Page 34 of The Spiral
I reach for her hair, making her jump away from my hands. She glowers a little, attempting to remain in control of something neither of us are in control of.
“I think it’s best if we stop all that,” she mumbles, backing away from me.
“Why?”
“Because you... Well... And I… It’s not normal. Something’s not right here.”
“Hmm. Perhaps you’re right,” I reply, walking past her and heading for the kitchen. I need to feel her wedding band in my hand again and for some reason I’m now relaxed enough to go and retrieve it.
“Where are you going?” she calls, her heels clicking across the floor behind me and reminding me of times past. I stop, swinging myself back to her and picking her arms up into dance hold before she has a chance to avoid them.
“Are you really sure you’re you?” I say, swaying her and then forging us into a slow waltz. “I don’t think you are. I think you’re someone entirely different from who you think you are.” She frowns again, probably trying to work out what the fuck I’m talking about. I’d explain further if I knew, but I don’t yet. I only know what Selma has shown me, and Madeline Cavannagh is part of that mystery. “Do you remember the feel of me against you?”
“Hardly difficult, we’re dancing,” she replies, huffing and trying her best to keep distance between us. I pull her closer with a sharp tug, breathing in her scent and not allowing one inch of space to interrupt my musings.
“Not that, Madeline. The fucking. Do you remember the fucking? Here on the floor beneath our feet? The way you bit your lip on the first strike, making it bleed.” She rears away again, her body struggling against me to break the connection I’m forcing. “I think you need reminding who you are, Madeline,” I whisper, swinging us around the corner and lengthening my stride. “Shall I show you?” She shudders in my hands, her frame straining for release as she tenses and tries to stop her feet moving with mine. “There’s no point fighting it anymore, don’t you see? It’s all connected. Can’t you feel it? You belong here, don’t you?”
“No. I want to leave. I–”
“Do you really?” I cut in, keeping us dancing, regardless of her attempts at freedom. “I’ll protect you this time. I will.”
I just keep us twirling and gliding, tightening my hold on her and hearing my own tempo in my head. The sound of our wedding dance is so clear as we travel the floor. It rings around the room as our feet move seamlessly, commemorating the feelings I have for her and driving us closer still. If anything, those sensations grow stronger than they’ve ever been, dismissing images of brutalised bodies and blood. I feel them rising inside my heart, reminding me of love and happiness, of evening walks and babies crying in the middle of the night.
I smile as Lenon’s cries of need filter into the song, imagining his little hands reaching for me in the darkest depths of night. For once, they aren’t covered with blood, or just lying limply at his sides. They’re loud and vibrant, grabbing for me and clinging on like children do.
“You must remember, Madeline. Close your eyes and let me guide you. We’ll find it all together.” She yanks at my hands, trying to free herself from my fingers as her steps falter. I hardly feel her try, choosing to carry on and submerge myself and her into something whether she likes it or not. It’s why she’s here, so we can remould ourselves, link.
Selma’s showing me the way.
“You’re mad,” she stutters, still struggling and eventually managing to loosen her hand from mine. I grab at it again, halting my spin and winding myself behind her body so she has little chance of escape. Maybe I am. In fact, I’m becoming surer of it by the hour, but this is happening between us. Selma appeared the night before this woman arrived, telling me to go home and wait. And then Madeline arrived for me, bringing with her all the feelings I’ve been left without.
I stare at her in the mirror facing us, watching the way her mouth parts under my gaze and her exertion, and then pick up her right hand as I hold her close. She feels the same in this position as Selma did, her ass sliding itself neatly alongside my cock as I bend slightly to tuck my face into her neck. My fingers hold her hand aloft, nudging her face with my own so she keeps her eyes connected with mine in the mirror.
“What’s missing from this hand, Madeline?”
“Nothing,” she mumbles, her voice shaky as her eyes fidget about. I smirk at her, drawing my lips along her jaw and barely containing the need to unzip my pants.
“Think, Madeline. Remember.” She shakes her head, presumably confused and trying to avoid the topic. There’s little point in that now. We’re bound to each other, some part of me knowing it even if she doesn’t yet. “You know who you are. You must know. You came to me.”
“Jack, I…”
“How familiar does my name sound on your lips?”
“I don’t know you, Jack. I don’t know what this is about and I just…”
“And yet we fucked on that rug you always loved.” She gasps at that, stilling her erratic moves. “We made love, didn’t we? Tell me you didn’t feel that. Tell me you don’t feel it now.”
She shakes her head again, closing her eyes and trying to wriggle free once more.
“It’s not real. None of this is,” she whispers, sighing out as I clamp my hold more forcibly and grind into her. “I don’t know what it is, but I have to go. My house. Lewis…”
Anger flares inside instantaneously, raging its way through my insides at the mention of another man’s name. I push her to the mirror, squashing her against it, intent on driving only one name from her lips. Mine.
“You will fucking remember, Madeline,” I snarl, rubbing myself into her back and dragging my hands up her thighs. “Which version of me makes you remember: the one who’s begging to fuck your ass right now, or the one who made love to you on the floor?” She shakes, her head instantly rising to watch me again as she stills, frightened.
“No,please.”
There aren’t no’s anymore. I won’t hear them again. Not from her lips, or mine. Whatever is happening around us, is happening. I’ll force it forward if I have to. I’ll fuck her ragged, bleed her dry of indecision until all she can do is breathe my name and remember our time together. She is Selma. Somehow the two are the same person. Whether she believes it yet or not isn’t relevant. She will believe it. I’ll make her believe it.