Complementary Colors (32 page)

“Jesus Christ.”

I teased his thick digits in the same way I had his cock. Roy pulled them out, and they left my swollen lips with a pop.

His weight against my body kept me from getting my hand between us. I scooted higher and used the tightness in an attempt to get some relief.

Roy pressed his wet fingers against my opening.

“Yes…oh God.” He pushed in one finger, then two and pumped them in and out. “Like that, just like that.” I found his mouth again but didn’t so much kiss as taste his exhale. My hunger for him was a wicked viper. Its poison flowed through my veins, twisting my senses and saturating my muscles.

“You’re so beautiful.” Roy bit my nipple through the hospital gown. I cried out and grabbed his head. Not to push him away, but to hold him. To make him bite me again.

He did.

“Almost, almost there.”

He pumped his fingers faster, and I rode against him, not caring his shirt chafed the head of my cock or that I crushed my balls with the force of my thrusts.

“Come for me, Paris.”

My grunts became a wail. One more roll of my hips and I unloaded everything I had. It slicked up his shirt, and I kept humping him. The head of my cock became so sensitive it was more pain than pleasure, but I wasn’t going to let go of the euphoria until every drop of cum was lost. If it had been possible, I would have stayed in that moment, drowning forever in absolute perfection.

The last electric wave receded, and I slumped in Roy’s arms. He lowered me to the floor, and the sticky mess I’d left behind on his shirt smeared on my hospital gown.

Cradled against Roy’s chest, I followed the beat of his heart back to the here and now.

“You’ll come back?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll call me?”

“Every week.”

“Why?”

He slid his hand down the side of my head and traced the shell of my ear with his thumb. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

“No.”

“Because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

“No one’s ever loved me before.”

“I know.”

“What if I don’t know how to give it back?”

“It’s not hard, and you have plenty of time to learn.”

I laughed. “I’m not exactly a model student.”

“That’s okay.” He kissed the side of my head. “I’m a patient teacher.”

Watching the elevator doors shut and Roy disappear had to be one of the most difficult moments of my life. When he was gone, the repercussions of what it meant to stay there crashed into me.

A dull shock traveled from where my knees hit the floor to my hips.

Dr. Carmichael knelt. His hand on my back warmed my frigid skin. “It’s time for you to get ready so I can check you into your room.”

I nodded, leaving streaks of tears on the tile.

He helped me to my feet. “C’mon, I have you some clean clothes so you can get rid of the gown.”

When we reached my room, I said, “He’s not coming back.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“No.”

“Then why would you say he’s not coming back?”

“Because no one does.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “Trust. It’s an easy thing to break and almost impossible to rebuild. Trust him. If Roy told you he would come back, you have to trust he will.”

I dressed in the thrift store hand-me-downs Carmichael gave me. The fabric was so worn it barely felt real against my skin. He’d even bought me a skull-cap and coat. I’d worn the best my entire life. Clothes hand-tailored in high priced specialty shops. My jeans never cost less than two hundred bucks, and I got a new Armani suit twice a year.

My shoes were made in Italy and my suits tailored. But out of all the thousands of dollars' worth of clothes in my closet, the simple patchwork garments given to me by Dr. Carmichael instantly became my favorite.

He waited for me in the hall.

“So now what?” I said.

“Now you come with me downstairs so I can get you checked in.”

We walked to the elevator, and he pushed the button.

“And after I get checked in?”

“Well, I figured today you could look around. You know, survey the territory and meet some of the other staff.”

The door opened. The rich earthy and cinnamon scent of Roy’s cologne hung in the air. One inhale left my heart aching and my eyes burning. I started to follow Dr. Carmichael inside. The white rabbit sat beside his left foot. It stared at me with shoe button eyes.

“Paris?”

“Yeah?”

Dr. Carmichael caught the doors before they could close. “Is there a problem?” The rabbit cocked its head as if asking the same question. Carmichael looked down at the space beside his foot.

“I’d like to take the stairs,” I said.

“It’s four floors down.”

“I need the exercise.”

“The last thing you need right now is to exert yourself.”

“I feel fine.”

“Please, step into the elevator with me.”

“The stairs would be safer.”

The white rabbit cleaned its face.

“Why don’t you want to use the elevator?” Carmichael had that “tell me all your woes” tone to his voice. I had enough of my wits to know to keep my mouth shut. Especially about the ball of white fur sitting on the ground staring up at me.

“I just don’t like closed-in spaces.” I took a breath and stepped inside, making as much room between me and the rabbit as an eight-by-eight box would allow. The doors slid shut, and that space shrank by tenfold.

“Have you always had a fear of small spaces?”

“Huh?” I glanced at him. “Oh. I don’t know. Why?”

He dropped his gaze to the space beside his foot again. Carmichael said something, but my heartbeat pounded my eardrums so hard I couldn’t hear him. The rabbit hopped closer. I didn’t realize I’d thrown myself back until my head smacked the wall.

Carmichael grabbed my arm to keep me from falling. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” I struggled to get away from him because I needed more distance from the rabbit.

Carmichael shook me. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the rabbit.

“Look at me, Paris.” Carmichael gripped my head and made me. My eyes ached from rolling them down. Carmichael turned my head, and I lost sight of it.

I grabbed his wrists. “Let go.” Where was it? I couldn’t see it. And I had to see it.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

I shifted back and forth on my feet. Was it close?

He shook me again. “Talk to me. This is what I’m here for.”

The elevator doors opened, and I tore out of his grip and fell flat on my stomach in the hall. Being on the ground put me to close to the rabbit. But the elevator was empty except for a frustrated Carmichael.

“Paint,” I said.

His eyebrows crunched together.

“Paint. I need to paint. You have an art room, right? All crazy places have an art room.”

“We have a craft studio, sure.”

“Take me there.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Sure, we’ll go as soon as we do the paperwork.”

I slapped my palm against the floor. “No. I need to paint right now.”

He held up his hands. “And I need to get you signed in.”

“No. Now.”

“The studio is inside the hospital ward. In order to go in, you have to be an employee or a patient.”

I stood. “Then I’m leaving.” I didn’t really want to go back in there, but I needed to paint more than I wanted to escape Julia.

He held his arms out, blocking the elevator. “Remember our agreement. You walk out of here, and there is nothing I can do to help you.”

“Move, goddamn it.” I screamed loud enough to get the attention of an orderly. Carmichael met his gaze and shook his head.

“Think about your sister. You walk out, you give her control. If you want to be free, we need to do this. It’s part of the process. I want to help you, but there are protocols we have to follow.”

“How…” My voice cracked. “How long will it take?”

“Fifteen minutes tops.”

I would make it five. “Fine.”

He herded me down the hall with his arm behind my back, but not touching. A door at the end took a key card to open it. He scanned the one dangling from the lanyard around his neck. There was a buzz, and the door to a reinforced glass foyer opened. A nurse in a room on the other side of a second door cleared us for entry.

It closed behind us, and the lock chunked. My body trembled until my teeth chattered.

“It’s okay,” he said.

We went down another hall into the main ward. I readied myself for the smell of piss and cleaner, the screams, the curses, and patients begging for help or sitting on the floor drooling. Because it had been that way in Mason’s facility.

Carmichael used his key card to open another door, and there was only silence. Not void of sound but free of the chaotic symphony I’d expected. Hotel-style rooms, with private bathrooms, were spaced wide from each other.

A couple of the patients waved to us as we passed. They were well groomed and wore regular clothes.

“I take it this wasn’t what you expected?”

I shook my head.

“Are you still in a hurry to paint, or do you want to take a look around?”

“Paint.”

“Okay. The office is this way.”

A simple table and chairs occupied the office. The secretary was sealed inside a side room by a half glass, half steel door. She slid a clipboard full of papers through a slot and onto the small lip sticking out the front.

Carmichael picked it up and led me to the table. I grabbed the clipboard before my ass even hit the chair. “Pen.” I snatched at the air.

“We need to talk first, and you need to read that.”

I gripped the side of my head.

“Breathe.”

I did. Several slow, long breaths.

“Tomorrow, a person from Adult Protective Services will come and see you.”

“Why?”

“In order to keep your sister from removing you, there needs to be an investigation by APS of her alleged treatment of you.”

That didn’t sound so bad. “Okay.”

“After they decide it is in your best interest to be removed from her charge, the state will appoint a guardian who will work on your behalf.”

“What if she finds me before all that can be done?”

“She won’t.”

“How do you know?”

He sat back and drummed his fingers on the table. His gaze slid to the secretary’s office, then back. “I already started the proceedings when Roy told me what was happening. The hospital took photos of your injuries when they did the rape kit.”

“I wasn’t raped.”

“She told you to go home with him.”

“I go home with a lot of men. I enjoy sex. A lot.”

“Yes, but because she told you to do it and has control over you medically and financially, that constitutes as abuse. It’s ammunition. With the authorities involved, we can keep your location hidden until ordered by the court to tell her where you are.”

It sounded good in theory. In reality, I don’t think I cared either way. I was done caring a long time ago.

“I need a pen.”

“Read the paperwork.”

I forced myself to look down at the documents. I read what I could. Some of the words I’d never seen before. Others were probably ordinary, but the spelling prevented me from sounding them out.

“Do you understand what you’re reading?”

I gripped the clipboard so hard my knuckles bleached out. “I didn’t finish high school. And when I did go, I wasn’t a very good student.”

“Would you like me to read it to you?”

No. I wanted to paint. But Carmichael was trying to help me. He was on my side. I handed him the clipboard.

So much for five minutes or even fifteen. Between him reading and telling me what the legal words meant, it was almost an hour. When he was done, he handed the clipboard back to me with a pen.

I signed my name so fast I ripped the paper. Carmichael smoothed out the tear and took everything back to the secretary.

The white rabbit sat on the chair beside me. It raised up on his hind legs and sniffed the air. “More time. Need more time.” I swallowed against the burn in my throat.

“You ready?” Carmichael said.

It hopped down on the floor and disappeared under the table. I stood so quick my chair went back. The doctor caught it before it hit the floor. “Take me somewhere I can paint.”

Carmichael led me to a large room down a different hall. The buttery scent of glue hung in the air, and a variety of crafty disasters decorated the shelves.

Who was I to judge? I tried to build a birdhouse once. It needed to be condemned halfway through the project.

I made a beeline to the row of paint jars in the back. Acrylics. I hated acrylics. The colors never mixed well. but it was either them or nothing.

I looked around. “Canvas?”

Carmichael unwound a sheet from a large roll of paper. I hated paper too. “Bigger.” When it reached about six feet long, I nodded. The drawing boards on the easels were too small.

“What about the wall?” he said.

It would work. “Tape,” I said. He already had it in hand.

I grabbed the paint and went for a brush from one of the coffee cans. The white rabbit sat on the shelf between them.

Fuck it. I’d use my fingers.

I attacked the paper, working my hand like I did the most expensive brush. The images, the broken swatches of color poured from me in a mad rush to be expelled. Using substandard acrylic paint, I vomited everything in my mind on the crappy newsprint. I didn’t have to look to know the rabbit watched. I could feel it. And it wouldn’t leave until I’d purged everything boiling inside me the only way I knew how.

By painting.

Sweat plastered my hair to my face. My feet hurt. My back cramped. I was hungry and thirsty. I even had to piss. I knew all these things, and yet I felt none of it. They were inconveniences I could deny myself.
Had
to deny myself. So I did.

Along with the memories and images I trapped in a multicolored collage was my strength. I didn’t know where the chair came from, but there it was, so I sat.

Around me, soft voices passed words back and forth. A small crowd of nurses and orderlies stood near the door.