Wild Animals
I remember the first time we touched. She was standing outside of the
music room, with her hand on the doorframe... I had been watching Himemiya
play the piano with Miki-kun and was just leaving to use the bathroom.
Himemiya called out something to me, maybe asking me to take Chuchu with me,
and I paused at the doorway to listen, resting my fingers against the frame.
I think I must have cried out then; I wasn't expecting to feel the solid
warmth of her fingers under mine. I blushed and stammered and begged her
pardon a thousand times, but all she did was smirk at me. There was
something strange lurking in her eyes, something taunting, almost teasing,
in the curve of her lips. As I passed by her there should've been room
enough to pass without contact, yet her shoulder brushed firmly against
mine. I still don't really know if it was all her doing or if I had some
part in that unnecessary contact as well.
The normal course of daily events doesn't usually lead us to be in the
same place at the same time, so it was more than a week before I saw her
again. Earlier I had attributed the embarassing racing of my heart to
surprise and bewilderment. But this time, laying eyes on her again, I had
nothing to blame it on. She made some snide comment about the blush that had
risen to my cheeks that caused it to deepen. Again I fumbled with my words,
so unsure of everything that it made my stomach shudder and twist. I
remembered our first meeting, how I had thought I had indigestion, how I had
gone and made a fool of myself. She really did look strikingly like her
brother, but I felt like such a child saying it to her. Also, it was an
exaggeration... I would still be able to tell them apart were they dressed
the same. Kozue-san's eyes have a peculiar inner-darkness to them that
Miki-kun's lack, a sort of animalistic hunger. Whenever I see her lick her
lips I think of her separating flesh from bone with her tongue. Sometimes
when I see her talking to one of her boyfriends I catch her looking at him
as if she would like to devour him whole. I think someday she might try it.
She called herself a wild animal once, and I believe her. I think she would
chew off her limbs to free herself from a trap. I think she would eat
another alive. I think there's very little that she wouldn't do.
I heard some boys talking about her the other day. They were all comparing
their relationships with her, bragging about how far they'd gotten, laughing
at those who hadn't gotten far. Short-lived relationships, all. The longest
one was probably about a week and a half. Ridiculous boys. They don't care
about her heart, just her body. As long as they can own her body for a short
time, they are content to forget she has a heart. So like the Duellists.
They play their own little game, passing her around like some false vision
of a Rose Bride, not even taking turns, and all for what? There is no
revolution in their game. There is no goal but to possess their "Bride",
even if only for one night. How cruel. Even wild animals have hearts. She's
not some soulless creature, some beautiful Frankenstein's monster for them
to have their way with. They want to own something that can never truly be
owned. All she has to do is bare her teeth and them and look at them with
that bloodlusting cannibalism in her eyes that I've noticed there before and
they'll be gone. They'll run off whimpering, fearing that she may bite their
throats and drain them of their lives as they wish to drain her of hers.
I think I would let her. I dream of it, sometimes. I dream I'm standing in
the woods in my pajamas, and she comes to me in a torn Rose Bride dress, her
hair tangled and her face dirty. She leers at me and devours me with her
eyes. I try to speak, but before I can, her lips are upon mine. I am
startled at first, always startled at first, but her touch is so gentle and
warm that I cannot help but sink into it, to return it. My face begins to
burn; my heart pounds and I can feel sweat running down the back of my neck.
She begins to kiss me harder, her hands clamped onto my face so hard it
hurts. My lips begin to bleed. I whimper and try to pull away, but she holds
me tightly, pressing our bodies together so fiercly I can't stand it. Her
lips dig hungrily into mine, tearing the tender flesh with their every ounce
of strength. She pulls away from me at last, smiling bloodily, stretching
the cuts on her own lips so that it hurts just to see it. I hold a hand to
my ravaged mouth and stare at her with teary eyes. My heart is racing so
fast, too fast to be natural, more rapid than the beating of a hummingbird's
wings. I can hardly breathe, and all I can taste is our hot, hot blood. Then
her hands are on my shoulders and I don't care about anything else. Her
slender fingers trace streaks of searing pain across my flesh with only the
slightest touch, her breath whispering against my ear so that it tickles
with fire, and all I can do is tilt back my head and gasp. Blood is sucked
into my lungs, and her every touch is its own world of unimaginable agony,
but I stand there almost motionless, my brutalized lips trembling, and love
every second of it. The lightest touch of her tongue burns away a trace of
flesh. A little deeper the next time and my neck is bleeding. I'm in hell
and all I can do is moan. I should scream. I should run, run away and never
look back. But I don't. Her teeth press against my wounded neck and the most
sound I can make is a soft cry, desperate and pathetic. Blood gushes; I can
feel it pushing through the barriers of her lips sealed so tightly to my
neck, running down my flesh, soaking into my clothes. I can feel my flesh
tearing, yielding to her. She's eating me alive and I hope she never stops.
I wake up there, sweating and aching and wanting to cry. Shame wells in my
chest and I can't bear the look on Himemiya's face. She stopped asking me
about it after a while, I'd assume because I always gave her the same sort
of replies, but the concern still lingers on her face. I suppose it's
understandable... She tried to tell me about it once; she said I looked like
I was trying to scream but couldn't, that I clawed at the air so helplessly
and desperately that I looked like a trapped animal. She also mentioned some
strange sounds I was making, but I could never get her to try to describe
it. Just as I could never try to describe my dream to her. I think she would
be appalled... I am appalled. I awaken trembling and ashamed every time. I
sit up in my bed and pant for air, trying to quiet the shameful throbbing
the dream always stirs in me.
I shouldn't feel this way. I shouldn't long for her. I shouldn't have such
dreams. A noble prince would not feel this way, would not dream this way,
would not want for a crazed animal that could never want anything but his
pain. Princes rescue princesses. They slay dragons and save kingdoms. They
always dash in just in time to set things right. They do not dream of
delightful tortures. They do not lust after inappropriate creatures. And
they are not so selfish as to be absorbed by their own wants. I suppose I
really can't be a prince. I suppose I really was just a fool to believe in
such a childish fantasy. Real life is not princes and princesses and
kingdoms in the sky. Real life is pain and pleasure and guilt and shame.
I was always sheltered from this sort of thing. I lived in a dream world
of soft colours and gentle breezes, of heroic deeds and chaste kisses. It
wasn't until I touched her, sensed the animal in her blood that made her so
real, that I woke up. I suppose one could say that I didn't wake up until my
dreams changed. When my head touched the pillow and I dreamed such an
intensely beautiful nightmare that I wept from pain and pleasure, I finally
awakened from the sweet dream world I had been hiding in. When our hands
touched, something changed inside me, something powerful, almost
overwhelming. Finger brushed against finger and shoulder brushed against
shoulder, and suddenly I found that the world was not as I had thought. I
finally can grow, no longer confined to my ideal world, cramped into my
ideal self. She smashed my delicate eggshell of a world with a simple touch
and I was born, not as a prince, but as an animal, a human, destined to grow
to match her strange new world.
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