by Ker Dukey
His eyes shot to mine and his brow creased as he struggled with his own actions. He shifted his gaze to Dante, then back to the random. “Go back inside if you want to continue living.”
This wasn’t Malik. He was suddenly cruel and as twisted as Dante. “Malik. Put the gun away!”
I was flung upright, my body heaving with Dante’s manipulation. “Shut the fuck up! You’ve caused enough trouble tonight!”
I never found out what happened next. Dante’s fist crashed into my head and everything went black.
“IT HURTS SO MUCH,” I sobbed.
“What can I do, Faye? I feel so helpless.” He crawled up onto the bed I was lying on. His warm protective body curved around mine. “You didn’t have to go through with this, Faye. He would have done the right thing.”
I moved my arm to grip on to his. “I couldn’t do this to him. He has a future, this would have ruined it. What if he didn’t do the right thing? You know how he can get.”
I felt his disapproval varnishing me. “Then I would have.” It was a whisper falling forbiddingly from his lips. My eyes closed, refusing to let my mind wander into that impossibility. I turned to face him. He was so beautiful …Dante?
“Yes it’s me. I’m sorry Star.” My eyes fluttered open; he was older than he was in my dream. A throb on the side of my head began a steady thump. My knees screamed for some relief. “I’ve got the doctor coming to dress your knees. I lost it. I’m sorry. You pushed me… you just keep pushing.” Exhaling the breath I’d been holding, I didn’t look directly at him
“I don’t want that woman touching me. I can see to my own needs.” My stomach stirred and I knew I couldn’t swallow down the rising vomit.
I sprinted from the bed. Ignoring the disapproval from my knees, I dropped down over the toilet just in time for my stomach to eject everything inside it, which wasn’t much. The retch tightened my stomach muscles so forcibly it reminded me of the pain I felt in the dream.
The younger image of Dante once again clouded my mind, his gentle touch and tone. The younger man was a complete contradiction to the older version.
I felt him before he actually made himself known. “The doctor will be here in ten minutes. You’re sick.”
Pulling myself to my feet I shook my head. “I said I don’t want her here.”
He stepped towards me. I cowered, making him stop. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Star.”
Was he serious? I could barely stand. I needed courage. I couldn’t let him turn me into this.
“I won’t be a victim for you to lose control on, Dante. This,” I pointed to the bruise I knew marred my face, then down to my scraped bloodied knees. “I don’t know what I did wrong.” I sounded weak to my own ears, my voice barely a whisper. The truth was, he flipped a switch and was once again the man from when I first woke up with no memories in that holding cell. It was terrifying. Where was the man I had memories of? Where was the man in my dreams? Where were you? Why did you abandon me? My enigma, haunting me. I was drowning in the unknown.
“You keep searching for a past that doesn’t matter now! You may not remember it but I do and I don’t want us to be who we were then. Things are different now and this is your life NOW, so you fighting me, trying to recreate a past is meaningless to the NOW! It’s getting old!” Every word travelled across the air to attack me like a physical slap.
“Now you’re sick, let the doctor look at you,” he continued once his temper had simmered back down again.
“It will just be something I ate,” I mocked. I hadn’t had a chance to actually eat anything before I was dragged from the restaurant.
His eyes lowered to slits. I was being bold and brave considering what he had done to me earlier. There was a woman inside me who was defiant and she wanted to smash through the walls. Her voice was faint, but grew louder and louder every day.
I knew he was angry; it was derived from a fury, not just from that one sentence. He was mad at me or at everything. Fuck only knew what made him this way but something had because the man who lived in my memories was not the one simmering on the edge of rage in front of me.
“She’s here.” Malik’s voice came from behind Dante and then a hand came up to his chest, red nail polish blazing from each perfected nail.
“Let me by,” she cooed. She was too personal with him and the cheek of her over-familiar hands was an insult to me. How dare she come into my house, claim we were friends and then act like she had a secret with MY fiancé? How dare he raise his hand to me and treat me the way he did?
He moved aside and she made sure to get as close as possible as she shimmied against his body. Even her cheeks were tinted red with lust, the freaking whore. Screw that.
She smirked and turned to me, eyeing me up and down and tutting. Her whorish mouth opened. “Oh dear, Star. Let’s get you cleaned up. What happened?” Like she didn’t know.
It happened like I wasn’t in my own body, a reflex. My hand balled into a fist, reared back and flew at her full force. The crunch I felt under my hand was fucking amazing.
Blood exploded like a paint gun bullet hitting a target. Her head sprang backwards and her body followed, leaving her screaming on her back.
“That happened, only it was a little harder and to the right. Don’t worry about cleaning me up. You should clean yourself up.”
Stepping around her, I pinned Dante with a glare. “If you want that ring on my finger, you’ll keep this whore out of my house and out of your bed!” I spat, moving past him. My heart stammered inside my ribcage when he grabbed my wrist, halting my retreat. I didn’t turn to look at him, I just held my breath.
“I told you she hasn’t been in my bed. It was the truth. I’ll get her out of here and you won’t have to see her again.” I released the breath and nodded my head. “You will put the ring on and we’ll forget tonight happened.”
He released my wrist, and I moved my feet forward, shooting Malik a glare. He had proved I was alone in this. He worked and was friends with Dante, not me. I was just his friend’s property.
I went to the studio, locking the door behind me. My legs gave out and I crumbled to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees.
I allowed the tears to come. They came with a wave of loneliness. I felt incomplete, like I was back in that cell. My heart felt empty, missing someone who was not there anymore.
“I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR you.”
I giggled as I stared at the almost-naked man in front of me; the only thing covering his privates was a magazine with me on the front cover. “If I have already seen it, it’s not a surprise and, Mr. Troy, that,” I pointed to where he was covered, “is something I have definitely seen… felt… and tasted.” I winked, loving the lust in his gaze.
My teeth sank into my lip when he took a step towards me. “They advised no visible name tattoos right?” he murmured, making my blood heat every part of my body.
“No!” I screeched.
“Ssh, it’s okay. It’s me. I’m moving you to our bed.” My body protested. Aches from the earlier trauma, and from falling asleep on the floor of the studio burst into my sleepy state, making me groan.
“Ssh.” The sound was comforting, familiar. My body came down against the soft mattress. Swiping my hair from my face, he handed me a glass of water. “Open your mouth, Belle. I have some pain relief for you.”
I swallowed the pills with a gulp of water and succumbed to the beckoning dreams. Where I was happy, and Dante was too.
I awoke early, the sunrise breathing its light through the room. Dante was asleep next to me, which was surprising. Slowly climbing from the bed, I relieved my bladder before showering yesterday away from me.
As I stepped out, Dante stepped in. He stopped me from leaving with a gentle voice, almost like a plea. “Stay in with me.”
I wasn’t used to the soft side of him; it confused me, played with my head. His eyes fixed on mine, something similar to pain burning its way through them.
I let
him wash me for a second time, his touch leaving the usual burn in my core. I refused to give in to it. He hurt me, humiliated me. I felt like I was floating in space, looking down at the world I used to be a part of.
The cold, dark abyss swallowed me, pulling me further and further from the earth, from breaking the atmosphere and being who I once was. A deep ache inside me told me this wasn’t where I was supposed to be and I was more lost than ever before.
Stepping free, ignoring the sigh from Dante, I dried off and slipped into some jeans and a tee.
Dante told me he would be gone for most of the day when he came from the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. Images assaulted me of another time.
“You can’t keep fighting it, Faye.”
He walked towards me, the tiny towel barely covering him. The water pellets beaded over every inch of his skin, crying at me to lick them. I wanted to taste each drop, savor and devour him under my tongue.
“Fighting what?” I didn’t trust myself to say anything more without panting.
“Us!” He groaned in frustration, dropping the towel and making my breath hitch. “I’ve waited long enough, Faye. I can’t bear it any longer. I need you. You can’t deny what’s between us anymore. I crave to hear your voice. I sense you before you even enter a room because I’m not complete when you’re not with me. You set every nerve on fire whenever you touch me. I want to grab onto you and burn up in everything we could be. I want to explore every inch of you; I want to feel you come undone under my tongue. I want to feel you around my cock as I make love to you. I want you. Just let yourself love me back.” He stepped closer, igniting a stream of goosebumps to explode over my sensitive skin. “I’m so unbelievably in love with you. I can’t fucking breathe until I see you some days. I feel you in me so deep we’re two halves of the same soul.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. A knocking at the door broke the spell.
“Mr. Troy, you’re needed in thirty minutes.”
“Star, what the fuck! Where did you go?” I blinked up at Dante.
“Two halves of the same soul.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
I shook my head.
For an hour I looked through every box and drawer in our room and there was nothing, not even an old yearbook. Diary. Photos. Documents. Birth certificate. Nothing. I knew I needed to search his office but Malik was there. I had to get him out of the house. I tried the phone line but there was no dial tone this time.
Making my way down the stairs, I followed the scent of bacon. The sizzling lifted more aromas into the air and the smell made my stomach churn. I couldn’t hold it in. Turning to the sink I retched, my eyes watering, my body vibrating with the clammy fever that comes with sickness.
A heavy palm came down to rub my shoulder. “Star, you still sick?”
My head filled with fog. I wasn’t sick! Why would that scent have made me … No…? NO! Thinking back over the time since I had woken up, I hadn’t had a period. But Dante was so flippant with not using protection, I assumed I was covered with the jab or implant …no. Oh God, no.
I turned to the worried expression of Malik. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I tried to offer him a small smile. “If I asked you to do something for me would you? No questions asked and without telling Dante?”
He shifted his eyes to the floor.
“Please,” I croaked, gripping onto his arm.
“What is it?”
I looked around for the camera I knew was in there and turned my back to it, whispering. “A pregnancy test.”
His intake of breath was audible. He nodded and sighed.
“Thank you.”
I watched him leave on the outdoor monitor an hour later, after calling the boy who came to get everyone, and as soon as the boat faded from view, I began my search of Dante’s office. But he was a clever bastard, or a paranoid one, because there was nothing in there, not even a solitary household bill.
I picked up his pen holder in frustration and threw it across the room, watching as it fell by the window. Counting to ten I calmed myself and walked across the room to pick it up. The moss covered building I saw him leave that day came into view, making my heart jump.
I snatched up his letter opener and rushed through the house, across the distance separating us and tried the lock. It was locked. Trying to pick a lock was harder than it looked on TV.
I tried again, digging the sharp end into the keyhole and twitching it… nothing. Screw it! I looked around for a stone or rock and found a plant pot. There was no way I could make an excuse for this to him but I would take the repercussions. Something inside told me I needed to get into that damn building if I was to ever find out who I was… who Dante was.
I lifted the stone, took a deep breath, and with as much strength as I could muster I launched it through the window. The shattering sound splintered the silence. My nerves vibrated through my entire body.
I pushed the rest of the glass out of the way and climbed through the panel, cutting my palm as I hooked my fingers around the frame to give me some leverage inside.
It looked like an office. A desk and office equipment was tucked away neatly against each wall; numerous pictures hung from the walls and a plush carpet covered the floor. Adjoining doors led to another room but none of this filtered inside my head. None of these things registered as my gaze fell to a table and my body slammed to a halt.
A suitcase was flipped open, a few items of clothing still folded neatly inside. Toiletries and even a camera sat idly inside. I recognized it. Like a snapshot of pictures, some memories filtered in. The suitcase belonged to me… I was traveling on a plane.
Taking small steps over to it, I brushed my fingers over the leather and picked up the label.
Faye Avery.
Tears dropped to my cheek. My scent. Cherry blossom… my old scent filled my senses. I picked up the notes laid on top.
It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. I wasn’t supposed to be there.
My chest throbbed reading those messages. The hole expanding in my chest grew ever wider, the cold seeping free. I couldn’t reach the most important memory, the one that would answer this lonely feeling inside me.
Panicking I was going to run out of time, I quickly slipped the notes into my jeans and rushed back to the house to wait out Malik’s return.
I GRIPPED MY HAIR, TUGGING frantically at my soft curls as memory after memory assaulted me. For the previous hour, they had been slamming into me; old ones, new ones, devastating ones, confusing ones, happy ones, all of them one after the other, minute after minute. I felt dizzy with them all, nauseous, as each one destroyed me a little more inside.
I had prayed for the return of my memories, but now, now I wasn’t sure I wanted them back. They were annihilating me, burning my mind under the chaos of them all and breaking my heart little by little after each one.
Dante loved me. He was caring and so utterly gentle that each vision of him clashed with what my heart now knew of him.
I couldn’t understand, or find the memory that had changed him into the bitter and twisted man he was now. All that came to me were recollections of our teenage years and very early twenties; school days, day trips, happy moments, erotic time spent buried in each other. None of them, not one, was of him angry, or forceful in bed. He was besotted with me, completely worshipped me.
What the hell had happened between then and now? I needed this memory more than any of the other ones. Although they were enlightening, none of them told me anything new, all of them virtually the same as the previous, each one showing me the love Dante and I had shared.
“Hey.” Malik’s gentle voice filtered through my muddled brain.
I blinked up at him, forcing away another painful memory. “Did you get it?”
He nodded and held a small white paper bag in front of him and away from the camera in the corner of the ceiling. We exchanged a look for a moment. Both of us pained by what we knew was to come.<
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I pushed off the couch and walked over to him, coming to stand directly in front of him, his body blocking the camera. Taking the bag from him, I snatched a pen from the bureau.
What the hell is going on?
He stared at my writing scrawled over the paper bag. He blinked at it, his brow creased. Lifting his eyes to mine, he swallowed. “Nothing.” I narrowed my eyes at his lie.
“Fair enough.”
His eyes closed, denying me access to the guilt in his gaze. “Star…”
“Faye!” I whispered, correcting him.
His jaw dropped. I didn’t give him chance to answer as I pushed past him and fled up the stairs, anger surging through me with his reticence, however it came as no great shock. Dante owned Malik just as much as he owned me. We weren’t his family or his friends. We were possessions, things to control and manipulate for his own sick, perverted desires.
The bathroom walls seemed to close in on me when I shut and locked the door behind me. Staring at the bag, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the test. I already knew what it would say. Tears sprung from my eyes before I had even peed on the damn thing.
I couldn’t have a baby with Dante, not the Dante he was now. The old one, hell yes, very much so, but not now. This baby had been created from nothing more than a vicious and cruel fetish of his, one he had blamed me for. He had said it was my fantasy, but I knew there was no way this was me. I had no proof, only my own gut feeling deep down this wasn’t an experiment gone wrong.
Dante had told me he was being used as a guinea pig for the lovely Doc, and I wondered if that was what this was, an experiment gone wrong, me as the guinea pig this time. I was nothing more than a lab rat.
Pulling the box from the bag, I ran my thumb over the writing as another memory flooded in.
“I can’t do this.”
“You have to,” he said sternly beside me. “You need to know, as he does… as I do.”
I frowned at him. How would the result affect him? I shook off his words and turned, disappearing into the bathroom, the long pink box weighing heavy in my hands.
