He stares down at me. He seems startled that I have asked such a question. I have confused myself with it. I do not ask questions. I have little interest in talk. There is only now. I met my lover the day he became my lover. What do I care of things called cakes and birthdays? Yet I seem to want his answer very much and feel oddly deflated when he does not give me one.

“I am Jericho Barrons. Say my name.”

I try to turn my face away, but his hands clamp like a vise on my skull and hold it immobile, preventing me from looking away.

I close my eyes.

He shakes me. “Say my name.”

“No.”

“Damn it, would you just cooperate?”

“I do not know that word, ‘cooperate.’ “

“Obviously,” he growls.

“I think you make up words.”

“I do not make up words.”

“Do, too.”

“Do not.”

“Too.”

“Not.”

I laugh.

“Woman, you make me crazed,” he mutters.

We do this often. Get into childish arguments. He is stubborn, my beast.

“Open your eyes and say my name.”

I squeeze them shut more tightly.

“It would make my cock hard to hear you say my name.”

My eyes pop open. “Jericho Barrons,” I say sweetly.

He makes a pained sound. “Bloody hell, woman, I think a part of me wants to keep you this way.”

I touch his face. “I like how I am. I like how you are, too. When you are … What is that word you used? Cooperating.”

“Tell me to fuck you.”

I smile and comply. We’re back in territory I understand.

“You didn’t say my name. Say my name when you tell me to fuck you.”

“Fuck me, Jericho Barrons.”

“From now on, you will call me Jericho Barrons every time you speak to me.”

He is a strange beast. But he gives me what I want. I suppose it will not kill me to do the same.

And so we begin a different way of being. I call him Jericho Barrons and he calls me Mac.

We are no longer animals. We have “names.”

I dream of his “Alina” and wake up weeping. But there is something new inside me. Something cold and explosive beneath the tears.

I do not know what to call it, but it makes me pace. I stalk the room like the animal I am, smashing and breaking things. I scream until my throat is raw.

Suddenly I have new words.

Rage.

Anger. Violence.

I am all the fury that ever was. I could scourge the earth with my grief and madness.

I want something. But I do not know what it is.

He watches me in silence.

I think it must be sex. I go to him. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me to stand between his legs.

My hands hurt from hitting things. He kisses them.

“Revenge,” he says softly. “They took too much. You give up and die, or learn how to take back. Revenge, Mac.”

I cock my head. I try the word on my tongue. “Revenge.” Yes. That is what I want.

He is gone when I wake, and I have a bad moment, but then he is there and has brought many boxes and some of them smell good.

I no longer resist when he offers me food. I anticipate it. Food is pleasure. Sometimes I put things on his body and lick them off, and he watches me with dark eyes and shudders as he comes.

He leaves and returns with more boxes.

I sit on the bed, eat, and watch him.

He opens boxes and begins to build something. It is strange. He plays music on his eye-pod that makes me feel uncomfortable … young, childish.

“It’s a tree, Mac. You and Alina put one up every year. I couldn’t get a live one. We’re in a Dark Zone. Do you remember Dark Zones?”

I shake my head.

“You named them.”

I shake my head.

“How about December twenty-fifth? Do you know what day that is?”

I shake my head.

“It’s today.” He hands me a book. There are pictures in it of a fat man in red clothing, of stars and cradles, of trees with shiny pretty things on the branches.

It all seems quite stupid to me.

He hands me the first of many boxes. In them are shiny, pretty things. I get the point. I roll my eyes. My stomach is full and I would rather have sex.

He refuses to comply. We have one of our spats. He wins because he has what I want and can withhold it.

We decorate the tree while happy, idiotic songs play.

When we are finished, he does something that makes a million tiny bright lights glow red and pink and green and blue, and I lose my breath like someone has kicked me in the stomach.

I drop to my knees.

I sit cross-legged on the floor and stare at the tree for a long time.

I get more new words. They come slowly, but they come.

Christmas.

Presents.

Mom.

Dad.

Home. School. Brickyard. Cell phone. Pool. Trinity. Dublin.

One word disturbs me more than all the rest of them combined.

Sister.

He makes me put on “clothes.” I hate them. They are tight and chafe my skin.

I take them off, throw them on the floor, and stomp on them. He dresses me again, in rainbow colors that are bright and hurt my eyes.

I like black. It is the color of secrets and silence.

I like red. It is the color of lust and power.

“You wear black and red.” I am angry. “You even wear it on your skin.” I do not know why he gets to make up the rules, and I tell him so.

“I’m different, Mac. And I get to make up the rules because I’m bigger and stronger.” He laughs. There is power even in such a simple sound. Everything about him is power. It thrills me. It makes me want him all the time. Even when he is dense and troublesome.

“You are not so different. Do you not wish me to be like you?” I yank the tight pink shirt over my head. My breasts pop out, bouncing. He stares hard, then looks away.

I wait for him to look back. He always looks back. He doesn’t this time.

“I have no business looking forward to pink cakes, isn’t that what you said?” I am angry. “You should be happy that I want black!”

His head whips back around. “What did you just say, Mac? When did I tell you that? Tell me about it!”

I do not know. I do not understand what I just said. I do not remember such a time. I frown. My head hurts. I hate these clothes. I strip off my skirt but leave on my heels. Nude, I can breathe. I like the heels. They make me feel tall and sexy. I walk toward him, hips swaying. My body knows how to walk in such shoes.