Debt

by Nina G. Jones

It’s 2am and I am lurking on the deep web for a male prostitute to mock-rape me. This calls for more wine.

Reckless. Irresponsible. Dirty. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Erotic. Wild. Euphoric. How can one thing be all of those? How can peering into the gutter of my soul feel like I just touched heaven?

“My name is Tax Draconi. You can just call me Tax.” “What kind of a name is Tax?” “It’s the name of a person who always collects a debt,”

I can’t wait to destroy the look of fierceness she has in her eyes right now. I am going to piss all over her fire.

“Don’t fucking act like you don’t like this shit Mia. I know you want someone to dirty you up. I’ll make you fucking filthy. Now, show me.

I clench my fists, so badly wanting to feel the warm skin of his chest, the stubble of his chin against my palm. But he won’t let me get that close. Because he hates me. Well, these days, I hate me too.

I have never liked or even loved anyone the way I hate Tax Draconi. But that hate is so strong, it sometimes morphs into other feelings.

Hate can become so ingrained in you that it becomes part of your identity, your psyche. You define yourself with that hatred, so that if it leaves and there is nothing else to replace it, you lose a piece of yourself. I think when you feel anything strong enough it becomes its opposite. I think you can love someone so hard that you hate them. And I think you can hate someone so hard you grow attached. That’s why some people spend their whole lives hating someone they repeatedly invite into their lives: they don’t even know who they are without it.

I think you can’t truly loathe someone unless you care. Because not to...

But just as soon as fear hits, I smell him, his signature aroma, his musky cologne, and I feel...relief. Relief because he is the devil I know.

He reaches forward and rips my blouse open. I learned on week three to always pack a spare.

My dad used to warn me that the devil doesn’t have horns and a pitchfork, he’ll appear as the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. He’ll make you laugh. He’ll make you feel good. You’ll do things you never thought you would, but he’ll tell you it’s okay. And before you know it, you’ve sold your soul to him. That’s how I know Tax is my devil.

This man is my stalker, my terrorizer, my lover.

The truth is I don’t want to date. Because in some fucked up way, I feel like I already am dating someone: The guy who I see every Tuesday morning, who hates me, or maybe he doesn’t.

If he didn’t want more, fine. But I know he does, and while I can let him use my body as a toy, I won’t let him use my soul as one.

Despite this man making it a point to dehumanize me, I continue to seek humanity in him.

His touch ignites my body with arousal, and I begin to morph from disciplined president of Alea-Mia, into dirty, begging, sex slave Mia, wanting nothing more than for the man beside me to bend me over and take me.

“Because as soon as I leave after having you, I want you again. And then even when I have that, it’s not enough. When I see another man look at you the way I do, I want to kill him. I want to swallow you. I want to consume you. I want to possess you. I want you.”

“I want more.”

“You crazy bitch,” he says with a smirk. “You wanna fuck like animals? I’ll fuck you like an animal. You’ll howl like a motherfucking animal.”

How cute...she thinks I take no for an answer. How cute? Fuuuuuck, I need to go wrestle a rabid bear or some shit.

You aren’t a Director of Operations anymore, you are the fucking President. You’re taking the afternoon off. Don’t forget, I still own your ass.”

“I don’t want to start over. I like my life. And I won’t go anywhere without you,” I vow.

Killing her would only be punishing myself. For the first time, I can see a future beyond the vendetta.

It’s come full circle: the girl who set me on the path of destruction can be my redemption.

Hell, that was kind of sexy, the way she purred that business jargon like a hot little shark.

This vendetta stopped being about justice a long time ago. I am no longer human. I don’t have a soul.

You are a coward, Tax. You might mistake my kindness for weakness, or my understanding for foolishness, but you have me all wrong. You are a bully. You might be tall, and strong, and have money, but inside you are frail. You don’t have the balls to allow yourself to get hurt.

I keep pushing her away, trying to get her to safety and she keeps running back into the burning house to grab me.

Sil got to know what it was like to fall in love because of her. Tax knew what it was like to loathe because of her.

“I’m a harsh person. I say mean things even when I don’t mean to. If another guy lays a hand on you, I’ll break it. I don’t make love, or have sex, I fuck. Sometimes hard. Sometimes brutally. I don’t get upset, I fuck shit up. I don’t play well with others.”

You are a good person, you should find a good person.” The words are pointless, because I know she doesn’t give a shit. She’s made up her mind. “I already have,’ she says, her soft lips kissing the snakes on my neck.

Even if I learned to love someone else for who they were, they would never be Tax. Even if I married someone else, I would feel like a widow, my life always overshadowed by the ghost of Tax’s memory.

If Mia’s gone, I will make Jude pay. Not by killing her, but making her watch me kill myself. There is no bigger price for Jude to pay, than to lose me after trying so desperately to keep me in her grasp.

He’s light and dark, forgiveness and vengeance, beauty and ugliness. He’s all those things. My beautiful savage. And even savages protect their young.

We are the thing of beauty created from catastrophe. We are the light burning bright, forged from an impossible collection of coincidences.