by Kingsley Ash
‘Just like that? No fight?’
‘I can’t cut off my heart. I’m not you.’ She looks down at her bare dainty feet. ‘I just want peace.’
Something you could kill your way to . . . that’s how I see peace, Amy.
Whole lot of silence after that.
Finally she says, ‘You’re vile.’
‘Tell me something I don’t already know.’
Her eyes are jewel green, hazed in mist. ‘I thought you were beautiful when I first saw you at the children’s home.’
She never flatters me, not since I hurt her. And a slow, sickening feeling comes on me.
‘Is that so?’
‘When I was fourteen, I used to love you.’ She says it all in a cold, steady voice, and it stabs like sharp icicles in my heart.
I pin her against the wall behind her, and snarl, ‘Used to love me?’
The air around us is heavy, rage brews in my gut.
‘Yes. Imagine that. Little fourteen-year-old me — in love and thinking about you.’
It’s the closest she’s come to showing me any real feelings. But she uses it in the past fucking tense.
‘What do you think that does to me, Amy, hearing you used to love me?’
‘What do you think it does to my heart?’
The problem is, that as good as it feels, as much as I want to lean back and get off on her submission, I can't. Because she looks at me from under her eyelashes. Looks at me with my damned soul in her eyes. She never looks at me when I — no, I never let her look at me when I go over the edge of ecstasy. And now she won't stop looking at me. It knocks me for six.
I clench my teeth, damp down the anger. Pride — that’s my cardinal vice. Not wrath. Pride. The one sin from which all others stem. Yeah, I can be the greedy man and the mean man, the envious and the enraged man, the licentious and the vicious man, but it all spirals down to pride. To the mortal sin of playing God. Of being a complete arse to the only girl I fucking love.
I keep my face neutral and fix my raw eyes at the butchered flowers on the floor.
The ache fades and the pleasure comes back so intense I want to eat her alive. For the first time I have to give chase, like a wolf after prey. I take her to her bed, and her tears are hot and delicious in my mouth.
This ‘thing’ between us, the chemistry, it’s fucking toxic. I know my body is some kind of painkiller, a poisonous addiction, a fix she needs when it hurts too bad. It’s like a knife to my chest but I’ll let her use me. Take whatever I can get. Give whatever she needs. I’ll feed her addiction.
I make her hurt, knowing I’m the one she needs to make the pain go away.
When I'm inside her, she's crying so hard, her sobbing clutches at me so tightly, it feels like a supernova when I come.
I live my life in the Artic. Like a vampire, there’s no place for sunshine in my world.
Sunshine is a fucking killer to dead souls like me. All the same, I’m like a wasp to the biggest flame.
I don’t care if Amy hates me, forever. All I want is for her eyes to stay alive when I’m there. If she loved me again, would the darkness in my soul be converted? Or would the scar her soul has left in me, fade?
17
YOU
MOVIE NIGHT on the following Sunday seems like a costume ball.
Scarlett dresses me up as one of them. Laced into a tight yellow dress, it serves my breasts up like dinner on a platter. Shepherd treats me like a doll, and now, I feel like one, too.
We sit downstairs in the recreational room. Everyone is here, except for Daisy and Max. A few members of staff join us, including Rebecca who passes around popcorn.
Half-way through the horror movie, at the exact moment when the masked serial killer is murdering his first victim, lightning strikes outside Swan Lake and the glittering chandelier above us sparks and dims. It turns the air electric and plunges us all into darkness for a few seconds. In the midst of it, Shepherd’s eyes are moonbeams on shattered glass. He’s leaning against the doorway. The expression on his face sends chills up my spine. The girl in the movie screams.
‘Come here, Amy,’ he says, but his glare is pinned on Jason, a male member of staff who’s watching the film with us.
I hesitantly walk over to Shepherd, feeling everyone’s eyes glued to my back. He steps just outside the recreational room and I follow him out into the foyer.
‘You forgot to tell me we were going to a party, Amy?’ he says, grinning madly. He wears what he always wears, that black shirt, black jeans and heavy boots, and his heavy silver belt. He’s powerfully built and loose-limbed like a cat. Hypnotising to watch. From a distance. He’s too close so I take a step back. His grin drops.
‘Guess my invitation got lost or something,’ he says, and then he is chest to chest with me, breathing in my face. Softly, like a lover's endearment, he whispers, ‘Nice dress. Is this what you're doing when you refuse to come to my sessions, Amy? Showing those lovely tits around?’
‘I’m watching a movie with my friends.’
He’s looking at me with something I’d take as adoration from another man. From Shepherd, it always seems to precede the urge to devour.
‘Did you come here to humiliate me?’
‘What're you saying, Amy? You ashamed to be seen with me?’
‘No, that’s not what I meant . . . ’
‘You look so beautiful. Think I’m suddenly in the mood to watch a film.’
I suddenly feel like I’m the next victim in the horror movie. I hurry back to the sofa where Lilac and Annabeth sit, and kill any chance of Shepherd sitting next to me. He levels me with a hard glare as he drops down into a vacated sofa chair. And I just look at the safe places — walls, corners, the spider webs. Anywhere but him. He’s slumped back like he sits on a throne, watching me so that I can’t watch him. I feel his gaze, too hot.
I pretend I’m fully immersed in the film, but ten minutes later, I take a chance to look at him. All the world. With me to witness it. To witness his boredom. And he is bored, staring at the television screen as blankly as I do. He drums his fingers on the chair, casts a dark look at Jason.
Scarlett rises from her seat and approaches Shepherd. She sits down next to him, crosses her legs, her body an inch away from his.
Why are you jealous? You shouldn’t care.
‘Do you like horror movies?’ she asks in a seductive tone.
I feel a hurricane of jealousy inside my chest, and hate how easily I lose control of my emotions because of Shepherd.
I shouldn’t care.
I try so hard to ignore these feelings stirring inside, burning high. But it’s like trying to put out fire with gasoline.
In this moment, he turns his gaze to me, captures my eyes triumphantly as he speaks to Scarlett. His smile is cruel. He doesn’t bother to look my friend in the eye as he says dispassionately, ‘Quit embarrassing yourself. And do me a solid — find some other place to sit. Cheers.’
Lilac and Annabeth don’t hide their sniggering and I can feel Scarlett’s embarrassment like it’s my own. She moves away from Shepherd and sits with a red face.
I feel his dark eyes boring into me, but I’ve already returned to staring at the television screen.
Through my haze, I hear the snap of fingers. Hear his voice, ‘Amy.’
I don’t move. Don’t turn my head, but it doesn’t matter. He’s towering over me.
‘Word in private,’ he says. ‘We’ve got matters to discuss.’
I let him take me into the foyer, hear the whispering gossip as he closes the door behind us.
‘Did you have to be so vile to Scarlett? She didn’t deserve that.’
‘Don’t act like you don’t care she was coming on to me.’
I pretend I don’t care what he does and who he does it with, but I very much do care. It’s just, I know if he slept with another girl, then it would all be over between us. I could fade into grey and vanish completely.
‘You ruined movie night with my
friends and embarrassed Scarlett. That’s the only thing I care about.’
He levels his gaze with mine. He wants something and I’m sure he will never get it. It’s the way his eyes reflect light, always seeming empty, never satisfied. Sometimes it’s as simple as hunger, but as often, it’s the reflection of something lacking. Something unattainable. He’s getting angry, I can see that, but I don’t look away. I want him to see his emptiness, his unattainable thing, in my eyes.
I don’t resist when he reaches for my hand, and takes me up to his room.
18
ME
I DRAG HER up the staircase, get her to my bedroom before I come undone, and rip that dress off.
She’s cunt-wet and eager for me. Knowing how lathered she is, gets my cock hard.
‘That’s Scarlett’s dress and you’ve ruined it,’ she says.
She's so mad, she actually grabs my hand to stop me from tearing it some more.
She's not letting up with her hand and things are starting to feel a little tingly in my head. It's almost like I can see her normally. The way I saw her before I fed her to the wolves. She's got this halo around her and her cheeks are pink and her hair's more golden than blonde, not white at all. And those eyes. Puts that lousy little moon in the sky to shame. Makes me want to leave my soul in them. Let her scorch it all over again.
‘Didn’t think it was your speed. And I’m not fucking you in some other girl’s skin. You might not give a shit but I do.’
‘You don't want to ruin my body. You want to ruin my soul and you think you can get at it this way,’ she gasps.
‘You think I don’t want to ruin your body?’ I put my mouth to her ear. ‘You keep looking at me like that and I’ll never let you leave my bed.’
I grab her face and pull her into a hard kiss. She kisses me back like my tongue is liquorish and she’s addicted.
Then I'm in her.
I drive into her on the rug of my bedroom floor, trying to forget what her eyes look like.
Her and her ghosts.
‘You think I don’t want to ruin your body?’ I growl, and pound her pussy so hard, it rattles even me. She doesn't answer, except for the wet, gasping sound that's her panting and desire.
Oh, she's tight and bloody-wet and trembling under me, and if I keep it up I'm gonna come fast. I reach between her legs and try for my new favourite bit of brutality — making her ache with guilt and feel fucking ecstasy at the same time.
I put the king in fucking. I won’t stop fucking her until she’s crowned my queen. Until every man in the world knows it’ll be their death if they even look at her wrong.
‘You’re mine, Amy. No man is ever gonna touch you again.’
She wraps her legs around me, as tight as her hands grip my neck. I feel her whole body shake when she comes over my hand. It doesn't take long with her choking me, but damn if my legs don't buckle when I come. Feels that fucking amazing.
She cries after I’m done, sobbing into my shoulder, hating me and clinging to me for comfort, still trembling from her orgasm.
‘I think about you all the time and I can't figure you out, Amy. You let me take you to my bed, knowing I’m not gonna be nice. Most of the time I don't even want to be nice. There's this sound you make right when I first hurt you that scratches a serious itch for me. After, I'm usually sorry I did it, but while I'm doing it, you look so beautiful and it's so fucking sweet.’
19
ME
When TUESDAY twilight hits, I come back from The Valley to find Amy jittering outside her room door. Doing her checks.
She’s wearing a baggy white sweatshirt. It looks like she’s lost some weight, or maybe it’s just the big clothes.
Amy’s locked up like a princess in a nightmare. It’s starting to feel like I’ll never rescue the girl who made me a happiness machine.
Just when I’m about to call her out on her OCD, Max bumbles into the picture. He’s slouched over in the foyer.
‘Shepherd,’ he shouts up at me, ‘why don’t you like Cheshire?’
‘I like the cat.’
Another lie cashed into the bank.
That furry shit sneaks into my room when I open the door. Can’t get Goldilocks to piss off. The little git keeps covering my room and clean clothes in ginger hairs.
‘So why don’t you care that he’s dead?’ Max says. ‘You are the owner. You should take care of all the people who live here. That’s what mummy says your job is. Cheshire is a people who lives here, too.’
‘He isn’t dead,’ I tell him. ‘Now go back inside your room and wait for him.’
I want Max to get lost. I don’t want Amy to finish her checks, run into her room, lock it. I don’t want her to get away from me.
‘He hasn’t pooped today,’ Max says. ‘He always poops first thing in the morning and I can’t find him.’
I stand facing him with my arms crossed. ‘Look, I don’t know. You ever thought he hasn’t been to the toilet yet?’
But Max is serious. ‘He is dead.’
‘He isn’t.’
‘He is. Have you seen him around the building today?’
‘No. I’ve been out.’
‘What about yesterday?’
‘I wasn’t here much yesterday, kid.’
‘Exactly. You’re a poor witness. He’s dead.’
‘Max, Cheshire isn’t dead.’
Not like his dad or my mum.
‘Kid, go back to your room.’
Max runs into his room and slams the door. I feel Amy’s eyes burn mine with boiling water.
‘What?’ I spit.
‘Nothing.’
My back to the foyer, I hear the front door open, can hear the howling February wind come in from the outside. Max must’ve gone outside.
‘What?’ I say. The way she looks at me makes my eyes scratch.
‘Maybe . . . maybe you could not jump right in and tell him he’s wrong, when you don’t know if he’s wrong.’ She starts picking at the chipped paint on her door. ‘I haven’t seen the cat. Where is it?’
My back hits the wall behind. The cold seeps through my leather jacket and I scowl. ‘Maybe it’s gone back to Wonderland. Hell, like I care.’
Through the front door, I can hear Max ring the bell. Percussive, old, like a school bell. The vibrations knock around inside my head.
I hear Amy swallowing as though something thick blocks her throat. I can hear a crow croak from outside.
Max rings the bell again. No other sound from the estate.
‘The cat has a life,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it mating season?’
‘Maybe so.’
‘You think Max is right?’
‘I . . . I just don’t think he’s necessarily wrong.’
The bell is still ringing through the wall. Max must be leaning against the bell push. Amy’s watching me.
As a young kid, I saw the world differently. I never knew my dad, but I missed him. Missed the missing parts of me. Sometimes that made me angry. When I got angry, I kicked off. When I kicked off, the children’s home shut me away in the cellar until the next day. That is what they always did.
‘Jesus Christ, alright. Okay,’ I say.
I go outside and find Max. He’s leaning against the brass bell push.
‘Kid, didn’t mean to shout at you, alright. We good?’
‘It’s okay. We good.’ He takes his weight off the bell push. The ringing stops. Then he fist-bumps me. ‘Do you think he could be dead, though?’
I look across the courtyard. Devil’s Thirst looks haunted, like some monster lurks underneath the lake. The bitter coldness of the day lies heavy in the air, the sky a dirty grey, the atmosphere thick. In an hour, the sun will be down.
‘Look, Max-man, he’s fine. I’ll help you look for him. Amy too.’
I order Amy to help us search. Screw her checks. They can wait. Twenty minutes later, I find Cheshire in the back garden, stuck up a willow tree. Max sprints my way. I’m cradling the cat like it’s so
me kind of furry baby. I extend the filthy animal out with my hands.
‘Take it, it stinks,’ I say to Max.
Max grabs the fur-ball, and squeezes Cheshire so hard, I think he’s gonna strangle the thing. But then Max plops Cheshire onto the grass and lunges at me with a hug. He holds me so tight, like the kid’s scared I’m gonna be off in the wind.
Shit.
The way Max is starting to look at me unnerves me. Like I’m some kind of father figure.
How the hell can that happen in the space of a few weeks?
When Amy excuses herself and locks herself up in her tower, she leaves me and Max alone in the foyer.
‘I call Amy, Mamy. Like Mum and Amy stuck together. Amy said I was real clever with that. Anyway, Harry has two mums but they live together. Mary May said it was sin. But Mary May always talks funny, like from the bible and stuff. But she’s not even Christian, she’s Jewish. Mary May is all kinds of weird. Anyhoo, can you be like my Bro-Dad? You’re too cool to be called Dad. Then I’ll have two mummies and one cool daddy. I’ll be the richest kid in the world.’
The kid breaks my fucking heart.
20
YOU
Some weekends are good. Others, not so. Certain dates are good. I can only go for walks around the lake on even-numbered days. If the 13th falls on a weekend, I can’t do anything at all. On odd-numbered days, I can exercise, but only if it’s raining.
All of this is to keep the pieces of my brain together like a jigsaw. Day and night, my brain is like an old movie reel, playing back bad moments, and future moments where bad things might happen. It’s like watching a horror movie over and over again, without ever becoming immune to the terror.
If I can get things right, do things in the right order, check things properly, follow the rhythm, then the pictures pause for a while.
If I can get out of my door and know for sure everything is safe in my room, then I’ll get a few hours where the worst feeling I have is a dim rattle in my chest. As though something’s amiss but I can’t put my finger on it. More often, though, I do the best I can with the checking and, assuming I make it out of the estate at all, I then spend the rest of the day fretting about whether I did it right. Then the whole day will be filled with these stories of what might be waiting for me when I get back to my room.