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“What’s your name?” I ask again breathlessly. “Ronaldo.” “Do you want to hurt me, Ronaldo?” “Never,” he answers. “I only want to cherish you, Genevieve.” “How do you know my name?” “I know everything about you. Just as I know you will love me, too.”
I’m not only riveted by her. I’m possessed by a need to have her. And she must be mine.
I’d love nothing more than to be consumed by her words, no matter how they greet me. Whether it’s through those red-stained lips or from her delicate hands. I want to know every facet of her, every centimeter of her—mind, body, and soul.
She plagues my mind, infecting it like a parasite and overriding any autonomy over myself. My free will is indebted to her, and without her, I am nothing.
It’s physically painful for me to walk away from her, but I know that I must. I’m a bad man, but I won’t be her monster. No. I want to be her savior.
my phantom.
If Genevieve is my end, then I open the door to death with no hesitation.
“I want you so badly, it hurts to breathe without you near,” he whispers softly, finally—finally—gracing me with his voice.
“Because you possess my lungs, as you do my heart, Genevieve. And I intend to take yours for myself,”
“What’s your name?” I ask again breathlessly. “Ronaldo.” “Do you want to hurt me, Ronaldo?” “Never,” he answers. “I only want to cherish you, Genevieve.” “How do you know my name?” “I know everything about you. Just as I know you will love me, too.”
All I could think about was what his lips would feel like on my own. My imagination did not do it justice. When he kissed me, I flew into the stars. I don’t think I’ve come back down yet.
“I call you my rose because for you, I would take all your pain so you would suffer none,” I tell her softly. “I would go through hell for you. Die for you. Do anything you asked. I love you, mia rosa. More than you will ever know.”
“Lift up for me, love,”
“When you become the ocean, I will gladly sink into you, mia rosa.”
“I would follow you anywhere, Genevieve. If you were standing at the edge of the earth and wanted to fall, I would only stop you long enough to take hold of your hand so I could go with you. There isn’t a life where I wouldn’t be your phantom, or a death where I wouldn’t be your reaper.”
“What makes you think I’d run?” I ask, my voice hardly above a whisper. “How do you know I wouldn’t beg for the things you want to do to me?”
“You think you’ll scare me—that you’ll make me scream. Yet screaming for you is exactly what I would love to do, Ronaldo.”
I fear he has created an insatiable monster, and now he must live with the consequences. A mad woman, he has made me. But if this is madness, I don’t ever want to be sane.
“There is nothing more divine than a cunt that weeps. It would be an honor to taste you, Genevieve.”
“We can go as slow as you wish, mia rosa, but my love is as gentle as it is fierce. And when it comes to your pleasure, my needs are insatiable,” he warns. “Even when you’re begging for mercy, I will still hunger for more. And I will take it.”
“You beg for me like a whore, Genevieve,” he murmurs. I should be insulted, yet his tone suggests that he’s entranced by my brazenness. I lift my chin, boldly holding his stare as I demand, “So fuck me like one.”
I lean closer to her ear. “No, mia rosa, not even God can have you,” I growl. “You’re mine, and you will only pray to me.”
“Now crawl to me, mia rosa.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to only love you in the dark when you deserve to be loved in the light?”
“I am destined to love you from the shadows, mia rosa,” he says quietly. “I will never be more than your phantom.”
“There will never be another, nor will I live a life without you. Death awaits us all, Genevieve. Even still, it will not keep me from you.”
Gigi and Ronaldo are dancing to Frank Sinatra in front of my fireplace, gazing at one another with so much love, it makes my heart ache.
