Page 67 of Torn

She reenters her body. Floating down to the blankets, her skin turns into gauze, weightless and worn.

Dumbstruck, she mumbles something that makes Anger chuckle, a deep rumble against her center.

Clarity resumes. She’s on her back, in her bed, with her nightgown pooled about her waist. Her legs have fallen askew around Anger’s head, slung over his shoulders while he’s on his knees, at the foot of the mattress, his forehead twisted and resting against her thigh. His dark hair is windswept because her manic fingers have torn through the layers, untethering the upper half of his locks.

She’s utterly exposed as Anger palms her hipbones. He kisses the side of her knee and lifts his face, those eyes tranquil and content, provoking a rare sight.

“I’m going to do that to you again,” he swears.

Merry’s stomach hitches. “Only if I get to do things to you. Pretty please?”

“You already have, Merry. So many things.”

He crawls up her body, falling into the recess she makes for him. His knuckles brush the bangs from her temples, then he rests his forehead against hers. Absently, her hands skim his sides and slant over the naked dip in his back.

The God of Anger is on top of her.

She loves this feeling, his weight on her, his inhalations against her exhalations. She can’t believe this is happening.

He pecks her nose. “Tell me how that felt.”

“Like you turned me into star.” She nips his nose back. “It felt like you and me.”

“Us,” he echoes, mouthing the word, unfamiliar with its shape. “I like being anus.”

She does, too.

They play another record, hunker onto the bed, and wrap themselves around each other. Merry nestles into Anger’s side as they idly trace one another. It’s effortless and artless, old and new.

They listen to music while whispering. When Anger asks, Merry answers no. She’s kissed other exiles, but she hasn’t done more with them. It’s never felt cosmic enough for that, though she has touched herself numerous times.

When Merry asks him, Anger answers yes, he’s been with goddesses before.

She thinks back on the signs, the looks, the tones of voice. “Wonder,” she guesses.

Anger tenses. “Once,” he confesses without preamble. “It was one night. We were broken over people we couldn’t have. We’d grown desperate, lonely.”

She listens with a pang, not for herself, but for them. It doesn’t hurt to think of them together, but it does hurt to think of their grief.

“Even so, it didn’t work. And there have been others,” he says, then glances drowsily at Merry. “But this…tonight. It’s never been like this with anyone.”

“Like what?” she mumbles, her eyes fluttering closed.

Anger rolls to face her. When he gathers her to him, she gets a whiff of sandalwood and dark chocolate infused with rainwater.

He whispers, “Like I’ve made a choice.”

***

When dawn drizzles into her sanctuary, Merry blinks. A solid wall rises and falls beneath her head, and she grins at the slumbering, outcast god. He’s on his side, still facing her, their lower bodies braided, and their gloveless fingers knotted between them.

Her, bare under the nightgown. Him, bare from the waist up.

Merry would scurry on top of him, wake him up, and return the ecstatic fervor of last night. Only he’s asleep, and it’s like watching a hibernating rhino or a dormant tornado. If she takes him by surprise, he’ll barrel from his dreams and knock her over, since Anger doesn’t awaken subtly. She’d learned this during their hammock sleepover.

Besides, it’s delectable watching his eyelids twitter and the plains of his chest inflate. The motions cause a ripple effect of muscles, of grids contorting and ridges extending. Tracing his features, Merry decides that his mouth is a severe yet sublime engraving across his countenance. Sometimes she needs a crowbar to open that schism. Other times, it takes no effort to make him bellow.

Presently, he’s peaceful, unlike the previous times she’s witnessed him unconscious, with pinched brows and a padlocked expression. This may be the fruit of their emotional labor—the euphoria and its aftermath.

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