by Cerys du Lys
You know how fast you die if someone stabs you in the side of the throat with a knife, then rips sideways again, slicing through your windpipe? Pretty fucking fast.
Sorry, love, but you’re fucking crazy and I need to get the fuck out of here. I know said I wouldn’t before. Chastity Fucking White, that stupid bitch, tried to convince me to leave. You can’t just fucking leave, Chastity. It doesn’t work like that. You think Angeline’s just going to let us out of the fucking house? Nah...
I reach for the knife, but it’s too far away. Angeline’s sleeping body keeps me from grabbing it. I stretch and then try to grab it, but I’m still too far away. Fuck. Fucking fuck. Fuck this. I fidget and wiggle, praying to fucking God that I don’t wake her up. Belatedly, I realize maybe I should be praying to someone else. Fuck.
I still can’t reach the damn hunting knife. I try again, a little more, and...
Angeline’s hand reaches past mine, grabs the knife, and places the handle in my outstretched hand. Then she just fucking slinks back, with her head on my chest, staring up at me.
Fuck. She’s awake.
“Hello, Noah,” she says.
I’m holding the knife. She’s looking at me with the strangest fucking look and I don’t know what to do about that. Stab her? Put the knife back? What fucking excuse do I have for reaching for a knife in the middle of the night.
No. You know what? Fuck that. What fucking excuse does she have for bringing me to some bed in a bedroom that’s who knows where, and then falling asleep on me? Me grabbing a knife? That’s fucking normal compared to what she did.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks.
I stare at her and blink. “The fuck kind of question is that, love?”
“I do not know,” she says. “I wanted to know, that is all.”
“Yeah,” I say. Let’s just be fucking honest here, alright? “That’s what I was going to do.”
“You were?” she asks.
“Listen, love. I don’t know if I was. That’s what I was thinking about doing. I figured I’d grab the knife and see what I thought afterwards.”
“What are you thinking now?”
“Fuck if I know. I have no fucking clue anymore.”
She smiles at me and kisses my chest. Fuck, she’s adorable. I want to throw the knife back on the bedside table and squeeze her in my arms until she fucking squeaks and then kiss the fuck out of her.
“If you are not going to kill me, I will kiss you,” she says.
“Is that a threat or a promise, love?” I ask.
“I do not threaten people, Noah,” she says. “I make promises. I do what I say I will do.”
“Oh yeah?” Maybe this is really fucking pushing my luck, but I say it anyways. “You said you were going to castrate me, too. Lying bitch.”
She smirks at me, some delicious fucking devilish look. God, her fucking eyes. I stare at them, and I don’t know if it’s the moonlight or her fucking random teasing playful shit, but I just want to fucking look at her forever.
I’m done. This is done. Fuck. I drop the knife and go to grab her but she’s too quick. She rolls onto me and clings to me, then kisses me hard. I kiss her back. This is so fucking real it hurts. I can’t even see. My eyes are clenched shut and I’m fucking blind now, because I don’t want to see the stupid shit I’m doing. I want to feel. I want to kiss this crazy fucking psychotic bitch named Angeline.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Something bad.
I wrap my arms around her back and squeeze her tight against my chest. Holding her like that, I roll over so I’m on top of her and her back is pressing against the mattress. I want to fucking control her. I want to kiss her. I want to squeeze her beautiful fucking breasts and lick my tongue down her neck and taste her throat. She’s so fucking good.
I try to do all of that, but she squirms away from me. I don’t know how the fuck she does it. One second she’s trapped beneath me, and the next second I’m staring at an empty dark sheet. She bullrushes me and pushes me to the side, then grabs frantically at my body. We’re side by side now, no one on top of the other. I try to pull myself onto her, but she fights back and tries to do the same to me. We’re at war here, fighting a fucking battle in between the mindless groping and desperate kisses.
Fuck. You know what? Fuck you, Angeline.
I’m not getting on top of her anytime soon, so I shove my hand under her shirt instead. She’s not wearing a bra. I grab her breast hard, palming it in my hand, and I squeeze and grope and molest her. She opens her mouth, gasping in between our kisses, so I take her lip between my teeth and bite onto it. Not hard enough to make her bleed, but it makes her pause.
I pinch her nipple tight between my fingers, clamping onto it near my knuckles while I mash her breast in my hand. Her nipples are stiff. I want to fucking wrench up her shit and stuff one in my mouth. That means giving up her lip, though. Which do I want more? Nipple or lip? Usually I’d go for nipple, but, fuck, I love her lip. I love the fucking way she’s staring at me, hesitant to move, but still fighting against me in her own way. Fight me, you goddamn fucking gorgeous bitch. God, she makes me so fucking hard.
I don’t know what my battles are anymore. I lose one of them, while winning another. I’m on my back now. Her lip’s still between my teeth and my hand’s on her breast, but she’s squishing against me, making this difficult.
I give up her lip and her breast as a casualty of our sex wars, and go for something else instead. I squeeze both hands on her round tight fucking delicious ass, almost smacking it, then I shove one hand past the waistband of her pajama pants. Her bare ass feels so fucking perfect in my palm. I knead her there, then reach lower, grasping for the sweet spot between her legs.
She buries her head into my neck and whispers into my ear. “Noah, stop,” she says.
“I don’t want to fucking stop,” I tell her.
“Please,” she says. “Please stop for a second.”
Yeah, alright, fuck. I stop. “What’s wrong, love?” I ask.
What a shitty fucking question. I know what the fuck is wrong. This entire situation. Every fucking thing we’re doing.
“We cannot make love,” she says. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I got it. That’s fine, love. I wasn’t going to make love to you, anyways. I was going to fuck you hard.”
She laughs. Fuck. I’m dead. I’m dying. What the fuck is going on?
She’s laughing and squeezing me and nuzzling against my neck, pressing her beautiful lips against my throat in soft kisses. It makes my heart stop.
You watch movies or whatever fucking shit you watch, or you read books, listen to music, what the fuck ever. There’s that dumb shit about magical moments, right? Oh, it was such a fucking magical moment. I knew from the first time I met you that I loved you, blah blah blah, fuck off, romantic bullshit.
You can believe in that shit if you want, but it’s not true. I’m sorry to be the one to fucking tell you that, but it’s not. Life goes on. Oh well.
That shit’s not magical because it’s so fucking fake. It’s not real. It’s some imitation brand bullshit that people like to tell each other. You go on your first date and you’re fucking nervous, not intoxicatingly aroused. Yeah, it might be a fun date. Maybe you’ve got a connection going. What the fuck did you talk about? You like baseball? Oh yeah? Me, too! Fucking amazing, that’s astounding! Whoa holy shit!
What I’m saying here is you can have a nice time with someone and it might turn out well in the end, but it’s not fucking magical. Love is bullshit. I’ve said my piece on love before now, and I’m sticking to it. Maybe that shit’s nice, though. Maybe you do like each other. How the fuck should I know?
The magic doesn’t exist in that exact moment, it’s created by all the fucking moments after that. You just went on a date and talked about baseball? Who the fuck cares? Then you go to a game with that person, though. It’s fun. You stay home together and cuddle up on the couch
and watch the World Series another time or some shit. You go to a fucking museum with baseball stuff.
That’s where your magic comes from. It’s not that one, initial, first fucking moment, it’s all of the moments together. That one moment because special and magical because your entire fucking existence with this person has been nothing but amazing. In your head, at least. Who the fuck knows what the other person thinks. Maybe they think you’re a good lay and you’ve got a nice cock. Wouldn’t surprise me.
Anyways, my point there is that this is that, and it confuses the fuck out of me. It’s not Angeline’s laugh that makes me want to fucking drink from her nectar. Fuck, I don’t even know what the hell that means, myself. It’s not her laugh or her deceptively tender kisses or the way her nose teases against my neck. The magic in her laugh has nothing to do with any of this or her laugh. It’s a byproduct of a bunch of fucking shit.
It’s the fact that after fucking kidnapping me, biting me, slamming my head against a wall, knocking the air from my lungs, chaining me up--sometimes for days, ripping out six of my nails, licking my bloody finger like it was a goddamn cherry popsicle, and all the other fucking bullshit...
Now she’s here in my fucking arms, laughing. I don’t even know how this happened. I guess I said something funny. She’s being a playful fucking gorgeous moonlit nymph and I don’t know what the fuck to do about it.
I want to fucking fall in love with her, but I think love is a bunch of bullshit, too. I want to fucking kill her for all the crap she put me through, but I also want to shove my throbbing cock into her cunt and make fucking love to her.
Yeah, fuck you. That’s a compromise on my part. “Make fucking love” has got to be slightly better than “fuck you hard,” right? I think it’s halfway between fucking hard and making love. Don’t quote me on that. I’m making this shit up as I go.
She’s nuzzling against me still, but we’re not kissing and my hands aren’t in her pants anymore. We’re not going to fuck. That’s all I know right now. I don’t know anything else except that we’re not going to fuck. I think I’m fine with it. I shouldn’t be fucking fine with that, but I think I am. Fuck me, this is bad.
“Do you love me?” she asks.
“No,” I say, immediately.
She giggles. Fuck. First she’s laughing, now she’s fucking giggling? Where’s that knife? I don’t want to stab her anymore, I need to stab myself.
“I want you to,” she says.
Notice here, and I think this is real fucking important, that she doesn’t say she loves me. Because it’s bullshit, that’s why. I get that. I’m fine with that. That makes sense to me. I can fucking understand it.
“I love how you laugh,” I say, because I’m a fucking asshole and an idiot. “It’s cute, love. You sound happy.”
“I do not know when the last time I laughed was, Noah,” she says, but she smiles and kisses me when she says it. “I like it. Say something else that is funny to me.”
The fuck? How the fuck should I know what makes Angeline laugh? I don’t know how the fuck I did it in the first place. I’ve got an idea, though. Fuck, this is a good one!
“Lay down first, love,” I say.
She looks sad when she leans back, reluctantly laying on the bed. Expectant, though. “I want to hold--” she starts to say.
I don’t let her finish. I pounce on her and my fingers dig into the soft, sensitive flesh at her sides. She squirms and fucking laughs so hard. She kicks her feet and slaps at my hands and laughs and wriggles, but I keep her pinned to the bed. I tickle her and hold her down so she can’t escape. My heart fucking melts and I die when I see her laughing, smiling, happy tears washing down the sides of her squinting, moonlit eyes.
I tickle her until she’s only squirming by instinct now, no longer fighting and thrashing against me. Then I sink my body atop hers and kiss her softly. She kisses me back and hugs me and then I roll to the side and we’re staring into each other’s eyes.
I don’t know where the fuck I went wrong. I don’t know how the fuck this happened.
“Are you tired, Noah?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Do you wish to sleep again?”
“I don’t know.”
“I will be here when you wake up,” she says. “We will talk.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” I ask.
She kisses me. “A promise.”
Yeah, I need that knife right about now. I really fucking need it. I’m on the wrong side of the bed and we’re tangled up in blankets, though. I don’t want to get up.
“Do not hurt me, Noah,” she says.
I don’t know how the fuck she can ask me to do that after all the shit she’s done. I don’t know how the fuck she can act like everything’s going to be perfect and wonderful tomorrow. Here’s a clue in case you don’t understand: It’s not, it won’t be.
*** Noah
I wake up from a bad fucking dream. In my mind, there’s still fire and blood everywhere. The high walls are burning, fire spreading while smoke closes in on me. No. It’s closing in on us. I look over at her and she’s playing in the blood from the dead bodies. Blood covers her bare feet and her dress. I gave her that fucking dress. It wasn’t anything special, just something I got from one of my neighbors. How the fuck old was I then?
I don’t even remember how this happened. That’s not true. Of course I remember. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I remember every fucking second of that day.
I started it. I meant to end it. It was an end, but I don’t know if it was a good one. I see her playing in the pool of blood from one of the dead bodies. I killed that man, but he fucking deserved it. He was fucking terrible. He was a fucking monster.
She smiles at me, giddy, and giggles. The sound reminds me of something else I’ve heard, but I don’t know what. It didn’t remind me of anything back then; it was new and fresh and terrifying. She presses her palm into the blood like it’s red paint, then she wipes it down the front of her dress. The dress was kind of grey, but it was supposed to be white. She loves white. I don’t remember why the fuck she loves white. I remember some of the reason, but it always sounded odd to me.
She presses her hand in the blood again. She moves the corpse’s dead, lifeless head to the side, staring at him. He’s not scary anymore. She’s not afraid of him. Good.
I always thought this and I still think it: I hope he fucking rots and goes to hell.
Her hands dip into the blood again. We need to fucking leave. The fire is spreading and we need to get out of here before someone comes. This wasn’t supposed to be like this. Yeah, no, it really was supposed to fucking be like this. I planned this shit. I didn’t think she’d do this, though. I thought she’d be happy. It was supposed to make her happy.
She presses her palms against her cheeks and smiles a bloody fucking grin. Blood creeps down her face from just below her eyes, to her cheeks, to the corner of her lips. She smiles at me, wide, some huge fucking grin. She’s so pretty. Fuck. She’s not pretty now, because she’s covered in the blood of a guy I killed, crouching there and fucking playing in it, but...
I can’t stop looking at her. She’s smiling so wide and the blood slips down her cheeks. A thin stream escapes the rest and falls down the side of her nose to the middle of her lips. One drop falls onto her lower lip. She instinctively licks her lips to clean it away. Another drop follows. More. She’s fucking devouring it. She puts a finger in her mouth and licks it clean, then another one, and another, and I don’t know what the fuck to do anymore.
We need to go. I run towards her and grab her bloody hand and pull her to her feet. We flee like fucking criminals. You know why? Because we’re fucking criminals. The walls around us burn and I hear a ceiling beam high above start to crack. I run with her. We run.
I’m fucking awake right now, but I still see this shit. Fuck. I’m laying in bed in the middle of the morning, fucking paralyzed, staring at the wall in front of me. I swea
r it’s burning. It’s on fire. I’m going to die. Where the fuck is she? Somehow I glance to my side and I see her. Fuck, what is she doing?
“Hello, Noah,” Angeline says.
I can’t fucking move. I can’t say anything. She’s sitting on a chair near a tiny circle table with a jam-smothered piece of toast on a plate in front of her. She lifts the toast to her lips and takes a bite. Red fucking raspberry jam or some shit covers her lips and she licks them clean. It’s so fucking red. It’s her. I can’t unsee her. That’s not her. There’s no fire, no body, no blood. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
I want to grab her hand and run away from here. Somehow I wake the fuck up even though I was already awake. I’m awake again, extra fucking awake now.
I’m covered in sweat and my body shakes with nightmarish chills. Fuck, I can’t do this.
You’re safe now. That’s what I fucking told her that day. She was safe. She is. She left. I brought her somewhere and left her there. She didn’t want to fucking leave me, but I made her. I had to go. I didn’t do enough. I needed to do more. They weren’t the only ones. I don’t know if she knew that, but I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t fucking tell her. I couldn’t bear to do it. Not then, not now, not ever. I didn’t know until later and by then it was too late.
Angeline comes over to me, bringing the plate of toast with her. I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing, but she looks worried. Fuck. If I’m worrying Angeline, then there’s seriously something fucking wrong with me.
“You are safe now,” she says. “Did you have a bad dream?”
When I open my mouth, I think I’m going to talk. I don’t, though. I don’t know why the fuck I opened my mouth. Angeline picks up the piece of toast and offers me a bite. I take it. Fuck, I’m hungry. The only thing I’ve had in the past few days was that bottle of orange juice she gave me right before she was...
Fuck. I chew the toast, but I’m not into it. Tastes like toast and fucking red jam. What the fuck more do you want from me? I’m not a poet. It’s red, it’s jam, figure that shit out on your own. I’ve got more important things to do.
