by Cerys du Lys
“Do it,” I say. “You know what this is, Noah. If you get blood on my white floor I will kill you. I promise you that. I will kill you right now and you will die and I will hate you forever.”
He stuffs his lip in his mouth and sucks hard. He is going to. I do not know if I want him to. I am so angry at him and I hate him and I want to kill him. I want all of his blood. I want it to spill fast from his body and soak into the carpet until the floor beneath my feet is thick with red and nothing more. I do not want to be able to walk without feeling the slick pull of Noah’s blood at my bare soles. I have told him I will kill him if he does it, and I will. That will be his punishment. I do not know if he deserves it, but I have told him.
It is his choice whether he lives or dies. I am but a mere vessel of vengeance, meting out his justice. I am not responsible for the consequences of his actions. What he does is his own choice, and what I do will be a reaction to his choosing. I am sorry, Noah, but I am not responsible. I am not. I am not! It is not... I did not... I never wanted this...
Noah is stubborn. He is vulgar and rude and he does not listen. He will never listen, he will always be rude, he will continue to be vulgar. This is who he is. I am not trying to train him to be a slave because we both know he will never be one. It is impossible. The only way I can make him into one is to completely destroy him. The only command he will ever obey is when I tell him to die and then I stab a knife into his heart. That is the only time he will listen.
I shake and tremble as I walk across the room to a chest of drawers. My hands hurt when I open the top drawer. My fingers ache and my chest constricts and my heart hurts. I need medicine. There is no medicine I can take for this, though. They do not have medicine for people like me. No one will give me what I need. What is the point of giving medicine to someone who is already dead?
I take a sharp knife from the drawer and slowly turn around. I expect to see blood on my carpet. When I see it, I will go into a rage and I will rush Noah and I will kill him immediately. I try to stop. I hold the knife with both hands and watch it shaking and trembling in my fingertips. I almost drop it, but I force myself to squeeze the handle tighter. My fingernails dig into a leather hilt that is both strong and soft to the touch.
I look. I see Noah. He is chained up against the wall, body limp and leaning forwards. His lip is in his mouth. He looks at me, so sad and hurt, and I cry.
He does listen. He did. I need it. I need him. Please, Noah. Please? Understand. Remember. I do not know how to tell him this, so instead I run towards him. I am carrying the knife, but I do not stab him with it. I drop it at his feet and I cling to him. My arms wrap tight around his strong and soft body and I bury my cheek against him and I cry.
His lips press against the top of my head. It is too much. I can’t. I need to leave. I leave. I go. I squeeze Noah tight one last time and then I leave him in my white sanctuary. He remains shackled to the wall. I turn to look over my shoulder one final time before I close the door and leave him in darkness. His bottom lip quivers and a drop of blood almost falls to his feet, but he slowly pulls it into his mouth and sucks it away.
I turn off the light. I close the door. I lock it.
Goodbye, Noah. Goodbye. I do not know what will happen to you. I do not know if I will ever be able to see you again. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I am sorry.
*** Noah
I’m in a room in the dark. That’s all I know. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I don’t know anything except that I’m in a fucking room in the fucking dark.
It’s kind of funny when you think about it. How, you ask? Well, let me fucking tell you. I’ve got nothing better to do, because I’m chained to a wall in a room in the dark, so why the fuck not?
It’s funny because if the lights were turned on, this room would be glaring with bright fucking white. Everything’s white. Isn’t that funny? Do you get it? No? I don’t either.
It’s so fucking easy, though. Life isn’t that easy. It’s fucking hard. The room is pure white and perfect, but then you flip the switch and turn off the lights, and it’s dark. There’s nothing. Is everything still white, or did it all change colors? Is it black now? With the flip of a fucking switch? Life’s not easy, and I think we talked about that already, but this room is simple.
Lights are on, and it’s bright white. Too fucking white.
Lights off? Darkness. Everything is black. I can’t see shit. I might as well be blind. Who gives a fuck?
Life isn’t like that, though. There’s tons of shit in between. Shades of grey, right? Fuck grey. No one cares about grey. There’s more than grey, you fucking asshole. There’s blues and greens and reds. Orange? Yeah, we got orange. Yellow? Fuck you, who the fuck likes yellow? It’s there, though. You want yellow? You’re a fucking piece of shit, but you can have it. It’s available.
It’s all there. Everything. Every goddamn color you could ever fucking want, it’s there.
Angeline wore blue jeans the night we watched a movie. The caramel popcorn we snacked on was stained a dark, sweet orange, with a little yellow. Fuck yellow, alright? But butter on popcorn tastes great. Caramel or not, who the fuck cares? Smother that shit in butter, seriously.
Angeline wore a baby blue shirt, too. When she took it off, her bra and panties were a deep purple. Her dead, soulless eyes are a hazel green. I’ve stared into them enough to know what the fuck color her eyes are. Don’t go making stupid ass assumptions about that shit, either. She’s trying to fucking kill me, so of course I’m going to keep an eye on her. Fuck you.
So where the fuck were we? Red? I’ve got red covered. When I had her fucking delicious nipple in my mouth, biting down hard, I saw red. Fuck, she looked excited right then. Never seen a bitch want me to make her bleed. I don’t know how to tell you how much of a fucking turn on that was.
Yeah, anyways, there were colors. To top it all off, I topped her off with my white cum. When she fucking threw me off of her and ran away with that broken look in her eyes, I saw it leaking out of her pussy and down her thigh.
I don’t need more colors. I have no colors now. I’m in a fucking dark black room. I had so much and now I’ve got nothing. Someone turned off my fucking light switch.
I thought Angeline would come back, but she didn’t. I stood there, waiting. I played her fucking head game bullshit, too. You know why? Please tell me, because I have no fucking clue. She looked serious, though. She had that knife. The knife is still here, but fuck if I know where it is. By my foot somewhere. Watch where you fucking step, alright? Don’t want anyone to get stabbed in the foot with a knife. I don’t have to watch out for anything, because my ankles are chained to the wall and I can barely move my feet. Wrists, too. Everything. I am stuck. Done and over. Fuck it.
She doesn’t come back. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. It’s dark, but not everything is dark. Everything near me and everything I can see is dark, except for a faint outline around the door. Barely slightly any fucking more than a sliver, but every so often there’s light. Does that mean it’s daytime, or did someone turn on the lights in the hall? Who the fuck knows?
I keep an eye out, because I’ve got nothing else to do. Look, wait, watch, stare at the damn door. If someone walks by when I see the light, I’ll see their shadow. That’s how I rationalize doing this crazy fucked up staring shit, but honestly there’s nothing else to do. I don’t fall asleep, I pass out. When I wake up, my fucking body hurts. You ever try sleeping while chained to a wall? Trust me, it fucking sucks. Do not add that to your bucket list. It’s not pleasant. I know it’s hard to believe, but believe it.
Nothing. Darkness. Lights sometimes, but only a thin outline centered around a door that I can’t even fucking see. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m dead. Go to the light, Noah. Except it’s God’s final joke on me. He’s up there laughing, saying shit like, “That’s what you get, asshole. Calling yourself Noah? You think that’s funny? Fuck off, prick. Go
to hell.”
Look, I didn’t choose the name. Yeah, I let people call me it, and I kind of like it, but I didn’t fucking choose this.
I don’t think God would laugh at me or call me an asshole or a prick, either. He might tell me to go to hell, but I think that’s part of his job. Nothing personal. You never know, though. It’s not like I can complain if he does. What the fuck am I going to do about it? I deserve to be mocked right now and I’m an asshole. Sorry?
You know, I never really thought this was how my life would end up. How did it all begin? I think that’s the shit you’re supposed to think about when you’re about to die. How did I end up here? That’s usually if you’re old and laying in a fucking hospital bed connected to tubes and needles and shit, though. With some mask over your face helping you to breathe? Yeah. That’s when you think about how your life went wrong. I don’t have tubes or needles or a mask, I’ve got shackles and a wall and darkness. I think I got the short end of the stick here.
There’s that flashing thing, too. Your life flashes before your eyes in the face of a near death experience. I guess that’s how it works. I don’t know. I’m an asshole, but I still look both ways before I cross the damn street, and I’ve been lucky enough not to get run over by a car.
This is more of a slow thought process I’ve got going on. I’m thinking of my life because there’s nothing else to fucking do.
What do I do in life? Everyone who’s important knows what I do. If you didn’t get it before, let me re-introduce myself.
My name is Noah.
I kidnap women, I hold them against their wills, I break them down, I hurt them mentally and physically. Occasionally, I hurt them emotionally, too. I cause them pain. I give them a reason to hate me, but I force them to love me.
You know why I fucking do that shit? Because there’s sick fucking assholes out there who are worse than me. Seriously, think about that for a second. There’s people that are worse than me, and I’m a huge fucking asshole. I deserve to be fucking destroyed, to have my fingernails ripped out, to have my head slammed against a wall, to bleed. I deserve to die, but there are some people who deserve to die more.
You only get one chance. You don’t have multiple opportunities to kill someone. Once they’re dead, that’s fucking it. They’re dead. No more. What the fuck are you going to do to them after that? Yeah, you can piss on their corpse or keep fucking stabbing them, but honestly who the fuck cares? When I’m dead, I can guarantee you I won’t care what the fuck you do to me after that. I’ll be dead. That’s it. Done.
I don’t kidnap these women because I like it. I kidnap them because no one else will do a fucking thing about it. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone else. If you can’t stop me, who’s going to stop all the other fucks who are doing the same shit? Who’s going to stop the fucking assholes who are doing worse shit than me? I don’t know. Tell me, please, because I don’t fucking know.
There’s monsters in every closet. You don’t get rid of monsters by shining a fucking flashlight on them, though. You know how you deal with monsters? It’s simple. I’m going to fucking tell you exactly how right now. You become a bigger monster. You become the biggest, most badass fucking monster, and then you fucking destroy every other monster. You fucking gut them. You fucking cut them with a knife until they resemble the confetti you toss around at parties on a lark.
You can’t be nice to monsters. You can’t ask them to stop. You can’t even tell them to stop. What the fuck, did you think that some shithole loser who kidnaps woman and sells them to the highest bidder is going to listen to you? He’ll fucking stab you in the eye and leave you blind while he goes on to kidnap your mother, your sister, your aunt, and every other fucking woman in your family.
This isn’t fucking kindergarten recess play time with rules and time limits and shit. This is black market slave trafficking. There are no rules or time limits. You can’t expect people like that to be anything but immoral fucking assholes.
You either have a monster in your closet, or you are the monster in someone’s closet. There is nothing else. That’s the only rule in this fucked up game of life.
I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t know what the rules are. I forgot that there aren’t any rules. I’m fucked up.
I’ve helped people before. I’ve killed people who are worse than me. I’ve stopped them. I’ve been the monster in a monster’s closet. How the fuck do you think I found out about them? When you have connections in the industry, it’s easy, but it’s not like I can fucking stop. If I stop, I die. Oh, you want to retire, Noah? Fuck you. Retire with a damn bullet to the head.
That’s how that goes. I don’t know what else to tell you.
The only way I can stop is if I disappear. And if I disappear, who the fuck knows what’ll happen next? You’ll have crazy people like Angeline doing crazy shit. I didn’t even fucking think to do anything to her before, because, fuck me, I thought the assholes going after women were more important to keep tabs on. Who the fuck knew that she was the worst monster of all? She was the one in my fucking closet and I never even tried to turn the lights on.
I don’t know if I believe that. I want to, but I just don’t fucking know. Maybe I’m the bigger monster, and she’s about to do the whole fucking world a huge favor. Maybe I forgot why the fuck I started doing this shit in the first place.
I’ve been trapped in a fucking room for days, in the dark, starving. My stomach rumbles with a need for food. My throat is dry as fuck and I’d give anything for a drop of water. One fucking drop.
I can’t fucking see straight, but why the fuck should I care? There’s nothing to see.. It’s fucking pitch black.
I’m going to die and a part of me can’t wait. The rest of me is depressed as fuck. This shit is fucking difficult.
*** Angeline
I lay on the chaise in my music room and listen to the harsh, atonal beats of electronic music. There is nothing in this room except for myself, the chaise, and a surround sound speaker system. The room is larger than necessary, but I enjoy hearing the echoes and reverberations as the music bounds through empty space, bounces off each of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, before pulsing through me. My heart and soul are electric; the music grounds me and plugs into me and recharges and reinvigorates my core.
It is almost sexual. I enjoy the feeling of it. Vibrations pass through me at a fast, constant rate, and I lay there, basking in them. It is as relaxing and enjoyable as sitting on the beach during a warm summer’s day, but far more controllable. I own this feeling because it is of my own making. No one can take it away from me except for myself. With a simple push of a button, the remote at my fingertips will turn the sound off and I may lay in silence.
I am hiding in here. I do not wish to leave, because I do not know what will happen when I do. I enjoy the music. It is all I have.
Noah likes watching his movies, and I enjoy listening to my music. I wonder if Noah would like my music? Will he come and listen with me?
My mind transitions to thoughts of us, Noah and I, here. The chaise is not big enough for two unless we sit side by side, or...
It is big enough if his body is on top of mine, pressed tight against me. Oh, I wish to feel it while the music is in full bloom and alive. As the music rumbles through the room, with Noah’s masculine force hidden deep within my core as he thrusts into my body, I wish to feel the pounding echoes and reverberations of the music. I wish to lose myself in sound and sensation. I do not wish to worry or fear or regret or understand pain.
I know a lot about pain. I wish I did not. It is unfortunate.
We cannot do that, though. Noah is no longer allowed to be with me. It has been ordained, foretold, and I am stupid for wanting to believe it could ever be otherwise. Noah is not nice. He is inconsiderate and hurtful and stubborn. He refuses to understand or accept or remember or appreciate. I understand this, because I am the same way, although we show
our feelings to the world much differently.
We are both dead. We both deserve to die. Noah has forsaken everything to be with me. I have forsaken everything to be with him. He did not know it. I knew it, but I ignored it. I do not know which is worse.
I will lay here and listen to music and die. I do not get up. Time passes, but the music continues. I stare up at the ceiling and cross my arms over my chest as if I am dead and laying in a coffin. I sleep and listen and hear and wait.
Noah will die, too. If he remains where I left him, without intervention he will die. If I stay in here long enough, I will die, as well. That is a comforting thought. It hurts, too. I do not know how I feel about it. I should feel gladdened and resolute, but I am not. I should accept my fate, because I am responsible for the consequences of my own actions, but I do not want to do that, either.
I do not know what I did to deserve this. I am dead, they say. I would have died, but I was rescued. Because of that, I am as good as dead. I owe everything, and own nothing. I am no longer myself, but someone else. I must separate myself from existence and accept what will be done to me without complaint. I cannot, though. I tried. I did it, and I would have continued doing it, except I did not have to. Someone else revived me. I gained a new life. This is what I have become.
I do not know what more I can do, though. Nothing. I do nothing, I have done nothing. I wait and I plan, but I do not know how to do more. I need to, because there is a strong desire within me to do so, and yet I find it difficult to do more than what I am doing. He will hurt me. He has hurt me. He will...
I will die. I am already dead. That is what I was told and that is what I believe.
My stomach hurts and my body struggles to rise. I do not know how long I have stayed here listening to music. I do not know what has happened outside of this room. When I open the door, the entire world may have disappeared.
