A Wanted Submissive

10

I watched as Gabriel layed the blanket out for us, "I feel dumb."

"This was your idea."

"Well forgive me if I don't know anything about dates let alone how to go on one with my step brother!"

He was unpacking the basket now. I watched as he layed everything out neatly and sighed, "well damn."

I took my phone out and took a picture of the cutest picnic I'd ever seen.

I could feel his eyes on me so I put my phone away and looked up at him. It scared me how often I was beginning to just let him draw me to him like This. Like gravity.

Like everything about me could revolve around him and my world could stop just so I could look into his eyes. He was staring. I looked away just to escape. The park around us was very... green.

Which I guess is okay. I sat on the blanket and he sat behind me. So I switched my weight from my arms to his chest.

"You know I got this idea from-" I began into the silence and was rudely interrupted.

"A book. I know. Chapter 23 Dangerous affection. I could tell you read it a lot, the edges of the pages were bent with how often. It's nice to know you have a thing for psychopaths."

The fact that he knew was deeply unsettling and maybe a little creepy but I laughed all the same.

Everything Gabriel did kind of gave you that feeling anyways, "figures you'd come to that conclusion."

"Is there any other?"

Well it didn't seem like a rhetorical question and I've had to answer this particular question often.

"You think just because every second book I read is about some rich, handsome, mentally unhinged mob boss that I actually want be kidnapped or tortured or forced into marriage and a life of crime?"

He was quiet for longer than I thought he'd be. After a while he slid his arms in front of my legs that I'd brought up to my chest so to take some of my weight off of him.

He wrapped them around my waist and laid his head on my shoulder and took in a deep breath, "yes, to an extent. When everything is said and done you keep going back to that story because... You love the idea of what he could to her.

"You love that a man could love his woman so completely that it consumes him. That he'd kill for her, die to keep her safe and kill her with his own damn hands before he'd let her go. And you know... It isn't healthy but nothing worth living for should ever be safe. Everything good kills you a little bit."

His words settled on me, I didn't want to think it was me he was talking about. I turned slightly and looked up at him, "let's talk about happy things."

"Okay." And we did. It was actually a pretty fun date. After a while he smashed cake on my face. I chased him up and down the park and eventually managed to dunk him in a fountain.

I fell asleep in his arms and actually got to know him. I almost immediately knew he wasn't really opening up. He just wanted me to be drawn to him.

I wondered how much of him was a lie and prayed to God that he wasn't a psychopath. For the most part I had fun. I liked his effortless intelligence, how his eyes were almost always on me, following.

He was easy to talk to and I got to have the out of body experience of feeling noticed. Now that the idea had been mutilated and tortured and no one wanted it anymore, I found myself thinking he would have been a good brother.

I trusted him a little more because I didn't have to wonder and speculate, it wasn't a suspicion, it was a fact: he could and would hurt me.

"Stop staring." I said after a second or two of watching him do it for once it wasn't me his eyes had found. Just other park goers. His head dropped and he looked down at me. We were seated side by side, "they started it."

I couldn't help the little smile that came on my lips. What did he expect? I shook my head and straddled him. My legs on either side of him. I gathered up both his hands in mine and I looked down at him leaning slightly to make a point, "you do realise don't you, that we look like an interracial couple. So ya we're gonna get a couple of looks."

I watched as a slow smile came across his face, "what do you mean look like."

That made me laugh. Really laugh. I released him and leaned back. Today had been a good day...

"I think I'm ready to go back home now."

"You sure?"

I looked around at the much less empty park. The sun was higher up in the sky, "ya. Let's go home." I chastised him but I didn't like the audience either.

"You like him," it wasn't a question. I found myself back In my mother's bed holding her In my arms.

"Sometimes." I said.

We'd been in bed a while but neither of us could really sleep, lost in thought. I looked down at her, "do you still love him?"

She looked up at me and I almost regretted asking her. Almost. I could tell the guilt of the way her decisions affected me weighed down on her. Apparently not enough to choose differently.

I nodded in understanding, "it's okay mom."

And actually it wasn't because in that moment I wished for so much to be different but to my credit, I really wanted it to be true."

I stroked her head And held her closer, "sleep mom."

But I knew she couldn't and neither could I. Calm as I was, I could tell... I was in for plenty of suffering.