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You hadn’t meant to meet him there, just as you don’t particularly operate under the assumption of meeting anyone, but he’s there.
Newcomer, you think. That one would be hard to miss.
On the weekends, you don’t like to think much. You do enough of that during the week, so it’s easier to push all that aside, settle down into a dark corner of your local park and allow the quiet to deaden your senses until the world around you is hazy and gray.
That’s the best part of it, finding a spot where the lampposts glimmer, fade into a soft firelight glow, and you curl up on an empty bench, your head tipped back at the stars. They’re dimmed against the cloudy night sky, but every once in a while, one manages to sparkle through.
And that’s your excitement for the night. Pretty stars on a lonely bench in the middle of an empty park—truly, you’re kind of asking for trouble, aren’t you?
Your family’s been saying that to you for years—you can’t walk this world, enjoy the underbelly, without expecting it to bite back.
One day, it bites back.
The stranger fits right in, his attire a monotony of monochrome, and he slides right next to you, so sudden that he almost looks like an apparition. Massive but muted—his face is covered with a black balaclava with a white, chalky skull design as if he made it himself. He stares at you. His silence almost convinces you of your fear—that he’s not real at all, and you’ve finally lost it the way your mother’s been claiming you have for well over a decade.
But you look back at him, and there’s this terrible sort of dread building in your stomach, some strange feeling of wrongness in how he watches you, wordlessly. You check the rise and fall of his chest underneath the thick, black hoodie he’s got on. Silly of you, but you consider waving a hand towards him, wondering if it might blink right through him. As if he never existed.
God, do you understand that feeling.
Then he speaks, “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but that jogger in the blue tracksuit’s been circling your bench for the past hour. He runs just out of sight, then turns around and comes back.”
A strange part of you smiles. You hadn’t noticed, in fact. But a different thought comes to mind.
“Oh. Thanks for the warning, but what’re you doing, watching him for the past hour?”
“Strange bloke,” the man says, and he leans back against the bench, spreading his meaty thighs; it creaks with his movement. “Just doing my part, I suppose.”
You nod, tucking your hands into the pockets of your puffer jacket. “I see.”
It doesn’t explain anything, but you’re not sure you care. You’re not sure you know how to care anymore. And silence falls between you like an old friend, your hands in your pockets, his at his sides.
He suddenly shifts, straightening in place, and his arms cross over his chest. Massive. Big guy, you think murkily, and he’s posting up, but you aren’t sure why—then you see it.
A man jogs by. He’s in a blue tracksuit, looks like he’s got an earpiece in each ear, and he gives your bench a precursory glance as he passes. He’s nondescript under the shadowing that encompasses your corner of the park, but he’s a man, and you know even that much is supposed to be dangerous for someone like you.
The stranger to your side gives him a hard look, his eyes telling him to keep on moving, and to his credit, the jogger does with only a timid smile towards the two of you.
When he passes around the bend, your stranger relaxes back once more, his voice gruff, “He shouldn’t come back, but if he does, it’ll be from that direction in five minutes. Give or take.”
Just long enough to get out of sight range and return, you suppose. Or maybe you don’t. You don’t know what you think anymore.
“But you might just want to head home. Probably safer for you.”
Probably. You give him a wry smile, reluctant to admit his wisdom for it, or maybe you just don’t want to leave at all. Don’t want to miss out on your time to just fade—to exist no more than that light post, or that tree, or the bench you sit upon.
“You’re right. I should go.”
You stand up. The stranger follows. When you give him a side-eye, he shrugs his shoulders. “I should probably walk you back to your place. Just in case.”
Just in case. Of course.
Because you’re eyeing this man who took a seat next to you, who has taken some strange role in pretending he knows you, to shield you from what he assumes is someone with malevolent intent, and maybe it’s just your hazy mind. Maybe you shouldn’t be prescribing ill notions to someone who’s helped you out, but you swear when he looks back at you, there’s something to his gaze.
His eyes are hungry. He watches you, half-starved, and you try to ignore how those eyes follow you, trace over the outline of your being. But you keep up your step, keep a little forward of him, slightly out of reach as you go.
If he really wanted to, you’re sure he could close the gap in a matter of seconds, but he doesn’t, content to tail just behind you as you make your way from the park, down the streets.
And it’s terrible, you know it is, but you decide to nudge fate just a bit more as you pause briefly between the intersections of your decision—you blink at the well-lit street that leads to your flat, and back over to the darkened alleyway.
The alleyways are a straight-shot cut across, while the street meanders along, and you know you shouldn’t—you really, really shouldn’t, especially with this strange man who plays at heroics hot on your heels—but you turn down the darkened alleyways and decide to ring at fate’s doorbell once more.
You feel his surprise, along with the stutter of his steps as he pivots to follow you along.
That’s when he speaks again, “You always come this way, love?”
“Of course,” you tell him in the most convincing voice you can put together.
“Hm.” He doesn’t say much more than that, but you feel his disapproval.
It weighs nearly as heavily as his dark eyes, the ones that burn into you as you go. But he doesn’t do a goddamn thing more, just follows you along the strangeness of the route without another word.
So he’s not a psycho killer, you think as you come out to the front of your building. Safe. It’s almost a little boring.
But you turn to him. “This is me.”
“So this is you,” he echoes in return.
His hands are to his sides, and he’s looking at you again, in that strange way. And it’s in that moment that you’re damn near certain that jogger was just a jogger, very much nothing at all. No, the predator in the park, the real thing to worry about, is the man who stands in front of you now, looking curious. Looking bored.
Looking starved.
“Thanks for walking me back safe,” you tell him, a little prompting for him to continue on his merry way.
He nods. And he’s just standing there. So are you. What are you supposed to do?
“Do you want something?”
“Your number,” he says.
God, maybe it’s in the way he says it, but he’s not right. It’s a familiar numbness, the feeling that passes over you, and how he says it so bluntly, as if it shouldn’t be a problem at all. As if he deserves it.
Absolutely mental.
This man is cracked in a manner you’re not sure you can even adequately describe, a way that rivals your own destructive complexities—and it’s so damn interesting to look at.
So you give it to him.
Because you’ve never missed an opportunity to fuck yourself over, and it’s with this notion that you turn to the front of your building. He’s not going to leave until you’re inside, you know—you know with the same certainty that you know that jogger was just a jogger, and this man is a stranger, but he looks at you in a way that makes you think that you have to be wrong about that.
What sort of stranger looks at someone they don’t know with such hunger? As if he could swallow you whole.
You wave him off with a cheeky smile, and you play another risky hand as your blown kiss scatters to the wind. Somehow, you know he catches it, bristled and determined in the dead of the night.
Full moon madness, you swear.
But when you give a dog a bone, he is going to come back for more.
It pops up on your screen the next evening—a solitary, little request.
you at the park?
You don’t know what to reply to this new contact, but the unknown number emblazoned at the top of the text chain is sobering enough. What the hell have you done? And why the fuck aren’t you stopping it?
That should have been the last you saw of him. You should block his number and be done with it, shouldn’t have done the litany of destructive behaviors that boil down into what you’ve done to yourself.
And you have no idea why in the hell you reply, not yet, should I be?
do you want to be?
You’re not sure want is the correct word—it feels more like a compulsion as you grab your purse, slide on your trainers, and toss on a coat.
And it’s terrifying, it’s exhilarating—when you go outside, he’s standing there. Big, old dog standing along the concrete—he’s tucked into his phone. He texts with one finger; you find it disastrously charming.
God, you’re sick. Ill over the way his gaze falls to you, and it returns. That prey feeling. Your phone buzzes. You look down at it briefly, only a haze of letters: come outside.
Terrible, nasty creature. You’re already here.
You smile. He stares. Then you extend an olive branch.
“You know you never told me your name, right?”
He almost breathes it out, a single, stuttering huff. Simon. Cute.
You return the gesture, stepping down the front steps of your building and coming to his side. You slide your phone back into your purse, tucked over your shoulder; he watches you like you might slide right through his grubby fingers.
Want. Desire. You can’t rid yourself of that arrogant smile as you begin to walk down the street. He flanks you this time. To your left as you walk, shielding you from the street. It’s fucking dead, though; you aren’t sure what he’s protecting you from, other than the occasional passerby.
You come to the alley entrance, the one where you spat on fate and waited for your comeuppance—it still hasn’t arrived. And to your slipping mind, you switch between the brightly lit sidewalk to dirt and brick, the corridors between rows of townhouses. When you look over your shoulder, he’s still following you.
“Bad route,” he says, and it’s the first thing he’s said to you beside your name. “You should take the sidewalk.”
“This is faster,” you argue, although you’d never take it without him.
“It’s dangerous.” The words are pulled from him like a sore tooth. “You should keep to the streetlights at this time of night.”
You should. You don’t, though. And you aren’t particularly worried now, given the way he follows you. He’s alert, eyes darting to every sound, and you walk, already falling into the numbness that overtakes you in the park.
To be nothing and no one and everything in the night sky.
The stars are bright out tonight, peeking through the curtain of light pollution. Beautiful and rare. You wonder what’s dimmed the city into subservience just for your eyes.
“Did you even hear me?” he asks, displeased.
You don’t dignify it with a response, and you’re not sure you even hear him at all anyways.
Then it cuts through your haze—a loud clattering. There’s a hiss, then scampering. Someone in the distance cusses and throws something. It collides loudly with a metal bin.
Then everything returns to quiet.
Beside you, Simon has jumped. Nervous, neurotic, his hands are moving, and so is he, how he grabs your arm into a standstill, eclipsing you with his large frame. He takes in a breath, ragged, before he seems to center himself.
You center yourself on him.
Your hand covers his, gives it a gentle tug. “Just a cat,” you say, then giggle. “You know what that is, yeah?”
He frowns. “Go fuck yourself.”
Somehow, you aren’t offended. You laugh even more loudly. And you walk with him, curled around his arm. You think, for a moment, you see a flicker of amusement that softens his eyes, and you think underneath that mask, he might be smiling.
He’s not pulling away, not even as you make it through the alleyway, step back into the fluorescent wash of streetlights. The park lies ahead of you, wiry arch overhead, and when you cross inside, it’s different. It’s as if there’s a part of your ever-wavering mind hanging on, and it clings to Simon’s sleeve the same way your hands dig into the dark fabric.
He leads you to your bench, and you sit, and it’s not the same. You’re still here. Still aware. Too aware. Your skin prickles, and you know under your coat sleeve, it’s broken into goosebumps. It itches, and you look up at his eyes, those aggravating eyes that have set your skin alight.
You watch the sky, he’s watching you, and it’s quiet. So damn quiet. Not even the sounds of joggers passing by.
“How funny would it be if the blue tracksuit bloke came back?” you joke.
By the way his brow shifts, you can tell he’s definitely smiling. “Yeah?”
It’s funny, it’s all funny—how you can’t feel, and he can’t relax, and the two of you are sitting out here alone, only having met yesterday on false pretenses. He watches you like you’re something to devour, but he restrains himself out of principle.
You wonder what his principles are.
You wonder a lot of things about this stranger who grounds you back to the park bench and the tree and the lamppost, away from the night sky.
After a couple hours, you’ve had enough. The chill of autumn nights is beginning to cut through your coat and whet your hazy mind. You stand; Simon stands with you. Then you walk out of the park, follow the same route. When it comes to the alley, you don’t hesitate.
If he’s going to kill you, third time’s the charm, you suppose.
You walk. He walks beside you. His hands are in his pockets, but his head’s on a swivel in a way that yours is not. Because you don’t have to be.
It’s unexpectedly nice.
The houses rise high, three-story brickface on both sides, and a high fence runs between them, a substitute hedgerow, you suppose. Wrought iron fencing atop a stone wall, it runs talls and blocks the light from the street and the houses and leaves only darkness and a faint glimmering amongst the bins—washes of metallic gray, forest green, and recycle bin blue.
You look towards Simon. For once, he’s not looking at you, and it shows in the looseness of his gait. Some forced sense of calm—he doesn’t truly feel it, and you barely see it when he realizes you’re the one staring this time.
He looks down at you, brow raised.
You shake your head, and it pours through you all over again. Why does he look at you like that? With his dark eyes so intense? You find that you crave it.
And you wonder. You wonder what his mouth would taste like, and how it would feel to be completely wrapped in his arms.
Terrible, terrible you, the way that you glance towards his biceps—they stretch the sleeves of his hoodie. You look away, embarrassed but no less inquisitive.
The end of the alley, feeding into the street, is just ahead. You give it a contemplative look, then glance back to see how far you’ve come. Just another little stretch, and you’re home free.
Unacceptable.
His head jerks over in surprise when you prance to the high fence, plaster yourself against it with a dramatic toss of your hair. He tips his chin, confused.
“This is your last chance,” you warn him playfully. “Last chance to murder me and dump my body in the bins.”
You’re not sure what his reaction is with that damn balaclava in the way, but he stands there, his hands now firm at his sides.
“If you don’t do it now, you’ll have lost the opportunity,” you tell him acutely. “Because I’ll officially consider you just some do-gooder that saves random women from predators in blue tracksuits.”
Predators that don’t exist. Tales he tells you to bring you closer, closer to his maw. Twisted and dark and somehow just so because you look at him with challenge.
He seems to take you up on that.
His approach is slow, calculated, but he comes forward, closes you in, and when he’s concealed the entire alleyway from view until all you can see is him—deadly monochromatic against his warm, brown eyes—you actually start to feel it.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe this has been a terrible idea since the beginning, and maybe you haven’t been listening, haven’t really been there, but you are now, you are now as he leans close, boxes you in, and his hand, the giant paw, comes up to your wrist you’ve got delicately tossed above your head in your theatrics until it’s firmly pressed against the wrought iron post.
He’s close, close as he can get without just quite pinning you, and he looks down, those eyes, those unsettling eyes, as he says, “How’d you want it done?”
You blink a bit. “What?”
Your heart’s pounding in your chest, and you can’t breathe, even though he’s not pressing even a bit of weight against you, except to your wrist. He holds that so gently like you are a frail thing he doesn’t want to dent.
“If I’m going to kill you,” he says slowly, each syllable with careful enunciation to draw your attention, “how would you want it done?”
“Uh—” His eyes are a maelstrom, and you’ve been sucked into the core. You hold his stare, your own curious, a little apprehensive to fit the discomfort rolling in your gut. “—I don’t know. Cut my throat?”
He gives you an even look. “I don’t have a knife.”
Somehow, you don’t believe him.
“Um—” You’re acutely aware of those mitts of his, the distinct difference between you, and something tells you there’s a natural, rolling violence to him. You’d be frightened by it if it didn’t exist within yourself. “—maybe strangulation?”
That. Why did you say that? Because his eyes light up—not brighten, but sharpen—and you’re still as his spare hand comes to rest on your shoulder. It brushes along your collarbone, taking its sweet time as it journeys along the column of your neck.
He takes hold, just under your chin, with a short squeeze.
You hold your breath, mortified at your interest, how your stupidity’s gotten you here, and somehow, even now, you aren’t truly scared.
You aren’t scared because he’s looking at you, and it’s wonderful in the worst way.
Hungry. He looks ravenous, every part of the mangy stray you’ve discovered him to be. He looks like he wants to pull you apart, dismantle you piece by piece. And you want to ask him to take a look while he’s in there, figure out what the hell’s wrong with you so maybe you can fix whatever it is inside you that’s been aching for so long.
He drops his head close, a tug at your throat, and it guides your eyes to his, to the millimeters that fall between your parted lips. Anticipatory. You nearly raise on your toes to greet him.
“I could get my hands dirty,” he murmurs, his muffled breath warm against your face.
You’d believe it because it looks like he already has. And maybe it just speaks to exactly the type of person you are when you toe the line, stretching further until your lips brush over the dark fabric of his balaclava.
Then you pull back, amused by his blinking in astonishment, and the breath that escapes him sounds like you’ve pulled it from his very lungs along with yourself, you, you, tattooed into his eyes—you whisper to him, only to him and the fence and the buzzing night sky, “I wish you would.”
He does. Wild—it’s wildly as he yanks up his mask until it pulls over his mouth, his hungry mouth, and how he takes to you immediately, desperately. He presses you tight to the fence, until all you can do is squirm against him, and it’s there, he’s there, the entire length of his body is on yours, his mouth is on yours.
His hand that holds your throat is tight but not constricting. His fingers dig into your fragile throat until they’re traveling, tangling into the hair along the nape of your neck, twisting and tugging and demanding you be closer, be warmer, be more open.
He pries your lips apart, deepening his kiss until he’s tasting you, and your curiosity is satisfied in the same. Your hands, you don’t know what to do with them, but they’re there, too, you suppose, clinging to his shoulders, working over the rolling muscles. You pull, and it doesn’t mean anything, not even a hint of movement, but you’ve always been one to stand for nothing, so you do.
You do. You do as he takes you apart, just like his gaze has promised he would.
His hips suddenly rut against yours, and he pulls back, vicious, the words spitting from him like a mad dog, “C’mon, love. C’mere, c’mere…”
“I’m here,” you gasp back, the heaviness echoing in your mind.
He drops your pinned wrist, and his hands are at your waist, skimming the curve of your hips, the swell of your ass, and he’s lifting as he guides your legs around him. You whimper when he drives his hips against you once more, grinding, bleeding desperation. Warmth pools between your thighs, and he’s there; suddenly, he’s there, his fingers tearing against the waistband of your leggings.
He groans when he slides his fingers inside, raking through your wet folds indiscriminately. His touch is suffocating, less a concern of pleasure and more possession. To have caught you.
Your arms tighten around his neck, conveying your soft uncertainty before you even say it, his name a whisper from your lips like a lash through the dark.
“Mm?” His response is a one-syllable grunt against your cheek, his mouth trailing your jawline as he nips the tender shell of your ear.
Your knees feel weak. You wiggle in his grip before one of your hands come down to his wrist, to the hand that works your softening cunt; you give him a disconcerted moan when he rubs your clit. Heat pours down your spine like boiling magma.
“We’re outside,” you remind him shakily.
“We are,” he muses back, then there’s a tempering tsk. “You’re fucking soaked, birdie.”
It’s too much, and somehow, it’s not enough, but he’s not going to stop, not as his ring finger breaches your tight, little hole, not as he presses his index finger right along with it, enjoying how your body clenches and rides the pleasure, the flush of your cheeks—you hide your face against his chest.
“Ugh—Simon!” you protest. You have no idea why you think it would work because it doesn’t, but the words pour out of you, less by actual merit and more by instinct alone.
“Atta girl,” he growls instead, guiding the way your hips move against his fingers as they plunge into your cunt. “My good fuckin’ girl.”
God, he looks hungry. And you’re just the silly, little bird who got caught in his trap.
You want to tell him that consuming you whole will not make him feel any less empty, but he’s too voracious to do anything but swallow those words from your mouth as well, along with any others that follow.
His thumb moves to rub your puffy, warmed clit as the others pillage your softness, and you’ve got your face pressed into his hoodie—he doesn’t seem to mind how you’re not looking at him. He doesn’t seem to mind it at all.
Not how you shake against him, not how you tighten with a gasp before lightning shoots down your spine, and you’ve heaving against him.
Terrible. Terrible. What have you done? Because he looks at you, unabashed, as he pulls his hand from your leggings, licks your cream off his fingers.
You shift uncomfortably at the sight, feeling your slickness against your panties and how he doesn’t seem to care. He makes to unbuckle his trousers, and you realize suddenly, quite firmly, you don’t want to do this here. You don’t want to be deconstructed in a fucking alleyway amidst families living their lives on either side.
But you still want him, and you still need the hum of his touch searing into your waist.
“Bad dog,” you snap, your voice sharpened into a command. “Wait.”
Simon pauses. His fingers fall still, halfway through working his belt. And when he looks up at you, that brutality is contained. Subdued. It flames behind his eyes, a vow he strikes to hold you to, but he waits, rocking on his heels. Trembling with the effort.
Your tone is steely. “You’re going to walk me home now.”
You think that might be a flicker of disappointment, yet he says nothing.
But his hand, that hand is at your chin, lifting your eyes to his. He takes your mouth once more, this time a brutal claiming that ends only a heartbeat later.
Then he pulls away. You’re immediately left cold and a little too clear as you peer up at him in disbelief. That worked better than you thought it would, but you suppose all dogs are built to obey. He doesn’t say a damn word, just guides you away from the fence, and when you aren’t moving fast enough for him, prompts you with a slap to your ass.
You withhold your squeal but not your jump, and you move faster, bustling along towards the short end of the alley. In the light, he doesn’t look any different, except maybe the way he moves, leashed, unexpressive.
He’s tugged up the end of his balaclava over his mouth before he seems to think better of it, and you think of the texture that rocked against your lip—scars. And when you look a little closer, you might be able to see it, the hint of old wounds along the edges of his exposed face.
Simon stops at your building. An immediate halt. Uncanny. And he waits, just as you commanded of him.
You should tell him to leave. You should run inside, block his number from your phone, and if he ever shows up again, call the police.
You should.
You don’t.
“You want to come inside?” you ask instead.
He gives a nod and shadows you up the stairs.
He herds you down the corridor, and when you stop at your flat, he takes the keys from your nervous hands, swiftly unlocks the front door. Simon steps inside, his eyes examining the whole of your little place, before he turns, extending his hand out to you, you in the hallway.
You take it.
And when he looks at you like that, quiet and predatory, you realize you’ve made a mistake. Your stray isn’t a dog at all—he’s something else entirely, something as feral as he is restrained.
There’s nothing to be done as he tugs you inside your flat, knocks the door shut in your wake. Because you have a feeling that he’s got his maw right around your neck, and he’ll shake as he damn well pleases. If you tell him to leave, you can hardly be surprised when he bites back.
But you aren’t afraid of him—you can’t be. Because your hand is at his collar as you kick off your shoes, and you guide him through your flat with indulgent kisses and promises that he’ll like it here, belonging to you.
He seems to like the notion, too, by how he seizes you up at the entry of your bedroom, his palms kneading your ass, your hips, your waist, as he claims your mouth again, swallows your moans. Simon tosses you on your bed, and it’s only a moment you’re parted before he comes over you, covers you, his thumb tracing the line of your cheek. You curl into his touch as you divest yourself of your leggings and your coat—all thrown to the side like rubbish compared to his hands that cup your face.
“Let me,” he mumbles as he sucks little marks onto your throat. “Let me have you. Please.”
You whimper, unable to prevent yourself from clutching him close. His desperation peaks when he rubs against you, hips knocking against yours, and you spread your legs until he’s rutting against your center with a grunt.
“Let me, birdie. Let me.”
And you let out a dry, disbelieving laugh at how well he’s trained. “Okay, Simon.”
He’s trembling as he tears at your panties, yanking them down your hips, and he sits upwards to free himself, his hands fumbling on his belt. The length of him bobs heavily before settling against your thigh, and he settles himself against you.
It’s hurried, the way he aligns himself, and you dig your nails into his back as he pierces you, bullies himself deeper until he’s split you open. Your whines are soft, panting things against his face, and he takes them the same way he takes everything from you—with those unnerving eyes that don’t leave yours.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he grunts, and your breath catches when he holds you down to your belly, deeper, closer to you. “My birdie, mine.”
“Simon,” you moan against his neck, your fingers coming back bloody when you release his shoulders and drift along the stubble of his chin. “Oh, god, please—”
There is no pause in his thrusts, the roll of his hips, and when he starts to get mean, you yank at his ear. He groans, rhythm stuttering, before he drops his weight on you, deep as he can go, and fucks into you.
You’d meet his thrusts, but he’s got you pinned down as he takes what he wants, what you’ve promised—for him to belong to you, that he can have all he wants of you as long as he stays close.
Your lip quivers when you feel your legs start to shake from their hold around his torso, and you’re there, all there, as Simon growls against your ear, “C’mon, birdie. Cum for me, precious girl.”
Too much. Not enough. But you’re here, and that’s the strangest part, even as you cream on his cock, your tight cunt clenching at him in a manner that forces him free of his thinly veneered composure.
Wild. The wild is back with the leashed, and you know that a beast collared is still a beast the same way that Simon, sheathed in your cunt, is as he grunts and plays at submission.
Because this is no longer a game when he comes up, snapping teeth and spitting mad, by the enrapturing way you pulse around him through your own orgasm. When he cums, it’s with a pant, and his head drops down against your chest. His cheek presses to the top of your sternum, strange, curious.
You stroke his face, work your hands over his bunched shoulders and along his bobbing throat as he looks up at you—those eyes, those eyes of his. You kiss him once, soft and sweet, before pulling the brim of his balaclava down to conceal him once more.
“Good boy,” you whisper, caressing down the nape of his neck. “You’re so good, Simon.”
You don’t usually make it practice to let wild animals into your home, but he’s made himself comfortable.
You don’t know what this is. You don’t have the slightest clue because he doesn’t tell you things, he just watches you with that wildness you’ve come to know.
That’s how it goes. He comes, he walks you to the park, and tears you to pieces when he delivers you home. You tolerate it as if you don’t love it.
Because there’s something inside him, and it’s broken in the same way you’re whole, and what you’ve got shattered in your fucked-up brain seems perfectly functioning in his. You wonder terribly, selfishly, if he’d be willing to share. If the two broken parts of each other might be able to cobble together something that looks like a whole.
Really, you should have known.
When you give a dog a bone, he’s going to come back for more, and when you don’t have any more, he’s going to take what he can.
When he’s cracked you open, sucked away your marrow—after he’s supped and satiated himself on the crushed remains, will he have taken his fill of you?
You must have known.
But there’s nothing you can do, you realize, with one hand on the door when he shows up at your flat, shoulders his way in again. Because when you give a dog a bone, he’s going to keep coming back for more.
When you give him everything you have, every part of you you’re willing to give, he will look at the rest, what scraps are left, and say, “C’mon, birdie, what’s a little more?”