When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

Five - Possession

FIVE

Possession

The morning after the concert, a high fever keeps Catherine in bed, the kind of fever that is not unheard of when the ice breaks and one falls . . . Under this febrile state’s unrelenting, merciless grip, the young woman babbles deliriously, but no friend taking turns tending to her, however, is able to put together the story of her past, from her incoherent utterances.

With the line between reality and unreality blurred in Catherine's mind, the darkness of her nightmares is allowed to mingle with the kindness of her friends' nursing, which it consequently warps, making her feel anything but safe. This blurred line also allows Tristan to be cast everywhere in both her worlds, which most certainly adds to her drowsy nervousness. She is especially agitated when, during brief moments of semi-lucidity, she imagines him right there in her room. Since inner healer has not completely lost the battle, however, no nightmare registers as an event that happened in her past, and only unpleasant feelings will once again remain once she awakens.

Since Zach told Tate that Tristan was very much been pleased with Catherine -- so much so that there were cash bonuses for all parties involved in locating and providing her -- Tate visits Catherine during her affliction, and is in fact just out the door and down the hallway when, on the fourth day, she awakens and is once again aware of the line between nightmare and reality. Malika, however, does not call him back.

As Catherine’s eyes find her friend’s, inner healer is annoyed to discover that a part of Catherine can no longer be hushed, that it can now only be made to whisper. And so it is that, after she has thanked her friends for their care and has asked them to allow her to rest alone, Catherine finds herself considering the possibility that, because of her, more people will die, since she is the kind of woman that men kill for, or because of. She does not, however, know why that is, and a part of her mind does tell her how ridiculous it is for her to be thinking that way.

The thought of Tristan soon comes to her waking mind, and she immediately considers the contrast between his public persona and what he does behind closed doors. Which no hint of is ever revealed in the media, of course. Although Catherine is over the initial shock of losing her icon of men who could be lovable as well as loving, rather than cruel, cold, empty, self-centered, selfish, egotistical, and animalistic, and although she is over losing her  symbol of a positive male role model, she has not, however, fully come to terms with the emptiness, the abyss even, that now lies where that hope once did.

Even, Catherine. Best for all concerned.

As she next gives thought to her knowledge of Tristan’s art, as made evident to her by her singing along to his every song at the concert, she then recalls that her room had once been decorated with posters of Tristan, all over its confines. But as for where this room had been, what greater structure it had belonged to, no answers. I met him, recently. I remember that. And . . . And he had been a man. Not a God, not an angel sent to women. Not a hero. Just another man.

Catherine recalls seeing a picture of Tristan’s family, one that had accompanied an article about him: elderly mother and father, no siblings. She remembers thinking that his parents seemed a little awestruck. But maybe that was just me. She pauses. What can be said about a man who pays a woman for sex?

She shakes her head and attempts to forget that night, wanting to move on, but is unable to do so because she remains disturbed by the part of her that took some pleasure in the . . . attention. Inner healer lost control of her that night not just when bits and pieces of her past started seeping out of the dam, but when guilt came over her because she had somewhat . . . wanted. Perhaps. Maybe. If that is what it felt like . . .  She is certain that she did not know, that she did not have a clue until a few nights ago.