The Beast and Me (29 page)

Day 90

Jay’s gone. They didn’t let him stay for Breakfast but it’s a first step, I guess. Still, it feels like being kicked in the stomach and I couldn’t think about eating. And I didn’t want to, but I did leave an empty tray as Peter took it. Hunger still wins over appetite. I never thought it would hit me that hard, that I wouldn’t notice filling my mouth.

It’s Afternoon now and I’m lying on my bed. I’m not expecting that they will come and take me, that I’m going to see him soon. Despite White’s indication. Still, he said that they would have to be sure that I would be fine, but he stayed the whole night. We didn’t have a marathon. We cuddled most of the night. We slept in each other’s arms. And nothing happened to me.

All I’m doing right now is swallowing down the tears that try to etch their way out of my eyes.

I wanted to go to the gym to distract myself, to work out so hard that I hurt myself, but I kept waiting and Peter didn’t show up. So, when the usual time was over I did my Yoga and Tai Chi once more. Nonetheless, I needed a shower after that.

In there, it’s so easy to hide the tears, because they don’t see me there. And I don’t feel them running down my cheeks because they mix up with the water raining down on me. But here, on my bed, I know they watch me. So I faked reading. I tried some additional Tai Chi, but it didn’t give me any rest. HOW could it, actually. Eventually I gave up and crashed down onto my pillow face down because it still smells of him. These sheets. They make me believe, when I close my eyes, that he is still here. With me. They make me remember and it makes me smile. So I keep my eyes shut, staying like this, savoring this fragile memory, trying to catch and hold it like a cat would a butterfly, knowing that sooner or later it will die in my hands. So I write it down now, for myself, so can read and relive it over and over again.

I actually did it. I went to the shower yesterday, when he was still in it. Who can blame me? Nothing looks more stunning than water running down his skin. I have to admit that I did turn around to leave again, but he had already noticed me, rubbing the water out of his eyes, when I turned away. Yet, I could feel Jay’s eyes on my back and I just froze. I mean, I didn’t see much because of the fogged up glass, I just... God knows what I’ve been thinking.

I don’t really know if he said something or not, or what it was that made me turn around again. The next thing I knew was that I felt the water rain down on my body while I kissed him and his hands were resting on my lower back.

I really don’t know why everything is completely different when I’m with him. Why everything seems so normal. Why everything outside our six-feet-square-bubble is simply gone. Why I keep forgetting the other side of him, this manifestation in the form of the Beast. Not that it would scare me. Not that I would care. I love both sides of him equally, because to me there are no sides really.

Actually, it’s insanely arousing to feel his fingers move up my back, through my wet clothes, pressing my chest against his, or, after the fabric is removed, while they trail up these tiny scars his claws created not so long ago. It made him shiver, but I kissed these thoughts away. They have no room between us. And I think, secretly, silently, that I am the Beast when it comes to the two of us. As crazy as it sounds: I can’t have enough of him. And Jay knows. I doubt he can comprehend it.

Every time we caught our breath, he just marveled down at me, trying to understand how I was able to feel this for him. To be honest, I think he hates himself enough for the both of us and he needs me to balance out his detestation for himself. He has no idea how easy it is for me to... love him.

Believe it or not, we didn’t do it in the shower. I don’t know why, really. It just didn’t happen. We just had fun with the foam and scrubbed our backs like... a normal couple I guess. After I had dried off myself, I got my clothes and went over to my bed to switch on the little lamp on my night table. And... well, I didn’t have the time to put them on.

It’s just insane how different the same thing can be. Like him suddenly standing behind me, wrapping his right arm around my stomach, instantly giving me goose bumps. The fingers of his left hand touched my neck so lightly that they could have been wind; I leaned towards them and I guess that was just what he had thought about, because the next moment I felt his lips on the other side of my neck. How such tangencies can hit a body like lightning. I could feel it everywhere. Everywhere.

I wanted to jump around and grab him, pull him along with me on my bed and make him do me, but I was completely paralyzed. Even more so, as I felt his tongue on my skin. I never knew that I could feel that. I never want to forget this sensation of tenderness. How it almost made me cry when he pulled me so tightly towards him that I could sense his despair freezing the air around us.

His scent on my sheets is intoxicating and I am actually scared, afraid of the moment that I return to my room and find them to be changed. Somehow I have to ask myself if I am White’s test subject and he is trying to find out how far he can push me until I break.

I remember that I doubted he would even care about me, but now, after 90 days, I wonder... I really have to wonder if it’s not about me as well. Maybe he’s curious what I am willing to do... for Jay. I can’t allow myself to think that I won’t see Jay for days again. And I’m silly. It’s about him. White wants to break him, but I won’t let him.

I know now where the phrase ‘love is pain’ comes from. It can take your breath away, it chokes you, it tightens around your chest, it burns you up, but you don’t want it to stop, yet you know it will. I knew it would end and I think that was the worst. And I could understand his despair so perfectly, as clearly as is it was my own, because it was ours. My hands tried to embrace what I got of him as I tried to press myself into his arms, against his chest. If I could just melt into one with him. White would not be able to tear us apart. I swear this is his greatest joy.

So much for faking fear. It’s just impossible to hold anything back when Jay is with me.

So, I turned my head towards his and his lips found mine, just as my fingers his face. Again, just like beneath the shower. Despite wanting him more than my lungs need the air, it’s enough for me to just kiss him, to taste him, inhale him, have him close to me, his warmth against my skin.

I don’t know what has happened to me that I feel like this. I already miss him so much that it gets difficult to breathe. Was this what all of this was about? Making it even worse? White is starting to give straws to us, little lights of hope that turn into will-o’-wisps.

Now looking back it is amazing that Jay hadn’t changed and I think it must have cost him quite a lot to compose himself. He just can’t imagine that I’m not afraid of it, and yet... kissing him like that, these soft lips stroking across my face and him sounding so human. By the way he breathed, how his muscles tensed and flexed, I knew that he literally imprisoned the Beast and I am embarrassed to say that it turned me on. But I knew somehow that he wanted it to be "normal" this time, so I didn’t tease him; I tried to help him, restrained myself, stroked him calmly.

It was strange to actually lie on a bed, feel softness beneath my back. Everything was so different this time. And yet not. He was holding himself back like he was afraid to initiate anything because he might not be able to stop himself from changing. I tried to be patient. Before getting here I could have counted the times I had done it on one hand.

I pressed my eyes shut and held my breath not to make any sounds as his mouth trailed down my chest and my stomach.

Tears gathered in them as he kissed my scars so softly.

I couldn’t allow him to drown himself in guilt about this, so I pulled him up, framing his beautiful face in my hands and kissed him.

My hands moved on their own, down his long neck to his shoulders, down and down to press himself against me. Before I knew what I was doing, he pulled away and I opened my eyes.

His were glowing green and his heart hammered against my chest. I didn’t say anything, just brought one of my hands up again to his cheek, stroking it before I gently lowered his face back to mine, keeping our eyes locked as I whispered: “I love you”, before I made him kiss me again.

At this moment something changed.

Nothing I could put my finger on, but it was different, like he was easing a bit. Still Jay was utterly careful, almost shy, as if this was his first time.

I guess all of this was just the reason why it felt so beyond words as we finally were one.

It was slow, so slow that it drove me insane, made me almost willingly hurt him so that he would move faster.

Love hurts.

Making love like that hurts even deeper. And I watched him fight against himself, clinging to my eyes as if drowning in them was the only thing keeping him in control.

It was so intense. I can’t describe it. Intimate.

This just tears me apart. I just can imagine how he must feel. It is so crazy that we might have never met if it hadn’t been for this experiment, for White. How can the most cruel and despicable create something as breathtaking beautiful as this?

I don’t know how he managed to control himself. Every time we meet – well, officially – actually the only time he hadn’t changed was when I secretly visited him – he hadn’t been able doing that and I ask myself if White had managed to interfere somehow.

It would make sense. However, I’m thinking this now and not while...

There was no way of thinking straight, or at all. After all these days, I thought rough, hard, brute sex would be my thing, the only way for me to actually get satisfaction – I guess I wouldn’t even think I would be able to write this.

But then... this was so different and still just the same.

And more: looking into his eyes, seeing his expression that felt like a mirror of my own. A reflection of myself that whispered back those words I had brought out before. I... I just burst into a million butterflies that exploded into sparks of myself.

And in that moment I loved him completely, relentlessly, consumingly, doubtlessly, ready to dissolve into nothing, into dust, to be inhaled by him. I don’t know how else I could describe it. I don’t know what else to say other than I still feel that way. As if I can’t breathe without him around me to make the air bearable.

My whole day was like this. I wasn’t really present. How could I be? When everything that makes me alive was taken away with him. If this was White’s plan all along he had succeeded. And I did expect him to show up, to say some remarks, to degrade me with his comments. He didn’t. Until now, at least, but now as I continue, Dinner is over. I guess Jay has to listen to that venom that drops out of Severin’s mouth now.

I will visit him tonight. Something tells me that he will need this even more than me.

Peter is worried. He cares about me. I don’t really need to write this down because it seems to be so obvious. But I think that he believes that Jay is hurting me, that Jay is an animal while I’m human. I’m not.

He held me close again, hiding his face in my hair and I guess that’s how we fell asleep. Yet, as we woke up, it was me, one arm wrapped around him, with my hand on his chest, which he held, our legs entwined, and my face against his back. The sole scent inhaled was his and I can’t remember ever waking up more happy and serene than at that very moment. Mindlessly I kissed his back just to realize that he had already been awake.

They came just moments later and we barely had the chance to kiss goodbye.

I will see him tonight. They won’t break us.

EPILOGUE

It has been a full month and you are holding up good so far. All you have witnessed. All you have heard of and imagined within the boundaries of your own mind. It is, in fact, a fascinating experience to watch you. How you are reacting to all of this, how you are trying to keep it together, to go on. And that you finally seem to have succeeded.

You have not realized yet that both of you are mine, have you?

As you can see: to me, this has been a full success, Ten. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

– Sincerely, Doctor Clay Severin

About the Author

D.S. Wrights was born in 1980 to a Dutch mother and a German father and was raised mostly in Germany.

She speaks three languages fluently: English, German and Dutch.

Her name is a pen name and she describes writing as her passion and calling.

During high school two short stories were published, one as a school project one in the local newsletter.

Later she worked at a publishing house where she earned insight into the work, process and production of publishing books.

In the last few years she has published several fan fictions to which the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

The Beast And Me is
her first published novel.