by Barefoot, LW
My attempt to get her to open up and then going back on it is unforgivable. Pushing the gory details back in her. That’s not what I intended or wanted at all.
Disappointment colors her haunted expression. I move to scoop her off the sofa, but she resists, breaking my heart even more than I already have. But she’s mine and that means I need to deal with all of her. Every part, including her fucked up past if I want an ounce of her future.
Her reluctance to give into me is futile. She’s no match for me and I lift her tense body in my arms and carry her back to the bedroom. I kiss her forehead and whisper my pathetic apologies. I need to take her mind off everything.
I set her on the end of the bed and reach for one of the boxes I had sent here. I place it in her delicate hands as she looks up at me. She eyes it like something is going to jump out and bite her. I start to help her unwrap it. Tearing the paper wrapping off and I open the jewelry box, revealing a gold and diamond encrusted necklace.
The Hawthorne crest is perfect as I slip it around her slender neck. A small amount of peace settles over me knowing I succeeded in placing a tracking device on her. She doesn’t know by wearing it I will know where she is at all times.
I understand my obsession is boarder line crazy and completely wrong, but I have my reasons.
Harper
I need Evan to listen to me. I have this memory scratching to get out. Since meeting Ryan in Chicago, my nightmare last night, and news of a possible murder caused by the Sculptor, indescribable things try to break free from the walls the trauma erected. I pushed it deep down into my subconscious mind and now it’s attempting to resurface.
It was the best feeling when Evan wanted me to confide in him. He demonstrated that he wanted to know more about me and I mistook that for him caring. I put myself out there and he couldn’t take it.
I have caught glimpses of his disdain. They’re brief and fleeting, but they’re still there. Lurking under his cool exterior. I push him to acknowledge the truth, but he won’t have it. I can barely take it. Maybe it’s not fair to need that from him. I only want him to accept me, but I’m too much. Tom showing up this morning proved that.
Evan’s cool fingers put the necklace around me, clasping it behind my head. The chain is short and I can’t see what he just put on me. But it’s heavy as it hangs around my neck.
My thoughts are focused on the riddle echoing through my mind and here he is trying to distract me. Buying me off with presents when that’s the last thing I want from him. Material possessions must be cheaper for him than emotional honesty.
His eyes glitter with pride as he appraises me, watching me like a cat waiting to pounce. The ferociousness in his gaze forces me to break eye contact. It’s too much. I stand and excuse myself to the bathroom.
He will more than likely punish me later for not accepting his gift graciously, but I hate it. The cold metal resting on my skin reminds me how shallow our relationship really is.
My dream bathtub is the grand centerpiece of the enormous bathroom. It stands in the center of the spacious room. Large floor to ceiling windows frame it in a half circle, a fireplace next to it. I didn’t even notice when I slipped in here earlier. I kept the lights off not wanting to wake up Evan. But now with the impressive chandelier highlighting every fine detail, it’s my best escape route. I need to relax and try not to feel like I’m another possession to Evan. Even though he’s succeeded in proving me to be his punching doll.
This necklace feels like a damn collar.
I pull Evan’s shirt over my head and start the water in the bath. I look at the pendant hanging from the gold chain. It looks like a shield of arms of some kind. Small diamonds gleam around the piece. I take it off, I don’t want to give Evan the wrong impression. He can’t buy me. It’s probably worked for many sluts before me, but not this time. I leave the necklace on the vanity next to a glass enclosed watch case, displaying his rather impressive timepieces.
I climb in the bath and admire the view. The vast landscape stretches out for miles. I watch the sun sink and disappear on the horizon as I waste away in the water.
Only after my skin is pink and pruned, I make myself get out. I wrap a bathrobe around me and start to get ready, distracting myself from having to face Evan. When I’m ready, I walk in the bedroom. To my relief, it’s empty.
I throw on one of the dresses Evan packed for me this morning, but it feels like it’s been longer than that.
After I finish getting dressed, I stroll downstairs in search of Rufus and Mae. Hoping she didn’t take one of Evan’s cars back to the city already. I find them in the kitchen, Mae talks to Ru’. She has his undivided attention, it looks like he hangs on every word she says. It makes me laugh and they both look up at me.
“Well, there you are,” Mae smiles and Ru’ comes wiggling and shaking in excitement to me.
“Brad sure has done a good job training your baby,” she says, her smile warm and endearing.
“I know, he’s been such a blessing. Ru’ is absolutely in love with him and I can’t thank him enough for having to put up with us.”
“Oh, hush now. Brad’s just doing his job. I can tell he’s a lot happier lately, thanks to you both.”
I love her honesty and her affection towards everyone she comes in contact with.
“You better get along now. I’m about to have Martin bring in the first course. Evan is already seated.”
“Thanks, Mae.”
I proceed to the dining room, even though I would prefer to spend the evening in the kitchen. Evan never looks up from the papers in his hands. I choose a seat on the opposite end of the table, as far away from him as possible.
He looks up when the chair legs get caught up on the rug. He doesn’t say a word, just gazes at me intently with his jaw tight, taking in the details of my appearance.
Martin pours us both a glass of wine, leaving the bottle next to Evan. My ‘thanks’ reverberates too loud through the cavernous room.
Evan turns on music loud enough that we wouldn’t be able to hear ourselves over it. The noise solidifies the fact that he doesn’t want my words. He was incapable of handling a fraction of what I attempted to share with him earlier. His attention is rapt on my mouth, watching every bite I take.
The wine is the best I’ve ever had. It goes down so smoothly. The flavors dance around my tongue and I savor their complexity. Tonight would be perfect to get rip-roaring drunk and telling Evan to fuck off. Explain to him that I’m through with this game. I’m not his toy anymore to play with as he pleases or until he tires of me. My thoughts whirl around of doing just that. But I stop myself because that’s exactly what makes me such a masochist. I will play around with the thought of ending the one thing I desire most. Desire was a streetcar created by Tennessee Williams. Desire is an oyster bar in a noisy hotel off Bourbon Street. It’s not some foreign, soul-deep feeling that stirs dark and heavy and leaves me tangled with nerves and no release. I’ve never felt desire before meeting the scary beautiful man studying me from across the table. No matter how much Evan tries to hurt me, I derive pleasure from it, and shockingly enough, I also desire his wrath and fury.
Even in the way he sits there turning the music up louder with each course served.
The bass now pulses off old walls and rattles artwork. Thumping in tune to the maddening volume. Dim lights twinkle off dinnerware and wine glasses, attempting to tone down the absurd setting.
This gorgeous man watches, plans, anticipates his next move. I purposely left the necklace upstairs. The dress I chose requires something around my neck to complete it. I did it to enrage him, to make him angry, opting to leave the jewelry for my naked skin. A blatant declaration of my defiance.
The angles on Evan’s chiseled face appear sinister dancing in flickering candlelight. His five o’clock shadow is back.
A long table separates us as I watch the man become something other than the perfect gentleman he presents to the world. I falsely relax back in my seat
, bringing my wine glass with me. Slowly, I take sips and watch as he brings food to his luscious mouth. His annoyance with me resonates and accompanies the music. I can sense his agitation. I deliberately test his patience. I stopped touching my food two courses ago. My nerves are strung too tight to eat anymore.
Evan lifts a white cloth napkin to his mouth after dessert. He scooped every single morsel in his mouth, like he did on our first date. Every lick and glare challenging me. My focus is on the slide of fabric against his skin. The Temper Trap blares through hidden speakers. He motions for me to get up and come over to where he’s seated, but I’m frozen in place.
Even through my taunting defiance, I’m scared of him. I don’t want my body to flood with desire as his eyebrow kicks up on his face. It shamelessly disobeys me, much like I’m disobeying Evan. His gaze forces heat to the one place I don’t want it to go. Evan shakes his head, looking disappointed, and something shifts inside of me. A desperate need to please him hits me like a ton of bricks. I need to wipe that look off his face by whatever means necessary.
I stand up and stride to him, hoping he doesn’t detect me trembling. His displeased eyes are trained on where the absent gift should be. He scoots his chair away from the table and I flinch, but he stays still.
‘Love Lost’ pulses with its inappropriate lyrics. My skin prickles with awareness this close to him and lost to the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He remains seated and in command. He grabs me and pulls me between his body and the table. My backside pushes against fine china as it clatters behind me. Evan leans forward and brings his hand up to rest where the gifted crest should be.
“Why, Harper?” he asks, his nostrils flare and his jaw ticks. “Why do you push me like this?”
I don’t answer him, he knows why. I shouldn’t have to spell it out for him.
In an instant, his arm comes down behind me and throws the dishes from the table and slings them to the ground. Shattering pieces slam and announce their destruction across the hardwood floors and plastered walls.
Terror crawls up my spine as I flinch away from him. The harsh urgency of his movements spike my trepidation. His deft fingers find the zipper at the back of my dress and he yanks it down. Pulling the dress off, revealing me to anyone who could walk in. He lifts me up by the waist and eases me to lay back on the table. My legs are bent and hang off the edge. Fear and excitement war within me. The cool surface of the wood calms my heated skin as my heart pounds and reaches for the ceiling.
Evan growls as his fingers hook into my thong to find slippery wetness. He slowly slides the material down my legs to join my dress on the floor. His unyielding hands spread my legs further apart, exposing me to his hungry eyes. He licks his lips before his tongue dives to me, seeking, searching. Languid laps at my entrance, trailing over my sex, causing my spine to arch off the table. Low, hypnotic notes dance across my skin in company and manipulation with Evan’s hot as hell tongue.
There’s no shame in his devouring mouth. He’s taking and giving in return. Toying with my sensitive clit, he tugs on it with the tips of his teeth and smooths over it with his plump lips.
The Flys’ ‘Got You’ sound around the room and probably even vibrate down to the studs of the house’s foundation. Evan leaves me dangling on the edge of release, playing my body like an instrument he has already mastered. He stands over me and reaches for something behind me on the table. He pulls a lit candle over my chest. His mouth wet and gleaming from my arousal, his lips twist and apologize in a cruel smile.
Tilting the candle over, the wax drips down on my skin. It burns where the pendant should be resting. Evan punishes me for not wearing it. If he held the candle higher it wouldn’t burn, it would be considered foreplay. Evan trails it down my torso, stopping only to pick up a second candle. Pouring them both on my scar, ‘the’ scar. That look of disgust and disappointment graces his features and burns through the forest fire in his eyes.
It burns. I’m writhing. Screaming for mercy, for him to cease the torture. I use the heels of my hands to push off the table and scoot away from him, but he’s irate and determined.
“You don’t appreciate anything I do for you,” he bites out.
So what are the boundaries of my pain? I get off on it. Simple. I hurt while he takes pleasure, it funnels back into me and makes me crave it. I’m so fucked.
He lowers both dancing flames down to where they lick the already tortured skin. He doesn’t let up on me until it’s completely covered in wax. Placing the candles aside, holding me down for the wax to cool on my skin. I want to tear it off, make it stop burning.
He holds me down through my anguish. His breath blowing on the hardening wax. I groan as the pain becomes unbearable and the word ‘stop’ burns my tongue worse for the inability to voice it. Tears travel twin journeys down my face, but it only serves to inflame him.
Once the wax cools and my whimpers of agony lessen, he flips me over. Causing the burns to flame anew and stoking the fire that’s torturing my skin. My stomach slaps the cold wood of the table. I scream in earnest when he pushes his length into me. Grinding me down against the table, while he slams back and forth in me. It hurts with every heavy slap of his hips against mine. I want him to stop, but I need him to continue more.
My screams turn into moans. The table toys with my clit, bringing with it unwelcome pleasure.
I lay here taking what he gives me. I want to punish my foolish self. The mind games, the distress, the pain. My lack of orgasm pisses him off. He pulls off of me and flips me onto my back. My feverish skin slaps against the immovable wood and he attempts to finish what he started. His undivided attention is centered in on delivering me pleasure and shattering around him. His tongue dances across my sex, sucking my tiny bundle of nerves in his mouth and drinking in my wetness across his tongue. I can’t bring myself to look at him. I detonate in convulsive explosions as he licks, stops, stands up, and thrusts his massive cock into my cunt. He fingers spell out the painful process over my clit. I find my release, he doesn’t. He pulls out and plays his fingers to prolong my orgasm. My eyes shoot to the chandelier as he angrily pumps his release on top of the dried candle wax. This pushes me too far. I get his meaning and his punishment.
I slide off the table with ‘stop’ chanting over and over on my numb tongue, but there’s no sound behind the word. There’s no voice behind the plea. And this is all my fault. My get-out-of-jail-free card weighs heavy and disintegrates. I swallow the curse word, embarrassed and sated. He knows if I find pleasure and release tonight, I will forgive his cruelness and forget how much he hurts not just my body, but my very being. He’s pissed and hard as steel in his sick torment.
I push his hands off and manage to get away from him. I don’t want anymore of his attention. The rug digs deep in my skin and shards of broken glass puncture as I scramble to get away from him. Grabbing my dress and before I register what I’m doing, I run in my heels and bra, clutching the dress to me in a feeble attempt to cover myself up. I flee from him and run up to his bedroom.
I’m only putting off the inevitable. Right now that small inner voice yells at me to get away from him. An unwarranted feeling begs me to go back down there and offer myself up like a sacrifice and beg forgiveness.
Everything shifted when he burned my scar. His rejection of it mirrors my own. He’s not even trying to hide his loathing of the numbered marks. But I can’t fix them and neither can he. His earlier dismissal of my openness creep into my thoughts, making me even more unsure about being here with him.
I head straight for the bathroom and pick the splinters of glass out of my skin. I climb into the shower. My mind spins with the rush of priceless alcohol and cheap adrenaline, while I wash away our depravity down the drain.
The hot water makes me tense, and I laugh because it has nothing to do with my tension. I can’t look at what Evan’s done to me. I refuse to acquire scars on top of scars. But then I laugh harder, because that’s exactly what I’ve done a
nd granted Evan permission to do. I stand under the spray of water and let it wash away my tears.
When I walk back in the bedroom, the bottle of wine from dinner is on the nightstand, a purple rose, and two hot pink sleep inducing allergy pills. I mistreat the wine as I gulp a mouthful and take the two legal tablets that help me sleep at night. I slide into bed and scoot to the far side.
I fall asleep and the monster that haunts me is the mirror image of myself in my dream. The face I fear is my own and acknowledgement colors recognition in the foggy haze. Its truthful tongue admonishes my actions and there’s no room for ghosts of the past or threats of the future to intervene. I’m the uncontrollable variable. I’m the catastrophic catalyst. A tune echoes the word stop repeatedly through darkness and the command is directed at myself.
I wake to find cold hardness moving over my burnt skin. Soft fingertips are careful over the fresh marks. Daylight shines bright and warm through open curtains. The burns hurt and blaze in red. Evan’s head is propped up on his arm, as he looks at me with admiration, his hand pulls down the soft sheets and duvet. He approves of the welts left from the candle burns, as he rubs some kind of ointment on them.
I hold his challenging gaze when it lifts and locks with mine. I move to take the pendant off, the whole reason we’re at odds. His anger flares up in warning. His hand comes down hard and fast. Gripping around my fist, stopping my intentions from removing the damn gift.
“So help me, Harper. If you take that off I’m going to show you how cruel I can really be.”
He keeps his grip on me until it hurts. His gaze holds mine and allows me to see the madman that lurks within their depths. He rolls over and walks to the bathroom, leaving me in stunned silence.
‘You’ve traded one devil for another, my love.’
Harper