The King in Red

by Ava Hall

And on the stunning throne sat the King. I just… knew he was the King. I didn’t need to ask or be told. Maybe it was where he was sitting, or because he wore a crown.

“I already said. If I wanted you dead, it would be quite easy to kill you with my bare hands.” “I still don’t trust that you won’t,” I muttered. “To be fair, I don’t trust that I won’t either,” he admitted. I narrowed my gaze at him. “Oh, well, that reassures me. Thanks. You’re so kind.”

“What the hell?! You were watching me?” He laughed and started to sit up himself. “I’ve been watching you from the moment you read that play. So yes, I saw you.”

“I just want to help you get to sleep, little one. Do you not think it would help if you came? Just like you have every other night, when you thought of me? Won’t it make things so much easier?”

The gentle build up, the tension, all culminating in a moment where I gave up control of something that meant so much to me, putting my trust in someone else.

Everything was gentle and soft, but also intentional and powerful. Every touch, every motion, it was all deliberate, and it was all for my pleasure.

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered. The memories of last night, which had been kept at bay by my weird dream, came flooding back. I hadn’t exactly forgotten everything, but I hadn’t fully processed it all either, which meant I was forced to process it now. I was fucked by tentacles.

This was very disappointing. I officially hated being kidnapped in a foreign realm.

“Loneliness is a feeling unlike any other,” he said after a moment. “It’s like an amplifier. It makes the bad things worse. It drives you to the end of your wits and kills anything hopeful inside of you…”

Some of the friends I did have were mean to me, so I don’t like the idea of making new ones who treat me just the same. It’s just a lot of things like that. If it were just one big thing, maybe I could fix it in therapy, but there’s just fundamental parts of who I am that everyone collectively decided didn’t interest them.”

“Um… Sorry,” I muttered, crossing my arms again. “I talk too much, so… I try not to do that.” “What?” he asked, his voice strange and tight. I looked up at him and saw his mask wrinkled again. “Who told you that you talk too much?” “Hm? Uh, my mom.” I looked back down. “Little one.” He put his hand on my shoulder again. “If I ask a question, I want an answer. A good answer. That was a good answer.”

“So… the night before, and then last night, when we… when we were together, you used your tentacles.” He moved closer to me, so I was able to glance over at him as I started washing the dish. “Do you have a penis? At all? Or is that how you… have sex?”

🤭🫣

He finished the song and in the end, the two lovers died so they could be together. The song called it a tragedy, and logically, it was. But it took me a moment to realize that as my emotions crescendoed with the words.

Wonder if this is going to be their end🤔😥 I hope not!

"You're going to finish first, little one. I want you to come apart on my cock."

"I can tell you how soft and tight your pussy is and how hard it makes my cock. That as much as I want to care for you and pamper you, you still make me feel absolutely feral. I'm afraid I might break you, that's how badly I want you."

“No matter where you go in the world, I will be watching you, little one. I will never leave you, no matter how far apart we feel. I promise.”

I was wearing the fucking silver nightgown he’d given me last night! It had to be real!

And it was in this dream, with the beautiful, intelligent, sweet, fiery woman that the King realized how consuming love is. It eats your old self away until it doesn’t exist anymore. In its place is left only a partial thing, a thing that can’t survive on its own anymore. No matter how solitary, how alone, how isolated you were before, you can never fully go back there again, not without feeling like the world is crashing down around you. But with that love comes something the King couldn’t remember feeling for a long time. Responsibility. When you love someone, it becomes your responsibility to care for them, to provide for them, and to make sure that they have everything in life that they deserve. And Jade… deserved far better than a monstrous King.

“I should never dare to dream that you could love me too, So I could never keep you as my captive. But know, my dream, the life that has been set apart for you Is one that I am proud to get to act in.”

If I read the play again, and again, and again, he’d know that I wanted to come back and he would bring me home. Home… I thought about that word as I started yanking shit out and tossing it all on the floor. Home was a strange concept. I never felt comfortable in my home, and that was the place you were supposed to feel comfortable, right? It was the place where everything was safe and okay… and I’d never felt that anywhere. Anywhere except with him.

“Take off the mask if you want to come home.”

“I love you, King,” I whispered against the cover of the book. All of a sudden, I felt arms around me. I felt his chest, and I leaned into him. Home… I was home…

“I love you,” I whispered again when I pulled away. “I love you so much. I never want to leave again. I don’t care about the nightmares, they’re worth it. I’ll take them if it means that I can have you.”

“I missed you so much,” I whispered. He leaned over me and stroked my hair. “I missed you too, Jade… And I’ll never let you go again.”