Love in Prompts: Dexter Theatre

[Notes] Written for pepperlandgirl4 who is all sorts of coolness via yuletide
[Betas] Thanks so much to anthimaeria for the swift beta and encouragement.
[Request] Dexter's relationship with Rita is fascinating, and a little twisted. I'd love to see them working out more of their.sexual issues (the darker the better!)


The problem with sex, I've come to realize, isn't really the sex itself (though it is messy and sometimes I can't help that my mind wanders to how much evidence I'm leaving behind). The problem with sex is really the litany of questions that it seems to inspire at the end; a post-show recap of the night's events. "Did you come? Was it good? Was I good? Was it good for you?"

These are the questions we ask instead of apologizing for violating each other-- for getting so close to them without giving much back in return. No one wants a sincere critique of their performance. All anyone really wants is to be reassured that they haven't humiliated themselves in the name of getting off.

How could they not humiliate themselves? The faces alone are embarrassing, and then the matter of two very dirty areas of your body connecting, co-mingling, and you're not yourself anymore. You're a grinding, grunting needing thing that forgets all else that's around for that single moment of release.

Maybe if sex worked better for me, I wouldn't feel the urge to kill.

I can't blame Rita. Even if I were inclined to, the problem predates her. I want to finish sex and have it done with. I want to nap and shut down for a while or some days I just want to get up and wash it all away.

They act like I'm the science experiment, as if I'm the dead computer inside, but they're computers too. Always calculating, awaiting the next prompt.

"I love you." In code, it's a query, not a statement. I love you is a prompt with an implied blinking cursor that asks, "Do you love me?"

"I love you, too." You've fulfilled your prompt, the obligation to return the sentence.

"That was nice." Rita's mouth works in voices that I've heard many times before. It's another prompt.

"It was. Did you come?" To be fully engaged, to pass as one of them, you have to know what prompts to shoot back sometimes.

She looks sad for a moment. "It's not your fault."

Cue guilt. Or it would if I felt as if I have anything to feel guilty over. She initiated it, and she made the gestures of enjoyment. I did it for her, but she doesn't know that. She couldn't know that. It doesn't fit into the program. As it is, I'm not sure what I feel. I don't feel anything. No, maybe regret. It's not my fault she can't get off, but it's now my problem. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure if I care. If I didn't care, though, I wouldn't be thinking about it, so I must care a little. It vexes me. "Do you want to... again?"

I'm silently praying she says no.

I don't even get through the first mantra when she's shaking her head. She doesn't want to do it again. She doesn't want to give it another chance. I feel like I've failed. I'm not passing as human and she'll know. Not that she's the first to have hit this dead end with me, but for the first time I feel like I want to apologize for it. I want to be able to say to her as she's said to me, It's not your fault.

She doesn't know that there's anything at fault, yet.

"I'm sorry. You're so patient with me. You're like a saint." She leans over and kisses me and I can still feel the humidity of perspiration on her skin, I still feel the warmth of her lips to my cheek and I feel like I can see in the distance why people put themselves through this.

"I'm far from a saint," I tell her.

She smiles in that wan, estranged way and I know her head is full of emotions-- that she's wracked with guilt as if she's let me down. I rest my hand on the crook of her arm, rubbing my thumb against her inner arm, thinking about how fragile life is, how fragile she is. I feel a sense of obligation to her, and maybe that's what love is. Those goals, that ambition to be in love

Once she told me how deeply and desperately she was in love with her ex-husband, the man who abused her. She felt the love for him so deeply that it burned to the soles of her feet, that it caused her to believe things that weren't true. She thought she could save him, to make him better, but instead, she lost herself.

I want to make love to her; I want to fill in those gaps because I see that she wants to save people-- that she genuinely cares. Maybe in my own way, that's what I do.

No, that's a lie. I cannot rationalize what I do as caring. I'm fulfilling a need as well as fulfilling a gap in what society needs. I'm not doing it because I'm altruistic. I don't even really know what that emotion means. I'm doing it because this way, I won't get caught. I'm scum ridding the world of other scum. I'm the spider that eats the other pests, whose web you can ignore because it's set off in a corner you never see.

This is what I want to do for her. I want to fill in the gaps and to trap the evil that tries to swarm around her. I want to keep her clear of all that might harm her. I don't think it's love, but maybe it's as close as I'll get.

She's staring at me as if she can read my thoughts. She gives a knowing nod and turns off the night lamp pitching us into darkness.

"Will you stay the night?" she asks, her body turned towards mine, her eyes expecting rejection even as her body leans towards me. A subtle manipulation but I do have a choice here. I can fit in by opting to stay or not to stay.

I push the covers back and unroll the condom. It's empty, but in the dark she can't see that. Condoms are both customary and a good cover for how rarely I can get off like that. I twist it around my finger to tie it off, as if there's something that would leak out. Standing, I head to the bathroom, knowing that if I left this there, that she might figure me out.

I drop the condom into the toilet and flush it, sighing as I watch it swirl around the bowl a few times before succumbing to the eventual suck. Then it's off. Free at sea or to latch onto a predatory sewer gator.

Time's up and I must stop my vacillation and give the woman an answer.

Slipping under the covers, I curl up next to her. She turns around so that we can spoon. I get the back of her head in my face. Her blond hair tries to invade my nose so I push it aside. Spooning. Something else I don't get the appeal of. It makes her happy, so I do it.

"I love you, Dexter."

I smile and kiss the back of her neck and fulfill my prompt. "I love you too, Rita."

I wait until her body twitches to know she's asleep. Only then do I allow myself to relax and stare at the cut of the blinds and the way they cast shadows on the wall. I start counting the shadows.

Before I reach the end, I go into sleep mode.