Mister Black
What she needed was to go somewhere far away to rest and forget about Reuben for a while. One of the islands in the Mediterranean maybe, or simply to my quiet house in Greece where we could sunbathe and watch herds of goats, eat dolmades, pastitsio, and olives, drink wine and laugh. I couldn’t do that, not yet. I couldn’t even let her outside the hotel in my company.
Killing Reuben would get the police sniffing about, looking into her past, even if she somehow did it without any clues that said it was her. I had bigger fish to fry after Reuben. I’d take her with me if I could. If I couldn’t – que sera sera, as the French saying went. One shouldn’t get attached to a weapon.
But I so wished I could. I’d have put my tattoo on her in an instant, if...always if.
So we stayed in my hotel room and she hid when the staff came in. Her fingerprints would be everywhere but the whole point was to have no other links. No phone, no internet, no paper links. No pictures of us on CCTV.
I fed her the healthy gourmet meals on the room service menu, as well as conversation and laughter. From my wallet I dug a photo of Pelagia taken on the verandah of my house looking out over the valley. The picture seemed to ground her. I understood. Animals were sent to people to show us how we should behave. Dogs could teach us about being loyal, trustworthy and loving.
“She is pretty.” Zorie lay on the sofa, admiring the photo with it held up a foot from her nose.
I’d chosen to sit on the floor and with my back to the sofa. When I leaned back, I could rest my head against her side.
“Yes.” I smiled, thinking of her and Pelagia together, then I added jokingly. “A woman who also loves my dog is a prize indeed.”
“Huh. You’re ambitious.” She twisted out her own smile. The sadness was clearing more and more from her eyes. “I love how happy she is. Being able to just be yourself and not have any other cares, that would be wonderful. Pelagia.” The syllables rolled well off her tongue.
“You like the name? It’s an ancient Greek one. A Pelagia once sacrificed herself rather than betray her god.”
“Would Pelagia sacrifice herself for you?”
Where was this heading? “Yes. I believe she would,” I said quietly. “Her heart is one with the heart of her human, like most dogs.”
“Hmmm.” She met my gaze. “I always wanted a big dog. My parents didn’t like them and I never had the opportunity or the space. Or the time to look after one.”
Then she went quiet and simply stared at the photo for ages. I didn’t interrupt. If it helped her heal, it was good. Eventually she fell asleep with the photo on her lap, pinned beneath her hand.
Sometimes, I watched the TV with her cuddled around me while I stroked her beautiful red hair and her ears, sometimes her lips. Kissing her on those plump, sculpted lips wasn’t possible, and that made them more tantalizing. Once, she licked my finger and all I could think of was kissing her. Kissing for me had become a very significant act, once I understood what it did to women. I’d tried not to think of the next logical step after kissing her mouth, which was fucking her there, because it seemed profane in the moment. After that first occasion, I hadn’t pushed for sex. I thought she needed some time without it. I let her heal. I made her heal with my will.
We didn’t speak of Reuben. That was in the future.
After a while, I realized that when she smiled, it didn’t just light up the room, it made my chest ache. That worried me. I didn’t have a cardiac problem.
On the third day, I figured it was time to go further.
I was sitting up with my back against the headboard, and Zorie was snuggled into my side. The long, silken dress she wore was a one-size-fits-all sort I’d bought in a ground floor boutique, yet it clung to her in all the right places. The book she was reading had some foreign historical scene on the cover. I’d bought it too – picked it up from a bin at a bookstore. I doubt it mattered what the story was – anything that took her away from what had happened was good.
But she had to start coming down to earth for I’d done as much as I could. I’d often wondered what my meddling inside a woman’s head did to her. Most times, it only altered how they saw and reacted to me. What Reuben had done though, it’d changed her perspective on life to the point where ending it was her best option. Repairing that...I doubted she could be the same woman.
Yet I’d grown attached to Zorie, and it wasn’t just her body, her femaleness, or even the innocence she still exuded, it was her. What would happen when I messed with her even more?
So much could go wrong, but if I did nothing, more people...women would die horribly.
I didn’t have the freedom to leave this be.
“It’s time to do more,” I said, stirring her hair. I would never be satisfied when it came to letting her hair drift over my hands. The red contrasted with her perfect skin and I decided it was a part of why she seemed unsullied, no matter what debauchery she’d been involved in. “We need to sort out how to kill Reuben.”
She stiffened. “What?”
I waited.
Finally she turned and with her elbow, propped herself on side. “Are you serious? You still expect to kill Reuben?”
“Yes. I’ve always said that, only I can see it will take preparation. I’ll –”
“No, fuck no.” Now she sat up fully, sliding away until she was perched at the edge of the mattress with her legs over the edge. The distance she’d created said I’d alarmed her, a lot.
I could artificially manipulate this, but the whole point was to get her more resistant to commands, not screw her over and make her go back to him. That way wouldn’t help at all.
“I can help you. We barely tried last –”
“No! You have no idea what happened.” She showed gritted teeth. “No idea. I had a gun almost in his face and he stopped me, dead. I couldn’t move. He forced me to fuck myself with the gun.”
I frowned. I hadn’t known that.
“In front of all the others. He made me pull the trigger with it inside me. Do you have any fucking idea how terrified I was? And yet I did it. Because he could control me that well. I thought I was dead, but he’d taken the bullets out while I was semi-conscious. And that was because he’d made me not breathe. He could control my breathing, for god’s sake.”
She slid off the bed to her knees and buried her face in the quilt.
“I’m not going back to him to try again. I’m not.”
“You’re my best weapon, Zorie. You’re the best hope for a lot of people. Your potential is huge. I believe I can help you see how to resist him. I do. I need someone like you, Zorie.” I held out my hands, palm up. “I haven’t begged anyone for anything for years. Please.”
“No.” She drew in a long, sniffly breath. God, it hurt to hurt her. “No. Find another...weapon. It’s not me. I’m done.” Shakily, like she’d gained a thousand years in age, she stood. In a rusty voice she added, “Not me. I think you’ve helped me enough that I can run away from him, and for that...” She met my gaze. “I’m very thankful, but I can’t do what you want me to. I can’t.”
I nodded. “I see.”
“I’m a weapon?” Her mouth screwed up. “Funny. I know nothing is normal, but I thought I was more than that to you.”
Not a question. A statement. Debating this with her was futile.
“This will help others, other women who are probably suffering as badly as you have, and still it’s no?”
“It’s no. I’m going now. Unless you make me stay. Not doing that? No? You’re letting this weapon go?” The crease in her forehead spoke of a struggle and I could sense it inside her also. “I’m going, and I hope I won’t ever see you again. Thank you for your help.” Then she slipped off the bed and headed for the door.
Anger kindled. “I could make you stay.” A foolish thing to say. There was no point, unless I only wanted to make her an acquisition of mine. For a moment I thought that through. I could take her to Greece. Easily.
For once, I held back. It seemed vulgar to force her after what Reuben had done. Where the hell had these new morals sprung from?
“You could,” she said quietly, not turning around. “And I’m aware enough now that I know that deep down inside, no matter how much you made me love you, I would hate you for it too.”
That scorched me, sinking through my bones and heart in a solid chunk of cruelty.
Then she gathered up her car keys and her purse that I’d rescued from her car, and she began to slip on the small flat shoes I’d bought her.
“He married you. No matter where you go, if he’s alive, he will find you, Zorie.”
“I have somewhere.”
I considered that. Where? “Your sister’s? You’ll need money, and you can’t go home to get clothes. Don’t use your credit card. I don’t know if he can track purchases but it’s possible. Take some cash from my wallet. It’s on the small table next to the sofa.”
She barely nodded but when she went out to the living room area, I thought I heard her take some money. Then she left.
The door shut. I’d not bothered to move from the bed.
There went my plans and possibly also a part of me I hadn’t known I’d given to her.
If I could think of her sister’s place, so could he.
I couldn’t follow her everywhere and she wouldn’t want me to. Giving her a choice went against everything I’d done for many years but it was the only method that might work.
She’d either come back to me, or she’d have a brutally short future.
Choices could be excruciating. I went and poured myself a full glass of Laphroaig Scotch then sat down and nursed it for an hour.
By any of normal society’s standards I was a bad guy but I was trying to do something good here, and it wasn’t working out. Maybe someone better at violence would go in guns blazing and take out Reuben and his friends, and that’d get them in jail. I couldn’t afford that. I was a psychologist with an add-on doctorate in the mind control of ladies. I’d never knifed, shot, or garroted anyone.
Whereas Zorie had a history of doing what needed doing when crunch time came. Only once, and in her distant past, but she was willing to kill Reuben too, or had been until he scared her.
Still, I felt like an asshole. I swigged down the last of the Laphroaig. Probably because I was one.
Fuck choices.