by A. R. Torre
I understand that I shouldn’t base my opinions of God on one redheaded country pastor. But my mother’s blood runs through my soul. If God was how she kept straight, kept normal, all of those years, what caused her fall? What if I gain control of my life, fall in love, have a family, create the perfect life, and then stumble—the way she did? It is better how it is now—where I have no one to hurt, no babies to nurture into future psychopaths. When I look at that possibility, at the course her life took…I don’t want to be normal unless I know that I am at no risk to others. I can’t afford to stumble, to take away others’ happiness.
So I don’t turn to God. But I do believe in His existence. And I do believe that some people He can help. Maybe He can help Annie, maybe He can keep her safe from the monsters that roam our world.
He can’t help me. Not in the way that I need to be helped. I don’t want a salve or whatever form of support my mother received. I’ve seen one family destroyed. I don’t plan on repeating that trend.
CHAPTER 33
“IT’S BEEN A good day. Two good days, actually.” I speak into my cell while sitting cross-legged on my pink bed, my laptop open before me.
“Tell me about them.”
I hope he’s naked. I hope Dr. Derek is sitting at his desk, a big fat cock in his hand, and he is stroking it while talking to me. I spent twenty minutes two hours ago talking to an attorney who dispensed legal advice on the phone while watching me, his orgasm barely slowing the flow of intelligent prose. The image sticks with me, popping up when I hear Dr. Derek breathe, hear a soft sigh as he shifts in his seat. These are the kinds of thoughts I need to avoid, especially if I want to continue down the path of trying to right my axis and fix my brain. But it is hard to spend a whole day engaged in sexual activity and then pick up the phone, hear that smooth, sexy voice, and not image the cock attached to his body.
“Deanna?”
“Hmm?” I answer absentmindedly, posting a camming screenshot to Twitter.
“Tell me about your good days.”
“Oh.” I close the laptop screen and focus on his voice, pushing aside the image of thick meat surrounded by strong hands. “No urges, no Hannibal Lecter fantasies all day yesterday, last night, and so far today. And I was up late last night, till almost one.”
“What’d you eat for dinner?”
I roll my eyes. Derek has a ridiculous obsession with my dietary choices, as if the magical solution to my problem might lie in a Lean Cuisine Herb Roasted Chicken entrée.
“Pot roast. Jenny Craig.”
“Have you had that before?”
I snort. “About fifty times. Maybe more.” Derek once had me cut out all meat from my diet, with a hypothesis that my animal instincts were triggered by the protein from meat. When you reduce a diet company’s selection to strictly vegetarian items, you are left with about four choices, all of which suck ass. I made it through about six days before I told him I would personally leave this apartment and fly to California just to murder him. We then decided the vegetarian plan wasn’t helping matters. “So, anyway, I was thinking, to celebrate, I might order Chinese tonight.” I hold my breath, waiting on his response. The truth of the matter is, I’m ordering Chinese no damn matter what his response is. I’ve been thinking about it since seven a.m. this morning, beef and broccoli taking over and dominating my mind since then, my single-minded obsession probably helping to keep the crazy thoughts at bay. But I like to complete this little exercise in asking permission anyway. If he does approve, and the Chinese deliveryman ends up dying, then I can always point the bloodstained finger at him. It is his fault. He thought I could handle honey chicken and shrimp fried rice.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Damn. I huff into the phone. “Seriously? Didn’t you hear me? No urges in twenty-four hours. Plus, I don’t even open the door! They leave it in the hall.”
“I don’t care. The more people who approach your door, the more risk you put yourself in. They will knock. You might not be strong enough not to answer.”
I grind my teeth. “I’ll be strong enough.” If it was up to Derek, I wouldn’t even get Jeremy deliveries. He’d expect me to somehow live, without supplies or food, holed up in this shithole and starving to death. Never mind the basic necessities I need to survive. No, those weren’t important. What was important was that no one knock on my door. Knocking equals death. Can’t be too careful, Derek’s liability insurance might go up.
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
Wow. Those six words…they could describe my whole existence. I left that land mine alone, looking at my watch. “Time’s up, Doc.”
“Don’t order Chinese, Deanna. Stick to the food you have in the apartment.”
“Got it. Thanks for the wisdom.” I hang up before he gives me another pearl of knowledge, then scroll down my phone list and press the button for Hong Kong Chinese.
Forty-five minutes later, I don’t kill the little Chinese man who scurries to my door, knocks, looks around, and knocks again.
“Just leave it on the floor,” I call out irritably. They should know this. I’ve only been ordering from them once a month for at least two years. The place seems to have higher turnover than McDonald’s, a new face bringing the same plastic bag every time.
The guy finally leaves, squishing the bag against the door and looking at it for a long time before walking away.
That’s right, buddy. Keep walking. Walk away before I open up this door and kill you for taking so fucking long. I wait, listening, not budging until I hear the elevator take him back downstairs. Then I open my door and lunge for the bag.
I wish that I liked pizza. If I did, then maybe I wouldn’t gorge myself on MSG-loaded fare. But I don’t. I can’t stand the doughy, grease-laden heart attack covered in nine layers of cheese. So Chinese is my only indulgence. I limit my ordering, recognizing the wisdom in Dr. Derek’s thinking, restricting myself to a once-a-month habit, and allow myself to order only if I have something to celebrate, like today.
I ordered the usual: an extra-large Dr Pepper, an order of beef and broccoli, an order of chicken with vegetables, a large egg drop soup, and five egg rolls. I put the soup, three egg rolls, and the chicken into the fridge. The rest, I sit down to savor. The Dr Pepper is watered down, the ice having melted during the delivery, all carbonation evaporated during transport; but it is soda, and I moan as I suck down the first flat, sugary sip. Then I move on, opening containers and allowing myself full, unadulterated pleasure, all in the name of MSG fun.
CHAPTER 34
PSYCHOSIS: A severe mental disorder, a derangement of personality. Some individuals experience mood swings and agitation, but emotional dampening and social withdrawal are the most common symptoms. Despite society’s beliefs, psychotic individuals rarely become violent and are often at a much greater risk of causing harm to themselves than to others.8 There are many theories as to what causes psychosis. Many current theories agree that it is caused by a combination of inherited genetic factors and external environmental factors.
THE POLICE REPORTS compare my childhood kitchen to a pig slaughterhouse. They say that blood was spattered from ceiling to floor and bodily fluids stained furniture, tile, and clothing. Forensics and the CSI staff figured out that my mother took my father’s life first—a shotgun her weapon of choice—then turned the gun on Summer and Trent, using knives after the gun for no purpose other than to further destroy their bodies. They say my mother was decisive—that there seemed to be no hesitation in her mayhem. The only thing she wasn’t strong about was taking her own life. They say those stab wounds were shallow, hesitant, and only one was deep enough to be fatal. What if seems to be the unspoken phrase throughout the reports. What if she hadn’t killed herself? What would she have done next? Would she have left the house? Harmed someone else?
I don’t need to wonder about what she would have done next. It is a waste of time and energy. I know the things I need to know. I know my
murderous obsessions started the night her soul left earth. I have killed once. I only hope that I can keep myself from killing again.
Wait.
I hear that in my head. Yeah. I know. Wait. I only hope it is God telling me to wait and not my mother. Or Satan. Or both. I wonder if my mother was always crazy or if it came to her out of nowhere, the way it did to me years ago.
I have read a great deal about psychosis. Mostly from the Internet, which Derek discourages. Apparently, professional doctors frown on the awesomeness that is Wikipedia. But despite the questionable validity of the sites I visit, I read everything I can find. Maybe one day I’ll read something that helps to explain it, something that offers some justifiable reason for my insanity’s existence. I’d love to be able to look back and blame my murderous rage on a toxic batch of well water that only my mother and I drank. Or cancer: a tumor that pushes on part of my brain, Mother and I having similar weaknesses in our bodies that allowed the tumor to grow. Maybe it’s not a tumor and it’s just hereditary, like alcoholism or high blood pressure. Maybe Summer would have developed the same homicidal inclinations, only she didn’t live long enough for it to develop.
I don’t have shooting head pains or any other clinical symptom to enter into WebMD. Just the rush of bloodthirsty need sweeping through my body in one uncontrollable rage, driving my brain and thought processes into a tangled stew of insanity that can be calmed only by blood.
The desire typically comes at night, when there is nothing to distract me and the idle time plays hopscotch with my brain. When it comes, my mind takes over my body, causing my hands to shake and my mouth to water, hatred filling my body until I vibrate with desire, wanting, needing to expel it in a way that involves bloodshed. I calm it how Dr. Derek has taught me: closing my eyes and curling into a ball, my arms tight around my legs, the pressure of my grip giving me some sense of space. Then I picture myself, my limbs free and door unlocked, a knife in my hand, my gun in my bag, my legs making the journey outside, to freedom. I breathe, quick, fast, controlled snorts of breath, the outside air hot on my legs, my heart beating a thousand times a minute. And I ask myself, “What now?”
Then I let my mind run free, my fantasy acting out in vivid Technicolor all that lies dirty and rotten in my mind. I kill, I maim, I take life joyously, drunk on the action, my mind giddy as more and more victims fall dead beneath my hands. There is screaming the entire time—the screams of my victims, but also the scream of my soul, fighting back against my pleasure, for the deaths that I am taking so gleefully.
The goal is to avoid the hit of desire. But when I can’t, when it sneaks up and grabs hold of me? Then the only thing to do is indulge it. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy those times.
CHAPTER 35
HUMILIATION: Humiliation play is connected to sexual fetishism and can be associated with exhibitionism in the sense of wanting others to witness one’s sexual degradation. Activities such as name-calling are a way of achieving ego reduction or getting over sexual inhibitions.9
I WAS CAUGHT off guard the first time a small dick entered the room. Outside of my private chat room, there is a waiting room of sorts called free chat. When I am not in a private chat, I log into that room. It is designed as a place for camgirls to meet the members and convince them to take them into a private chat. The waiting room is free, and there I’m supposed to chat with all the members at one time until one of them decides to hit the “Take to Private Chat” button, which is when everyone else is kicked out and the credit card charges begin. I am lucky in that I don’t typically sit in the waiting room for more than a minute or so. I am, in terms of camgirls, a hot commodity. But one Monday things were slow, and I was lounging on my side, smiling into the cam and chatting up seventy-two different members, when threeinchpenis popped up on my screen.
threeinchpenis: hey Jessica
richone45: can u show us more skin?
OSUfreshie: hey bb how much 4 private?
I laughed, leaning forward so that my cleavage was enhanced. “Hey, Three—no, Rich, you know the rules in free chat, and it’s six ninety-nine a minute, Fresh.”
OSUfreshie: damn. i can’t afford that
richone45: i can
allaboutpussy: do you like cunnilus Jessica?
OSUfreshie: yeah right rich - then why r u in free with the rest of us?
Jacob1982: cunni…what? *grabs the dictionary*
fantasyplayer: can you show me your feet?
threeinchpenis: Jessica, is it okay if my penis is only three inches long?
richone45: b/c i like free chat freshie. anyway, i’m about to take her private.
“Of course it’s okay that your cock is three inches long. Do you want to go to private, and you can show it to me?”
Jacob1982: I can’t find cunnilus in the dictionary. What does it mean?
OSUfreshie: then take her rich. We r all waiting
NFLJunkie: ur hot
---frankiedoug enters room
Assman22: LOL u r all so stupid. it’s spelled cunnilingus u idiots
allaboutpussy: u should feel dorky for knowing how to spell it
BlueDog1: who says cunnilus anyway? sounds like something my grandmother would say
---Packersfan13 enters room
Jacob1982: i found it. i don’t want to “orally stimulate the female genitals anyway.” That sounds scary.
“Thanks, NFL. You guys, please be nice. All, I love cunnilingus, and I don’t give a damn how anyone spells it. Rich, were you going to take me private?”
---richone45 left room
OSUfreshie: i knew he was full of shit.
- FREE CHAT ENDED - threeinchpenis HAS STARTED A PRIVATE CHAT
I incorrectly assumed that a guy with a small cock would want reassurance that size didn’t matter, that I found him attractive regardless. threeinchpenis didn’t let me get very far down that path before he set me straight. His request seemed so odd; I blinked a moment at the computer screen.
threeinchpenis: STOP. don’t compliment. make fun of it. laugh.
I understood cuckold stuff. That constituted about 10 percent of my chats. Cuckold has an edge of humiliation attached, and I am comfortable with that edge. But pure humiliation and ridicule was not a fetish I was experienced or necessarily comfortable with. Those clients have their own section of the camsites, with their own dedicated models—girls who specialize in leather, insults, and degradation. I’ve never had to go there in a session, and I wasn’t particularly comfortable with a leap in that direction.
I started hesitantly, a fumbling, disastrous attempt to point awkwardly and laugh. I sounded forced, ridiculous, and kept waiting for the ENDED CHAT message to fill my screen. But it didn’t, and he stayed with me, patient—his grainy image filling the screen, his small cock wedged between tan, muscular thighs. He appeared to be, from my limited view of his stomach and crotch, someone who took meticulous care of himself—tan, muscular, shaven. His cock was hard, the area hairless and smooth, the short stub thin and uncircumcised. It was tiny, and I tried to laugh and point—but it went against every empathetic bone in my body.
With threeinchpenis’s gentle coaching, I finally got it, falling into a rhythm that sounded natural and sincerely cruel. I told him it was pathetic, that he would never please a woman with that. The words caused his short stub to bob and swell; his fingers grasped the short stalk and jerked it. The climax came five minutes later, when I told him I wanted to invite my friends over, show them his webcam. They would all roll on the floor laughing at how puny and ridiculous his tiny cock was. I almost missed it, his hand covering it, but caught a glimpse of white spray, and then he moved his fingers and I saw it. The normal-sized head, dwarfing the short shaft, twitching and gushing, a shocking amount of white cum shooting out in quick, rapid shots.
I gasped, a standard and genuine reaction when I see a guy finish—and hesitated, not sure what the desired response would be. I finally smiled, a smirk that spread over my whole face. “
Wow,” I gushed. “That was impressive.” I tried to maintain my snobby, condescending exterior but added some grudging approval, and he seemed to enjoy the reaction, rubbing his dick with a white towel and leaning forward, giving me a brief glimpse of tan, muscular chest before his cam went dark.
threeinchpenis: thx bb. that was great.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he was gone.
------PRIVATE CHAT ENDED BY threeinchpenis. 11min56sec
------RETURN TO FREE CHAT?
I clicked on the “yes” button, pasted a smile on my face, and waved enthusiastically to the cam in front of me, greeting the waiting clients who filled the free chat room.
Eleven minutes. Amount charged to his credit card: $76.89. My cut from the bastards that own the camsite: $21.53.
CHAPTER 36
IT HAS BEEN a long day, full of waiting. Waiting through a long day of work. Waiting through a quiet breakfast, both of them looking at each other quietly over macaroni and cheese. Two souls in an otherwise empty house. He had watched television after dinner, waiting anxiously for the house to fall quiet, for her to fall asleep. And now he is finally free. Free to do what he has waited for all day long.
He powers up his laptop, scrolling through images until he reaches the one he wanted, the one he has cropped.
He looks at her photo, blond curls surrounding a sweet and angelic face. Full of innocence, full of hope. It is almost a shame to destroy that. The sweetness never stays long. It is destroyed quickly, replaced with tears and fear. It is sad that he now connects that fear with the experience, has grown to enjoy it on a level almost equal to the innocence.