I want to rip that hand off his arm, leaving a ragged stump with a bare glint of bone.
Even in my most extreme moments, when I’ve slit the throat of someone I hated and watched their blood run down my arm, my heart rate barely rises.
The feeling of that lump of muscle pounding in my chest is something new to me—something that makes me sit back in my chair, breathing hard, hands clenched into fists on my lap.
What the fuck is happening.
I almost feel . . . jealous.
I’ve never been jealous before. Why would I? No one on this planet has anything I envy.
Yet I’ve already decided, with absolute certainty, that no one should be touching that sweet little cunt except me.
I’ve smelled her scent on my fingers.
I want it fresh from the source.
As if obeying my command, Mara jumps up from the table, shoving back her chair. I hear her hasty apologies as she throws cash by her plate. Then she leaves, abandoning her disgruntled date before they’ve even ordered their entrées.
Lucky for him—I was already planning how I’d cut off his balls with a box cutter.
He’s saved by the expedient of following Mara instead. I leave my own folded bills tucked under my unused fork.
The sky is fully dark now, thick with clouds. The wind is colder than before.
I walk back to Frederick Street, feeling a curious elation at the prospect of watching Mara alone in her room.
I like her best in her private space. It’s a look inside her mind—her comforts and preferences.
Settling myself behind the telescope once more, I see her pacing her room. Mara is a skittish horse. When she’s calm, she moves with grace. But when she’s frustrated or uncomfortable—and she was certainly both in the company of her incompetent date—she becomes stiff and withdrawn, hypersensitive to irritants.
She hauls her mattress out on the small deck attached to her room.
This is all the better for me. I can see her as clearly as a figure in a diorama.
She lays down on the futon, a pair of headphones over her ears. It takes a long time for her breathing to slow, for her to settle deeply into the mattress. Her lips move in time with the lyrics of the song.
Though she’s not actually singing, I can make out a few scattered words:
Don’t know if I’m feeling happy . . .
I’m kinda confused, I’m not in the mood to try and fix me . . .
I google the lyrics, pulling up the song on my phone, one I haven’t heard before. I play it aloud in the dark library, listening to what Mara is hearing over on the balcony.
Yes & No — XYL?
Spotify → geni.us/no-saints-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/no-saints-apple
She’s so still now that I wonder if she fell asleep. Her chest rises and falls with metronome regularity.
The breeze whispers through the hedges in the garden between us. It slides across Mara’s skin, making her shiver. Her nipples are hard, visible even through the black dress.
Why did she keep those piercings? Does she like them? Is she afraid to take them out?
I hear the soft rumble of thunder.
A few scattered raindrops hit the black paper covering the library window.
Mara stirs, feeling the rain on her skin.
I expect her to rise, to pull her mattress back inside.
But Mara seems determined to surprise me at every turn.
She sits up. Lifts her palm. Feels the rain pattering down.
Then she pulls her dress over her head and tosses it aside.
She lays down on the mattress once more, fully nude.
I let out a soft sigh, my eye pressed against the telescope.
Thunder rolls and the rain falls harder. It shatters all across her naked skin: on her thighs, her stomach, her bare breasts, her upturned palms, her closed eyelids. It falls in her partly opened mouth.
She’s soaking it in. Feeling the delicious coolness and the tiny impact of each droplet breaking on her skin.
Her expression is dreamy, floating. Soaked in pleasure. Fully relaxed for the first time since I’ve been watching her.
Again I feel that strange, squirming feeling in my guts.
Jealousy.
The rain falls harder, soaking her hair, drenching the mattress, chilling her skin.
She doesn’t give a fuck.
Mara reaches between her thighs. She begins to stroke her fingers back and forth across her pussy lips. Touching herself lightly, delicately.
Her lips part wider, allowing more rain into her mouth.
The rain beats against the side of the house. A bolt of lightning sizzles across the sky, illuminating Mara’s shining body like a camera flash. Every detail stands out in sharp relief: the long column of her throat, the divot of her collarbone, the points of her nipples, the long, flat expanse of her abdomen, the delicate bones of her hands, the slender fingers slipping inside of her.