When he finishes, he says, “I’ve got to be going.”
“Don’t go so soon. I took a day off just for you.”
“Maybe you should cancel,” he says acidly.
“Tell them my period pains went away? Not likely,” she replies.
He sighs. “What else do you want with me, Adie?”
“Don’t call me by that name. I hate that name.”
He is taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.
“Sorry . . . Delilah.”
He wonders why she hates it so, and if it has to do with him. Perhaps it’s a name she associates with her attempted suicide. The one she exorcised when she emerged – scathed and filled with the new power of rage – as a new woman.
This disturbs and saddens him. It’s amazing how much pain he can cause and how he had been totally oblivious to it.
I was young! I was heartless!
But he realizes that youth wasn’t an excuse, because he was still heartless a year ago. It was only when he met Sam that he had changed for the better. Or so he hopes.
Delilah sets about clearing the dishes. Out of long-standing guilt, he helps her. They do not speak, but merely work in concert.
He finally says, “If I don’t get back, Sam will be suspicious.”
“Nonsense. You don’t usually go into the gym until much, much later. And she’s used to not seeing you for the entire day.”
It surprises him how much Delilah knows their routine. It makes him feel vulnerable and more than a little frightened. For Sam.
“So what do you want me to do now?” he says warily.
She stacks the plates and cutlery in the dishwasher. Then she straightens herself. “Come with me.”
He follows her, his stomach recoiling as she leads him down the short passageway to the room. The one in which Sam took most of the pictures. It is locked, and Delilah takes out a stubby key and sticks it into the doorknob. Brian stands there, filled with trepidation, as the door whines open.
He has seen Sam’s photos, but nothing prepares him for the veritable collage that greets him like a stab in the ribs. He sees the corkboard, all decked with his photos. That huge, huge corkboard. And the hundreds of candid snapshots of him, taken by a voyeur’s camera.
Him coming out of the gym, towel still slung over his shoulders and with his hair damp from the shower.
Him entering a restaurant.
Him hailing a cab from the entrance of a hotel.
It’s shocking to see himself mounted like this – the subject of an unhealthy obsession. For that is what it is – an obsession. He recognizes it for what it is.
His heart sinks when he now realizes the depth of it.
He’s not certain everything will go to plan now, or as Adie – sorry, Delilah Faulkner – outlined it. People this obsessed did not let go that easily. And he’s not even certain what he can do about it. He can only do his best to ensure there will be no more repercussions . . . on Sam.
As for himself –
It is not the court case and judgment he is dreading now. It is the next two weeks. What does Delilah’s twisted mind have in store for him? What will she make him do? Blood churns in the abyss of his rolling gut, and he feels like running to the bathroom to heave out his breakfast. But she will probably take offense to that and make things worse.
It’s terrifying – not knowing what she would do next. It’s like being trapped in the same room with a hornet, bracing yourself for its inevitable sting.
He can’t take his eyes off his photos. He recognizes every one of them, dating back two years ago. Before Sam. During Sam. Pieces of his life, all chronicled in haphazard detail in someone else’s pain scrapbook.
He’s suddenly aware of Delilah watching him watch himself. A voyeur observing a voyeur.
She says softly, “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
He swallows. “Thank you.”
“I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you back in that library all those years ago. I knew who you were all right. Everybody in college did. You had this rare quality about you. Like James Dean. Like Marlon Brando in ‘Streetcar’. A quality that radiates sex no matter what you wore and what you did. Everyone wanted you.”
He doesn’t say anything. Yes, it’s a fact he is aware of and one he has milked to great advantage.
She says, “Take off your clothes, Brian.”
“What?”
“Take off your clothes. I want you to do me right here. On the floor.”
There’s something so twisted about this that he doesn’t respond – at first. He meets her steely grey eyes, and his heart wrenches.
Yes, I know the deal.
Hesitantly, he peels off his tee, the one he has only just put back on this morning. She scrutinizes his body as though she hasn’t seen it only the night before. He unzips his pants.
His dick is limp. No surprises there. He doesn’t get aroused easily when he’s scared out of his f**king wits.
But she doesn’t seem to mind. She undoes the sash of her bathrobe. She wears nothing underneath, and he takes in her ni**les and mounds and pubic triangle, as dark as he remembered it from college. He feels a stir in his c**k despite himself.
“Lick me,” she commands.
He makes himself walk towards her. She stands, resolute, and he understands what she wants him to do. It’s a role reversal, and he is her slave. He gets down on his knees, a position he is not used to. She parts her legs slightly, and he sticks out his tongue to lick her pu**y. He inhales the earthy aroma of her nether regions as he strokes the tip of her clit with his tongue.
He does not look up, but he can hear her sharp intake of breath as he continues to lave her – circumnavigating his tongue in between her pu**y grooves, which are already filled with a layer of cud.
He’s gratified to hear her moan above him. It means that he still retains a modicum of power over her. Only their situation is so f**ked up. She wants him to do it to her in this strange room – her manifold shrine to his larger-than-life image.
All his eyes in those photos, watching them. Like peacock tail eyes.
It’s beyond sick.
“I loved you back then,” she whispers. “Even though I knew you didn’t love me.”
He doesn’t reply, even though his guilty heart is slamming against his ribs and his pulse is pounding as though it would like to surge out of his arteries.
What about now? he wonders. Do you still love me? Do you love me so much that you want to destroy me? What’s your game plan, Delilah?
2
I’ll fix this.