Tabula Rasa (20 page)

Shannon watched me like this for a while, but he didn’t speak until
I had finished both my toast and my coffee. When the last crumb of
toast and the last drop of coffee were gone, he finally spoke.

“What was it about this new nightmare that was bad enough for you
to come to my room? You never came to my room before.” His words
didn’t seem accusatory or annoyed, merely curious.

I looked up, startled. “You knew I had nightmares before last
night?”

He nodded. “I’ve heard you scream in the night.”

I hadn’t realized I’d called out in my sleep.

“And you didn’t say or do anything?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You didn’t call for me. You didn’t come to me. I
assumed that you wanted to deal with it on your own and that you
required space.”

This was exactly why I wasn’t a useless ball of human rolled up in
the fetal position on the floor all the time. Shannon had the most
amazing sense of space I’d ever encountered in another human being.
It occurred to me that some measure of his coldness wasn’t garden
variety coldness because he was
dead inside
or whatever, but
was instead an expression of trying to project what he would want
onto someone else. It just seemed to him like the natural thing to
do.

I had the sense that, in general, Shannon didn’t give a damn what
other people wanted in any circumstance really, but if he
did
give
a damn, it seemed more likely he’d think about what he would want
instead of trying to guess at how other people’s minds and emotions
operated.

It was only the fact that what he wanted was so very different from
what the general population wanted that someone could interpret it as
a total lack of empathy—or at least this was what I kept telling
myself.

“What was different about this nightmare?” Shannon asked again.

I hesitated, unsure if I should tell him. But in the end, I faltered
beneath his hard, expectant stare. “The other nightmares were about
the park. This one was something that happened in my life before the
park.”

His position against the supple leather shifted ever so slightly, his
calm exterior disturbed by the tiniest ripple... of something. “You
remember? Your life?”

I nodded. “A lot of it is still fuzzy, but I imagine that’s
probably true of a lot of normal people, too. Nobody remembers
everything that ever happened to them. But I remember who I am, and
all the major highlights of my life, and all the important things
leading up to the accident.”

The thought suddenly struck me that before my memories came back, I
had been a pure human expression of minimalism. Just like his house.
Simple. Clean. But now I was complicated and messy, and I wasn’t
sure how Shannon would take that.

“And this dream...” he persisted... “What happened in it?”

The way he asked the question was as if the option not to answer him
didn’t exist. He expected to know. He demanded to know. And yet I
knew that if I told him, I would be at least partly responsible for
what happened next, because I couldn’t pretend there wouldn’t be
something that happened next. Shannon loved to kill people, and he
had a whisper of feeling toward me. It didn’t take a genius to
figure out where that magical combination would lead. Telling him
would be like giving him a big present with a giant red bow on it. I
might as well gift wrap Professor Stevens and hand Shannon a knife or
a gun or whatever it was he liked to kill people with.

Against my better judgment and my better angels, I told him the
dream. Telling it seemed to unlock more details of the memories I’d
been trying not to see when I woke, memories that had fled in
Shannon’s arms the night before but came roaring forth now that I
allowed them.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tears slipped down my cheeks. I couldn’t
stop hearing the belt coming down on me. I couldn’t stop feeling
the violation that I would have given anything to forget about, and
for a brief shining moment in my history, I actually had. Why had it
come back after so long? I knew things I’d done with Shannon must
have triggered it, but why did it have to be triggered at all?

I’d been hopeful that everything would just stay dead and buried.
Some part of my subconscious must have been well aware of how much I
wanted to forget and keep the past locked away in boxes I could never
open again. Why hadn’t my mind listened? Things had been just fine
as they were. It had seemed so unlikely after so long that I’d have
to worry about any memories surfacing. But then, I’d never been in
the situation to have it triggered by just the right activity before.

“He touched what’s mine,” Shannon said quietly.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that response. It made him seem
even more inhuman than he ordinarily seemed—and yet, a deep dark
part of me liked that irritated sense of possession in his voice.

It didn’t seem to matter to him that I hadn’t been
his
back when these events had originally unfolded. As far as Shannon was
concerned, I’d been set aside for him from the moment of my
creation. And someone else had the gall to touch me. I felt it would
probably be unwise to go through the laundry list of men I’d
consensually fucked, lest they end up on Shannon’s shit list as
well.

I looked up to find his blue eyes burning with an icy-hot intensity
I’d never seen there before, and quite honestly hoped to never see
again.

“I have to go away for a few days. I have business to take care
of.”

At first I thought he meant my professor, but then I remembered he
had a job this week. I’d forgotten it in everything that had
recently happened between us.

“Will you be okay alone a few days? Or do you want to come with
me?” he asked.

Part of me wanted to go with him, but I had the sense that he wasn’t
going to
not fuck me
on this trip if I joined him. I’m not
sure it would even occur to Shannon that such a thing might create
more damage in me. I wanted to believe he cared—at least where I
was concerned—but I wasn’t sure how his mind processed such
things.

I remembered the night in the castle, how intense he’d been after
killing Trevor. And that had been self-defense. I imagined the whole
event was even more of a rush when he stalked and hunted his prey
first, when there was a bigger intentionality behind it. I wasn’t
sure I could deal with being his victory fuck right now.

“C-can I stay here?”

Shannon nodded. “I think that would be best.”

Without another word, he got up and dragged a suitcase out of the
walk-in closet and started opening drawers and pulling out clothing.
He neatly folded several nondescript and mostly black outfits and put
them in the suitcase, then he pulled out a few large hard black cases
that contained several guns and a few knives.

I sat dumbfounded in bed, wondering if he’d forgotten I was there
altogether while he checked each blade—for what, I couldn’t
imagine... sharpness? Acceptable murder ability? Then he went through
some kind of function or safety check for each of the guns. I’m
really not sure. I watched as he dropped magazines, pulled parts of
the gun back and looked inside, flipped small plastic switches on and
off, racked slides, and finally pressed each trigger. Satisfied with
whatever he was checking for, he replaced his weapons in their cases.
He added several boxes of ammunition to the suitcase with his clothes
and sealed everything up. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be flying
commercial with this load of weaponry—if he was going far enough
away to fly at all. Maybe he’d take the car.

He lined his bags up by the door and peeled his clothing off. I
flinched at his nudity. And it made me angry at myself. I was
starting to not even give a shit what he did for a living or how much
he liked it. I’d wanted Shannon. I
liked
Shannon. Way more
than I should. And I still wanted him, but in light of my memories...
I just wasn’t sure if my present with Shannon and my past traumas
could play well together—or at all. I was hoping to have a few
days’ break from him to sort myself out somehow.

He came over to my side of the bed, moved the breakfast tray out of
the way, and offered me his hand. “Come shower with me. Then I have
to leave.”

If he noted my hesitation, he didn’t say anything. He just
patiently waited for my inevitable capitulation. Finally, I took his
hand and let him lead me to the bathroom. I leaned against the
counter while he got the water to the right temperature and got
towels ready for us.

When he was finished, he gave me a once over. “Are you planning to
shower with your pajamas on?”

It didn’t seem to occur to him that my memories might now affect
what happened between us. I mean, Shannon is not a stupid man.
Surely, if he sat down and thought it through, he could at least
intellectually grasp the situation. Or maybe he was already well
aware and just didn’t care because he’d determined that I was
his
and that was that.

When I didn’t reply or start to remove sleepwear, he came over and
did it himself. Again, I flinched, and again he ignored it. There was
a part of me that was somehow offended that his entire reaction to my
traumatic retelling of what had happened with my professor had
elicited nothing more than mild pouting on his part.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I’d briefly fantasized that he
would go kill that bastard. And a part of me
liked
that
fantasy. I very much doubted Shannon would let me leave to go finish
my degree, but Stevens should fucking pay either way. And I knew
there was no way he’d end up paying through the criminal justice
system. I wanted him to have to pay through Shannon’s justice
system because I imagined it was far more satisfying and that it was
a system that wouldn’t victimize me yet again in the quest for a
fair trial
. Fuck a fair trial. I knew what that monster had
done, and that was all that mattered to me. Why should I have to
prove it to a bunch of random strangers who weren’t there? Why
couldn’t this be my business? Mine and Shannon’s.

It was unnerving to fully realize I felt this way because I’d told
myself that I didn’t want Shannon to do anything. And yet... with
his reaction so minimal, I found I really
did
want him to do
something. I was tempted to flat out ask him to do it. Hell, I had
money; I could pay his fees. I mean, he had access to my money, so he
could just steal it, I guess. But I could be a paying customer, no
problem. It didn’t have to be some personal favor or lover’s
vendetta.

“Elodie,” Shannon said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Hmmm?”

“Get in the shower. I don’t have time for this.”

By this point, I was past flinching and cringing. I mean,
realistically, I shouldn’t be. But I was so caught up in this
revenge fantasy that I couldn’t be bothered with the supposed
trauma of Shannon touching me.

I can say one thing with certainty. If Shannon were a normal man
handling me like something breakable, trying to soothe all my damage
and trauma, trying not to
trigger
me, I would never have been
able to let a man touch me again. I would have built it up too far in
my head. I wanted to believe Shannon knew this, but I’m not sure he
did. I’m not sure he cared. And I’m not sure I cared because the
fact that he wasn’t coddling me and treating me like a fragile
piece of china was likely the only thing that made his touch okay.

He took my hands and pressed my palms flat against the shower tile.

“Do not move your hands. Do you understand?” he growled against
my ear.

“Y-yes, Sir.”

I lowered my head to let the hot water hit my neck and roll down my
back as Shannon ran his soapy hands over me. I tensed, waiting for
something dramatic. A panic attack. A sobbing fit. Begging and
pleading.

But instead of crying or begging, what came out of my mouth was a
low, throaty moan. My body reacted to him just as it had before
without even the slightest hint that there was any reason for it to
behave differently. My body and mind stubbornly clung to and affirmed
Shannon’s possession of me.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and to the side out of the
way of the spray. “You are mine. My filthy little whore. Say it.”

Those words shouldn’t have had positive results, but when Shannon
said it, he wasn’t judging me. There was no hatred or disgust in
his voice. It reflected nothing more than a sexual kink that helped
him get nearer to feeling something more human.

My body happily skipped along to his beat, the warmth and tingling
already starting between my legs. My nerve endings didn’t give a
shit what Professor Stevens had done and refused to let my conscious
brain fuck up whatever this thing with Shannon was. Good. Because
before that incident at school, I’d secretly and maybe
not-so-secretly longed for a relationship like this one. Private
kinky parties at the frat house and a little bit of play at a few
clubs here and there just hadn’t been enough. I’d wanted
something more stable and lasting.

“I’m your filthy little whore, Sir.”

“No one else will
ever
touch you again, do you understand?”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

Shannon released my hair and detached the shower head. It was the
massaging kind that could easily be maneuvered to ease sore muscles
in hard to reach places, but every woman in the world knew what that
kind of shower head was really for.

Shannon knew, too. He held the pulsing spray between my legs, a few
inches away so that the pressure of the water beat down against the
swollen, aroused flesh between my thighs. After the first orgasm, he
took the shower head away for a moment to let me semi-recover, then
he started in on me again. He repeated this several times until I
barely knew my own name and wasn’t sure I could hold myself up any
longer.