Pen Pal

by J.T. Geissinger

Oh, how I’d like to take his quote and give him papercuts with it all up and down his arms.

“You say that like negotiating is your favorite thing.” “It is.” “Hmm. I would’ve guessed charming potential clients with your dazzling sense of humor.” “No. That’s my second favorite thing.”

Ha!

“We’ve already established I don’t have a sense of humor.” “If you’re going to come down by one dollar every time we go back and forth, we’ll be here until next year.” His gaze is level and his voice is cool. “You got somewhere else to be, Kayla?”

Heehee

The son of a bitch just checkmated me.

Ha!

There’s a funny sensation inside my chest. Like a tightening, but also a loosening at the same time. I’m pretty sure it means I’m about to do something I’ll regret.

“Is this what you need, baby? You like it rough? Or do you want me to recite some poetry and make you a cup of fucking tea?”

“I’m gonna devour you, little bunny rabbit, piece by tasty piece. I’m going to eat. You. Up.”

His entire body tenses. His eyes, already so dark, turn black. His nostrils flare, and I swear to God, Aidan disappears, replaced in an instant by a predator. A dangerous, beautiful predator, poised to shred me to bits with sharp teeth.

I know this is all part of the game. I’m the mouse and he’s the cat, and he wants me to give him permission to rip my guts out and eat me. But mice don’t give cats permission to eat them, and neither will I.

“Your little bunny worked up an appetite from getting fucked so well by her big bad lion.”

How naïve we are when we’re young. How easily we trust that the sun will keep rising and setting, warming our days. And what a terrible blow it is to discover it isn’t the sun that makes things bright, but the people who love us, so that when they’re gone, everything is plunged into darkness.

Hindsight is a real bitch sometimes.

Ain’t it though!

Dealing with men is like dealing with a hostile alien species who crash-landed on the planet and decided our language and customs are too silly to be bothered with, and henceforth we should be treated with mild disdain and/or as objects of occasional sexual release before being ignored as inferior beings again.

I don’t know what his strange performance was all about yesterday, but I do know that I’m not going to reward him for running off after insisting I show him all my cards. Isn’t that just typical, though? The minute you start talking about feelings, men suddenly go deaf and mute. It’s like their superpower.

“Everything. I want every fucking thing you have to give me, Kayla. And I want you to give it to me without hesitation. Without question. And without regret.”

“Here in this bed, this is what happens: I give. You take. You’ll take and you’ll take until you break, then you’ll beg me to break you all over again.”

🥵 well

“You heard me. And from now on, I expect you to obey an order the first time I give it.”

“I wish you knew how perfect you are. How different and perfect. I’ve never met anyone like you. Whenever we’re together, I feel like a new man. A better man. Like everything bad that’s ever happened to me doesn’t matter anymore because your sweet smile takes it all away.”

“Fuck my mouth,” he orders. “Ride my face, baby. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Got damn!

A strange pause follows. It seems fraught. “I entered the code.” “How did you know what code to enter?” Another strange pause follows. She asks hesitantly, “How do you think I know it?” Oh shit. I told her the code, that’s how she knows it. I told her and forgot. I pass a hand over my face and exhale. “Because I gave it to you. Of course I did. Sorry.”

But did she though?

Then the overhead lights turn themselves off and on three times, like a smug supernatural fuck-you.

“Hell is a state of mind, my dear. Reality is simply what we believe it to be. Each of us makes our own truths, even ghosts.”

Fiona... I don’t know if you’re insightful or creepy

I learned that love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive. But most of all, love means sacrifice. Whatever love asks of you must be given, no matter the price.

I melt. I melt like a Popsicle dropped onto hot asphalt on a blistering summer day. All other thoughts but of him fly out of my head.

I want it. I need it. I need him to impale me on it and fuck me senseless as he growls filthy things into my ear and perfumes my skin with his scent as he grinds against my body.

“I know you think I’m strong. But the problem with strong things is that they’re brittle. They can’t bend under stress. They just break.”

“I’m only amazing when I’m with you. The rest of the time, I’m nobody.”

It’s incredible how many different people one body can hold. We all walk around with a thousand strangers inside us, slumbering quietly until someone else wakes them up. Like the jolt of electricity that reanimated Frankenstein’s monster, all it takes for our sleeping giants to jump to life is a single spark.

On the ground below the window lies the lifeless body of a blue jay. Its neck is bent at an unnatural angle. Its legs extend stiffly out from the trunk, talons curved like claws. Its black eyes stare sightlessly up at me.