35. Mina

THIRTY-FIVE

mina

The drive is long and quiet. Brian is tense, and I’m tense because he’s tense. Finally it’s too much for me.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

His grip tightens on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “No, I am not fucking okay.”

He sounds broken, and I don’t know what to do with this version of Brian. Nor do I understand it. It can’t be killing those guys. Even with the chainsaw, in a lot of ways it was standard operating procedure for Brian—even if it got a little weird.

My hand strays to rest on his thigh. One of his hands leaves the steering wheel and covers mine.

“Now do you understand why I don’t trust myself to fuck you?” he asks, his tone grave.

“Not really, no.”

“Mina, for fuck’s sake, you were crying, and I just kept fucking you. Those weren’t tears of pleasure. I didn’t even care. I heard it, and I didn’t care, I just wanted to be inside you and mark you as mine. This compulsive need to mark you is going to get you killed. I was punishing you because I was so angry that you’d let Gregor touch you, that you’d been fooled by him. Even though I know it’s irrational, and you didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t trust myself and how possessive I am of you. I don’t trust your safety with me.”

“They were tears of relief,” I say. “I wasn’t upset you were fucking me.”

He pulls his hand away from mine and puts it back on the steering wheel. It seems to take his every ounce of self-control to do this.

“Oh, that’s so much better, Mina. You were relieved I wasn’t about to chainsaw massacre you, so rough fucking was just fine by comparison.”

I remain quiet because there’s nothing I can say to deny his accusation. I had been afraid he was going to kill me with that chainsaw.

“You weren’t yourself. You were out of control.”

“Yeah. I know. I was there. Once again, this is why I don’t trust myself to fuck you. This is why the only way we can do it is if you chain me up like the rabid dog I am. You have no idea the fucked-up thoughts that were spinning through my mind when I was chasing you. Nothing will ever make tonight okay, so don’t fucking try to sugarcoat it. Don’t forgive me or act like it’s no big deal because it’s a very big fucking deal. You not being traumatized by it, doesn’t change the wrongness of my end of it.”

“So, what? Are you going to break up with me?” I ask. I’m being a smart ass, but I don’t like how it feels like he’s pulling away, like he wants to shelve our entire relationship because he doesn’t trust himself. What about what I want?

“Never,” he growls.

“Well okay then.”

Another couple of miles of dark interstate passes by the windows before I speak again.

“I liked it.”

“Mina, don’t say that.”

“I did. I liked you all wild and primal and dark. I didn’t think you would ever hurt me. I just knew something strange had happened to you. I wasn’t sure YOU were in control, but as long as you are in control of you, I trust you. I trust us.”

“You shouldn’t. I’m a wild animal. I should be locked away in a cage.”

I sigh and stare out the window. We don’t speak again for the rest of the ride back to the house. It’s late when we get back. A couple of Jack-o-Lanterns glow on the front porch. I hear shrieks and screams outside, but they aren’t horror movie screams. They’re the sounds of people playing out by the pool.

Brian and I walk around to the side of the house. There’s a raging bonfire in the back, a nighttime picnic set up with burgers and hot dogs, and lots of splashing in the heated pool under halloween orange lights that have been strung all around it.

Brian leans in and whispers in my ear, “Wouldn’t you have rather been at this party than the one you ended up at with me?”

“No,” I say, and go back to the front door. I hold the door open for Brian so he can carry our bags in.

We go down to the incinerator first and burn the bag with the bloody clothes. Then we stand in our shared dungeon room and just stare at each other. It’s as though we’re suddenly strangers, and I hate it. I hate this distance he’s put between us. He may mean to protect me, but it only hurts me.

“Brian…” I start to move closer to him. I want to close this distance between us before it becomes a sinkhole that swallows us both.

He shakes his head and holds up a hand as though warding me away. “Mina, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to punish me. For tonight.”

“I told you, I’m not upset about tonight.”

“Yeah? Well I am. And I’m not ever going to get the fuck over it until I feel like I’ve paid for what I did to you.”

“You didn’t do anything to me!”

The muscle in Brian’s jaw clenches. “You know that’s not true. So will you do it?”

He holds my gaze, and there is so much pleading in his eyes. I’ve thought about this before. Not punishing him quite like this, and not domming him in the standard way, but giving him release from some of his demons. I know the power of that dungeon when used appropriately and the catharsis that can come when given the space to cry without someone asking ‘What’s wrong?’

I want to give that to Brian, because although I don’t believe he deserves to be punished, I know he needs this for his own reasons.

“Will things go back to normal between us if I do?”

His dark gaze holds mine for a long time until finally he nods.

“Okay.”

He lets out a breath. “Okay.”

He walks past me out of our room.

“What? Right now?”

“Yes, right now, Mina. I need this right fucking now.”

I follow him into Cell A, and he’s already stripping down. When he’s fully bare, he walks with purpose to the St. Andrew’s Cross. He looks over his shoulder at me, a question in his gaze.

I let out a long breath. I can’t believe we’re here, that he isn’t just letting me punish him, but actively asking for it. I don’t know how to feel about any of this. I just need for things to go back the way they were between us before tonight.

I cross the room and secure his arms and legs. I trail my fingertips over the scars of his back—scars stretched and faded by time, given to him in his childhood. I press a kiss over one of the cigarette burn marks.

“What do you want me to use?” I ask quietly.

“Lady’s choice.”

I go to the large box of toys and implements and scan the various crops, whips and floggers hanging on hooks on the wall.

“Mina?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember how you were that day with the less impressive Matsumoto?”

I snort at this description. “Yes.”

“I need you to be her.”

“Okay.”

I don’t know what I’m going to use, but I feel so exposed with Brian watching me, so I take a black length of cloth from the box. I blindfold him and run my fingertip along his jawline.

“Let’s let it be a surprise,” I whisper.

I’m also offering him space and privacy for this. It’s not lost on me the enormous amount of trust he’s placing in me right now, to allow himself to be this vulnerable, to so utterly and completely reverse our roles—even if for only a moment.

Things have been different with us for a long time. I don’t think either of us truly sees me as his slave anymore. It’s an act we put on for the house—something which preserves Brian’s reputation. It’s a role I’m more than willing to play with the man who saved me in every way a person could be saved.

In private we’re partners in crime, and in the bedroom the power flows back and forth between us with ease. But this is something else entirely. It’s not the playful way we’ve been together, and I feel a duty to Brian to take this seriously. He’s seeking penance, absolution, for a supposed crime I’ve already forgiven him for, but I’m worried he won’t be able to forgive himself.

I run my fingertips over the supple leather of one of the whips. I select one and cross back over to Brian. I just stand there and stare at his back, hypnotized by the criss-crossing scars.

A long time passes.

“Mina?”

“I can’t do this.”

I expect him to get angry, but he just seems defeated as though the last hope of salvation has just passed him by. He’s still blindfolded, and I take this moment to caress his jawline and kiss him. He opens to me and groans against my mouth. I know there are words bubbling to the surface, things he wants to say, but I keep him busy with my tongue’s steady invasion.

Then I release him from the Saint Andrew’s Cross and guide him back to our room.

I turn back to see him about to remove the blindfold.

“No,” I say, my voice clipped and sharp.

I wait to see if he’ll do as I ask. His free hand drops back to his side and he follows me where I guide him.

“Sit,” I say, when he’s in front of the bed, and he does.

I put the vinyl record on the turn table. The sound crackles gently just before Chopin’s Nocturne number 2 begins to play.

I go to Brian’s dresser and pull out clothes. I help him get dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants and then socks and running shoes.

“Mina… running won’t help this.”

“Brian? Do I need to gag you?”

He hesitates a moment, but then shakes his head. He tenses when I sit on the bed beside him.

“I like the games we play,” I begin. “I like that they flow in both directions now, but there is something light and playful about it. What you’re asking me to do… I understand the logic behind it, and I thought I could do it for you, but I’m not willing to be your stepmother.”

“That’s not…”

“Yes it is.”

Brian has been closed off for years, buried under the sociopathy that still protects that small boy inside him. But I’m not going to make him feel again with pain. I’m not going to be the next person who hurts him, no matter the justification.

I take his hand in mine. “I don’t want our relationship to be based on hurting each other. There’s no justification for this, and I’m not going to re-traumatize you based on some psychobabble armchair amateur shrink theories about healing through pain. I know you’ve done a lot of bad things, and I don’t expect that to change. We both are what we both are at this point, but what we have together is different. It’s special. And I’m not going to break that tonight over some misguided notion of you paying for a crime I haven’t convicted you of.”

“I carved the word Mine into your back, Mina. All we understand is pain.”

“I know, but it was more about the marking than the pain. Did you do it because you like hurting me?”

I study his face, watching as he seems to be thinking it through to give me the real answer.

“No,” he finally says.

“No. So let’s go run.”

“Running won’t fix this,” he says again.

I remove the blindfold and stare into his eyes. He doesn’t try to look away. I don’t think he realizes that I’m the only person he can do this with. Sure, he’ll stare people down until they avert their gaze, but it’s intimidation, not trust, not vulnerability.

I cross to my dresser and pull out my own gym clothes. He watches me as I change. I turn off the record, which has long since moved onto another Chopin piece. I extend my hand to him, he takes it, and we quietly go upstairs to the gym.

The party is still going on out at the pool. No one even knows we’ve returned to the house. We run together on the treadmill, and then I take him to the kitchen and make him some scrambled eggs just like he did for me the first time he shared this ritual with me—and many times after. Then we shower together, and by the time we’re lying in bed, he seems more calm.

He moves up closer to me, his head leaned on my shoulder.

“We’re going to be okay,” I say.

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. I love you, Brian.” I hate that the first time I said these words to him was when I thought he was about to let me die. But I’d needed him to know.

He’s silent. I wish I could read the thoughts and fears inside his head. I know he can’t say the words back, but a part of me believes he feels them even if he’s never able to say them out loud. He reaches out and grips my hand in his, his thumb stroking slow circles over my skin.

And for now, that’s enough.