by Lily White
There would always be a date when he reshaped me, a date when I’d been newly released as a soul reborn.
He was a man who referred to himself to as a Master and, perhaps, had been the first to show me what that means. I’d been changed, wholly and irrevocably. No matter how much I wished I could return to the innocent girl who believed in love stories and happy endings. I would always know intimately what lurks in the shadowed corners and the type of pain that could come when you lost your way in the dark.
Every night I would dream of him and every morning I would wake up and remember something new. A word spoken or an action performed, the small details returned to me with each passing day. I thought of when I’d met him and I remembered the odd things he’d say. The memories never really hurt me until the day when I’d been struck dumb by the realization that Lucas had been truthful with me all along. I remembered the words he’d spoken to me when I last saw him before the fire.
“I’m sorry you focused on the events of the book, rather than the lessons. She killed herself, Ms. Cleary. She chose to kick the chair out from beneath her, to hang from the rope he’d wrapped around her neck as her escape. She chose not to let him decide for her – she’d made her own fate by her decision to marry him, her decision to allow him to isolate her – and her decision to finally end the harrowing eventuality that she would never escape him. Her final decision was an act of strength when you look at it in the correct light. However, that was not the point of the story. Her life – her death – the abuse and the pain – none of that matter. What does matter were the lessons the book taught to those who could understand; those who could see past the violence and the heartache to recognize how she wound up in that situation in the first place.”
The bastard had warned me, but I was too blind to see what he’d been trying to show me. It was an epiphany that was laid over my shoulders like a lead vest. It crushed me beneath the recognition that he’d been playing a game all along.
Looking back over the events in his home, I realized quickly that he’d always been begging me to free myself, to refuse his abuse. Every once in a while, I would allow myself to wonder why he cared, why he was so insistent that I see the lesson he was trying to teach me. It would drive me mad and, after a few days, I had to force myself not to think about those events. They were slowly driving me to a point where I couldn’t function. I had so many questions, my curiosity still plaguing me after everything it led to before, until one morning when I woke up from another sweat-soaked nightmare to finally realize that I had to let go of my need for answers. I had to accept that it had occurred, that I’d survived and that I’d never let it happen again.
After an exhaustive day purchasing new appliances and meeting with contractors on the house, I’d returned home to my quiet new apartment with white walls and only the basic necessities. In a way, it reminded me of the bedroom I was given by Lucas and also of the jail cell I’d stayed in for those two days after I left Lucas’ house. It was sterile and plain, lacking the warmth of the colored walls that I remembered in my home. The glum surroundings didn’t help with my depression.
After taking a shower, I looked in the mirror at my naked body. The bruises and scars were still visible on my skin; the occasional ache reminded me of my cracked rib. My skull hadn’t been crushed as I feared, but I’d required stitches from where the skin had split. Anger simmered inside me when I thought of how they wouldn’t check Sarah to see if she had the injuries on her arm. They didn’t seem to care and I was hushed because they suddenly wanted everything brushed beneath the rug. I’d been so tired, that I’d agreed, too relieved by the charges being dropped against me that I didn’t press them to bring charges against her.
Sitting down to watch television, I barely listened to the words being spoken in a movie I didn’t recognize. My eyes wandered between the screen and the wall and I was lost somewhere else, not really existing in reality - still a constant prisoner to my thoughts and memories.
My eyes grew heavy, but as I started to daze off, there was a knock at my door. My head spun and terror shot through me. I didn’t want to get up, so I waited it out, completely silent; hoping whoever was standing outside the door would go away. Another soft knock sounded and I pushed up to walk to the door and look through the peephole in the center.
“Oh my god…”
It felt like it took forever to unlatch the chain lock, the deadbolt and the key lock in the handle. I struggled my way through them, pulling the door open with such force, the bottom brushed across my toe, clipping the skin. “Fuck!”
“I bet that hurt.”
My eyes looked up and a smile spread across my face that hurt the skin on my cheeks. “Mary Beth?!” I stared at her for several seconds, unable to believe that she was really standing in front of me. Her eyebrow arched and she laughed softly. Shaking myself of my shock, I said, “I – I don’t even know what to say, come in!” Grabbing her by the arm, I pulled her into the house, ecstatic to see she was alive. The door had barely closed behind me before I started asking questions.
“Where have you been? When did you get back? How did you know where I lived? Do the police know …”
Her laughter cut off my last question and I stood frozen staring at her in disbelief. “Where have you been?”
Moving farther into the living room, she turned to look back at me once she was leaned up against the partition that crossed over into my kitchen. She looked thinner than I remembered her and she wore a pair of skinny jeans with a long sleeved, black button up shirt. It wasn’t her usual attire, but I disregarded that, waiting with bated breath for her to answer.
“I went to my parents’ house out in California. Got some sunshine, hung out with hotties on the beach. You know, the usual.”
“Without calling anyone? They thought you were dead, Mary Beth. They thought I’d killed you! Your phone was in my backyard with your blood on it! Have you gone to the police to let them know you’re alive?” My voice screeched with my outrage. Weeks had gone by where I truly believed my best friend was dead and she leaned back casually against my counter like nothing had happened and this was just another ordinary day.
“You need to call them!”
Her eyes flittered over the basic furniture in my apartment before returning to me. “Oh! My phone was in your backyard? I was wondering where that went. I must have dropped in when I stopped by to tell you I was leaving. I knocked on your window, but I guess you were sleeping deeply. It made me think that there was nothing that could wake you up. I was knocking pretty loud.”
I eyed her suspiciously, not quite sure how she could remain so calm when she learned the entire town thought she was dead.
“I heard through the grapevine that you were dating Lucas Bates while I was gone. And by ‘grapevine’ I mean the news. It’s all over everywhere. Apparently, he’s moved several states away just to put some distance between you. Must have been a nasty breakup. I mean, I know how the news can be about not always having accurate information, but did you really accuse him of kidnapping and raping you? That’s insane.”
Sitting down on the couch, I pulled the blanket over my legs, settling in against the cold temperature in the room. Distrust towards her started to nag at me, but I pushed it away, not wanting what happened with Lucas to affect my relationship with my friends.
The apartment suddenly felt cold and I glanced behind Mary Beth, noticing that the kitchen window was open. “Oh, crap. That’s why it’s so cold in here, I left the damn window open.”
When I started to push up to walk across and close it, Mary Beth waved me back. “I’ve got it. You just stay there. I’m closer anyway.”
A sweet smile covered her face when she pushed up from the partition and rounded the corner to enter the kitchen. Even though I was still in shock by her sudden reappearance, a renewed sense of happiness filled my heart. Here she was, my best friend, another part of my life that I thought Lucas had ruined. She was back. I wasn’t left completely al
one in his wake of destruction as much as I thought I had been. It was comforting to see her, to learn that no harm had come to her because of my relationship with a monster.
“So, I’m serious about calling the cops, Mary Beth. You need to let them know you’re okay.”
“I will. Tell me more about Lucas? Did he hurt you or something? How did you get all those injuries?” I watched her as she attempted to reach to close the window and laughed when she jumped up to grab it from over the sink. She was always such a tiny girl that she needed a step-ladder to reach just about anything. Getting up from the couch, I approached her in an attempt to help, but then I looked at the sleeve of her shirt, noticing that it had pulled away from her wrist in her attempt to reach the window.
I froze. There, on her arm, between her wrist and the cuff of her shirt, were three marks that I recognized immediately. Red and almost healed, the marks looked like long, deep scratches, and the night when I almost died in the rain suddenly came slamming back into my memory.
She finally reached the glass and pulled it into place. When she turned to look at me, her eyebrow arched in confusion and she tilted her head just slightly in question. “What’s wrong, Autumn, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Backing up, I noticed how she stood next to a set of knives I’d purchased a few days prior. I didn’t want to alert her to the fact that I saw the marks, so I attempted to continue our conversation about her sudden return. “You know, let’s go ahead and call the police to let them know you’re back and once that is all cleared up, we can talk more about my adventure.
Walking faster, I tried to reach my phone, desperate to remove myself from the situation. My heart pounded and I hoped she didn’t notice the fine sheen of sweat that broke out over my skin or the way my breathing picked up as I hurried across the room.
“That won’t be necessary, Autumn. I won’t be staying long and it’s probably best that they don’t know I’m here.”
My hand was almost on the phone by the time she’d grabbed ahold of my hair, pulling me off balance and off my feet so that my body slammed against the hard floor below. “I know you know, Autumn! It’s written all over your face.” She started laughing as I struggled against her. Clawing at where her hand held my hair and kicking out with my feet, I cried out in pain when my foot hit against the wooden coffee table and I listened as the glass candleholders I’d purchased just a few days prior fell, shattering across the floor.
“Mary Beth! Stop! What are you doing?” My voice was broken by the pain coursing through my body and I grasped at her hand again, hearing my hair break away from scalp, chunk by chunk as she held me. Swinging her leg over me, she sat down on my chest, both holding me in place and making it almost impossible for me to breath.
She was extremely calm, despite her violence, looking down at me with scathing hatred in her eyes. “You just couldn’t stay away from him could you? He wasn’t even your type, but you couldn’t stand that he wanted ME instead of YOU!”
My head spun when she slapped me across the face, jolts of pain shooting along my jaw. Tears burst from my eyes and I bucked up against her, trying to remove her from my chest. I coughed as my breathing became harder and her weight crushed my ribs above my lungs. “Mary … Beth … please …”
“No bitch! I don’t want to hear any of your fucking lies or excuses.” Another slap from the opposite direction and she laughed when blood shot from my mouth onto the floor.
An expression of mock sympathy peeled across her face, and she tsked. “I bet that hurt too.”
Lifting up her body and slamming herself back down on my chest, I groaned as the air was forced from my lungs.
“You know, you must have the best fucking luck of any person I’ve ever known. No matter how many fucking times I tried to kill you, you kept escaping from my hands. I thought it would be easy. Set a fire while you slept, watch as your body burned to a fucking crisp and then go console poor Lucas when he was heartbroken over losing his new toy. But no, just like the little bitch you are, you had to wake up didn’t you?”
She slammed her weight on my chest again and I reached up, grabbing at her hair, fighting to breath from beneath her. Twisting my body left and right, I attempted to dislodge her again, but she grabbed me by the head, slamming it against the floor until I cried out again and stopped struggling.
“Stop fighting me, bitch! You’ve destroyed my fucking life! The least you can do is listen!” Her fist smashed against the side of my head and she slammed her weight down again, forcing out the little bit of oxygen I’d been able to breathe into my lungs. Coughing, I turned my head to spit out blood that had filled my mouth from my split lip and I noticed that I was becoming dizzy. Looking up again, it was like there were two of her circling around each other. I blinked, trying to bring her into focus, but my body was reacting to the pain and the inability to breathe.
“When you didn’t fry like I’d planned, I sent photos to the police hoping to at least have your little ass put away. And what happens? YOU END UP AT HIS FUCKING HOUSE!” Landing another crushing blow to my temple, she spit in my face, before reaching down to pull me up by my shirt.
“Why couldn’t you just stay the fuck away?! He would have been mine, you dumb bitch! He wanted me!” Releasing me suddenly, she laughed as my body fell back, my head hitting against the wood of the floor. I was running out of breath and my body was giving out. I reached out in desperate need to find anything that could help me escape her.
“Mar – Mary Beth, please. We can talk this out, you can have him.”
“I CAN’T HAVE HIM! HE LEFT BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU FUCKING WHORE!”
Her fists crashed against my face and I continued to reach around when something sharp pricked the skin of my finger. Turning my head to avoid the blows, I noticed a long sliver of broken glass from the candleholder on the table. Grasping it between my hands, I screamed, “Mary Beth! Stop!”
“Fuck you! Why won’t you just fucking die?!”
She didn’t listen – wouldn’t listen – and when I brought my hand up, my eyes blinded by the blows of her fists against my head, I’d only meant to cut her in order to stop her. My aim had been off, the force of my strike had been hard, and when her punches stopped, when she fell to the side and convulsed where she lay, I saw for the first time where I’d forced the glass.
Crying out, I pushed myself away from her on the floor until I could reach my phone to bring it down and dial 911. The operator picked up and frantically, I rattled off my address.
“Ma’am, what is your emergency?”
“I think I’ve killed my friend.”
The phone slipped from my bloody hand as a gurgling sound drifted up from the floor. My eyes were wide open, my jaw dropped in shock and I watched as Mary Beth died with a large sliver of glass protruding from her once beautiful eye.
…
Blue lights again, men pouring into my small apartment, the pounding of boots across the floor. I sat on the couch as the police looked over the scene, as the medical examiner came in to pronounce Mary Beth dead, and as they wrapped her body into a large black bag, zipping it up until she was no longer there.
After they carried her out, they asked me a barrage of questions and I answered in the best way I could. I could barely move my jaw and my eyes were swelling shut. An EMT looked over my injuries and recommended I be taken to the local hospital to be treated. The ribs that had been cracked when she attacked me in Lucas’ garden were mostly likely fractured again, but despite the sharp pain that rattled my body, I was in a state of shock where nothing could affect me. It had been a place I learned to go to under Lucas’ control, and now, when shock or sadness blanketed me, it was a place I returned to in order to escape the nightmare of events that had become my life.
Standing up, the EMT helped me onto a gurney, strapping me in as a familiar face walked through the door. Grey eyes that could always see through me were looking my way, and a powerful swagger brought Detective Marx to stand dire
ctly above where I laid.
“Ms. Cleary.”
When I’d seen him at the station, and when I saw him again on the night that I called them to Lucas’ house, his eyes had always held a cool distance when he looked at me. However, this night was different, there was heat behind the steel grey, forbidden thoughts tucked away somewhere inside his head that peeked through his professional demeanor. I brushed it off thinking I’d only imagined the difference. There was no way he could remember what happened between us. I was the only one who would carry that memory.
“I’m going to follow you to the hospital, if you don’t mind. I’ll be taking over the investigation from here and I have some questions I need to ask you.”
Nodding my head, I tried but couldn’t force myself to speak.
Silently, he nodded in response, standing aside to walk behind my gurney as it was pushed from the sterile white of my living room out into the cold darkness of night.
Autumn
“Oh God, right there, yeeeessssss…..”
His cock filled me, stretching every inch of my core to accommodate his large size. Rough hands smoothed up my body until they found and gripped around my breasts, pulling me impossibly tighter on top of him. His strokes were unhurried, and I knew his grey eyes looked over my body possessively.
Bringing his lips to rest above my ear, he growled out his satisfaction. “Do you know how much I love fucking this little body? You were made for my fucking cock, beautiful. There’s no question about that.”
He nipped at my earlobe and chuckled when I cried out. My body was overheated and it felt like electricity ran slowly over my skin. Pushing away from him, I turned over beneath him, presenting my ass in the air for him to mount me and take me from behind. Two hands on my ass suddenly and he was pushing inside. “You’re a dirty little bitch, aren’t you?”
My body purred as he thrust inside me and I felt myself begin to tremble from my impending orgasm. My hands were bound above my head by metal cuffs and a silk blindfold covered my eyes. As he thrust into me, I could feel the marks that he’d just left on my skin. He’d used a belt because he knew it was my favorite.