Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection

by Dakota Willink

  I see her exit the back door. She leans against it for a second, and I wonder if it’s relief I detect. She has never hidden the fact that she hates the church. She only does it for Fynn. We both do. She meets my gaze from across the field, pushes away from the door and starts walking toward me. She looks exquisite, as always. Her large, black headpiece with the gray feathers covers most of her face, her black and white formal dress fitting her like a second skin. Maureen is blessed with looks, charm and grace. Her humble beginnings and sordid past never prevented her from looking her best. It’s why she always gets what she wants. There’s nothing Maureen ever wants for, she has it all.

  “Randy, aren’t you coming inside?” She has that honeyed voice people covet, her cherry-red lips pulling up into a smile.

  I shake my head, nodding toward the twin toddler boys who are playing in the sand. Another little girl is digging for worms, she told me, and a group of pre-teens sit under a tree, no doubt scheming about all the immoral acts they’ll commit when their parents aren’t looking. I scowl.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Whatever goes on in that head of yours?” She sighs as she takes a seat on the swing next to me. “Are you okay, Randy, because you know I want to know if you’re not. Fynn and I, we’re your family. Your only family.” I search for the question there and can’t find it, so I look ahead. Maureen’s raised me since our crackhead mother ditched us, not that that woman deserves to be called a mother. She lost that title a long time ago. Wherever she is, she’s serving her penance. So, Maureen took care of me, but she doesn’t really care about me. Tolerate me is what she does. She’s over a decade older than me, which makes her and I worlds apart. It always surprises me how different she and Fynn are, yet he’s with her, the obvious choice.

  I turn to face her and smile at her brightly, as brightly as I can muster hoping she’ll leave me alone. Her black hair that matches my own, hangs over one shoulder. It shimmers in the sunlight, and I want to reach out and touch it. My fingers tremble, so I fist them in my lap.

  Her pretty, hazel eyes make my dark chocolate ones seem dull. Growing up, all I ever wanted was to be Maury, and now, now I just want to hurt her. Does that make me a monster? Probably. Luckily for her, I love her too much to act on how much I despise her. Love. Hate. Two sides of a coin, yet one cannot exist apart from the other. Her expectations for me to be normal, as she puts it, weigh heavily on me, and yet every time I find the courage to leave, I can’t bring myself to walk away because she understands me. She knows about the darkness that lives inside me, and she’s the only one who doesn’t judge me for it. She doesn’t judge you because she’s like you. We both know the price of sin, yet we revel in it. Sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

  2

  Maureen

  Now

  Swing, swing, swing… Her pale legs swing back and forth in a rhythmic trance, making me nauseous. Randy is harmless enough, but she has those dark, beady eyes that scare the shit out of me. Currently, they dart around the playground, hate burning in them when she looks at the children who seem immune to her obvious loathing. My mother always said Randy was touched by Satan himself. That when she was born, a dark shadow loomed over her, and it wouldn’t leave. That sounded like nonsense to me at the time, paranoia, I’d convinced myself, but as Randy grew older, I started to wonder whether there was any truth in my mother’s drunken ramblings. Had she seen the things I see now?

  Randy wears the same thing she does every Sunday: a black and white checked skirt two fingers above the knee with stockings, a long sleeved, white shirt with ruffles at the neck, pressed to perfection, and a black cardigan. I try to buy her clothes, get her out of the shell she’s in, but she won’t budge. I’ve seen those clothes in the Pay-it-Forward box in the back of the church.

  She looks like a schoolgirl, at twenty-five, and she’s tiny enough to pull it off. Her hair is tied in a modest bun at the nape of her neck, and her black rimmed glasses do nothing for her. She’s beautiful, naturally so, and she has the eye of every man I know. She has that vulnerability that men love.

  “I want to help you, Randy.” I attempt to make conversation yet again, and she casts me a quick glance, then turns her attention back to the children playing. “Fynn said you were a bit jumpy this morning.”

  Is that what he calls it?

  I hate that Randy doesn’t speak anymore. She hasn’t spoken since she was eighteen. It was like something switched off inside her, and no matter what I do, she will not budge. The fact is, there’s nothing wrong with Randy, not anything physical at least, but she’s a bit fucked in the head. It’s understandable, I think. We never had an easy life.

  Her head snaps to me, and her back stiffens as if sensing what I’m thinking. I don’t miss the tinge of pink on her pretty, high cheekbones. She’s always had a thing for Fynn, ever since she laid eyes on him, telling me he was hers first. I let out a slow breath.

  “Is this about the other night?” I ask, despite knowing she won’t say anything, she never does. I tip my hat to ward off the sun. “It’s not your fault, you know.” She stares daggers at me, and I decide to drop it. “You were at the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.” I remove a piece of non-existent fluff off my dress.

  Randy just needs guidance, I keep telling myself. She has a dark side, but then again, we all do. I just keep hoping she’ll let me in a little, allow me inside that mess of a brain so that we can work through whatever shit she’s going through together.

  “I should go inside, Fynn will be wondering where I am. Are you having lunch with us today? I bet the in-laws would love having you there.” I can’t keep the sarcasm from my voice.

  She nods, and for the first time during this entire conversation, she smiles as she continues swinging. There is a glint of malice in her gaze, yet I brush it off.

  Swing, swing, swing…

  The moment Fynn’s family walks through the door, the tension in the house thickens. His mother hates me, and the feeling is mutual. Just because they had more money than I did, they looked down on me growing up. Always thought Fynn ’ done so much better. Fynn’s mom, Lynn Chase, never understood her son’s desire to a) hang in the ‘slums’, as she called Queens, b) become a minister, and c) marry me. The only person in that family that remotely gets me is Fynn’s younger brother, Trevor. He waves his family off, often coming to both mine and Fynn’s rescue.

  Fynn wraps an arm around my waist, and I smile up at him.

  “Oh, my baby,” Lynn says pulling him away from me and wrapping her arms around Fynn.

  “Hey, Mom. You look beautiful.”

  “Oh, you charmer.” she exclaims, grinning from ear to ear. Her grin drops when she reluctantly turns to me.

  “Maureen, how are you, dear?” Lynn greets, kissing me as light as a feather on the cheek. “You look awfully exhausted today, not sleeping again? It’s a good thing Greg stopped at the bistro on the way here, we thought we’d save you the trouble of cooking.” This does not surprise me, she never eats anything I cook. Fynn squeezes my hand.

  Lynn beams, looking at me innocently As Trev comes up behind her, kissing my cheek and winking at me. I smirk. This is our little game. We bet on how long it takes before she drops an insult or pisses me off. I already won! Again. He’d bet five minutes, I’d bet one.

  When Lynn sees Miranda, our darling Randy, standing behind me, she gives her an animated, high-pitched greeting. “Oh, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” She palms Randy’s face then mutters all kinds of compliments about how beautiful she looks. It doesn’t matter that she sees Randy every week, it’s always like she hasn’t seen her for ages. The fact that Randy never speaks and wears the same thing every single week doesn’t seem to bother her. No! Lynn is simply grateful that I'm not the only woman in the room. Gregory, Fynn’s father, comes through the door next. At least he offers me an awkward hug. He is a man of few words, and I prefer it that way.

  I watch Miranda loop her hands through Lynn’s arm, leadi
ng her out to the garden. Looking at the two of them, I feel a hatred I have long since kept at bay. As usual, Miranda barely acknowledges Trev.. Fynn leads his dad through to the living room.

  “Let’s set the table, shall we?” I nudge Trev, and we make our way into the dining room.

  “You should ignore it, you know,” He tells me as we set the crockery out.

  “Yeah, easier said than done.” I roll my eyes. “She despises me, and I barely speak to the woman.”

  “You know what mother-in-laws are like.”

  “Uhm…” I say snidely. I do know. I have had to put up with her disregard for years. I scowl at him.

  “Okay, I’ll drop it.” He picks his hands up in mock surrender. “Want me to grab the food?”

  I nod, and he gives me two thumbs up and a shimmy. Trevor Chase is a ray of sunshine. I laugh and shake my head as I continue to set out what feels like the last supper.

  3

  The Soul Destroyer

  When I was eight years old, I learned how to suck a dick for the first time. It was disgustingly rigid in my small mouth, blue veins pulsing in the most grotesque way But he told me it was what would save me, so I went along even though I hated every second of it. My head pounded against the wall, and he laughed down at me, all grimy teeth and dark eyes. I kept gagging, which made him angry. He pulled out then slapped me across the face, spitting that if I got vomit on him, my mother would find out what a little whore I was. That everyone would know. I didn’t know what a whore was, but it didn’t sound good.

  I hated dicks then, and as much as I enjoy them now, when I get the chance, after I remove the person’s face, their dick is almost always next in line. Growing up, my monster always told me that I’ll never make it into heaven, he is wrong, I will be welcomed with open arms.

  He is on his knees, a gag stifling his faint mumbles. He has been a very naughty boy, and I don’t like disobedience.

  He proved to be a lot harder to subdue than I’d anticipated. The drugs didn’t kick in until after he managed to get his grimy fingers inside me. He’d been rough, calling me his Little Princess. This is the second time we’ve been in this room, the first time I played dress up and called him Daddy. He’d brought me a picture of his daughter and everything, so I’d been able to make myself up to look just like her. Humans are sick fuckers, their fetishes like diseases. It was a small sacrifice, and I was willing to make it if it meant he wouldn’t hurt her, whoever the poor kid was.

  But like all good things, this too must come to an end.

  Now he is naked, his hands tied behind his back. A rope links his legs, fastened together so every time he tries to move, he stumbles over, and my assistant drags him up again. I have to bite back a laugh each time it happens. The lights are off, but the moon is a spotlight on him. Liszt’s Totentanz plays loudly in the background. Like me, Liszt flirted with death and darkness, dancing with demons. The music sends shivers of pleasure through me.

  “What do you want?” The man before me had asked, before I tired of his voice and gagged him. “I will give you anything.” He was sweating, all the confidence he’d come in with now a thing of the past.

  “There’s nothing you can give me that I don’t already have. Your suffering is all I need.” I answer.

  “You’re sick, a fucking mad…” His eyes widen when I slap him across the face. He should know better. “I have done nothing to you, nothing.” He sobs in response, snot running down his pathetic face. A beautiful face, stubbled jawline, dark hair and eyes, a beautiful man with a sickness. It is my job to rid the world of his kind.

  “Oh, but you exist, you see, and that is enough.” I run my hands through his hair.

  He cries and begs me to have mercy on him, but I am all out. He promises that if I let him go, he won’t tell a soul what I’ve done, that he’ll walk away and forget this ever happened. Right, like that’s an option.

  I wish it were that simple, nothing ever is. I’m on a mission, and he is part of a greater plan. He asks me to make it quick, so I don’t. The fact that he thinks I am doing something wrong really annoys me. This is a gift, surely he sees that? He asked for this.

  I look at the deep cuts that run all the way down his chest and arms, crevices of crimson, liquid seeping down his toned torso. He is slowly bleeding out all over the floor. I stand and walk over to him, the smell of his blood excites me, and I press my thighs together in agony. I will not give in to the urge. I cannot let this arouse me, not yet anyway.

  I kneel on his thighs and grip his hair, tugging his head back, running my nose against his neck, I place my lips on the spot that pulses. I might have been a vampire in my past life, my thirst for blood, for bad blood, is that strong. I graze his skin with my teeth. It’s damp with sweat, but he smells perfect, desirable even.

  “I like you” I smile against his neck. “But I’ll like you a whole lot more when you bleed out for me. Tell me how much you want me.” He mumbles something, and I lean back, making a small incision on that pulsing spot while he stares at me, fear radiating from his pretty brown eyes. Tears slip from them, and I lean over to lick the salty droplets dry. “You’re so beautiful like this. But I’m tired of playing now, Daddy.”

  His eyes plead with me. “Do you think she’d want me to save you?”

  He nods his head, unable to verbally answer, as I start to draw a trail with my blade, cutting from his temples all the way down to his chin. His body seizes, making it harder to cut in a straight line. The feel of his flesh being severed is glorious. His muffled screams make me feel euphoric, but then they start waning as I start pulling skin from muscle. The sound of the train, and his dying wails are music to my ears. I hold him close to my bosom, rocking him, until his life drains from him and his soul is crushed.

  I feel hands under my arms, dragging me up. I’m dizzy from adrenalin. He has already stripped and is ready for me when he places me on his lap. He drags my underwear to the side then lowers me onto his cock. I start to rock against him, flesh on flesh as guttural cries leave my lips and tears stream down my face. My bloodied hands cup his face. When I rub blood across his lips, he licks them and grips onto my waist harder, motivating me to pick up the pace. I’m in a frenzy, howling and digging my nails into his shoulders until I draw blood, and soon we’re both shuddering and convulsing. He’s gripping my neck to the point of suffocation.

  “What did I ever do to deserve you?” I whisper against his lips once we’ve recovered. He kisses me long and hard, saliva and blood and passion.

  “Let’s clean this up, baby.” He tells me, but my nipples pebble, so I rock above him again, continuing until he again goes limp inside me.

  4

  Fynn

  Now

  Queens has been brought to its knees yet again after the merciless butchering of another man, a husband and father of three beautiful children. Kent Walker was a member of the congregation, Mike, a good friend of mine, was Pastor of. Mike asked me to join him on his visit to the grief-stricken widow and her kids. Walker was supposedly an upstanding member of the community, and the epitome of a hardworking family man.

  He was tortured, maimed and thrown into a ditch. Police have no leads. It was a sick act of pure hate, and it makes my stomach churn at the thought of the kind of monsters that are out there. What kind of person would do such a thing? No, this was no ordinary human, this was a dark force. The kind of thing I’d devoted my life to opposing.

  “Mrs. Walker. This is a friend of mine, Pastor Chase, and Miranda Whittaker, a member of his congregation.“ Mike introduces us. Mike asked me to join him on his visit to the grief-stricken widow and her kids.

  “I’m deeply sorry for your loss.” I offer. “We may not have the answers, but may God bring you comfort in this time.”

  Mrs Walker nods slowly. “My wife and I will make all the arrangements for the funeral.” Mike tells her. “So you can just focus on your children. Do you have family coming over?”

  “Yes, my sister will be h
ere soon.”

  Mike prays and I listen, all the while feeling a suffocating feeling in my chest. “God, grant this family strength…you know the pain and grief they feel…You promised to make things work together for the good of those who love you…”

  I open my eyes and swallow the lump that dominates my throat. I wait for Mike to finish and then leave him to talk to Mrs. Walker about the funeral.

  I walk around the small living room glancing at the photographs on the wall. Photos of Kent Walker, his pretty wife, two daughters and a son that resembles him. The same caramel skin and chocolate eyes. A bright, welcoming smile. The pictures evolved as the family did, baby pictures grew into baseball pictures. A professional shot of the family walking down the shoreline, their feet sinking into the sand, their dark hair windswept. I think of what my friend Mike said. He’ll have to have a closed casket service, the damage was that severe.

  Walker was the sixth man this year, so law enforcement is seriously considering this to be the work of a serial killer, that or a cult of some kind.

  I glance over to the frayed leather couch on which Lisa Walker sits and my heart aches for what she and her children are going through. What they have to endure because of the monster who killed her husband. Her small shoulders shake as she sobs into a tissue. Miranda offers her another Kleenex and a glass of water which she gulps down thirstily. Lisa’s hands tremble, but it is the tic in her jaw that I find my eyes wandering to.