Those words—I never once thought they would leave her mouth. Yet, Milanka repeats them, again and again, with the knife held firmly at my stomach. I want her to stab me.

She looks shocked when I tell her to do so. I didn’t think she could love me. I never thought I could love her. I’m still not sure.

Milanka looks at me like I’m her savior, but I know I’m anything but that. Then she does the most torturous thing. Her lips land on mine, but the knife stays clutched in her hand on my stomach. I’ve had a taste of her before, it was short and sweet, but never got anything back from her.

This is the first time she’s kissed me.

This is the first time I feel everything she’s feeling for me.

I want to scream at her. Is she stupid? She must be!

Milanka must know things now Derrick has had her. He told me to stop and stay away from her, but I refused him which made him angrier. Then he didn’t wait for his stupid plan to pan out, that’s why he took her so fast, because he didn’t like what was happening between us.

When I finally got to her, I noticed all the bruising and marks and I didn’t know what to do. So, I let her sleep and sleep until I could no longer watch her. I tore my closet apart making room for whatever she needed to fit in there, to make it hers not mine. She thought I was mad, I noticed the look on her face. Then she was in the shower, touching her bruised body, and I almost lost it. I had to walk away and not take a second longer.

Now, her lips are on me, even though she knows most of my secrets to do with her. My hands wrap around her neck as I pull her into me, kissing her, marking her, claiming her, in all my falseness just so she can understand that it’s wrong.

We don’t love. People like her and me. We’re too broken, too fucked to love. We take pleasure in other people’s lust for us and ride it out in the form of sex.

And we do that well.

Fuck. It’s our specialty.

But her lips aren’t kissing me like that, they’re kissing me as if she’s trying to change.

Trying to be someone she isn’t.

She can’t lie to me.

Not to me.

I see her, for all she is.

Just as she sees me, and stays all through my bad. We are both as stupid and idiotic as one another, yet crazy for what we get from each other.

My hands thread through Milanka’s hair. She moans into my mouth and I’m glad she’s never kissed me before. I’m pleased that she waited until now. I would have been fucked long ago with the taste and sensual way her lips feel against mine right now. Absolutely fucked from all things her.

She realizes what I’m doing the moment she feels it. Trying to pull back but I won’t let her, her lips stop moving but mine don’t as I drag her into me, holding her in place. She bites my lip causing blood to ooze, and then she manages to pull her head back away from me. Her eyes are wide, her lips puffed and bruised from the contact with my lips. I want to kiss her again.

“You did it! Why did you do it? Is it that you chose everything over this?” Stepping back, her hands now free, Milanka wipes at her eyes as a tear slips out. There’s so much strength in one little woman.

“I told you not to say it. Then you did… what you never should have done.” My words are frigid, my lips instantly cold from her departure. I hear the blood dripping onto my floor and look down. Is that my blood? I place my hand across the wound and notice that there’s blood oozing through my fingers, which is clutching to the wound. Searing pain rips through my abdomen, and I finally realize Milanka’s pushed the knife into me.

“Should I go? Is that what you want?”

“I didn’t want that. I wanted you as you were.”

“As I was? As a sex slave for you?” Milanka’s top lip picks up and I know straight away she’s pissed.

“Why must we be more? What is wrong with what we have?”

She shakes her head. “There’s nothing… nothing wrong, till the lies started creeping out. Then you fought harder for me. So, don’t stand there and say this is me. You should have let me be. You should have done all your shady business, and let me be,” she screams the last part.

“You were my shady business. And I would do it all again.”

“Fuck you! You sound just like him right now.” She looks around and spots her keys on the counter. Reaching across, she grabs them and clutches them in her hand then she looks at me.

“You can’t love me, Milanka. You can’t. It’s all a lie. You want what I can give you. That’s all. Stop thinking it’s love. People make that shit up, so we have something to look forward to in our future. It’s all a fucking lie.”

She steps forward as I start to feel light headed, lifts her foot and kicks me over, so I fall down. Landing in my own blood, I slide a little, and she stands over me with a smile as she watches.

“Fuck you, and him. I’ll call an ambulance once I’m gone, you fuckhead. Find me when you can admit to it. Because despite what word vomit leaves your mouth, you love me, too.” She walks out the door and I don’t move. I should try to stem the bleeding, stop myself from passing out which is about to happen, but I do nothing other than lay there wondering how the fuck we got ourselves into this fucked up situation in the first place.

* * *

Someone is kicking me, so I open my eyes to see Harlin standing over me. She smiles, looking down at me. I move my hand to touch my stomach and notice the knife has been replaced with stitches.

“So should have let you bleed out, but then I remembered I need to get paid.” She laughs as she walks off into the kitchen and starts pouring herself a drink. Once she has it, she jumps up and sits on my spotless counter, crossing her legs with boots on her feet. “I told them to leave in case you were wondering. Figured I could patch your ass up myself. I have adequate experience since I have to fix myself regularly enough.” She throws something on the ground to me with a bottle of water—Advil—and then she smiles.

The door opens, and Cherry walks in. She spots Harlin, shakes her head, and walks to me, helping me up off the floor.

“Harlin, I warned you,” Cherry chastises the moment my feet touch the ground.

I feel shaky while taking a step, so I sit near the kitchen counter and take the Advil. Harlin holds up both her hands, one of them still with her drink firmly grasped.

“I didn’t stab the boss man, I found his ass like this.”

Cherry looks to me, and I nod my head in agreement with her.

“Aren’t you meant to be working?” Cherry asks Harlin.

Cherry likes Harlin, but Harlin is hard to deal with. She respects those that aren’t afraid of her, especially when they know what she does.

“The boss texted me last night. Wants me for a job.” She raises both eyebrows with a smile.

“Not that kind of job, Harlin.”

“Please, as if I would let him between my legs. I know how he is. I’m the boss in the bed, not the man. He wouldn’t be able to handle me, again.” She laughs, but it’s dangerous.

“I worry about you sometimes.” Cherry walks over, lifting my shirt and assessing my stitches. “What happened?”

Shaking my head, I tell her nothing, except someone has a big mouth.

“The brunette is what happened.”

Cherry looks to Harlin and then to me. “Milanka did this?”

Nodding my head, I drop down onto the counter, closing my eyes, hoping to sleep. I haven’t slept for days, and now that Milanka’s found I think I can.

Even if Milanka isn’t in my bed anymore. She soon will be.

“Yeah, I saw the whole thing. That one is fiery all right. Can I be her friend?”

“No, Harlin… no, you cannot be her friend. Stay away from her.”

“You’re no fun. No fun at all, spoilsport.”

When Cherry speaks next, I know she’s getting sick of Harlin’s games. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was asleep when his jackass of a brother started yelling, and when I woke and decided to come down, Mister Chocolate over there was kissing her, while she had a knife in her hands and pointed at his stomach.”

“You let her stab you?” Cherry is now pulling at my shoulder, so I have to look up. I shrug my shoulders not answering her. I forgot about Harlin’s room here, she hardly ever uses it, and when she does, I never know she’s here.

How the fuck did I become friends with women and not men.

Especially these two.

“No more… no more playing your brother’s games. If he wants to blackmail you, Harlin can handle him.”

“He won’t let me. I’ve offered before… for free, you know.”

“You aren’t killing my brother, Harlin,” I say, sitting up looking at her.

“Well, you do it then. He’s a douche anyway. Someone has to put him out of his misery.”

“I agree with what Harlin says.”

“Of course you do,” I mutter placing my head back down.

“What did he do to her?” Cherry asks quietly.

“He hurt her. That’s enough.”

“Exactly! Now dispel him from you and her.”

“There is no us,” I state.

“Bullshit,” Harlin mutters.

Sitting up, I look at her. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

She smiles and shakes her head. Standing up they both start bickering and fighting with each other, so I walk up the stairs and into my room. It feels weird not having Milanka in it. I planned to keep her, have her here forever. She wasn’t having it, just because I don’t believe in what she says. How can you believe in something that isn’t real? That’s like children believing in Santa Claus. You do so at the time because you’re a child, but soon you come to realize it’s all a bloody lie, just something told in books and fairy tales to give you hope.

It’s a lie, and the sooner she sees that, the sooner we can forget all about it, and I’ll have her back in my bed.