The Executioner

by Suzanne Steele

  I hold my head down as I wave at my elderly neighbor. I’m trying to avoid talking to anyone right now, and the threat of being caught up in a long-winded conversation helps me to put one foot in front of the other until I finally make my way up to my door. I grapple with my keys until I successfully make my way inside.

  I trip over a small table in front of my door and my fear has now turned to terror due to the knowledge overtaking me that someone has been in my house. The table that normally sits to the right hand side of my entrance has been moved to the front of the door. I kick the door shut behind me from the place I have fallen to on the floor and give way to the tears that have threatened to fall since this nightmare started.

  Admittedly, I knew I was being followed due to the packages I have received. For some reason unknown to me, it never entered my mind that my admirer had access to my home.

  The knowledge that it isn’t my imagination I’m being followed breeds fear to the questions of whether my dreams are merely dreams, or some sadistic form of reality. Is the man in my dreams real? Is there an executioner who desires taking over my very being, or am I losing my mind? Oh God, what if he wants to kill me?

  Why would someone come into my home and purposely move items around? I can feel my heart race and my palms sweat as I dissect my new reality. Someone is purposely fucking with my head and if I try to open up and tell someone it will only serve to make me look crazy.

  My mind is a cluster-fuck of jumbled confusion right now. Thoughts of leaving this place and staying somewhere else for the night bombard me. The anger I feel towards someone violating something as sacred as my home, my thought processes, and my emotions spurs me on to fight. I need to find out who is following me and, more importantly, I need to find out why they are doing this to me.

  Executioner

  I make my way out of the doctor’s office bathroom, where I have been listening to this poor girl all but collapse in a full-blown melt down, and an overwhelming need to protect her overtakes me.

  My hand shoots out like a jack-in-the-box, only I’m not fucking playing. I watch the good doctor’s face turn red as he gasps for the air supply I have cut off with just one of my large hands. My palm span is so large that I can feel my fingers touching at the back of his neck. My size has always been intimidating but when you add the brutal scar that runs down my face and my cut, chiseled features, well, it’s enough to make anyone shit their pants, especially a little weasel like this guy.

  “Why are you doing this?” I loosen my grip and wait for an answer.

  “It’s a study on Reactive Attachment Disorder.”

  “I know that, you stupid quack, but I didn’t know she’d react like this! You’re going to have the poor girl really believing she is going crazy.”

  “Look at you,” he spits out at me in contempt. “You’re a man who has everything yet nothing. You’re a fucking millionaire hermit, a man who won’t come out of his house because he looks like a monster, a killer, a psycho. You wanted her as badly as I wanted you to watch her. You’re as fucking twisted as I am. You have everything; you have nothing!”

  My hand squeezes around his throat. I’m enjoying the fear in his eyes as the reality hits that I could kill him with one flex of my hand. My eyes cut through him with palpable hatred.

  “I’ll tell you what I am… I’m the man who holds your life in my hands.” I shove his head back against his office chair so hard that it bounces off the back. I turn, making my way out his back door and into the alley behind his office. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if I stay here.

  I’m second guessing why I ever agreed to this. I know exactly why I agreed to it at first. I agreed because I’m a sick, twisted mother fucker who enjoys taking innocent women and mind fucking them while I control every aspect of their lives. I was turned on by the thought of stalking this unsuspecting woman. Now I am turned on by the thought of holding her captive. After all, she needs a savior…

  I wait until the sun goes down and I know she is asleep before I make my way back to her house. I tell myself I’m doing this to protect her but the pleasure of knowing I’ll have her completely at my mercy soon is tangible.

  The shadows and the sound of dogs barking in the distance spur me on as I make my way to the back window I rigged early on in this game. I jiggle it just so and it unlatches, allowing me access to the woman who has become mine even though she is unaware of it as of yet. I unlock her back patio door and grab her purse, laptop, and phone. I take them out to the cargo van that awaits me and make my way back through the shadows. I quietly stand over her, watching her breathe, as I remove the syringe and jab it into her arm, pushing the drug that ensures she won’t fight me into her system.

  I toss her over my shoulder as if she is weightless and make my out of her house and to the side door of my van. I toss her in the van and slide the door shut before anyone can take note of what is happening. Dogs still bark in the distance as I pull out onto the quiet suburban street. The inhabitants are completely unaware I have just kidnapped one of their neighbors.

  None of them will realize she is gone and even if they discover it, they won’t care. The quack doctor who is counseling her is crazy as fuck, but he is right about one thing: this woman does suffer from Reactive Attachment Disorder. She is not bonded to anyone; she has no friends, family, or lovers. She is the perfect specimen for what she will become in the next few days—my victim.

  I drive through the night unnoticed and pull into the gated home I own, which is more of a compound than house. Every inch of it is under surveillance and no one goes in or out without invitation. She is the first visitor I’ve had since I took on the life of a hermit. We are alike in more ways than one; I too am unable to bond. It’s not due to suffering from any phobias but due to choice. I have had no desire to be close to anyone emotionally… until now.

  Kansas

  I awaken, once again nude and chained, in the basement of my captor’s home. Though my mind is in a fog, this time I am well aware this is not a dream. Though a blindfold covers my eyes, I know he is here with me. His presence permeates the room and it stirs a mixture of fear and desire within me. I’m grateful for the drugs I can feel in my system because I know they are responsible for lowering my reservations about being naked and subjected to man who, up until now, I believed to be a figment of my imagination.

  His voice cuts through the air, confirming what I already know to be truth—he has taken me captive.

  He bends down, breathing in my scent as he speaks, and fear grips me.

  “You’re in trouble. You failed to wear perfume, my little Vixen.”

  I reach up and cautiously begin to touch the man’s face I have come to know as ‘The Executioner.’ Today he dons no hood. His brow is furrowed as if he is shocked at my boldness. Once again, I am grateful for the drugs in my system which have relieved any reticence I would normally experience. I gently run my fingers over the eyes I have come to love—one blue, one brown. I’m shocked when my fingers run over a thick scar that goes down his face in a straight line from his eye down to the middle of his cheek. I feel the close cut beard and mustache on his face. His features are carved out in prominent angles and my fingers trail down to his neck which is all thick muscle. His hand viciously grabs mine and his voice comes out in a rabid, threatening growl.

  “Have I given you permission to touch me?”

  “Please let me see you. I have to know if you’re real or a figment of my imagination.”

  He rips the blindfold from my eyes and I blink trying to focus. Though the lighting is dim, the drugs, along with being blindfolded, have caused my vision to be hazy. I look up into the face of the most beautiful man I have ever encountered and once again, against my better judgment, I touch his face. I run my hand over the scar that, on him, looks ironically angelic. He is a warrior of sorts, a dangerous specimen of man that looks as though he is from times long past.

  His hand rapidly shoots out, grabbing my wrist with a vengeanc
e and guiding my fingers to where he wishes them to be—on his cock. I run my hands over his jeans and I feel his cock jump against the material that separates us.

  “Take it out, Vixen. Take it out and please me for your insolence in presuming you may touch me without my permission.”

  I scrape my knees on concrete floor when I kneel in front of him. I can feel the chain pulling at my ankle reminding me who is in control. He viciously fists a handful of my hair.

  “You better make it good, girl.”

  I swallow his cock, almost choking, as he blocks off my airway. He is deep in my throat when he begins fucking my face without mercy. If I’m looking for a kind lover, he won’t be found here.

  I gain a rhythm, allowing him to assault my throat and his groaning only spurs me on.

  “Ahh fuck, you’re such a good girl, letting me use you.”

  Warm spray bathes the back of my throat and I take everything he has to give in order to avoid the impending discipline for touching him without permission.

  He grabs me by my neck, pulling me up against the concrete wall and purposely scraping skin from my back. Tears stream down my face as his fingers close around my throat in a vice like grip. I’m unable to stop looking into the face of a man who looks like he wants to kill me.

  His cock still hangs free as he chokes me with one hand and finger fucks me with the other. He leans down, whispering in my ear, “If you come, you’re going to crawl around behind me for the rest of the day.” In that moment, I know I will be on my hands and knees until the sun gives way to a new day…

  Chapter Four

  Dr. Winslow

  I tap my overrated, overpriced pen against the desk as I watch the seconds tick away on my wall clock. I know she is avoiding my treatment but she is my ticket to delving deep into the psyche of a subject who truly suffers from Reactive Attachment Disorder and I won’t let her go. My tactics in my study of her go against every regulation in my profession but I see it as a means to an end, a way to help the masses if you will. Well, if I am honest with myself, I see it as a way to be not only richer, but highly esteemed in my line of work. The years of being bully bait due to always being the youngest and the geekiest in school have taken their toll on me. If I have learned anything, I have learned that we carry our childhood traumas with us and we spend our adult lives trying to get over them.

  Granted she will lose her mind in the process, but I will have a name that goes down in history. She has become an obsession of sorts but I’m too far gone now to turn back.

  I reach for my phone, irritated that my schedule has been tampered with. Her phone only rings once and I’m shocked when I hear the voice on the other end of the line.

  “What are you doing, Trent? Please tell me you haven’t been stupid enough to abduct my patient.”

  “She’s here of her own free will. Someone has to protect her from her crazy psychiatrist. You don’t deserve to carry a license to counsel people. You’re more unstable than any of your patients.”

  “You’ll never get away with this. She has a job, clients, and people who count on her. They will come looking for her, Trent.”

  “She also has thirty vacation days that have piled up over the years due to not having attachments with other humans. You want to do a study on her Reactive Attachment Disorder? Well…I want to do one on what it will take for her to bond with another human being.”

  “You’re not human! You’re a fucking monster, an outcast of society!”

  “Yes, I am. I’m the monster your patient is bonding with. Now, since I can’t trust you to stay away from her, then I’ll just keep her here with me. She’ll be safe and secure away from the likes of a doctor who is really a quack.”

  Executioner

  I look down at her. She’s on a leash on all fours, rubbing her head against my leg as she eyes me with a look of adoration.

  I shut the case on her phone and shove it in my back pocket.

  “My name is Trent but you may call me Executioner.” I tug at the leash and lead her up the steps to show her where she will be sleeping. I can tell she is shocked when we make it to the top of the stairs and she views my home. I live in a mansion—a mansion I have turned into a secure compound. No one goes in or out unless I say so.

  “Why are you in trouble, my little Vixen?”

  “For touching you without your permission.”

  “Good girl,” I murmur as I rub my hand over her chestnut highlighted hair. I’m looking forward to having her here with me. This is the first time I have been in someone’s presence and I haven’t wanted them to leave. The truth is I don’t bond well with others either. She’s different. I need to take care of her. I need to know where she is at all times. I need to know she is safe. I need her here with me.

  Well…okay, if I’m totally honest, I brought her here to get into that pretty, little, fucking head of hers. I resent the fact that Dr. Quack was beginning to get to her. I also resent the fact that she went to a man who wanted to do nothing more than get rich writing her story. As penance for her sin of betrayal towards me, she is going to stay here with me and she is going to, for the first time in her life, open up. She will do this opening up by writing me a bedtime story every night and it has to be a real, raw, gut-wrenching autobiography.

  Yes, I’m a crazy, fucked up individual with a high IQ. I’m also a man who has studied the BDSM lifestyle for more reasons than one. I’m a man who likes a girl with some fight in her and that goes far beyond tying her up and taking her; I want to get in her head. The same way I love a woman who makes me take her physically, I love a woman who puts up a fight mentally.

  I want to split Kansas open from top to bottom. I want to immerse myself in her. I want to take every cell and molecule of her being and invade it until we are no longer two, but one. I want to bond with Kansas but, even more so, I want her to bond with me…

  Kansas

  “You want me to do what?” I look up from where I’m kneeling at the feet of the man I choose to call Executioner for reasons just such as these.

  “I’m not writing a fucking memoir for you or anybody else!”

  With no warning, his hand swipes out towards the side of my head, twisting until he has a handful of hair relentlessly gripped down to the roots.

  “Fuck that hurts!”

  His voice is laced with venom as he leans down and whispers, “Good, your pain pleases me.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You were willing to talk to him but you won’t talk to me?” A sardonic brow rises in warning.

  “I didn’t open up to him.”

  “Well, you’re going to open up to me or you’re going to suffer the consequences.”

  He pulls at the leash, walking me through the industrial kitchen and into the foyer that houses the double winding staircases leading up to the room where I will be staying. Just how far will this crazy fuck go to prove a point? If he is willing to go so far as to make me crawl around on my hands and knees for the mere offense of touching him without his permission, then how far will he go if I try to leave?

  “Where are my clothes?” I defiantly ask, as I pull against the leash.

  “You’re a smart girl, you’re also sneaky. You can’t go anywhere without clothes. You can’t go anywhere period!”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I like you.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  He jerks on the leash he has attached to my collar so hard that it picks me up off the floor. I’m hanging mid-air as he holds me out with only one of his large hands. He’s eyeing me but saying nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out the words, barely able to breathe.

  His face is hard, his features still and unreadable, as he watches me begin to cry.

  “You’re going to write me a fucking bedtime story. There had better be pieces of you in it or I won’t be happy. You won’t like me when I’m not happy.

  I don’t like you now! I have enough sense
to think the words without speaking them. He’s right. I won’t like the results I’ll get if I’m the cause of him being unhappy, not that he appears to be happy at any time I have viewed him thus far.

  Simply put, writing means I have access to a computer so I’ll do it. I’m not considering it so much for the prospect of being able to escape, it’s just that writing keeps me sane.

  He drops me back down to the floor, leaving me in a pathetic pile at his feet, once he is convinced he has made his point. I rub my neck as I crawl behind him and we make our way to a large door. I am not prepared for what I see when he opens it. The room he has taken me to looks like something out of a fairytale but more age appropriate for a woman. It is the epitome of femininity.

  The bed is huge with large, solid posts that look like the columns on a castle. A sheer canopy is pulled back to reveal a duvet that has small rose petals sprinkled throughout it. A mural is painted on the wall to the left and it has a painting of an open field with a woman perched against a tree reading a book.

  The French provincial furniture has been painted an eggshell color with mint airbrushing highlighting each nook and groove in its design.

  A wave of emotion floods me when I glance back over at the mural and I realize that the woman perched against the tree reading is actually me. A framed picture of me seated outside of a café confirms what I already know to be true—he has been watching me for quite some time. He used the picture he had taken as a guide for the mural. The knowledge informs me that he went to the trouble of not only following me to get the perfect picture, but hiring someone to paint the mural. It had to have taken him months to get this room ready for me. People don’t spend the two things we never have enough of—time and money—on someone they are not deeply intrigued with. As twisted as it is, I feel flattered that a man who avoids all others, will do anything to not only have me, but keep me.

  Though the décor is amazing, it’s the office area that takes my breath away. A large, solid wood desk holds everything that I could possibly ever need to write to my heart’s content. Before I have time to think, I grab the calf of his leg and tightly hug him as a single tear makes its way down my face.