He's looking at me again, trying to get into my head, trying to get to me. His eyes are heated, his gaze smoky, and I? I'm dispassionate. I want to be dispassionate. But I'm not. My actions, my words, my very thoughts should belong to God, to hurting him, to hurting me. But they don't. They belong to him.
I'm crazy.
Maybe.
That's what I think, at least. There's something wrong with me.
Maybe it's just me.
Maybe there's nothing wrong with me.
Maybe I just am wrong.
I don't know what he thinks. I never know what he's thinking. It drives me crazy.
Or maybe it drives me sane.
HE drives me. I know that. He comes down to my padded cell sometime, to my home, and he leads me from the room, undoing my bindings and dropping them on the floor as we walk, leaving a trail of buckles and belts and broken ties behind us.
That trail always leads to the same place.
But the kitchen is as far as he leads me. He never makes me do ANYTHING. He never makes me walk into the kitchen, never makes me stand in the center of the room or sit at the table, never makes me eat anything he makes for me, never makes me drink anything he makes for me. He never MAKES me. But somehow I do it anyway.
He never does anything TO me, but he does EVERYTHING to me. It's his fault, and it's not, because he's not doing it to me. He's DOing it to me. Even if he wasn't with me, he'd be doing it anyway. But I am with him, and he's still doing it.
He meets my eyes, but he never watches me. He undoes the binding that hold me, but he never holds me. He mouths the words that enchain me to him forever, but he never talks to me.
That's all my doing.
Today is no different. And I'm in the kitchen with him, but he's not with me.
I never have any choices in my life. I don't choose. Others choose for me. The American, the German, the other Japanese boy, and God. They all make my life.
And yet, in the kitchen, with him, I choose to sit at the table. He moves to the counter, picking up one of the German's cigarette packs and taking one for himself. He lights it, inhales deeply, and I find myself wanting to be that poisonous smoke, because it's IN him, IN his blood, where I WANT to be, but I'm HERE. Watching.
Why does he smoke those things? I find myself wondering that.
Then I shake my head. It shouldn't matter why. It's killing him slow. That hurts God.
But it hurts me too.
He moves around a bit, making two cups of hot chocolate. Hot, like him. He turns to me, the two cups in his hands, and he puts them down on the table in front of me. He also places a sharp kitchen knife down, and a can of whipped cream.
I know what he wants. I know what I'm going to do.
But I don't know how long it'll take before I break and give in.
I wonder how long I can keep him out of my head.
Somehow he always manages to get in, though. No matter how hard I try to keep him out, he weasels and worms (does NOTHING!) and there he is again, back where I started him.
What's wrong with me? He's in my head!
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
He smiles, as though he knows what I'm thinking. He probably does.
Why? Why why why why why WHY!? Why is he here?
I can push them all away, but there he is with his smoky eyes and his sweet, viperous smile, and HE WON'T LEAVE.
I could kill him. I've tried to before.
I failed.
So I'll try again.
I reach forward, my eyes fixed on the knife. My fingers close around the hilt, so familiar, and I raise it to his skin. His chest, right by the heart, and it's all I can do not to grit my teeth.
I can do this. I can. I can I can I can I can I CAN.
And he does nothing. He breaths, soft, normal, relaxed.
My hand trembles.
I steady it with the other.
If I can only not look at him. If I can only will myself not to look up into his sweet, child-like features, his smoky eyes, I can do this.
Please.
Just let me do this.
I choose to do this.
But I loose the battle, and tilt my eyes up to meet his.
So beautiful. So perfect. So utterly blank.
He smiles.
And the knife drops from my hand and clatters onto the table.
I can't kill him.
I need him.
WHY?
Maybe I'm not wrong. Maybe he's wrong.
HE'S NEVER WRONG.
God's wrong. He's not.
Does that make him better then God?
I want to know.
I want him.
He reaches down and picks up the knife, still smiling. His voice, sweet, melodious, mouths words and I hear them.
"Which one do you want?"
I was wrong. There's one thing he MAKES me do. He makes me choose.
I look at the two cups of hot chocolate, pointing to the one on the left. He pulls it over to him, bringing the knife to his palm. One slice, one cut, and his blood trickles into my cup.
We stay there, statues, frozen, and finally he stirs the blood and chocolate with the knife, then hands it to me.
Still smiling.
He pulls the other cup over to himself, placing the knife on the table. I watch as it stains the wood. Black and red, red and black. He moves again. I don't need to watch him to know what he'll do. This is habit for us.
He takes the whipped cream can, shakes it, and distributes two small mounds of sugary sweetness and cream, one on each of our cups. Watching him sip his hot chocolate, I wait a moment. Glancing at my cup, I gently stir the whipped cream with my finger, and I'm fascinated as to how it turns pink in some places. Almost as if someone dribbled a little bit of red food dye on it here and there.
We drink amiably in silence, and I wonder, as I always do, why he brings me here. Why we do this. Why he never leaves me. Why we must go through the same motions, again and again, like some kind of demented dolls.
I think it's because one day he hopes I won't look up into his eyes.
I finish my hot chocolate and I reach for him. My hands find his hair, and his smile finds my mouth, and there's no more I need to say. He drives it all from me. My God, my life, my thoughts. They're filled by him, and there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I want to do.
And I take him, because he never leaves. I wrap my arms around his waist and cover his smile with my kiss, and he wraps my mind around his thoughts and covers my kiss with his smile, and I can hold him so tight and tight and tighter still and he WON'T LEAVE. He stays with ME. And I hold him.
Why can't HE LEAVE?
WHY CAN'T HE LEAVE ME?
WHY WON'T HE GO AWAY?
He's the only one who stays with me, like this. The American will look at me as though I'm crazy, like I'm insane, as if somehow I'm not all there. He never does that. The German will look at me as though I'm a bug, sometimes, and sometimes as though there's no one else he'd rather be looking at. He never does that. The other Japanese boy simply won't look at me. He never does that.
When we finish, he cleans himself up and washes his hands, then he asks me if I'd like to wash mine.
And I choose to.
He puts the two cups and the knife in the sink, and the whipped cream in the trash. And together we walk out of the kitchen and back to my prison, my home. And he stays with me, reading to me from a book he bought just for me. Dante's Inferno. The irony is not lost.
This is my heaven.
This is my hell.
And he is my downfall.
WHY WON'T HE LEAVE ME?
I wrap my arms around him, pulling him close.
EVEN GOD LEFT ME.
This is how I'll fall asleep.
WHY WON'T HE?
He'll be here when I wake up.
WHY WON'T HE!?
And somewhere in my thoughts as I hold him closer to me still, and he smiles against my skin and looks at me through smoky blue eyes, I wonder if he'd leave me if I let him go.