weren’t for Paul, I’d have sipped the Black blood centuries ago.
But he’s not enough to entice me into infinity.
I reach up and take Dark Paul’s hand off my cheek—surprised that it doesn’t feel like sand—and hold it close to my chest. Not because I’m making some kind of gesture, but because it’s just kinda sad that this thing—this powerful, all-knowing thing—is…begging.
Forme, no less. Which is more than sad, it’s pathetic.
“Listen,” it says, morphing back into Little Baby Darkness, “if you don’t at least try, Josep, then I’ll just become her. I’ll steal everything she is and just be her. And then you’ll have no choice. This would not be a hard thing to do. I am, after all, inside her right now.”
I shrug up one shoulder, kind of surprised at my indifference. Not about Little Baby, but the Darkness. It wants me. To be its lover, or slave, or confidant.
But it’s alie.
This has always been my problem with the Darkness. It’s a lie and I’ve always known it. I can feel the lie. And the lie is so much worse than the truth because the truth is, I have no one. No one cares about me.
Paul pretends because he needs this, right here. This, what I’m doing with the Darkness. Which is being close to it, and understanding it, and being the object of its desire. Paul wants that, and that isallPaul wants.
The Darkness doesn’t wantme. The Darkness wants me todosomething. This comes in the form of the power it puts into my blood. It fills me up with lies. And then, in turn, I give these lies to others.
If you really think about it, I’m nothing more than a transfusion. Except I’m not even that important. I am nothing more than the transfusionbag. I’m a bit of thick plastic hanging on a rack. That’s it.
This is the crux of my relationship with the Darkness.
Little Baby Darkness kisses me. Right on the lips. And it’s nice. If I were to allow myself to believe the lie, it would be so nice. To really have her as my own. A partner in this world. A lover. A friend.
“I can be that, Josep,” the Little Baby Darkness whispers. “I can. I can do anything. I promise you.”
“But you cannot be the real her, Little Baby Darkness.”
She sits up, straddles me, then leans over my chest and places both hands on my cheeks as she stares at me with very blue eyes. “I can. Ican.”
I take her hands in mine and remove them from my face. “Why? Why do you wantme?”
Her eyes flit down to my chest. Then come back up to my face. “Do you want the truth?”
