9
KRUM
Don't hurt me anymore. Don't hurt me anymore. Don't hurt me anymore.
It's the same sentence she used to repeat when I kept her locked in the garage. It's the same sentence that's been echoing in my head for a few years, and it's the same sentence her lips are forming in the air, now, slowly, with the same imploring tone.
Don't hurt me anymore.
I have repeated it many times, in another life. Then no one listened to me, but I listened to her. But now?
Shit.
“I've just started,” I say.
Her eyes widen, revealing their golden color. My knuckles are already scratched because of the shot given to the column, I should have pointed straight to her damned lips, to close them definitively.
She opens her mouth, is about to say something, but, then, I realize that maybe… No!
The same scene is repeating. Involuntarily, I replayed a role of the past, the one in which I tugged her by her hair and she begged me, repeating: Don't hurt me anymore. I had answered just like now: I've just started.
Something inside me has tried to recall that same vision, modifying it to a new burning moment. Perhaps a part of me wants her to recognize me, just to see her finally shake at my sight, something she hasn't done yet, except for a few seconds.
Treperi ot strah. She is trembling with fear.
And she is. Finally. I feel her shoulders shake under my fingers and I realize that - if I recalled those images - I've just insinuated in her head the doubt that I am him: the past.
My eyelids move independently. They slide down from her eyes to her lips, to get to her breasts barely covered by her jacket. She is so shocked and frightened, but she seems aware.
I don't want her to know who I am, it is not the best time for her to find that between me and her there was a past - if it can be defined this way. It would be a problem to take her to the Temple, it is already quite absurd and disappointing to see that she is following me with her feet.
“You,” she breathes. She understood.
No, not now.
What the hell came over me? I should not have reminded her of the past.
“You,” she repeats. I reduce the hold on her shoulders, but she doesn't move her eyes from mine.
The fact that she is not afraid of being in front of my coldness makes me nervous as a few other things do.
She must be afraid of me, or I won't have any power over her.
I totally ignore the word she has repeated twice and take my hands from her body, noticing her relief.
“Come on,” I order.
I try to assure myself the device is still working. I brought with me that strange gadget Oscar gave me. It lets you intercept the home alarm signals. I verify that it is still on and we walk along the huge garden of Villa Livori. I love the night silence that, most of the times, is not silent.
She walks by my side, keeps her arms crossed on her chest, fixes the emptiness, is confused. I like it so much.
I almost hear the sound of her mind asking for explanations, answers, courage. I can imagine the chaos of her thoughts, I feel happy to be in them.
The white pebbles crunch under our feet until we get to the gate and leave the courtyard. The device switches off and the security system is on again. We have a short time before the cameras record our images.
She turns, closes the gate carefully and remains motionless to gaze at her home. I would like to tell her that she will be back home soon - if everything goes as planned - but I like to make her think she could lose everything.
Kopele. Bastard.
“Move!” I stun her with a demanding voice.
She turns, but now she ignores me, her hair has something demonic, they float in the gentle breeze and hide part of that static face. She shows no expression at the moment.
Resignation is palpable, I enjoy it like a victory. She gave in, but she denied me the satisfaction of conquering her surrender.
I didn't think she was so brave, so strong, such a woman.
I start to the car, giving her the same treatment: I treat her arrogantly. If I keep dealing with her as I have done so far, I'll go crazy. I certainly can't stay on her back exhaustingly.
Actually I would like to.
We reach the black BMW Series 7, the Father's sedan. Once in a while he gives me the opportunity to drive it and I have reserved the extraordinary permission for today.
I raise my head in search of her, she is distant and walks slowly to the car. Something in her has turned off. The flame of courage that burned in her irises completely disappeared.
I go on hoping she hasn't understood who I am. I cannot believe I've almost told her in her face that I came to pick her up again for the second time.
The car opens after the beep, I throw her bag into the luggage compartment and I get to the driver's side. I grab the handle and she stares at me as if I were the most horrible thing in this world. But the effect that her hate has on me is only to amplify the sense of superiority I feel. She'll do what I say and it's a damn exciting thing.
She is staring at me beyond the edge of the car roof, seems enchanted by my presence. I like it, I'm flattered to know I'm impressing her.
“Get in,” I burst, finding out that her eyes on me suddenly become pungent.
I see her opening the back door and an irritated sneer comes out.
“I'm not your chauffeur! Sit in the front.” Who does she think she is?
She looks down and does as I ordered. I get into the car and turn the key, ready to go. A few moments later, she sits down and slams the door. She's pissed off and it stimulates me astonishingly. Usually, when I'm dealing with potential members, I am not interested in imagining what they are thinking or what they are feeling. But with her, everything is different. I would like to penetrate that golden tiny head and spy every inch of her thoughts, to make them mine, to steal them too, to be everywhere, to obtain everything.
She sits and fastens the seat belt, it makes me smile.
“Does the princess fear high speed?” I provoke her. She doesn't even look at me and looks out of the window to her right.
“I have no intention to talk to you. Avoid talking to me.”
The BMW engine roars and we drive to the Temple, the place that will surely impress her.
During the journey I cannot help but turn my head towards her, I am annoyed by her resignation, I wish to hear her begging to let her go, I wish she would ask me why for all this and would cry and beg me not to hurt her. But no, she remains motionless, stiff, she seems to be... plotting something.
I hold the steering wheel of the car angrily and her eyes fall on the wounds on my knuckles. For a second our eyes meet and I feel an invisible hand pulling my chin and bringing it back to the road.
I notice a slight smell of vanilla, I suppose it's her perfume, and lower the window to breathe a different air. I don't like to be forced to taste what is good. I don't like to have the desire to perceive something good.
Good. What a bad word.
“Who are you?” Her voice breaks the silence.
“It is not my duty to tell you that.”
“Are you... him?”
The tone of her voice dropped considerably..
She is submitting.
“Him, who?” I fake
“That kind of half-man who kidnapped me seven years ago!” she replied.
I brake the car suddenly and not because she is using such irritating tones, but because now I am sure she has understood who I am.
I put the car in neutral and take my foot from the clutch. My head turns toward her, she moves away, pulling off her seat belt to get as far away from me as she needs to feel safe.
Her shiny eyes make my lips sneer a victorious smile. I cannot understand if I'm glad to know that she's recognized me, or if I'm angry because of the reaction I have to expect.
“Repeat what you said!” I demand.
“Are you the one who kidnapped me seven years ago?”
“Repeat what you said before.”
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. She looks at how the rage is slowly branching along my contracted arms. She looks shy, swallows, but then repeats it.
“That kind of half-man!” Coming from her lips gets me pissed off.
“Kind of… half… man,” I repeat, annunciating every single word. I know Italian well and the sentence is horrible.
I am touched by the frankness of her words. I didn't expect it sincerely, as I wasn't ready to feel this strange tingling on my skin. I thought it would be more satisfying to see hate in her eyes, but - instead - it disturbs me.
“So, are you him or not?” Her voice fills the cockpit, I want to plug her mouth.
“Would you like me to be him?” Provoking her makes me feel better.
“Yes.”
That yes seems to be a pinch so powerful that it forces me to sigh.
“Why?”
She looks around, we are on a dark country road. Nobody can come and help her and even if somebody did, he wouldn't succeed.
“Because I have dreamt about this moment so many times. I wanted to see you to…”
I'm stunned, and she is too. What does she mean? I frown, I squint my eyes and something inside me needs to know how her sentence ends.
“To?”
“To tell you that you are the most despicable person in this world. You're far from being considered a man, you're a coward, you're an animal. Here's what you are.”
That's what I wanted to hear from her for a long time. Her words are exactly what I've imagined in my forced visions, but the reaction of my body is not exactly what I was expecting.
Her words burn.
Her hatred fills the air and surrounds me, like a thorny spiral.
I thought I would have enjoyed it, but I feel uneasy.
“Now that you are here,” she continues, “I have no interest in telling you how revolting you are, because I know that you are so indifferent to me that you don't give me any sensation. Nothing.”
I'm shocked.
I'm chilled by her frankness.
I'm… Shit!
She opens the door and runs out disappearing into the dark. I get out of the car and run in pursuit. She stumbles, but is quick to get back up. Her long, blonde hair looks like sparks cutting the black of night. She's fast, but I'm faster and when she stumbles a second time, I don't give her the time to regain balance: I've already caught her with a tight grasp.
I hold her arm and turn her sharply towards me. Her eyes are flooded with tears and for a moment I feel weak, frightened, confused.
I tug her sharply and she finally struggles, granting me the thrill I've been looking for all night, even though the feeling, once again, is not what I was expecting.
I wouldn't, I don't… I don't want to hurt her.
She shakes and screams, but I try to keep her still, avoiding pushing my fingers into her thin arms.
“Leave me, monster!” she kicks.
Monster.
Her insult is like a slap on my face.
“You can't run away!” I shake her, hoping she starts to reason.
“I won't come with you! Leave me!”
She kneels down at my feet and I bend, contrasting her intention to sneak away.
“I'm not going to hurt you.” I try to reassure her to calm her down. “I won't hurt you.”
“It's not true!” she screams. She cries and struggles, is strong, stronger than me, because all her disgusting looks, every word become weapons in her possession that can make me waver. “I don't want to come with you! You can't force me, you cannot!”
“I must!” I shout, grabbing her hair behind her neck.
Her weeping becomes a lament and she lets herself fall, exhausted, on the asphalt, I follow her, accompanying her wilting body.
She looks like an angel just fallen from the sky with her wings ripped off and donated to an eternal damnation.
I ripped the wings off this angel.
She seems unconscious, my hand protects her head leaning on my palm. My scratched knuckles are burning on the asphalt. She opens her eyes and fixes me as if she is starting in again.
Maybe her braveness was overwhelming, the amount of force used, has abandoned her making her suddenly weak.
Are you surrendering?
I resume breathing regularly with her and I stay knelt beside her exhausted body lying on the asphalt. I look at her and I feel worried.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
What kind of question is that?
She sighs, fixes me as if she had no fear. From one of her eyes a tear slips furrowing her cheekbone and disappears falling sideways.
She pulls up on her elbows and blinks trying to find the lost lucidity. She looks at me and... damn it! She kills me with a glance. I feel like crumbling piece by piece under her striking eyes. I step back, I almost fall on the asphalt. No one has ever been able to wipe out my control just with a glance.
“Don't dare to touch me anymore,” she whispers.
“We have to go. You will have all the answers you are looking for.” I have to be reassuring or she will try to escape or, worse, will make a striking spell with those surreal eyes.
She pulls up, avoiding my hands offered as support.
I don't like that.
I stretch out an arm again to pull her elbow, but she raises her hand and stops me.
“You. Must. Not. Touch. Me.”
I am astounded, again.
She goes on looking with a disgusted face. Every bad look at me is like a pin stuck in my chest, turning my guts upside down.
Why should she be this way?
I put my hands in my pockets, showing that I can even give her orders just with words and that I don't need to use my force.
I move my head towards the car and I require: “Get in the car!”
“Of course, as you wish,” she says with sarcasm. Two steps to me and… Bang! I feel her hand slapping my face, causing fire. “This is for what you did to me seven years ago.” I put my face down, my hands in my pockets, my glance unmoved. I turn my face towards her and… again bang! “This is for all the years of fear you have forced on me.” I repeat the movement. I turn my face back to her and I get the third slap. “This is for dragging me out of my house forcedly.” She is trembling, tears stream down her red angry cheeks, but when she raises her hand to load the fourth slap, I pull my hands from my pockets and grab her wrists, trapping them behind her back. I push against her. She is small, but she seems to fit perfectly on my chest, between my legs, on my… Better not to think about it!
I toss her vigorously on the car and she sighs. It's like she has just finished a marathon, maybe slapping me is helping her, but I won't let her go any further.
I press on her, I particularly like it when I feel my body shaping divinely to hers, pulsating with a weird excitement.
Weird.
Insane.
I continue to tighten her wrists, stronger, feeling her skin warm up in my palms.
I near my face to hers and, without realizing it, I'm so close to her forehead that sighing on it reflects the air on my lips.
I move, without going too far from her skin, to reach her ear and I whisper: “Do you feel better now?”
“I'll never be better.”
I would have sworn that I'd have enjoyed hearing such a response, but… What the hell is coming over me?
I'll never be better.
It's a bad thing and it's my fault.
I need to find her eyes and bring my face in front of hers. She is not afraid to look in my eyes, she is one of the few people able to do it without losing the race. I usually resist to the end, the others escape and lower their eyes, she instead… she enters me.
I hold her cheeks with one hand, my thumb presses her cheekbone and is bathed by her tears. I feel a strange sensation having her so close, noticing how her eyes can easily challenge mine when I am really struggling against the need to... to do more?
“Promise you won't hurt me anymore.”
“You cannot make any requests for now.”
My hand loosens the hold and my fingers slide along her jaw to get to her neck. She sighs, vibrating under me.
“Why should it be this way?”
“Because that's how I like it.”
Her mouth makes a grimace of astonishment and I suddenly feel her fists hitting on my chest, pushing me away.
“You're a disgusting monster!” she screams.
And I feel struck again, knocked down, annihilated by four words.
“Get in the car and don't make me lose my patience.” Now I grasp her fists or I could break the promise I made. Actually I didn't promise her anything, but she asked me not to hurt her and - I don't know why - I want to grant her wish. “Get. In. The. Car.” My look seems to shake her.
She follows me and closes the door of the car.
I reach it and start the car. Soon I realize that her smell is everywhere, that her eyes are slaps on my face, that her sighs become poisonous toxic molecules.
I watch her and she gazes at me with no fear.
Now I love her courage, now I don't want to see her in tears anymore.