Iniquity (An Inferno World Novella)

by LeeAnn, Emery

  I tried to make it up to him, but it was too late. Maybe he had unrealistic expectations, but he was not wrong. He could never be wrong. The fault was mine for not being perfect for him. I would just have to try harder. He slammed my face down into the mattress, holding me there. I felt the leather strap come down across my back again and again, lash after lash. Family did not lie to family, and in his mind, I was trying to deceive him by saying that I didn't enjoy him fucking me. And it was true, at least physically, that I enjoyed every thrust of his magnificent cock. I was only struggling with the inexperience of my mind, coming to grips with what was happening to me. He was brutal when he took my body, and I did enjoy it, but I also knew that if he knew how much I craved the physical pleasure, that information would also make him angry. He needed to make the decisions, not me. It was never meant to be about me or my needs, nor should it be about me or my cravings. My entire existence was solely for his pleasure. I was made for him. I didn't see that as some sort of injustice, but as a goal that I needed to work toward, and the sooner the better, for both of us. And every time that I did not live up to that goal, I was the only one to blame. It just meant that I had to work harder. I had to fuck for his pleasure, not mine, and swallow any residue of adolescent purity that still infected the deep recesses of my mind. I had to be his fuck toy. I wanted to be his fuck toy. I needed his approval, his rare smile of pride. And I hated myself whenever I screwed things up and denied both of us his pleasure.

  His darkness eventually leaked into me. He didn't trust anyone, so I had to look for the deceit in everyone. Nobody was your ally but your family. At best, they were your pawns, and at worst, they were your rivals, but mostly they were a means for your sadistic pleasure. Learning this was harsh and brutal, but learn it, I did. It took several beatings to have this ingrained in my mind, beatings that I willingly accepted. Unlike when Momma used to beat me, these were for my own good. They were the vehicle that would drive me forward and let me grow. Though, I believed that I had learned that lesson the first time, he knew that he needed to remind me frequently, and I tried never to argue with him. He was always right.

  My love of pain came from these sessions. I found that cutting my skin was especially stimulating for me. It helped me to let my demons out when the stress started to get too much for me to take. Just cutting the thick meaty flesh of my upper thigh and watching the blood stream down was almost like an aphrodisiac. Watching the blood run down my legs could easily put me into a hypersexual trance.

  One specific time came easily to mind. I sat on the bedroom floor, feeling neglected after he stormed off out of anger. I was still struggling with my stupid tears, and he had had just about enough. Once he was gone, I crawled over to a recently discarded knife and began slicing, each new cut accelerating my arousal. It was wrong of me, but I began touching myself with my free hand, twisting my nipples and slapping my face, seeing Luke in my mind’s eye. I let my fingers trail down my torso, my nails digging into my flesh, leaving long, red marks in their wake. I slid a finger inside of me, pushing it as deep as it would go, pressing down on my clit with my thumbnail, as I slid the blade along my thigh once more. I began thrusting, dropping the knife as I tilted my head back, imagining my brother on top of me, claiming me, taking me hard. I traced my fingers through my blood and put them in my mouth. I sucked them clean as I began thrusting harder, curling my finger. There were no tears. Why could I not accomplish this when he fucked me?

  Thankfully, I heard him approaching before he opened the door, and he caught me in my pleasure. I was fearful of how he would have reacted if he had witnessed me seeking it without him.

  When he saw me sitting in a puddle of my own blood, he picked up the knife. Without a word, he cut a strip of skin from my right hip, never losing eye contact. The tip of the blade cut a smooth line, and then another, with the points connecting. He peeled away the strip of loose flesh and tossed it to the floor. The sting of pain filled me, driving me over the precipice of climax, and I had a mini orgasm. My slight moan of gratification did not escape him. He looked down at me in disgust and then turned and walked back out of the room, taking the knife with him. I think it was at this point that he began to lose interest in me.

  My goal was to make him proud, so that he would love me again. I wanted to make a grand gesture, something to show my dedication to him. I did this later that night. While he was lying in bed, his arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought, I walked in, holding a tube of super glue. I was determined to keep the tears back. I stopped at the edge of the bed and unscrewed the cap. I carefully slid the tip across my eyes, first the left and then the right, lightly squeezing the tube. I only had to wait seconds before my eyes were sealed shut. There would be no way that my tears could escape.

  I climbed up on the bed, feeling my way over to him. When my hand landed on his chest, I smiled. “Take me. I want to please you. I won’t cry. I’ll be perfect, I promise. You will be pleased.”

  I immediately knew that it was a mistake. My voice was too whiny. I sounded too needy. I didn't need to have my sight in order to know that he was glaring at me angrily. I felt pressure on my wrist, and I felt his chest way under my fingers. The darkness spun, and I landed on my back. A gasp blew past my lips, and then his fist landed on them. The bitter taste of pennies filled my mouth.

  “Have I taught you nothing?” he asked in a deep, breathless growl. His index fingers and thumbs pinched my eyelids. I knew what was coming, so I braced myself for the ensuing pain. Keeping a tight grip on the two thin flaps of flesh, he yanked upward. My eyelids ripped open, blood droplets forming at every one of the multitude of tiny lacerations. “You control your emotions. You will never take shortcuts. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded reverently, staring up at his blurry visage.

  The pain that spread through me and gripped my nervous system was far more intense than simply cutting my legs. It was on a whole new level, and, in my dark, demented way, I enjoyed it so much more than a simple blade slicing my skin. I choked back the involuntary gasp, ready to show him that I could be a master over my emotions, and controlling my reaction to pain was much easier than controlling my incessant crying any day of the week.

  “Turn over,” he barked. “I can’t look at your pathetic face.”

  I would be lying if I said that my heart didn't break a little, but I did as he commanded, as I always did. I buried my bloody face into the pillow as he straddled the backs of my thighs. To show me what true mastery of self looked like, he rested his limp cock between my ass cheeks. Without a single thrust, using no friction to draw blood into his organ, it began to grow, thickening, hardening.

  He drove his dry, throbbing shaft deep into my ass without hesitation. I bit back a scream. I was not expecting anal, but I should have known that his twisted mindset would see that as the ultimate punishment for what he saw as my betrayal.

  His hips pressed firmly into my ass cheeks, his cock deep inside of me. He wrapped his hand in my hair and yanked my head back. “You will not let the pillow hide your tears. If I see a single, salty drop, I will go get my bat and ass-fuck you with it until it splinters inside of you.”

  My addiction to pain almost made me want to shed some tears. Almost. This was not about my pain, just as it was not about my pleasure. It was about living for him, letting him use me. So I laid there and took his assault without so much as a whimper, and for the first time since he rescued me, I did not cry.

  NO ONE AND NO THING was safe around us. Everything that Luke did, he taught me to do. I showed great skill in hunting. People and animals, they were the same thing to us. There were woods outside of our house. I found myself alone more frequently, so I needed something to kill the time, and nothing killed time like killing. I began to take daily walks through the trees. I quickly became familiar with my surroundings, memorizing every natural and manmade landmark, a rock in the shape of a crooked arrow, several fallen trees and every path that twisted arou
nd the property. These were my hunting grounds. Here, I was a natural predator.

  Deciding to set some traps, I thought that maybe I could catch dinner for us one night. I was a survivalist junkie, watching all the documentaries that I could find on being able to survive in the wilderness. Anything that would improve my skills. Luke always reminded me that he might leave me for good at some point. That thought always made me physically ill, but I had to plan for what he promised would be inevitable. But I had to admit that the thought of not having him there, touching me, whether it was harsh or not, teaching me, guiding me, made me want to vomit. I felt as if I would wither away and die without him in my life.

  Who would I be without him? He trained me to be his extension, to be a part of him. Leaving me on my own was a fate crueler than anything else that he could ever do to me.

  I went to check on my traps, and there was a rabbit caught in its clutches. It looked at me with its little black eyes. I could feel its pain in their depths, and I wondered if this was how Luke felt when he looked at me. I picked it up, releasing it from the trap and held it in my arms. The animal was shivering with fright and shaking in pain. I was so excited to get an animal that I almost dropped it as it twitched, jerked and tried to jump away.

  “Oh, no you don’t, little one.”

  I grabbed it by the neck and twisted it until I heard a small crack. I held it up by its twisted neck in one hand, and wrapped my other hand around its body. I squeezed as firmly as I could and slid my hand down its torso. I could feel its insides squishing, its bones cracking and splintering. Bloody clumps of organs and tissue exploded out of its ass. I am not sure that I had ever had a bigger smile on my face than when I had my first successful kill. Reaching for my pocketknife, so that I could skin it and field dress it properly, I became suddenly pissed off at myself. I forgot it or lost it, because my pocket was empty. My hand grasped nothing but air.

  Looking down at the small animal in my hand, I sat down and wondered why I could not simply use my hands. Sure, it would not be as clean or efficient, but it would get the job done. In my head, my hands and my teeth were my biggest weapons. Those were things you could not lose or forget. In the end, a predator did not need a knife for such trivial things.

  I flipped the animal on its back. It was too mangled and deflated to make sense of, let alone for me to skin without any tools. I would have to rethink my position on this. As luck would have it, another fat one was in the other trap. This one was in a cage, unlike the first trap that had snared the rabbit by one of its hind legs. This rabbit hadn't felt the sting of a broken leg. It didn't tremble in fear or shake with pain. It sat safely behind its wired cage, watching me with curious eyes, unaware of its fate.

  I was excited to see how this would work.

  I knelt down next to it and studied it, smiling at the friendly looking creature. Its fur was a blend of varying shades of gray. Its wide eyes seemed almost trusting of my intentions, as if it were waiting for me to free it from its imprisonment. I loved its sense of innocence. I loved that I was about to exploit it. It filled me with a sense of gratification that I had yet ever to experience. I would soon have that feeling again, only heightened, but at this point, it was exhilarating. As I pulled it out of the cage, the furry, little guy tried to jump away as the other rabbit had, but I held on to him tightly around his body. He would not escape. He was mine.

  “What are you doing?”

  A scrawny skit of a girl was peering at me from around a tree. “I am going to skin this animal.” I shrugged, as if it was not obvious by my holding on to the wriggling animal that no longer felt safe in my presence.

  “What are you doing that for?”

  She was starting to annoy me. “Do you want something? What is your name?”

  “Mercy. My name is Mercy. And, yeah, I wanna watch as you skin that rabbit.” She looked at me expectantly.

  I looked at the wonder on her face and shrugged. “Then sit down and be quiet, Mercy. Not a single peep. Is that understood?”

  She nodded as if to say yes. She didn't wait for me to agree to let her watch. Instead, she scooted over toward me until I glared at her, which made her freeze, sitting as still as she could. Flipping over Roger, that was my name for all rabbits, I put him in between my legs, laying him on his back. He peered up at me with his soulful eyes and twitchy nose, trying his hardest with his tiny, little brain to comprehend what was happening to him. Positioning my thumbs in between his breastbone, I pushed as hard as I could until I felt the fur give way and my thumbnail sink into his soft flesh. His thrashing was making it hard to hold him still, so I pulled my bloody thumb out of his body and then twisted his neck. Like the previous rabbit, the small bones cracked and popped and then, finally, he was still.

  Digging my fingers back into the hole that I made, stretching it to fit both of my index and middle fingers, I pulled as hard as I could. At first, there was no give, but then the hole stretched further. I pulled the carcass up to my mouth and sank my teeth into it. I yanked and chewed until the growing hole became a jagged slit. I kept at it, and the slit stretched up to its throat, and down past its belly. The rabbit’s innards flopped out and plopped to the ground. I pulled the skin from the body. Grabbing each of its limbs one by one, I yanked them from inside their furry casing. The fur hung from the rabbit’s neck, leaving its pale red body exposed, pot marked with the bits of fur that remained. I could see the muscles and tendons beneath the mucus exterior.

  I was concentrating so hard that I completely forgot about the girl sitting beside me until she sucked in a deep breath. I directed my gaze at her and she backed away, looking, no pun intended, like a scared rabbit.

  “Did you know that when you look at people, you look like a killer? Your eyes are cold and lifeless.” She quivered.

  Shrugging again, “I didn’t invite you to watch, so you are more than welcome to leave.”

  “I would like to stay, please,” she whispered, intent on seeing this through.

  I shrugged noncommittingly. It’s her funeral.

  The fur was too tough to pull off its head with just my hands. I cocked my head as I studied it. I thought for a moment before I realized what I needed to do.

  I looked over at the girl. “Mercy, it’s time for you to go home now. Don’t tell anyone that you met me, okay? If you want to come out at the same time tomorrow, I will be here.”

  The girl looked like she wanted to argue, but she was too scared, so she jumped to her feet and then ran away, in a zigzag pattern until she disappeared. Satisfied that she was gone and would not be coming back anytime soon, I knelt down and searched for a rock with a somewhat sharp edge to it. It took a moment, but I eventually found one that seemed suitable for my purposes. I could still taste dirt and blood from using my teeth. Smacking my lips with a slight grin, I used my teeth to hold on to one edge of the fur, and pulled at the other with my free hand. I began sawing at it with the rock. It was a slower process than I believed it would have been, but eventually I made enough leeway to loosen it around the rabbit’s neck. It was a raw and primal feeling, tasting the animal’s death as I mutilated its fur. I let go of it with my mouth and dropped the rock. Gripping its slimy body with one hand and its fur with the other, I yanked as hard as I could in several quick successions, and I finally pulled the fur free from the rabbit. Feeling accomplished, I tossed the hide to the ground.

  “That was awesome,” Mercy squealed.

  Whirling my head around, I saw her hiding behind a tree. Shaking my head in annoyance, I ignored her. Its tiny, lifeless heart was still wedged in its chest cavity. I needed to finish gutting the animal, and take it home for a stew. I was really looking forward to reap the rewards of my kill.

  “Can I have the fur?” Mercy asked.

  I bent down, snatched up the hide, and threw it at her. Her glee had me smiling in spite of myself. “Now go home for real,” I demanded of her.

  “See you tomorrow,” the girl practically sang as she skipped away.r />
  Chapter Four:

  Eve

  I was delighted when I saw that there was a light on through the kitchen window. It meant that I would not be eating dinner alone. I was hoping this would make him happy. I walked in with a smile on my face. Unfortunately, I forgot about my disheveled appearance. The look of disdain on his face pierced me like a shard of glass sliding into my heart.

  I handed him the carcass, feeling guilty for not planning ahead and cleaning up. He told me to go take a shower. I did as he bid, and after I closed the bathroom door, I looked into the mirror. I saw the dried dirt and blood all over my face, caked around my mouth. I looked horrible. No wonder he was disgusted; I was disgusted with myself. I needed to start thinking before I acted. Just because you can use your teeth, does not mean you should. Another lesson learned.

  I turned on the hot water faucet, ignoring the cold. The scolding hot water would do me good. There must always be a price to be paid for my infractions. I would accept the molten-hot water and let it burn away my neglectfulness. I hopped into the steam-filled shower, fighting the urge to jump back out, and scrubbed myself clean. My skin was beet red when I finally stepped out and dried myself off. I flinched as I imagined his anger over the appearance of flesh, but prayed that he would see it as my penance for causing him displeasure. I went into the bedroom and put on clean clothes.

  I came down after I finished getting dressed; double checking to make sure that I was squeaky clean, to find out that he was gone. Again. He left dinner cooking, the rabbit stew that I had intended to cook for us, with a note telling me not to wait up and to sleep in my room tonight, which meant that I had disgusted him to the point that he could not stomach my company.

  Sadness washed over me. I would do better next time. I would make him proud. I had to. I just needed to figure out how.