Scars: Book One (12 page)

In
the dark, he was different. I felt like he was savoring and devouring me. In
the light, it was just fucking, but in the dark, it was something else. He
kissed and licked my skin, nipping on occasion like he was marking his
territory. He didn’t like kissing on the mouth, but that was something that I
made him do. That was my small triumph. My mouth searched for his in the black
of the room, and he’d try to turn his head away. But I would chase that mouth
with mine until I managed to suck and bite at his lips until he opened up and
let my tongue in to meet his. I liked how uncomfortable it made him, and that
made me all the more determined to succeed at it. For once, I felt like I was
the predator, and he was my prey.

He
got his own back though. His hand would reach between my legs to play and
caress me there. I’d try to push his hand away because that wasn’t what this
was about. I would take his dick all he wanted, but I didn’t want that other
kind of intimacy. He didn’t care though, and his hand would stay there, rubbing
against me in the way that he knew would make me react how I didn’t want to.
When I couldn’t stop it, and my body betrayed me, I’d turn my face into the
pillow to muffle my moans. He wouldn’t let me do that either though, pulling
the pillow away from me.

“I
want to hear you,” he whispered, even though his own actions were so silent.
Even as I shook my head in denial I couldn’t help the sounds that came from me,
or the way my body jerked and shivered as I came. I was glad of the dark, but I
still felt so exposed as he laughed quietly. And then we’d sleep, side by side
but never touching. Sometimes he’d wake me by reaching for me, and we’d start
our game again with me hunting for his mouth, and him caressing me for
reactions I didn’t want to give.

The
days were boring. He was busy on his cell and laptop, but I didn’t ask what he
was doing. I cooked and cleaned until nothing else needed doing, and then he’d
let me sit outside in the sun. I was untethered but he was never far away.
Sometimes he sat beside me on the porch and we’d drink coffee together.

“What
kind of animals did you have here?” I asked. I wanted to speak, my voice was
mostly unused here, and I was scared if I didn’t speak I would forget how.

He
sipped his coffee. “Cattle. But mostly they grew crops before they over
irrigated and the land became useless with too many salt deposits.”

I
ventured another question. “Did your family own it for a long time?”

“Decades.
But alcoholism and religion turned it to ruin.” He stared out at our
surroundings.

“Are
you religious?”

His
eyes darted to me, and a broad smile spread across his face. “No, Rachel. I’m
pretty sure there’s no god worth believing in. Anyway, I learned some of my
best tricks from the religious. That should prove that no god is looking out
for anyone.”

“Oh.
Were your parents horrible?” I held my breath as I clutched my coffee cup,
wondering if he’d answer.

“My
mom was okay, but my dad was a fucking psycho.” He frowned a little. “I bet
that doesn’t surprise you though.”

I
didn’t respond to that. “How did they die?”

The
frown disappeared from his face; in fact, it was like an emotionless wall had
come down on him. “It doesn’t matter. Come inside, it looks like it’s going to
rain.” He got to his feet and went into the house.  I slowly stood up and
followed him inside. He was in the kitchen sitting at the table looking at his
phone.

I
hesitantly sat beside him. “Aaron?”

“Yeah?”
His attention was still on his phone.

“How
did you become…what you are?”

He
smirked a little. “I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to talk about my
family.” He didn’t seem angry though so I kept trying.

“I
meant, how did you start doing what you do for a living?”

His
placed the phone on the table. “After my uncle took me away, I went with him to
live in the city. I got in all kinds of trouble, made the wrong kind of
friends, got sent to a few juvie detention centers and made even worse friends.
Eventually, I came to the attention of some people, and they liked how ruthless
I could be.”

“Oh.”

“Happy
now?”

I
shrugged and pushed away from the table. “What do you want for dinner?” I moved
to the kitchen counter, but I felt his eyes on me.

“Did
you think I was going to say I was like you? That I was forced to do bad things?”
I didn’t turn to look at him. “I wasn’t. I do them because I want to.”

There
was no more conversation after that. We ate in silence, and I went straight to
bed after I cleaned up. I lay in bed alone for a long time and was just
drifting off when he opened the door. The scent of liquor hit me immediately,
and I opened my eyes to look at him as he clumsily sat down on the bed and
kicked off his shoes before struggling to undress. Then he crawled across the
bed to where I lay with the sheet clutched to me.

He
looked down at me with amusement. “Oh, come on, Rachel. Don’t play hard to get.
I’ll even kiss you. You like kissing, right?” I let him gently push my hands
down and the sheet went with them. He kissed me on the cheek, before moving
over to kiss me with an enthusiasm I didn’t know he had. I kissed him back and
felt him grin against my mouth before moving back from me.

“Is
this how your boyfriend kissed you?” He murmured with an annoying, lazy smile
on his face. ”What’s his name? Flip?”

“Finn,”
I replied tightly.

He
nodded, still smiling. “That’s right, Finn. And the girl he was screwing behind
your back. Melanie? Melody?”

My
eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”

“I
do my research. I know lots of things. I know that you were going to his house
when I took you.” His hand took mine, and that’s where his eyes fell as he slid
his thumb over my skin. “Isn’t that a little pathetic?” he mocked. I didn’t
answer. “Poor, pathetic Rachel,” he murmured. “You let anyone have you. You’re
so broken, so fractured–“

 “I’m
not
,” I said, not as steadily as I should have.

His
hand lifted to my cheek, his drunken movements now more graceful. “But that’s
okay. That’s why I like you.”

I
grabbed his hand and tried to move it from my face, but he responded by
pressing his lips down on mine once more. His tongue probed for entry, and I
let it in, I let my mouth respond and react in unison to his movements even as
his words echoed in my head.

Pathetic,
broken, pathetic…

What
I was doing with him made me all the more
pathetic
, and I hated myself
for it but I didn’t stop. I kept kissing him back as his hands snaked into my
hair so that he controlled the tilt of my head like he controlled everything. He
drew back from my mouth that acted so desperate for him, only reinforcing my
disgust for myself. He held my head still with firm hands.

“You
like that, don’t you?”

I
didn’t answer, and his hands gripped my hair tighter. “Answer me,” he said
softly.

“I
like that,” I responded in a cracking voice.

He
smiled. “Be more specific. What do you like?”

“I
like kissing you,” I mumbled.

“That’s
right, you do.” He ran his thumb down my cheek and over my lips. For a moment,
I thought he might pass out, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed me down so my
head hit the pillow and then he knelt over me with his hard cock pressed to my
mouth. “Open.”

He
pushed his cock into my mouth and rocked his hips, controlling how much I took
in. I sucked and massaged him with my tongue until he came and then desperately
swallowed down his salty cum. As he withdrew, some spilled onto my lips that he
scooped up with his fingers and held out to me so I could lick it off. “Good
girl.”

Then
he rolled over to the side and switched off the bedside lamp, plunging the room
into darkness. I went to roll onto my side facing away from him, but his arms
grabbed me and pulled me over, so I was hard against him. An arm wrapped tight
around me, keeping me in place. I felt his fingers tug at the back of the
collar I wore and then he nuzzled the back of my neck, just above where the
loathsome leather sat.

“I
like you wearing this. It makes it seem like you’re mine,” he murmured, his breath
hot against my skin.

“I
don’t know why you’d want me; you don’t even seem to like me most of the time,”
I said into the darkness.

He
stroked my hair. “I like you just fine. Get some sleep.”

 We
stayed locked in that position until we fell asleep.

The
next morning he barely uttered anything to me, and he seemed to be struggling
with the effects of his hangover. Without asking his permission, I wrapped a
blanket around my shoulders and took my coffee cup out onto the porch. I was
content to sit there in the silence with the heat from my drink warming my
hands. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard the door open behind me,
and he made an appearance. I didn’t look at him, but I knew he was standing
behind me. Finally, he sat beside me on the steps.

“Look
at this.” One hand plucked the coffee from my hands and replaced it with a
phone. I cradled it in my hands as the image of my mother showed on the screen.
Her hair was cut shorter than last time I’d seen her, and she was wearing a
dress that she’d bought a few days before she kicked me out. She was sitting in
a bar, I swiped the screen, and more photos came up of her and Todd looking cozy
together as they took tequila shots, they sure were having a good time without
me.

I
swallowed. “What’s this?”

He
took the phone from my hands, looking smug. “Do you know how easy it is to get
close to people who are unsuspecting?  How easy it would be to have a shot
fired straight through someone’s brain and to walk away before anyone even knew
what had happened?”

I
hugged myself. “Don’t.”

He
raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure she’s worth your devotion. She looks like a
bitch.”

I
shook my head at him, knowing how stricken I must have looked as terror pulsed
through me. “Please don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want.”

He
smiled slightly. “I know you will.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Come
inside, I’ve run you a bath.”

I
warily got to my feet and headed inside, making my way up the stairs with him
close behind. As I went to enter the bathroom, he touched my arm. “No, in
here.” I went into his bedroom obediently and had barely taken two steps inside
when he was pulling me over to the bed. He made short work of pushing me down
before he entered me swiftly. There was no coaxing, no teasing, no attempt at
making me feel pleasure. I winced in discomfort but stayed silent as he thrust
into me, one hand gripping firmly onto my shoulder. His breathing was ragged as
he came, and he rested momentarily with his head against mine before releasing
me.

“I
just had to do that,” he muttered. I wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t an apology, or
an explanation. I think he was talking more to himself than to me. “Go on, get
in the bath.”

I
got to my feet and moved past him, semen dribbling down my thigh as he
followed.

The
water was hot and nice on my skin; I’d longed to take a bath for so long, but
this just felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. He pushed a bar of soap into my
hands. “Wash yourself well.”

I
lathered up the soap and started to cover my skin with it; it smelled like
jasmine. He grabbed a shampoo bottle and dumped an amount on my head before
pushing up his sleeves and getting to work massaging the shampoo over my scalp.
When he seemed content that the shampoo was sufficiently covering every lock of
hair on my head, he took the bar of soap from me.

“Sit
up on your knees,” he ordered.

I
did, and he worked the bar of soap over my inner thighs before pushing it up
among my wet folds and finally
in
me. He worked it in and out like he
was fucking me with it. My face flamed with humiliation, and then I felt myself
pale as I realized what he was doing.

He
was getting rid of any trace he’d left on me. My mouth went dry, and I
struggled with what to say, but he didn’t give me the chance.

“Stand
up.”

I
struggled to my feet, all the more aware of my vulnerability by my unsteadiness
and nudity. Water rained down on me from the shower head, and every bit of soap
and semen washed off me and down the drain. My heart beat rapidly as I watched
him survey me. When he seemed happy, he turned off the water and wrapped a
towel around me. I couldn’t move as he rubbed at my skin. I felt like a doll as
he moved my limbs to dry every part. I tried to open my mouth to speak, but no
words came out. He didn’t seem to notice as he dressed me, pushing my arms into
a top before pulling it over my head, then lifting my legs to pull up my
panties and jeans. The last thing he did was to make me brush my teeth, this I
could do myself, and I took my time dragging the brush against my teeth until I
spat blood.

He
pulled a comb through my hair with surprising gentleness as I cried silently.
He paused for a moment, and then continued. My brain was telling me that I
should be begging, should be doing
something
, but my body wouldn’t
cooperate, so I stayed still as he braided my hair and fastened it.

I
felt him move away, and that’s when I finally felt control of my body come back
to me. I turned toward him to speak but stopped as I saw the syringe in his
hand. I looked straight into his eyes and saw no emotion there. And then the
needle drove into my neck before I could even sob.