I watch people in the warehouse and even though I know it’s all fake, their moans, their lust, their arching bodies, I don’t have it in me to judge them. There’s still a little bit of honesty in them. They are doing what Abel and I are doing.
The real world isn’t enough for them. So they are building their own world, making their own fantasy. They have their reasons like we have ours.
As soon as I step inside that room, I feel like I’m home. Maybe because the walls are painted the exact same color as my treehouse: sunny yellow. It’s both poetic and comforting. The treehouse was where we fell in love in secret and in this room, everything we do together is exposed.
In this room, we take back what we lost. Our power. The time we spent apart.
Abel takes back me. And I go to him without reservations, with all the love I feel for him.
On our first shoot, Abel asked me to look into the camera and imagine everyone from our town, and tell them how good it felt to get fucked by him in our imaginary church. In our own place of worship.
He asks me to do that every time. It’s a ritual for us. A cleansing ritual. He grabs my hair, pulling my neck up so I can stare at the light, all the while slamming inside me from behind. In my ear, he whispers bad things, illicit things. Possessive things. Things that turn me on and make me love him even more.
Tell everyone you’re mine, Pixie.
Tell them you love me. Tell them how good I fuck you.
Tell them you’ll never leave me. You’ll never go back to them.
His words make me want to absorb him in my body, hide him away from everyone who can do him harm. But all I do is scream out my love for him. I look in the camera, and declare my love to the world, to anyone who’ll listen. With pleasure. With anger. With a smile on my lips.
I’ve become comfortable with having people inside the yellow, hopeful room. Not a lot of them but a couple. Usually Blu’s husband Nick is in there with us. He’s so silent that I never feel or hear him around. Besides, with Abel inside me, I don’t feel anything else. The other guy is the one who was working with the lights that first time. I’ve since found out that his name is Gavin. He’s shy and nice, and he’s saving up to study electronics and communications.
Those two are the only ones who are allowed inside with me and Abel. My husband won’t let anyone else — namely the shaggy-haired guy who got mad the first time — come inside. My big, fierce protector. Nick and Gavin are friendly, and sometimes I catch a light of appreciation in their eyes. They even compliment us sometimes. It makes me laugh. I don’t know why but it does.
Most of all, it makes me feel validated. In fact, it’s the ultimate validation of our love, affecting people the way we do, getting a positive reaction out of them. The ultimate stamp of approval that our love is not wrong. That the way we love, crazily, madly, without limitations, is okay. Loving Abel like this is not a sin.
Loving Abel Adams might be the purest and truest thing I’ll ever do.
After every shoot, he carries me out, like he did the first time. He takes me home, washes my hair, presses a kiss on my tummy, and then we cuddle. There’s no sex or lust, only companionship. His movements are so gentle, his fingers such balm to my aching soul, and thoroughly vandalized and pleasured body.
He’s so layered, my Abel.
He is a product of this society. He’s a product of all the hatred and narrow-mindedness of my hometown. It makes me think that monsters aren’t born, they are made. Not that my Abel is a monster, but still. We make them, through our actions, through our thoughtlessness. We make them with our own hands and then, point fingers at them.
It makes me cry. It makes me see how capable my husband is of being hurt, of being angry over his past. It makes me realize how angry I am, and how my fury has been growing over the years.
It all comes out now, in front of the camera.
So this is basically our own fucked-up version of therapy.
But when I see other couples on the street, laughing, kissing like they have no care in the world, like they don’t have any burdens, I wonder. I wonder if we will ever get to their place, all happy and care-free.
I wonder if we will ever get to a place where we’re not angry anymore. Will we ever move on?