Pray for Darkness (6 page)

I do. I don’t know why. I give him yet that other victory as he claims me, marking me where no one else can see.

His cock keeps pushing into me. It never stops. A slick, wet knife cutting through me. It should feel sharp. It should feel more painful. But my body was designed for this—to welcome, to please, to acquiesce—even when I don’t want to. He’s raping me, and all I can think is that my body was made for this.

“Sasha,” he whispers.

Hearing my name draws me from the dream, back into this reality. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see him as Trev. I don’t want to see him as anybody. I don’t even want to be here, in my own body. I don’t want these memories. I don’t want this.

But sometimes what you want doesn’t matter, only what you need does. Some sick part of me revels in my misery. It takes my memories and twists them into this moment until the two are inextricable.

Until I don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream.

Until the entire world is a nightmare.

***

Trevor

My eyes are shut. I don’t know if she’s still screaming or if it’s just my ears ringing.

Her body is shaking, but she isn’t fighting. There’s no strength behind it. She’s just flopping, like she’s shooing away a fly, or is just so damn tired she can barely make her body move anymore.

This is what she wanted, wasn’t it? This is what she asked for.

But it isn’t. It can’t be. No one asks for this. No one who truly asks for this wants it, right?

I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. Should I stop? Will she hate me if I stop?

I bite her neck. It’s salty. I don’t know if it’s her sweat or tears, or mine. I dig my fingers deeper into her skin, holding her still as I thrust faster and faster.

I just want it to be over.

Please God, let me finish fast so this can be over.

***

Sasha

When I think of that sick fucking asshole, that disgusting nasty piece of shit, my legs start to ache like I have cramps. Then my stomach cramps like I’m constipated. I get sick, so fucking sick, like I’m going to throw up everywhere. It hurts. It just hurts so goddamn much and it never stops. It’s like I’m sinking into that pain. It’s like I’m being pulled underwater and that strange ringing fills my ears, and I feel like the world is larger than it is, like there is more space between me and every object around me, like I’m truly alone in an ocean within myself. Panic breeds in all that empty space, clawing through my skull, making that terrible ringing so loud that I feel like I’m going to throw up everywhere.

I want to sink further into the places where it hurts. I want to sink faster so I’ll drown and I won’t have to feel anything anymore. But no matter how far I fall, I don’t drown. It just gets darker. That horrible, disgusting sound gets louder. And I disappear beneath all that pain, all that panic, until there is no human left, just a scarred, scared, desperate animal rotating endlessly between clawing at the water as it tries to swim to safety and giving up.

There’s a reason why I picked Trevor.

I don’t want to think about that reason.

I shut my eyes and dig my hands into the mattress, screaming, screaming, screaming for it to stop and it doesn’t.

It never does. He just keeps thrusting, pace never changing regardless of whether I fight against it or just lie back and take it, groaning with a pleasure that makes me sick, his tongue so far down my throat I can barely breathe.

He cums deep inside me, filling me up so deep that it feels like his semen is swimming up into my stomach. Like its climbing into my heart. Like I have something tainted inside me. Something dirty. Something that’s infected my blood and become a part of me. Something I can never wash out.

Chapter 6

Trevor

Her body is damp and still so soft. She lies against me in the way I’d dreamed she would when I walked up to her apartment earlier today, in the same way I’d imagined she would ever since I was old enough to fantasize about such things.

I used to think that the worst thing that could happen was that I’d never have her. That thought drove me crazy. I hated my brother so damn much for taking her way from me, and then I hated myself for being selfish. After that it wasn’t very long before I hated this unrequited love almost as much as I clung to it. I prayed that she’d one day break his heart and she’d turn to me. That it would be him alone in his room, haunted by images of my body and hers twisting together, holding his pillow and staring at the ceiling as he imagined how it would feel to hold her soft, damp body next to his after making love to it.

I would have gone behind his back at any time to have this. If I’d had the opportunity, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. No matter how much I loved him, I wanted her more. I’d loved her before he did. That was my justification, my claim. I thought I’d do anything, anything at all, if it meant I could have her.

And I guess I was right.

That was what scared me most—that I truly had no limits. I’d become a monster if it meant she’d let me touch her. I
had
become a monster. Maybe there was a better way. Maybe, if I wasn’t so damn desperate, I could have found it instead of hurting her.

My hands flex. I almost touch her shoulders, but luckily stop myself just in time. I can’t bring myself to touch that beautiful, soft body I’d always dreamed of touching. Not when I’d treated it so cruelly, and not when she’d wanted me to.

I get off the mattress. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even glance my way as I step into my jeans and zip them up. Well, if she isn’t going to look at me, I’m not going to look at her either. It’s a childish impulse, but one I can’t stop.

So instead of looking at her, I step toward the drawn metal blinds and stuck two fingers in between them to create a small hole. I stare out it at the distant city lights peeking above the trees for what seems like forever.

Forever is a long time, and a hell of a long time to go without a cigarette. I reach into my pocket.

“Are you gonna smoke?”

I freeze. “Yeah,” I say hesitantly. “You want one?”

“Don’t smoke in here.”

Me smoking never bothered her before, but oh well. I sigh and look out the window again, and when I can’t take it anymore I look back at her.

Her back is to me. She’s looking at the wall. Looking at nothing. A beautiful shadow falls below her left shoulder blade over her delicate spine. She’s so thin that it looks otherworldly, almost like it’s really a wing.

I wish I could draw it. I wish I could run my lips up her spine, kissing that shadow. I want to feel her heart beat faster beneath my mouth. I want to feel her tremble as she moans with pleasure beneath my hands.

I want, and I want, and I want. I don’t want to want anymore. Wanting doesn’t help me or her. Never, in all the years I spent alone yearning, did I wish that I could stop loving her more than I do right now.

“Put on some clothes.”

***

Sasha

His cruel, cold words slice through me.

Put on some clothes.

Spoken like I’m distasteful. Like he can see all the dirty pieces inside me. Like he’s really saying,
Put on some clothes so I don’t have to look at you. You’re stained and disgusting. You need to cover your filthy skin.

I hug my chest.

I hear footsteps behind me, going further away. Is he going to leave?

A door swings open. Dim light spills out, making my shadow on the wall more prominent. His footsteps sound a little louder on the vinyl. He turns on the sink.

There’s splashing for a few moments. He’s probably washing his face. Then, he turns off the water, and nothing.

Is he staring at himself in the mirror, wondering what he’s become? Or is he just watching the water drip from his face into the sink, trying not to look at his face or think about what I just made him do?

Footsteps again. He turns off the light. I hear him make his way to the bed.

“You still haven’t put on any clothes.”

His voice sounds even more dismissive than it did before.
You’re still dirty. You’re still dirty. You’re still dirty and I can’t stand you.

He sits as far away from me as he can while still being on the mattress. We remain like that, me watching the wall, trying to be still and quiet as my nose runs, and him, just sitting, doing nothing. I don’t know what we’d even say to each other. What words are there for what just happened? What words can be used to move past it?

“Are you going to say anything?” he asks. “Do anything?”

No
. I shut my eyes, trying to shut him out. I focus on the rickety fan above, the sweat cooling on my skin, the sticky, sinful stain he left between my legs.

His hands slide into my ankles as he leans back. He tenses, as if he’s about to move or expecting me to, but neither of us do.

“Sasha, please say something.”

I can’t
. It sounds like I’m sniffling when I breathe through my nose. I fucking hate that. But once I open my mouth I’ll have to talk, won’t I?

Tentatively, he runs his hand over my ankle. He’s seeing how much he can get away with—whether or not I’ll push him away.

“Do you still want me to stay, Sasha?” His voice, like his touch, is soft. It calms and warms me.

“No,” I whisper.

He stops rubbing my ankle. “No?”

It’s a struggle to speak again. My throat feels raw, like it’s full of broken mirrors, but I have to answer. He’ll stay if I don’t. “I don’t want you here.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want me to leave.”

“That was before.”

His hand tightens around my ankle. I don’t even think he’s aware he’s doing it. “So you wanted me around just long enough to fuck.”

It’s not a question. He already knows the answer. He just wants to make me say it. So I do. “Yes.”

“You’re throwing me out?”

I stare at the wall as he removes his hand. “What do you want me to say?” I ask.

He exhales a curse as he stands. He gathers his shirt off the floor. His feet slide into his shoes. He doesn’t lace them up. And then he stands there, waiting for something I can’t give him—something I doubt I can even give myself.

“Fine,” he whispers. “Fine.”

He shuffles on his feet like he wants to say something more, but he doesn’t. After a few more seconds he walks to the door of my apartment and leaves.

I hear him stomp down the first few stairs. Then he’s too far away for me to hear anything from him again until the car starts and he pulls out of the lot so fast the tires shriek.

I roll onto my back and watch the fan above. I kick off the rest of the sheets, spread my legs and rest my hand on my cunt. I don’t push my fingers in. I don’t stimulate it. I focus on how warm my palm is and how my cunt throbs beneath it.

Yes, he was there. Yes, I was able to take it. And while I didn’t conquer the pain and couldn’t stop myself from falling back into those memories, I’m now empty. Purged. The shame I felt and my disgust over what just happened left when Trevor shut the door, leaving only a dull, physical pain I can endure, and an emotional numbness that obliterates my fears and resentment.

For a moment I don’t care about what happened and I don’t care about my body. I don’t worry about transcending the pain or redeeming myself. I feel only an emptiness in which horror and pleasure do not exist, in which I am completely alone and perfectly numb.

For the first time in weeks or months or however long it’s been, I fall asleep and am not woken by nightmares.

Chapter 7

Trevor

A day has never passed this slowly.

A day has never felt this empty.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I remembered the feeling of her body so close to mine and I’d start to get hard. I’d remember the circumstances in which I’d taken her and I’d just fucking hate myself. I probably should have masturbated, but the thought of doing that disgusted me too much. After three sleepless hours I got out of bed and started working. By the time my roommates were up, my fingers were stained with ink, my clothes were covered with charcoal, and I had papers—large, small and ripped apart—depicting god-knows-what scattered all over the floor.

JC opened my door at six. “Hey, did you take the last—”

I crumpled the corner of the paper I was working on in my fist. He stopped talking.

I got to my feet and brushed off my pants, getting gesso on my palms. About five minutes before I’d decided it would be a really great idea to cover my pillowcase in gesso. It hadn’t been a good idea—not meaningful or beautiful or innovative—it had just been fucking stupid.

JC took a step forward, right onto a picture I’d done earlier of a guy screaming as nails were being hammered into his face. “Uh…sorry for stepping on it.”

“It’s alright.”

“Yeah.” He inched back and took a look around the room. “Uh, you feeling okay man?”

I almost laughed. If I weren’t so tired, I probably would’ve. I felt like someone was hammering nails into my face, and though I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror since I’d washed it at Sasha’s, I’m pretty sure I looked like it too. “No. I’m not.”

JC gulped. “You wanna…talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay,” JC whispered. He was a great guy but not really a talker. “Ian ate your last strawberry poptart, but I’ve got a chocolate one if you want. I can make it for you.”

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

He frowned. “You sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”

I smiled that time. I must have really looked like shit if JC was trying that hard. “I just want to be alone for a while is all. Got some work I need to finish.”

He nodded and stuffed his hands into his jeans. “Okay. Well, we’re out here.”

“I know.”

He walked out of here at least three hours ago and since then no one has disturbed me. He’d probably told my other roommates something was up. Well, it was better that way. This wasn’t the sort of thing I could talk about with anyone.

My hands shake as I gather the papers off the floor. They’re horrific images, full of twisted limbs, harsh angles and long shadows. The abstract ones are the most frightening—the ones where I fill the entire sheet with violent lines that run of the page and dark, circular abysses. They don’t look like a human made them. They’re full of raw, primal, alien feelings. It looks like I was exercising a demon and looking back, I guess I kind of was.

It didn’t work, though. I feel worse now than I did before because I know I’m completely powerless.

The front door closes. The clock beside my bed reads 4:40pm. That must be Ian going to his job, which means I’m now alone in the townhouse.

As I stand, my phone goes off. It’s
Black Magic Woman
.

You have got to be fucking kidding me
.

I kick open my door and walk into the hall.

It keeps ringing.

Don’t you dare turn around. You’re fucking hungry and fucking tired. You don’t need to talk to her right now. You need to eat JC’s nasty chocolate poptart
.

When I reach the kitchen, I turn around and run for the phone. My finger fucking shakes as it swipes the screen, but it’s too late, it’s already gone to voice mail.

Thank fucking God.

I set the phone down, walk to the fridge and grab a few beers. I sit on my bed and prop my feet up on the chipped coffee table in the center of my room. One of my roommates, Danny, had gotten it from ex-girlfriend—or, more accurately, she’d thrown it out her window when she’d found out he’d cheated on her. Don’t know why I kept this kind of shit.

I open the beer and start to drink. The cold liquid sliding down my throat is calming and soothing, but not enough. I want to forget. I need to forget. I take another drink, and then another.

The cell goes off again.

My entire body tenses.

Black Magic Woman
.

She’s calling again. Why the fuck did she have to do that? I’ll get back to her when I want to, and I don’t want to right now. I may never want to again. And I remind myself of all the reasons why as I pick up the phone.

I bring it to my ear and say nothing.

“Trev,” she whispers, voice sultry and beautiful, so damn beautiful that I want to break it. I want to break everything until I don’t feel anything anymore.

Instead, all I say is, “Hi.”

“I need you.”

My hand shakes. I set down my beer because if I don’t, I’m going to hurl it at the wall.

I know she needs me. She needs me because she knows that no matter how scary or messy things get, she’s in control. She needs me because I want her so fucking much I’ll let her do anything to me, because I’m willing to become anything for her. She doesn’t want to just break herself with this. She wants to break me, too. That’s the real reason why she didn’t tell Brian. She knew that he’d never put up with it. That he’d never do it. Or maybe he would, but she wasn’t willing to ruin all the years of good memories she had with him like she was willing to do with me because I meant less to her.

“Will you come over?”

How does she have the fucking nerve to ask me that? I shut my eyes. I promised myself I wouldn’t after last night. I promised myself I’d never do that to myself or her again.

That promise means nothing. All my good intentions mean nothing.

“Yeah,” I tell her, hating myself and all of my damn urges and all of those stupid dreams I’m slowly destroying. “I’ll be there.”

***

Trevor

It’s a beautiful, warm sunny day with not a single cloud in the sky. I knock on her door and she opens it, flinching as she squints.

“Come on,” she says, drawing me into the dark room. She shuts the door behind me, and for a moment I can’t see. Her blinds are drawn again.

“Do you mind if I turn on a light or something?” I ask.

“If you really want to,” she says.

She obviously doesn’t want me to. Well, that’s alright. My eyes will adjust in a few seconds. “It’s hard to see in here,” I explain.

“Oh sorry, I just…I don’t like it when it’s so bright, it reminds me of the sun.” Before I can ask her anything else, her hands slide under my shirt and up my back. I shiver as her lips hit the nape of my neck. “Thank you for coming.”

My eyes finally adjust to the dim light, but I don’t want to see anything. Not the way she refuses look me in the eyes when I turn around. Not the way her hand shakes as she brushes the hair behind her back so her neck is exposed. Not the perfect, beautiful form her lips take when she asks me, once again, to hurt her.

I do as I’m asked. All I can thinks, I don’t want to be here. I want to remember what it was like before all this.