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“I want to eat you because I love you, Harry.”
That’s what I tell him, the boy sitting opposite me, watching me so carefully.
“I want to taste you.
Fully.
Completely.
Absolutely.
I’ve never felt like this before. Never. No matter how much I try, I can’t get you out of my head, no matter how hard I try, you’re always there, on the edge of my vision, the fringe of my life. You hang like the locket I forget I’m wearing.
Always there.
Slowly sapping the life out of me.”
The boy blinks but says nothing.
“When I see you, I feel like I’m – drowning in you. That you are the deepest ocean in the world, and I’m gasping on the surface and there’s no one there to pull me out, so I just let go. I let myself sink down, down, down. I let the world fade to black above me, the sun be blotted out by the waves and it makes me sick, Harry.
You make me sick.
But I think I love you.”
The boy still doesn’t react, and I really do feel like I’m going to be sick.
But I continue anyway. This has to be said.
“You’ll probably be glad to know that I’ve never hated myself more, than when I’m thinking about you, and I think about you all the time. I think about your father’s mouth on your face, and I think about your mother’s eyes in your sockets, and I think about your scar that is yours alone. I want to touch them. To feel them.
To have you trust me enough to let me.
Because you are my world. You are the reason that I exist, that I’m like this. You are the beginning and the ending of my story. To me, you are as sacred as a church, and I am your dedicated follower. I stand at your altar, and I speak the words that are inscribed on your walls. When I pass you by, I want to get down on my knees. I want you to be my constant, my reason, my will.
I want to choke on the air because you breathed it.
Because once it was yours.
But as much as I revere you, I want to eat you more.”
The boy swallows, like the words that I speak hurt him to hear. But I have to say them.
“I want to praise you, I want to honour you, I want to worship you, and to do that I need your body between my teeth. I need your fingers melting on my tongue and your ribs breaking beneath my hands. For me to give you what you deserve, I need your trust.
I need you to want it as much as I do.
Because I’ve never wanted anything as much as this. I’ve never needed someone as much as I need you now. I fear that without you, I will die. Not of any disease, but of starvation.
I am starving for you.
When you are there, I cannot help myself, I just…
I just…
Get so hungry.”
I bite back a sob because this should be an act, but it is starting to cross the lines that I always draw. The stitches are coming undone of this performance, and I don’t want to show anyone that I’m scared of what is underneath.
I just swallow.
“Harry, I – I want to lie between your ribs and be a part of your heart. To sleep with the warmth and the throbbing of the very thing that keeps us apart, because we can’t be together, because you’re still breathing.
That’s why I want to open you up and find out what it is that makes me mad.
I think that there is a monster inside you.
I think that it is stretching your skin.
I think that it wants to eat me.”
The boy is crying now. Soft tears that fall slow and steady down his cheek.
“And I would happily be swallowed alive, chewed up until I was just pulp and teeth if it were by you and you alone. And it has already started. I can feel you growing inside me, the roses and the poppies and the forget-me-nots that you planted are blooming in my lungs, and I can hardly breathe.
You have stolen my air.
You have stolen my heart.
And I hate you for it.”
The tear’s trails have dried, and now the boy looks at me with steely eyes. He stared with a loathing intermixed with a revulsion, perhaps even a hint of animosity to balance the blend.
“But I can remedy it. We can remedy it. I can forgive you for taking what was mine. If you just…
Let me eat you.
If you would lie back and let me climb on top of you. Let me sit between your hips and just feel your throat and your collarbones and your ribs. I would kiss you if you wanted. Let you taste my lips and the inside of my mouth and behind my teeth, and you wouldn’t notice when I put those teeth through your lip and then into your shoulder.
I know how deep I can go.
I know how much blood there’ll be.
Not much really.
Until I open you up. Then there’ll be blood everywhere. It'll coat my fingers and yours too, I'll be able to paint flowers with your blood, camellias and tulips and rhododendrons. All for you. And I promise I won’t use magic because – it doesn’t feel right to do that to you.
This is too important.
I would use a knife, a pretty one that you chose, and my hands. Just – slide my fingers into you, stretch you just right. And when you think you can take it, I’ll put my whole hand inside you.”
His hands are shaking, and it’s just pathetic that he can’t control his own body.
I have to convince him.
“People have done it for as long as there have been people, because sometimes love isn’t how you imagine it.
It’s not as pretty as they make it sound.
It’s messy.
Bloody.
Painful.
Like acid on your tongue, fizzing and burning, you hate it but you crave it. Like a howling fury that's stuck in your throat. Like a monster stretching your skin.
And I’ve felt it for so long, Harry. I've wanted it for so long. Wanted just to see your face as I lean down and slide my tongue into the slit. I already told you, I want to know how you taste. And I promise I’ll make it good. So good. I’ll take it slow. Start with your fingers, hold them in my mouth before I bite, and then I'll work my way up to your shoulder; I’ll chew down to the bone until you're crying because you love it so much, and then I will work my way down your spine and along your hip. Slowly I will strip you down and press my tongue to every palpitating muscle.
Just so you know I love you.
In that horrible way.
Just so you know that I want you inside me forever.
So that we can always be together because we are connected, Harry. Linked. But I think you know that, and I think you love it. Even if you’re too afraid to say anything now. Even if you are scared. Even if you’re so fucking scared.
You want this.
You want me.
You want to be eaten.”
The boy is nodding but it means nothing; because I’m talking to myself again. Harry isn’t here, he never has been.
It’s just me and the mirror.
And my little performance.