I saw his shell crack for a fraction of a second, but now … it’s like he’s doubled up on his emotional armor. I can’t get a read on him at all.

“Excuse me,” I say, heading back downstairs and finding Aaron in bed. South Park flickers on the wall-mounted TV, the volume turned down nearly all the way. It’s nothing but a murmur as I pad back into the room, climb onto the bed, and find myself in Aaron’s lap.

He doesn’t ask me any questions as I shed my shirt, ignoring Oscar as he turns his attention from the TV and over to us. He can either watch or get the fuck out. I couldn’t give a shit less.

“Let’s fuck this away,” I tell Aaron, rocking my hips against him. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.” What this is, exactly, I’m not sure. And maybe that’s the cause of it all? The fact that I’m not sure of anything.

“You have no idea who you really are. You thought you did, but you were wrong,” Kali hisses in my ear.

“Tie me up,” Aaron says, and I blink down at him in surprise. There are mottled bruises on his wrists and ankles. He might not want to talk about what happened with me, but even an idiot could see that he was likely restrained. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t care.” He purses his lips together, his eyes like flinty chips in the darkness. “Do it. Handcuff me to the headboard.”

“I have to say, I’m surprised,” Oscar purrs, and when I glance back, I see that he’s sitting with an elbow on the small, round side table next to the chair, chin parked in his hand. “Sadomasochism never quite struck me as your thing, Aaron.”

I turn back to Aaron, but the expression on his face hasn’t changed.

“Are you sure about this? Your hand …” I start, but he shakes his head, resting the fingers of his left hand lightly against my hip. Even though I can’t actually see the letters of Havoc scrawled in ink across his flesh, I swear I can feel them.

“My hand will be fine; I’ve got a cast on. Just … cuff my wrists.” He looks away toward the wall, and that’s when I decide to stop arguing. Everyone manifests their trauma differently; we all have our own ways of healing.

For me, apparently, my psyche needs to go through the process of healing by seeing ghosts. The Kali creature, not at all banished by the weed as I’d hoped, skitters across the top of the wooden headboard like a rat. Jesus, this is either really good weed or really bad weed. I’m not sure how to categorize what I’m seeing.

Manifested fucking trauma.

With a groan, I push myself up and crawl over to the nightstand, retrieving two pairs of fuzzy cuffs that Hael bought for me and Victor as a wedding present. Pretty sure it was a Homer Simpson gift that he himself intended on using with me. Such an asshole. Victor is basic, and we both know it. I mean that in the best way possible, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I take the handcuffs back to Aaron and straddle him again, feeling his body sweaty and hot beneath mine. He might not have been able to get hard for Kali, but he’s most definitely hard for me. His cock is thick and needy beneath me, and he groans when I wiggle in place.

Presumably, Oscar is still watching us, but I ignore him as I hook my no-longer-ex-boyfriend to the bed. His breathing picks up, heart thundering as I lay my palm on his sweaty chest. I don’t ask again if he’s sure. I won’t question him, and I won’t hesitate. I promised I never would again.

I scoot back and free his cock from his sweatpants, taking the hot length of him in my palm and stroking him until his hips move to meet my hand. All the while, he keeps his eyes on mine, silently suffering in the dark.

My own hand sneaks between my thighs, pushing aside the loose boxers I’m wearing to find the swollen heat of my cunt, teasing the slick readiness and coming away wet. I wish absently that it weren’t so dark in here, so I could see Aaron’s face as I torment him, slipping my fingers into my mouth and sucking them clean.

We exchange a long look, one shared by lovers in the dead of night. It says I know your body aches the way mine does; I know your heart pounds. It’s a look that can be summed up with dark chocolate, black vodka, and clove cigarettes. It’s a look that, for me, tastes like the blackest night of the year when there’s no moon, only stars across a velvet sky.

I exhale and readjust my body so that the length of him rubs against that scalding space between my thighs, the one that wants him so badly that she’s lost any hope of rational thought. Life gets that way, melodramatic and meaningful both, when you come close to losing one of your few reasons for existence. It scares you in a way that’s indescribable, a way that digs into the soul.

Aaron watches me as I lower myself onto his cock, nice and slow, savoring every second. I keep going, until he’s fully sheathed in my body. I bite my lower lip, closing my eyes for a moment as I dig the fingers of my inked left hand into my hair. Rocking my hips forward, I tear a groan from Aaron’s throat that’s only half pleasure. The rest of it is agony.

I open my eyes to look down at him, but I don’t stop the rolling of my hips, stomach muscles tightening and releasing as I work his body with my own. The way Aaron stares back at me, the way the muscles in his arms tense as he strains against the pull of the handcuffs, it all tells me one thing: he might be tied up, but I’m still not the one in charge here.

“Faster, harder,” he orders, and I comply, even as pain ripples through my side and I cry out. The movement of my hips slows just a little as I place a hand over the bandage on my side. This is probably a stupid idea, to fuck Aaron like this, when we’re both injured the way we are.

I hear Oscar make a sound behind me. Something like a laugh, nothing like I’d expect from him.

Sweeping my pink-tinged hair over my shoulder, I glance back and see him watching us.

“What the hell do you want, pervert?” I shoot out, wondering what this tight feeling inside my chest is. Aaron’s body stiffens up beneath me, but he can’t possibly be jealous, not with the way I feel about him. When he was missing, I felt like an Egyptian mummy, my heart stolen and placed in a ceramic jar.

“Maybe I want to fuck you?” Oscar asks, voice so mild that it’s become acidic. Like, nobody is that even and straitlaced. When you hear a sound so perfect, you know you’re looking into the face of either a thespian or a psychopath. “Maybe, after he’s done, I want a turn?”

“Hah.” I work my hips in a slow, delicious roll, making Aaron groan in wicked agony. “Like I’m a pony to ride? Fuck you, Montauk.” I turn back to Aaron, digging my nails into the bare skin of his chest. He’s bruised like crazy, wicked purple marks that look like butterflies in the flickering light of the TV screen. I lean down and put my lips near his ear, hissing a bit in pain as my stitches pull.

Fuck, I hope it scars. Weird thing to want, maybe, but I feel like I need a physical blight that proves this whole crazy life I’m living is real. For the rest of my life, I will wear Kali’s pain on my skin.

“You deserve worse,” she breathes, the specter of a memory crouching on the floor beside the bed. I stare at her for a moment, my blood slow and my brain thick with THC. But even a dead monster can’t hold my attention for long, not when my body is stretched to accommodate Aaron’s massive cock.