“Put that shit down, Juan.”
His lack of organizational skills was always tolerable until now. I was always able to control my emotions. Fuck, I never had them. I love. I kill. I fuck. I leave before they can leave me. That is how it works. That is always how it works. I don’t like disorder and it is creeping its way into my life.
He sits the papers down, looking at me through desperate eyes.
“Something you need, sir?”
“Fuck you. I didn’t ask you to speak, you little perra.”
He gulps hard. I smile. Maybe playing with life could turn out to be fun for a little while. Instilling fear is proving to be quite rewarding.
He licks his lips and opens his mouth like he wants to speak. Something inside of me breaks. I take my open hand and smack him across the face. His head whips to the side and the sound of skin on skin makes me want to fuck every part of him. Hard.
“Get the point now, cunt?”
He nods his head yes.
“Get naked.”
He swallows hard again and takes off his shirt. I look at the scar forming where they removed his kidney, part of what filters the toxins that keeps him alive, and the dancing between what I crave and what I am used to enrages me further. He removes his jeans and underwear, showing me that his cock is hard as fuck. There will be no pleasure for him. I am his boss. He is my bitch, and right now I need to get this anger out of me before I go crazy. Well, I may be a little crazy, but functioning and able to hide it from the outsiders looking in.
“Bend over the desk. Palms flat, legs spread. Ass up.”
He turns around quickly, assembling the position that I demanded. His trembling fingers fidget on top of the littered desk while his head turns around to look at me. Signs of life make me nervous. Movement makes me uneasy. I hate it.
“Bitch! Did I tell you to look at me?” I roar.
I punch him in the back of the head, watching as it bounces off the desk. He yelps out in pain. Pain is just a reminder that a person is still alive. That fuels my irritation. I grab a condom from the drawer in the desk where I hide them, making sure I put one on, knowing some of the sluts Caesar brings in are infected with disease. I tear open the foil packet. I whisk my belt off and yank my pants and boxers down to my knees, rolling the condom onto my hard cock, then situating myself between his small ass cheeks. I ram my cock inside of him and he shrieks out in discomfort.
“Fucking quit making noises! I will kill you! Just shut the fuck up!” I shout, thrusting my hips deeper inside of him.
I grip both of his hips to control my motions, but the warmth of his skin confuses me. He is getting sweaty and he is still moaning. I want to take his life, I want him limp. Dead and gone. The urge it almost too much. I feel myself being splintered apart as the man I once was is dissected by a woman that I loved and a woman that I have become enamored with.
“Please,” Juan whimpers.
I strike him hard to the back of the head again and he goes limp. Finally, peace. I fuck him faster and faster as the silence in the air calms my mind. Memories of the lovely dysfunction bathe me as I spurt myself into his tight asshole.
I pull myself out of him and I let him fall to the ground. I feel his skin. He is still warm. He starts to stir as he opens his eyes to look at me. I feel defeated. I had the chance to kill, but I let him live. Annoyance still prickles my skin and torture is still on my mind.
Oh, little Juan. You have opened up a can of very bad worms.
Svetlana
Love me, heal me, feed me all your sweet lies.
Leave me to be smothered by myself, waiting until I die.
“Will you still love me tomorrow, Caesar?”
“I have always loved you, mi amor. Nothing will change that. Nothing can change that. Sweet dreams, little one.”
Lies. I wake up sweating, surrounded by sweet lies. Alone. Deserted, realizing nothing stays the same. Everything is destined to fall apart. The deeper I fall, the more I understand I am nothing more than a stupid whore. But I love him. I do. I feel my pulse fading away the further he is getting away from me.
My lifeline. My love.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream. Just as soon as I thought I could hang onto life once again, he leaves. Dead and gone is Svetlana. I might have been the lamb for all those years, but I am a lion and a lamb now as I await the perfect fucking time to eat myself alive.
Delicious reminders throb between my thighs, images of him between my legs flashing before my mind as I remember how he felt inside of me, pulling deep inside of my womb. A womb that was so damaged until him. Sickness bathes me as I hold onto a man that I love. I want to smash it away as craziness clutches me, telling me that I am not precious. I am unworthy. I am scum, preparing to be washed down the drain.
A disgusting little dolly, torn and tattered about to be thrown away. I want to be unable to recall him as I lay naked on my bed, screaming at the top of my lungs as my pussy gets wet with recollections from the love he showed me. I want it gone. I want to be gone because he fed me lies. He spoke false promises. I want the blood to seep from my body and die like my mother. Kick me in the head, rape me, and leave me to rot in a goddamn dumpster. But just don’t let me feel. I want to die.
I slip my hand between my thighs, feeling Caesar’s hot cum drip from my pussy, reminding me of his departure. I hit myself between my legs on my bare sex hard to induce pain. Smack, smack, smack. Pain, make the pleasure from before go away. Help me. I don’t want to be loved or healed anymore. I want to die. I want to die. I am in the center of the worst kind of aching, more than anything else I have felt before. Only to be rescued by a man, delivered to love, and expelled.
Kill me, please.
I stand abruptly from the bed as the coldness from the hard floors makes me understand that I am not living inside of an unimaginable nightmare. My body betrays my mind once more as my breasts ache for his touch, thinking of how his mouth felt when he kissed and sucked on my nipple. Deliver me to evil. That is better than feeling love only to lose it. I am going mad. Kill me, please.
My hands make their way to my breasts as I try clawing at them, ridding myself from the glorious memories of his touch. Healing is worse than brutality. Having faith is worse than giving up. There is no such thing as faith. Hope is a made up word for those that want something to believe in, when the fact of the matter is, we are all fucking crazy.
I blink, tears running down my face, wishing with all my being that I would turn into dust to forget all these beautiful moments that I shared with a man that has left me. Because he lied. And I would let him lie to me again and again, over and over, because he is my heart. My lifeline. My salvation.
I pace my living space, making my way to the door, but it’s locked. My heart pounds as I strike the door with my fist. I am locked away and he has the key to my heart and my room. Hands, his hands, so rough yet gentle. I recall how they felt on my skin; when they ran through my hair and pleasured my pussy. Oh, I can’t take it. I yell out again, for mercy from someone. Give me a goodbye. My wild heart can’t take much more. Drag me to the gates of hell. Give me a kiss goodbye and let me feel the fire that I am sure I deserve. I pull at my hair, desperately trying to rid my mind from his hands, his touch, his everything, but that only intensifies things. I need a remedy and I only have two.
Him or death.
I won’t get either right now as I think of ways I could kill myself. He has my heart confined in a goddamn steel cage as my mind begs to be freed to murder my fucked up self. I want to go away. I want to forget, to be a no one again. Bring the abuse. Let me be the broken girl I was, because being broken is better than this. What have I become? Who am I? Girls like me don’t find love.
Free me to be raped, crushed, and surrounded by the things I was before. Anything is better than feeling this way. I can’t take it. I bang my head against the door, yelling out as tears continue to stain my mottled face.
“Forgive me! Please! Please love me!” I y
ell, scratching at the door.
I am asking for forgiveness. What kind, I don’t know. I only know that I need him back. I need a reason to be his. I need a reason for him to come back to me.
“Come back to me!” I cry.
I melt down onto the cold concrete while shedding tears that represent emotions I never thought I was capable of feeling. Eventually sleep or unconsciousness finds me. It’s hard to tell the difference.
***
“Sweet Lettie, you are shivering,” a lush voice whispers to me.
Whispers are soothing. They calm me. They make me feel like I am home. I open heavy lids as my face is expressionless. No one cared to know me before as I was tortured and forced to fuck so many, yet I am clutched in the arms of another man that looks at me with tenderness. I don’t understand why I matter. Maybe he will cut my strings free from this bad world.
I allow my body to remain limp as his arms wrap themselves around me, warming me. I want to fade away, taking the only kind of love that I have felt with me. I lay my head on Mateo’s chest as his beating heart drums in my mind, begging me to hold onto that fucking word that I hate; hope.
Rugged reminders play about in my mind as I remember him loving the lifeless ones. How can someone so sweet and caring want something so horrible? Life isn’t about making sense of things. My life is the epitome of dysfunction. I dismiss it all as he walks my naked body over to the bed, pulling the comforter back and placing me down gently. He looks at me like he knows me, but I don’t ask questions. My mind and heart are far too tired to try and figure anything else out.
“Lettie, you shouldn’t love him. But I know you can’t help those that you love,” he whispers as he sits next to me, tucking my hair behind my ear.
I open my mouth to speak, but words don’t find me. His tattooed finger makes its way to my mouth as he presses it closed.
“Shh, Lettie doll. You don’t need to explain anything to me. I have loved, but they never last. Feeling love once is a beautiful thing, but having it run out of your life is worse. We have that in common, Lettie. I can’t handle running either. It makes me go crazy, too.”
I am stuck as his black eyes speak to me. I believe him. He seems like he would be easy to love, but there is a monster beneath it all. I suppose we all have a monster underneath. I am discovering mine, the one that wants to murder my weeping self.
“Whisper your needs to him, Lettie. He will listen. He will love you if you whisper to him.”
I gulp as he speaks truths to me, cupping my cheek. I know he isn’t pretending while he offers me a smile. One I trust. Trust, what is that? Trusting yields bad results, torn and tattered hearts and dead lives. I close my eyes and pray that it won’t hurt anymore. But I still feel it. The inevitable tears form in my eyes and I open them to see Mateo looking at me like he wants to protect me. I wonder if he would kill me. Make me dead and gone from this fucked up world. He could be my kiss of death; the one that I long for.
A dagger of pain forms in my gut.
“Do you have dreams, Lettie?”
I furrow my brows at such an odd question, but then shake my head as I finally speak.
“I want a kiss from death.”
Mateo grins at me, pressing his lips on my forehead.
“Sweet dreams, Lettie. Caesar will see you tomorrow. Speak your sweet whispers to him.”
Caesar
The quiet decent into dementia is worse than the loudest screams in the night.
Once I am locked in my home, my silent soundproofed sanctuary, I do what the doctors told me to do when the noises are too much to handle. I create white noise, more accurately pink noise, by turning on all the taps so the sound of the water douses the burning of the misophonia. The sounds I can’t handle are slowly but surely replaced with ones I can. I feel my pulse coming down, and the shaking in my hands is less noticeable as I light a cigarette. The nicotine fills my lungs and in the smoky relief, my insanity fades away. When half the packet is done and my ashtray is full, I am in a better state of mind. I am still hungover and feeling ragged but my head has stilled a little.
I left her there, I left her screaming, and her agony could be heard bouncing off the walls of the whole building. They were tearing me into pieces and I couldn’t stay. What have I done? Of all the dreadful, wrong things I have done in my life this is the worst. I can feel it steal the last shred of my humanity, leaving only the monster that lurked beneath. I feel dirty, tainted and the filth of my actions won’t wash from my skin or my mind. I want to forget it, but I want to hang onto it forever. I want to stop loving her, but I have loved her forever. I want her body next to mine again; I need to make her feel loved. I fear the love I can give will not be enough for her, she needs to feel love differently than others. She has no idea what it is to love or be loved. She is as broken, damaged and completely fucked up as Mateo and me. My fuzzy thoughts are drawn back to his little glass jars, it’s no wonder he keeps the doors locked all the time. His words ring around in my head, starting the noise up once again. “I don’t want to be fixed.”
I have to make him understand that there is so much more to life than cold dead bodies. I need to heal them both. I know how to do it, but I think it may kill me - or them.
As I allow sleep to take me again, I stumble over dreams of Marta and Pavel, her tears and her pain and her dead body. My dreams are never pleasant, but now they are unbearable.
***
I have to return to work, it’s been two days and I know I cannot stay away forever. I want to but I can’t. I feel something I am unaccustomed to - guilt. I am afraid to face the shame of my actions, but more afraid that I may not be able to stop myself from doing it again. The way her body danced with mine, her skin was soft and her silken hair between my fingers. The things I dream of and long for are all so wrong and yet I cannot stop them. I have some goodbyes to say today. One of them will be to this bond with her; I need to fix her and loving her won’t be the cure for her ailments. Not loving her could be even worse though.
The heat inside the building is always there, the mugginess clinging to you like an unwanted passenger all day long. The office is eerily quiet and so clean I am sure that I have opened the wrong door. There are files, and everything has an order and a place. I have no doubt that Juan has been a busy boy trying to impress Mateo. I flick the flame across the end of my cigarette and sit down to read over the list of organs going out today. They only require a heart, two kidneys and a liver so it should be a quick day. The burners hum downstairs, coupled with the faint beeping from the back that I am sure no one else can hear, makes my skin prickle. Those sounds keep me sane and stop me from completely decomposing into psychosis every single day. I close my eyes and listen to the din of industrial noise that surrounds me and my breaths even out. I am alright for the moment.
“Morning, Caesar,” Juan greets with a smile. I’m certain Mateo has advised him to use that coarse tone to just goad me. I smile at the silly, annoying boy and nod. I don’t want to engage in a conversation, but his face is bruised and his eyes tell a story I am afraid to know.
“You alright, gnat?” I ask, despite not wanting to know.
“I am fine, boss,” he answers, turning his back to me as he starts to empty the waste basket into a plastic bag. I don’t ask anymore, it’s none of my business and I don’t intend to make it any. I don’t really care.
I go for a walk through the waiting beds and silent bodies, the beeping and whooshing of machines a welcomed retreat. I see my nephew in the corner making love to a girl who will never open her eyes again. His face is calm, his soft rhythmic movements repetitive as he pushes himself in and out of her. I wonder if they can hear his romantic words as he uses their bodies to satisfy his need for love. Is his loving them something they would want? I watch his muscles rippling and her limp body just rocks gently below him as he strokes her cheeks and kisses her lips. I can almost understand why he does it as I stand there and take it all in. Her skin is white and smooth
where his hands grab onto it, lifting her up so he can drive his cock deeper. The way there is no resistance from her body as it is just slack in his vice grip. I finally see the beauty he sees as he releases in her. Maybe we aren’t that different, him and I. After watching him lie there next to her basking the aftermath of his euphoria, I quietly turn to leave.
“You don’t have to go, Caesar. I know you are watching,” he calls out to me, his voice scratchy from exertion. He sits up, swings his legs off the bed, sliding down to his feet. He grabs his jeans and pulls them on, the black ink that adorns his chest noticeable from where I stand and words and art dance on his skin as he pulls his shirt over his messed up hair. He strolls over to where I stand, his bare feet not making a sound on the white floors. “She screamed for three hours after you left, it was fucking awful.” He walks next to me, carrying his shoes as we exit the way I came in.
“How is she now?” I ask him, afraid of what his answer might be.
“Catatonic or in an insane destructive rage. It goes from one to the other.” He looks me in the eye. “She keeps screaming for you to love her.” I swallow the dryness in my throat and it hurts, I want to love her, but I cannot do it again. My silence says more than my words would, I know it. “Caesar, she needs you. I don’t know all the things they did to her but you either need to let her say goodbye or you need to be there for her.”
“What if I cannot do either of those things, Mateo?” It’s the truth, I can’t do either. I will not let her be a number or parts for another, and I cannot touch her again.
“Then she will go mad and kill herself.” He says it like it is foregone conclusion. If loving her is going to save her, is it that wrong? There are too many things in my head pulling me in all the wrong directions; I need to see her. “Is she up?”
The Goodbye Man (Red Market #1) Page 14