Monochrome My Madness

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  I punch and kick at the big man in the ring, he is younger than me and he is a fighter his tightly wound body and grace of movement tell me this is his home. I am about to fuck with your happy place boy. I may be older than you, but the thing driving me is darker than anything you could bring to this ring. The prize is made sweeter still when I see the tattoo on his wrist, he works for my family. He is a foot soldier in the army of criminals that have survived because of my criminal enterprises. He isn’t one of mine though – he belongs to my brother. Sahib will be angry, but I don’t care. All, I care about now, is the relief I am getting from the physical torture I reign down on him. He taps out, begs, pleads and eventually passes out. The other guy with him tries to wake him, I know it won’t be easy.

  “Oh for fucks sake, put him my car I will take him to Shannon; she can fix him up. I warned the fool.” I snap at them. They are too scared to argue and the two scrawnier men lug their large friend to my car. I shower first, slip on the clean suit that I had in my bag and make myself look like the man they expect to see at the office every day.

  I drive to my house, where Shannon is waiting for me in her office, she is dressed but the dark circles under her eyes tell me I did too much damage last night. Her body is going to break if I don’t stop. Her movements are slow deliberate and strained as she walks towards me and presses a cold kiss to my cheek and hisses, “Thank you Callum.” Her relief is confessed in those tender words and feel a little lighter for them.

  I heave the heavy man onto her examination table, he is starting to come around and Shannon takes over. I sit on my chair in the corner and watch my Princess work her poison magic. The way she changes when the killer in her emerges is a thing of graceful beauty that takes my breath away and makes my heart beat too fast.

  Her body becomes lighter, her movements fluid and her mood becomes instantly different. She is like a playful cat with a baby mouse. This game is as much for me as it is for her. She likes that I watch her. This game excites me as much as it does her, I shouldn’t be seeking this high. I am treading on dangerous ground. I am a voyeur to her depravity and it turns me on, makes me want her more. I lust for her as she kills the man. The hours it takes him to die feed our undeniable passion and desire.

  As the hulking man spasms and thrashes on the wooden office floor, just about half way to his excruciating death Shannon walks over to where I sit. Her hips sway as she takes each step closer to me the seductiveness of her insanity calls to me. Her eyes are full of life and desire as she kneels between my legs, her lips are parted and I see the slight lick of her tongue across them. She locks her gaze on mine, we cannot look away as her delicate deadly hands unbuckle my belt, I want to push her away and say this is sick but I am so turned on I want this too much to react at all. Her delicate fingers wrap around my hard cock and a secret smile makes its way onto her face.

  My heart pounds at how wrong this is, yet my body wants this, the first swipe of her tongue over my cock and I fist her hair in my hand the strands tangling and snagging on my fingers. I push her down onto me, forcing myself down her throat those soft deathly lips around me feel like heaven. She gags but continues to take me down deeper, sucking harder, driving me crazy with the need to come in her sexy mouth.

  Right there to the sounds of a man dying she shares her sickness with me and as I come down her throat her eyes give me a window into her empty heart and we find a new high together in our combined insanity.

  Shannon takes her pleasure from the moment his suffering begins and her high is the second his breath is stolen and the life leaves his eyes. I take mine from watching him suffer even more because I broke his body first. We exist as one monster when she kills for me and it makes me love her more. I need to get rid of them all so I will stop hurting her, I know that will be my cure, but what will cure me if she walks away after they are all gone?

  WE GO ON THIS WAY for months, when Shannon comes to find me in the kitchen one evening. Every single body that we bury brings me a little closer to peace, I hurt her less and she wants to kill me more. I don’t mean to be like Renzo, I don’t want to break her, scar her or destroy her. I am trying so hard not to, I fight it every time I look at her. I should ask her for a prescription, but then she would know how sick I am.

  “Callum.” She startles me by disturbing my cooking ritual. I turn to see a grave look on her face. “Your brother has asked to see me at the surgery after dinner. I have been instructed to come without you, I was in fact, told not to tell you at all and lie about an emergency.” She is not happy about Neil’s summons she has been avoiding him for months now. Something has happened, and he wants me gone, she was supposed to kill me long ago. Our wedding is planned, and only a few weeks away now, he is nervous. Neil is afraid of me and even more so of us. You see it's just him and I left, slowly they have all fallen like flies, wives, children, cousins, aunts, uncles and even friends. He is the only thing left between me what was always mine. He is too stupid to realise I plan to take it from him, I am biding my time.

  “Go, I will send Art to watch over you, he will have someone watching me. We are so close now I don’t want him to attempt to kill me.” I pull her towards me and kiss her sweet lips. I love her and I think she might just love me under her armour of murder and coldness. When I let her kill the sex is explosive and insane and I don’t hurt her, we feed of the person dying in front of us. I feel sick when I think about it afterwards, but when it happens there is nothing to stop the ecstasy we share in those moments. I shake my head just thinking of is makes me feel dirty. She kisses me back her hands sliding slowly over my chest igniting the slow burn of need and madness.

  “Hmm, what are you cooking?” She asks me not breaking our embrace. I have become quite good at vegetarian cooking and I rarely eat meat anymore. The quail dinner proved her point rather well. “Stir-fry my Princess, it's almost ready.” She smells like heaven standing so close to me, her body is a constant temptation for the demons I am trying to purge. Just one to go.

  She sits down at the kitchen table, the place we have made ourselves most comfortable in. The whole house is full of ghosts and I rarely go anywhere but into our room, the office and the kitchen. The wine cellar bellow the kitchen has been well used too. The incinerator housed down there has proven to be most useful. An old mob house holds so many secrets no one would think of today. My grandfather was a ruthless man with a thirst for blood and three sons who killed for him all their lives. This home was built for dark and sinister things.

  We eat in silence, silence is something that often happens between us. Shannon is a complex creature that I may never understand. There are times like a few minutes ago where she is warm and soft and melts to me, but now her mind has moved on to other things and she has turned stone cold and indifferent. She won’t let herself feel anything for me. I know she fights it, but the feeling are right there. Shannon just refuss to set them free.

  I have become accustomed to the shifts in her personality, I can recognise her cycle and I know when my princess needs a victim. She may well need one tonight if she doesn’t kill Neil. No, his death is mine and mine alone. The tormentor of my youth, the boy who stole my fucking life, he gets to die by my hands.

  Soon.

  THE TIME, I HAVE SPENT sharing my space with Callum, has taught me to manipulate him, make him feel what I need him to feel. He is predictable while he still hurts me and I am no physical match for his abuse yet I can twist his thoughts to suit me most times. He still ties me to the bed every night, even those when he hasn’t hurt me, the trust will never be there. I don’t blame him – I am not to be trusted.

  I am the Queen of my castle at long last, our wedding is around the corner and Neil is the last O’Reilly in the way of Callum having all that was meant to be his. The asshole has summoned me to meet with him tonight, I knew it would come due to my blatant defiance by not killing Callum, it has his hackles up. He wants me back, he needs me to help him. I won’t, I chose a side and it is not his.
I will laugh at his funeral and spit on his grave.

  I am killing Callum just slower that he plans to kill Neil. Then I can walk away. I am faced with the choice and the consequence of that choice. If I walk away who will clean up my mess? It is easy to be a killer when you don’t have to be careful. I am not sure I can continue to be me without at least one them staying alive.

  Since Callum, I am not suffocated and controlled. I am the lovely wife to be who can do as she wants, I only have to answer to Callum if he asks me. My cycle has altered and my needs have changed and as I watch him brush his teeth every day I know he won’t live forever – just long enough to suffer. The doses of the Phenacetin I put in his toothpaste guarantee that he will get cancer, the prolonged use of the drug is always fatal. It just takes time. My high is continuous, it keeps going. It is renewed every day and I feel so good. Killing with Callum has become my new ritual, an erotic thrilling high I cannot match without him. Yet I am killing him to. I never come down from the rush and it is fucking amazing.

  I watch him wrestle his demons daily in this house, the slow torture of whatever it is that haunts him fuels me. I know we won’t be here forever, but I am enjoying the way this house can turn Callum’s monsters against himself. But they turn against me too.

  I tell him about Neil’s request for me to go see him. Mostly so I know that if I don’t return someone will look for me and also his men follow me all the time so I would rather him not doubt my loyalty. I can’t lie to him he sees right through me, most times, I am getting better at it.

  I tie up my hair and swipe on some lip gloss before I slip on a fresh pair of heels to go meet with the slime that is Neil. Callum tells me to take his car before he retreats to the den and his work. After our engagement, things quickly went back to our simple arrangement. I cannot give him what he wants and he cannot stop feeling things he shouldn’t feel for me. We exist in each other space we feed the needs that we have and we stay far enough apart to prevent self-destruction.

  Neil is waiting for me at what was once my surgery, now Dr Duncan runs it and takes care of their dirty work. I work from home only when they don’t want even him to know what has happened or when Callum brings me a gift. I walk into the stale space that suffocated me for so long. I know I will find him in my office, behind my desk on my chair. He is an asshole that way, taking shit that isn’t his.

  “Hello Shannon.” His voice drips with fake endearment and his eyes are alive with his anger at my contempt. I sit down in front of him. I am not his toy anymore, I don’t have to be weak because I am on the right side of this war, he just doesn’t fucking know it. I am done being nice to Neil. It is time for him to meet the real Shannon, the one who doesn’t need his rapist ass to keep her secrets anymore. “Hello Neil, can we get on with this I have a wedding to plan and a fiancé at home waiting for me.” He tssks at me! What the fuck. I wish I could kill him, I would enjoy it.

  “Shannon, why is my brother still alive? You can’t lie, I know he is an abusive asshole. I know he beats you until you pass out. He is an animal to woman, has been since we were boys. Callum is sick in the head, there is no way he hasn’t pushed your kill button.” He takes an evil breath before he carries on talking at me. “I thought you understood what I needed Shannon. He is not an O’Reilly and he needs to be dead. He is up to something I fucking know it. What has he told you about Cape Town, about Amya and Rowan and the Spillane girl?” I am sure there is confusion painted all over my face at that moment, the truth, nothing. He never speaks of where he has been, who he was with or what they did only, ever of the plan and the future and going back there when he is done. Rowan is dead, surely, no one has even spoken that name in years and what Spillane girl? “Nothing Neil, about any of those things and who the fuck is Amya?” The name is one I recognise, but don’t recall, the others are dangerous territory I’d rather steer away from.

  “She is my bastard fucking sister that he was supposed to kill years ago.” He booms at me over my desk. This is not a good situation. I knew Callum was keeping secrets, but Spillane secrets cannot be a good thing at all. “Shannon it would be in your interest to tell me what you know now. I am all out of patience with you and my fucking brother. I have nothing left to lose in this life I want the damn truth!” He is scaring me now, this version of Neil is the same Neil that I saw as a fourteen-year-old girl before the grey and the murder took over. This is the Neil that raped me in the graveyard where we playing. He couldn’t let it go that his father mocked him for not taking part that night, so he sought me out and took what he wanted from me. I fucking hate him. He kept taking from me for years now he can’t and he is pissed. He still tries though.

  “I don’t know anything Neil and I cannot fucking kill my fiancé -make another plan.” I start making a move to leave.

  “Not even a blow job for my time Shannon? You have forgotten your place. Where do you think you are going? I say when you are done with our arrangement. Don’t forget you will always belong to me Shannon. I took you for myself when you were fourteen and I am never letting you go I told you then and I remind you now, be careful Princess.” I swallow the bile rising in my throat, straighten my shoulders. I will never go near his filthy cock ever again, he can rather shoot me.

  “Neil, you haven’t done anything to deserve my mouth on your cock, and I am almost sure Callum wouldn’t approve, so I am leaving.” I push my chair back stand and walk out in defiance of the man who believes he is in charge of my life. He doesn’t follow me, but I can hear things being broken glass shattering and the thud of his fists connecting with the things in my office.

  I mull over his questions on the drive home. Who are these people he asked about and why has Callum never even uttered their names?

  Spillane is the one ringing very loud in my ears. There is a Spillane out there. Rowan isn’t dead? He is dangerously handsome and his panty dropping smile distracts me from my purpose. I want those lips on me. I shake my head and try to focus.

  Motherfucker, what will I be walking into if I return to South Africa with him?

  He is still at his desk in the den when I return and only stops whatever he is doing when I sit at his desk.

  “Who is Amya, really Callum?” I open with that one I know it will catch his attention right off the bat. He slams his laptop shut and glares at me. Oh, hello monster Callum, did that hit a nerve. “Who mentioned that name to you Shannon?” He is worried, even more attractive. “WHO SHANNON!” Fuck now he is pissed too.

  “Neil asked me about her and Rowan. Callum is Rowan alive? He also wanted to know if I knew about the Spillane girl?” I sigh and try to understand this all. “I don’t get it, but these are some pretty big secrets for him to know about.” I want answers. “Do I even know you? How many secrets are there Callum?” I look into those eyes and wonder out loud “Who are you really?”

  He doesn’t answer me just picks up his phone and dials a number, the vicious tone of his voice as he tells whoever answers. “The plan be damned it’s time now. I am ending it now.” It’s frightening and I know he will be taking at least part of the raging anger that I feel pouring from him out on me later. My body will be the punching bag and sex his release from the rage. He puts his phone on the desk and looks me in the eyes. I swallow a lump of dread as his gaze carries the threat of the agony that will follow later. I have been warned, I have crossed a line and I will be punished. Severely.

  “Go to bed Shannon, these are not your secrets they are mine. Rowan is alive and I intend to keep him that way. Amya is my sister and I won't let Neil near her she has lost enough for this fucking family. Forget you ever heard the name Spillane. We will discuss it later when I am ready. Go to fucking bed. I need to end this shit tonight.” I dare say he is murderous, a trait I recognise all too well. His demons are on full display for all the world to see right now, they're so beautiful. It is like looking in the mirror, there is me in him and him in me.

  “Alright I am sorry Callum,” I say sweetly knowing my
words will play with the emotions he is already wrestling with. “I will wait for you upstairs Callum.” Sweet Shannon. Fuck him and this shit. I know my body will be the sacrifice later when he returns. I lean over his desk and kiss him softly before I retreat to the false safety of our room.

  I hear him screaming at someone from upstairs before I go to shower. “Where is he?” his voice roars and carries through the ghost house, waking up all the evil that lurks in us both. His anger vibrates and I feel it inside me.

  I run my fingers over his toothbrush and remind myself of the silent killer that is already working its wonders on him. Slowly and vindictively his body will pay for what he does to mine. And I will watch with a smile.

  FUCK IT ALL.

  He knows about them all. I am not sure what sort of evil fucking magic he pulled to find them, but he just gave me the reason I needed to end this shit ahead of schedule. My brother is going to hell – tonight. I am going to send him there personally. My monster wants to play and this time only slaughtering Neil will do to satisfy it.

  The last ghost of my father’s legacy will be gone. Only Amya and Harmon have been saved from my wrath.

  I try to get in my car and my anger is just made worse, she moved my fucking seat and didn’t put it back. I have to get her, her own damn car. I hate sharing! Loathe it! I want my own things!