The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel

by Megan D. Martin

  “Yes.” The word was breathless and awkward on my lips.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea. Dad, you need to leave.” Rhett was suddenly between us and I couldn’t see Taylor’s face anymore, but I needed it. I needed to see it. Him. I needed to see that love. It was the only true love I knew. If I could have it back to the way it was before, I would take it. In that moment I would give anything for it.

  “No, Rhett. I’ll dance with him.” Somehow I said the words without shouting them, without screaming them into his back.

  “You’re sure?”

  But I had already stepped around him and placed my hand into Taylor’s. He was already leading me away with Rhett grumbling behind us. But I didn’t listen. The love was there, back in those eyes. I hadn’t seen it in so long, I wasn’t sure that it was real. We started moving to the music, his hand on my back, the other holding one of mine. The stance was the same as what Rhett and I had done. But it was different. I didn’t feel the warm overwhelming tingles.

  “I missed you, Faye baby.”

  We moved to the music and he trailed his hand down my arm, fingering the angry red scar.

  “Why, Faye baby, why did you do this?” The ache in his voice made something twist inside me.

  “I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

  “Deal with what? I loved you. I still love you.”

  Though I could see the love in his eyes, his words sounded flat and I didn’t trust them. The desperation for his love was suddenly squashed as reality came back to me. The reason for the scar. I hadn’t forgotten, but I had been blinded by the familiar comfort he used to provide.

  “I shouldn’t be here.” I stopped moving and tried to step back from him, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  “Shhh, don’t say that. Don’t. You don’t mean it.”

  “I do.” But I didn’t try to move away again. I just stood there limply.

  “I’ve been so lost,” he said after several moments. His eyes grew misty and far away. “I didn’t know what to do after they took you away. They took you and I was forbidden to see you.”

  “I was in a mental hospital. No one was allowed to see me,” I said, moving my feet again, letting him lead me.

  “I could have gotten around it. Gotten you out of there. But I couldn’t. Because of Rhett. He took legal action against me. Filed a restraining order where I couldn’t come see you, not without being put in jail.”

  I sucked in a breath. “What? But—”

  “He’s jealous.” Taylor’s words were bitter and I saw it. That hate. It swam to surface through the misty love. It pressed through the barrier with force, drowning everything else out. “He wants you for himself. He always has. I saw the way he looked at you.” Taylor’s gaze pierced mine. “The way he held you.”

  “It’s nothing like that, Taylor. He wants me to get better.”

  A cold laugh escaped his lips, causing the people dancing near us to glance our way. “Get better? No. He’s selfish. He just wants you on his terms. He only put you in that psychiatric hospital to get you away from me. That’s the only reason. It has nothing do with your health or getting you better. He wants to fuck you.” He rubbed his hand up and down on my back. “Or has he already?”

  “No.” Panic multiplied under my skin. I shouldn’t be here. How did I get here? Why did I agree to this? My earlier reasoning surfaced and the ridiculousness immersed me in fear.

  “But you still want him to.”

  “No.” I tried to step back but he held on to me tighter, his fingers biting into my back and hand. “You can’t run, Faye baby. Not tonight.” He leaned in closer, his face right against my ear. “Not ever.”

  Dread slammed into me, dragging me down in it’s suffocating waves. I was back there. With Taylor standing over me. I’d barely been home two days after the abortion he and my mother had forced me to have. I hadn’t stopped bleeding since then. There was too much blood. And I was light-headed and cold. I was going to die. I knew it. I knew I was. But I didn’t care. All I wanted was my baby. The baby whose movement had given me the feeling of butterfly wings. Tiny kicking feet. My baby.

  They waited too long and a good doctor wouldn’t take me. Wouldn’t perform the abortion they wanted me to have so badly. The man who did it hurt me. He took my baby and more. Ripped me apart until there was nothing left of me. Until I was at home bleeding too much blood.

  They argued over me. Yelling at one another. My mother’s voice was like a screech at the end of my bed. I didn’t know what they were saying. I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t want to make it out. They were monsters. The only two people in life that I had believed loved me, but they didn’t. They relished in their torture and they laughed as my baby was murdered. My baby.

  But then there was weight on the bed and I looked up to see Taylor looming over me. My mother pushed at his chest, still screeching, the sound blistering my ears. Was she trying to stop him? Trying to save me? But it was too late. I was already dying. Bleeding out. My baby dead and gone. She hadn’t tried to save me all those other times. The times she watched him torture me. Cut me open and fuck me until I was begging for him to stop. She didn’t try to save me then. So why was she trying now? Because I was dying? Because she realized that this was all wrong?

  I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have it in me. She couldn’t stop him. And he was inside me. But it didn’t hurt. Not like the other times. He fucked me hard, but I didn’t feel it. I was numb. Lost somewhere in darkness. He fucked my limp and dying body while my mother screeched, while she clawed at his chest.

  “You’re killing her! You’re killing her!”

  That’s what she was saying. Over and over. He was bleeding from her nails. It dripped down his chest, but he didn’t seem to care. And I hoped for death in that moment as I looked into his eyes. I prayed it would come and be over soon.

  “No.” I jerked away from him, pushing the horrors away. I hadn’t thought about that night in a long time. I had hidden it away. I hadn’t even told George about it. It was too fucked up. Too much.

  And then I was running, hurrying through the dancing couples around me. My face was wet, but I didn’t swipe at the tears. I didn’t care that they blurred my vision. I just wanted away. Away from Taylor. Away from the past.

  Somehow I found my way to the women’s restroom and I pushed the door open, revealing the small dim room with two stalls and a single sink. It was empty and I pushed myself into the biggest stall, slamming the door and locking it.

  The tears came harder, pouring down my face in waves. The screeching was there playing over and over in my ears still.

  “You’re killing her! You’re killing her! You’re killing her!”

  “No!” I shouted back. “No!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to relive it. Not again. Once was enough. But then I could see it. Taylor grunting, finishing inside me and pulling out. There was so much blood on him, it was as if he’d been to the butcher. It coated his dick, his thighs. It was everywhere. My blood.

  “No!”

  “You’re killing her!”

  I clawed at my ears. “Stop! Just stop, please!” I shouted.

  The slam of the bathroom door startled me, but there was no relief in the sight that greeted me. Taylor stood over me. His dark hair smoothed back. His eyes filled with familiar sickening hate. Had I really craved that hate earlier? Had I really wanted it?

  “No!” I shook my head and tried to push to my feet, but the heel of my shoe caught on my dress and I collapsed to the ground.

  He turned away from me and for a moment I thought he was going to leave. Just leave me there. And for the barest moment I had hope. But then it was all squashed when he grabbed the large trashcan and shoved it against the door handle.

  “How could you do this to me, Faye baby?” He was on his knees now, before me. His eyes were pleading, deceptive, swirling with the hate.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Y
es, you did.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You did. You took my baby.” It was the first time I said the words out loud since they took him. My little boy, that I had spoken about him.

  “He was my baby too, Faye. I didn’t want to give him up, but your mother made me. She made us. She did this to us.” His eyes were glassy, as if it killed him to think about it. To think about the loss of the baby he had put inside me.

  “You didn’t care about that baby. You didn’t care about me.” I wouldn’t be fooled by his lies. I knew him better than anyone else. He was the man who had fucked me even though I was dying from the butchered abortion. The man that came inside me while my mother begged him to stop.

  “You’re killing her!”

  “I’ve always loved you, Faye baby. But you ran away from me.”

  “I had no other choice.” The tears poured down my face. “You didn’t give me any other choice.”

  “I was going to take care of you forever. I was going to give you another baby.”

  “But I couldn’t have babies anymore after that. You took that from me!” I shouted. It was the first time I had ever raised my voice at him. I had always been too afraid, too terrified. But what was there to be afraid of now? I had nothing. Nothing. There was nothing else he could take from me. He took my childhood, my innocence. My belief in love. My child. My future children. Everything.

  “You made me take it from you!” he roared just before he slammed his fist into the side of my face. Pain exploded in my head as I slumped back against the wall. “You made me do those things. You made me hurt you! I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re the only person I’ve ever fucking loved, Faye.”

  I blinked against the pain, but his fist slammed into me again, sending me sprawling sideways.

  “No!”

  “Shut up!”

  “No!” I shouted, the coppery flavor of blood coating my mouth. I twisted trying to move away from him, but then I heard the sound of his zipper. And that’s when things changed. I had been here all my life in this place. This dark hollowed out prison where only the two of us, Taylor and I, Lover and Stranger, existed. I realized that I wouldn’t win. I could never win when it came to Taylor. He had always prevailed, but that was because I let him. I let myself get lost in the darkness, in him. I let myself believe that I was broken. And maybe I was, but it was only because I had let him break me. It wasn’t the other way around.

  “I hate you!” I screamed in his face, spitting blood on his flawless skin.

  “Fuck you.” I saw his fist coming this time, but my head was still spinning and I couldn’t avoid it. I heard the crack of my cheekbone before the pain came. The sound seemed to echo in my head. And then it was there. The all-encompassing pain, it overwhelmed me until I laid limp against the wall. The world swimming in red before my eyes.

  “Why do you make me do this to you, Faye baby?” Taylor’s face came into view. The face I used to love. The face that belonged to the man who had hurt me over and over until there was no end. Wetness dripped on my face, it mingled with my blood. His tears. “Why do you make me hurt you? All I want to do is love you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He moved me while he talked, rearranging my legs roughly, spreading them apart, tearing my dress for better access. He pushed down his pants.

  “You don’t love me.” My words were garbled and thick.

  “Yes, I do. It’s why I brought you this.” He shook a little plastic baggie in front of my face, the white powder dancing around inside.

  I didn’t want it. I didn’t want Taylor to fuck me, either. But I knew it was going to happen. He shook the powder onto his hand, between his thumb and forefinger. I watched as he brought it to my nose. But my nose was all snotty and I couldn’t inhale it. I tried to. I didn’t want it. Not really. But I needed it.

  “Take it!”

  But I couldn’t. My nose wouldn’t work right and my head was spinning.

  “Fucking take it.” He shoved his hand against my nose, his thumb hitting my broken cheek.

  I moaned in pain and he took the opportunity to dump the coke in my mouth. The taste made me gag, mixed with my coppery blood.

  “You’re mine.” He forced my jaw closed with his hand, making me swallow. “Always.”

  And then he was pushing himself inside me. The feeling was familiar and foreign all at once. But for the first time in my life I didn’t stay quiet while he fucked me, so others wouldn’t hear. It wouldn’t be like that time in the dressing room, where I didn’t want it, but I was too afraid to tell him no.

  I screamed as he moved roughly inside me. I screamed for Rhett, for Sarah, for my mother who would never hear my cries again. I screamed for my baby boy. For all the things I would never have. I screamed for him. For Taylor. For all the ways he had broken me, for all the tiny pieces of him I couldn’t put back together. I screamed for the good times, for the bad. I screamed until fists pummeled my face. Until the only noise I could make was a pathetic whimpering moan.

  But then it was over. Taylor’s weight gone. Someone was towering over me. Angry hateful voices. But it didn’t matter. I let the thick heavy blanket of pain wash over me…and take me far away.

  NINE

  Rhett.

  It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. My father wasn’t on top of Faye. He wasn’t pummeling her beautiful face with his fists. He wasn’t fucking her on the bathroom floor.

  He wasn’t.

  He couldn’t be.

  She moaned, her cries nothing but a gurgling sound.

  “I love you, Faye baby. I love you,” Dad moaned as he thrust his hips.

  And then everything clicked into place and I was moving, digging my hands into his jacket, jerking him away from her. His dick flopped out and then it was real.

  He’s raping her.

  “What the fuck?” I slammed his back into the wall.

  “She’s mine, Rhett!” His eyes were wild. “You can’t have her! I won’t let you have her!” He fought me, trying to punch me in the face, but I dodged it.

  “What do you mean, she’s yours?”

  “She’s always been mine,” he hissed.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because she’s mine!” He started laughing then, it was this hideous chuckle I’d never heard before. “It doesn’t matter how much you want her, or how many times you have her. She will always be mine, Rhett!” He shoved at my shoulders and I stumbled back before righting myself. “I had her first. Before anyone else. She’s mine!” He cackled again.

  I glanced down at Faye. She was unconscious, blood streaming down her face and out of her mouth. Her dress was hiked up, angry red marks on her thighs from where they had been forced open. And it hit me.

  The look on Faye’s face when I left her alone with Dad in the hospital room. She’d looked panicked but it didn’t make sense. She wasn’t going to be alone in there. He would be there with her. I’d thought it was because of the drugs, that’s what I had accepted, but that didn’t fully make sense either. Why would she try to kill herself again? Why had she tried to in the first place?

  “Some things just aren’t meant to be, Rhett.” Her words from that day in doctor’s office, just after I first found her and she told me she couldn’t have kids. I couldn’t understand it. How she’d had her uterus removed and I hadn’t known about it. I had just been there, at the house and she had been fine that summer.

  But it all made sense now. “You raped her, when she was just a teenager.” I nearly choked on the words as they came off my tongue.

  “It was never rape. She loves me! She’s always loved me! Since she was nine years old she’s been mine! Mine!”

  “No.” I shook my head back and forth. “You didn’t. You didn’t!” I shouted. The images ran through my head. Images of Faye as a little girl. An innocent little girl.

  “She loves me! She’s always loved me until you came home that summer.” Dad was breathing hard. “I don’t know what you did to her, b
ut you changed her love.” He clenched his bloody fists. Her blood. “But I had to punish her.”

  “I was fifteen for a whole year after that.” Her response when I asked her about how it could have happened, how I didn’t know.

  “You fucking monster.” I lunged at him with everything I had, slamming him into the wall. His head bounced off the plaster and I swung my fist, catching him in the cheek. All I could see was Faye in the bedroom that day before she tried to kill herself. The look on her face when I said she was a prostitute. He’d been about to fuck her then, give her the drugs and the fuck her. But she didn’t know what he would do once he found out the truth about where she’d been. I’d never told him. Not until that day. The fear on her face hadn’t made sense to me. But it did now. “You were supposed to protect her! She was a child!”

  I saw her running toward me as a little girl, her arms open, her face smiling, happy. I saw her sitting before me, a fifteen year old girl begging me to make love to her. It hadn’t made sense, why would she seek that from me? But now it did. It fucking did. My fist seemed to move of it’s own accord slamming into my father over and over until arms were pulling me back, voices surrounding me. Until all I could think about was Faye and the fact that she wasn’t covered up. That she was bloody and broken on the floor, her legs open, her most intimate parts bare to the world.

  I jerked away from them and fell to my knees crawling to her. Her face was purple now, her cheeks swelling, blood leaking from her lips and her eyebrow. I jerked her torn dress down covering her. The voices were behind me, loud and chattering. Someone was shouting. Someone tried to pull me away, but I wouldn’t let them.

  I pulled Faye into my arms.

  Weren’t we just here?

  But now I understood. I knew why she was here. Why she laid on the bathroom floor, her beautiful dress torn, her body violated and broken. It was because I was too stupid to see the truth. It had been there before me all along. How had I missed it? The looks he gave her? The protective way he acted toward her, her whole life?