A little while later, I heard the door being opened, before it fell back shut.
Jude entered and came to the bed, grabbing the hem of his black turtleneck sweater and pulling it over his head with a pained grunt. His muscles were flexing beautifully; the injured panther was not losing any of its magnificence. He threw the sweater away, before crashing onto his bed, lying on his stomach, his head sideways in my direction.
The abyss spotted my hideout the next instant, dancing brilliantly as if embracing me.
"Come out, come to me." Jude whispered, but I could hear his voice strangely loud, reverberating inside me.
I pushed the chair away and crawled out, unsightly, with the gold treasures still in my hands.
Standing up, I put them on the already-cluttered desk, and turned around to walk to Jude.
The moment I had stood up, the gruesome wounds on his back had already entered my view.
Now, with my hands free, I didn't dare to come closer to his naked body, even if it was only his upper body - even just seeing the bloody but strong back made me a nervous wreck.
A deep chuckle later, Jude lifted his arm to me, his fingers motioned me to come closer.
I was still in my dress, without shoes and barefoot as I walked to him and after a short hesitation, I took his hand and, holding it, I sat down on the floor beside the bed.
Taking on unintentionally the same child-like pose Jude displayed the last few nights, I put my chin on the mattress, looking into the abyss.
Both my hands held is large one, his arm hanging out of the bed, as his fingers trembled slightly.
"Are you hurt?" I asked the obvious, and although I should patch his wounds up instead of doing whatever I do presently, the abyss and the scorching hand didn't let me go anywhere.
"Yeah." Jude answered simply, his finger grazing my palm and tickling me.
"Let me take care of you." I said as he shuffled a bit closer, our faces nearing. His head was laid sideways on the mattress, while my chin was still propped up on it.
With every inch he came closer, his arm extended more outside the bed.
His fingers playing with mine, he stopped to move when I could feel his breath fan my face.
"Okay." He answered me finally, but neither his eyes nor his hand were giving me free, shackling me in place.
Even close like this, I couldn't spot his black pupils because his eye color was so dark.
"The wounds have to be disinfected at least." I whispered to him as if it were a secret.
"I know." He whispered back but didn't make a move.
His finger painted soft circles on my palm, and I waited for something—anything that would cue me to leave this scene, something bringing me to look away, to move—but I just couldn't.
Jude, his eyes, and his voice had a power over me that I had never felt before, a power I had never thought someone could even have over another.
As I spiraled further into the darkness, Jude's eyes strayed from my eyes to what seemed to be my lips, as he licked his own. We were so close that his tongue could have easily grazed my mouth if either of us had crossed over the last inch that parted us.
That was my cue, what awakened me from Jude's spell, and the inexcusable closeness I had let happen between us. Even if I was not his stepmother, I was his teacher, and he was twelve years younger than me, barely an adult, easily tempted, and now injured and valuable.
In an attempt to distance us, I leaned back, letting go of his hand and jumping up, going inside his bathroom as if running from my own weakness against the big and bloody cat. I searched for a first aid kit, noticing that this bathroom was also pure chaos, with worn clothes being thrown around and a sink that needed a good scrub.
'Ugh, Teenagers.' I was a bit relieved to see the state of his bathroom. It helped me again back to view Jude as what he was—a kid, not the ravishingly handsome man that had me wrapped around his finger. But on second thought, why wasn't the maid cleaning up here?
Was that only a teenager's stubbornness about not having other people in his room, or was it another sign of neglect in this house?
Finding the first aid kit under a mountain of clothes, I went back to Jude. He was still lying on his stomach, rubbing his fingers lazily with the hand dangled out of the bed, down on the floor.I came closer to him,
"Move inside again."
I didn't even want to think about the reason that could have caused Jude to wiggle to the side where I had sat, aggravating his injuries even more. Jude didn't look at me as he propped his arms on the bed, like making a push-up, to again get more inside the bed.
His head was turned away from me, as I sat on the mattress, opening the first aid kit. I looked for a disinfecting solution for wounds, and after I found it and read through the directions, I shook it.
"I'll start now." I mumbled as I forced myself to take a look at the slashes across his back, as well as old scares of similar wounds. Seeing this old scars I felt chocked up.Spraying the wounds, Jude didn't wince or move, not even a bit.
This alone expressed that he was used to pain. A kid should scream and cry when getting whipped, and then it should seek protection in its mother's lap, tattle and snitch, and be angry and sad about whatever caused its pain. But Jude shouldn't be able to do that, with his mother dead, his father a psychopath.
So maybe when another adult came into this house he had hoped for a familiar connection, and when this adult was insulted, he had set the culprit on fire.
Was he really just a child?
I don't know how to view either men inside this house, but I knew one thing for sure.
I was on Jude's side.