Hansel 2: An Erotic Fairy Tale (5 page)

His ribs are bruising a little darker and look puffy all around the gauze patch. It must hurt to cry.

I whisper to him for a long time, saying, “it’s okay,” even though it isn’t. Even though my throat is so tight I’m afraid I won’t be able to draw my next breath. Even though I want to ask who Shelly is.

I try my best to save my thoughts and feelings for later. I keep on whispering, and stroking his arms, and finally, he seems to fall asleep—or pass out.

I wish I could put him in the tub, because I think there’s no way that wouldn’t feel good, but I don’t think I can get him in there. I can’t even get him to the shower, so I get towels and try to clean the blood off him and take care of a few more small cuts. I don’t take off his pants, just try to take care of his upper body and his face.

He rouses a little, and I get him over to the carpet of his room. I pile blankets on him and he starts to shiver. His breathing is slow and shallow.

“I want to stay,” he moans. “Please, can I stay?”

“Of course you can. Don’t worry. You can stay as long as you want.”

I’m really worried that he’s still not lucid. I might need to call a doctor. I get my phone and call the number Raymond left.

“I think he needs a doctor,” I say quietly.

“Have you checked his pupils?” Raymond asks.

“No. Why can’t I call a real doctor? Is he afraid of them?”

I have the sharp, bizarre impulse to tell Raymond everything I know about the man beside me. Find out what I can about him from Raymond. Does he know his Edgar’s triggers? Who’s been taking care of him? What kind of person refuses to see a doctor for ten years?

He starts to whisper Shelly’s name again. I hold him, because he’s mine, and I can’t stand to see him hurt, but hearing her name gouges at my heart.

“Please don’t leave me, Shelly. Please.” 

“I’m sorry, Edgar. I won’t leave.”

“Luke.” He frowns. “My name is Luke,” he whispers.

“Okay, Luke.” I stroke his hair. “You’re okay. I’m here, and I’ve got you.”

I check his pupils with a little flash light from the kit. They’re responsive, in the way I’m pretty sure they should be. He must just be drunk.

“Shelly,” he moans.

I kiss his temples as my stomach twists. “Do you love me?” My voice shakes. “Do you love Shelly?”

“I love you,” he whispers.

When he falls asleep again, I call Raymond.

When he arrives, I go.

Lucas
 

I wake up
sore
. Not in a bed. I can feel the hardness of the floor, or ground, beneath me.

That’s all I’m able to discern before the dryness of my mouth demands my full attention. I try to open my eyes, but even my eyelids are sticky.

Fuck.

The smallest movement of my head, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

I lie still, listening to the ticking of a clock. Ungodly fucking loud. My nightstand clock? The kitchen clock? I shift my arm a little and I can feel the plush carpet underneath my ass. So I’m in my bedroom.

I crack open my eyes, and there’s the ceiling.

I make the mistake of trying to sit upright. Pain rips through the side of my chest, so unexpected, cold sweat pops out all over me. I push myself the rest of the way up and slit my dry eyes open. Look around.

I’m lying just outside the bathroom, on a pallet on the floor with lots of blankets. I’m wearing pants—black shorts, like the ones they used to give out at fight night. I look down at my painful side and see some gauze there. What the
fuck
?

I reach my other hand up and rub my eyes.

“Fuck!”

I blink again, and realize one of my eyes doesn’t open all the way.

I take a deep breath and search my foggy mind. What did I do last night? Honestly…I don’t remember. I have this memory of being in a car. I wasn’t driving.

I was riding with someone.

Shelly.

My throat aches at the memory.

Shit, so it was one of those nights.

I grab the door frame and pull my screaming body upright. God, my fucking head. I walk into the bathroom, hoping the change in location will jar my memory, but…nothing.

I rub my eyes and am reminded, again, of my shiner. One look in the mirror, and my mouth opens.

Shit. What the hell did I get up to last night? Where the fuck was I?

I tug at my shorts. These are fight night shorts. I can tell because they’re short as shit.

I lift my arm up and check out the bandage on my side. I’ve got a big scar there from way back, and it looks like it somehow got split open. I pull my shorts off. One of my hipbones is bruised as shit. So fucking weird.

I dig in a drawer and grab some eye drops. Drop some in my unhurt eye, and fuck the other one. It stings like hell, and I can barely open it anyway.

I look around the bathroom and am sucker-punched by the memory of bathing with Leah in the tub beside me. Reality sinks in too quickly, as it does every morning for the last couple. Leah was here. I sent her away.

I’ve got the nagging feeling something else happened, something bad that I forgot, but as I start the shower and shuffle in, I can’t remember what.

All I know is…I feel desperate. Edgy. Fucked.

Whatever happened last night, wherever I went…it made me think of things I usually keep firmly barred from entering my mind.

I sigh and scrub my hand through my hair, then pull it down because the fucker stings. Knuckles. Every one of my knuckles is split open; both hands, too.

Shit, so I did fight.

I have a hazy memory of blood splattered on a mat. I wonder where I went.

I used to get like this more often. I haven’t drank or used in years until this week, after finding out about Leah. After looking for a sub since Monday and nothing working out.

Three days of ‘try-outs’, and not one eligible girl. I’m not sure what the fuck is up. They’re all so…wrong. Fat fingers, bony fingers, short necks, long necks, bad tit jobs, knobby knees, chapped lips, tatted earlobes, ridiculous manicures…and the list goes on and fucking on.

I turn off the shower and step out on unsteady legs.

I lift my arm so I can feel the pain of the gash there. I’ll need to try to do some stitches in a few, or else it’ll just keep splitting open, getting blood everywhere and drawing a bunch of unwanted attention.

I scrub a towel over myself, and again, Leah flits through my head. The ache I feel for her is intoxicating. I feel ripped apart by the force of it, even more so than with Shelly.

Christ. I toss the towel in the hamper and walk into the kitchen, where I pop the top on a beer and drink the whole damn thing. I find a First Aid kit on the couch and poke around for the needle and statures I put in all my kits.

My fingers shake like crazy as I sew the wound.

When I’m done, I sit there holding my stomach. Fucking adrenaline. Fucking alcohol.

I get up and pace the apartment, feeling lost. Feeling like I lost something, and I’m not even sure what.

Leah, I guess.

She was here. It still blows my fucking mind. I was inside Leah, and I didn’t even know it. What the fuck does that say about me?

I need Leah. I want her so much. I want to dominate her. I want her to hurt me. I need her to hurt me. I want to get off on Leah, not a fucking substitute.

She’d never know I knew she wasn’t ‘Lauren’, so it wouldn’t be emotional. Just sex.

I wonder if she’s already gone. Fuck. What if she is? And if she’s not?

Maybe I could arrange something.

For a limited duration, maybe just a week or two. I can pleasure her. She said she’s scared to let go. I could train her to let go without that fear.

I want to touch her. Need to fuck her. These thoughts have been there in my head, banging around, shouting, since I saw her in the parking lot, but most nights I’ve been drowning them with liquor.

Today, I feel…different. Like seeing her again is more urgent. I feel reckless. Like it wouldn’t be so bad to bring her here for sex. She’d have to hurt me, of course, but so what? She did it before. It would be deceitful, pretending I don’t know she’s her when in fact I do. But she deceived me, too, right? She came here in a mask. She found me and she came to me, but she didn’t tell me who she was. She signed on for this—for being my submissive. She’d have gone ahead with it had my dumb ass not thrown her out.

I could call her back anytime. I’ve got her number and her hotel room; I got it from Ray as soon as I got back to my room Monday night. Back when I was still considering going to her and offering an apology for the fuck and chuck act. Back when I was still considering telling her to go the fuck back home.

I guess that’s why I haven’t knocked on her door yet. Not because I’m not sorry, but because I can’t give her up so easily. I can’t face her as Hansel, all grown into what I am. I’m a monster, and if I see her face to face, I’ll have to tell her that.

I might not even need to tell her. She probably knows.

She’s probably gone back to Georgia.

But if she’s not…

I want her back in bed. More than want, I need her. Need the pain and pleasure. Leah. Now that I’ve had her, only Leah will do.

It’s sick and selfish, but I’m feeling sick and selfish.

I call Raymond, telling him to arrange things so I’m here at my city place a few more days.

*

Leah
 

I wake up with puffy eyes from crying, and the events of the night before come crashing back over me.

Hansel.

Lucas.

Shelly.

My shock and sadness are ridiculous. I remind myself of that as I hold a small bag of ice on my eyes, as I shower, as I dress and pack my bags.

I have no claim to him.

He told you all the subs are you.

And Leah, he was drunk. So drunk he could barely walk.

A horrible thought pierces me: Later in the night, he called me “Shelly.” Does that mean what he told me in the car was meant for Shelly, too?

But he called me Leah
, my inner optimist argues.

But he said he loved someone named Shelly.

He was drunk. I can’t take anything more away from the ordeal. Hansel likes to drink, he likes to fight, and someone named Shelly really hurt him. That’s all I know for sure.

Fitting, I think as I stuff my clothes into my suitcase. My mom’s sister Shelly was murdered, so the name seems to be a sad one all around.

Before I leave my room, I call Raymond. I find out ‘Edgar’ is doing fine. He might have a mild concussion—or so Raymond thinks—but he’s up and about.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him. I’m actually leaving town today.”

There’s a funny little pause during which I assume he wonders what the fuck is up with me and ‘Edgar’. Finally, he clears his throat. “Have a safe trip.”

I hang up and leave the room, rolling my suitcase down the hall with a knot in my stomach. This trip has turned out nothing like I thought it would. It’s official now: I wish I’d never met him. I really do.

I tell myself as I ride the elevator down that obviously he didn’t mean all the subs were meant to be stand-ins for me. He probably thought I was Shelly the whole time. She must have been a blonde like me.

If he wanted me, Leah, he could have contacted me years ago. I have a prominent web site with my contact information listed.

But why would he want me? We knew each other in a terrible circumstance, when we were so much younger.

He was good to me. Nice to me. He got me through that awful time, and of course he was attached to me then. I’ve let my feelings balloon over the years, because I’m too afraid to look for real, plausible love.
So is he
, I think.

That’s not my business.

For the first time, as I head toward the front of the casino, where the cabs are, I don’t feel filled with giddy longing for a ghost. I feel unhappy, sad, that’s true, but at least I’m living in the real world now.

I stop and get a muffin from a café, then head to the customer service desk to settle up my bill. I stayed here way too long, I think as I wait in line. I’m kind of glad I did, because seeing him last night brought closure.

I’m paying my bill when someone grabs my shoulder.

“Ma’am? Are you Lauren Liberty?” The name creeps up my neck and makes me flush.

“Who’s asking?” I say as I turn around to face a casino staffer.

He hands me a letter. “Room eight thirteen, right?”

I nod, frowning.

“I see your actual name is Leah McKenzie, but we understand about the pseudonym. Hearts in Vegas is a popular event here, so there are a lot of authors.” He winks, and I stare down at the envelope clutched in my shaking hands.