Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

In a rough voice, he says, “You would’ve met someone.”
“I met a lot of men after David. I even dated a few of
them. Nobody ever made me feel like you do. No one made
me feel alive.”
Some unidentifiable emotion wells up in his eyes, but he
looks away so I can’t tell what it is. I want to ask him what’s
wrong, but he abruptly changes the subject.
“I’ll thread the needle for you. Pull the edges of the wound
together and start at one end. Don’t pull the stitches too tight,
or the flesh will die. Don’t go too shallow, or too deep, either.
Just make small, evenly spaced stitches. Pretend you’re
hemming a dress.”
“A skin dress. How Hannibal Lecter.”
“The skin-dress guy was Buffalo Bill. Lecter was the one
who helped Starling catch him.”
“That’s right, I remember now. Are you a movie fan?”
His brows draw together. He seems lost in some bad
memory, one I know he won’t divulge.
His voice low, he says, “I don’t sleep much. There’s
always a movie on TV late at night.”
I get a glimpse of what his day-to-day life must be like. It
isn’t pretty.
When I touch his cheek, he glances back at me, startled,
pulled back from wherever he went.
“The next time you can’t sleep, call me, okay? We can
watch a movie together.”
He searches my face with a look of longing in his eyes,
like there’s nothing on earth that would make him happier than
to watch the same film over the phone together when he’s
away.
But again, he changes the subject, reaching over to pick up
the bottle of peroxide.
“Cleaning first. Then stitching. Let’s get this over with so
we can get back to the important stuff.”