The Goodbye Man (Red Market #1)

by A. Giannoccaro

  “Probably not, but I know she will want to see you.” We take the stairs to his floor slowly. I am dragging it out; the guilt and fear are gnawing at my gut. “You shouldn’t be afraid of the things you feel, Caesar.” Who is this boy?

  “I’m going to see her. Leave us and make sure the gnat stays away too.” I give him a threatening glare before I step up off the last step. He goes left to his door and I turn right to hers.

  Dark hair is splayed out over the pillow. She lies asleep in just a T-shirt which leaves her ass exposed. Her body is perfect, it may have been marked and wounded, but the beauty hasn’t faded, it has only intensified. I slip into her space and sit on the little sofa and watch her sleep; while she is silent I can still be rational. Hanging onto my sanity is impossible if she speaks to me. The longer I watch her though, the guilt begins to rise in me. I shouldn’t watch her this way. Wanting her at all is sinful and immoral. I am an old man and she is just a girl. As I watch her, my feelings dance from one side to the other. I love her, is that wrong? How can love be wrong? But it is.

  After a while, I find that there is this undeniable need in me to touch her, to hold onto her and pull her against me. I kick my boots off quietly and crawl up the bed so that I can cradle her body against mine. It feels so perfect, she is safe in my embrace. What kind of man could contemplate a love like this? She clings to me even in her sleep and I find my hands exploring the curves of her too skinny body. I try to stop myself but when she whispers in her sleep, my body reacts and all reason leaves me.

  “Love me, Caesar. Please. Don’t say goodbye to me.” Her whispers may as well come from the devil’s mouth as they talk to the demons in me. She pushes her naked backside against me and her hands reach up to where mine rest. She grabs them and pulls them over her soft breasts. “I want you so much. I need to feel you so that I know you love me. It’s not real if I can’t feel it.” More dreamed words spill out from her mouth, making my cock ache with the agony of wanting to listen to what she says. I try to stop the way my hands explore the skin on her thigh. I will my lips not to kiss her sweet neck. I beg my hands not to undress myself. I pray to stop as I push her shirt up over her breasts, exposing her nipples to my hungry mouth. I plead with my sanity to return as my tongue licks its way over her bare chest. With every whisper she exhales, I inhale the scent of insanity and need more of her. I want her to stop talking but I am afraid if she does, I will stop loving her and I want to love her so much. I hate myself.

  Her body rolls easily onto her stomach and I lift her so my fingers can find her pussy, which is wet and soft. Her moaning intensifies my touch as my fingers slowly make love to her beautiful sex, the way she tightens around me making me fist my cock. Stop, Caesar. I cannot, I want to love her, and to her this is love. I position myself behind her before I plunge all the way in one swift movement. The force has her shouting out in pure pleasure. I open my eyes at the sound, my hips moving slowly, loving her. My gaze meets Mateo’s as he stares at me, lust dripping from his gaze as he has his hand inside his pants. My body will not stop, my mind is screaming with terror and it has detached itself from this reality. My lips kiss her back and neck as she arches and bucks, her orgasm building slowly. I keep my eyes fixed on Mateo as I use my body to love her and make her feel good, my love. Mine. As she explodes on my dick, she is even more mine than the day I looked into her little girl eyes and held her hand. You are sick, Caesar. You deserve to die. She is a girl and you are a man.

  When I come deep inside her, she collapses beneath me and a slew of whispered affections flows from her, making my madness even harder to swallow as my nephew looks at me - now I see a rival and not an ally. He wants her too.

  Caesar

  Keep your enemies close, your lovers closer and never let your family out of sight.

  “Come in here, boy,” I direct Mateo as I roll onto my side, pulling my sweet girl with me. He looks hesitant but does as I say. “Take off your shoes and lie here, just feel what it’s like when they can feel too.” The boy is playing a dangerous game with me. I want to teach him a lesson, but I need him to want her more than that.

  He toes off his shoes and sits on the edge of the bed. He is hesitant but something resembling lust glints in his eyes. He wanted to be just then as he watched me loving her. He isn’t sure of this, it is far from his order and neat lines. There is no glass jar, she has a pulse, and a fucking voice. That voice the devil gave her to whisper to you, Caesar. You should just throw yourself in the fires for loving her. She is awake now, her body is relaxed and is so warm against mine. My hand still cups her breast and I can see Mateo’s eyes on it, the glitter of lust turning green with envy. “I said lie down, Mateo. Are you really that deaf?” I look at him to draw his eyes away from my hand. “Lie down and learn something from an old man.”

  He sighs and I can smell his stupid menthol cigarettes on his breath as he lies down facing us. His dark brown eyes are confused, as he looks into mine. I am the only person this boy has ever listened to in his life and I think I have the power literally in my hands to fix his sick mind. She is just like Ophelia, her dark hair and perfect lips, the way she looks up through her lashes. There is only one thing my sweet little girl isn’t, and that is dead. Her body moves and takes its pleasure from being touched the way she feels when she arches into me and comes undone - she is very much alive. Her eyes are closed but she is here awake and with us. “Have you ever made a woman come, Mateo?” I push at his weakness. “Dead girls can’t squeeze your dick with their pussies.” His eyes widen as my hand strokes her exposed nipple and her mouth falls open. A soft gasp of air escapes her lips. I can see him wrestling with his demons, trying to decide if he should run away or stay. I lick her neck right near her ear and her skin bursts with goosebumps. “You ever kiss a living girl? Feel her tongue roll against yours, taste her sweetness as she sucks against you?” His breaths become shallower than they were and I see he is getting uncomfortably hard in his jeans.

  “Take your clothes off, boy.” It’s a command, not an option and he obeys. When he lies down again, I take her hand and place it on his bare chest. He stiffens and tries to pull away but he would fall off the small bed. He has nowhere to go, which is exactly where I need him. “She wants to be loved, Mateo. It’s not hard boy, you do it with corpses and coma patients every day.” He lifts his hand to her chin and she opens her eyes to look into his; she is so calm and is in a place of quiet contentment as they look at each other.

  “If I love her, she will leave me.” He lets his words whisper out, which does stupid things to my body that enrage me but I cannot ruin this.

  “No, niño. If you love her, she will stay forever,” I answer, my fingers tugging at her hardening nipples. “Won’t you, mi amor? Wouldn’t you stay forever if someone loved you?” Her eyes train on him when I speak, they have a silent connection already. She nods her head, answering him without words. “Kiss her, boy.” That’s the way to break her - and you. He hesitates, just staring at her with his hand cupping he face.

  “Kiss me, please,” she whispers. My body roars with the words and jealousy as he moves himself closer and kisses her; his hand is on her delicate neck and he holds her still as they kiss. She responds to him with vigor and life and he drinks it in as if he will never get more. I let her go and move away a little as my nephew’s hands roam all over the body of the young girl who I love so much. My blood is racing through my veins and my body sweats with heat as my heart is ripped into little shreds of self-loathing and my thoughts splinter into fragments of madness. Her whispers flow but they are no longer for me as Mateo’s hands make her feel. She arches and bucks against his fingers as he touches her pussy. It’s mine. I don’t want to let her go. Stopping is no longer an option as I pull her towards me; the two bodies move closer and her back is flush against my front as Mateo kisses every inch of her body. Another kind of anger washes through me watching him touch her, a kind I don’t quite understand.

  “Love me and I will stay f
orever. It’s only real if I can feel it.” She is whispering again, torturing me with her devil voice and my hands join the dance with his. Mateo’s eyes are alive with need as she reaches out to touch him; this will be the time it either falls apart and goes to hell, or he will give in and let go of his fear. “What are you doing?” he hisses at her, grabbing her hands. My sweet little love fights back, pulling her hand free and grabbing his cock. Her fist tightens and so does his expression. He gives up. The boy finally gives in, letting her pleasure him, and my hands stay on her as I talk into her ear the way she does to me, fueling the need inside of her. Their bodies being to move together and she is finding what she needs from him and setting his demons free. When I look down, I see them joined together as he slides his cock inside her. She is mine, but I shouldn’t love her. I shouldn’t watch him love her either. I roll away and face the wall as too many truths are whispering to me, her voice is like a dagger to my heart every as fucking whisper stabs me with the truth of what I have done.

  Please love her, Mateo. Don’t hurt her. I cannot say goodbye to her. No one can be saved from that goodbye.

  “Lettie, if I love you, you can never go,” Mateo croons in her ear as he slowly grinds himself deeper into her. I can only feel them moving behind me, I can no longer look. The sounds alone are pure torture. My body reacts with arousal and rage and I am confused and every cell in my body hurts. The truth hurts. My truth will fucking kill us all if I let it.

  “I won’t go, you already love me,” she whispers back to him. “I felt it, so it’s real.” More insanity spills out of her mouth and I cover my ears to try to block it out. I block it out. The truth is ugly, Caesar. You are not a good man. She is just a girl. Say goodbye, say fucking goodbye. Stop this now. Say goodbye to them all. Caesar, you are a murderer, just kill them now.

  The whispers are murdering me and I slide down so I can escape from the bottom of the bed and I run away, naked and stripped bare of all my lies. But the whispers follow as my hands cover my ears, desperate to silence the demons.

  Mateo

  Delicious misery unfolded before the jealous beast.

  Beating hearts thrashed faster as he prayed for a wicked release.

  One thing I always wanted to know about those that I loved; their secrets, fears, and dreams. I would never get them because their flaccid lips sealed them away. Their lifeless bodies and blank minds would never provide them to me. I was always okay with that because I had them where I wanted them. Unable to run away from me. Unwilling to break me. Caesar heard them though as they pleaded for death to escape an unworthy, disgusting and brutal life. An existence made up of misery and pain. I think I see what dreams are as I stare at Lettie’s naked, curled up body on the cold floor.

  She screamed for it. She cried out for her desire to be granted. Death. Love. They are a world parallel to one another. You can’t feel one without the other. It isn’t possible. I haven’t heard truths from lips before. It’s something I always feared, but Lettie is in the middle of the storm. The beautiful eye of the most dysfunctional fucking storm. I want to split her skull open, watching the red escape from her brain as she melts away to nothing. I’d admire her olive skin fading away to grey as the grace she once had depletes to nothing. Her warm skin would be cold, enveloping me in my fiery madness. I want to climb inside of her head and sleep with her dreams. I want to put her fears to rest. I want to be the man that does that. I can’t have life and death this time. My mind and heart won’t allow it. It isn’t the kind of man that I am. I am shaped for merciless love. The kind that doesn’t hurt me. I murder, fuck, love for a short time, and retreat, keeping a small token of the moments that they played with me like the dollies I used to adore so much. Their soft strands cry out to me every night from a shelf like a thousand heartbreaks, a million ones that I never suffered from because I ran and they didn’t. I let go of the love before they could, before I could be abandoned and hurt.

  My past and present circle around, making my heart constrict. Anxiety creeps up my spine as I feel the impending sensation of disorder. I don’t like not having control. I need it in my life in straight symmetrical lines. Unmoving. Pretty, little, stationary lines and order is what keeps me happy. I am my own freedom. I keep it, but something about Lettie tugs at my heart at this moment as I carry her from the floor, showing her a side that even I am unfamiliar with. I play the only way that makes sense. To make them come undone. I have cards. I always have. It’s my turn to play them.

  When she looks at me through blinking lively eyes, my emotions fuck with me. I hate it, but I’m compelled to crave more. I need to know what she dreams of. What her visions of tomorrow hold as her lungs continue to provide oxygen to a body that she begs to be freed from. I want to be the tourniquet that squeezes her tiny little neck, breaking her from the barriers of love and pain. They are the fucking same. I know what it is like. I can give it to her. I would give it to her if she asks me. She wants to be saved and for the first time, I want to be saved too. But men like me can’t be pulled from such wreckage. Bent, charred, dysfunctional beasts can’t be molded into something else. I am who I am. I thought I had accepted it, but when a second chance stares at me in the face, my demons and fears are brought to the surface with destructive force.

  “Do you have dreams, Lettie?” I whisper, secretly imagining what her cold pussy would feel like while I fuck her dead and limp body.

  I zero in on her neck, watching as the pulse of life increases from my words. It is taking everything in my power not to wrap my hands around her neck while whispering to her that I would give her what she wants, what she needs. A glorious goodbye from this fucked up world. I feel like a ton of dynamite is about to explode in my gut. Bad things are sure to happen if she doesn’t speak soon. I want her to give my toxic heart what it craves as I provide her lonely, distorted and broken heart what it wants. Death is divine. I can make her feel that.

  “I want a kiss from death.” Her voice radiates in my fucked up brain, swirling about in the most glorious dance. I want to pin her to the mattress to feel her warm lips just one more time before I suck her vibrancy away, but something screams no. Second chances are meant for trying. No matter what, someone will end up dead, burning in the fires of the hell that we created, all because this beautiful little darling held onto something she should have never believed in.

  Love.

  I feel my insides shaking and I need a release before I murder her. I kiss her goodnight and walk out with my cock hard. I twitch, needing the whispers of the heartbreaks of the hurtful goodbyes I took. But I can’t take again. Not tonight. Instead, anger washes over me like a mile high waterfall.

  I pop my tattooed fingers, ready to inflict damage on my little bitch. I walk up to Juan’s sleeping area. He’s lying on top of his bed like a little boy who is praying to find dreams that do not exist. Stupid fucking boy. I clench my jaw with sweet anticipation of damage coming closer to me with each step that I take. My feet plant themselves hard on the concrete floor and Juan stirs, but doesn’t wake as he remains in a peaceful sleep.

  I don’t know why his life is important; rather, I don’t know why I want to kill him. I kill those that I love. I don’t love him. I don’t fear him leaving me. Instead, he pisses me the fuck off. Killing for hatred is something I am not used to, as the thought of jealousy courses through my icy veins. My plan will work. It has to work. Whispers make the man go crazy. She will get him and he will fall apart in my arms. I will love her. But will loving her make her dead, too? Does that leave me alone?

  I make them leave before they can leave me.

  I repeat it over and over again in my head as rage consumes me. Juan continues to enjoy his peaceful sleep.

  “Puta! Get up!” I yell, kicking the bed.

  A devious grin splays on my face. I will be everything but gentle as thoughts of blowing his body to bits washes over me. Juan shoots up out of bed, naked and already hard. Silly boy was probably dreaming about his master. Bet he wished
he chose death with the Goodbye Man over life now.

  “Yes-“ I interrupt him with a slap to the face. Little cunt should have learned from the last time. No speaking unless spoken to.

  “Thought you would have learned the last time you little cunt. Don’t talk to me.”

  He’s crying, actually fucking crying as my spiteful words leave my mouth and plant themselves inside of him. How incredible it is to watch as I strip every bit of humanity from this boy before me. Disruption is thick in the air, only fueling my unease as Ophelia’s face haunts me while I think about the only second chance that I have. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense. Life was planned out and I never had to think past what I was doing before Lettie.

  Now, everything has changed.

  Juan continues to cry as he brings his skinny little knees up to his heaving chest. His face is wet from his cries and snot is coming from his nose. He’s rightfully scared. The actions that I never thought I was capable of are being birthed this very night. It isn’t entirely my fault. The boy was given a choice between life and death. He chose life. This is what he was delivered to. This is what he is to endure. He sails the fucking ship of being my bitch. He may sob, but he likes it as I peek between his legs to see his hard cock. Pride swells in my chest as I clench my fists at both sides, ready to strike him down and strip him down further to nothingness.

  “I hate when you fucking make noises. And your face looks like shit. Wipe that disgusting snot away,” I seethe, clicking my belt loose.

  I whisk the leather strap away and he jumps away. I provide him with another warning glare and he brings his shaking arm up to his nose, wiping it. Surprise is a beautiful thing. The element of not knowing what will happen next as an emotion can change in an instant is something that makes my heart thud deeper and deeper into a psychotic tailspin. Control makes me content. Knowing I can make someone terrified, having them willing and able beneath me makes me ravenous.