Complementary Colors (42 page)

“Go home so she can’t hurt you anymore. Move so she can’t find you.”
So I can’t find you.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I don’t want to. I want you here with me. In my bed. In my arms. I want you tucked against my body, held. I want to be held.”

His arms tightened.

“But if you stay, she’ll hurt you.”

“What if I say no?”

I dropped my chin to my chest.

“What if I think it’s worth the risk?”

Then I would have to choose a way out so I could save him. “Take me upstairs. Make love to me. At least do that.”

The rabbit didn’t follow us. I wasn’t even sure it left the elevator. Not that walls, doors, or distance would contain it.

Like Roy’s love for me.

We stopped beside the bed, and I started to undress. Roy put his hand over mine. “Let me.”

He trailed his fingers along my neck and swept his thumbs across my cheeks. A shiver danced down my body. Closer, the scent of him, something earthy with a cinnamon flavor, filled me when I inhaled.

He pressed his lips against my temple and pushed my coat off my shoulders.

Through the flannel, I followed the contours of his muscles. I wanted to think I knew every dip and valley, but I didn’t.

I was going to change that.

Roy's fingertips burned a path along my ribs as he stripped me of my shirt. On the way up, he flicked one nipple, then the other. The sharp sting traveled from my pectorals to my balls.

“Roy, please.”

“Please what?” He nipped my ear and licked his way to my throat.

“I need more.”

“And I’ll give it to you.” He caressed my sides, my stomach, and I groaned. He stopped at the edge of my jeans. The fabric parted, and cool air kissed my cock.

Roy peeled away the rest of my clothes as he lowered me to the bed.

“You’re beautiful.” His hands followed his gaze down the length of my body.

“You always say that.”

And he smiled at me in a way that said he knew I never got tired of hearing him.

He undressed.

As each piece of clothing fell away, my skin tightened and my heart skipped. Naked, Roy climbed over me, bearing the weight of his body on his arms. I spread my legs, and he chuckled.

“Not yet.” He fed me a long, slow kiss. Stroking his tongue against mine, probing, exploring. The growl in his throat echoed in my chest. I arched high enough to slide our cocks together.

Against my lips, he whispered, “I love you, and I will never abandon you.”

The tightness in my throat sent an ache to my heart. I cried in there so he wouldn’t hear the screams.

The drawer thumped. Roy peppered a line of kisses down the path of hair running under my navel. The thunder of my heart made it impossible for me to hear the snick of the lubricant bottle.

He flicked his tongue across the end of my cock and followed it with a caress of his lips. Then wet heat engulfed me.

“Ah, God…” I was able to keep myself from thrusting my hips, but I couldn’t stop myself from pawing at his head and pulling at his thick waves of dark curls. There wasn’t enough for me to wrap my hands in, but I still tried.

Roy milked me in long, slow strokes. Every time he reached the tip, he’d press his tongue against the slit hard enough to make me think any moment he’d burrow inside. The electric threads shooting up my spine made me wish he could.

He pushed his lubricant-slicked fingers between my ass cheeks and made circles around my opening, coming closer with each lap until he pressed against the tight ring of muscle.

“More.” I pulled my legs up and lifted my ass. Pressure made me gasp and was followed by a stretch and burn. He worked two of his thick fingers as deep as they would go. The minimal preparation left me aching with a sense of fullness. The slight discomfort quickly turned into a needful pleasure.

I rolled my hips in an attempt to ride his hand and fuck his mouth, but every time I thought I’d established a rhythm, Roy changed his pace.

Just as the burn in my ass stopped, he pushed in a third. I slammed my head against the pillow. “Please, oh please…” I abandoned my attempts to pull his hair in favor of clinging to the iron headboard. Any moment I would fly apart, and I didn’t want to be lost as the rush of spiraling euphoria drowned me alive.

“Gonna come, Roy, don’t, please…I… want…”

His fingers and mouth disappeared, and I howled in frustration. Roy recaptured my mouth, fucked me with his tongue, showing me exactly what he planned on doing to my body.

There was a moment of fumbling when he worked to keep his mouth on mine and guided his cock to my hole. I locked my ankles around his back just as he breached my opening. The ache returned in a rush of pleasure. I tightened my legs and raised my ass, forcing him to take me in one thrust. He stilled, and the muscles in his arms quivered with restraint.

The desire in his eyes was for me, a result of what I did to him. How I made him feel and how he felt about me. But it was the love that glowed brighter than the sun.

Roy pulled back and pushed forward, setting up an agonizing pace, making me beg him to never stop. I buried my face against his neck, and his ragged breathing filled my ears. We stayed like that. Him making long slow thrusts, me holding him.

No words needed to be spoken because we said everything to each other through touch, looks, small kisses, and desperate breaths. This was making love, not fucking. Just the silence of two bodies as one.

It felt like hours before I came, and when I did, I lost my soul to him.

I left Roy asleep in my bed and walked to the balcony. The wind cut hard lines through the ivy cultivated from large stone pots against the wall. Cold radiated through the glass windows on the door and into my palms.

The rabbit hopped up beside me, and we stared out the french doors together.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

The rabbit looked up at me.

“It’s the only way I can protect him, from her.” And there was no cost too high to keep Julia from hurting Roy.

I unlocked the door. The wind ate right through the cotton pajama bottoms I wore and parted the fur on the rabbit’s shoulder. My toes were numb before I had a patio chair moved next to the wall. The wooden seat made a small protest under my weight.

My tears froze, and my muscles danced, but it was no longer about being cold. I just wanted this to be over. All of it. Julia. The drugs. The alcohol. The lies. I’d been clean for over a month while in Carmichael’s care. Not just because I didn’t have access to the drugs. I didn’t want them. I didn’t need them. I was safe.

And I wanted to be safe again. I wanted to be held, kissed, loved. I had all those things in that fleeting moment of my life, and that meant I could die happy.

The rabbit was already on the ledge, hunkered down against the wind, when I straddled the wall. Below me, cars dotted the road, and in neighboring apartments, lights blinked on. But it was still too early for the commuters. My apartment overlooked a densely wooded area of the park so there was little chance I’d hit anyone when I landed.

Another blast of cold swept over me, and my muscles constricted. The crushing pain felt too much like it had when I thought Roy abandoned me.

I leaned forward and so did the rabbit.

This would end it all, the pain, the worries, the fear.

The rabbit put its paw on my thigh. Sadness filled its large dark eyes.

“I have to.”

Its small mouth churned, and it lifted its chin.

“It’s my choice.”

The rabbit put its other paw with the first.

“And it’s my life. I can do what I want with it.” Even toss it over the edge of a building.

The rabbit looked back at the doors. My reflection was captured on the glass and divided by the grilles. Sometimes, a section of me was alone on the perfect square; other times, I was accompanied by a sliver of sky, wall, and even the rabbit. The contrast defined the outline of my form, pushing lost details to the surface.

And it was me who gave depth to the world.

Sometimes, all it took was a swatch of color on a greater field to complement the surrounding pigments and balance one of my works. It was an affect difficult to see when standing close, but revealed if I stepped back and observed the entire canvas. Adding new colors built depth, and once in place, deleting even the most insignificant stroke destroyed the harmony created by the presence of so many hues and shadows.

If I wanted to change the direction of movement, it meant laying down new lines, altering the depth of shadows to make the colors pop, not obliterate what existed. Because even if those new brushstrokes covered everything, their success was built on the presence of those first layers even when those layers were a conglomeration of mistakes and muddied hues.

Like the canvas, if I wanted to make things better for Roy, it meant changing my perspective and facing the monster. Not the one born in my mind and fed by my lie, but the creature that made me help her drag a boy’s body out to a well and drop him into the darkness.

The one who made me into a liar.

Her father raped a boy of his life, and she’d raped me of my sanity. Both times, I let it happen because I’d been alone. But I wasn’t alone now.

With Roy, I had the chance to set things right. I could destroy the lie with the truth. I could tell the world what really happened. I could lay to rest the boy who kissed me.

“Won’t be quick, rabbit. She’ll bleed us. She’ll break our bones. We will suffer.”

The rabbit flicked his ears.

Roy was willing. Why couldn’t I be?

I climbed down off the wall and scooted the chair back into its place. The rabbit followed me inside.

My studio. My paintings. A comfort and a curse. My ability to paint allowed me to keep some semblance of humanity intact inside my soul, and it shackled me to the nightmare I lived in.

I touched my lips. They weren’t anywhere as soft as the boy’s had been.

Somehow through all the bad things, that one memory remained bright and perfect and unsoiled. The only part of my past that had come away clean. The only thing Julia hadn’t taken. Sure, she’d stolen the painting, but she couldn’t take those few moments in time, when the sun broke through the leaves in bits of gold and red.

For the first time, I was not afraid of the anger inside me. I begged the boy who kissed me to give me his strength and courage. From out of the darkness, he held out his hand, and I took it.

Together, we would ruin her.

I picked up the wood knife lying on the bench near a supply of brushes and carried it to the shelves where I stored my works. Pieces that were sold or would sell. Millions of dollars in art.

I pulled out the first. Apathy: a man on his knees wrapped in thorny vines stripping him of his flesh. He cried out in pain, but the people surrounding him gave him their backs and ignored his pleas.

The canvas gave way to the blade with a soft pop. A slow hiss of parting fabric followed the knife as I dragged it downward.

The edges of the gaping hole were rough with thick layers of paint. Threads dangled from the cut but wouldn’t unravel because they were glued in place by gesso.

I traced the folds of cotton fabric as it wrapped the frame. Building the canvases was often as important to me as painting the images. As a white void, they numbed me in much the same way the drugs and alcohol did.

Then they took on my nightmares so I could breathe. I promised myself I would never burden such perfection with that kind of ugliness again.

I raised my leg and slammed one of the slats against my knee. The sharp crack echoed off the walls. On the bench, the white rabbit startled and kicked its feet.

I snapped another rung, leaving the canvas a crumpled mess.

The next painting was The Blind Man. I broke the frame, and the jagged wood punched a hole through the canvas. Then I gripped the wound and spread the fabric.

It bled. Blacks, reds, dark sooty browns. It poured out over my fingers and smeared the floor.

A third one.

The Rapist.

Together, the boy and I shredded the painting’s flesh and broke its bones with our hands. Together, we bled it out.

When the rack was empty, I went for the benches, shoving brushes and paints onto the floor. I stomped on the tubes of pigment until they smeared on the tiles and squished up between my toes.

I threw the jars of mineral spirits, and the glass burst with liquid pops. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough. I went for the raw supplies: rolls of canvas, unassembled frames.

I grabbed one of the lengths of wood only to have it snatched away.

Roy tossed it aside and wrapped an arm around my chest. “Stop. Just stop.”

“Let me go.” I twisted in Roy’s grasp. Streaks of red and yellow smeared across his arms.

“For God’s sake, Paris, stop.”

“I have to do this.” Couldn’t he see it? Already, Julia’s pain boiled within the chaos.

“No, you don’t.”

“I have to take back what’s mine. I have to ruin what she’s stolen. No more, Roy. I will not let her take from me ever again.”

He turned me around. A smudge of green made a line on one of his cheeks. More paint was stamped across his chest.

“Please,” I said.

“Doing this isn’t going to fix things.”

“I know. I don’t want to fix it. I just want to hurt her, and this will hurt her. Then I can get away. I can live. I want to live. I want to be happy. I want a life. With you. Just you. I want peace. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Roy’s gaze went from my face to the destruction I’d started on my studio. I burned with the need to finish this. To end the suffering I’d released into the world.

Roy held up my hands. Blood from the cuts mixed with oils, and bruises bloomed on my arms. My thighs throbbed with the promise of grand additions.

“I’ll be right back…” Spots of paint tracked him up the steps to my room. He returned with our shoes. He knelt. “There’s glass on the floor.” Roy slipped the shoes on my feet before putting on his boots. He stood and cupped my face with his hands. His lips were so soft against mine. And the kiss wasn’t born of a memory.