“What the hell could watching a woman cry at her husband’s grave possibly make you feel?”
He stares me right in the eye. “A lot of things, actually. But envy, mostly.”
“Envy?” I repeat incredulously. “Of what?”
“Meaning that much to someone.”
I wasn’t expecting his answer at all, or his raw honesty. I cross my arms over my chest and stare at him. “I really have no reply for that. I’m sorry.”
“I lost someone too,” he says, looking down at the floor. “I meant what I said yesterday.” He looks back up and meets my eyes. His dark eyes are so full of pain. I wonder if mine look the same way. Is that what people see, when they look at me? “I can help you forget,” he continues. “To help the pain go away.”
“How?”
“Stay here with me. Give yourself to me for a month. Let go of everything … give me control of every part of you. Trust me, it will set you free of all this crap. It will help both of us.”
I back away from him, trying to understand what exactly he’s saying. “I don’t understand … give myself to you? What does that even mean?”
He closes the space between us, taking my hands in his. “Sometimes it’s better if you don’t understand it, and just let yourself feel it as it’s happening. Just let go; don’t think about it. I won’t hurt you. I promise I’ll take care of you and I’ll take it all the fuck away.”
I shake under the intensity of his stare, and his words that could mean a myriad of things. Scary things that happen in the dark. I’ve read about this sort of thing in romance books, and I remember thinking it was sorta scary but also sensually exciting. “Will it be … sexual?” I ask, my voice trembling. I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Yes, some of it. Sometimes I may gently tie you up, so you can’t touch me, and you’re at my mercy to touch, to make you feel, and all you can do is just lie there and enjoy it.” His eyes take on a spark as he describes what he wants. “Or I may command you to touch me, because sometimes it feels good to be told what to do. But more than that. It’s not just about sex. It’s much deeper than that. Much, much deeper.”
“And at the end of the month? Then what?”
“You’ll be stronger, and I will be too. Other than that, we’ll have to see. Neither one of us is in any frame of mind to think that far ahead.”
This isn’t what I was expecting.
I can go back home to the empty house, the loneliness, the overwhelming responsibility of everything, or I can stay here with this mysterious stranger and let him do whatever it is he wants to do that he thinks will help me. Nothing can get worse. I’ve already reached rock bottom with losing my husband, quitting my job, bills piling up, and contemplating suicide daily. Nothing matters to me anymore. This guy could murder me right now and I don’t think I would even care. Or he could fuck me again and make my mind sear into a hot frenzy, as he did last night, and make me forget everything for a little while with his insane body. Plus he has a stash of Valium somewhere in this house, which I can use to implement my original plan of going to sleep forever if this doesn’t go well.
“Alright. I’ll stay.”
Heat flashes in his eyes and he kisses my lips possessively, squeezing my hands tight in his, not letting go.
I return his kisses with equal fervor. Something about him has rattled me. Denying him anything seems like it would be impossible and I’m just too exhausted mentally and physically to question it or him. If he wants to take care of me and take me on some erotic emotional ride, why the hell not? If it changes my life, great. If it doesn’t, then at least I experienced something different and daring, and didn’t take the safe way out.