He can't keep his hands off me, can't stop touching me, running his
fingers along my arms, making me feel his strength, but I know he'd
never hurt me, never bend me, never break me...
His breath's so warm as it mists against me, and when he does, when he
rubs against me with sure, certain fingers, gently so that I make
little high, helpless noises, or hard enough that I feel the danger I'm
in, feel his anger, taken out on me...well, things seem so much clearer.
He needs me. I make life better for him. I stand between him and the
books he loves and he enjoys them through me. I'm the first thing he
wants in the morning, I get the last touch from his fingers at night.
He needs me. That's like love, isn't it?
***
He touches me for the final time, a contemplative finger drawn across
the scars, my replacement already snuggled up in my place. I can't feel
anger or hurt though.
I saved his eyes, put myself between their soft green and the demon
slime that would have taken his sight, and if it left me unable to be
his window on the world, it's my loss, not his.
Gently, slowly, he breathes on me, following it with a last attempt to
heal me, one last despairing stroke across the gouges I'm left to bear.
Then with one final gaze that seems to see right through me, though I
can show him nothing with clarity now, I'm put away.
Left, forgotten, replaced...another's been chosen.
It's so dark in here.