Chapter Fifty- Seven

My foot slides along his calf with a lightness and calm that usually comes after our hasty act. It was as if we were fused to each other, the perfect fit, sweat occupying the messy bed. My palm caressed his chest, tugging lightly at the gray hairs that grew there. He was mine, and by instinct I whispered it with my eyes closed against his skin, sliding my fingers with the care of a lover who loves unconditionally after being well fucked, well cared for.

So I love him. Suddenly the word burns in my chest, it's not so bad, it's far from it. I lift my face and look at his serene face, resting with his eyes closed. My mother had once said, swallowing a cigarette with all the hunger a human can muster, that a man stops being a man when he's at peace, "They even seem... good, the moment they're so human they seem dead, when they can't hurt you because they're too satisfied to complain about anything. Sex gives us a kind of power." I swallowed and lay back on his chest, that was a lie, Mom hadn't known a man like the one under my body, she had known the worst of them.

Somehow I was still afraid of ending up like her, loving a monster unconditionally. Mads isn't a monster, is he? Tony's words haunted me again, and I began to hope otherwise.

"Don't do this to me..." I whisper incoherently, pressing my cheek against his skin. He didn't hear me, but somehow I can hear his body reacting passively, breathing at a different pace, changing the rhythm, as if his body and skin could still hear me even though he was unconscious.

I look at his serene face, the lines of his expression minimized and softened. His mouth was slightly open, like a flower that opens receptively and instinctively when he breathes out; his closed eyelids made the signs of age disappear, even with much self-care. He looks young, stern in his expression, masculine, lover, powerful, but there all I had of him was an unprotected and dismembered guard for me alone. Mads is a good man, and maybe that's why the idea that he could be horrible under the covers makes everything worse. It would show without mercy how deceived I was, how foolish and innocent I could be for love, for that little need I had to cling to the man who showed me the difference that could exist between him and the others.

I try to clear my head and push these thoughts away by standing up gently. Mads stirs a little and I have to stop so that my movements don't wake him. I wouldn't be able to sleep, let alone lie there hovering between clarity and emptiness, something was tormenting me and throwing my body off balance in a kind of restlessness.

I touch the floor with my fingertips and walk silently to the desk where my cell phone is. The screen shines in my face and it takes me a while to get used to the sensation that burns my eyes. Nothing, not a message, not even a notification from one of those apps I insist on having. Since I had met Mads, I had spent less time on social media, I was finally experiencing the real world, because it didn't seem so bad, but it was very strange that I couldn't find anything there.

I turned to the man who was now fast asleep on the bed and realized that it had been a mistake to leave him there. I shrugged and put my phone back on the table, and at the same moment my body vibrated and stiffened in surprise at the trembling of the device. I touch it again, and this time the glow signals a new notification. The number on the screen was anonymous, there were no words or written message, just a closed photo file. My eyebrows knit together, I feel a shiver run down my spine, and fear creeps up on me in such a way that my feet become unsteady. I take a deep breath and decide that the best thing to do would be to turn it off and forget about it, put it off until the next day. I would have done that if my phone hadn't vibrated three more times in a row. More photos.

I swallow and turn my face toward the man lying a few steps away, unsure but certain that at least I wouldn't be completely alone.

I unlock the screen and enter the conversation with all the courage I can muster. My fingers click, and what I see makes me take a step back.

In the first photo, the man was touching the woman's face with appreciation, their bodies were too close in that small room, but the frozen image was still able to spark the imagination, the movements made, the hands going up and down the other's body. In the second, they were both kissing with a clear ferocity, closer to the bed. I scrolled down the screen with trembling fingers, my heart racing, urging me to throw the device away or look at all the photos at once. I no longer had any doubts, but if I did, the last two photos would be enough to prove it. The bedroom window was now visible, looking like a frame for the close-up of the woman and man on the bed. The scene made me feel nauseous, not because of the memory I had so passionately cherished, but because it was tainted, exposed. In the photo, Mads seemed to be removing the belt from his pants, and in the last one, you could see my body stretched out on my stomach, my hands squeezing my buttocks, separating them, opening them, as if presenting a secret banquet that would now be considered immoral.

Our night at the Crow Club had been magical, despite Darian and Tony's uncomfortable form. Still, I felt that one of the nights I gave myself over to Mads and allowed myself to be myself was now forever stained.

These photos are a threat, a reminder that my relationship with this man wasn't acceptable and that someone was playing games with everything. I felt my stomach lurch and rushed to the bathroom with my body's impulse to throw away everything I had eaten and drunk.

I didn't know if I could stand it, I didn't know if I was putting myself at risk, and I didn't know how Mads might react.

I think about leaving, I think about disappearing, but how can I do that when everything I loved about myself was influenced by his presence? When I allowed myself to live and get to know myself after meeting him? Now everything seems to fall apart.