And I realized, sitting in the balcony of a cathedral watching her marry Logan, that I had formed my entire world around her.
My businesses, my billions…none of it mattered without her. I could have lived out my days as Caleb Indigo, building my corporate empire, raking in billions upon billions until I was worth more than many third-world countries. But without her, to what end?
No one knew me. No one cared about me. No one knew Jakob Kasparek. No one knew Caleb Indigo, not really—because Caleb Indigo was fake. He was a fraud. A creation, a fiction as carefully crafted as Madame X.
Without Madame X propping up my psyche, I had nothing. Caleb Indigo, as an entity, collapsed. I hadn't consciously intended it at the beginning, but when I vanished and returned as Caleb, it was entirely with the purpose of finding Isabel andcarrying out a plan to possess her. How that seed of obsession was planted, I do not know.
I'm sure if I were to trust a psychologist with the whole sordid truth of my life, I could find out the root cause of my tendency to fixate and obsess. Something to do with my mother’s death and my father's subsequent suicide, I think, and my time as a prostitute—although sex-slave is a more appropriate term. I had no control over any aspect of my life—not even my thoughts. When you're living in a drug-induced fog, your thoughts are not your own; they belong to the drug. You're easily manipulated, coerced, tricked, and strung along. Whispers in the ear become truth under the chemical guidance of heroin. My body was not my own; I was not my own.
Once I was free, I didn't need to make some sort of teeth-gnashing, fist-clenched vow to never let anyone control me ever again—it was self-evident. My existence, after that, was bent toward total control over my thoughts, over my body, over my finances; over my whole world. I dedicated myself to physical perfection—eat right, lift weights, run, box, swim, row. Carve my body from marble, etch each line, build each muscle. Control my thoughts—do not be lured or enticed, never be upsold, never be undercut. I must be the one to manipulate, never the one manipulated. Control sex—how long I last, when I release, and where. Do not let lust control me. Love, of course, is a fiction, a fantasy.
I did not love Isabel; I cannot love.
Can I?
Love requires trust; trust requires vulnerability; vulnerability is the ultimate lack of control.
I have been owned before, and I nearly lost myself to it—I do not mean mere death. How can I open my soul to someone, now? I've been shuttered, battened down, impregnable for so long I don't know any other way.
And it's thinking of love, and the impossibility of it, that brings my mind back to Brys.
Kissing has always been a deeply personal thing for me. Sex is not. When you have been bought and sold and used and discarded like a piece of machinery, sex loses its meaning. But kissing…
I can't say why. I don't know. I’ve never examined it too closely. It's just…intimate. It feels like giving something away, and nothing in life is free.
So why did I kiss Brys in that alley? It was a compulsion, something I could no more control than getting an erection in the morning, or blinking, or breathing. Yet even now, after the delicious things we did together, it's not oral sex I'm thinking of, or the taste of her pussy—as sweet as it was—but her mouth on mine. The delicate touch of her lips. The way she quested against my mouth and then delved in, seeking and probing. The warmth of her mouth, the pillowy softness of her lips, the ache in my soul as she melted against me…those moments, those sensations are imprinted on the very fabric of my soul in a way not even Isabel can hope to compare with.
It's disorienting.
I think of her constantly, but I am not thinking of how I can craft this part of her, change her speech, alter her wardrobe, fine-tune her manners, perfect her diction.
I do not want to change Brys. I do not want to own her or control her.
She is a wild horse, meant to run free. To control her, to bring her to heel, would be to break her, to ruin her.
I won't do that.
More to the point, I have no desire to.
Andthatis the most disorienting thing of all. I am not so blind or unself-aware as to think I am fixed, that my obsessive tendencies have been solved; I am the king of control freaks.
So what is different about Brys?
Why am I different around her?
I told her things I never talk about. She has only to look at me with those strange, hypnotic eyes of hers and she can pry out of me all my secrets—or so it seems. I have kept much back, so far, but if I were to spend more time with her—as I so badly crave—I know all would come out.
And if she knew the whole vile truth of who I am and who I have been, she really would take her chances with the monster in front of me.
Because I am realizing one awful fact: I am a monster as well.
She deserves someone who is capable of softness, of affection, of gentleness. Love. She's willing to play the game, to give me her body and her obedience as long as I do not demand her heart if I am not willing to give her mine as well.
But can I do that?
She would want more—of my time, of my attention, of my secrets, of my vulnerability. She would worm her way into the blackened, shriveled remains of my soul, and her love would die there, malnourished and broken and neglected and abused.
No.
