Annabel leads me to a stairwell and takes me up to the second floor. The walls are cream, and on one stairwell wall there is a weird green splash of color; a flash of memory from my childhood which reminds me of Slimer from Ghostbusters, a favorite film of Blake’s when we were children. He used to make me watch it with him every time our mother was so high she forgot to feed us and we needed a distraction from the hunger pains.
I was informed of her passing years ago, and used it in my therapy sessions. I told them I felt closure from the horrible childhood she gave us. It wasn’t true; I didn’t feel anything but indifference for her in life and death, and it would have been the same no matter what kind of childhood I’d had.
I focus on my surroundings; the tiled floors and barren walls leave the place cold and unwelcoming, ironic, really.
The brown door she stops in front of has a number six, stuck on with a piece of tape. Annabel shrugs when the door sticks after I put the key in to unlock it.
“So, it’s not the Ritz but it’s clean, free and your own,” she says.
The door finally gives and opens with a shove from Annabel’s overweight hip. I try not to head-butt her and toss her from the window when she announces the place with open arms and a, “Ta-da!”
The room smells of stale smoke and rotten food. The walls are stark white with swirls of yellow smoke damage. The couch is covered in a white sheet, and a small table sits in front of it on a dark brown rug. The floors are wooden and surprisingly nice compared to the rest of the shithole.
“We had a nicer place set up for you but you insisted on being in the city.” She continues to defend the fact it’s a dump and could make a depressed person slit their wrists to escape.
I look out the window and across the street at the subway, which will take me directly to Cereus’ school.
“It’s fine, Annabel. You can go now,” I tell her.
Her “humph” makes me want to choke her with her own saggy tits. She refuses to wear a bra and desperately needs one.
“Here is your starter pack which has money and all the things you may need, including a basic cell phone. Anything I can help you with call me, and make sure you make it to your appointments, Ryan. If you’re late or a no show we have the power to re-evaluate your release. It’s a huge culture shock after being confined for so long but you will adjust and adapt into the world.”
I swallow the retort on my lips and smile bitterly at her, and gesture to the door for her to leave.
Once it closes behind her, I sigh, and once again return my attention to the window. Cars and fashion have come a long way in the years I’ve been locked away but people don’t change, and they made the big mistake of thinking I have. I’m itching for punishment and debauchery. The blonde I saw when I first arrived is just coming back inside. She lives here and will be my first victim.
6 weeks later
I LOOK OVER AT JODIE, the blonde girl I first saw when I moved in. I was right about her being a self-harmer. She has a need to cut herself, cutting out the rotten, crimson poison of her own self-hate. She hates her parents and herself because of them. She has a very fragile mind and it only takes small triggers to have her itching at old scars; it’s fascinating to watch her mind unravel so easily. She sees sex as a way of us showing each other love. She’s desperate for someone to love her the right way and take her away from here. It only took me a week of seducing her mind to get her naked and opening up to me. Her mother envied her and used to ingrain into her that she was imperfect. Fat and ugly and not good enough, all because she was jealous of the unnatural affection the father showed their daughter. The thing she doesn’t realize about her wanting to be rescued from this place and the Doctors she believes keep her here, is that she is the one keeping herself here with her feeble, unstable mind. She will never leave here because she is still bound by the chains of her past. She can’t process, assess and move on from the sins others committed against her. She is so broken with no one to love her and help her mend, and so she will never be the girl she was, and that makes her prey to men like me and people all around her. She will always be a victim of others. There is only so much therapy can do for someone so far gone. Life is brutal for a girl with no family and issues as intense as hers.
“Are you putting on weight, Jodie? You know, the female body needs two thousand calories to function and the remainder intake just turns to fat?” I stare critically at her ass.
Her gasp is audible in the room full of people playing pool. Her friend, Isabella, looks down at her friend’s ass and smirks. Jodie’s eyes glass over with hot tears making my blood jerk a little in my veins.
Isabella is another broken idiot child. She claims to love sex and offers her body freely to anyone that shows interest. She is lying, of course. She never comes when I fuck her and I’m good at fucking little whores so the fault is on her side. I think she has elements of kink in her. Like me, I think she would get off on pain; she has the triggers that suggest she yearns for it. I haven’t explored it yet and if I do I don’t want to go too far under this roof, under the watchful eyes assessing everything I do. I’m going to use her to break Jodie and once I leave this place, push Isabella’s boundaries and see how much I can make her scream and come all at once, and mock her for it until she’s so broken she begs me to kill her.
“Her ass is fucking fine and I would love to tap that!” Rodney, the little rat hollers. He’s another hostage here. He looks like a deformed rat crossed with a streetlight. His height towers mine, and I’m tall. His face is pointed and his nose twitches when he’s concentrating. His teeth are too big for his mouth, making them protrude and dig into his bottom lip. He’s an ugly bastard with a hard on for Jodie. He had an obsession with fire, and according to Jodie, he set fire to a shelter for the homeless. No one was injured but it was a pattern that had gotten out of hand for him and they decided he needed treatment. He spent five years in prison before they declared it wasn’t the place he needed to be. I often find him lost in thought, looking at Jodie. He once told her her hair is the color of the tip of a flame, and he wanted to keep her burning. What a prick he is.
I walk over to Jodie and hook an arm around her neck, pulling her body into mine. “Don’t worry, I like a bit of meat on my meal, sweetheart. Go to my room, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Her face remains impassive, only the shine of her eyes showing evidence she’s humiliated, but her feet hurry to carry out my demand. She’s needy and already falling hook, line and sinker for the man I’m pretending to be to reel her in.
Isabella rolls her eyes at the retreating Jodie and licks her lips at me before sauntering off while looking over her shoulder, trying to entice me to follow.
“You know, Rodney,” I say quietly so only he can hear me, and to everyone else it looks like we’re just standing next to each other waiting for his shot on the pool table.
“Yeah, what?” he asks, curious about what I’m going to say.
“Jodie’s cunt matches the drapes. It’s bright like a naked flame and when I fist her tight fucking hole it’s like kindling, she sparks like a wild fire. The bitch screams and I wear her like a puppet.” I hold up my closed fist and laugh.
His mouth drops open and he looks around to see if anyone else heard me. When he looks back at me I smile and casually tell him it’s his shot before I leave to go ass fuck Isabella why Jodie waits for me.
I don’t even get to her room; she’s waiting in the hall and gestures to the laundry room opposite her door. “Aren’t there cameras in here?” I ask confused.
Giggling, she points up to a camera in the left corner. “I treat Jason to a peep show every now and again and he signs me in for curfew when I miss it.” She winks. Hmm, clever little manipulator. I could use that.
“Take your clothes off, whore.”