by Keri Lake
A force hits me from behind, knocking me out of the way, and Nola falls to the floor, picking up broken pieces of the phone. “What have you done? What are you doing?”
Eyes filled with tears, she twists around, holding up the shattered remains. “What have you done!” Scrambling to her feet, she comes at me with both fists, pummeling my chest, kicking me back a step.
Holding tight to her elbows, I allow her to take her aggression out on me. Punching and kicking, pushing and scratching.
“That’s all I had!” She sobs, pounding away at my chest. “I’ll never see him again!”
“Tell me, Nola. What was your plan, if he messaged back? Tell me what you would’ve done if he’d given you a new location?”
“You know damn well! That’s why you did it! That’s why you destroyed it! You destroyed everything!”
Tightening my grip, I give one abrupt shake to silence her. “Listen to me! This is what he wants. To isolate you. To get you alone. Damn near feeding you breadcrumbs, to lure you in.”
“I would gladly hand myself over to him, if it means having Oliver safe. Gladly!” Another sloppy heave at my chest fails to move me, at all, this time.
“And what? You think Jonah would stand by and watch that? You think I would let you fall into his hands like that? You’re fucking crazy!”
“I still don’t even know who you are, Voss! I might’ve already fallen into the killer’s hands.” Her gaze dips to my grip of her arms. “How do I know you aren’t working with him? How do I know you didn’t help him get to Oliver?”
“You don’t.”
Her eyes shift, still dull from the alcohol that clearly hasn’t fully exited her system. With hasty movements, she fumbles at my belt, unbuttoning my pants, and shoves a hand down inside. A tight grip of my cock, sends my spine snapping to attention, and my fingers tighten around her elbows.
“Take me to him. I’ll do anything, Voss. I’ll get you off. I’ll go down on you right here, right now. Whatever you want me to. Just take me to see my son. I know you know where he is.” Tears spilling from her eyes, she stares up at me. “I know you know something.”
Guiding her hand from my slacks, I shake my head. “I don’t know, yet. I’m close, though.” So fucking close!
She crumples like an old wooden, rubber-band toy, and if not for my grip, she’d be a pile of loose bones on the floor. “I’m a shitty mother. I never deserved him. Never. It’s better if I give myself over for him. Better for him.”
Jesus Christ, she reminds me of my own mother, who endured years of abuse, I later learned, to keep my grandfather from hurting Carl and me. This was particularly true when my grandmother died, and he began seeking comfort in my mother. Sick and perverted comfort.
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, Nola.” I swipe her legs out from under her, lift her up into my arms, and carry her back into the house. Still cradling her like a child, I sit down on the couch and grip her jaw. I want to shake the shit out of her right now, for the way she punishes herself. “Quit with that self-loathing bullshit, hear me, Star Wars?” I crash my lips to hers, letting the furious defeat pummel me from the inside out. I can’t help the urges this woman incites in me, though. This irrational need to own everything about her—even her pain. “That kid needs you. He needs his sharp and witty mom right now. Not this poor me crap.”
“You talk like he’s still alive.”
“Because I believe he is. And you need to start believing it, too. What good is this shit? What good does it do your son to drink yourself to death? To give up?” I give another light shake, drawing her wandering eyes to mine. “Huh? This helping you? Is all this making it better for you?”
She shakes her head, eyes cast away from mine.
“Don’t you fucking give up. Not on Oliver, and not on yourself.”
Eyes saddened with grief, she reaches out for me and clambers to her knees, straddling my lap. Without a word, she leans in, kissing me, and I wrap my arms around the middle of her back, pulling her in. I could easily take her right here on this couch, but it’s not right.
“Nola …” I protest, but her lips feel right, and her body calls to me like a siren waiting to pull me under. “You don’t want this.”
At least, that’s what I assume, until she lifts herself up off me just enough to slide one leg out of her sweatpants and panties. At the sight of her bare sex, I’m gone. Fucking lost in outer space, and I seize the opportunity to push my slacks down over my hips to my thighs, while she lines herself up, coming down hard on my cock. We’re quick and hasty, clawing and scratching at each other, hungry for something we can’t quite pinpoint, because this sure as hell doesn’t feel like something we should be doing right now. Feels almost forbidden and wrong. So goddamn wrong. Yet, for the first time, it doesn’t feel staged.
As she wraps her arms around me, threading her fingers through my hair, and stares down at me with those weighted eyes, it hits me.
All of it. All of her.
I realize why I suddenly don’t know what the hell to do with her.
This whole scenario is something foreign to me. Something I’ve never felt in my life with another woman.
It isn’t fucking. It isn’t even sex. It’s a fusion of pain. She’s sharing her pain with me in every rise and fall of her hips. It’s the closeness of two human beings in a way that separates us from all other forms of life. An energy that burns inside of me, fueled by her own, blazing through me like it wants to consume me. As she circles and grinds against me, tears streaming down her cheeks, I realize she’s searching for something. Searching for the piece of me I’ve kept hidden, for fear of this moment.
The day when I’ll finally bleed myself for a woman. Not just any woman.
She is poetry and madness wrapped in fire. An unreachable paradise for a soulless bastard like me.
Pressing my thumbs against her skin, I wipe away the tears on her cheeks and draw her face to mine, kissing her as she uses my cock. Greedily feeding off of me. Her fingers scrape across my skull, and she moves faster, bouncing against my thighs, until she breaks the kiss, tipping her head back.
The sight of her is darkly beautiful. The agony etched on her face, a clash of sadness and pleasure, as she opens her mouth to a moan. It toys with my head, taking me to places I don’t want to visit. Not now.
Sex has always been my outlet for dominance, but tonight, I feel out of control. Reckless. I’ve given her the reins, and all I can do is watch in awe, as this woman owns me—every fiber of my being—as I remain at her command.
Her moans break into sobbing, nails scratching, tearing at my skin like she wants inside. The way her body jerks and tightens reminds me of demons fighting against an exorcism.
The sight of her winds my stomach, and I grip the couch, fighting off the furious pulses of blood hammering through my muscles and into my dick. Her back stiffens, mouth gapes, brows winged up as if she’s finally surrendered to something, and I let go.
The tension slams to a halt and explodes inside of me, as she cries out.
Her body goes limp and falls forward onto my chest.
Wrapping her up into my arms, I hold her tight to me, as I bang out the last of my climax, slamming my hips up into her with each vicious thrust.
My body shudders and trembles, the air rushing in and out of my lungs too fast. A wicked, blinding ecstasy that shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
I don’t bother to pull out of her, and she doesn’t bother to climb off my lap. Together we just breathe.
Whatever the hell just happened, it’s the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done in my life. If her scheme was to make me give a shit enough to hunt down her son, it worked.
I’d kill for this woman right now.
15
The Sandman
“You don’t have to do this.” The girl’s voice held the usual shaky quality of all The Sandman’s subjects, and yet somehow stronger than the others. It was almost a shame he couldn’t add her to his colle
ction when it was over. She lay trapped in latex, squirming beneath the plastic, while he stood over her, fully garbed in his suit, most of his face hidden behind a mask.
He hadn’t said a word up until that point, and realized that was the problem with conversing too long. Took the fun out of remaining anonymous, when they couldn’t quite pinpoint where they’d met him before, which typically heightened the terror in most of his subjects.
“Look, if … it’s sex you’re looking for, I’ll just tell you know, I’m a horrible lay. Or so I’ve been told.” A hiccup of terror interrupted a nervous beat of laughter. “Everyone I’ve been with, which isn’t many, they say … I talk too much. I’m a talker during …”
Running his hand over her breast slid the smooth latex across his fingertips. The sensations beneath the plastic were said to be far more sensitive than even touching skin. Her breasts were plump with thick nipples that tickled his tongue, at the visuals of them scraping across the roof of his mouth with his suckling.
“I once dated a guy who got so far as first base, before he … retreated. Just stopped and left.” Shallow breaths punctuated her little anecdote that had admittedly begun to annoy him. “I told him, hey, nobody called a foul ball!”
She was lying, of course. Trying to inject humor and humility into their exchange, but it was all in vain. Perhaps he should’ve opted to cover her mouth, instead of her eyes.
He rubbed his thumb gently over her nipple, tipping his head to study her reaction.
Nostrils flared, she clamped her mouth shut, as though mentally trying to shut out his touch.
He gave one hard twist and a squeal of pain echoed throughout the room. A shiver rippled down his spine at the sound, and he gripped tight to his cock, frustrated that he’d have to forego her purification.
“Please,” she begged, and the show of fear had her lips trembling, curved enough to make him think she might cry any moment. “I have … a family. They’ll be looking for me.”
“Is this what they teach you in your Master’s program?”
“W-wait. I … I know you. Nietzsche, right?” Her lips and cheeks twitched as if she might smile. “Is that you?”
“It is.”
“Why? I … I liked you.”
A spasm of frustration beat against his skull so hard, he flinched.
“You were … the funniest, most interesting guy I’ve talked to. I … I was hoping you’d still be at the bar. But you left.”
Slamming the heel of his hand against his temple, he attempted to abate the pain. He wanted to silence her, but a small part of him was curious, too. “Why?”
“I wanted to see … if you’d … have coffee with me.”
Gnashing and grinding his teeth, he fought the irritation settling over him. The voices inside his head. She’s lying. She’s only telling you what you want to hear. No woman will ever be good enough for you.
“Shut up, Mother,” he whispered. “Just shut up!”
Tell her what she is.
“You’re a liar. Just like the rest of the whores.”
“I’m not lying. I truly … honestly enjoyed … talking to you.”
He shook his head and slapped a latex-clad hand over her mouth, watching her head shift back and forth as she tried to break free from his grasp. “Whores only enjoy one thing. That’s why you take your pictures and post them for everyone to see.” Pressing harder against her mouth, he curled his fingers into her cheeks, bruising them. “You practically beg to be ravaged by someone. Then, when it happens, you’re suddenly surprised.”
The anger overwhelmed him, swept through him like a thick, viscous poison in his blood.
“I could’ve saved you, though. My seed … it has powers. I could’ve purified you.”
She shifted her head back and forth more.
Futile.
“You want to know why we do it, Sunshine? Why we kill so easily, and without conscience?”
The rapid contractions in her chest, the seizing of her body, begging for air, told him she was on the verge of death, and he peeled away the top of the mask until staring down at her eyes. The way they zoned off, as if she were looking at something greater, more magnificent than death. As if she were looking into the eyes of God.
“We do it because we can.”
* * *
The unyielding sensation that he was being watched crawled up The Sandman’s spine, and he turned to see the shelves stocked with his beautiful animal creations staring back at him. Red foxes, raccoons, various species of birds. All gazes steady like those of an audience.
With thin hooks and clamps set to pry back the lids, he slid a pair of curved tenotomy scissors down along the eyeball, and began cutting away at the muscles on either side. Snip. Snip. Snip. Red petechiae dotted the underside of the eyelid, with minimal bleeding into the eyeball itself—the only downside to asphyxiation, which in all honesty, wasn’t his preferred method of disposal. Nonetheless, it avoided unnecessary exposure to fluids, and could be carried out fairly quickly.
It’d taken years of practicing on European mounts to learn his technique, and unlike some taxidermy enthusiasts, who made slop out of the eyeball, his goal was to keep it as intact as possible. To preserve that final descent to the other side.
When all muscles had been cut, he severed the optic nerve, setting the organ loose, and placed two quick sutures at either side of the iris, to use as lifts for pulling it out of the socket. It slipped out easily, and he staunched the blood with gauze, packing it tight, until he was finished with the other eye.
The second popped out as easily as the first, and The Sandman collected his treasures in the jar of formalin beside him. Pressing them down onto the display spikes he’d placed at the bottom of the jar ensured both would always be staring back at him simultaneously. Those final moments forever trapped in the irises.
He wouldn’t be filling her sockets with the bone meal he reserved for his other subjects, nor offering a Queen of the Night for her journey. Her body would either be dumped carelessly, left to the mercy of starving animals and decay, or burned, just to eliminate the evidence. He hadn’t decided what to do with her, yet. Either way, there’d be nothing special, or meaningful, about her sacrifice, and that troubled him most.
Removing the clamps from her eyelids, he lowered them back over the empty sockets. He dabbed away the miniscule amount of blood with the gauze and sighed.
A waste, as far as he was concerned.
16
Nola
Warmth slides across my face, as sunlight pounds against my forehead, like it’s trying to break into my skull. I open my eyes and immediately shield out the light, wishing for the darkness again. Days remind me of hours spent uselessly pacing and wandering, but the night, I wear like a shroud. A heavy cloak that ensures the light will never touch me again.
Except, it does. And this morning it’s different.
This morning, the air is filled with a spicy, masculine scent, and some distant feeling of hope.
“You’re awake.” Voss’s voice rumbles in my ear, but I can’t bring myself to lift my head from his chest and show my face. He caught me at a weak moment the night before, one I’m too ashamed to address right now.
“I am.”
“You slept a good eight hours. It’s after eight.”
Eyes closed, I push myself off of him and shake my head. “I’m sorry. About last night.”
“Sorry about what?”
“Everything.” Muscles sagging, I open my eyes, but keep my gaze downward, where his cock sticks up from his slacks and only one of my legs is covered by my pants, my underwear wound around my thigh.
We look ridiculous. Like two teenagers who finally had a night when our parents weren’t around. Irresponsible and reckless—all the things I don’t need right now.
“I find it interesting … the only times you ever apologize for something is when you surrender yourself to something.”
“What?”
“The night at the
bar. You said you were trying to cut loose and relax. When you cooked me dinner and got a little drunk. This morning. Did you ever stop to think, maybe you needed that?”
“To fuck you while I was drunk and my son’s somewhere suffering at the hands of a killer? No, I don’t think I needed that, Voss.” I try to push away from him, but he grabs my thighs, yanking me back.
“You know it was more than fucking. What happened last night doesn’t happen very often, and it sure as hell doesn’t happen with me.”
My brain, the skeptical bitch that it is, tries to imagine how he benefits from all of this, because I’m convinced men like Voss don’t have meaningful sex. It’s all mindless and selfish. “It was a drunken mistake.”
“Call it what you want, Nola. Bottom line? It meant something.”
It’s almost humorous, the way he’s trying to make something of my weakness. A moment in my darkness when I let myself sink further into oblivion. I used him. I used his cock to torment myself, to make me feel dirty and worthless, on top of everything else. “C’mon, Voss. Don’t make me do this.”
“Do what? You don’t think I know that last night was about Oliver? Doesn’t matter what made you do it. Doesn’t take away how good it felt.”
“Good? I thought you had to simulate rape to feel good.”
“So did I.” He slides his hands beneath my ears, cupping my jaw, and his eyes are intense, burning with frustration and perhaps desperation. “It’s okay to feel good, even when shit is really bad. Its what keeps you connected. Keeps you from dying inside.”
His face blurs behind the tears in my eyes. “I don’t even know if I can trust you. You’ve lied about so many things. I can’t bear to face the lie that my son is alive. That he’s okay. Not if it isn’t true.”
Something flickers in his eyes, and he stares up at me as if I’ve wounded him. “I’m going to find Oliver. I’m going to bring him back to you.” The desperation hardens into something more resolute. Something I’d expect to see in the eyes of man like Voss. “And then you’re going to give me what I want, Nola.”