Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance

by Savannah Rose

  “...say I'm sorry.”

  She snorted. “Ha-hah. You've never been sorry for any–”

  “I'm sorry!” I screamed, ripping the lining of my throat like an old, moldy rag. But I meant it. I really god damn fucking meant it.

  I wanted to claw at the sand, dig my way through my frustration, but my fingers, and my hands, they were nothing more than dead appendages. My larynx felt like I'd been drinking gasoline, then swallowed a lit match. Hot needles battered against my eyes. Tears cut rivers down the sand plastered on my face, running over the cut on my cheek and then down my neck.

  “Damn right you're sorry. A sorry sack of shit.”

  “...sorry she died. Your sister… I didn't mean it, I-I didn't know...”

  “Said every pathetic corporate slimeball after they get caught. After they get called out on their crap. You're a piece of work, Maddy. No wonder your folks are disappointed. Is that why they can't stand you? Because you're a heartless son-of-a-bitch with no soul? Remorse?” She knelt down close to me. I could smell coconuts. “Is that why?”

  I shook my head. There were a lot of reasons why they hated me, but there were too many to list. I couldn't talk much anymore, anyway.

  “Do you even know why?”

  Nodding was hard. My neck didn't want to move, either.

  “Why do they hate you, Maddy?” she asked with a smile on her face. You can tell when someone’s smiling, even when you can't see them.

  “...be-cause, I...”

  “Bee - cause why?”

  “Because I lived.”

  Ramona didn't respond. For the longest time, there was no sound at all. Save for the crash, crash, crashing of waves and my own, haggard breathing.

  She could have still been there, for all I knew, pointing her flare gun at me. I rather wished she'd just go ahead and pull the damn trigger, to be honest.

  I suspected, however, her justice would be far more poetic if she were to just let me lay here and die. Slowly and painfully, like she wanted. Like she believed I deserved. I’m not even going to pretend like there wasn’t a part of me that agreed with her. And it wasn't until this moment, on this god forsaken oasis, that I realized why.

  Josh was the good son, the star athlete, everybody's darling. I was the perverted, ego-maniacal deviant. The bad seed. The rotten apple.

  If my parents were given a choice by God, in which He would ask them to choose between Josh and I for early earthen dismissal, they'd point to me without batting an eye. They’d point to me every single time.

  I can't say that I'd blame them. Not now, not anymore.

  The look on my mother's face, at Josh's wake, when she walked in on me and my latest conquest… overwhelming disgust and betrayal… a mother should never look at her child that way. Later that same day, my father had that same expression. Only angrier. Mom must have told him because, well, of course she told him.

  The worst part, in a cacophony of 'worst parts' to pick from, was that I never cried for my brother.

  I didn't know if I was crying for him now.

  I inhaled, deeply, through my nose and managed to take in more sand than air. My nostrils ran with snot, and little, sharp darts of pain shot through my head. The balloon my brain had become was inflating, and inflating, and inflating, and all I wanted it to do was pop. Blow completely off my goddamn neck.

  “Who died,” Ramona asked, although she didn't say it in the form of a question.

  “Josh...” I replied, but I wasn't sure if I said it or not.

  My balloon brain was pressing against the side of my skull, my voice was crumbling, and won't someone please come by with an axe and chop off my arms? Is that so much to ask? How was it that I couldn't feel them, but they hurt so much?

  Oh, my God, this sucks. This sucks so hard.

  Then, my brain sloshed back to the middle of my skull. I was being pushed over. On my back. Another click, and a blast of nitrogen ignited beneath my nose. Maximum strength ammonia.

  “Try again,” said Ramona. “Can't hear you with your face in the sand.”

  Smelling salts. They must have been in the survival kit. I recognized the stench. We'd tried to revive Josh with them, after he overdosed.

  “Who was Josh, she asked again,” she said.

  “… he, was Josh… my brother... who died,” I snuffled through the sand, through the salt, through the tears.

  “Wow, Maddy. Just, wow. Even like this, as fucked up as you are, you're still able to lie. Not only is your dick powered by the forces of evil, so is your head.”

  I'm not lying… I swear to God I'm not lying. Josh was a good kid…

  “Speaking of heads, Maddy-cakes, I've got to ask. Why’d you shave yours?” Her hand was on my scalp, stroking it, gently. Her thumb, on my eyebrow, almost sweetly. Nicely. I knew better, though. She was going to do something, something terrible, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. Every single scrap of strength was gone.

  “...he kept looking back at me,” I said, trying to answer her question.

  She took her hand away.

  “What does that mean?”

  “He was dead… every time I looked, in the mirror… he was looking back at me…” I wanted to point to my head, but of course, could not. “...red-head, too,” I managed to choke out, remembering how similar Josh and I looked on the outside. Polar opposite inside, though, and I wondered how the fuck that happened. Guess I'd never know.

  “You had a twin?” Ramona asked.

  “Not twins. Close. Couldn't deal with him looking at me after he died…”

  The curtain began to come down, then. Black drapes, the kind that were draped behind Josh's coffin at the funeral house, descending toward the floor. I was laying on the floor, watching them start to cover me. My mom's face, my dad's face, looking at me as I fell deeper, and deeper away. I saw Josh's face, too, in between our parents.

  He waved.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  RAMONA

  “Maddox?”

  I patted his cheek – the one without the laceration. A dumb and useless move, yes. That's the way they tried to revive people in movies from the twenties. Taps on the cheek, pats on the hand, those were supposed to wake the unconscious heroine from her swoon. Ridiculous. What worked was a solid, open-palmed slap. I kept patting.

  “Hey. Shithead. Wake up.”

  His face was hot. His whole body was hot. When I'd put my foot on his chest, I may as well have been stepping on lit coals. It was supposed to be a Victorious Hunter pose. Me, demonstrating my triumph with my prey prone on the ground, gun pointed at his head just in case, and putting the period at the end of my 'I win' sentence.

  I hadn't won, though.

  I'd lost way before. Earlier, in the pond. I don't know what happened, why it happened, or how. I wanted to put the blame on some external factor, such as lack of a proper meal, no rest, exposure to the elements. None of those were affecting me, though, so the only person to point the finger of accusation at was myself.

  There was something wrong with me. I'd wanted to humiliate him, jerk him off with no intention of letting him reach climax. It was literal torture for him, and it had been working. Until we were in the pond. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and begged me not to. I tried to be sly, and cool, and coyly question him as to why he didn't want to come.

  And he didn't reply. He just breathed, heavy, his chest expanding and contracting – his muscles straining against restraints he could not break – and a sudden, lustful rush careened throughout my entire body. My sex tingled, watching him struggle, hearing him plead with me. Something inside me desperately wanted release, too, and it took over. Whatever it was put itself in charge, and it was like I was moving in some kind of dream state.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist. The heat inside me grew hotter, despite the chill of the water. Or, perhaps because of it. The head of his cock was just beneath me, and I felt it brush against my lips.

  I wanted to slip it inside of
me, feel it stroking and caressing my sex, pushing deeper, and deeper. It would feel so good. After all the pain I'd gone through, I deserved to feel good. I'd gone so far as to put my hand beneath his jaw, put my finger against his bottom lip and draw his mouth open. To kiss him, perhaps.

  That's when, thank God, reality stepped in.

  What the fuck are you doing? Holy shit, girl. You do remember what he did, right? What hell he put you through? Hello? Is this thing on...?

  It was on, alright. And I could not be more disgusted with myself. I'd caught myself off guard, was all. Had an ill-defined moment, no big deal, and I didn't believe myself for a second. But it would haunt me for a while. Maybe forever.

  I came back to my senses, and told him to open his eyes, because looking into them would ground me. Put me back in the real world, not this existential bullshit. Take a true, close up gander at the evil master of puppetry he was, and that would be that. I could get on with my life. Such as it was going to be.

  There was no evil. He opened his eyes and all I saw was desperation. Fear.

  Evil doesn't do fear and desperation.

  It wasn't one of those god damn windows to the soul things, was it? Was he, deep down, not wretched, hateful slime?

  Did he honestly not know what he'd done to Rebecca?

  Was ignorance, in this case, a legitimate defense?

  I hated him even more for making me think those things. Those unforgivable things.

  I kept my finger on his lips, and glared at him. I'd never despised him so much as right now.

  I'd asked him if he ever killed anybody, and I guess I must have looked quite psychotic when I did. I felt psychotic, no lie. I had just been turned on by a man I hated more than any fucking thing on the planet, and it was not fair. I was honestly almost scared of myself, feeling that way.

  It didn't help matters that Maddox's fear and desperation combined themselves into terror. Horrified bewilderment. Honest to fucking god confusion.

  He replied, “no”, but not before shaking his head hopelessly.

  He really believed that. The poor, fucking schmuck really believed he hadn’t. Maddox had no idea. No clue. And for a fleeting moment, I wanted to talk to him about it the way civilized people work their problems out.

  But fuck that. Fuck civilized. Fuck him, and fuck me.

  He wanted to plead with Sofia, but I wasn't Sofia anymore. I didn't know who the hell I was. I pushed myself away from him, and swam away.

  There wasn't a lot of distance between us, but enough. Enough for me to have a good, hard think on what the shit was going on. I laid down to let the sun dry me. Feeling the rays against my face always helped me sort through matters. Although this matter was something so foreign, so strange, it would take a month of Sunday sun baths to be able to get to the bottom of it.

  Fortunately, nature gave me a nudge in the form of a tropical storm, complete with thunder and lightning. So perfect, I thought. Let God and nature sort it out, do with him what they would. I didn't want the responsibility of Maddox anymore. Vengeance is supremely honorable, but really, really tiring.

  Perhaps it was exhaustion doing my talking at that point. Maddox wanted to know what to call me, trying out all sorts of negotiation tactics to convince me to unlock the cuffs and let him go. He was pretty pathetic, really, and isn't that what I wanted? It had come down to this, and he was in the perfect place to think about what he did.

  But if he didn't know what he did, it wouldn’t mean anything to him. Or to me.

  I told him my sister's name, told him of my niece, trying to choke back the tears that always rose to the top of my throat when I spoke about them aloud. He didn't remember. And he wished and swore that he could.

  I believed him.

  And left.

  When the lightning kept striking, I halfway entertained the idea of going back and checking on him. Part of me wanted to see his dead, naked body hanging from the tree limb. Not all of me, though, which I found troubling. I munched on protein bars and drank palm tea, watching the light show like I was sitting in a movie theater.

  And like all good movies, this one came with a twist.

  Motherfucking Maddox somehow escaped his fate, and stumbled his ass back to my camp. I was mad, I was angry, he looked like death warmed over (and he was) which should have delighted me to no end. Except he had to ruin it by telling me about his brother – The dead sibling always looking back at him from the mirror.

  I'd take partial responsibility for that revelation, as I did ask him why he shaved his head.

  Curiosity and the cat, you know.

  Meow, I thought as I sat back on my haunches, and stared at him. If I had a tail, it'd be twitching.

  I didn't know what to do with him. Moreover, I didn't know what to do with myself which was even worse.

  Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, just above his dyed brows. They were overdue for their salon appointment, obviously. Maddox was not a true brunette, as I'd accused him of before. This guy was a red-head. His dead brother must have been a ginger, too. No, not must have been. He definitely was. Thinking back, I had seen his picture in Maddox's office – that fucking, corporate sex suite – him, and their parents on an island somewhere.

  “Hey,” I said, and jabbed him on the shoulder. Touching him was like poking a dish straight out of the microwave.

  Nothing.

  Not even a twitch.

  “You're a wuss, Maddy. Leave you out in the rain for a couple of minutes, and you come back with fever sweats. I'd be embarrassed, if I were you.”

  His head rolled to the side. The cut on his cheek didn't look so great. A rash was starting to surround the laceration, and it was swelling. Having an opened wound on a bug-ridden tropical paradise is a great recipe for infection – especially for a puss like Maddox. The only thing he was acclimated to was five-star restaurants and day spas. He was probably the kind of guy who got mani-pedis on a regular basis, as well. And when I looked down at his hands to confirm my suspicion, I grimaced.

  It was like those pictures from the humane association, the kind they flash late at night to illicit your sympathies and your wallet – where some sad, pathetic dog has had its collar grow into its neck, left there by some heartless jerk. Maddox's hands were ballooning, his wrists purpled and bruised from the vice-like grip of the manacles.

  I glanced back over to my camp site. The key to those cuffs were in the bottom of Maddy's bag of sadistic tricks. I looked back to him, my left eye narrowing.

  “You know what's funny, Mads? I've seen you naked. Never would have guessed you were an Irish boy. The top doesn't match the bottom, if you know what I mean.”

  His breath rattled in his chest. He coughed, looked like he was trying to move his head, then gave up. A single tear rolled down from the corner of his eye, and landed on the sand.

  “Oh, God damn son of a fucking bitch,” I put the emphasis on the last word, because I couldn't believe what I was about to god damn do.

  “Estupida, estupida, estupida,” I spat, rummaging through the bag, and locating the key. I brought it back to him, and gave myself three last chances to change my mind. On my second second thought, I found myself wondering how little brother kicked off. He was younger than Maddox, from what I recalled from the picture. Healthy, virile. Most likely a frat party gone wrong, or a car wreck.

  Considering the money the Petersen family swam in, the kid probably wrapped his Porsche around a Beverly Hills street post. I'd imagine the Petersen team of attorneys would sue the city, the state, if not the entire country for punitive restitution, and while they were at it, slap a wrongful death lawsuit against Volkswagen and its affiliates.

  I shoved the key into the posts, and turned. They should have fallen away, like they do in television shows, but I literally had to pry them off his wrists. It was that bad. They were the jaws of a gator locked in a death grip. There was a definite squishy noise when I pulled the second cuff off of him.

  His arms slumped to the sand. />
  “You're fucked up seven ways to Sunday, Maddy. I trust you're not going to pull any of your shit right now. Besides, I still have the knife. Your razor. Let's not forget the flare gun, yes?”

  No response.

  The last thing, the very last thing I expected from my island adventure was to take care of the asshole that got us here in the first place. Having so much time alone in my own head, I was forced to admit that if I hadn't gone up to his suite like a half-assed, dumb fuck Rambo bent on retaliation we wouldn't be here, either.

  Was it a fifty-fifty situation?

  Did it really take two to tango?

  Whatever rationale or cliché I could come up with, the bottom line was I had a conscience. I blamed my Catholic upbringing. And Jiminy Cricket. Always let your conscience be your guide.

  Stupid Jiminy.

  So here I was, wringing out a towel, and placing it on his forehead. Grinding up aspirins, and helping him drink it down. Cleaning the mess his wrists had become, and putting aloe on his sunburn. Gingers like him burnt easily. There was a cluster of marjoram close by, and from which my botanist badge attested, was great for drawing out toxins. I'd torn apart some fresh leaves, mixed them with the natural goo of the aloe, and spread it on the cut on his cheek.

  It wasn't until the next day, sometime in the afternoon, when Maddox found the strength to opened his eyes. He looked as though he'd woken up on a different planet, and when he saw me, well… let's just say I was the head alien recently beamed down from the mothership.

  “Don't fuck with me, shit head,” I said, and squeezed the aloe leaf onto my palms.