“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...”
- Mary Shelley
I was the ultimate voyeur, watching Mister Black fuck her senseless until she was babbling in tongues. And still I held her ankles and her legs open for him. I felt her legs shake, saw her come, repeatedly, like a damn clockwork orgasm toy.
He’d gone into the whole thing in detail, taken me aside after arranging to speak without Zorie knowing. He’d deduced I’d murdered Reuben. Somehow he’d installed an app on Zorie’s phone and, through the mic, he’d overheard us mentioning it. I guess we’d slipped up a few times during the past months. Scary, to think what might happen if the cops had done the same. He wouldn’t have revealed things to me without that information, though. If I went to the cops, he could do the same.
Not that anyone would believe me, and not that it would help Zorie if I did.
Even before his little speech to me, I’d come to the conclusion that she didn’t feel any passion for me. The attraction had fizzled out. Once I spoke to Mister Black, I understood more, even if I was disbelieving the first time.
Then he’d taken her after I left her defenseless. I’d betrayed her trust but I was with her the whole time too. I was ready to stop everything if I saw he’d lied. But at his first touch, she’d quivered. She’d obeyed him like the most well-trained slave girl. Fuck me it’d been eye-opening. He could make her lick his cock, show off her cunt, even let a stranger be present while they had sex.
This was what Reuben had possessed. The same powers. There were other men like him who were as bad or worse and Zorie was going to be some sort of way to take them down? It seemed a good thing to do. The right thing.
Did the goal justify the means? I wasn’t sure. I knew I didn’t want to see her hurt.
When he was done with her and they were in bed together I went out onto the back patio and rubbed one out by myself. No one to see me for miles except the birds and the bugs. It’d hurt watching that. No man who’d had designs on a woman could watch her be fucked by another and not feel the pain. I doubted I’d ever get over the attraction I felt for her.
He’d been true to his word and made her not look at me but tomorrow I’d have to let her know I was here.
My last look through the window had revealed them lying together on the bed, spooning. She’d seemed at peace. Mavros had seen me but it hadn’t deterred him at all – he’d had his arm over her and was studying her as she slept. I knew the look of a man thinking hard about the woman in his arms. Been there, done that.
Nevertheless, in spite of the bloody ache in my gut, it was good to see her happy.
I sniffed, grimaced. Zorina Brown had made a fool of me, I guess, though not deliberately. She didn’t seem to understand why we’d not clicked – no more than I had. Tom would’ve laughed and told me to go in and take her from him.
Shit. No. I didn’t work like that. Tom’s methods hadn’t worked for him anyway. She’d killed him that night. How could I be so involved...so almost in love, with the woman who’d killed Tom? He might’ve only been a stepbrother but perhaps because of that we’d been greater friends than most real brothers.
“Sucks,” I muttered and took a swig from the bottle of rum I’d found.
Tied up and in the cabin of his truck, she’d still managed to trip the brake and the truck’d rolled forward and crushed him against the garage door.
Kidnapping women. Christ. Loser. I’d loved him but he was still a loser.
I raised the bottle to the setting sun. “You were a stupid fucker, Tom. Damn stupid. I’m doing this my way. The patient-as-a-tortoise way.”
It’d suited me well up to now. Maybe there was a way to become a mesmer? There had to be. There were some people who, when faced with adversity, gave up. There were others who would stiffen their resolve and carry on fighting, even harder.
Me, I just kept on going. I was the water wearing away the stone. I was the tree root cracking the stone. I was also malleable. When I saw a weakness, I became the stone. I prided myself on being who I needed to be to win.
Today I’d found out what it was I wanted to win.
Another swig warmed me all the way to my center. The heat flowing outward made me smile at the sun lowering itself into the field, making the tops of the crop into a glowing carpet. The daylight was going but given a few hours of night, she would be back, like me.
A jingle warned of a text coming in on Zorie’s phone and I ambled into the spare bedroom and fished it from her handbag. I knew the password. Hell, after all these months it’d be a surprise if I hadn’t watched her and figured it out.
The text was from a Jacob Wyatt. I couldn’t recall the name but the other name in the body of the text – Cherie Lynn Wolfe? That was the student Zorie had spoken of. She was lost in London, missing for days while on leave from the Medecines Sans Frontieres program in Thailand. What did he expect Zorie to do? I read the second, following message.
“Ahhh.” I understood.
Thought you’d want to know since she was quite a friend of yours. Pray we find her soon.
*****
Zorie
As I lay there, mostly asleep, in the bed with Mister Black behind me and his arm resting heavily over me, with his hand nestling in the sheet inches away and cupping my own hand, I became aware of the oddest feeling. It took me several minutes of drowsy thinking to decide on what it was that I was feeling because it was novel and complex.
I hadn’t felt this way for what seemed a thousand years.
Peaceful and safe.
I smiled, closed my eyes properly, and fell into a dreamland where nothing bad happened to anyone, ever, ever...
Ever.