by Tillie Cole
Raphael made a move to walk toward Maria, to order her to get up, dry her eyes, and get on his bed. But as he approached, as he reached down to take her in his arms, Maria met his eyes and whispered, “Red rose.” Raphael froze. “Red rose,” she repeated, her slim body sagging with a sadness Raphael couldn’t identify with, didn’t even understand.
Emotions were a void in his life.
Maria had spoken the safe words. Why had she done that? Why the fuck had she done that? His jaw clenched, and she held herself even tighter. “I need tonight. I need to not do anything with you tonight.”
Raphael had no idea what to do. What to say. His hands clenched into fists again. He needed her underneath him. He needed her screaming his name. He had had her every day, tasting her pussy and drinking down her screams. “Please,” she begged, tears falling down her cheeks.
Raphael backed away from the door. He tried to tell himself to stay calm, that he had given her those words for a reason. He didn’t want her unwillingly. It would only sour his seductive game. But as he reached the center of his room, a familiar red mist clouded his vision. She had rejected him. His little rose had spoken the safe words.
She had stopped him.
She was meant to love him.
But right now her face was sad, tears were falling down her cheeks. And he had no idea why. He couldn’t read people like this. Didn’t understand them. Why did people cry anyway?
He wanted to understand. The fact that he couldn’t, didn’t have the ability to, no matter how hard he tried, only made his anger worse.
The red mist’s talons spread, devouring his face and neck, arms and legs. It rushed through his torso until it smothered his heart in black and made it thirst for death. Hearing another sob slip from Maria’s mouth, Raphael fled the room.
He slammed the door and locked it, trapping Maria inside with her tears and her safe words. He didn’t even register fleeing down the stairs and out into the frigid cold air until he was behind the wheel of his car and driving toward downtown Boston.
The car was silent but for Raphael’s heavy breathing. He gripped the steering wheel tighter with every mile he drove. His gaze dropped to his hands, hands that now knew every inch of Maria, how her skin felt, how her nipples beaded under his touch. How her fingers felt wrapped in his. He gritted his teeth thinking of her in the corner of the closet. Shifting his grip, he squeezed until all he saw under his fingers was not a wheel but a neck.
He squeezed it so tight that if it were a neck he would have snapped it, crushed the trachea and distorted the bones. This he knew. This he understood.
This he craved.
He had to have it. Had to sate his hunger for death.
The countryside was a blur of dark greens as Raphael raced to the sex club. He parked his car in the alleyway outside the club, deep in the shadows. Raphael let his feet and his dark need lead him through the entrance. He flashed his card and rushed up the stairs. He didn’t even care if the Brethren would be watching. In fact, he hoped they were. He would welcome the fight. Raphael needed the rush only death could bring—the more necks snapped under his desperate hands the better.
The smell of sex and cum hit Raphael’s nose first. Smoke was heavy in the air, smoke that disguised people’s identities. People who paid a small fortune to be whipped and spanked and eaten out while tied up with ropes and chains. Raphael wasn’t playing his usual role tonight. He wasn’t calm and suave, casting seductive looks and luring willing pussy into his trap. Tonight he was savage. He was untamed and ready to fuck and kill and erase Maria from his head. Maria with her pouring tears, perfect long hair, and whispered pleas. Saying no to him and his mouth, his tongue, his hands on her body.
Raphael didn’t have to wait long to get what he wanted. The blond he was scheduled to kill weeks ago cut through the crowd, her eyes fixed on his. She was dressed in a leather bra and panties, her fake tits bursting through the straps that did nothing to conceal her figure. Her panties were made of two leather straps that wrapped around her inner thighs and hips. Her pussy was free and bare, her ass too. Raphael couldn’t even remember this bitch’s name. As she stood before him, her arrogant chin tilting up, she smiled. “Pollyanna not giving you what you want anymore?”
Raphael ignored her stupid words, reached out and cupped her naked pussy. It was already soaking wet. Good. Less work for him. With his other hand, Raphael gripped her stringy, peroxide-ruined hair. The strands were straw under his fingers. They were nothing like Maria’s. Hers were silky and thick and smelled of vanilla and rose. Bitterness and rage boiled in Raphael’s gut at the offensive smell of lavender. He yanked the bitch’s head back, relishing the surprise in her eyes. The trafficking slut moaned; she liked it rough. Perfect. So did he. Raphael waited for his cock to become strangled in its cage, coveted the sting and the burn the cage would push onto him. But it didn’t even stir. Not even a flicker.
In that moment he gave himself over to the rage threatening to consume him.
Even through his red lust, Raphael saw they were pulling in a curious crowd. Members waiting to watch him bring this bitch to heel. To make her scream, wound her leathery skin, before fucking her so hard she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. He knew he had to get her to a back room. Gabriel’s teachings about stealth and privacy were too ingrained for him to forget.
With his hand still in her hair, Raphael pulled the bitch, mewling and moaning at his aggressive dominance, through the disappointed crowd and into a private room. Raphael slammed the door and dragged the bitch over to the wooden horse that sat in the center. The triangular device was perfect for what he wanted. He lifted her onto it, her legs straddling either side, and chained her hands to its attached shackle. He tied weights to her ankles to keep her in place. Pushing a ball gag into her mouth, he stepped away and stared at her back. The skin was still red from where someone else had flogged her.
Raphael walked to the wall of flogs and whips and picked out the thin leather strap. He cracked it in his hand, the deafening snap echoing off the walls. The bitch moaned at the sound and her hips rolled, pushing her clit against the pointed wood between her legs.
“Red rose,” Raphael bit out. “‘Red rose’ to stop.” Just hearing those words slip from his lips drove his need to kill harder and harder, until death was all he could think and see and breathe. Though he had no intention of stopping; the safe words, this time, were useless. This bitch wouldn’t be leaving the room alive. Raphael smirked. She trafficked little kids to men for sex. His hand tightened on the strap. Raphael was a killer, a fucked-up heathen with an endless black hole as a heart and a Satan-tainted soul. But even he, evil made flesh, knew this cunt deserved to die for messing with kids. He knew all too well what that life felt like. She need to die.
Painfully.
Brutally.
Perish under his sadistic hands.
The bitch nodded her agreement of the safe word. But in her eyes was excitement, not the shyness or meekness that lay in Maria’s blue gaze. Raphael’s jaw clenched just remembering Maria. Then he thought of her tears. Those fucking tears he didn’t understand but made his stomach ache. “No,” he hissed to himself, forcing himself to push Maria from his head.
He wound the strap around his hand three times, and his lip curled in anger. It felt nothing like Maria’s hair wrapped around his palm. “Fuck!” he screamed as Maria invaded his head again.
Raphael’s always calm hands began to shake as he recalled Maria fisting the bedsheets as he ate at her pussy, drinking down her addictive cum. Roaring out loud, he slammed the strap across the bitch’s back. It landed with a crack. She cried out, and Raphael watched a welt burst on her too-tan skin. Her deafening scream soared to his groin. He hit her again. He pictured Maria on the wooden horse. Her crying, pushing him away. She needed to be punished. He hit her again and again until the slut threw her head back and she came, rubbing her clit on the wooden horse. He stilled. The bitch’s cry of ecstasy was nothing like Maria’s. It w
asn’t breathless or soft. It was crass and loud and grated on his fucking nerves.
Raphael threw the whip aside. He pulled down the zipper on his pants and took out his soft cock. He moved it to the bitch’s mouth. “Lick it,” he ordered. “Make it hard.” The bitch moaned in excitement, her cheeks flushing, hungry, starving for his dick. She smiled when she saw the cage that kept his huge cock contained.
“Mm,” she moaned. “Yes.” Raphael fed his soft cock to her waiting mouth. His jaw clenched when her tongue slipped out and licked along his slit. He stared down at her mouth and experienced tongue. But the more she licked, the softer he got. His free hand fisted at his side, then reached out and gripped her hair. He rammed his dick into her mouth, making her take it all, hard and unyielding. Her hips rolled again, her barely spent clit searching for another chance to come. He thrust into her mouth, faster and faster. Waiting for the cage’s silicone bars to squeeze his flesh until a pit of agony swallowed him whole, pushing him into delicious darkness. But he felt nothing. His balls didn’t ache. No blood rushed to his groin.
He wasn’t even getting hard.
“No!” he bellowed, his voice echoing off the padded walls in the room.
Yanking his cock back, he released the bitch from the horse and pulled her by her hair to the wall. “Wait there,” he ordered. The bitch licked her lips, her pupils blown with anticipation. Raphael took a dildo from a drawer and pointed to the rubber-coated bed in the corner of the room. “Lie down.” She did. He handed her the dildo. “Fuck yourself.” Raphael pulled his shirt apart, the buttons dropping to the ground. He took hold of his cock and squeezed as he watched the dildo slip inside her wet hole. She started off slow, teasing, but it only turned him off even more. “Faster. Make yourself come.” The bitch did as he said, fucking herself like she needed cock as much as she needed to breathe. Raphael pumped his cock at the same pace, but fuck all was happening. The red mist that had been controlling him since he left the manor built and built until he was nothing but pulsating, walking rage. He edged closer to the whore and yanked her hand and the dildo out of the way. The dildo hit the floor. Raphael lined up his cock with her hole.
“Finally,” the bitch hissed, spreading her legs as far as they could go.
Raphael wrapped his hand around her neck. Her pulse was racing under his thumb, beating so fast it was jumping from her skin. But his cock showed no flicker of life. Nothing. His tip ran down her slit, and he roared in rage. It was her fault. It was the little rose’s fault. He needed to fuck. To kill.
It was all her fault for ruining him. For the tears. Why the fuck had she been crying?
“Fuck me already.”
Raphael stilled, his thoughts wrenched away from Maria’s pretty pale face and the freckles on her nose, and he was brought back to this room. To this bitch who was pressing her rancid pussy against his cock.
“Fuck me,” she hissed. “Or I’ll get someone who will. Someone who can actually get it up.”
Raphael smiled slowly. But it was anything but friendly. Raphael squeezed at the bitch’s throat. She moaned. But he kept going. He squeezed her neck tighter and tighter, watching the veins begin to rise under her skin. Her eyes widened when she tried to breathe. But Raphael kept smiling, coldly, triumphantly. Taking his hand from his dead cock, he brought his fingers to her neck and smothered her every bit of skin. The bitch began to struggle. And for the first time that night, a bolt of something hit his groin. But it wasn’t enough to make his cock swell. It wasn’t enough to fuck this bitch as she fought to live. He squeezed and squeezed, her eyes growing bloodshot with the pressure. Her hands slammed to his forearms, her long red nails raking at his skin, trying to prize him off. Scratches on his flesh sliced open, blood sprouting to the top. But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Had no intention of fucking stopping.
“Die,” he rasped, and he saw the moment his words registered with the slut. “Die, trafficking bitch.” Raphael laughed when her legs started to flail, when she tried to buck him off, her eyes widening at his words. Her hands were frantic as she scratched and clawed, as she tried to break free. Her face grew bright red. Raphael squeezed harder and harder . . . then with a crack, her bones snapped and he felt her trachea collapse.
The bitch’s eyes were locked on him; they would never blink again. Raphael panted and caught his lost breath. Releasing her from his grip, he glanced down at his cock. It was still soft. Fury like nothing he had ever felt engulfed him. He pulled up his pants, stuffed his cock into them, and grabbed hold of the still-warm dead bitch on the bed.
Raphael headed for the back door and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway that led out into the alley. Once outside unseen, he threw the bitch in his trunk. He was on the road and heading back to the manor in minutes. But his blood was too fast and too hot as it rushed through his veins. Lava was all he was made of. He made a fist and sent it plunging into his dick. His jaw clenched, but there was no reaction. No hardening. Slamming his hand on the steering wheel, Raphael released a deafening growl. His foot pressed on the gas, and he soared out of the downtown streets. In the back of his mind he told himself to calm down. Gabriel would kill him himself for going too fast and potentially drawing the attention of the cops. But Raphael didn’t give a fuck. Right now he was nothing but fire and frustration, motherfucking flames. He tried to picture the bitch struggling for breath, her eyes when he’d told her to die. He should have been rock hard. Should have been able to sink his dick into her overused pussy and come perfectly in time with her very last breath.
But he hadn’t. All he could think of was Maria. Maria with her long blond hair and innocent gasps of pleasure. Her tears. Her fucking tears that he didn’t understand.
“Bitch!” he snarled. “Little rose BITCH!” Raphael’s car skidded as he pulled to an abrupt stop outside of the manor. He flew out of the car, grabbing his camera from the glove compartment. Yanking open the trunk, he aimed the camera at the dead bitch and took the picture that would be joining his wall. He tossed the camera into the back seat, pocketed the Polaroid, and raced up the stone steps. The minute he was through the door, he made for the stairs.
“Raphe, your order has arrived.” Sela was smiling at him. Raphael ignored him. “It’s fucking beautiful, brother.” Sela frowned, then looked down at Raphael’s clothes. But Raphael didn’t stop. He had made it only a few steps when he met Gabriel walking down. For the first time in years, the sight of Gabriel’s priest’s shirt fucking offended him. Raphael tried to brush past him, but Gabriel got directly in his path. His brother’s blue eyes drank him in. Gabriel studied Raphael’s open shirt, his clawed arms and chest and cheeks. Blood. The bitch had drawn blood all over his skin.
“Where have you been?” he asked, his voice stern.
Raphael smiled coldly, his cheeks aching with the forced pleasantry. “The bitch is dead.”
“You killed her already? Then why didn’t we celebrate?” Bara was at the bottom of the stairs. All of his brothers were there, looking up at him with confused faces. Apart from Michael, who just regarded him plainly, as usual.
Turning back to Gabriel, Raphael said, “The trafficking bitch is dead.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched. “You went back to the club? I told you not to go back. The Brethren⸻”
“I don’t care what you said. The cunt is dead. Contract fulfilled.” Raphael held up his car keys. “She’s in the trunk of my car.”
“Give me the keys,” Sela said, his face hard and voice deep. “I want her before she goes to the crematorium.”
Raphael threw the keys at his brother. He could have her. Cut her up and do with her what the hell he wanted with her ugly parts.
“I wanna see too,” Uriel said, and he, Bara, Sela, Michael, and Diel all raced out of the front door.
“You were forbidden to return to the club,” Gabriel said. “They could have seen you. They could have captured you—”
“They didn’t,” Raphael said through gritted teeth.
&nbs
p; “That’s not the point—”
Raphael went to push past Gabriel to get to his room, but his brother grabbed his arm. Raphael set the anger that was firing his every move free and slammed Gabriel against the wall. Hs hand slipped to his brother’s neck. Gabriel’s shocked eyes met his.
“Leave me the fuck alone, brother, and don’t touch me without my permission. I killed the bitch. And now I’m going to my room to get back to Maria. Don’t get in my way ever again.” Raphael threw Gabriel aside, feeling his brother’s shocked eyes on his back as he climbed the stairs and rushed to his room.
The second he was in his suite, he locked the doors and moved to the secret door that faded into the wall. He pushed through, shutting the door behind him and flicking on the lights. He moved to the printer, scanned the Polaroid, and printed out a larger copy. He pinned it on his wall. With the pen that sat beside the printer, he wrote the words “bitch” and “kid trafficker” beside the picture of her dead face, eyes wide open for eternity. Throwing the pen down, Raphael was about to leave the room when he stared at the shrine. At the gilded frame that awaited Maria’s picture.
How perfect she was going to look.
His anger dipped as he walked over and, in his head, saw her captured image. The candles would be lit, a rose would sit in the vase. She would be so beautiful in death.
But the image was distorted when tears fell from her eyes and down her cheeks, ruining the imagined picture. Her bottom lip trembled and her skin drained of color. “No,” he hissed, fists clenching. “No!”
Raphael stormed from the room and raced into the bathroom. He threw off his clothes and stared at himself in the mirror. His muscles were strained, and his traps were high from the tension flowing through his body. He fisted his cock over the cage and squeezed. His golden eyes were fixed on his reflection. But nothing was happening. He pulled and tugged and hit his balls. But nothing worked. No blood. No constriction. No pain. He couldn’t get hard without fucking pain!
