Debt

by Nina G. Jones

“Don’t you just love unsolicited advice from people who don’t have their own shit together? She’s trying to get you hitched and she can’t keep a guy to save her life.”

It’s hard to be both uncivilized and normal with the same person.

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?

“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.

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.

And for now, here in this living room, I forget about the vendetta, and I just let us be: Tax and Mia.

“This changes nothing, Mia. Do yourself a favor, don’t convince yourself that I am a nice guy, or that I can receive love. I am not a good person and you will be sorely disappointed. I’m only using you. I don’t care how you feel.”

But whenever I get horny, which is pretty much all the time, I gaze at the contacts list on my phone and it’s that feeling I imagine women talk about when they look at a closet full of clothes and have nothing to wear. My cock keeps whispering: “Mia’s pussy. Mia’s pussy, please.”

“You’re the perfect little whore, but you’re my fucking whore,”

You need someone who is strong enough for you. No one has ever kept your interest. You need that guy who is going to give you a run for your money. Someone who keeps you on your toes. You never needed a man to define you, but it’s nice to have someone you can lean on and be vulnerable with. You are a strong, successful woman, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone equally strong to take you on.”

She meets my rage with a weapon more powerful: acceptance.

This man who is so terrifying in and of himself, is petrified of intimacy. Anytime I get close, he bites.

“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.”

Mia’s not trying to change me, and that is what is so incredible about her. In fact, she wants all of me as I am. I have never had that with a woman before. I have only used fragments of my identity to achieve my goal: sex, money, or domination. But Mia craves that dark side of me, a carnal side that devours as it fucks. And yet, she brings out a side of me that wants to safeguard, to share, to express. The more I do of the latter, the more she craves the former. The shadows cannot exist without the light. For fourteen years I have only lurked in the pitch black corners of my psyche. Mia pulls me out even if it’s just to peer out of the dark and remember what it was like to bask in the glow of something good. And Mia gets to peer into her own dark corners with me. For so long, I kept to one end of that dichotomy, not allowing myself the full spectrum of heat that comes with someone who makes you feel safe enough to become truly dangerous.

Mia’s affection doesn’t change that I am a psychopath, but it gives my urges a purpose, a way to be productive, not just destructive.

She is a miracle: loving enough to care for an asshole like me, and yet she has dark urges of her own.

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

I will always own a piece of her. And some part of me knows that the best parts of me and the best parts of Mia can make something — someone — amazing. Mia will always be the one, even if I can’t have 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.”

But it’s not just about sex. Because I don’t want anyone else. I never have ached before when someone walked out the door. I never felt the need to protect. I never wanted to just sit around and do nothing with someone else since the first time I met Mia as a teenager. That is, until I met Mia again.