Tyler doesn't want me out of some misplaced sense of love or affection, though I like to think he finds me at least tolerable. Tyler doesn't want me because I'm devilishly handsome or beguilingly attractive, though he is both these things and more. Tyler doesn't want me because I want him to want me, or because I want him more than I care to admit…

Tyler wants me simply because he can have me. In our twisted little world where we wallow together, he is the predator and I am the prey. Our chase runs all through the dead (or dying) house on Paper Street; up and down creaking stairs, into rooms with naked light bulbs and flaking plaster, down to the blind basement where intentions are blurred by the blackness.

As much as I try to keep my secrets secret, as much as I try to be the calm little center of our world, I am a dead giveaway. Tyler knows this because I know this and he uses it to his advantage. A half-lidded stare over breakfast, a more-than-friendly pat on the behind as we pass in the warped halls, a wink over the kitchen table where we stand making soap in the evening.

The worst part is that all these things Tyler does, they don't have to be taken that way. But I do, and he knows I will. It's all a ploy to get me to drop my guard, to say "yes" when I want to say no ( even though I secretly mean yes). And the worst part is that I can never get around it. Tyler lets me think that I won, so that I can march up to my bedroom feeling like I finally have the upper hand, but the longer I lay awake on my filthy mattress under the broken rafters, the more I begin to understand that I didn't win, I don't have the upper hand and I never did. And because of that, Tyler gets to do my sleeping for the both of us. FIN