Jeremiah Quick (14 page)

She never touched the drug again. She didn't
dare.

After that it was all fake smiles and
poetry, a friend or two to tell stories to, and that series of
pathetic boys who would never know her, never love her, never
care.

Chapter 12

T
he door opening,
and Jeremiah's hands stroking her back, her hair, and again she
cried tears for his tenderness. And again he wrenched her head back
and ate them, before leaving ten stripes of pain across her
buttocks.
Yes, Jeremiah, punish me. I deserve it. Oh, you don't
even know how I deserve it.

Chocolate again.

More water.

More alone.

More silence.

This couldn't go on. She would fucking lose
it.

His silence was killing her.

She would go crazy without noise. She didn't
want to remember these things, these hurts, these losses.

Sulking in the car with Drew – sad, sad
Drew, who was slipping further and further away.
Come back,
please. I can fix you. I can love you enough to fix you. I
promise
.

But like the birds of her childhood – the
fucking fragile baby birds she killed over and over again trying to
save– she was wrong.

She slammed her head against the shit-brown
plastic mattress, wishing Jeremiah had tied her to the table. Fuck.
Fuck. Wanted to slam, to feel the thud, the hurt wash over her,
into her – hurt, hurt for Drew, for the birds, for the fucking
bitch in college who broke her heart and killed her.

I want a lover I don't have to love.
The band called Bright Eyes. The metallic notes clanged in her
head, one, two, three, four, ding, ding, ding, ding…
you write
such pretty words
…

Oh, Jeremiah, don't make me relive it,
any of it. Please
.

That bitch in college, Laughing Girl. Fuck.
Pretty loved her – beyond sense, beyond all reason, wormed into her
heart, her blood, the very fiber of her fucking soul, part of her,
existing under her skin, filling the hole… perfectly.

That was the trouble.

Laughing Girl filled the hole. All by
herself. And that NEVER happened – before or since. Not ever.

And when she left, ripped herself away – she
tore a brand new hole inside of Pretty, one that never stopped
bleeding.

In the silence she could hear it. Drip.
Drip. Trickle.

The longer the silence, the louder the
bleeding, until it was snow melting and rushing downstream, the
roar of a waterfall just out of sight – the crashing ugly noise of
her fucking bleeding soul.

She stopped trying to slam her head and
instead curled her hands into fists, forcing fingernails into
palms, wishing they were longer. Ahh… hurt, hurt, hurt so
pretty.

In the silence Pretty could hear Laughing
Girl's laughter, see her mischievous blue eyes laughing, laughing –
she always laughed the hardest when Pretty was so exasperated she
thought she would explode. A daughter, two young sons, Pretty's
life threaded through their grasping little fingers – need you,
need you, need you… the girl she was, the woman she wanted to be,
sinking in the quicksand of need.

Pretty's husband – the saint – he knew how
intense Laughing Girl was, and so, so carefully asked for nothing
that Pretty took his love for granted. She did that even now
sometimes. Otherwise how could she have left them and gone off with
Jeremiah Quick?

She counted him too stable, too steady, too
unemotional, and didn't give him credit for his own pain.

Stupid.

The silence was screaming Laughing Girl's
laughter now, and Pretty could see her pause to catch her breath,
her lower teeth capturing her top lip, dragging it just enough to
stretch the scar, pull, chew, and then another laugh.

Laughing Girl was… so much everything Pretty
wished to be that she could hardly think about it. Brutally honest.
Bold. Brave. Pretty didn't want to even think her name, in case it
seared into the silence and refused to leave, ever. But too
late.

CallieJo CallieJo CallieJo.

There you go, Jeremiah. Now you have her
name. Summon her. Please.

Take the dark magick, all your heart and all
my heart, the darkness between us, and make her come back. Beg her
to come back, if that's what it takes.

In Pretty's imagination, CallieJo smiled and
laughed and loved Pretty back.

But that's not what happened.

All Pretty ever did was love with her
everything, and trust and risk.

She gave Laughing Girl everything, and… used
her up.

Because that's what happened. It was always
what happened.

I am destruction
.

Birds. Drew. Laughing Girl. Jeremiah.

And more, but Pretty's mind rebelled and
threw up barriers, stopped the assault. But that didn't stop
Jeremiah from being next. Wouldn't. Couldn't.

Why can no one, ever, be content?

Why couldn't Pretty be content? Is it the
human condition to be always seeking the next thing? Is that why
she was here with Jeremiah?

The only one Pretty never crushed was the
one she left at home. Something about him was stronger than her
need, stronger than her obsession. She didn't know what made him
strong, or why she never used him up, wore him out. Was it… their
ability to separate and come together again? Or that he pushed her
to be more? He not only expected her to be herself, he demanded it.
Don't lie to me, Letty, ever, because then what would be the
point of any of this?
He didn't say that out loud, of course he
didn't. But it was there, in every interaction, in the curve of his
arm around her belly, the brush of a kiss on her shoulder, the way
his tongue traced the lines of her tattoos.
My wife.
Mine
.

They chose each other, every time. Through
hurts and happiness and flirtation and infatuation.

The ghosts of the lost were loud in this
silence. The inability to use her voice to influence Jeremiah Quick
was part of it … all the thoughts building up, filling her brain,
spinning and spinning.

She was wishing she could turn them off when
Jeremiah Quick returned. She didn't know it, but he would turn them
off for her, in the most unimaginable way.

She would be frightened, but she'd learn
something important, too.

Flogger tails thud, and sting, but the
rhythm also soothes – and pain makes the brain stop thinking,
settles the thoughts until the thoughts can do nothing but think
about the pain.

It was just another tool, but one that
Jeremiah wielded well.

And those people Pretty lost and all the
regrets she had would fade away until there was nothing except the
thudding of her own heart and the flick of whiptails against her
skin… and somehow all of this becomes… bliss.

Chapter 13

S
he.

She hates my silence.

Hates that we are both silent.

She thinks we're not communicating.

Yeah, this could make me laugh. I
remember sometimes being frustrated with her, that she talked so
much, such endless and inane chatter, that she didn't stop
to
listen
.

My silence is hard for her, frustrates her. I can
see that. I wonder if it's harder than her own?

Silence seems to keep her
off-balance. I will keep it a while longer.

I have to hurt her, more and soon,
because I can't throw her into the ritual without preparation,
can't be that cruel. Sometimes I wish I could explain it to her,
but I think the magick will be stronger if I don't, if she figures
it out and comes into understanding it on her own.

I know this inherently, and accept
it as truth. I will know the right times to give information and
the times to withhold. I have to trust myself about
this.

She.

She's Light, not stupid. Not even ignorant, I don't
think.

I'm not cruel, and I don't want to hurt her, but on
some deep level, I know I don't have a choice, and on an even
deeper level, I will enjoy it. I will.

I need her dependent, grateful, trusting.

I need to teach her how to take pleasure from
pain.

I need to show her a lot more Dark
than she's ever seen before.

Chapter 14

T
he next time
Jeremiah came back, something was different. He brought a smell
with him, something warm and comforting, wholesome, sweet.

But first a trip to the bathroom. Pretty was
surprised how weak her legs were, how much she had to lean on him,
depend on him.

How quickly it happens, yes? Did he know
that? She supposed he did.

It didn't even seem strange anymore that she
was naked and he wasn't.

He was in makeup again, reds instead of
blues, a swoosh of glitter beneath his right eye, different, and
yet somehow the same.

After the bathroom he walked her past the
bed and across the space, right up to the St. Andrew's cross, a
standing X made of wood that was taller than both of them. It was
on a base of some sort, free-standing in a large enough space to
allow for circling around it. There were cuffs and straps, and a
mirror opposite, so Pretty could see her face, could see Jeremiah
standing behind her.

He directed her with pressing, pushing
hands, and she was obedient. He secured her to the wood, wrists
slightly above her head, her upper chest pressed against just the
spot where the beams crossed, her back and backside exposed,
available for his torture. A part of her felt detached, as if she
stood off to the side, or viewed these goings on from a chair in a
quiet corner.

She knew the exact bunch and crack of his
knuckles, found familiarity in the curl of every finger. There was
a surreal sense of knowing, a feeling of déjà vu that had no
context, as if she'd lived this exact moment before, but had
forgotten it, and needed to learn this lesson all over again.

She had no idea what to expect, now, and was
at first startled when he held the spoon to her lips. It was… some
kind of grain cereal, warm and sweet, comforting. She didn't know
how many days she'd been here, didn't know how long it had been
since she'd eaten anything other than bites of chocolate. The
emptiness of her belly grew into a loud, growling need.

He fed her a few spoonfuls, less than she
wanted, but probably all that her empty stomach could handle. He
had another bottle of water, and this he let trickle into her
mouth, and she swallowed and swallowed until it was gone.

He turned away, set the bowl on the table,
and rattled around behind her for a short while, and the sound of
his footsteps on the floor, the opening and closing of drawers, was
so much better than the endless silence that Pretty almost gave him
more tears.

When he came back, he draped something with
many heavy soft strands over her left shoulder, and she cut her
eyes that direction, tilted her head, and saw a thick set of brown
flogger tails. Was this to be the rest of her punishment? How many
were left now, just ten? Had she earned further punishment with the
ten on her backside? She didn't know, couldn't remember. Silence
was still terrible, but was starting to feel almost normal. She
didn't even have to fight away the words anymore.

His hands kneaded the flesh of her back, a
deep massage, soothing and warming her. It went on until she was
almost swaying on her feet, drowsing in her bindings, her whole
body relaxed and leaning back, trying to lean into him, longing to
feel his arms around her, not just his hands on her skin.

The flogger tails slipped from her shoulder,
and she could hear them brushing softly together as he did
something behind her. When the tails struck the wood beside her,
she flinched and let out a voiceless gasp.

He struck the wood a few more times, as if
warming up his arm.

And then he flung the flogger over her
shoulder again, and walked away. Her half-starved brain sucked up
every sound. A click. Groaning hinges, rustle, rustle. Thump.

And then he appeared in front of her, almost
smiling, almost making her smile, because he was wearing the old,
old jacket, the one with the spikes, and it took her back in time,
her heart soaring at the sight of him – yes! This. Her friend and
teacher. Jeremiah.

He cupped her cheek with his left hand, and
for just those few seconds, looked like he wasn't lonely.

His mouth came close, his breath warm
against her lips, and an eternity of waiting happened between the
breath and the kiss.

And then it was... just as it had been. The
scent of autumn in her memory, bonfires. Hot coals and embers. The
first touch of his lips burned, a kind of shock to her system, and
as he pressed his tongue between her lips, she gasped an inhale,
her eyes closing for a half a second, then opening to see his
irises morph into a darker shade of blue as he exhaled, letting her
breathe him in. He leaned toward her, jacket spikes clicking
against the wood, a hundred pressure-points that she longed to feel
against her skin.

His hand came up to hold her chin between
thumb and finger, and his tongue danced a cool swirl against hers,
a firmer press in, the feel of his teeth nipping at her lip.

The smell of him and the taste of him... the
answer to an endless question, a fulfillment of a wish, a hope, a
dream.

It was over too soon.

He released her face first, and then her
lips, and circled around, tugging the flogger from her shoulder as
he went by.

Pretty braced and tensed for the thud, and
this time the tails landed on her back.

It felt like… well, not much different than
the massage of his fingers, really – heavy and warm, not biting,
but there, unable to be ignored.