Page 20

Barbara

I had to thank my mother, I decided as I got ready in front of my window, looking at the lone ember of Phantom’s cigarette. Because if not for her actions, I wouldn’t have lost all my fucks to give. I supposed Phantom was to be thanked, too, but I wasn’t sure he’d appreciate my gratitude considering what I was about to do.

When I was certain I had his attention, I reached back to unzip my dress. Slowly, I slid it down my shoulders, kneeling on the padded bench in my window nook so he could get an eyeful. Once the dress pooled around my hips, revealing my soft, pink bra, Phantom’s cigarette suddenly vanished, as if he dropped it. I smiled, biting back my nerves. Undressing like this, knowing a man watched, was so far out of my comfort zone.

But I told Phantom the truth. I was a hard worker, and I learned fast, too. Right now, all my determination was focused on him, whether he liked it or not. Since he wanted me anyway, all I had to do was break through his weird scruples.

He said he didn’t want to be my little rebellion. Well, I didn’t want him to be that, either. I simply wanted him , and so, I’d do everything I could to have him. It shouldn’t be more difficult than mastering a challenging choreography, really.

The tree opposite my window rustled. I stepped out of my dress and knelt back on the bench, biting the inside of my cheek as I toyed with the strap of my bra. Was I brave enough to take it off? With the cigarette gone, I didn’t even know if he was watching.

A dark shape exploded out of the tree, flying gracefully through the air. I fell back with a shriek of surprise when Phantom landed on my windowsill, keeping impeccable balance. He grabbed the edges of my window frame and pressed his face to the glass with an eerie grin.

I landed on my ass when he appeared, and now, I instinctively covered myself with my hands, spooked by his proximity. Phantom’s grin widened when he saw it. He raised one hand, wagged his finger chidingly, and fell off the sill in an easy leap.

I knew he’d be fine but still rushed over to open the window and stuck my head out. Phantom waved at me from the ground.

“Don’t play adult games with me, little girl,” he called out with a cackle before disappearing around the corner.

I pulled back into the room, slowly closing the window while my face burned. I felt humiliated, yes, but mostly furious. Little girl? I would show him a little girl.

And yet, I had no idea what to do next. Maybe it was na?ve of me, but I thought he’d give in if he saw me undress for him. Men were supposed to be easy like that, according to some of my friends back at school.

“Just take off your clothes,” Jenna once said with a shrug, like it was obvious. “And I promise you, he will be yours.”

Well, I did take off some clothes, but I chickened out before I went through with it. Maybe it wasn’t the best strategy for me yet. But what else could I do?

Feeling a bit defeated, I got in the shower, washing off the remains of the gala. Then, I wrapped myself in my fluffiest pink bathrobe, put on a hair mask, and sat down at my desk.

How to seduce a man , I typed into the search bar.

Half an hour later, I had an entire list of useless things. “Lean in when he speaks, laugh at his jokes, play with your hair, hold intimate eye contact, compliment him, listen to him…” It was all things I’ve been taught to do in conversation with any man, whether he was seventeen or seventy, no matter our relationship. It was the stuff well-behaved girls were supposed to do. Listen to him and laugh at his jokes. Yes, that about summed it up.

But none of the websites I looked at explained how to actually get a man into bed with me. I stuck out my chin in thought, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

How to get a man to sleep with you.

The search engine offered to show me only the safe results, which meant I was on to something. I swallowed nervously and toggled the safety off.

A whole new world opened up for me. I read with my cheeks blushing, devouring the information like a good student craving her education. At school, I always strove to get an A. I would get an A from Phantom, too.

Not everything was useful, admittedly. The top result suggested just to be direct and grab the man’s crotch, squeezing lightly, but Phantom was armored. He’d probably barely feel it. And also—really? It seemed incredibly violating.

Some other articles repeated what I already knew: make eye contact, lean in, tell him nice things. To cover all my bases, I spent ten minutes jotting down compliment ideas and had a whole bunch by the time I was done. It was too easy, really, to name all the amazing things about him.

The way he smelled. His sharp wit. His jokes. His strength, his beautiful bone structure, his disdain for the rules. His voice, oh , his voice. I hadn’t appreciated it properly until he growled in my ear that he would rail me against the balustrade for everyone to see.

And then, the way he walked like he owned the world. His abrupt, self-confident movements, his grace and the way he took up space. The way his eyes changed color. His mouth and tongue that I desperately wanted to see again. The way his armor plates stacked on the tops of his hands to reveal his palms.

How he felt like a sculpture sometimes. Like… Like he was almost too perfect to be a living being.

I liked everything about him, it seemed. But I also had a nagging suspicion he would see right through me if I came out with a bunch of compliments. I’d definitely have to be smart about it.

The next article I read promised to teach me how to turn my lover into a begging, moaning mess in bed. I read it with wide eyes, learning more than I could handle about deepthroating, dirty talk, and the art of stimulating the prostate.

Do abomination men have a prostate? I typed after recovering from the information overload.

They did, as it turned out. It was located similarly to the human prostate. But that wasn’t the only thing I learned.

Since the safety was turned off, the browser spat out images, diagrams, and videos. I pressed my hand to my mouth, the need to laugh or scream overwhelming.

Dicks. Everywhere. Erect dicks. Flaccid dicks. Dick sculptures and dick memes.

Abomination cocks galore.

I stared at the screen, terrified yet too curious for my own good. Once I realized what I saw, I clicked one of the clearer pictures to enlarge it.

The image included a very helpful banana for scale.

When I had enough control over myself, I slowly released my mouth and leaned in, tracing the shape with my eyes. The first thing that drew my attention was the color. Phantom’s skin was dark gray, as if covered with soot, but the abomination dicks I saw were deep red, some closer to blood, some the color of strawberry syrup.

They were all uncut, the heads longer and slightly pointier than on humans. What really set them apart, though, was a row of round protrusions running like a spine on top of the shaft.

And then, there was the banana. It was substantially smaller than the appendage in the picture.

I clicked away from the image, enlarging a meme instead. It showed a woman looking lecherously over her shoulder at an abomination man, while a human man at her side seemed offended. The text read, When she knows his is twice as big.

Yikes.

That sparked my curiosity, though. A few searches later, I was entirely too well informed about the abomination kink, which seemed to be super popular. I found out there were even special nightclubs where human women went to find monster men for sex. Abominations seemed to be high up in the popularity ranking because they were so rare, but also because their dicks were supposed to feel especially good.

Better than a G-spot massager. 10/10 , someone wrote on a monster fetish forum.

I processed all of it while washing the mask off my hair. The fetish thing seemed reductive to me, and it also complicated my plan a bit. If Phantom had a gaggle of thirsty women surrounding him every time he went out into a nightclub, no wonder he wasn’t that eager for me. I would have to do something those women couldn’t, but then, what would that be?

Think, I urged myself, looking into the mirror as I dried my hair. What can you do that they can’t?

Well, I could parade naked in front of him, but I’d have to practice more. To test things out, I let my bathrobe fall open, revealing hints of naked breasts and stomach. Maybe I could do it. But what else?

I climbed into bed feeling disgruntled but determined. At the last moment, I shucked off my nightshirt and lay down naked, deciding maybe I should get used to nakedness first. Then, an idea occurred to me.

I grabbed my phone and draped my comforter over me just enough to reveal half of one breast. Smiling innocently, I took a selfie and sent it to him before I chickened out.

“Thinking of you,” I said in the text.

I hid the phone in my bedside drawer and went to sleep, doing my best not to fret about what he’d think.

Nothing, as it turned out. Because the next morning, he was nowhere to be seen.

My mother went off to church, and since she gave me the silent treatment, I got no comments when I didn’t set off with her. My father wasn’t home, of course, and I wondered bitterly how many nights a week he actually spent here.

I never gave it much thought, most likely to protect myself, but he was probably cheating on my mother. They didn’t love each other, after all. Their marriage had been arranged or maybe forced, and no wonder it was unhappy.

With a start, I understood that even if I had been born the boy they wanted, they’d still be miserably stuck together, without even the option of divorce, since it would likely tank my father’s career. A weight lifted off my shoulders, and I realized I must have carried a load of guilt around having been born a girl. But none of it was my fault.

Feeling bolstered and even more determined to avoid the hell my parents lived in, I set out to find Phantom. But he wasn’t in his room nor in the kitchen. When I went out into the garden, searching for him, I thought I heard faint rustles and once, I saw a flash of black.

“Are you playing hide and seek?” I asked, turning in a circle to find him.

He didn’t answer. I rolled my eyes and sighed, wondering if he was avoiding me because of the half-nude picture I sent him. It was ridiculous, too. Hadn’t he already seen my breasts when he peeped at me from the tree?

I gasped when an idea hit me, turning to look at the wall of windows marking my ballet studio.

There was one thing I could do, after all. Except… ballet wasn’t sexy, was it? But I sometimes tried other types of dance when I knew for sure I was on my own. I loved channeling my emotions into movement, but it was private and vulnerable, and that was the reason why I was so upset when Phantom saw me then.

This time, though, I wanted him to look.

Bracing my shoulders, I went inside.