by Cerys du Lys
There is blood on the knife. It appears fresh. It is running down the blade and dripping onto my bed. I follow the drops as they crash onto my blankets and sheets. There is more blood on my bed, as well. My eyes follow the spread of blood until I find myself glancing between my legs. I am straddling the lump now. I do not know what it is. The blood centers around it. The blankets beneath me conceal it.
I latch onto the end of the blankets and peel them back. A person is there, dead and bloody and gone. I do not know why there is a person in my bed. I stare at them, but they are difficult to recognize. A bloody slash goes from the top of their right eye, leaving a gash through their nose, and down to the left edge of their mouth. Their chest is dotted with constant stab wounds. The person appears to be more broken and shredded apart than not.
Inadvertently and without thinking, I lean down and lick at the soft, sticky blood on their lips. My mouth touches this unknown person's lips. I taste him and I kiss him and I see his eyes. He is looking at me, confused. I recognize him. I recognize the taste of his blood. I...
No. No, no, no. Nonononononono.
I scream out and cry and wail at the night sky. Why? NO! This is not possible! Why? Why are you... what did I do? What happened?
No one is allowed in my room, but I have allowed Noah in my room. I want Noah in my room. This is Noah. I have killed him. I do not remember doing it. How did this happen? I try to think and remember, but I cannot. He must have startled me in my sleep and without thinking, barely awake, I reached for my knife and I attacked him, and...
Noah... no. Noah, please. I am sorry. I did not mean to. I kiss him over and over. I feel his blood on my tongue and my lips and I kiss him and I taste his life, but he does not kiss me back.
Noah, please? Noah, I am sorry. Kiss me, Noah. You must wake up now. This is not funny. I do not like this joke. What are you doing? Noah, wake up. Noah...
He does not wake up. Why will he not wake up? Please, Noah? I am angry. I have my knife. I stab him in the chest again, because I am mad at him. No! What am I doing? Stop. Stop that.
"I am sorry," I say. I kiss him again. I kiss him more. "I did not mean to do that. I am sorry."
I begin to cry and Noah still will not wake up. Why do you not love me, Noah? Why are you doing this to me? I hold the blade of the knife against his throat, threatening him with it, but still he does not move. I press it lightly against his skin until I see him bleed.
Do you see? You are bleeding, Noah. That means you are alive. Dead people do not bleed. Right? That means...
I stop and I press my ear against Noah's wound-riddled chest. I listen for his heartbeat and his breathing. I wait. I hear a heartbeat, but it is my own. I hear my own breathing, frantic and fast. I hear it, but I do not hear Noah. Noah, what happened to your heartbeat and your breath? Where did they go? Why are you not breathing, Noah?
I cry and I beg and I plead with him to stop. Stop this. Why? No. Please. Stop...
I cannot move. I cannot think. I try to run away, but something is holding me down. Why will you not let me go? I need to go. I will find someone to help Noah. Noah needs help. Why do you not understand? Why are you doing this? Why?
I open my eyes and Noah is beneath me, but he is not bloody or wounded or bleeding. He is holding me tight against his chest and he is staring at me with a strange look in his eyes.
"Noah?" I ask. I feel the salty sting of tears on my lips. "Is that you?"
He kisses me. He is careful not to hurt my wounded side and he rolls me onto my back and he kisses me. Our bodies are tight together and I can feel all of his weight. He is heavy, but I like it. I cannot breathe or think or feel anything except for him. His lips crush mine in tangled passion. He pulls my bottom lip into his mouth and bites it hard. I cry out, but he sucks my cry into his mouth, taking it away from me.
He lets loose my lip and I snap to grab his. I want to taste it. I want to bite him and make him bleed and taste him. I try, but he evades me.
"I want you," I say. I do not know when it happened, but I can feel Noah's erection pressing hard against my stomach.
"Angeline, love, we can't," he says. "Your bandages. And we don't have any condoms yet."
"I do not care," I say. "Noah, I need you inside me."
"We can't fucking... we can't do this, love."
"In," I say. "Me. Now."
"Fuck off," he says.
"Noah, please, I..."
It does not matter. He is already struggling to pull down my pajama pants with one hand while he keeps me pinned to the bed with the other. Once he has managed that, he pulls down his own, as well. It is not ideal, but it does not matter because we are well-suited to one another. His harsh, throbbing erection pushes into me in one smooth, sharp motion.
I let out a gasp as he fills me. "Yesss..."
He stays there. He does not move. His body crushes mine and I am nothing. He is me, he is mine, and I am him and his. We are inseparable. Nothing can divide us. We are a single, joyous entity.
"I love you," I say. "Do you love me?"
"I love you," he says. "What the fuck were you dreaming about?"
It is not completely dark. I believe it is early morning. I can see small strands of light piercing through the horizon and settling into my room. My knife lays on the bedside table. I look at it and shudder.
"I killed you," I say. "I did not mean to. Please, Noah, forgive me. I killed you because I do not invite people into my room and it was an accident. I did not realize it. I did not. I..."
I am frantic and scared. I did not! I did not mean to. Please, Noah, forgive me? Please understand?
"Shh, love," he says. "I'm not dead. It was just a dream. Just some shitty fucking dream. I'm fine. We're both here."
"Will you love me forever?" I ask. "I do not know if you should, but will you? I do not want to kill you, Noah. I am sorry for dreaming it. I do not know why I did that."
"Shh," he says again. "It's just a dream, love. I've already loved you forever. You don't have to apologize."
"If you have loved me forever already, then do we not love each other anymore?" I ask.
He is inside of me and we are not moving, but soon he pulls out of me and then slowly pushes back in. We move like this, soft and slow, in a gentle, rhythmic motion.
"No," he says. "Forever is bullshit. Forever is something people say, but they never mean it. I'll love you longer than that."
"What is longer than forever?" I ask. My body warms to his and I feel my breath quicken.
"Fuck, I don't know," he says. "Always? Eternity?"
"You will love me forever and for always and for eternity?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "And more."
I sample the thought by whispering it to myself. "For forever and for always and for eternity and for more..."
"Angeline, I need to stop," he says.
"No!" I try to grab him and wrap my arms around him and hold him tight against me, but he is holding my wrists and pinning me down. "No, Noah, do not stop. Please do not stop. I need you."
"Fucking..." His face contorts with some emotion I do not even know the name of. "Love, we can't fucking do this shit right now. It's not a good idea. It's a real fucking bad idea."
"No," I say. "Stay. Please. Stay in me. In me, Noah. I need you inside me. Please do not stop. Please do not leave me."
He does not stop. I feel his cock inside of me, flexing and twitching. My body welcomes him and clenches against him. I feel warmth and softness and comfort.
Noah grunts and pushes all the way inside of me, then he slows to a stop. I feel him releasing his seed. He must have been excited. Is he excited because of me? I like that idea. It is warm and nice, the same as the feeling of him being inside of me is. I know this is not a good thing, but I do not care right now. I want it. I want him. I want to know that he is alive and I did not hurt him and that we will be together. I want to love him for forever and for always and for eternity and for more, too. I do not just want it, I need it
. It is my reaction to his existence. I am unable to do anything else. I will always be this way.
He does not leave me once he is finished. He stays. I kiss him. He kisses me back. I feel him twitching and flexing inside of me.
"Are you...?" I ask. I do not know what question I am asking him, though. "Do you wish to continue?"
"Look," he says. "Angeline. I want to fuck you senseless. You gorgeous fucking beautiful bitch. You're seriously fucking insane and I want to fuck you forever and always and for eternity and more."
"That is how long you will love me," I say, assured.
"Yeah," he says, smirking. "It is. It's how long I'm going to want to make fucking love to you, too."
"Make... love?" I ask.
He begins to pull out of me, then pushes back in. This interests me.
"I want to orgasm this time," I tell him.
"I'm going to make you fucking orgasm whether you want to or not," he says.
"Will you?" I ask. Oh, if he continues like this, yes, I think he will.
He slams hard into me and breathes into my ear, growling whispered words at me. "You dirty fucking slut," he says. "I'm going to fuck you until you cum around my cock. You're going to be so fucking wet. I'm going to keep fucking you until you squirt, you beautiful bitch. The sheets are going to be fucking drenched and it's all going to be from you, love."
"You are sexy," I say, but my words come out between ragged breaths. I want to say more. I want to talk dirty like Noah does. I like it.
"Tell me you want it," he says.
"I want it," I say.
He bites my ear hard and I gasp out in pain. "Not like that, you whore. Tell me how much you fucking want it. Tell me what you want. Tell me what I'm doing to you."
Can I do that? I do not know. That seems inappropriate, but...
"I... I want it," I say. "I want you. I want you to... to fuck me. Fuck me with your cock, Noah."
"We're going to have to work on your dirty talk," he says with a smirk.
I do not think anymore. I do not speak. I kiss him and feel his body grinding against mine and his erection pressing deep inside of me. Soon. More. Give me. I need it. Noah, please? Yes...
*** Noah
Fuck. Fucking fuck. She's good. That was the stupidest fucking thing to do, but she's good, and fuck. Fuck. Holy fucking shit.
I could be ninety-fucking-four years old and as long as I'm with Angeline, I don't think I'll ever need any of those blue pills. Sexual performance enhancers or whatever the fuck. There's a ton of brands. Pick one. You can have it. I don't want it. I will never need help getting an erection around this bitch. Just looking at her makes me hard.
Fuck.
I think this is love. Love is bullshit, though. I don't even fucking know what this is. It's fucking forever. And always. Eternity. Fuck. And more. Godfuckingdamnit.
I'm done. My life is over. I'm kind of alright with it.
Are we going to be happy together? Fuck if I know. I think we could be. You know why?
Besides wanting to fuck the shit out of her every time I look at her, there's a lot more, too. We're in the same kind of business, so that's a positive, right? Also, I don't know what the fuck she's doing here, but these guys hanging around her house aren't so bad. I was talking to a couple of them. Angeline doesn't like when they talk to her, but I guess she's nice to them. She wasn't always nice to them. She treated them like dirt before, but I guess they deserved it. I deserved it, too. I'm an asshole. We both know that.
That doesn't matter. You can ask her about that shit. I don't know much about it. It's just something that happened.
Anyways, I think we could be happy together because of that. Sort of. We've both got goals. We've got shit to do and we're going to do it. Right? Fuck yeah.
I don't know why, but I feel like this psychotic bitch and I can make a difference in something. We're both fucked up monsters, which sounds bad, but maybe it's not. What the fuck are you going to do if two fucked up monsters are coming after you? You're going to piss your fucking pants and beg for your life.
It sounds stupid as shit, and I get that, because what the fuck do I do? We've talked about this. You should remember it by now.
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.
It's fucking hard. I understand that. I never said it'd be easy. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but that's the way it is. I can't change it. I can't change the fucking world. I don't like doing this shit, but I'm not the worst one out there.
I'll come back for you. I'll find you. You'll still fucking hate me. I don't give a fuck what you think about me. We'll do this shit together, whether you realize it or not. We'll help people. I'll make you a goddamn fucking princess afterwards. You'll never have to fucking see me again. I'm sure we'll both like that. You'll fucking hate me, but you'll become stronger. I won't break you as much as you think I do. You deserve better than that.
Angeline and I will do it together. You might not realize it now, but you should be scared. Really fucking scared. There's monsters out there, and they want to destroy you. Angeline's the craziest fucking monster of them all. She's the monster in my fucking closet and she's already destroyed me. It was bad. Real fucking bad.
What I'm saying is that I'm sorry. Don't forgive me. Just move on with your life and forget me. I'm sorry.
I fell in love with a monster and she ate my fucking soul. I let her, though.
There's going to be a lot of people who want to do that to you, too. They're not going to give you a choice. The thing is, you can tell them to fuck off. You can be quiet and patient and wait. Yeah, fuck, it might be hard, but you can do it. Do it until you don't want to anymore. Find that fucking asshole that you want to give your soul to, and then just fucking do it. Don't let him just take your soul, shove it down his throat and make him take it. Forever and always and eternity and more, or whatever the fuck bullshit you want to come up with. Add a few more things if you want, I don't give a fuck.
I'm sorry that you have to hate me. That's just the way it is. It's better this way.
You don't have to hate everyone, though. I don't. I love someone and it's really fucked up. If I can love someone, you can, too. If someone can fall in love with me, it's probably the end of the fucking world. We all better start piling into some fucking spaceships, because this place is about to burn.
I'm sorry for what I did to you. I love you, Angeline. I'm not a nice person. I'm an asshole, and I'm fucking rude, and I'm too fucking vulgar and I curse a lot.
I'm sorry. Thank you for loving me anyways. I promise I'll love you forever. I always have.
~*~
Extended Scenes
This is the place where time stands still; nothing comes or goes, and it never will.
*** Angeline
It is said that not one of us can remember the day of our birth, and we only begin to collect memories about our surroundings and ourselves many years later. These are memories long forgotten, and yet unforgettable.
This is how I came to exist. This is my birth.
This is the beginning, before time stood still.
***
Name: Angel or Angeline (Previous name removed, irrelevant)
Age: 18 then; now 28
Birthday: June 22nd
Height: 5' 7" / 170cm
Weight: 137 lbs / 62.1kg
*** Angeline
"What did you think?" my mother asks me. She is sitting in the front driver's seat.
We are driving back home after having visited a nearby town. A town does not seem like a large place, except when you have lived where we have lived, it becomes much larger. Up until this one point in time, I have only known the faces of approximately one hundred different people.
I have seen more than that amount of people just today. My mo
ther and father drove with me to the small college town a few hours away from our home. This is my last year of schooling here, and then I will be expected to become an adult. By technical, legal standards, I am already of an eligible age, but I do not feel it. I am young still.
I am excited.
"It's big, huh?" my father asks.
I did not used to think of them as "mother" and "father," but that is what they have become to me many years later. They became this because of what happened; what is about to happen. They used to be mom and dad.
"Yes," I say. "It is."
I said more than that. I did not say it in the stilted, formal tone that is now comfortable to me. I am friendly. I was a friendlier person then. I was normal. I am not normal now.
My father turns around and looks back at me. I am sitting behind him in the backseat of our family car. We are talking. I explain to him all of the things that I liked. Do that many people really exist? It is a joke. I laugh and he smiles and we are animated. I love him and he loves me. He is my father; I am his daughter.
The road we drive on is quiet. There are woods on either side of us. People do not usually come this way. Occasionally in the winter we see cars passing through on their way towards a mountain ski retreat, but their faces are a blur to me. Every so often, a fisherman will come to fish in our lake, as well. They do not stay because there is nowhere for them to stay. It is possible that they go camping in the woods, but if this is true, I do not see them.
It is a strange thing to admit, but I am unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the woods. The trees around me feel like a trap, some arboreal cage, rising high up and acting as bars to imprison me in our small village. I cannot travel through them just as a prisoner in a jail cannot freely leave his cell. I do not know what exists on the other side of these trees, beyond the confines of my wooden bars. I do not know, but I wish to know. I desire it.
I saw it today. I know what is there.
My mother turns around and we are all talking now. A hint of an idea strikes me that this may be unsafe, but we are in the middle of nowhere and she turns forward to keep her eyes on the road every so often. She is not acting unsafely, as far as I am aware.
