Chapter 7 e Amnesia

He pulled away and fluttered his eyelids. Pulling back didn’t help, because he was confronted by her jet black eyes, capturing him, still. Her fingers worked the buttons along the front of her dress open. She pulled the sides apart, revealing two full, round breasts with erect tight nipples. Her skin was so sheer white and soft that she was like a white cloud laying against the night sky.

“Ah… no… no…” Iggy pulled back further, shaking his head side to side.

Emi caught him by the shoulders. “Your eyes are dark, too,” she said. “You want me.”

He clenched his eyes shut and nodded. He did and he didn’t all at the same time. Although he was afraid of how intense the situation would become, he kicked her legs up so that her knees bent and her heels dug into the mattress. He found the hem of her dress and flipped her skirt up and over her thighs. As he set his sights on her, her knees bent inward, closing the path.

He looked into her face.

Her eyes were tightly closed and her hands covered her naked chest, containing everything that she had just exposed. He wouldn’t go further. He crawled through her knees and laid on top of her. Her eyes slowly opened, and she peered down at him as he laid his chin into her sternum. Her breathing nearly stopped.

This was by far the closest that they had ever been and the most that they had ever touched up until this point, even he was sure of it. His voice was very quiet and calm. “Now might not be the best time to do this.” Her breasts hardened beneath him, as she entertained the thought of it, but he rolled off of her onto the other side of the bed and tucked a pillow underneath his head.

She sighed. Her voice became high pitched and shy. “I believe in you.”

His ears burned hot and he turned around to look at her. She still hadn’t moved. Laying on her back with her legs opened and exposed, her fingers just barely covering her nipples and her shoulders still bare. “I only want you to go slow with me.” Her throat grew tight. “Because it’s my first time.” She admitted it! That she was a virgin and a woman nevertheless. Practically something that was unheard of past the age fourteen, or at least never said out loud.

He sat up on the bed and hunched over his legs. “Don’t be stupid. It’s my first time, too.”

“Sure,” her cheeks blushed. “But you’re a man. It’s not a big deal.”

“A man?” he chuckled. “I’m just a kid.”

“Not from where I’m looking.”

He crooked his eyebrows. “Are there rules?”

She laughed. “Of course there are rules!”

He shifted his lips to the side. “Whatever the rules are… I can’t do this without biting you.”

“You don’t have to bite me.”

“I might not be able to make that choice.”

Her face flushed bright red, even redder than it already was, and she pulled the sides of her dress together. She reached over to the side table and opened the small drawer. Then, she presented him with a shiny metal pen laying horizontally in her hand. “It hurts too much when you bite me and take it. If you want it, I’ll give it to you, whenever you want it.”

He leaned forward, enticed more by the drink than the sex. He hardly noticed the change of desire. “I don’t know...” He shook his head and laid back down, repressing his wants. “Let it go. It’s OK…”

The edges of her eyes hardened and her mouth construed into a deep frown. She gripped the metal pen like a dagger and stabbed it into the mattress. “Oh, never mind!” she blasted. “You’ve ruined it! I can’t stand looking at you!” She closed the buttons of her dress and glared back over her shoulder, past him. “This isn’t going to work. We’ve tried… and we’ve tried, again. Finally, we got somewhere and you ended up ruining it.”

“I’m trying to tell you…” Iggy sat on his knees and leant across the bed to reach out to her, but she jerked her head and shoulder away hastily. “We don’t really know each other,” he continued. “Not at all. Don’t you think we should be friends first? At least?”

“Oh! What’s the point?!” Giving into the depression, she slipped back into the bed, drawing her knees up toward her stomach. She hid her face in a pillow. “We were arranged to be married!” She clenched the pillow against her face, trying to smother the words coming out of her mouth. “But I don’t want to be with you anymore. You’ll just forget me anyways. You always do!”

Iggy stood from the bed. “You’re giving up on me? Already?”

She peeked up at him, watching, sneering. Wanting him to feel at fault for her stupid plan. “Let it go,” she hissed back.

Even though she was immature, and sadly conniving, he still looked at her like she was a golden apple, a prize. He didn’t want to lose her simply for the sake of the game. Then, he noticed the dark blanket that she was lying on. It was his black blanket, the one that he always had, and what was most surprising was that it still resided in his room. His laugh was loud, and especially misplaced as he pointed at it and said, “ah-ha! That’s mine!”

He snagged the corners and whipped it right out from under her. His face glowed with delight as he flung it around himself like a cape. There was no such comparable luxury as when the shadows returned to him by the way. The darkness was a living breathing part of him that longed to be whole again, held back by something as simple as white clothing. Once he welcomed it back, he became embraced as naturally and effortlessly as if he had never had the gift stripped from him at all. He felt unconditionally loved. He didn’t even need Emi.

Even if she could see him act like an ass-wit, he ran out of the bedroom fast enough so that she wouldn’t know in which direction he had gone, screaming, “freedom!” He charged down the dead silent hallway laughing, but when he heard no one following him, he stopped.

The moment instantly became surreal. Absolutely no one was awake or moving. The windows all around the building were blacked out, making the inside darker than a cave for nocturnal animals to sleep and he was the only diurnal animal. He dragged his hand across the textured wallpaper and the crisp ruffle of his fingers gliding over the edges echoed against the ceiling in the main lobby. He wondered how many times he had done the same thing. How many nights he had replayed the same routine and said the same words. Tonight… or today, he was going to change everything.

He was going to hide.

The shame was, his options were very limited. The sun was scorching the day away outside, the other members were fast asleep in their own rooms, and if he wanted to avoid Emi he needed to at least stay on the first floor and he was definitely going to stay far away from the basement. So, he went to the entertainment room.

Because of the television and plush pillowed couches, the entertainment room was the liveliest room in the house. Members came in and out all night. They had most of their conversations and romanced each other there. Since this room was nearest to the front door, the control panel for the security system and cameras was located there as well.

No one would have expected him to be there, ever. They’d be too busy checking the dark unpopulated spaces first, such as closets and under staircases, which would give him some opportunities to wait it out until night came back around. Then, he’d be able to distance himself from the house all together, perhaps even stay in the village miles away. He was strangely optimistic about running away.

When he came into the entertainment room, he saw that every painting, flower vase, and carpet thread was lying perfectly without a single speck of dust. Their home was full of meticulous cleaners who couldn’t sit still in a room that was even minutely disorderly. So much so that cleaning consumed most of their caloric intake. He looked down at his feet sinking into the carpet, creating footprints in the freshly vacuumed space. He wondered if after all of his first time experiences and experiments run out, if he too would become indulged in such habits and obsessions such as cleaning.