Liarholic

by Kingsley Ash

  ‘No,’ I whisper, my eyes dangerous and wild as I stare at the other man, a man who does get off on hurting and lying, who enjoys every fucking moment of it. ‘No.’ The statement is more firm. I shake my head, anger snapping across me like electricity.

  I need to believe in myself and do what’s fucking right and this ain’t right. What’s right is what I feel when I’m with Amy.

  I release Bishop from my crushing grip, and lock my heart around the only one thing I know to be the truth — through all the shit and lies I made — I love Amy and fuck if I’m ever gonna forget it.

  I stumble back, and something catches my eye like a shooting star. My mum’s yellow yo-yo, tucked on a high shelf inside the caravan.

  I toss Bishop to the ground, and barrel into his caravan. He shouts something but I charge ahead.

  Inside, there’s a smell of damp. When my eyes adjust, I make out piles of hoarded rubbish. Thick fans of flattened crisp packets, piles of crushed tin cans and empty beer bottles. A single mattress with no sheet or blanket lies in the corner.

  This is where that bastard raped my mum.

  I feel a wave of sickness. I grab my mother’s yo-yo and storm back outside.

  ‘I’m taking what belongs to me,’ I tell him. ‘You’re done, Bishop. My mother can’t rest in peace until you’re behind bars. I’ll stop at nothing to make sure it’s done.’

  ‘Why don’t you fucking kill me, Shepherd?’ His voice is kind, now, friendly even, and it makes my skin crawl. He laughs cruelly. ‘Too much of a fucking coward?’

  I look at the shadow drawing of Amy on my wrist.

  There. That’s proof I’ve got heart.

  I turn to face him head on. Get my breath back. Then say, ‘Because I’m not a monster.’

  Leaving the glade, I thumb out a text message to Amy.

  I love you. I’m coming back to you, S x

  Darkness was the only thing I lived. It was reckless, like living on the edge of a blade. But then I saw . . . her. Hair shone so bright, like a star exploded in my god-forsaken world, right in the centre of my un-beating heart. She brought me back from the brink of death. She handed me a second chance.

  It’s time I start living.

  56

  ME

  Three months later . . .

  In the months passed, the woods smothered Bishop’s caravan. The door is hanging off and his mattress has been dragged outside.

  Bishop Clark, Christian Earhart, Archer and a handful of other men involved in the child pornography ring were all put behind bars.

  The June sunshine falls on my shoulders. I put down the can and climb up the steps. Inside the caravan, there’s a foxy smell. A dark reek, like a wild animal was kept inside against its will.

  The smell of yesterday’s lies.

  My boot skitters on broken glass. The floor is rotting. I kick aside bottles and fag ends, and slump down in the dirt.

  I think of a yellow yo-yo. A silver seahorse. Secrets and splintered hearts, lost toys and hidden treasure. I think of Diana, who passed away last month.

  When I empty the can of petrol, I throw a lit match. The flames catch and destroy. A raging monster. It reminds me of the thing that used to stare back at me in the mirror.

  Fire licks up the side of the caravan and over the roof. It kills the tainted.

  Kills the lies.

  The dark past twists, just like my heart, and just like that . . . is gone.

  I'll go on protecting the world for you, Amy. Not destroying the world for you. And all you have to do is keep on loving me.

  I head back home before the light goes out.

  With Amy AND MAX in my CAR, with all our bags packed and tossed into the boot, I drive slowly through Greystone.

  No way in Hell was I gonna let Max get lost in the foster-care system. I won’t let him travel the same dark road I did. Amy and I adopted Max. With wealth like mine, you can get anything done.

  The sky breaks open and summer rain taps the windows, closing us in.

  In a second, we’ll be gone, leaving Greystone’s living and dead.

  When I’m nearly out of town, I stop the car and turn to Amy. She sits silently beside me in the half-light with her sunshine hair over her face, her hands held small and cute in her lap. My mother’s seahorse bracelet wraps around her wrist, matches her necklace like it’s fucking destiny or some thing magical like that.

  ‘You ready, baby girl?’ I say.

  She strokes my check, gives the shivers. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  I grin wide. ‘That’s the best thing you’ve ever said to me.’

  I smile back at her, and she cures any doubts I have about being a good father with just her stunning eyes.

  I love that girl. I fucking love her. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life proving to her just how much she’s got me twisted around her finger and how much I love it. She shook me up. Told me to stop staring into the dark and start looking up at the stars. I’m gonna love that girl until the day I die. And then some.

  When we reach the open road, I take her hand as we watch the town, full of our ghosts, fade into nothing behind us.

  Epilogue I

  ME

  Norway, a year later . . .

  When I put my baby girl in her cot — my little Princess Viola — I toss Amy over my shoulder, step past my baby’s room, and carry her to the bedroom. As I go, I flick off the light switch, throwing everything into darkness. I know she wants me to turn on a lamp, still a little afraid of the dark, but there’s no time to ask once I put her on the bed.

  In the darkness, I’m still your monster.

  I look down at her, drink her all in.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘What?’ I say back.

  ‘What?’

  You’re so fucking cute, baby.

  ‘What?’ she says, and giggles.

  ‘Stop laughing at me, Amy.’

  ‘Stop laughing at me,’ she mimes. She hides her gorgeous little tits and that fuckable honey pussy. ‘It’s most intimidating.’

  ‘I’m not laughing at you,’ I grunt. ‘I’d never laugh at you.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘What then, baby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And move your goddamn hands.’

  She stretches her arms away, exposes her sexy body.

  ‘You’re fucking beautiful, Amy. The way your breasts frame your face, and your sunshine hair frames your tits, and your arms frame your hair.’

  ‘Always with the framing devices,’ she says, and giggles again.

  I lean down and tongue her, like her mouth is the rarest flavour of candy.

  Fucking heroine.

  Fucking addictive.

  I pull back. ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Well, look at you, all hard.’

  I kiss her, and she kisses me hungrily back, presses her pubic bone into mine.

  ‘Please,’ she tries to say, but I swallow her whole.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen you more beautiful, Amy.’

  I bring my head level with the tops of her thighs.

  ‘Please . . . ’ she says.

  ‘Baby, I’m starving.’

  For a while, I trace slow circles round her clit. My tongue’s very tip. This way. That way. This way again. For a while, she lies still. The lightest of touches, barely there.

  Time passes. The tension in her body builds. Time stops.

  I hold her on the brink of orgasm for as long as I can. When she tilts her hips up to meet me, I draw away and wait, kissing the tops of her thighs, resting my cheek against the springy softness of those tiny fair hairs. When the tension in her body subsides, I start again.

  ‘This isn’t fair, Shepherd,’ she says.

  Never leave me, Amy. I can’t fucking live without you.

  As she lies gasping and undone, I’m left wanting her soul. She looks a little scared, but it excites her. My cock stands out like a weapon.

  She draws her legs closed and sc
oots away from me, her little game she likes to play. I grip her calves, halting her escape, and drag her towards me.

  ‘No, Amy. My turn.’

  I start off slow and tender, my face against her tits. Only then I’m on her, in her, bruising her, biting her, rattling her teeth with the force of my hard wet drives, until she’s got her hands around my throat.

  Fuck me, but that's a new turn-on. My cock straight-up salutes that crazy shit.

  She stops and looks ashamed. I tell her to do it again.

  Under her hands, I swallow and say, ‘You do that and I'll fuck you any way you want.’

  I close my eyes for a moment, begin to stroke into her slowly. I can’t maintain this control, and she can’t keep her hands tight enough on my neck. Going faster, grinding at her, it keeps bringing my hand up to try to tighten her grip.

  ‘Harder,’ I say, guttural.

  ‘I can't.’

  I growl and roll over, swinging her on top of me. Amy looks down at me in shock, her hands going to my chest to keep her balance.

  ‘Choke me,’ I tell her. I take her hands and bring them to my throat, guiding them to my jugular. ‘Do it, baby. It gets me so fucking hard.’

  We’ve never been in this position. Her on top. Always under me, Amy, always mine to power over. It feels awkward but promising.

  Once I’m in her, she starts to pump against me. Rocking forward against my thick, aching cock, she rolls her hips between slow strokes. Slower than I’ve ever done. It’s fucking euphoria.

  ‘Squeeze harder,’ I moan, stroking my hands up her legs.

  ‘I can't, Shepherd.’

  ‘Harder, baby. Hard as you can.’ I press my hands over hers, squeezing.

  ‘But what if — what if I do it too hard?’

  ‘You won't do it too hard. You're worried you're gonna hurt me with those soft little hands?’

  I bring her hands to my mouth, kiss the palms, and return them to my neck, saying, ‘Look, I'll stop you if it's too hard. I figure one of two things will happen. You manage to choke me out and I'll be out for a while. No harm. Or the option I'm hoping for — you choke me as hard as you can and I'm gonna come like a fucking bomb going off.’

  She does what I say, leaning forward on my throat, gives herself up to the pleasure of having control of my cock in her. She moves against me, mindless in the pursuit of fucking ecstasy.

  The pleasure is the way I’d describe a detonation. Heat and pressure and piercing shrapnel. I feel her pant and strain, clutch me deep in her, where she aches. Under her, I grasp at the bars of the headboard, drive up hard against her, my whole body a goddamn earthquake.

  When she releases my throat, I cough and groan, ‘Holy fuck, Amy.’

  She lies on top of me, enjoying the tremors of her orgasm, of being exhausted and resting on my hard naked body. I run my hand up and down her back, smooth her soft hair, kiss the crown of her head.

  ‘I wonder if it reminds you of having your umbilical cord wrapped around your neck, if that's why you like it?’ she says. ‘Oh God, don't answer that. I can't believe I said that.’

  I laugh, clear my throat, and say, ‘I like it because having your hands around my throat makes me come real hard. You know, baby, you got some kinky fucking ideas.’

  ‘It's your kink.’

  ‘I never let anybody choke me at the MMA gym. You started it.’

  ‘Only I didn't mean it to be sexual,’ she says, and blushes like a doll.

  ‘Turns me on when you try to hurt me.’

  We lie for a bit, hands in each other’s hair, face against face, watching each other in extreme close-up. The blue flecks in her green eyes. The sadness in those eyes, though, even when she smiles. Always there, though I don’t always know what it is.

  Even when we’re the happiest together, it never really goes away.

  I’m nowhere close to the measure of her pain. I see now that Amy’s suffering is of a different order. Gulfs, chasms, continents, voids — those are the tropes that split her apart from me.

  If I could fix all your broken strings, Amy, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d die for you.

  I bought Elizabeth an apartment next door to our luxury house in Norway. Amy looks after her as much as possible. I’ve made sure her sister has a team of nurses on hand whenever she needs it. It makes Amy happy seeing her sister be able to live a normal life, that is, as much as she can with her broken brain.

  I wake up in the morning and find Amy already up, staring out at the fjord through the bay window. White dress and sandals, white straps and skin.

  Like a goddamn snow angel.

  ‘Hey baby,’ I say.

  Without turning she says, ‘There’s something cleansing about the light here, like it resets a part of you that’s got corrupted.’

  I pull her dress up over her thigh. I look down. She’s naked under it.

  ‘Really?’ she says. ‘Again? After last night?’

  ‘Yeah, baby. I’ll never be done with you.’

  We make each other orgasm with the intensity of liquid cocaine. Amy buries her face in my neck, breathing me in. Her stomach growls.

  ‘You need to eat. Want me to make you a sandwich?’ I say.

  ‘Maybe I'll have some ice cream.’ She rises on her hands and knees.

  ‘I'll get it.’

  I lift her off me and pad towards my princess baby’s room.

  I gave up smoking. Gave up dying. Made a baby instead.

  I find Viola sleeping so I don’t disturb her. I check in on Max, too, who is still asleep, then I go into the kitchen. I open the freezer and pull out a small pink and white striped carton. Virginal ice cream. Pure white with a thick cord of dark red running through it. Only the best for my girl.

  When I get back, I lie down on the bed, pull the little ice cream carton to rest in the middle of my chest, open it, and spoon some out.

  ‘Lie down. Put your head on my shoulder,’ I say.

  Only when she obeys, do I give her the mouthful of ice cream. It goes in smoothly sweet, but the pomegranate is tart on the sides of her tongue, makes her mouth water. She swallows it.

  ‘I can feed myself.’

  ‘No. There's this thing you do when I hold the spoon and you lick the ice cream that I like.’

  I give her another bite, but kiss her and make her share it. I feed her and kiss her. After a few bites, she says, ‘You know what would be good? Some water. All this ice cream and sex is getting me very thirsty.’

  ‘In a minute. You’re too fucking sexy right now.’ Instead, I give her a big scoop of ice cream just for herself.

  ‘I’m really thirsty, Shepherd,’ she mumbles with her mouth full, then giggles.

  I push up on an elbow, and roll towards her. I lift the ice cream off my chest, and look at her intently.

  I smile, then set the ice-cream carton onto her bare buttocks. The jarring cold of the ice cream makes her gasp. She fumbles behind herself to stop me. I pull it away, but use my elbow to hike her leg up over me, and press the cold between her thighs, directly against her hot pussy.

  Her voice catches in her throat. I laugh as she slaps me, and tries to wriggle free. But I hold the ice cream against her, make her shiver until her tummy hitches from the shock of it.

  ‘That sound. That little hiccup sound,’ I say, and pull the carton away.

  ‘I was going to eat that ice cream, Shepherd,’ she mutters. She squeezes her hands between her thighs.

  ‘Still edible, baby.’ To demonstrate, I retrieve the spoon from under her and eat a bite. ‘A little melted. Hot pussy sundae. Did that hurt? I didn't actually mean for that to hurt.’

  ‘No, it's just cold. You know, because it's frozen.’ She grudgingly accepts the bite of ice cream I offer.

  I reach over her and put the carton and spoon on the nightstand. I tug her against me, and press my hand between her legs. For several minutes, I keep it there, spoon against her back.

  ‘Is that better, baby?’

  ‘A little,�
� she says, my hand hot.

  ‘What about this?’ I begin rubbing her and then plunge my fingers deep into her, make her shudder. She squeezes her thighs around my hand to still it. I don’t insist, and go back to petting her.

  I press my face into her hair, nuzzle against her, inhaling. I move onto her neck, giving her soft, pleasurable kisses. I can see all the hairs on her body stand up.

  ‘I really am thirsty, Shepherd.’

  ‘Okay,’ I sigh, and get out of bed.

  When I start to pull on my briefs, she sits up. ‘Please don't put them on yet. I like you better without them.’

  I drop them and look at her curiously. The blue light under the bed illuminates me from below, gilds my muscles, makes me god-like in that mundane act of getting ready to go into the kitchen for a glass of water.

  For an instant, her gaze comes to rest on the scar on my lower torso. She quickly glances away, but she knows she’s been caught. I rest my knee on the bed and tilt her face towards me.

  Ruined just like that.

  I take her hand and hold it to the old wound. I press her palm tightly between my hand and the scar, the scar that reminds me of who I am.

  ‘You know me,’ I say. ‘You're the only person who knows me. The only one who ever has. I trust you with that. You understand?’

  It’s a confession. An apology for all the bad I’ve done to her. A declaration of love.

  She nods her answer.

  When I let her hand go and turn towards the kitchen, she says, ‘Wait. Where's your penknife?’

  I frown, but pick my trousers up off the floor. Pulling the knife from my Monster Catcher keychain, I offer it to her, handle first. My T-shirt lies crumpled at the foot of the bed and she takes it in her other hand. She turns it over until she finds the hem. When she cuts into it, rips it, I hiss, ‘Hey. What’re you doing? That’s my one good shirt.’

  ‘You'll see. Give me your hand. The left one.’

  I look at her with suspicion, but I give it to her.

  From the raw edge of the shirt, she teases out a loose thread and pulls several feet of it free.

  The hell?

  Before I can say something, she wraps it around my wrist and ties it. Unravelling more of the shirt, she gives me some slack. I can go as far as there is thread to play out, but I’m tethered to the other end in her hands.