The Collector: A Reimagining

When I entered her room next she had decided to ignore me. She sat at the desk, her beautiful hair falling forward around her face like a veil as she drew. Despite this, I could see her face in my mind so clearly still, I had seen it many times before, though she might not know it. That frown of concentration, the intense stare framed by her brows slightly pinched together as she worked away. She always got that way when she was painting or drawing. I remember last summer she had worked in front of a large canvas propped on an easel for a whole day clothed only in that expression. Towards the end of the day when she wasn't working so maniacally anymore she sat on a stool, her chin propped on one knee curled up on the chair while the other dangled towards the floor. I could still recall the smears of oil paint on her skin as she painted until the light faded.

She had been writing already, I could see the notebook abandoned to the side of the desk to make space for the sketchbook she was drawing in now. I didn't get too close, I thought maybe she was in a mood after yesterday but I was able to casually slide a plate onto the table in passing and get a glimpse. It was the figure of a woman lying on a bed, facing away from the viewer, her hair flowing closer into perspective and luring the eye in towards her form. I sit away from her but continue to watch as she keeps drawing almost feverishly. I find the same pleasure in her drawing in the sketchbooks that I've brought her with the pencils that I've picked in the same way I delighted in her writing in that notebook.

'It kind of reminds me of Egon Schiele.'

She pauses and I can see her calculating how to respond. She decides to keep ignoring me but I continue.

'Something in the linework. Bold but... wobbly? Maybe something in the texture of the pencils...'

'Don't tell me you've read the summary of 'Art History for Dummies' just so you can try to have a conversation I'll be interested in.'

'Why can't I just be interested in art?'

'What art are you interested in?'

'Yours.'

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. I chuckle.

'Marina Abramovic.'

'What?' Her head snaps up to look at me.

'The performance artist.'

'I know who she is!'

'Well I like her.' Her brows raise. I laugh again. I knew she would respond this way.

'Don't you think performance art can be a little...?'

'What?'

'You know...' I can hear the influence of George in her.

'Am I hearing artist elitism?'

'I just mean-!'

'I'm kidding. But most art today is kind of like that, right? Dramatic or a little trite. Shocking.' She looks away, thinking.

'Well... what do you like about her?'

'I think there's a sense of honesty about her. It's less about the performance than it is about the engagement and response. It's confronting.'

'Have you just stolen that out of some wikipedia page or something?'

'What does it matter if I have? It could still be true. Just because someone else has found a way to say something that I agree with doesn't mean it's any less my opinion.'

Her eyes meet mine and she looks at me with that look of intense concentration, like she's trying to finish a painting with a calculated final stroke. I wonder what she's thinking.

--

I hear him unbolt the door and he enters as I continue to draw. He approaches the desk and leaves me a plate as usual and then settles on the bed away from me. I had tried ignoring him as much as I could the past few days but he always found a way to get under my skin, push my buttons and goad me into saying something. And at that point I gave up ignoring him after I had shattered my successful silence with an outburst and cursed my fiery nature. I had since scoured my prison for any weaknesses whatsoever, anything I could break, dig, weaponise, anything. But I found nothing. When I wasn't writing and trying to form a plan to escape I would draw or read or attempt some improvised yoga to keep my sanity. I'm not sure it was working so well.

'You should draw me.'

I don't respond immediately but then an idea pops into my head.

'Sure,' I say with a saccharine smile, 'why not?'

'Ah ah, no caricatures. You're bad at them anyway.'

'WHAT?'

'Hon, we both know it.'

'Don't you HON me you...you...BUFFOON!'

He roars with laughter at that and I hate myself for not coming up with a better insult. Buffoon? What the hell was that? My blood boils at the sight of him rolling on the bed, still laughing, and I throw my pencil at his head but miss and it sets him off even more.

'FUCK!' I exclaim in frustration and stand continuing to throw more and more things.

'Hey now!' he says sitting up again.

'I'll hey now your face!' I retort lamely.

'I'll make it up to you?'

'Sounds good, how's freedom sound?'

He smiles at me in a way that dissolves my anger instantly, replacing it with dread and I back away.

'Sure, I'll free you from your clothes.'

'No that is NOT what I-AH!'

He scoops me up easily and flings me onto the bed and before I can crawl away, he pulls me back towards him by the ankles then pins me down on my back again.

'No! Please, don't!'

'It's okay, you'll enjoy it.'

'No, I won't!'

'You wanna take bets on that? Freedom or an orgasm is a bit of a win-win for you though...'

'I won't like it because it's YOU!'

He looks at me, considering something for a moment.

'Fred. My name is Fred.'

I stare up at him confused and then he leans in to kiss me. I turn away but he doesn't try to redirect and kisses me softly on the cheek. He take my wrists in one of his again and his other hand grazes the skin of my knee lightly. I tremble with the memory of his touch, resigning myself to his attentions. He traces his fingertips patiently over each of my thighs, drawing the skirt of my dress up and up until my underwear is exposed. His other hand releases my wrists and briefly touches my cheek before both his hands come to my hips to peel my panties off. He is gentle and slow and once I am bare he leaves me untouched for so long that I crane my neck to look down at him simply staring at my pussy. He notices me peeping and says, 'you're beautiful all over.' Reflexively I try to clamp my thighs shut but his dumb head is in the way.

'It's just a vagina, don't be weird.'

'I'll try not to.' but he says the words so close to me that I can feel his lips moving against the thatch of hair between my legs and it makes me twitch. George had put his mouth on me once or twice briefly but it had never felt like this. His breath is warm upon me even though I know my pussy is radiating heat. I can feel the slickness building as he makes me wait and wait and then softly, he's brushing his lips along my vulva. I shiver and start to squirm but he grips me firmly around the thighs and hips.

'Stay still,' he says firmly.

'I can't!'

'Try.'

Then as if to test me he licks my cunt, his tongue plunging into my slit and gathering my wetness upwards towards my sensitive nub. I stiffen and hold my breath but keep still and silent. And then he gathers me into his mouth, licking and sucking my clitoris hungrily and I cry out at the sudden intensity. My body bucked and writhed, he had taken my pussy to the brink of orgasm so easily and I gripped the sheets and held on for dear life. Just as suddenly as he had started, he withdraws his mouth and I am left panting and shuddering, hips thrusting, unconsciously chasing his mouth. My pussy throbs with the need for release and just as I think I've overcome the peak of maddening arousal his hot, wet mouth is on me again.

'Oh god!'

'You have the prettiest fucking pussy,' he says in the brief moment his mouth parts from me while he slips two fingers inside me.

'Fuck!'

Again, he brings me to the edge and just as I think I'm about to climax he removes his tongue and fingers.

'No!' I cry as I'm denied again.

'What was that?'

'Nothing!' I snap stubbornly. I try to wriggle away but he holds me by my hips still and my weak hands fail to remove his grip. I huff and reach down to touch myself.

'Oh, no no no darling. You know what I want.'

'I won't say it!'

But I scream when he softly licks my sensitive, throbbing clit.

'What won't you say?'

'Stop! Stop it!'

He takes me into his mouth again and I squeal.

'Tell me and I'll make you come.'

I don't trust myself to speak this time. Writhing in torturous pleasure as he keeps me on the knifes edge. This time he slips his fingers back inside me and finds that spot that makes me melt. He plunges in and out of me at a lazy, unbothered pace that keeps me needy, crazed with that out of reach orgasm. I'm moaning with abandon and resistance is slipping as my mind refuses to focus on anything other than the need to come.

'I'm going to ask you a question, gorgeous girl. I think you should think carefully about your answer. Tell me-'

'Yes - YES! I like it, I love it. Please make me come! Please, please, please!'

'Good girl.'

His mouth returns to my pussy instantly and the orgasm is powerful, coursing through my body as a wall of pleasure that seems to go on and on and on as he continues to lavish my clit as his fingers rub against my g-spot. The orgasm eases somewhat, but he does not and I find myself being brought right back to the precipice again.

'Oh god, fuck!'

It's so intense, my hands find their way into his hair trying to push his head away from between my thighs but he's unrelenting. My second orgasm ambushes me and my body feels like it forgets all other sensation except that pleasure and when I come back to myself he's still eagerly licking my cunt.

'Ahh Fred, stop! Fred! FRED!'

He lifts his head and I lock eyes with him, a lustful, wild expression on his face. Quickly, he leans into me to kiss me deeply and too late I realise I am kissing him back. He arranges himself beside me, cuddling again. I feel him readjusting his cock in his pants and wonder why he hadn't forced himself upon me yet. I was grateful but my curiosity remained equally strong. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles into me.

'Mm, you feel amazing. Tell me again.'

The euphoria of sex is replaced by a heavy shame in my gut. He had to be fucking joking. I don't respond at first, the same humiliation and chagrin coming back to haunt me.

'Liking sex isn't the same as liking a person, you know. And I liked it only enough to say what I needed for you to make me come.'

I feel him stiffen around me.

'Oh, is that so?' he replies coldly. It was only now, with that ice in his voice that I realise I hadn't actually heard him angry, or even vaguely upset, before. I try to steel my resolve and navigate my way through this. I sit up now, shrugging off his arms and swinging my legs out onto the floor, facing away from him.

'You don't like me. You want intimacy. Go find someone that wants to give that to you. It's not me.'

'So you're telling me that you always come like that? That sex is always that way for you?'

'Oh yes, that wa-'

He grabs me by the arm to turn me to face him and says sharply, 'look me in the eyes and tell me!'

I falter when we lock eyes. In barely a whisper I reply 'it was perfectly adequate.'

'Of course, I'm sure *George* more than takes care of your needs.'

I hadn't anticipated that. But then was I really surprised that the psycho had stalked me enough to know about George. And if he wanted to play that game...

'Oh absolutely. He's the best I've ever had.'

He sneers and then laughs mockingly.

'Do you think your best friend would agree that he's the best she's ever had too?'

The nerve I had regained dissolves in an instant. I had my suspicions but to have them confirmed - and right now - was something else entirely. I was speechless and numb. I turn my back on him again.

'Miranda, I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean for... I was just...'

His fingertips graze my arm but I'm a world away.

'Go.'

I feel his weight lift from the bed as he gets up and makes his way to the door. Before he shuts and bolts the door he hesitates and says once more, 'I'm sorry.'

I write in my notebook for hours and it's a pity I didn't have a fire to burn all of those useless pages after the fact. For all my writing I knew that it had always been clear to me that George was, as he even described himself, his own animal. And while I wanted that in an artistic mentor, someone so violently and independently himself, I had only wanted to want that in a partner or even lover. For all my studies on art, visual language and aesthetics, I had failed to recognise my own actions to stylise my love life. What an idiot. I agonise over it but I know that part of it was only possible because of George's ego. I thought myself strong for enduring his critical nature, intelligent for agreeing with him. But it's just another man who loved having girls clamouring for his approval and attention. I hoped, maybe in vain, that Caroline was smarter than I had been and was using him right back.

Through all the thinking about George I was unable to stop myself comparing him to Fred. It's not that they were similar or anything, but repeatedly where I considered George to have been witty and charming I realised he had in hindsight been sarcastic and condescending when in contrast to Fred. When it came to the bedroom, while I used to think of George as passionate and intense, compared to Fred he now seemed selfish and... quick. But finding out your not-boyfriend who you hadn't hashed out boundaries with had exploited lack of said conversation didn't seem like a good enough reason to consider Fred a 'good' guy. What a mess...

--

I cursed myself endlessly from the moment the words had tumbled out of my dumb mouth until the moment I was able to finally sleep. And when I woke up again I continued my internal cursing. I had never thought there would be a scenario where I would be procrastinating seeing her but here I was. Could I even recover this? And what do I do if I can't? I agonised over how she would receive me this morning. Would she be mad at me? Or just utterly devastated? Had I underestimated her feelings towards that...man. Would she never forgive me? I noticed my hands shaking a little as I carried her breakfast down to her. Coward. I open the door tentatively. She's sitting at the desk like she usually is, and when I enter she ignores me the way she usually does. I put down her plate beside her, peanut butter on toast with strawberries. I thought it might cheer her up, if she needed cheering up. She glances at the toast and I sit across from her, watching as she continues to write. When she finishes her sentence she pauses, puts down the pen and then looks me right in the eyes for what feels like the first time. She looks me in the eyes and I don't see a trace of resentment or anger. None of that fieriness or chutzpah. There's nothing. It's not any expression I recognise and it frightens me.

'I would rather have known than not known. When it comes down to it.' she says softly. I nod once but say nothing.

'In some ways, I should thank you,' she continues.

'No. Don't thank me. I said it out of anger, to hurt you. Not to protect you. Though I do want to protect you from him.'

She looks away.

'Where's your breakfast?'

'I wasn't hungry.'

'I'm not too hungry either. My mum always said I should eat breakfast even if I'm not hungry though.'

'I was raised by my aunt. She was a bit like your mum too, actually. I never got a choice whether I ate breakfast. I'd eat it or she'd force it into me one way or another.'

She cracks a half smile at that.

'Yeah. That's my mum too. I'll have one if you do?'

'Okay.'

She takes a slice and so do I and we sit across from each other, eating in silence.

'What's the rest of the house like?'

I pondered the question for a moment.

'Why do you ask?'

'Honestly? I'm bored of this room. Even a tiny window to stare out of would be nice.'

I think for a moment and an idea comes to me. I smile and she looks at me questioningly. I walk to the door and on the way out I grin at her and say, 'don't go anywhere'! I hear her yell back 'I'll think about it' as I close and bolt the door.

She frowns at me when I come back with handcuffs.

'What the hell?'

'Relax, it's just a precaution.'

'Oh because the bolted basement wasn't enough to keep me here I suppose?'

'If you get too sassy I won't take you upstairs, Miranda.'

She raises her brows at me and then offers me her wrist without a word.

'Excellent.'

I clasp the cuff around her wrist and then the other around mine. She tugs at me and chuckles.

'Now you're my prisoner too.'

'Well you better take care of me or I'll report you to the warden.'

She rolls her eyes at me. I open the door and I can tell she tries to hide how alert she's become but I can see her eyes darting about quickly. She's probably looking for a way out and while I expected it, it still wounds me a little. I let her lead me up the stairs and out into the hall. She looks around slowly, thoroughly, and I try to subtly watch her as she does. She exits the hall out into the entry way and kitchen. She approaches every window and stares out of it for at least a full minute before moving along and I wish she would tell me what she was thinking. I fought the urge to stare at her and stood alongside her, looking out the window by her side in silence. When she enters the living room her fingers drift lightly over the knick knacks I had placed over the fireplace and then she wanders before my collection and I try to hide the way I hold my breath. She leans over the cases of specimens, examining them one by one and reading the small descriptions I had attached, my attempt of emulating the museum collections I had loved so dearly.

'Did you collect these?'

'Yes. This isn't all of them, but they are all mine.'

'They're beautiful but...does it ever make you sad? To catch them and... kill them?'

'I only catch the ones worth adding to the collection. But... it sounds silly saying it aloud but I've never really thought about that. No ones ever asked me that before.'

'Well, does it?'

'What?'

'Does it make you sad?'

'I...sometimes. If I dry the specimen wrong or something goes awry and I can't add them to the collection. It's like it's a waste. If they die and they are added to the collection, then at least it's for something.'

She seems to think on my response and cocks her head slowly. The way she looks so intensely at them all makes me nervous. Like she's critiquing my soul.

'I take photos too.'

'Can I see?'

I open a cupboard beneath the collection and take out an album for her. She peruses the photos leisurely, making comments here and there about which butterflies she thinks are beautiful and which she thinks are strange or funny.

'Would you like to go upstairs?'

'Okay.'

I didn't account for her staring so long out the windows but I think I've timed it well. I lead her up the stairs and to the bathroom where I had drawn a bath for her.

'This is for me?'

'No, my other prisoner actually.' She gives me a flat look that makes me laugh. I close the door behind us and then I unclasp our handcuffs.

'You're not going to let me bathe alone?'

'Now why would I do that?'

'But you could just sit outside!'

'Well who would keep you company and talk to you?'

'Fred!'

'Miranda!'

She looks over at the fragrant bath and then back to me.

'Are you really going to pout at me?'

'I'm not pouting!'

'Good. Now stand still.'

I start to unbutton her dress and she surprises me with her silence and stillness. I had expected at least a bit of a struggle. I don't dwell on it. Instead I focus on each new patch of skin that's unveiled to me as I undo button after button until finally, my fingers gently push her sleeves off her shoulders and the dress pools on the tiled floor. I gaze over her body and try to keep my breath steady. But when her hands come to her hips to remove her underwear, I can't hide my captive attention. Her eyes are averted. She quickly settles into the tub with her knees clasped against her chest, balled up. She looks at me and I see that nothingness again that sows fear in me. I keep searching for something in her eyes, clues to what she's thinking, feeling, but there's nothing. She's hidden from me. And she just keeps looking back at me like how I always wished she would look into my eyes but it's not the same. She breaks our gaze and glances at the soap dish. I wonder if she meant to suggest it to me.