That Which Destroys Me (30 page)

“Shhh… Angel, I’m here. I’m always here. I’ll always be here.” I hear Wesley right before I see him. He walks deftly around the cluttered trailer and bloodied floor. When he reaches me, he scoops me up and cradles me in his big warm embrace. “Every time you fall, I’ll be there waiting to catch you. And no matter how hopeless things may seem, don’t ever give up on me—I am what nourishes. Don’t ever let them destroy you, angel. Never. Understood?”

Screams don’t wake me, the silence of them do.

My naked body shivers against the cold, wet, gritty floor. I clench my teeth when they begin to chatter. I have to keep quiet. Silent.

When I first woke up in this cold dank cell I screamed. I screamed and clawed at the dirty walls until my nails bent, broke and bloodied; even then, I continued screaming, begging for help, for anyone to help. I curbed my screams when I realized they are what feeds him. Then I silenced my whimpers after I became aware they feed him too.

It’s my silence that enrages him. My blank stare.

It’s the rust stain that causes my silence, the long rust stain running from the ceiling to the floor I blankly stare at, watching the water slowly trickle down, drip after drop.

When he slashes my skin, splitting the tissue covering my chest, stomach, legs and back, the sounds he makes are tortuous, one would think it was his skin being split. He rages and spits, whales on me with strips of barbed wire and chains furiously…while I silently stare at rust.

He unleashes his frenzied, desperate rage, battering my numb body, spatting my past at me, castigating my actions of past and present and sneering on and on about my defilement. However, all of it is in vain. My mind fractured when I saw Wesley in bed with Rachel and my body numbed the first moment my skin was flayed.

I’m uncertain what his plans are. If they end in my final death, then I only want to continue assisting in ending his plans as quickly as possible.

Whatever was left of my soul was destroyed when I fell silent. When my screams turned to whimpers, and at last my whimpers turned to silence, that was the sound of my extinction. The sound of Stella Reese ceasing to exist. All that remains now is a void. A vessel. A shell.

Every time I awake from my dreams of screams going silent, I pray that before I fall asleep again, I won’t make it. I pray for the end.

Only to wake again and stare silently at the rust stain while he strips my flesh from bone.

Chapter 38

Lost & Owned

“What he fuck are you doing here!?!” I’m flying out the bed buck ass naked and storming around that motherfucker snatching clothes off the floor on my way to the other side. With a handful of clothes in one hand, I drive the other into Rachel’s hair, yanking her naked ass off the bed before dragging her through my apartment by nothing but the wad of hair in my fist. Her feet struggle trying to stand, but my pace and the fact that she can’t walk backwards fast enough has her falling back onto her ass with every attempt.

Once I get to the front door, I swing it open before throwing her ass out by her hair with every ounce of strength I possess. After her naked body slams into the elevator doors, I toss the handful of clothes at her.

“If I ever see your ugly goddamn face again, bitch, it’ll be the last time anyone else ever does!” I slam the door shut, lock it and head into the library where I pour a scotch, slam it back, then repeat.

I sigh grabbing the bottle before sinking into my couch and muttering, “Fuck the glass.”

And yes, I’m still stark naked.

Leaning my head back, my eyes trace the intricate detail carved into the molding of the ceiling when suddenly, my mouth starts voicing the thoughts plaguing my mind, “What the fuck have I done? What in the FUCK have I done?”

Okay, I gotta calm the hell down.

Think. Last night -I force my mind to return to the unwanted snippets of last night and flip through trying to piece together what I can.

I was at Molly’s with Jude. I read his outline. But, other than remembering it was good, I can’t fucking remember anything else!

No! Shit, I was… I WAS with Stella last night. Wait. Wasn’t I?

I remember my eyes tracing her spine, the slope of her back. I remember sliding my hand from her ass to her hair. But when my fingers sank into it, it didn’t feel fine and silky like Stell’s hair, no, it felt dry and course like…Rachel’s.

“Oh my fucking God! I did! Shit!” I kept telling myself there had to be an explanation, that somehow, no matter what it looked like, there was a rational reason for why I was in bed with Rachel and neither one of us had on a stitch of clothing! “Oh my FUCK! What have I done?!?!”

You’ve royally fucked yourself. That’s what you’ve done, you stupid motherfucker!

I sit there trying to understand how I got from Molly’s to my place with Rachel for I don’t know how long. Long enough for me to polish off the fifth of scotch and talk my drunk ass into getting up and heading towards my office…for more scotch.

Hell yes, I’m sorry, but I fully intend on drinking until I can’t feel the agony and torment caused by the look on Stell’s face before she rushed out of my life, taking every good thing left of me with her.

Stumbling-slash-staggering my way from the library towards my office, my foot slips on something in the hall. Immediately I throw both arms out gripping the walls on either side to catch myself. Using both hands to brace me, I shake my head trying to clear my thoughts. When I open my eyes, I see trash - wadded up paper on the floor. I snatch them up from the floor and after scanning the first few words, I realize they’re from Stell’s file. Confusion sinks, weighing even heavier on my drunken mind.

Why would I wad that shit up? And why in the hell would I bring it from my office? It doesn’t make any sense. None.

The first thing my eyes see are both of Stell’s files wide open on my desk with more of the pages wadded up and scattered across the floor.

“The fuck?” I glance at a trash bag lying on the floor in front of my desk with broken scotch bottles spilling out. Then my confusion shifts from bearing weight to a noose tightening around my neck.

I would give almost anything to remember, or understand, what happened last night.

I flatten out the pages using the edge of my desk and start sorting them out. Half of the first file is missing and I honestly don’t know how much of the second file is because—Fucking page numbers!

After I piece the second file back together, somewhat like the game Memory, I conclude that I’ve lost a little less than half of both files combined.

“This is such bullshit! And none of this makes ANY fucking sense!” Fury, confusion, and anguish are tearing through me like a goddamn hurricane. “GAHHHH!!” I leap from my chair causing it to smash into the book shelf behind my desk, sending books, decorative globes and bookends crashing to the floor. I begin assaulting the sheet rock of my office wall, pummeling it with my fists, while splitting the skin covering my knuckles; but I still keep hammering the goddamn wall as rage swells and swells inside, spilling over from my mind and onto my heart. I smash the wall until my fist goes all the way through it. 

When I try to yank it back through, I realize my fucking fist is stuck and I yank; once, twice—thankfully on the third yank it, and chunks of sheet rock, come out flying out.

I grab my chair up, setting it right and slump into it. I pull open my desk drawer and grab the half empty fifth, chugging it back until I need a breath. Then I set it on my desk and allow my eyes to scan what’s left of Stella’s files.

Concentrating on what I’m doing becomes utterly impossible the more I drink; but I can’t stop drinking until I forget Stella’s face frozen in horror.

So I continue to hit the bottle… Until, finally, I face-plant onto my desk and pass the fuck out.

I’m not sure what time it is when I wake up. I do know it’s dark outside. After I’ve cleaned my office of the trash, sheet rock and shredded, sopping wet files, (I may have knocked a bottle of scotch over) I place a call to the building maintenance manager and explain that my penthouse needs a little tape and float, and possibly some paint.

When I get to my bedroom door, I find more wadded paper littered on the floor from outside my bedroom to just over the threshold… Exactly where Stella stood looking at me like I’d just rammed a blade into her stomach The memory of the blood draining from her face flips the switch and suddenly the puzzle pieces click into place.

OhmyfuckingGod
!
She
found the files. She found the files, then busted into my room to confront me. SHIT! What the fuck did she say? Something about men… Of all the men? Goddammit! What was it?

Her words rush me, each syllable of each word a dagger to my heart. “
Of every fucking man to ever fucking destroy me, you’re the one I won’t live through! You fucking knew all along you motherfucker!”

Like a loop, or a scratched vinyl record, playing over and over in my mind, “
You fucking knew all along you motherfucker!”

That’s… I couldn’t be more fucked. I lost her. I knew I’d lost her when I saw Rachel in my goddamn bed. Even when I thought there was no way in hell I’d cheat on my angel, there was an explanation. I knew then, I’d lost her. And now, when I can’t even lie to myself, now knowing I fucked Rachel, and Stell charged my room knowing I knew about her past all along, only to find me in bed with Rachel?

This is it. This is the end of everything. I’ve lost my angel.

I’ve lost everything which ever mattered.

But what I can’t stand to bear, what cripples me the most, is as soon as I realize I’ve lost her forever, I realize that I have always loved her, from the moment she walked into my office for the first time with her head high, her shoulders back, like she owned everything and everyone around her.

And she did. She owned me in that moment, and every moment after.

Chapter 39

Breaking Beauty

I will kill her.

It’s obvious that my Beauty died days ago.

It’s obvious that I’m ramming my cock into a woman who has checked out - mentally, physically, and emotionally.

And it infuriates me. Ever since I sat atop our school and watched as the ambulance carried her away, I have dreamed of being not only the reason for her screams but the hand that delivers the agony behind them. The thought alone swelled my cock until it ached. Only now…She won’t even scream! Cry! Nothing! “
Fuck
!”

My flaccid cock slips from her.

Tracing the curve of her neck from her chin to the tops of her breasts with my eyes, I wonder, “Do you remember the cover photos you chose for ‘Twisted Obsession’? How does it make you feel knowing I’ve raped you as both now? Knowing I’ve defiled you as both the epitome of his ‘Obsession’ as well as the fractured silent woman portraying his ‘Twisted Obsession’?”

My fingers slowly wrap around the taped end of barbwire dried in her blood and old pieces of flesh before lashing it across the front of her body causing a new split in her skin from her lips to her cunt. “Knowing I’m the one responsible for carving you into… How did you word it? Oh yes, ‘someone in the midst of a silent scream to stop their fracturing sanity. ’ I know, it probably would have been more fitting had I used broken stained glass to flay your skin from your bones.” I sigh briefly wondering where I might obtain stained glass and glance back down at my hideous Beauty. Disappointment and repulsion flood through me.

“You broke much sooner than I ever gave you credit for, Beauty. I find it difficult to wrap my mind around how quickly you shattered.” I walk around the table she’s lying on to stand over her head and put myself in her line of vision, gripping her face with my fingertips I whisper into her ear, “Easy or difficult, nothing will ever be as precious and sacred as destroying you, Stella.”

When her eyes of every color clear and flutter then lock on mine, delight and excitement surge through my veins.

My usually worthless cock stiffens as I watch her slowly trying to sit up and other than wincing, her eyes never leave mine. My adoration of her swells as she sits up and turns her broken and bloodied body towards me, hanging her battered legs over the edge of the table. I moan when her bloody delicate hands cup my face. Our eyes remain locked. I know I’m bewitched, entranced.