Beautiful Victim

by Claire C. Riley

  But I also can’t not touch her at least just a little, and I know she’ll understand that too. Because that’s how we were then and that’s how we are now.

  We’re both a little afraid.

  And we’re both a little excited.

  And we both understand the other.

  That’s what makes us so perfect for each other.

  I squeeze her ass, my fingers getting too close to the warmth of her slit, and I bet she’s wet for me. But no, Carrie, no. There will be time for that. When you’re feeling more up to it, so just control yourself.

  My hand is moving quicker and quicker and I’m grabbing her ass and squeezing. My frantic, heavy breathing betrays me as I groan and come all over her back. I come and come, and I think it will never stop, and I still want to put myself inside her. I’m on fire with my lust for her. I thought the flames would be doused if I came, but it’s only made it worse. My body is thrusting against her, wanting to touch and know every part of her. To get to know every new curve of her full-grown woman’s body.

  I’ve missed so much, but I won’t miss anything ever again, Carrie. I promise!

  I groan and I reach around her, my hand grazing the side of her breast as I come again. And Jesus Christ I’m on fire, I think. And I can’t stop coming, and I bet she can’t wait until we can be together.

  When she can touch me and hold me as I take her body over and over.

  And I’m a real man now, not the boy she once knew, and I will make her feel so good—unlike Adam, who probably only cares for himself.

  And she’ll love me even more for it, more than anyone she’s cared for before.

  And she’ll tell me she loves me so much.

  And then she’ll flip me over and let me slide into her tight body, and she’ll smile down at me with lust in her eyes and our bodies connected in the most perfect fucking way.

  And then she’ll ride us both into oblivion!

  Chapter thirty-one:

  I lean over her back, stars still bright behind my closed eyelids. I’m panting against her neck as I try to catch my breath and calm myself down. I kiss her earlobe and say thank you to her. And I mean it too. That was amazing, and it was all down to her.

  “Do you want me to touch you now? I can help you orgasm too, if you want,” I whisper against her throat, my tongue stroking against her skin.

  She is so beautiful.

  She mumbles something, but the gag is in her mouth so I can’t make out what she says. I kiss her neck again; I’m a starving man, desperate to kiss those full lips of hers. To let my tongue probe her mouth, to feel it move against mine like it used to.

  I am hungry and desperate for Carrie.

  She is my salvation.

  She is my life.

  I reach around and pull the gag out, and it takes her a minute of working her jaw open and closed before she looks like she isn’t going to cry. And I say sorry for gagging her, but I didn’t want her screaming, and I ask her if she understands.

  And she nods.

  She’s such a good girl.

  I knew she’d understand.

  I press my hand against her crotch, and it’s warm just like I knew it would be, and I ask her again. “Do you want me to touch you, Carrie? I’m not selfish. I can make you come too.”

  And she isn’t just warm down there, she’s hot and damp and I bet she smells delicious. She does want me after all, and I lick my lips, already feeling myself growing hard again. And even though she’s dirty because she pissed herself, and she’s sweaty because she hasn’t washed in days, it doesn’t seem to matter. It doesn’t bother me like I know it should.

  Just like when we were kids, Carrie is the ointment to my craziness.

  She stops the tick of irritation.

  The OCD that rules my everyday life.

  Carrie is my cure.

  She flinches and moves her body a little so that my hand isn’t touching her so intimately. Of course I let her. I’m a gentleman and I want this to be her choice, not mine.

  See, Carrie? See how good I am to you?

  “Do you want me to fuck you instead? I can make you come like that.” I place small kisses across the side of her neck and I brush her hair away from her face so I can see her better. “I can make us both come like that. Won’t that be perfect?”

  “No,” she says, her voice sounding painful. “Please no.”

  “When then?” I ask, because I’ve waited a long time. Over twenty long fucking years. A couple more hours won’t hurt, I know, but still I ask the question. I want it to be perfect for both of us, but I still need to know when because I crave her like I crave air.

  Like I crave water.

  Like I crave and desire life.

  Like I craved my freedom.

  I want to live as much as I want to be with Carrie.

  She is my everything.

  She is my soul.

  My world.

  “Later,” she says, and the way she says it makes me know she is serious. “Later, please.”

  Later she will let me touch her and we will both fuck and make love. Because there is a difference, you know. And that makes me really happy.

  “Okay,” I say, and I kiss her neck again. “Later it is.”

  And then I sit up and I untie her ankles, but I keep my hand against the back of her knees in case she’s being silly and tries to kick me. She doesn’t move, but I still tie her ankles up again once I’ve pulled her jeans off.

  I help her to sit up, and then I put my arms under her lithe body and I lift her up and then lower her into the warm bubbly water. I watch in fascination as her nipples harden and peak at the change in temperature, and I reach over and touch one of them. She freezes, and I glance up at her.

  “Is it okay?” I ask.

  She swallows before answering. “I’d like to be clean first,” she says, her voice still shaky and uncertain in that way that shows me she is nervous.

  And shit, I’m such a bad boyfriend because of course she wants to be clean before I touch her. I bet she can still feel Adam in her. Don’t worry, Carrie, I think. You’ll only remember my touch soon enough.

  That thought makes me happy.

  And of course she’s nervous. It’s been a long time for both of us. She was always more experienced than me, but for all she knows I’ve had lots of practice now too.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It will be like the first time for both of us. We can forget everyone else.” Meaning Adam and whoever else she may have fucked over the years.

  She nods, and my heart soars.

  Yesssssss, I think.

  I wash her, smoothing the bubbly water down her body, across her curves and over a small scar on her outer thigh. There’s another across her stomach. It’s so low down it’s nestled in her pubic hair. It’s long and thin, and old, not new. I wonder where she got it, but decide to ask her later instead of ruining the moment now. My hand moves over her breasts, her hips, her stomach, between her thighs (but I don’t probe deeper than necessary because I’m a gentleman) her arms, her pits, her neck.

  I sit her up and I clean my cum off her back, and I laugh and blush and say, “Sorry about that.”

  And she smiles and says, “It’s okay.” And she blushes too.

  And even with her face all messed up like it is she looks beautiful. Especially when she blushes.

  “I was just so excited to be near you. You’ve always had that effect on me, haven’t you, Carrie?” I laugh.

  And she chuckles lightly, sweetly, sincerely, and she says, “Yes, I have.”

  And I can hardly breathe I’m so happy, and I know everything is going to be okay now.

  I can see it in her eyes that she’s ready.

  And I’m ready.

  And everything is perfect.

  Just,

  Fucking,

  Perfect.

  Chapter thirty-two:

  Carrie is clean and I get her out of the bath, and she’s trembling and she reminds me of a kitten that�
�s just been born, all damp fur and mewling cries for help. Her eyes are so lost, and her body so full of warmth.

  Her heart is beating against my chest as I pick her up and I carry her to her room. I don’t even bother with a towel; instead I use my own body to keep her warm. And that’s how it should be. She snuggles her face against my chest, and I think she’s crying again, but I know it’s a good cry, not a sad one like before. This cry is through happiness, because she’s so happy that I’m here with her, sharing this beautiful moment. And I want to cry with her, because I feel it too, Carrie! But of course I don’t cry, because I’m not a pussy—not anymore. And I want her to see that I’m not a pussy now. So I carry her in my arms, across the hallway and to her room.

  I put her down on the floor, and I feel a little embarrassed now because I came all over her sheets to get rid of the smell of Adam, and since then I’ve stripped her bed of those sheets. But of course she doesn’t know any of that. She just sees that her bedsheets are gone and she looks confused. She’d probably just think I was a pervert, like Benny from the hospital, who used to break into women’s houses just so he could cum all over their pillows and faces while they slept.

  He got the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis too. Apparently murder and theft are okay but a little cum shot to the face is disgusting. That’s what he used to say, anyway.

  And so Carrie is on the floor, and of course her floor is gross. Like everything else in this house. It’s dirty and stained, and cheap and smells bad. I pull back the duvet on her bed and I don’t like it, but what’s a guy to do? I pick her back up and lay her shivering body on the stripped mattress and then I pull the covers up around her, because I can’t look at her naked body for another second without getting hard and wanting to come again.

  She stares up at me, her almond-shaped eyes watching me closely. I sit on the edge of the bed feeling nervous and shy, and I stroke the hair back from her face (I washed it, so it smells like roses and cinnamon), and I breathe her life in. I literally take deep lungfuls of air, and I suck her deep down into me and I let her be a part of me.

  She watches me and I watch her.

  Closely.

  Intimately.

  It’s a beautiful moment that I know will be cherished between us forever. We’ll talk about this moment with our kids—“and then he looked at me, and I just knew,” she’ll say. And I’ll smile that knowing smile that she finds so attractive on me, and everyone will say aww and comment on what a great couple we are.

  I lean over her and smile. Her lips part to say something, but before she can speak there’s a loud thumping at her front door. Her pupils dilate and she opens her mouth wide to scream. But I slap my hand over her perfect lips and stifle the sound before it has chance to escape.

  “Why, Carrie? Why?” I shout-whisper to her. Because I’m so hurt and offended that she just did that; that she was going to scream for whoever that fucker is downstairs. And all I can do is glare down at her while whoever it is fucking hammers at the front door and calls her name over and over.

  “Carrie, you fucking bitch, open the damn door!”

  I frown down at her. “Friend of yours?” I snap.

  She shakes her head.

  “Boyfriend?”

  She shakes her head again.

  “Not a friend and not a boyfriend?” I say and she nods in agreement. And curiosity makes me wonder who the hell this guy is, but I don’t have time to ask that right now. I need to know the important things, like, “Will they go away if you don’t answer?”

  This time she doesn’t answer. Her head stays fixed in position, and I can see her trying to work out the best answer to give. The answer that will work out the best for her, anyway. I smile, because I already know the answer is yes before she nods. And I’m glad that she at least decided to be truthful about that one little thing.

  The banging goes on for several more minutes, and I get angrier with each fresh war against her door. But eventually they do stop and they do go away. Just like I thought. Just like she said with the nod of her head. She was going to scream for help, but then she told me the truth. And that reaffirms my belief that she can be saved, no matter what my mother said.

  My Carrie is still in there—the girl with bruises on her thighs and lice in her hair

  I slowly remove my hand from her mouth. Her tongue flicks out to lick across her lips, but she doesn’t scream or yell.

  “You seem to attract some really nice people, Carrie,” I say, and she snorts in response to that. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, but she doesn’t reply to me. And it’s probably for the best, if I’m honest. Because I can feel myself getting angry again.

  I’m beginning to lose my patience with her. I had my life back on track until she barged her way in, and now it’s all gone to shit again. For the second time since meeting her.

  “How do you always seem to do this to me?” I ask, but I’m not really asking her; I’m asking myself, because as Benny from hospital used to say, ‘you’re the only one who’s accountable for your own actions, man. No one else. Just you. You decide who you let in.’

  And good old Benny was right after all.

  This is all my own fault.

  I fell in love with her.

  I gave her my heart and I keep letting her trample on it.

  When will I learn? When? I guess the problem is that I don’t want to learn. Not really. What I really want is for her to love me back…to love me the way I love her. But I’m beginning to wonder if that will ever happen. I’m beginning to see that perhaps I will always love her more than she ever loves me.

  That perhaps I always did.

  You can’t force love.

  I remember reading that somewhere. On a billboard, maybe? I’m not sure. But I read it, and I got it, or I thought I did at the time. But I now realize that I probably didn’t get it at all—not really. At least not until now.

  Because as I sit here on Carrie’s bed, shaking in anger and being slowly swallowed by my own sadness, I realize that I love Carrie, but perhaps—even after everything we went through together, after everything we’ve been through these last couple of days—perhaps she never really loved me.

  It’s just another perhaps in the story of my life.

  Ain’t that always the way?

  Chapter thirty-three:

  I stuff a different sock in her mouth, and I don’t even care if it’s clean or not.

  Because I am bad, I think to myself.

  I must be if I’m getting so mad at her.

  My counselor-slash-therapist-slash-know-it-all-Mr. fucking Jeffrey always told me it was bad to lose your temper. ‘That it dirties the mind and the soul, and you should…’ What did he say?

  ‘You should always try to control your urges, because bad things happen when you don’t.’

  I actually don’t think that he was even referring to me when he said that last part; it was a general statement, a sweeping comment, if you will. But he was right. And it fit me perfectly. Bad things do happen when I lose my temper, when I get mad and lose control.

  That’s why I stuff the sock into her mouth and leave her tied up on the bed, the covers tight around her body. I turn the light out as I leave, and I close the door with a soft click behind me. Hopefully she’ll sleep and feel more like herself—more like the Carrie I used to know—when she wakes up. I still haven’t fed her, but I’ll make her something for when she wakes up.

  I hear her choked screams behind the gag as I walk back down the stairs, and I breathe heavily as I try to control my temper. And I shake my head in bitter disappointment at her.

  In the living room I see the stain of where she pissed herself, and that makes me mad. All my careful control almost goes out the window when I see that, because For fuck’s sake, Carrie, you’re not an animal. Surely you could have controlled yourself for a little longer?

  I go to the kitchen and I get out her minimal cleaning products—just soap and water, really—and then I boil
some water and fill a small bowl and I carry it back to the living room and get down on my hands and knees and I scrub and I scrub and I scrub, and I remember doing this same thing so very long ago.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze soft on my face.

  “It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” I said. “You can’t help being sick.”

  She looked down into her lap. I watched her hands twist against each other over and over. She wanted to tell me something, but she wasn’t ready. And that was okay; I was patient. I could wait until she was ready to tell me.

  When she looked up I smiled at her, to let her know I wasn’t mad at all. Her mouth quirked a little as she attempted a smile back.

  I looked back down at the floor, and I dunked my sponge back into the soapy water before pulling it out and scrubbing the vomit stains again.

  She’d only been there ten minutes. Complaining of not feeling well. She was hungry, I knew. So I made her some soup—leek and potato always made me feel better. I buttered her some bread, and I carried it all back upstairs to my room, where she was waiting. Carrie wasn’t supposed to be in our house anymore. Mom didn’t want her near any of us, but Carrie had climbed in my bedroom window anyway, like she did every night anyway. We would have sex, and I would hold her while she cried afterwards, and I knew she was crying because she loved me like I loved her and she wished that my mom would just let us be together.

  I would sneak food to her before she left. Sometimes chips and chocolate. Sometimes bologna sandwiches. She was always really grateful for the food, because her dad wasn’t working anymore and her mom was a drunk so there was never enough money in the house for food.

  I felt bad for her, especially when she stopped coming to school.