“I guess I’m just trying to figure out my place,” she finally says.
I think she’s found her place quite nicely, but I can see my continued silence is making her increasingly uncomfortable so I hold my tongue.
Her gaze darts to me uncertainly. “Doesn’t this seem weird to you?”
“Which part?”
Her eyebrows rise and her blue eyes widen slightly. “All of it. Three days ago I was in a relationship with someone else. Your cousin—someone who works for you and sits at your dinner table every night. Now I’m… I don’t even know what I am.”
At least this I can answer without worrying I’ll come off too nice. “My fuckdoll.”
She rolls her eyes, torn between embarrassment and faint pleasure. That’s interesting. “Okay, but even that—I mean, it’s just bizarre to think about.”
I tug her closer and look down at her. “What’s so bizarre about that?”
Of course I know what’s so bizarre about it; I just want to see if she has the guts to say it to my face. I know I only have myself to bet against, but I put my money on no.
She can’t look directly at me; her eyes drop to my bare chest. “Because you’ve made it incredibly confusing. Or, I guess maybe I have, too, I don’t know. I was just trying to follow your lead, but it led me somewhere really fucking weird.”
I fail to stifle a light laugh at that assertion. Her gaze darts to mine. She’s relieved and my reaction gives her the confidence to go on.
“On one hand I was there the other day so I know what you did…” She lets go of the rest of that sentence, shifting gears. “But then you did all this strange stuff and made it confusing. You cuddle me after, you make me kiss you—or, I kiss you. I don’t even know if you make me anymore.” Now her brow furrows, her brief bout of relief pushed aside. This distresses her. The possibility that she’s not kissing me because she has to, but maybe because she likes to. “And then earlier today….” She shakes her head, looking at my chest again. “It’s not like you had a gun to my head that time. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this is. I’m so confused about everything.”
I wait to see if she’s done. When she doesn’t say anything else, I ask, “Does it matter?”
Wary blue eyes regard me. “Does what matter?”
“Most experiences in life are some blend of good and bad, happy and painful. Experiences are rarely just one thing or another; they’re different classifications at different times. You fall in love and that’s fun. You get your heart broken and that’s not. Someone important comes into your life and it feels exciting. You lose someone close to you and it’s excruciating.”
“Right,” she says, following so far.
“I raped you,” I state, since she’s clearly afraid to accuse me herself. “That was painful for you. Right now, other than confusion because you’re unnecessarily reviewing and trying to process the situation, you seem relatively content. That’s good for you. Why do you need to know which box to put every experience in? Are you keeping a running tally of how many good and bad things happen to you over the course of your life? Your experiences don’t need to be confined to a box. Boxes don’t make people happy. Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to feel or how you’re supposed to react. How do I make you feel now, in this moment? If it’s better, then go with that. Let go of your rules and just live your life.”
I made her nervous when I blithely referred to what I did to her, but by the end she seems introspective. I wonder if this is her ceiling—if this as hard as her mind resists. Generally speaking, she’s quite easy to handle, but since she’s so worried about her own reaction to me, she’s hung up on the thing that doesn’t quite fit the picture she’s trying to paint. She doesn’t seem hung up on her own image of herself though, so I can probably get her over this hurdle pretty simply. People with big egos or excessive insecurity are very concerned about their own self-image. Mia’s not overly concerned about herself at all. It’s the strangest thing. It doesn’t even feel like the effect of some psychological trauma; it seems so natural, like it just doesn’t occur to her. Like somehow Mia was born without the instinct of self-preservation.
For someone who accepts direction so well though, she sure is struggling to maintain control of this particular experience. I never considered that I could talk her out of her own opinion on this matter—mostly because there’s no reason to; it directly opposes my plans—but my mind is significantly stronger than hers. My will eclipses hers already, and it shouldn’t. I really haven’t exerted much effort, but this girl follows my lead like she was born to do it.