She’d read Carroll when she was a child, because avoiding that when you’re growi

She’d read Carroll when she was a child, because avoiding that when you’re growing up in England is more trouble than it’s worth. She’d enjoyed it, too, as much as it had burrowed a dozen different nightmares deep under her skin, each one popping out on rotation every night, so that the scares were fresh, even if they were a little familiar. 

But it was the rabbit hole that had fascinated her. Like Lewis’ Wardrobe, it was a transition point, where the fantasy met the reality. She figured they were enclosed because claustrophobia felt like metamorphosis, a cloying closeness before suddenly you’re out and in the air of some new world, thrown into the open in a glorious flourish. 

That wasn’t it, though. They weren’t small to constrict the traveller, but the view home. It was always there, in the back of their minds. The hole in the trunk of the tree, the inert hug of the clothes of the wardrobe. It was there for you to glance over your shoulder and see the world that you’d left behind, one tiny little hook of homesickness that left you just a little unsettled, let the sublime creep under your skin like those nightmares.

He was her late rabbit, and she’d followed him so very far. There was still a crack of light though, that let her see the time that she still didn’t know if she wanted to forget. She slipped back into it whenever she was with friends, away from him, before she tumbled anew each time he slipped into her life. The problem was, she was starting to find it difficult to figure out which was the fantasyland. Which disconcerted her more.

Fear was his. That was what unsettled her the most. She never felt completely comfortable, or at least, not for long. He was a raging bull, and she had somehow figured out how to calm him. But it was still there, and she could see it in his eyes when he was fucking her, the way his hand would close around her throat and he’d choke her to orgasm, throw her into bliss and then coax her back once it had left her.

But everything else, everything away from him, was so shockingly bland, a homogeneous blur of vanilla conversation, meaningless bullshit that she had to make a concerted effort to contribute to, because the meaningless bullshit was kind of important, too.

But all she could think about during those conversations was that vanishing grin, the eyes, the smile, her very own Cheshire Cat in her very own Wonderland. She might even sigh, if she was feeling prone to cliché.