Esp W Dead Characters Like Omg Plssssss

can it reject you?

no. you can easily get lost on the way there but it would never shut you out.

can’t stop thinking about this :( wish ben solo was real

nervous neighbor ⟶ ben solo

description ⌙ you're back at home from university, living with your parents for the summer because it's cheaper than trying to pay for an apartment while on a student's salary. but after you meet the new neighbor's son, ben solo, you're not so sure it's worth it.

pairing ⌙ neighbor!ben solo x f!reader

warnings ⌙ inebriated reader & ben, they're smoking weed and being petty together, mean!ben because when do i not make him a bit mean, ben jokingly attempts to solicit reader, reader has a blatant sort of fascination with ben, ben has severe blatant yearning for reader, reader is described to need a belt to wear ben's pants (don't question me it comes up), some high kisses (they're so fun oops), somewhat getting caught, tiny little bitty cliffhanger, ben's personality is totally based off this brent faiyaz song lmao

word count ⌙ 3.5k

— request (frl especially for ben/kylo) | masterlist

i love the idea of neighbor!ben so ofc i had to put my thoughts into a little fic! if anyone is interested... i wouldn't be mad at making this a series. i love neighbor!ben!

the sun is low in the sky, casting a warm and appreciated golden glow on the world around you. you revel in the sanctity of the suburban environment as you step outside your front door. the rays burn into your exposed shoulders, spaghetti straps lightly digging into the skin.

the fragrant scent of freshly cut grass hangs heavy in the air, leaving an earthy flavor in your mouth. you pull at the hem of your shorts, feeling the soft fabric brush against your exposed thighs as you make your way to the black mailbox straight ahead.

you flip through bills and junk mail, all in your parent's name for a minute before you hear the unmistakable rev of a car engine approaching. the engine seems to purr the closer it gets, and you're all too familiar with the sound. you feel glued to your spot as it approaches.

soon enough, ben solo's sleek aston martin swerves into his driveway, coming to a stop just a few feet away from his closed garage door. you watch as he gets out of the car, his dark hair falling messily over his forehead, and meets your gaze with his severe brown eyes.

there’s something about the way he looks at you that causes your heart to race. the sensation is unwanted or, at least, you tell yourself it is.

he looks like he always does; clad in dress pants and a pristine button-up, face etched with subtle haughtiness, and pink lips curved into a deliciously heretical grin. the previous sanctity you felt dissipates as his stare beats down on you, hotter and more all-consuming than the sun above.

"neighbor." he anoints, a slight smirk playing on his lips. "how much allowance are mommy and daddy giving you for checking their mail?"

"very funny," you retort, eyes rolling, "maybe they're drawing from the same funds your parents did when they bought you that ridiculous car."

you liked playing this game with ben. where he attempts to seem as if he's got something over you, some unspoken win. as if you're not both twenty-somethings still living with your parents.

he does have an actual retirement plan type job though, so, perhaps, he has you beat in some areas.

he works full-time, a fact you learned after dinner with your parents and his. brought up by your parents so they could dote on him— effectively buttering up han and leia further. the ass-kissing earned the family privileges to their in-ground pool though.

he's pretty prestigious, unfortunately. ben organa-solo, the youngest associate at his legal firm. he apparently had over forty offers of employment before he ever even looked at the bar exam.

he's doing well, sure— but the sheer fact that he still lives with his parents is enough to quell your nuanced jealousy. somewhat.

"my db-nine can never be called ridiculous. do you know the specs on this car?" he taunts, opting to lean against his aforementioned car.

you begin to turn away from him, not willing to go into a conversation regarding his stupidly expensive automobile. you can feel your ears warming as you try to ignore him, but ben is relentless, as usual, "you know, you really should relax a little, i'm only joking, kid.."

"excuse me?" you snap, fronting him again and crossing your arms defensively, "i am plenty relaxed, solo. thank you very much."

in truth, you haven't been relaxed or even casual since the organa-solo's moved in eight months ago. wealthy and recently retired, leia and han are amusing, charming, and almost constantly travelling.

the pair managed to befriend your parents the second they moved in. bringing over a plate of brownies, the duo easily meshed with your parents, making for countless dinners, conversations, and visits between the two homes.

the opposite can be said for ben and you. when you finally met him, a few weeks after his parents moved in, it was because he was yelling at your dog for 'purposely' pissing on one of his tires. since then, you haven't exactly seen eye to eye.

"mhm, of course," he drawls sarcastically, "that's why you're always so wound up,” he’s smirking now, "you ever thought about smoking a joint or something? might help you chill out."

"really?" you scoff, raising an eyebrow, "that's your solution? drugs?" you choose to ignore his quip about you being tightly wound. as if he's not— you've seen him after work, he always looks tense, shoulders tight. at the recollection of his job title makes you almost comment on his choice of illegal activity, but you stop yourself.

maybe this was his vice after hours of listening to legal jargon?

"i'm just offering a suggestion. i've got pot and an empty house." his voice is biting, holding his hands up defensively, "take it or leave it, kid."

your mind is wrought with confusion over his words. in the few months you’ve known him, you would have never thought he’d be suggesting what he is.

ben solo, who drives an aston martin, only wears button-ups or suits, and is always willing to make you look or feel idiotic, is trying to convince you to smoke pot with him.

you worry for a brief second if you’re deluded.

you would have never suspected the famed judiciary to unwind in such a way.

no, your first guess would have been whiskey, or maybe something a bit more scandalized and indecent. you try to shake that idea out of your head.

"fine," you blurt it out before you can stop yourself, surprising both you and the arrogant figure in front of you.

"seriously?" ben questions, his eyes widening in apprehension. "you're actually going to do it?"

"yeah, solo," you shrug, drawing out the first word, trying to sound more resolved than you feel, "nothing i haven’t done before."

"okay, cheech," he mutters, grinning wickedly, "let me smoke you out."

you follow him into his house, heart pounding in your chest. you're familiar with the layout— almost identical to your own home, only nicer. everything is nicer.

the air inside is cool and smells faintly of lavender, mixed with something decadent you can’t quite place. glancing around the space, you take it all in. it feels different now that you're alone with ben. less homey and more belly of the beast.

there are windows everywhere, letting in an abundance of natural light despite the evident tint. the furniture is modern and obviously hand-picked though comfortable and no doubt, expensive.

you try to make yourself cozy on the couch, tucking your legs underneath you. ben disappears for a moment and returns with a tray, a red grinder, a lighter, and a baggie of green herbs.

your hands go clammy as you watch him grind it down. you try to wipe them on your pants, hoping he doesn’t notice.

he doesn’t seem to, instead beginning to roll a joint, packing the herb down with his thumb. his movements, precise and hypnotic. he's defiling all previous conclusions you had of him. he’s sure, magnetic, and undeniably confusing.

“ready?” he asks, holding the rolled paper out to you. you nod, and he lights up the twisted end, inhaling deeply before passing it over to you.

you place the joint to your lips, feeling the warmth of the light spark grazing your fingers. the earthy plant kindles with a soft crackle, and you inhale deeply. smoke fills your lungs, coiling inside you.

the cloudy smoke immediately hits your entire sinus system, choking you on its descent down.

you cough and ben laughs, “shit, take it slow, kid.” he huffs, before handing you a tepid water bottle, no question he figured you'd wind up coughing a lung.

you drink gratefully, feeling the water cleanse your burning throat. you look at ben, who’s watching you intently.

your eyes are watery and slightly hazy, but ben has never look better. eyes red and low, posture easy with one arm behind his head, and faint pink flush.

“what?” you ask, self-conscious. the room seems to swirl around as ben sits beside you, close enough that you can feel the heat of his body.

"nothing, neighbor," his stare is mocking, "do you feel relaxed yet?" he asks with a smirk.

you give him a meager thumbs-up, suddenly lightheaded and giggly. your thoughts are wondering to ben's pretty lips, but your mouth remains whetted and silent. adorning thoughts remaining within your capricious mind.

the tension in your body melts away, and you lean back against the couch cushions, letting out a deep sigh. ben's hand brushes against yours to steal the joint away, and you feel the heat of his touch all the way to your toes. it's as if the world has narrowed down to just the two of you, and nothing else exists.

“are you cold?” he asks, taking a drag, dress shirt sleeves rolled up, leaving his arms on full display.

you look at him, bewildered for a second, and he continues with an eye roll, “you’re shivering.”

looking down at your body, you note that you indeed are. either from the weed or the proximity you have to your novel neighbor.

with a gentle breath, you reply, “i guess.”

he holds the joint with his lips as he stands to look down at you, “c’mon i’ve got blankets in my room.”

you look up at him, unsure of what to say, but find yourself bobbing in agreement. you follow him upstairs, the both of you languid in reaching the destination. when you do finally get to his room, you note the array of muted jewel tones and dim light, different than the rest of the house.

ben keeps his blinds partially closed and curtains that mostly fall in front of them. his bed is huge, pristine white sheets and an inviting navy bedspread.

you watch as he pulls out a thick woolen blanket from his closet and spreads it over your shoulders. you feel the weight of it settle over you, cocooning you in warmth.

"better?" he asks, voice low.

you nod again, feeling the hazy ardor of the drug swimming through your body. everything feels fuzzy, and for the first time you don't feel so out of place with ben.

he takes a seat beside you on his all too comfortable bed, the aroma of his pomelo-scented cologne filling your senses. you discern it's probably dangerous in some way to be alone with ben like this, but you can't seem to bring yourself to care or reason why.

you let yourself peer into his large and expansive open closet. clothes, mostly suits and dress shirts, hang neatly on identical black hangars. he's tidy. the fact feels unmistakable, and you think you should already know just by the way he carries himself.

ben's voice interrupts your absent mind, "anything you like?"

you look back at him, leaning up against the headboard of his bed, joint billowing smoke from its rested position in his fingers. he looks less severe like this, less perfect, more mortal.

you're certain the drug has taken effect now because when you move to get closer to him, it feels as if you're floating.

you take the joint from him, stealing another hit before replying, "you just have a lot of suits. i wonder if you own anything besides them. i've never seen you in anything but."

"is this one of your long-winded jokes?" he briefly closes his eyes, but you can see them roll through his lids, "because if so, i'll kick you out. i won't hesitate to send you back to your house, neighbor."

snorting, you take yet another hit of the joint, "i did see something i liked, actually." you confess, your drugged mind deciding to be just a bit genuine.

he hums, "really? i've never seen you in a suit, or anything formal."

the sentence sounds stupid coming out of ben's mouth, but you chalk it up to his tipsy state, "maybe you will. one day."

your reply sounds equally as dumb, but you feel good, and you're actually having a conversation with ben. one that doesn't involve him undermining you or snickering at what you're saying.

"really? wanna try mine on? for practice." ben is smirking, eyes narrow, searing, and bloodshot.

you give him a ditzy look, joint still dangling from your fingers, "whatever, solo."

ben lets out a genuine giggle at that, and in your inebriated state, you smile at the sound. his dimples are on full display as he leans further into his cushioned headboard, eyes glazed and focused purely at you, "i'll pay, if you do."

his face is gentle, almost winsome, but the words that tumble out of his mouth sound murky— riddled with a slight hint of hunger. for what exactly? you're not sure.

your lips contort into a frown before you reply, "you'll pay me to put on your clothes? god, ben how much did you smoke?"

you mean for your words to come off as a joke, easy and light. instead, it comes out as timid and shy. you'd normally feel a tinge of embarrassment but either the drug or ben's starved stare makes the would-be feeling detach from your mind.

"enough." he shrugs, answering your rhetorical question, "i've got five hundred in my wallet right now," he pauses, leaning over to you and grabbing the joint, fingers brushing against yours, "and i want a show."

your mind seems to blank for a second, leaving you to blink your dry, red eyes in front of him. when the small wave of shock subdues, you reply, "i don't know how to give you a show."

ben shakes his head slightly, his eyes still set on yours, “yeah you do. swear it's not hard, kid.”

“says you,” you giggle, “but i’ll try on your clothes. for the money.”

he breathes in, contented, “for the money.”

without much more thought, you rise from his plush bed and make way for the closet. it's big enough to be another room, a stark contrast from your own closet, and it smells of his citrusy cologne merged with the lavender scent throughout the home. you find it comforting.

you look back over your shoulder, ben's watching you intently from his seated position, "what should i start with, solo?"

he hums before replying, "your pick, neighbor. what's mine is yours."

you can't help the dorky smile that graces your lips at his sentiment, even though you know he's being flippant. you hastily turn away from him, hiding your weak-willed reaction.

taking a deep breath, you begin to rummage through his wardrobe. your fingers brush against the luxurious fabric of his suits before settling on a satin black button-up that looks silky smooth to the touch.

you grab it and turn around to face ben, who's now standing and walking towards you, his eyes fixed on the shirt in your hand.

"that's a good choice," he says, his voice low and husky, "you'll look better in it than i do."

you roll your eyes at his comment but can't help the warmth that shoots through your body at his words. you quickly slip it over your cropped tank, eager to see it on.

as you're buttoning it up, you feel his swarthy eyes on you, watching your every move. you can't help but feel giddy with his ardent gaze and your own euphoric state of mind.

as you finish up the last button, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the ornate mirror hung upon one of the closet walls. you look decadent in his pompous shirt.

the feeling of contentment that washes over you is startling.

it's a beautiful cut of fabric, but it's the way it represents the achieved man behind you that has you stalling. you notice ben's breath hitch as he takes in the sight of you.

"i was right. it looks much better on you." he says, his voice rough.

you grin at him, feeling a newfound confidence wash over you, "is that right, solo?" you question, your demeanor one of leisure.

without warning, ben steps forward, right hand coming to rest on your shoulder as he leans down to you, "here," he says, his breath hot against your ear, "you missed the first button."

his fingers dance at your chest, fastening the skipped button. you fight a smile at the act, keening at his rash action. high ben is certainly less sardonic than sober ben, finding a nice middle ground at graceful teasing.

"you pick the pants, and grab a belt so that they'll fit." you smile.

he hums, pulling away and trifling through his clothes. his nimble fingers card through various pairs of slacks, settling on a matching black pair.

he turns on his heels, facing you. he raises his brows, a silent request for you to take the pants. when you do, his hands begin to fumble with his belt.

your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, "what are you doing?"

"i want you to wear this one. just let me play dress up with you, doll." his black locks are falling into his eyes.

you huff out a weak chuckle, focused on his action and new endearment. when the belts slides away from him, you notice the way his slacks droop slightly.

with a curt and nervous smile, you slide up the dark pants, fitting his belt around your hips afterward.

you study yourself in the mirror, opting to tuck the shirt into the pants messily— an attempt to somewhat display your waist.

ben comes up behind you, hands resting on your shoulders, humming into the top of your head, "i quite like you this way. ever thought about getting an office job for me?"

you give him a sarcastic pout, "for you?"

he smiles, canines showing, "yeah, doll, just for me."

you're dizzy at his words, "yeah, then who'd watch my parent's house all day? it's a full-time job being a stay-at-home daughter, you know."

ben groans a bit at your words, "that makes you sound like a little brat, you know." he drawls out the last two words, mocking.

you smirk, facing him now, lips becoming level with his when he leans down to stare into your eyes, "my mom calls me a brat sometimes. she says i'm never going to find someone acting like one," you pause for a beat, "d'you agree, ben?"

at the emphasis of his first name he sighs and lets his hands fall to your waist, "i agree that you're a fuckin' brat," he cranes his head closer, breath brushing against your lips, "but i don't think i mind very much."

your eyes flutter against your better judgment, and ben takes an evident note of the fact. his hands tighten at your waist, fingers digging in possessively. you feel a beat of caution before it flies away from your resolution. you press forward just as he does the same, lips meeting in a slow, heady, absolutely exalting kiss.

ben's fingers dig into you, timidly pulling you further into him. you crumble at his touch, hands fisting into his hair as he deepens the kiss further. he tastes of sweet honey and sunlight that fills you with warmth and affection.

you're both weakly fighting for more— an incessant craving for each other that quickly overtakes your common sense. the looming man continues to cast an unbreakable spell with each aching kiss as his gentle hands caress every inch of exposed skin on your body.

you let his hands fumble with the buttons of the borrowed shirt, slowly slipping it away from you. it brushes past your shoulders, and ben breaks the hungry kisses to trail sloppy ones on your exposed neck.

you're lost in the feeling of him— all-consuming. neither one of you willing to be pulled back to reality— but eventually you both have to break away from one another with heavy breaths and flushed cheeks. ben looks down at you with an amused grin on his face before planting a chaste kiss on the top of your head.

you hum and he mutters against you, "you like that? hm?"

"duh," you steal a glance up, "feels s'nice." there's a stupid grin stuck to your face.

"you taste so good, doll," he places a teasing kiss at the dip at the bottom of your neck, "and your lips are so fucking soft."

you give him a questioning look, lips upturned, "really? sounds wild coming from the same man that just called me a brat."

he hums darkly, "you being a brat," he places another kiss to your exposed neck, "just makes this little game of ours more interesting," one of his hands lifts your chin, pulling you closer, "c'mere, kid."

his lips are back on yours, less languid and with much more fervor. you feel so full in his arms. divinely entangled in the coveted luxury of ben organa-solo.

suddenly, you hear commotion from downstairs, drugged mind abruptly anxious.

"what's that?" your voice is barely above a whisper.

ben growls, "fuck— i'm sorry doll, i think my parents are home." you catch the faint flush on his cheeks.

you bite your lip, concerned, "but... i'm high. and wearing your clothes."

ben is about to say something else when the deep baritone of han solo's voice booms from behind his closed bedroom door, "come on out, son. the neighbor's are over for dinner. their daughter should be here soon," han's voice drops a bit, "and try to ease up on the flirting this time, okay?"

you stifle an uninhibited giggle, earning a glare from ben.

"yeah, sure. just let me get out of my work clothes," he peers down at you, eyes wicked, "don't want them to think it's all i own."

your eyes widen at his subtle dig, and he seems to revel in your amusement.

han grumbles something back before leaving. your breathing is erratic for a good few seconds. ben's hands remain on you, gentle grin on his lips.

"you heard the man. dinner." his voice is low, and you fight the urge to pull him into another kiss. the thought of more than kissing weighing heavily on your stoned mind.

your reply knocks the smile off of his face, "how are you going to explain the fact i'm already with you and high off my ass?"

he groans, head falling into the crook of your neck, "shit."

Beautiful Boy Two

dark! aemond targaryen x strong!reader chapter one chapter three

Warnings: violence, fingering?afab reader, only description is long dark hair, Starvation. Stockholm syndrome(eventual)cnc,dub con,sa "You look better like this," he says, his voice low and raspy. You flinch, swatting his hand away from your face. He runs his hand over your cheek and then suddenly your head is knocked back into another direction, your cheeks swells. Without warning, he grabs a fist full of your hair, your chin rises upwards

You stare at the wall, condensation drips. Your lips crack, hair knotted, dirtied fingers run against the divots, stone brickwork that dusts under the weight of the castle, another mindless dream of escape. The taste of blood is persistent in your mouth. You sip the water, eat the mouldy bread. Run your hand against the wall, scratch your nails deeper into the hole with the rats. You dream again of close bodies and gouging yourself on sweet foods, kneeling down praying to your rescuer, but you always awake back here. Back in your cell.

You're so sure you're on the brink of insanity, about to tip over the edge. 

There's about three steps from your cot to the wall, three small steps and then seven from the bars to the other wall. You're plagued with thoughts of escape, wishes to pull a guard inside and change their mind by kneeling before them. But they all take their oath way too seriously. You feel yourself drown in your hopelessness, every footstep without the sound of heavy armour sending frivolous goosebumps down your arms. You miss the smell of rain, the feeling of sun on your face. Things you hadn't even thought about while being in the safety net of the damp castle. The only thing that provided you comfort was the dripping of water, bringing you back home for just seconds. 

The rowdiness of men subsidies for a mere moment, and then there are angry shouts, ​​exasperated yields of freedom, pleads and begs towards the stranger. Well what you believe to be, you can hear the footsteps, just brushes of fabric and shadow figures that double under the candle light. 

You sit up, ears straining for sounds of the stranger, this had brung as much excitement to you; as when you had found two rats curled up asleep next to you on your cot, hands grabbing the crumb of bread you had picked off ,and then the sound of nothing. As if the visitor had disappeared. You look towards the gates, hoping to make out a shadow, barely even noticing the sound of them swinging open as your prince had already stood over you. 

Your gaze stiffens, eyebrows raising up. Mouth opening in protest, but he hisses at you, a lone finger over his mouth. Be quiet, let him speak. He crouches and you notice he has come without his eyepatch this time. You stare at the sapphire eye, brighter under the light of the candle, hoping to make him as uncomfortable as he did you, his face remains unreadable holding your gaze. 

“How you withered in here”, he speaks, voice softer than it had been when he had last seen you, his hand grabs at a strand of hair twisting it ever so slightly and then letting it fall back onto your face, you wished his hand had brushed near your mouth so you may bite it, but you act obedient under him, Act broken and get out it repeats in your mind like a hum.

Your eyes flutter, offering a small sweet smile in his presence. He huffs, hair grazing against his knee as his head tilts, you're encumbered by sweat and dirt, lips cracked and bleeding, you could be shoved on the street in the poorest area and still be seen as dirty, a filthy wench. He offers no sympathy towards the predicament that he had landed you in.

He opens his mouth to speak instead turning to the corner to see rats scurrying across the floor, a piece of bread in their mouths. “I see you have company” His mouth curls to a smile, watching to see if you bite back, a test.

“Not very good company, I was saving that bread for dinner.” You watch his face fall, and then you smile offering a light chuckle in return. “I merely jest, It might be odd. I feed them because I fear waking up in the night to a missing limb.” you smile back at him.

He scoffs “ You think that will stop them?” 

Your smile fades at his darkened tone, “well, if it doesn't i hope they aim for the throat”

"And why would you want that, exactly?" he smirks, his eyes still fixed on yours. 

“A quick and honourable death” you lean into your words, feeling your cracked lips brush against each other.

Aemond's smirk fades at your words, replaced by a colder, more calculating look. "There is nothing honourable about death by rodents." He says, his voice low and firm. "And it certainly wouldn't be quick."

Your eyes flicker downwards, grasping hair in your hands near the roots ,”Then i hope you would pity me and give me mercy” you run your hand down the expanse of your leg.

He studies you, face unreadable, the pleading in your eyes that fills him with a sense of power as if he didn't hold it already. “And you would want me to kill you?”

“That's what you've come to do isn't it?” 

Aemonds jaw tightens in return, he pauses standing quickly, turning to the gates and then back at you. He takes a step closer. “ And if I were to say yes?” 

“Then i would thank you, for a quick death would be better than withering away alone” your shoulder sag, head nodding in tandem as you speak. 

He takes a step closer towards you. Piqued with interest at the hopelessness in your voice. He looks down on you, and then suddenly his hand reaches out to grab at your face, his palm is soft, softer than anything you've felt in months, and the pad on his thumb draws circles around your face, you sigh into his touch. Eyes closing at the soft nature he had presented. You find yourself tearing up in his hold and then suddenly you're breaking under his face. He brushes a tear from your face. 

“Can't you see?” you splutter, “what you've made me” the sound of your voice is cracking and desperate. Your head tilts into his hand and then your own hand presses over his own, pressing the salty tears into your face. His eyes widened, he wasn't expecting such distraught sadness. Anger? Yes. Despair? Maybe. The feeling of discomfort sturs in his stomach. But he doesnt pull away, if anything his thumb starts to rub small circles on your cheek again. The tears pour and time passes quickly. He rises hand leaving your face. He turns to leave without a word, you stand hand grabbing at his arm, he tenses under your grip. He looks at you surprised. 

Suddenly his hand flies through the air and smacks you in the face. Anger boiling within him, you clutch your cheek, falling to your knees. “Wait! Please, I've had no comfort here for so long, that I've begun to think I've gone mad just under your touch.”

His hand stings from the impact and he peers down at you, your breathing laboured and thin. He thinks about moving but he stays kneeling down to your level. Hesitation. His expression has softened. "Why would you want comfort from me?" he asks, his voice low and gravelly. "I am your captor, your enemy. I have caged you here like a bird. Why would you want me to touch you?"  

The words roll off your lips like a plea,“Can't you see what you've done to me? You've driven me mad without saying a word” 

“One moon has passed” His gaze flicks over you, taking in your pathetic, desperate form as you kneel on the cold stone floor. A mix of anger and something else - something he can't quite identify - flickers in his eyes. Then, without a word, he turns and steps out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind him.

You sink down into the floor, eyes on the empty space he had left. The candle flickers. There's a grunt. It startles you from your thoughts of Aemond, “Miss?” it's rough, he’s from the north, maybe. 

“Hm?” you mutter, eyes turning to the source of noise. You peer before you, just making out the figure of a man held captive, a man of a taller stature, covered in furs.

“You're involved with the wrong prince miss” He mutters, hand coming up to run through his curly hair and then there's another voice, quieter, older.

“Don't talk to her, he’ll have your tongue!” The gasps turn into a stumble of laughs and sputters and then a huge coughing fit. You watch as the man turns around from you in his cell, sitting on the cot. Your own hand presses over your mouth as you conceal a whimper. Eyebrow’s furrowing. You shake under your own palm. Your other hand runs through your hair, providing little comfort. Cheek still hot from where he slapped you. Cheek still hot from where his thumb rubbed against your skin as if you were a precious child. 

You kneel in the corner that night and pray to the seven, pray he will come back, pray you won't die down here with the rats, from starvation. Pray your brother will be slain. Pray for salvation.  

Act broken and get out. 

You tuck your legs into your body and trace the cheek he held, You fall asleep. In the morning you braid your hair over and over again, letting not knots fall out, You use your water to rub your face from the dirt, you drop half the amount of bread on the floor this time, you don't pick at your nails or scratch at the surface, and then you wait, and sleep and wait and sleep and wait. 

Act broken and get out.

And sleep. It tolls on your body like a heavy cloud, you dream of all sorts of things, slaughtering your brother yourself. Killing the king, Aemond on the throne, a burning of flesh and metal fused together under the hot sun. White hair soaked with blood, body impaled on spikes. And you awake, wash your face, eat the bread, pray to the seven, braid your hair, stroke the rats. Your nails grow back, skin now pink instead of the blackened blood that had dried there. You pace along the expanse of your cage, waiting to hear the roars from men begging for relief. 

Act broken and get out.

You pace, pray in your corner, braid your hair, stroke the rats, tuck your legs up into a ball and trace the cheek he held. 

Act broken and get out.

It happens when you least expect it just like last time, in the midst of prayer, head buried in the wall, hands clutched so deeply. the hinges had moved from your cell door so quickly. The screech had bled out like a scream, you had only thought there was another prisoner, another captive who had joined you in the under belly of the RedKeep. So when you had turned to pace along the little expanse you had and noticed the flash of white hair, your eyes had brightened up like a pup seeing its owner, heart leaping. 

You smile “Aemond, your back.”

His jaw tightens, unsure of the happiness that displays across your face, it's cleaner now. And your hair doesn't look unkempt like last time, there’s something wrong, he can feel it deep within. It makes him uneasy. 

Your head tilts, hair falling against your shoulder like riptides of waves. “Aemond?”

He doesn't respond, studying your face quietly, your smile not faltering, there's a beat,“yes?”

“Are you well?” your brows furrow in concern. 

He seems taken aback by your question. He's not sure what he expected you to say. He blinks, "What do you mean, am I well?" its snarky, voice ringing against the walls of your cell. 

“Sorry” you look at your feet, fiddling with your hands. 

“Im fine”, He answers, voice flat.

“Good” you smile, hand’s smoothing against your dress as you sit on your straw cot. His eyes follow your hands. Hand reaching out beside you to signal him to sit down, he hesitates for a moment. Then he heads closer to you, finally perching himself on the floor next to you, his long legs against the wall. 

Get out.

Your eyes perch on the cell door, it opens at a crack, the door to freedom. Aemond’s eyes follow your own and then suddenly you're grabbing at his face. Pulling it back to look at you. Both of your eyes widen, he looks angered. You're shocked at your own movements. Mouth gaping open and yet your hand stays laid across his cheek, you feel yourself heat at the movement. And then the weirdest thing happens. Aemonds hand lays across your own and his eye shuts. You feel the warmth of his cheek. 

Moments pass, he lets go of your hand and instead of leaving, he grabs at your waist, tucking his head into your lap. His hands smooth over the material of your dress, you feel a sob rake through his body as he holds you in his arms. You are unsure of what to do, so you take to stroking his hair away from his face, his cries seem to stop simultaneously. You lean against the wall, his hands pulling you closer to his face. He clings to you like a child. 

He lets go, and stands swinging the cell door behind him, disappearing into the shadows. The guard locks it.“It's been three weeks” you clench your jaw at the revelation, nearly two moons. You slam your hand against the wall, feeling the bones crack, and then you scream. It cuts through you like a knife, you wanna bash your head into the wall, you wanna feel Aemond’s bones crack, you want to make him feel crazy, drive him to the brink of insanity over and over until he feels dizzy with panic. 

You bind your wrist quickly with material torn from your dress, keeping it elevated against the wall to avoid swelling. You're unsure if it's broken, you can still move your fingers slightly but the pain worsens as the hours go by. 

You wake up. Drink water. Eat bread. Try to braid your hair, but fail. Scream into the wall. Pace the cell with your arm up in the air until you feel dizzy, and you wait and sleep and wait and sleep and wait and you're falling deeper and deeper into madness. 

Get out.

Your hand traces the wall, noticing every single divot in the cracked interior. You say fuck it and move your cot, finding nothing. You put it back. You pace with your wrist held high. It’s started to bruise and swell. You could use some hot water to soak it, or something colder, you hold it against the wall. The swelling goes down, pain lightens up after a couple of days and you can stretch it out slightly, it's not broken. You thank the seven. You dream of pain beyond compare, stretching out over your body.

Get out.

You count the bricks, you count the strands of hair on your head. You pace, you pray, you sleep and wait. You push your head into the wall and scream. You finally braid your hair loosely behind your back and tie it with the piece of dress. You press your fingers into the divots your cheeks hold. You stand against the wall and scream until you can't speak, can't sing, can't scream. 

Get out 

Your head is pressed into the wall and you feel the presence behind you, it hasn't been that long, you don't think. Time passes oddly; sometimes you awake to three pieces of bread on your floor stacked up in the dirt, other times it feels like hours go past and the candle hasn't even melted. You don't turn, you face the wall, watching the water run through the structure, droplets racing each other, one gets held up in the moss, the other races past and then your hair is snatched backwards by its braid, your hands reaching out to your scalp, you haven't even heard the words muttered until Aemond is shouting at you. “Fucking look at me!” you're pulled down to your knees, head shoved into the ground by a boot. You lay limply staring into the wall, eyes flickering between the bricks. 

GET OUT!

Your head is screaming at you, Do something, fucking do something.You hands scratch at the dirt, watching mud collect under your nails. Your cheek burns with pain. “Such a pretty little thing” he mutters, “and yet my brother wants nothing off you” your eyebrows furrow, his voice is more melodic than his usual soft, stoic tone, your eyes turn and you gaze up at the bright eyed targaryen, aegon. 

You scurry to the corner, legs pressed against your chest. Not him, he promised, Not him. 

“Aemond said~”you splutter. 

Aegon’s hands land on his waist,“Well i'm the king” his head tilts to the side, and then you notice a bright light, red fire erupting throughout his body so suddenly, he stands unaffected as you cover your ears and scream at him, watching the fire spread quicker and quicker, flesh burning, the smell rancid. You close your eyes, feeling the heat rise to your face. 

When you open them you're standing in the middle of the room. Blood pools in your hand, you touch your nose, wincing, turning to the wall, a spot of blood just lower than your head, Your eyebrows furrow. Metal fills your mouth. Your wrist is unbound, no bruising. You swallow back blood. 

Wake ,Drink, Prey, Eat, Pace,Braid. Over and over and over and over.

Get out.

“Two weeks” 

“Hm?” you look up, Aemond stands there near the cell door, eye patch on. Has he been there long? He looks at the guard, you touch your nose, is there blood there? You look at the wall. Nothing, you look at your wrist, Nothing. Your hair is braided down your back. You whimper, it catches his attention, he turns a look of care in his eyes. 

“Are you still in there?”He whispers. The candle light shines behind him, he looks like a prophet of some kind of god, a religion you would fall into. 

“Sorry?” you mutter, hands clutched towards your chest. 

“You dont look like you've eaten much” he peers down at you, the dress appears to hang off your shoulder,his expression is unreadable. He looks at you for a moment, his gaze taking in your dishevelled, malnourished appearance.

“Aemond” you whisper, your voice crackles. 

His face softens, hand reaching down to grab at your face you nearly flinch at the contact. He pauses, his touch surprisingly gentle. "Easy," he whispers, his voice low and soothing. "I'm not going to hurt you." 

“I'm confused” you shake your head.

“Can you stand?” low and gentle, you nod standing on your feet, you tremble against the wall and his hands reach out to catch you, pulling you into the heat of his body. “it's alright, i've got you” his hand smooths your hair against your back. You lean into his chest.

“Is this real?” 

There's a pause, you await the obvious wait for his eyes to bleed and snarl about your insolence. But he nods his head slowly. The door to the cell opens, you hush out into the hallway, eyes darting around the room, rats scurry, you look at the cell across you, Empty.

He leads you up hallways, down corridors, up steps you reach a large oak door, the knight opens it. The bedroom is clean, orderly. Filled with bookshelves, the fire roars, you remember Aegon, the way his skin blistered under the heat,you look at Aemond. Eye intact. “Your brother is going to burn” you utter.

His eyebrows furrow, he looks at you like you've gone mad, he leads you into the room “Who told you that?” 

“No one, i saw it when he visited me” you shake your head, suddenly you feel stuffy, you pull at your dress. it falls off with a thud. 

“He didn't~” Aemond’s eyes widened and you followed his eyes. Looking down at your feet. It's a mangled and bruised mess wrapped in the same fabric from your dress, but that's not what he's looking at, your undergarments just cover your thigh, you lift them. It's like someone had whipped you from behind, rope burn wrapping around your thighs, you feel his hands on shoulders turning you, lifting your slip, there's a strangled breath. 

“Who did this?” it's angered.

You shake your head, Did what? Did what! You lift the slip of your body, baring yourself, turning it in your hands, blood staining the back of it. “Am I dreaming again?” you look to Aemond. 

“Let's get you to bed” he gestures to the bed you are near.

“I don't want to wake up there again”you shake your head, exasperated tears wrecking through your body like heavy waves, you clutch your face.

“You're not going too” he smiles, hand smoothing down at your arm, you feel yourself fall into his grip. Breathing in the scent of sandalwood, books, ash. 

“Do you promise” 

He nods his head. You slip into bed, eyes heavy, your back doesn't even hurt, you can't even feel it. You toss, and watch Aemond sit at the edge of the bed looking at you, the last time you had held him he had the same look, almost like pity. 

You try to close your eyes, but all you can smell is the heavy moisture under the cold damp stone walls. You scratch at your hands, Aemond feels closer than before he reaches a hand out tentatively smoothing back your hair. “ I don't want to go back there,” you mutter. 

“I know, i know” 

You drift off, eyes aching, if this was a dream it was a nice one. 

You feel heat on your face, there's the smell of something fresh like bread and then there's the weight that settles against your back, your eyes open afraid your face will be face to face with the dungeon walls, instead a bookcase, you try to turn but instead find yourself tangled in limbs, Aemond had tucked himself behind you his head nestled in the small your your back. You sigh, head perching on the pillow again, you grit your teeth and then look at your hands. Blood is spread all over them. 

You think you need a bath.

Ewan mitchell if you are reading this you did good baby you deserved way better Liv cooke darling you are awesome Phia Tom you should commit arson

ANGELS OF PORN

$10,000

LOOKING FOR DOED EYED PRETTY GIRL WHO WANTS TO MAKE A QUICK BUCK. ONE TIME PORNO, MUST BE OKAY WITH LIGHT SLAPPING, ROUGH SEX AND CHOKING. SEND A PHOTO.

In the heat of the floridian summer your picked up in a RV with two strangers and the promise of 10 grand lining your pockets after a night. Two bad one of you isn’t making it out alive.

dark!aemond x reader

read here!!

lord, thank you for letting me be born in time for danny johnson x readers.

Negotiations With The Devil

Chapter 2: Promises, Promises

Dead by Daylight

Danny Johnson “Ghostface” x f!reader

25.4k words

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT

CW: noncon!elements, dubcon!elements (honestly this things a consent rollercoaster, strap in), obsessive behavior, death threats, spanking, oral (m!receiving), knifeplay, violence, unprotected pnv climactic intercourse, degradation, praise, Danny is a whole warning of his own lmao

Part 1

You’re having the most wonderful dream. It’s not particularly thrilling, nor is it lucid. You can’t control it, though even if you could you don’t think you’d wish it to change. It’s not even a dream per se, there’s no fluid plot or story, no basis of events that can be followed. In reality it’s more like a vivid phantom sensation. Just the serene caresses of soft, supple lips ghosting over your brow, the pleasant comforting weight of a warm body melded to your side, the featherlight draw of exploratory fingertips tracing over your skin in lazy passes.

You almost hope to never meet its end, your subconscious leaning into the dream, wishing it to last as long as humanly possible, hoping to fall deeper and deeper into its velvet clutches. Which actually seems to be working as the morning light never seems to seep its nosey fingers into the room to try and pry you away from this little bliss. But one, no matter how enthralled with the otherworldly visions that play just out of reach on the other side of our lids, can not sleep forever. And thus eventually you do begin to stir, and yet somehow it seems as though the dream isn’t quite content with the idea of letting you go. Even as you rise from the foggy depths of your dream it still seems to stick with you somehow, those lips never fade, the warmth at your side never abates and those fingers only sharpen in focus as you begin to wake.

You realize after you come to enough to open your eyes that the morning light had never woken you because you’d put on your sleep mask before bed. The memory of your migraine comes into focus slowly, the remnants of it must be the cause of this hazy fog you can’t seem to shake and there’s this horribly acrid aftertaste on your tongue. You can’t remember if you’d brushed your teeth before climbing into bed, hell you can’t remember what you’d had for dinner either. It’s all blurry and distant.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

The gruff rumble of a foreign male voice in your ear jars you out of the haze. All at once you scramble out of bed and rip the sleep mask from your eyes to stare in disbelief at the source of your rude awakening. He’s propped up by one arm, the palm of which is buried in his chestnut hair, pulling it back and out of his eyes. The other now occupies the space you’d just inhabited, basking in the residual warmth of you still radiating from the mattress where you’d spent the last eight hours, with his palm up and stretched out like he’s reaching out for you, tempting your return. He’s got on a plain black undershirt that covers his toned torso but leaves the musculature of his shoulders and arms exposed, the rest of him is covered by your bed sheets.

It’s when your eyes trail up to his face to peer into his own deep brown orbs that it all comes ripping back to you. The events of the previous night unfurl like the petals of a noxious flower bloom and you stiffen, your whole body going rigid with panic. Horror mounts within you and you aren’t terribly sure if you’re going to pass out or run. Your eyes flash between him and the door in indecision, inadvertently projecting your next move. He makes the decision for you, pulling a knife you are all too vividly familiar with from beneath his pillow, it’s steely edge still stained red with your dried blood.

“Whoa there, doll. While I’m sure you think you're plenty fast enough to make it from here to the door in time to scream for help before I catch up to you, it’s a chance I wouldn’t take. I’m pretty fast myself, and our little game of chase comes with pretty severe consequences for losing.” He flashes the blade in a show of just what those consequences entail and your gall withers.

“Who are you?” His face falls a bit and you’d forgotten just how out to lunch the man who’d broken into your home late last night really is as he draws a hand to his chest, as if wounded. “Oh doll, you’re breaking my heart. You don’t really mean to tell me you don’t remember all the fun we had together?”

The horrors of the previous evening are etched into the stone of your memory so deep and jagged you doubt that even with professional help you’ll ever be able to forget, forever scarred. They loop on an endless nightmare reel on every surface of your mind, flashing by in grainy stills every time you blink. “I’ve got the pictures to prove it if you need me to jog your memory.”

He pulls the covers back to draw closer, sliding out of bed headed right for you with the knife still clenched in his fist, predacious. “Or maybe you need a more physical reminder, I can walk you back down memory lane step by step by step if you want.” You shiver at the thought of letting him anywhere near you again, backing away to keep some measure of distance between you, but the room is only so wide and you jump as the cold grain of the door rises up to meet your back. To your relief he stops, his eyes ride the length of your entire body, up from the soles of your feet to the petrified gems of your eyes. He seems amused by them— that among other things his eyes keep drifting back down to.

It’s then you realize you’re still naked, the memory of your clothes being literally cut away from your body coming back to you with full force as you scramble to cover yourself from his gaze. You look at him accusatorily.

“What the fuck are you still doing in my house?” You husk out, all breathy and hoarse and pathetic. You want to scream it at him, make him feel an ounce of the sheer terror your fragile mind is coursing with, but the implications of the consequences hold you in contempt.

“I promised you I’d be here when you woke up and I take my promises very seriously.” You don’t know why you even asked, his answer would only ever prove to drive you closer to insanity, drag you down into the mouth of madness with him. You feel just on the cusp of passing out, the room swirls in and out of focus and you momentarily lose track of place or purpose or time, if it weren’t for the door at your back you’d have fainted long ago.

“I need to get dressed, I need to- I need to get ready for work, I-“

“You don’t need to worry about any of that, my love. I’ve already called in sick for you. Told them you’d come down with one of those nasty viruses going around, awfully contagious. They don’t want to see your face for at least the rest of the week and only with a doctor's note in hand at that.”

But you’re already moving, inching towards your dresser with your back still pressed flush against the wall. When you get to it you keep your eyes trained on him as you pull a bra, a skimpy night shirt and a lacy pair of panties from the top drawer, the first things your shaky fingers can seize upon and scramble to put them on before he rushes you.

It feels like the walls are closing in around you, your world is getting smaller and smaller by the second. How has your life changed so exponentially in the last twenty four hours? How could it ever have derailed so quickly? You cling to consciousness by the skin of your teeth out of pure fear over just what he may do to you if left unattended with your unconscious body. You can’t even bring yourself to think about what he’s done in the time he’s already had while you were asleep.

Before you can go back to the drawer to find anything more than that he’s grabbing you by the wrist and pulling you towards him, catching you as you nearly stumble in your resistance from digging your heels into the floorboards beneath your feet as if it were dirt. It makes you stumble into him and he has to catch you by the waist to stop you from falling forward into his chest. The feel of his hands on your hips is electric, the lace does little to conceal your skin and his fingers span a much wider surface than they could ever hope to cover, but it was all you could grab in the moment.

“What you need is something to eat, doll. You’re looking dim.”

He’s right, you’re teetering but you can’t cook like this and you won’t dare accept anything he makes for you ever again, it’s what got you into this situation in the first place. He pulls you closer and you flinch at his every touch, though he’s nothing but gentle as he pulls you out into the expanse of the rest of the house, guiding you to the kitchen and depositing you onto a stool at the bar.

He announces you need juice and though you watch the entire process from pour to procurment you still hesitate, the memories of innocently downing a glass of water to the last drop only to detect the lecherous bitter after notes of deceit a moment before your world went black sits like a weight on your shoulders, unbudging.

When several moments had passed and you still hadn’t so much as touched the glass for fear of its curses he informs you that he’d be more than happy to siphon it directly from his lips to yours if you’d prefer. That gets you going, well at least gets the glass in your hand and he watches as you slowly bring it to your lips and sip it. You get no more than enough to coat the surface of your tongue actually in your mouth, trying to detect any off flavors or distinct abnormalities.

Though you’re wary, you can’t help the way your mouth instantly salivates as the cool refreshing nectar saturates your tongue. After several hours with nothing to drink you’re quite parched, but you must exercise restraint to ensure you’re not being tricked again. After a moment goes by and you don't immediately pass out or begin expelling your guts from your esophagus, you figure it’s safe enough and end up downing the whole glass like an overeager child. He smiles, sitting across from you pleased as pie.

“That’s a start, but still not enough.” You eye him from overtop the rim of the glass and across the bar as you try to collect the last drops of juice running up towards your mouth in thinning streams onto your tongue, imagining all sorts of ways to maim or kill and flee him but acting out on none of them. You don't know what he wants from you, you’re certainly not about to sit here and break bread with this deranged stranger, though it seems he means for you to do exactly that.

“I’ll put it this way, I need to go to work but I’m not leaving until I see you eat something. So you can either cook us some breakfast or I can get up and whip us both up some real food to eat, I’m sure I can manage something without burning down your cute little kitchen in the process.”

You have half a mind to let him, at least then perhaps the firefighters will come, a truck or two full of trained professionals who may combat him and free you of this never ending nightmare. But there’s so many variables in between the house beginning to go up in flames and the five minutes it’d take for the fire trucks to arrive that it’s a chance you’re unwilling to take. He could do any number of things in that span of five minutes, none of them good.

Plus he’d just said he’d planned on going to work today, which ultimately meant he’d be leaving the house and after he left you could decide what to do from there. Now you just need to bide your time. Bide your time and keep things copacetic. You rise from your chair and find it’s much easier to stand on your own. You head into the kitchen as he takes the chair you’d just been in, sitting down and watching you intently as you get to work. You find you’ve got some eggs left in the carton in the fridge, a little bit of bacon and some bread that’s still soft, so bacon, eggs and toast it is.

You assume he’s not vegetarian, with a man as prone to violence as you’ve seen him be you seriously doubt he’s got any aversion to meat or blood for that matter. You pull out a few pans and get to work, trying not to let the intensity of his gaze get to you too badly. You had really hoped that you could go the rest of the morning in silence, just focus on cooking and coming up with a plan for after he’d left, but you had no such luck.

“Isn’t this nice?” You want to roll your eyes so hard they’ll be stuck in the back of your head for the rest of your days, at least then you’d never have to look at him again. And wouldn’t that be a relief because you find in the morning light it’s hard to look at him dead on. The dark did him no favors, if anything it only masked the real, profound nature of his natural good looks.

You steal little glances at him, bending down to grab the toaster from the cabinet, gathering up the shells to trash them after cracking eggs, grabbing plates from the shelf above the bar. And you think you know now why people can’t help but to stare at car crashes or train wrecks. There’s something inexplicably beautiful in the hauntingly macabre.

And every time his eyes met yours the direct eye contact sent sparks jolting through you. The light spilling in from the kitchen window over the sink catches in his eyes and lightens them, bringing out the lighter, honey-hued smatterings in the wash of deeper, more resolute browns. Each and every time without fail it makes your breath catch in your chest, makes your pulse quicken and there’s this lightheaded, dizziness that’s making it hard to focus.

You should be abhorred or indignant or even enraged and while to some degree you feel all these things, swirling in an emotional cocktail that’s so potent it’s making your head spin; there’s an overwhelming, archaic, dull throb resonating from deep in your greymatter. A hard to ignore conflicting emotion that makes all the rest feel like droning background noise.

You keep getting flashbacks, pleasure stained vignettes dancing across your memory of you pressed up against him, struggling for air beneath the suffocating weight of him, screaming in pleasure as he ravages you all while insisting your objections, even as you cream around his cock. No matter how much you tell yourself you’re disgusted by him, no matter how badly you tell yourself you want him out of your house, the memories of your late night foray has your pussy twitching around nothing as you flip eggs and struggle not to burn his bacon.

“Something on your mind, doll?” You come back to see him staring at you, an all-knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. Your eyes widen as you wonder how he can possibly have read your mind, or if perhaps your thoughts now scroll across your forehead in real time, on full display for him like one of those digital Jumbotrons at football games or those constantly updating stock tickers on Wall Street. Your mouth parts in dumbfounded shock as you try to regain control over your short circuiting brain.

“Huh? Me? No. I-uhm... Shit!” Smoke plumes from the mouth of the toaster, billowing black and shouting your guilt to the sky with its cries of negligence. You pop the bread out, the charred surface a dead ringer as you struggle to pull it free from the cursed machine, burning the delicate pads of your fingers as you play hot potato with yourself to get it on a plate.

You figure you must look pretty silly as you simultaneously wave a tea towel around in the air erratically to keep the smoke away from the smoke detector all while trying to cut the heat from the stove to avoid burning the rest of breakfast as well. You haphazardly arrange the eggs, bacon and blackened toast onto two plates as he sits across the bar from you too lost in the pleasure of watching you squirm to offer any kind of assistance.

You huff as you set his plate down in front of him, embarrassed beyond hell at fucking something up as easy as god damn eggs and toast. But you know why you’re fucking up the simplest of tasks, the sole reason for your distractions is sitting in a chair across the bar from you, invading your space and you don’t just mean it in the way he’s asserted himself into your home. He’s much more potent than that. He’s slipped under your skin, permeated the dermis and spilled into your bloodstream. He’s spread to your brain, metastasizing. Like terminal cancer there’s no telling where you end and he begins anymore.

“God, doll. Can I just say I can’t believe we’re actually doing this right now. It’s all just so… surreal for me.” You have to tell yourself to just ignore him, but that doesn’t mean it's easy. He speaks so openly, so freely, so blunt.

“I’ve dreamed of this moment over and over again. Waking up next to you in the morning all huddled up close in your cute little bed.” As he speaks, getting lost a little in his domestic reveries you slip a knife from the butcher's block feigning for a napkin and slide it under the tea towel from earlier, for safekeeping.

“Standing in your cute little kitchen, watching you flip bacon and fry eggs in nothing but those cute little panties of yours.” He’s suddenly at your back and you had never even registered that he’d moved, never heard a sound as he snuck up behind you. He breathes the last words directly in your ear.

Pressed up against you, you can feel the bulge of his stiffening cock rub against you from behind. “Although I’ve gotta admit, in my head there was way more sex involved.” You’re ready for him, picking up the knife and whipping around on him. Though he’s also ready for you, reaching up and grabbing your wrist, stopping you just short of burying the wicked edge into the meat of his shoulder. You struggle against the strength of him, trying to push forward with all your might even despite him, but he’s stronger. “Easy there, killer. Someone could get really hurt with that.”

With a twist of his wrist your hand is pushed to the side and smacks down onto the bar, the knife clatters from your hand as you cry out and he releases. The close encounter ended just that fast. You nurse the pain blooming in your bruised knuckles, not daring a second attempt as he rounds the bar back to his seat and centers his plate in front of him while casually addressing you like he didn’t just thwart a hastily thought up and sloppily executed assassination attempt.

“Let’s eat.” You stop coddling yourself to look up at him as he picks up a slab of burnt toast and munches down on it without care. His eyes rise to yours over the blackened surface expectantly and it gets you in motion as you pull out a drawer to find two forks, sliding his across the bar at him to avoid contact of any kind.

He catches it and sets the toast down to dig into his eggs as you eye up your own plate with a kind of disdain. You don’t really want to eat, but you need to. You tread the open waters between hungry and too offput to eat, never quite finding solace on either side but he’s watching you, that much you can tell and you know if you don’t commit to shoveling food in your mouth soon he will more than likely do it for you.

So you look down at the plate, deciding on the simplest, most palatable item— the toast. It may be charred but you’re not unused to that. You really needed a new toaster but you had much more pressing matters preoccupying your time and so you picked it up and took a bite, letting the bitter, burnt flavor of it ground you as you try to compose yourself a bit.

You needed a clear head to think, to plan, to prepare. No matter how conflicted your mind was, no matter how torn you were feeling, the sentiment stayed the same. You must get this man out of your house, at whatever cost and to do that you must have composure. You take another bite to solidify the fractured parts of you, gluing them together with the chewed paste of burnt toast, united for a higher purpose and feel a bit more energized.

It helps that he’s fallen silent for once, content to eat and stew in his own thoughts. You’re grateful, not even daring to glance up at him should you break the delicate trance he seems to be under. You eat, not only to keep up appearances but because your appetite seems to be cooperating now that you’ve started towards a goal, even if you don’t know exactly what that goal really is just yet.

He startles you from thought as he sets the fork down on his empty plate and it takes that for you to realize you’re just about done as well, having scarfed down the bulk of what you’d prepared for yourself without even really realizing it. You ready yourself for his antics, bracing for whatever crazy shit he’ll launch into next. He rises from the barstool and you’re already flinching, body tensing as you observe him closely, something he doesn’t miss.

But to your surprise all he does is smirk at you from across the bar before heading out of the kitchen and towards the back bedroom. You watch him as he goes, shell shocked at the lack of… well… anything. There were no theatrics, no sweeping gestures, not even a thinly veiled threat to behave. You hear one of the doors in the back close and rush forward to crane your neck down the hall. The bathroom light is on, casting a warm bar of golden light on the floor out from beneath the crack. You stay like that for a moment, staring at it in disbelief with your mouth slightly agape, like at any moment a covey of mimes will come walking out of it, or perhaps a horse sized duck.

When none of those things happen you creep back into the kitchen and lean heavily against the counter using it to ground you in place when it seems the rest of your world has lost all its gravity. You need to think, you have limited time. You pick up the plates and round the bar to the sink, filling one side with hot, soapy dish water and setting to work. Busy hands provoke consolidated thought.

You think first and foremost about escape. Your front door was a brisk fifteen paces from where you’re currently standing and while it’s late in the morning and most of your neighbors have already left for their morning commutes, there’s a chance that maybe— just maybe, you may be able to hail a straggler, someone who’s a little behind the ball this morning.

But even as you let yourself float quietly across the house over to one of the front facing windows and peer out between the slats of the blinds you know they’re all already gone, and while there is a chance you could grab the attention of someone before he’d caught on and caught up to you, you know there’s only one person it could logically be, and that’s Mrs. Forsythe, your eighty seven year old neighbor.

And while you’re desperate for an escape from this hellish situation and you know she’d be awake and even still has good enough hearing to be able to heed your screams, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

Mrs. Forsythe was not only elderly— which made her slow and easy pickings should she become involved in the situation; but she was also extremely altruistic. Which meant she wouldn’t cower away from him in her attempts to aid you and that’d only get her killed, something that if you let happen you’d never forgive yourself for. So you pulled back from the front window and went back to the sink and essentially back to the drawing board.

The next idea was fighting back, definitely not ideal. He was a force to be reckoned with, every attempt thus far to combat him has ended in failure. He’s both cunning and perceptive, both taller and stronger than you and he’s got a weird, almost eerie penchant for seeing through you. The only way to level the playing field is to catch him by surprise and he’d have to really, really be caught off guard for you to have a chance at success.

As you finish up the last of the dishes you think of a million different methods to kill or incapacitate him, they play on and on in your head like an outlandish looney toons montage but none of them are practical or seem within your wheelhouse to execute.

Ultimately you decide waiting for him to leave is the smartest course of action. You had a real chance, an actual golden opportunity to see your way through this, you couldn’t risk blowing that up with half-baked surprise attacks or impetuous escape plans. After he was gone, then and only then would you go out in search of real help.

You hear a door open and are hopeless to do more than turn away from the sink, grabbing the tea towel from the counter and wringing it in your hands nervously even long after they’re bone dry as you press back into the counter, socketing the lip of the sink into the small of your back. You stare at the mouth of the hallway, waiting for him to emerge and when he finally does you can’t peel your eyes away. He walks out into the open and catches you staring, you can’t help it. You blurt out mindlessly, a little in awe. “You look-“

“Different?” He finishes for you and you’re grateful because different isn’t exactly the word you’d have chosen. He’s dressed up in what you’d call business casual. A pristine white monochromatic plaid dress shirt buttoned all the way to the top, its collar cinched with a smart, thin tie. It’s got long sleeves but they’ve been neatly rolled up to the hams of his forearms and buttoned there. The hem is tucked into a dark gray pair of Dickies slacks and are form fitted around his waist by way of a worn black leather belt. He begins to stride towards you in what looks to be a fairly new pair of white, low-cut Chuck Taylors.

As he draws further into your shared space, closing the distance between you, you detect he smells of soap and something faintly spiced and pleasant. His hair looks wet and it’s slicked back like he’s showered. The ends curl back around behind his ears like rams horns, befitting for the devil. No, different is not the word you would have chosen had he left you hanging. Good is the word that sits on the tip of your tongue, just narrowly absolved of falling from your lips. He looked damn good.

“The mask I wore when we met isn’t the only one I must don. Keeping up appearances is important.”

Keeping up appearances is an understatement, he looks like a different man. Granted your views of him are skewed but looking at him now you’d never say the man before you and the one who’d broken into your home and subsequently broken you were the same person had you not known better. They had the same height, the same build but totally different demeanors.

As he is now he does more than blend, he looks unobtrusive, inoffensive, benign. His appearance brings to mind images of coffee machines and printer jams, white picket fences and weekend baseball games, unassuming, all American. He completes the look by slinging a worn, brown messenger bag across his chest, the most beat up piece of his whole ensemble and turns to you with an unidentifiable gleam in his eye.

“As much as I’d like to stay here and spend all the hours of our day together, I do have to go to work.” That snaps you out of your daze and you come back to your senses, suddenly remembering you have a plan to execute and you’re practically vibrating with the anxiety of it. You struggle to hide it as you smile to placate him. “Of course.”

You put the tea towel down, now wrinkled from being wrung to hell and back as you push away from the sink to follow him. Every step he takes towards the door you mimic, closing in to keep him from possibly retreating or changing his mind, each one adding to the building crescendo in your mind, a symphony of anxious agony.

But as he reaches the threshold he spins around suddenly, you back away in surprise but only make it about a step before you collide with the solid wall of the entry arch, his arms reach out to prop against the wall on either side of your shoulders effectively trapping you between the wall and himself, invading your personal space. “There is one more thing, doll.” You try to keep up your cheery, cooperative ruse to the very end, though your heart beats in triple time. You’re so close you can taste your freedom. “Yes?”

“I want you to stay here. All day. Can you do that for me?” Your chest tightens reflexively. You sort of knew he didn’t want you going anywhere, it was implied when he’d taken the liberty of calling in sick for you, but here he was reiterating it again, deliberately like he somehow already knows.

“Of course.” You respond immediately, ready to agree to anything he might say just to get him out of the door, no matter what your real intentions may be.

“Promise me.” That gives you pause, did he just ask you to promise? He waits for your response, holding your gaze raptly as you stare up at him dumbly. You quickly brush it off, no need tripping over the semantics. “I promise.”

He smiles and seems satisfied with your response and you believe he’s finally going to be out of your hair. “I’m gonna hold you to that.” He states melodically in an unserious singsong tone, though you know he means it. Too bad it’ll be too late for him by then if you have anything to say about it.

A brisk wave of his minty breath fans your face an instant before you realize you haven’t had a chance to brush your teeth and get self conscious. To him though, it seems not to matter as his lips crash to yours, pulling you into a deeply sweeping kiss. It momentarily steals the air from your lungs and the thoughts from your brain as your head bumps the wall with the force of it and his tongue slides over the seam of your lips with taunting fervor. His hands roam, one around the back of your neck to keep you in place and the other sliding down the swell of your hip to grip your ass, making you squeak into the kiss. He licks into the crevice of your lips as they part, one last little taste.

Satisfied with flustering you he pulls away, his Chesire-esque toothy grin the last you see of him before he’s out the door, leaving you behind to pull yourself together again. After taking a moment to regain your bearings, you rush up to the door and bolt it. Peering fearfully out of the peephole, you’re met with a distorted, fish eyes view of your front lawn and the surrounding world. There’s no sight of him, but of course there isn’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was gone. You just can’t bring yourself to believe it, never daring to feel like you’re rid of him. But he’d left you unattended, unbound, unchained. Why?

A test, perhaps? You wonder what would happen if you pulled the front door open right now. Is he just waiting in the wings for you to poke your head out? Only for him to come running from around the side of the house to spring on you like a lion, slitting your throat in broad daylight. Would he wait for you to take a few tentative steps outside? Let you gain your confidence perhaps before dragging you back inside by the scruff of your collar and slamming the door behind the both of you, never to be seen again.

The possibilities make you fearful, make you consider crawling back into your shell, tail tucked between your legs. Sitting on your hands until his return, like a good girl. But what becomes of you then? What does that make you? Death’s pet?

But that’s just what he wants, isn’t it? Wants you to fear him so resolutely that he doesn’t even have to do anything at all, kept in compliance by nothing more than your fear of the unknown, tucked away snuggly under his thumb.

These downward spirals get you nowhere, one glance at the clock makes you realize he’s already been gone for five whole minutes, your overworked mind running in fruitless circles. If you keep this up for long he really will be back home and you’d have amounted to nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy, worse than nothing you’d have made backwards progress. You won’t let that happen.

So you crack the door, just an inch at first, just ajar. A wispy breeze blows in through the crack of the door, innocent, deceptive. You pull it open halfway, the sun shines, the birds sing and you alternate between feeling ridiculous and ridiculously exposed. You decide to do a litmus test, he can’t fault you for simply checking the mail, right? It’s not technically a violation of his rules and it’ll tell you if he is indeed waiting to pounce on you the moment you disobey.

You step out your front door on legs that don’t feel like carrying you. There’s an itch to your skin, an irritating gnaw at your neck. A pseudo-physiological reaction to just the memory of his knife biting at your throat that’s bringing on a real, palpable ailment. Like your body's last warning, meant to hinder you from continuing. You push forward despite it.

The sun is warming to your skin as you follow the paved path of your walkway until it junctures into your driveway, past the hulk of your car still in the same place you’d parked it after coming home the previous day and out towards the street to your little black mailbox.

No one is out on your street, the kids are in school, the adults have all gone to work, there’s no joggers, no stay at home moms toting babies in strollers, nothing. You collect your mail, assorted trash and bills and close the lid. There’s no pounding of feet on pavement, no hardened body colliding with yours, no seizing hands arresting you back inside. You feel both vindicated and condemned, both empowered and imprisoned.

You hurry back inside and shut the door, leaning against the sturdy wooden frame to settle your fried nerves. With a small victory under your belt it was time to set your sights higher. It was time to be rid of him for good.

Setting the plan into motion, you immediately jumped into the shower and something about the water cascading down your body, something about the heavy peace you feel when you can finally close your eyes without worry of what happens when you do feels freeingly cathartic, like washing him from your skin. Drying off and getting dressed only solidified it.

With each action of self care you felt just a little better, just an ounce more confident in your shoes, beginning to take back what he’d stolen from you. But as you grabbed your keys and headed for the door, indecision struck again. Not to scrap the whole idea but just about taking your car. You stared out the window at your cute little car with an overwhelming feel of mistrust.

He could have done any number of things while you were out cold. He could have slipped a tracker under the chassis or the wheel well or the floorboards. Could have checked how much gas you had in the tank or even looked at your mileage.

Could have measured the distance between your tires and the garage door or the edge of the walkway or the road. It was all too easy to imagine him out there, stooped down next to the tire with nothing more than a tape measure and a mag light in the dark of night, not even having to jot the numbers down, just simply able to recall them from memory. Approximate. Accurate. Obsessive. A measurement that’d be so tedious to replicate it’d be damn near impossible. A million different ways for him to know you’d gone against his commandments.

You’re descending into paranoia and it’s making you stall. You know if you keep up like this you’ll eventually chicken out. So in a split second decision you decide to ditch your car and walk. The police station wasn’t that far away, it eased all your qualms about taking the car and maybe the fresh air would do you some good. Without sparing another second for your doubts and worries to worm their destructive little fingers into the certainty of your plan you set out, locking the front door behind you and began to head down the drive.

Out on the street, with hard, affirming pavement beneath your feet you began to feel tentatively exalted. It felt like taking back control, manifesting your own destiny. You leaned into that feeling as you rounded the end of your street and merged onto the sidewalk that would take you all the way up Rose Avenue and into the heart of downtown Roseville. It was a bright Florida day, warm but pleasant and you’d expected to see more people on your walk into town. But as far as you could tell, aside from a few stragglers here and there, it was mostly dead.

With a new lens on life you could understand why. Before you’d mostly ignored the news. There were things that you’d heard, scraps of the details passed in hushed tones. Word of mouth is almost always unavoidable but for the most part you felt the news only served to further stress people out, stop them from living their best lives, keeping them suppressed with subliminal worry.

Why dwell on what you couldn’t change? Why come home after a long day's work only to harp over whatever the media wanted you to worry about that particular day? What would drive up their views and keep you tuning in. Why lose sleep over things that mostly never concerned you? Now, in hindsight, you’d seen just how stupid that’d been, how stupid you’d been. You only wish you’d done something sooner.

You never get to see the city at this time of day, always cooped up at work during this hour. It was nothing like you’d expected, but the lonely streets didn’t deter you, you’d be getting your life back today. After thirteen hours of pure nightmare you’d be free again. And there freedom was, just a block and a half away you could see the flag poles stationed out front of the police station, the Florida state flag and the American flag waved proudly in the gentle breeze side by galliant side, beckoning you to justice.

You thought at just the sight of them you’d start sprinting, had imagined walking up the driveway that nothing would keep you from those heavy, metal double doors, but as you neared you only slowed. Standing at the head of the last crosswalk you needed to take before you’d be at your destination you imagined you’d feel nothing but an urgency to get there but now all you felt was sick to your stomach.

There was no traffic to hold you up, no crowds in your way to slow you down, this was an internal struggle, a moment of grappling with oneself. And no matter how much you tried you couldn’t bring yourself to cross the street. Like some kind of fault in your motor function you can’t bring yourself to make that first step. You stand there in agony for five minutes struggling with yourself until you give up and make a right instead, crossing the adjacent street before beelining it straight for the old, worn doors of the Roseville public library.

You don’t know what makes you climb the twelve steps and push into the old, cool building. It’s deserted at this time of day, there’s an older lady at the front desk nose deep in a romantic paperback and an younger one pushing a book trolley around reshelving, but other than that you seem to be the only other soul in the building.

You’d been inside before, though it’d been awhile you still hadn’t expected them to have done any renovations since your last visit. And you found you were correct, the same row of aging computers were right where they’d always been. You take the one on the far end looking around behind you for any book browsers or lookie loos before touching the mouse and swiping away the screensaver to get to the desktop.

Booting up internet explorer and bringing up google, you sit and stare blankly at the screen, the cursor blinking at the end of the search bar patiently, ready to bring up a million search results for whatever inquiry you may ask of it. Something in you moved your fingers for you, striking the keys without even really thinking about it and hitting the enter key before you can think better of it.

In the next instant the page fills with results for ‘The Roseville Ghost’. You read them off one by one. ‘Seven slain at the hand of Roseville's Ghost’ and ‘Roseville continues to be haunted by a bloodthirsty killer, leaving RPD baffled’ and ‘Curfew in effect for the greater Roseville area as body count rises’.

You absentmindedly click one at random, the screen blanks, the cursor buffers and then it takes you to the article, published to the Roseville Gazette website by a journalist listed as Jed Olsen. Your eyes latch onto the words, unable to break away:

You back out of the article and return to the results page, clicking on the next link. It returns you to the Roseville Gazette’s webpage, to yet another article penned by Jed Olsen.

Your heart feels as though it drops from its place nestled in your rib cage and sinks through your feet into the floor. You suddenly recall an errant line of his lunistic ramblings from the night before under a magnetizing new lens, coming to the gut wrenching realization it wasn’t simply idle chatter.

“…until I’m slicing them open by their stomachs and dragging their intestines out to hang from the ceiling.”

You finish the article, unable to rip your eyes away from any of the gory details.

This man is a serial killer, a legitimate apex predator by all aspects of the word. The man who’d broken into your house the night before is the very same man that’s been terrorizing your town for months, the same man responsible for seven previous murders and not only had he picked you to be next but he’d coerced you into sleeping with him as well. You truly believe you’re going to be sick.

You can’t do this anymore, you feel as though you may very well pass out right here in the public of this old, dying library. You go to click off, exit out of the whole damn thing and try to make it to the bathroom before your breakfast, the breakfast you’d stood in your kitchen in front of a serial murderer and cooked for the both of you, came surging up when yet another headline caught your eye. You hovered over the link and felt your stomach churn once more, you gave it a moment to pass before clicking on it and pulling up one last article from the all-knowing Jed Olsen.

Attached below is the aforementioned photograph. It’s dark and blurry and you can imagine he was probably laughed at by his editor for even suggesting they run something so indistinguishable, but you’re not laughing, not one bit.

Just barely identifiable is a figure suited in black, his silhouette almost indecipherable against the shadows but what does stand out is the pale, obtuse oval of his face and the dark contrasting pits of its sad, sunken eyes, hovering above the nonexistent hole for a nose and ending in the long, agape mouth. The very same mask you’d woken up to hovering above your bed, worn by the very same man who’d broken into your house the previous evening and taken control of your life. Your blood runs cold at the sight of it and you whip around to make sure no one is monitoring you.

Satisfied that you’re still alone, you read on.

You can’t do this anymore. You can no longer sit idly by with this kind of knowledge, this is about more than you now. This is about all those that came before you and everyone the sick fingers of this monster’s work have yet to reach out and grab and you won’t stand to see another headline.

You get up from the computer after exiting out and scorching the browser history though you fail to shut it down in your haste. You hustle out of the library and get no more than a passing glance from the woman still nose deep in her paperback at the desk. Pushing through the doors and into the warmth of the bright Florida sun you’d thought you’d feel better, but the gooseflesh that riddles your skin is from far more than chilly library air and thus runs bone deep. You’re unsure where you’re even going but as you look up to see the police station just across the street you know it’s not there.

Even in all your rage, even in all your indignation and hunger for justice you don’t think you can bring yourself to go in there in person. You don’t have the nerve, but you can make an anonymous phone call. You round the exterior of the library and find the little patio nook that was originally meant for librarians breaks and the occasional nature-inclined reader but was used far more often by high schoolers smoking pot afterschool and the occasional homeless drifter in between towns and halfway houses.

You sat on the curved stone bench and reached for your phone before pulling up the keypad with confidence in your fingers. But staring down at the numbers your will weakened, and with your fingers shakily hovering over the number 9, your throat gets tight and your vocal chords constrict. Would an anonymous tip even work in this scenario? Would they even take it seriously? Do you even have enough information to give them?

You can’t think of a single thing to say, can’t think of where to start or how much to divulge. They always say tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But can you bring yourself to tell them the whole truth? Do you leave out the more embarrassing details so you can just come out with it already or do you have to tell the whole truth? If you don't, will it come back to haunt you later? Could you be looked at as an accomplice?

Will the pictures be used against you if he brings them into play? They could certainly identify you in them and then the whole idea of an anonymous tip went out the window entirely. Could you show your face in this town after it got out that you’d slept with the infamous ‘Roseville Ghost’? You’d have to get a new job, maybe a new place, maybe a new name. Were you prepared for all that?

The little bit of money you’d saved up— what you’d offered him last night in exchange for your life is not nearly enough for you to move somewhere else in this economy. It’s not even enough to sustain you for the rest of the month and your name is on the lease of the house for another seven. What would you do then?

Your screen has long since gone dim and then relocked completely by the time you’d looked down again. You unlocked it once more, only this time you pulled up your browser and typed into the search bar ‘Jed Olsen’. Immediately a bunch of search results, many the same as last time, popped up in a list below the bar.

It’s under the article you’d read previously ‘The Ghost Face Caught On Tape’ that you found what you were looking for. You hovered over the number listed at the end of the article, reading the numbers over a few times impulsively as you solidified the decision in your mind before you clicked it.

It brought the number up instantly on the phone, all you had to do was press ‘Call’. Maybe Jed Olsen can do for you what you can’t do for yourself. It’s not like he was getting nothing out of this, you’re sure he’ll write a whole article, maybe even a whole book on how he single-handedly brought down the Roseville Ghost. Solved the case that had stumped law enforcement for months all on his own. After taking a deep breath and blowing it out, you hit call.

It rang and rang and rang, and you’d almost given up when a voice answered from the other end, what sounded like a young woman. An intern or receptionist perhaps, not who you were looking for. “Roseville Gazette.”

At first the only thing you could say was “Um.” And then the fog of your brain cleared as you closed your eyes and shook your head before continuing. “Yes, umm.. May I speak with Jed Olsen, please?”

You got back a prompt “One moment please.” before the line went dead. After a moment of measured silence someone on the other end picked up and this time it was a male voice that answered you. “Roseville Gazette, what can I do for you?”

“Jed? Jed Olsen?” You paused, bringing a hand up to your mouth and picking at your lips while you waited for confirmation, an old nervous tick. For some reason you didn’t feel safe to relay the information to anyone else. It had to be him.

“Speaking, can I help you?” He seemed a bit impatient, probably in the midst of another article or something else more important to him, you wonder if he’ll act the same after you tell him what you have to say. You don’t know how to beat around the bush, not really sure how any of this is supposed to go, so you just say it.

“I have information on Roseville’s Ghost.” There was more measured silence, but when he eventually did answer again it sounded much more like you had his full attention.

“I’m listening.” You’re still not sure where to start or how much information to give him, what did you really know about the guy, you could identify him and you knew his name, or at least the name he’d given you, was that enough to go on?

“I know who he is. I- umm.. I met.. him.” ‘Met’ is absolutely not the right word but you have no idea how else to put it without putting yourself in a bigger, shittier boat.

“May I ask who I’m speaking with?” No, no you can not, you think to yourself.

“I’d like to remain anonymous, like an anonymous source, the kind you write about all the time in your articles.” You hold your breath and hope he’ll leave it at that.

Before he’d sounded anxious, urgent, almost nervous maybe. But now he sounded calmer, cooler, back in control. Maybe he was starting to think you were pulling his leg or something. You couldn’t risk that, couldn’t risk this man not taking you seriously, he was your only hope.

“Yes, anonymous sources are certainly something we use to protect the identity of individuals when we receive information from them, but that’s to protect them from the public, I need to know you’re credible. I need your name.” You squeeze your eyes shut and pinch the scrunched bridge of your nose, you really had hoped that wasn’t something he would need. You had really hoped to be able to keep yourself an arms length away, but at this point you don’t think that’s gonna be possible.

“Do you promise I won’t be named?” When he answers he sounds smug and you’re starting to wonder if this is some kind of mistake, Jed Olsen is not turning out to be the saint you’d imagined him to be. “I promise.”

You’re not usually one to take a stranger on their word but you don’t exactly have much of a choice and he does sound sincere. You give him your name and there’s a long moment of silence where you worry that the call had dropped or maybe he hadn’t heard you. “Jed?”

“What exactly do you know?” You deflate a little at that but you’re here now and you have to tell the man something so you tell him all you know.

“His names Danny...” And that’s about the extent of it, you want to add on.

“Danny what?” You knew that was coming.

“Well, I don't know, he didn’t exactly give me his full legal name and social security number.” You can’t help but be a little snippy, what did this guy expect? “Look, he’s white, tall, 6.. 6’3 maybe, he’s got dark brown hair and dark brown eyes…”

He cuts you off. “And how exactly do you know all this?” You bring a hand to your head to shield your eyes against the sun, scanning around to make sure you’re still alone. “I told you, I met the guy, he… he broke into my house last night, ok?”

“And he didn’t kill you?” You’re beginning to get annoyed again.

“I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?” He sounds amused on the other end of the line and you just know he’s not taking a lick of this seriously.

“And why is that exactly?” Your breath hitches in your throat as he adds. “… I mean, what makes you so special?” He’s in love with me, is why. You can’t say that but it’s the truth.

For some reason he’d picked you to imprint on, set his sights on you just how he claims he always had— seemingly at random. But when it came down time to deliver it seems he had other plans, much more tender, intimate plans. The thought makes you shiver and you know he’s waiting for an answer and your silence is probably nothing but damning. “I- I don’t know why, ok? He just didn’t.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?” He inquires.

“No, not a soul.” And that’s the god's honest truth, you’re surprised you’re even able to tell him this extremely modified version of events, you hope it’s not in vain.

“Not the police, nobody?” He seems to almost not believe you and you’re just about sick of his hesitations.

“Just you, now can you help me or not?” You were getting antsy, this was taking far longer than you’d like, the sun looked like it was beginning to sink in the sky and you were very much ready to go back home.

“Ok, I’ll help you.” Your heart does a little vertical leap in your chest, it makes your voice rise in pitch. “Really? You will?”

“Yeah, I will.” You can’t believe your ears, your troubles finally seem to be over, it doesn’t feel real. You don’t even know what his help will entail. Will he tell the police? Will they go after him immediately? Could they even with the limited information you’d given them? Would they actually be able to arrest him? Oh, who gives a fuck? He said he’d help and that’s the best news you’d heard all day.

“That’s-.. that’s great! Oh my god! Thank you!” You’re unable to hide the excitement in your tone, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders and you could scream you’re so happy. There’s silence on the other end and you don’t know what to say. You briefly pull the phone away from your ear to check and make sure he hasn't hung up, but it still says he’s apparently on the other end of the line.

“What uh.. what happens now?” You ask, kind of wanting to get to the end of the conversation to hang up and go home.

“I’ll be in touch.” And the line goes dead, just like that. Something about the tone his voice had taken in those last moments gave you pause. It made your brow furrow, the words echoing in the hollows of your mind for a moment longer than they should have. Something about it you just couldn’t quite place made it stick out.

You pull the phone away from your ear again and look down at the screen to see the call has been disconnected. Your wallpaper stares back at you with programmed patience and you’re left almost in limbo but you don’t dwell on it for long, already sweeping the errant thought from the forefront of your mind in your excitement and rush to get home, already beginning to forget what had concerned you in the first place.

You get up from the stone bench with a much lighter heart than you’d sat down with. You feel like you’re floating in your shoes. You’d done it. You were on the up and up.

You hurried home. You weren’t exactly sure they’d get him right off the bat. You just couldn’t believe that would be possible. You certainly didn’t want to get your hopes up but, in all reality Roseville was a relatively small town and really, how many Danny’s could there be?

Before you knew it you were turning onto your street and you felt like sprinting for the door. You hadn’t had the good mind to ask Danny where he worked or when he’d be home but judging on how he was dressed you figured he probably worked some boring standard 9-5 and it was already 4 o’clock. Which gave you an hour to sit on your haunches and worry.

Just as easy as your elation had risen, making you feel ten feet tall with its ascension, here was the crash, here was the burden of not knowing, here was the waiting game.

And that’s about all the next hour and a half of your life had amounted to, waiting. You switched the news on, expecting a flashy ‘Breaking News!’ segment to dominate the feed, but it was still the same old stuff they roll in the off hours, puppy videos and traffic jam reports.

You had imagined after hanging up the phone with Mr. Olsen, that he’d have taken some sort of immediate action. Done some digging, made some calls, alerted the authorities, rallied the calvary. But it seems whatever he’d done, if he did anything at all with your information, it had at the very least not been newsworthy. You couldn’t lie, you were disappointed. Now you just had to wait and see if the psycho was going to show up at your door again tonight, and what you would do if he did, at that.

You thought about calling someone to come over, your parents were out of town and your brother lived so far away there’s no way he could get here in time. You wouldn’t subject any of your friends to something like this, with or without their knowledge and consent of the situation, it was a risk you were unwilling to take. Maybe you could invite an old boyfriend over, say you’re trying to rekindle things, you didn’t exactly mind duping one of them into something potentially hazardous, especially a few on your blocked callers list, you thought you even had a few who wouldn’t hesitate to jump at the chance, but in the end you decided against it.

Then you had the idea to try and barricade yourself inside, board up the windows and push furniture in front of all your doors to keep him out. Lock yourself inside like some kind of princess in the highest tower of the most impenetrable castle. But if he had some way in you didn’t think of or if he still managed to force his way past your blockades somehow you couldn’t imagine what he’d do to you once inside.

No, the best course of action was probably the simplest, you’d done something today, made headway in one direction. Maybe, one last night in hell would be all you had to endure. Maybe you play nice, placate him and be the sweet, little doll he wants you to be until the swat team comes busting down your door. When there were six police officers pinning him to the floor and cuffing his hands behind his back then you could plant your foot on his ass as a little treat, one last ‘Fuck-you-I-win’ and claim victory.

You had given Jed your name, you surmise he could easily find your address with just that alone, maybe he’ll show up to ask more questions. The road to fame and fortune isn’t without its risks of course, if he wants that Pulitzer he’ll have to work for it.

Hell for all you know, they could already have picked him up. Just waiting on technicalities, or red tape, or maybe the FBI to come take it from here. Murders in the multitude of his caliber are almost always certainly handled at the federal level, you would think. Maybe he won’t show up at all.

Just then you hear the minuscule sound of metal scraping metal over the blare of the tv and your heart sinks. The door cracks and like something out of a 50s sitcom he calls out to you from the entryway, his voice sinisterly chipper. “Honey, I’m home.” Imbued by your new knowledge of him the sound sends a wicked chill ripping down your spine. You try to suppress the full body shudder it sends through you from your place on the couch.

You half turn in his direction. It is indeed him and he is indeed in your home. Standing in the entryway he looks less immaculately put together than he did when he’d left that morning. His slicked back hair had become a bit disheveled, a few errant locks hung down low over his brow in rebellious defiance. He raised a hand to his throat to tug on the knot of his tie, loosening it from its chokehold around his collar before pulling the messenger bag he’d left with that morning off of him and dropping it into the lone armchair set off in the corner that you used from time to time as your reading nook.

He strolls into the living area and sits down on the couch, though you’d slid over to the far side giving him ample room he takes the liberty of plopping down right beside you, his leg skimming yours as he settles into your personal space. The seating arrangement is extremely unbalanced, with more than two thirds of it empty and unused on the far side of him, and you have to hide the uncomfortable shiver that runs through you with both the intimate details of his track record on the forefront of your mind and his immediate proximity. The spiced aroma of his cologne wafts up to your nostrils and you could have sworn that the first fragrant wisps smell as if they’re laced with the pungent, malodorous coppery notes of shed blood.

You try to hide your surprise at his arrival, but you can’t possibly suppress every impulsive reaction so in your attempt to make small talk you blurt out the first least offensive thing to come to mind. “How did you get in my house?”

Not exactly smooth or inoffensive but it is certainly the most nonvolatile thing you can think to say, and you are curious. “I snagged your spare key on my way out the door.”

Of course he did, you think to yourself. You need to redirect this, it’s already erring on the wrong side of the tracks and it’s important to keep him as docile as possible. It shouldn’t be hard for you to pretend for just one more night that you can be hospitable. The easiest way you can think of to keep things light is what you lead with, you hope he’s not suspicious of your sudden change in behavior.

“How was your day?” You say as sweet as you can manage with what you hope he perceives as a warm, genuine smile in his direction. He seems to be buying it as he returns your smile in spades, beaming at you with not only adoration, and an intense, almost cloying sense of it at that, but also something that feels like pride radiating off of him in waves.

He doesn’t even need to say it for you to know this is somewhat of a dream come true for him. It brings back memories of his little domestic fantasies this morning. You think to yourself that probably for him the only thing this is missing is a prefixed drink in your hand and not a stitch of clothes on your body. You hope you aren’t overselling it.

“It was good, a bit boring at first but then the day just kept getting more and more interesting.” You felt your heart stiffen and nearly stop in your chest. What the fuck does that mean? It’s so vague. Interesting in what way? Did someone approach him in regards to your call? Was he stopped by the police? Did they let him go already? You almost want to inquire further but you’re also almost too scared to ask. Before you can even decide if you should or shouldn’t he adds on.

“But enough about me. I wanna hear about your day.” And if your heart hadn’t stopped before, it certainly had now. You instantly forget all about what he even said in your panic. You hadn’t thought of that at all when you’d started your ‘light small talk’, even though it was completely natural that he’d ask you the same thing. You try to politely brush it off as best you can. Even laughing a bit to try to make it seem like not such a big deal and ease some of the mounting tension in your nerves.

“Oh you don’t wanna hear about that.” He even laughs a little with you and you think maybe he’ll let it slide, but then he says. “Try me.”

Your stomach twists into knots. Of course in all your trickery, in all the conniving and scheming against him you’d done today, in all your caution to cover your tracks you hadn’t even thought to make up some kind of cover story. You feel ten inches tall and overwhelmingly stupid but you have to tell him something and the longer you remain silent the more you just know he’s scrutinizing you. You really wished you had prepared better for this.

“Well… after you left I went and took a shower and got dressed and then I watched tv for a little while..”

He cut you off to inquire further. “What’d you watch?” You both faltered and scrambled. “I- uhh.. I just watched some shitty tv show, I don’t even remember what it was about really, just whatever was on, it wasn’t any good.” He maintains eye contact and nods for you to continue.

“And then that got boring so I read for a bit-“ Once more he interjected. “What’d you read?” With each further inquiry into the minute details of your day you felt cut in half. You can’t believe you could let something this stupid, something so minisculely trivial in the grand scheme of things be what trips you up, and after all that time you had to sit and do nothing but worry too. You hope it’s not a fatal mistake.

“Just a book I’ve read before, one from the shelf.” You halfheartedly point towards your bookshelf but he doesn’t even turn to look where you’re pointing, just nods twice like he understands and you don’t know what to do from there. You certainly hadn’t said enough to fill your whole day, so you just keep going.

As you speak, prattling off random, hopefully innocuous yet convincing enough things that you want him to believe filled the time slot between when he’d left and his arrival, he’s studying you intensely. Far more intensely than you’d like and there’s an ominous foreboding in the glint of his gaze, it gleams with the same promise of pain his blade does. If you’ve seen it, it’s already much too late.

But if he knows anything about what you’ve actually done, if he’s detected any of your passed off lies he says nothing, content to let you continue rambling without interruption now and you start to actually believe you’d maybe gotten away with it. You actually start to feel like you may be in the clear, though you find it surprisingly difficult to look at him as you lie to his face.

You can’t imagine why, you should have no trouble lying to this absolute fucking psychopath, nay, sociopath, you remind yourself. But it’s not like you’re some kind of pathological liar, this is not normal or easy for you in any sense, none of it is second nature. You’d never even cheated on a boyfriend before, something that for some reason feels like an accurate comparison to this, though you decidedly resign not to look too closely at that fact.

You couldn’t even remember to come up with a cohesive story to sell him, just mishmashing random things together that you hope he’ll blindly buy into. And yet somehow even that seems to be working out for you as he continues to listen and you think you may be better at this sneaking around shit than you’d thought.

That is until you bear a look in his direction to notice he’s pulled his leather gloves from somewhere while you were purposefully looking away and now as you continue, he’s putting them on, slowly.

Your words begin to taper, dropping in volume and cadence before they falter and lose their confidence altogether until you’re mumbling, and then your mumbles wither away into whispers.

You can’t help but stare as his digits perfectly fill out the fingers of his gloves, his free hand tugging tightly on the hem at the heel of his hand to pull them flush against the tips. So tight like a second skin it steals the breath from your own lungs. You stare at each other like that, you with the egg of your folly still hanging off your lips and him across from you, with all the barely restrained violence of a precariously set bear trap, poised to snap. And you know that he knows.

You suddenly feel as though you’ve been skating by unscathed only to look down and realize you’ve ventured over a patch of thin ice. His eyes like the waters beneath the fractured surface. Dark, gelid, just waiting for the moment you shift your weight in the wrong direction, like the whole world is collectively holding its breath. It's when you realize you’re holding your own breath that the brittle ice breaks.

The trap snaps down onto your paw, his gloved hands seizing your wrist in an iron grip. You jump into action, leaping from the couch and trying to sprint out away from him around your side of the couch and hopefully, out the door to scream as loud as your lungs will permit— what you should have tried this morning when you’d first leapt from bed and had what you would consider, at least a decent head start. To try to do so now was more foolish than attempting to deceive him in the first place.

But it seemed today you were throwing caution to the wind as you pulled as hard as you could away from him, surprisingly succeeding in the first aspect of your plan and broke for the gap between the end of the couch and the coffee table as a rabbit will leap for the protective mouth of its hole away from the treacherous jaws of a chasing fox.

But unfortunately for you, you didn’t share quite the same deftness as the rabbit and only possessed about a fourth of its speed and you felt his arm wrap around your waist, the jaws of the fox clamping down around you.

The next moments played out in slow motion for you as he hauled you backwards. Pressed back against his stomach as you were, you could feel the muscles there flexing as he did, pulling you back away from the freedoms of your rabbit hole and into the perilous throne of his lap.

“Where do you think you’re going, doll?” He asks mockingly. His voice calm and smooth as silk a stark contrast to the way he wrestles you into place, rather easily to your dismay.

You bucked and kicked and even bit but nothing deterred him as you felt his glove clad hands pull and tug at the waistband of your jeans, grabbing solid purchase and ripping both them and your panties down your waist, over the swell of your ass and down your thighs in three quick, hard jerks.

Your eyes widened as you realized he’s starting to undress you. And so in turn, you screamed and kicked as your struggles renewed but with the tight, bunched fabric of your jeans encasing your thighs, you didn’t make very much progress, your legs imprisoned by a denim cage. And to make matters worse, as he positioned you just as he wanted you, with your lower abdomen and crotch laid vertically across his lap, you could feel a prominent bulge stab up into you from the seat of his pants, he was enjoying the struggle.

Distracted by your realizations, you’re caught completely off guard as the first smack rains down on the soft, bare skin of your right cheek. His glove covered palm bouncing smartly off the round, springy flesh with an audible crack. It gives you rise, making you rebound off his lap as you try to escape, but with an arm secured over the small of your back you’ve nowhere to go as the second smack follows the first.

Cracking forcefully across the opposite cheek in a precise blow that makes you let out a yelp so shrill it vibrates your vocal chords, making them burn to life in your throat. As you’re still catching up to the predicament you’ve found yourself in he asks you in a casual yet authoritative tone from behind you, as nonchalant as he’d inquired the first time, as if nothing between you had changed.

“What did you do today, doll?” He waits for an answer but you’re too preoccupied to indulge him, choosing instead to continue to thrash in his grip, hellbent on escape. Your hands whip around behind you to try and grab his face or his hands or his stupidly hard cock and scratch or claw or squeeze for your dear life, reduced to squabbling in his clutches like a raccoon rife with rabies.

He catches your hands easily, swiping them out of the air in a single move and pinning them to the small of your back with the same arm that’s held you in place with ease since the struggle began so he can return to your punishment.

As soon as you’re secure his hand cracks down across your ass again, in a trio of successive attacks that leave you with little room for recovery as you hardly have time to react to one before the next one lands. Pain blooming in delayed shockwaves radiating from the ground zero of his palm. You flinch at each, your body trying to shift away from the pain but only serving to somehow rise to the occasion and receive each new blow like you’re keening for them.

You whimper as he stops, the sound emitting from your throat beyond your control as you squirm against him trying to soothe your burning flesh, and you have a terrible feeling he’s only just begun. He calmly repeats himself, asking you again what it is you’ve done today. You hear him but you can’t even begin to process what he’s saying to you as your mind reels to comprehend how you’ve let yourself come to be in this kind of compromising position.

It takes the next round of smacks; two on each cheek and then a particularly heinous blow that falls on the underside of both for you to smarten up. It connects with the rounded peaks of your peachy swells and takes a sort of sweeping motion that drags the pliant flesh with it on its follow through. Pulling at the quickly heating flesh and magnetizing the sting so that it spreads throughout your body in tingles that reach all the way to your toes as you shout in agonized protest.

You scramble to answer as soon as you’re able, your brows knitting together as you fight against the whine that resonates from the heart of your throat in an attempt to speak. Though stubborn as a mule you persist in your plea of the mundane, swearing to him on all that you hold holy that you’d done nothing more than you’d already told him.

And you start to whine in desperation in the recesses of your mind as you try to remember even a single one of the things you’d told him to try and reaffirm your shoddy alibi and find that you can’t as two more devastating blows land with planned precision in almost the exact same spots as the last and it scatters your thoughts to the four corners of the wind as you cry out sharply into the echoing expanse of your living room, the sound bouncing off the walls and back to his ears like sweet birdsong.

“I’m losing my patience, doll.” He chides from behind. Asking you again, this time with an emphasizing smack on alternating cheeks punctuating each calmly stated syllable.

“What. Did. You. Do. To. Day?” You writhe and hiss like an agitated alleycat pinned to his thighs but out of fear of the consequences of the truth you hold your tongue, opting to hand feed him the same bullshit you’d offered him up the previous times, praying that if you believe it hard enough, if you can just sell it with enough conviction, then he’ll have no choice but to believe it too. Though you're really unsure just how much more you can take. You’re fairly certain, if the lights were to go out at this very moment, your ass would glow.

“I’ll give you a hint, doll. Since you seem to be struggling with it. I already know where you’ve been today.”

Before that moment your body had been as rigid as a board, your back had been perpetually stiff, your hands under the shackles of his palm had been balled into fists, the tendons at the base of your wrists taut as tightropes, even your toes, hanging off out of the way at the ends of your bunched calves were curled and rigid the entire time.

But as he breathed those words into being, as soon as he let the pen drop, your body broke loose of its tension. As if you’d been holding your breath the entire time, as if you’d been holding out for this, he felt the exact moment you fell in defeat and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t sate something in him he never stopped being hungry for.

So that’s it then. For all your worries, for all your efforts, for all your obsessive precautions, you’d failed. Somehow, someway you had simply overlooked, he knew. He knew you’d left when he’d implicitly told you to stay. You felt humiliated, and somehow even more so now than before.

For some reason you could take degrading punishments, literally being bent over his knee like a child and still feel an ounce of self respect but something about trying your hardest to elude him, to cover your tracks and sneak around without him knowing made you sick with shame. And you swear you feel him swell with pride beyond you, like he senses it.

Your silence is deafening and he knows he’s almost got you so he leans down over you to whisper in a low warning, his tone incensed and laced with threat. “So help me baby girl, if you lie to me again I’m gonna get upset.”

That breaks you. If this isn’t upset, you truly don’t believe you’ll be able to handle whatever him getting upset looks like. Out of a pure need for survival, in a final bid to stave off serious injury or death or perhaps something in between far worse than either option, you spill.

“I- I went to the library!!” You shout up at him, your head dipping down to rest against the arm of the couch as you tremble with defeat, the only silver lining in sight being that now, surely the punishment is over.

“Ohhh babygirl; you are in sooo much trouble.”

SMACK. Your head lifts from the couch on impact, a surprised cry flying out from between your lips as you turn as best you can to try and look at him, try and plead with him to stop, but his hand comes crashing down again and again and again. SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. SMACK!

“Stop!! Stop!! No more!” You cry out, the sheer burn of your ass too intense for you to be too proud to beg. “Please!!”

To your surprise he actually does heed your cries, his hand stilling overtop of your heated cheeks after one last resounding smack and he smooths over the top of it, admiring the warmth it now exudes as you recover and you feel disgusted with yourself for actually letting yourself be soothed by it, but you can’t help it.

When your breathing evens, he asks. “What’d you do at the library, doll? I don’t see any checkouts lying around.” You swallow thickly but the dam is broken and it’s fucked beyond repair. You don’t think there’s a point in holding back anything from him at this point, he probably already knows, but there’s one thing, one single fact about today that you’ll seize upon with all the strength left in the paws of your will and clutch tightly to your chest, shielding it from review. You will not tell him about your little chat. He will have to drag that out of you with the force of god.

And you know from experience that lies tend to thrive best when they’re grounded in the soil of truth, so you’ll tell him all about what you’ve learned today, you’ll spill about everything you’d read and maybe, just maybe, you can stroke his ego enough to keep the conversation between you and Jed Olsen a secret for as long as possible. So you start, weaving your deceit into the patchwork of your story beginning with the threads of truth.

“I had to get out of the house, I just couldn’t stay here. After you left it got too quiet and I felt like I was starting to lose my mind. So I took a walk, I didn’t know where I was going, I just needed fresh air and then before I knew it I was standing in front of the library and for no real reason at all, I went in.” You pause and he continues to stroke his gloved palms over the heated flesh of your ass, waiting for you to continue, not offering a morsel of support or encouragement, just letting you fend for yourself as you inch further and further out on a limb, wondering if your story will hold your weight or send you plummeting to your death.

“I went back to the computers and… and I looked up articles on Roseville’s Ghost.” You feel him tense a bit beneath you, shifting a bit at the mention of his moniker and it makes your stomach churn, your eyes squeezing shut where he can’t see as you sit uncomfortably across his lap, wishing to be literally anywhere else.

“And what did you find?” He implores and while it only serves to freak you out more, it’s a small victory. If he’s interested in listening to you regale him with the tales of his grotesqueries then maybe your plan to stroke his ego and distract him may be picking up wind beneath its sails. You just have to keep feeding it, but you’re nervous and you have to stop yourself from shaking in his hold. You hope he’s receiving the tension in your body and the uneven tone in your voice as fear of him and what you’ve learned he’s truly capable of and not fear of being found out.

“I… I read about the murders.” You begin sheepishly, still terrified out of your mind, but you take a deep breath and begin again, you have no other choice.

“I read about you.” You state boldly, almost spitting out the phrase at him in disgust. Though you’d like to pride yourself and call it a ploy; a subtle way to make him believe you’re being completely transparent by showing him real raw emotion, it’s not.

You simply let the mask slip for a second, not shying away from the disgust you’re feeling but more so leaning into it. Dropping your fear of him for a moment to truly be able to express the disgust you harbor for him and his misdeeds. You simply just can not feed into the bullshit— his bullshit, knowing all you know.

This is where the curtain drops, this is no act, this is the truth. You are nothing but utterly disgusted by what you’d read today, the thought of it makes your skin crawl and your throat tight, making it harder to continue, but you press on all the same.

“I think I read the counts up to eight now.” You can’t bring yourself to look at him, like there needs to be a sort of visual barrier between the two of you to even speak of such evil, like a confessional. Though you’re unsure who should be confessing to who in this scenario, they’re his crimes but it’s your transgressions.

“Julie Andrews, Mark Recosta, Donna Blaine…” You’d memorized their names, how could you not, you’d nearly been one of them, an exclusive club of poor souls with seemingly nothing in common. Living normal, contributive lives that, of no fault of their own— besides maybe living a bit too unguarded, were ripped unjustly from them, many before they even knew it. You continue.

“Claire Richards, Thomas Steiner, Edward Steltz..” Your voice wavered on the last two as you recall the way the article stated Mr. Marsh was so brutally mutilated, the way his remains were… disturbed. “James Marsh, Henry Lancaster.”

He speaks and it startles you from the trance-like state you’d fallen under as you mourn for people whose circumstances of their connection to you are almost too vile for you to take. Like he’s plucked the thought from your brain he adds your name to the list, letting it audibly hang in the air just adjacent to the others, like a reminder it’s not too late for you to catch the train and join them and it makes you squeamish.

“You know, if you wanted to know more about me you could’ve just asked, doll. I’d have told you everything and more than you read through in those articles today. What was it that solidified it for you? Indulge me. Which part did you read that made those cute little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when you realized I was telling you the truth, hmm? Which details really set it in stone for you?”

You hesitate at his words, you felt like you had been building up momentum to berate him, gathering the courage to confront him and maybe even shame him for the things he’d done and in one fell swoop he’d toppled it.

“Or was it the picture that did you in? I bet it was, wasn’t it?” His voice rises in pitch, just an octave above his usual purr but you can pick out the giddiness in it, not needing to even see him to know he’s smirking, it leaks into his tone, tainting it.

“Just a passing glimpse, not much more than a blur really but you recognized me in it, didn’t you. You recognized my mask.” You want to shiver on his lap, his ability to oh so easily settle on the truth never failing to unnerve you. It’s just like he’d said the night before, his voice echoing in your ears as he claimed he knew you, and here he was proving it over and over and over again.

“I really caught hell over that one, took some serious ass kissing to get it published but it worked out in the end, we sold out every single printed copy in half a day.” Your breath hitches in your throat, your ears piquing at his words. Drawing wiry, crisscrossed connections between your current knowledge and your continuous new discoveries until your mind was tangled to hell and back in red yarn.

Your eyes widen as a thought occurs to you and then like a freight train, it slowly picks up steam, building and solidifying until it’s too exigent, too deafening. A dawning epiphany on the horizon of your mind, a roaring abomination rearing its ugly head that refuses to be ignored.

Your voice starts softly, a whisper that grows louder in tandem with your horror. “No. N-no. It-… it can’t be. you’re-“ You trail off, unable to finish it, unable to utter it aloud.

He leans down over your back, his body eclipsing you as he crowds in to get right up close behind your ear. With his breath hot on the back of your neck, goosebumps rise from the pores of your skin like the dead from their graves.

“I told you I’d be in touch didn't I, doll?” He muses smuggly from just behind you. The all too familiar phrase falls from his lips and your hopes and dreams of ever escaping this hellhole you’ve found yourself at the bottom of falls with it, crashing and burning down around you in a violent blaze that scorches all in its path, consuming you whole.

“You know, when we got off the phone initially, I was pretty pissed, I can’t lie. I had half a mind to make it a half day and come home early, but I really don’t like doing things out of anger. Things done in the heat of the moment almost always end up laced with regret, so I made myself wait all day and by the end I was actually rather impressed with you.”

“It takes a lot of balls to do what you did, it’s just too bad I suppose you didn’t have the brains to save yourself all this trouble.” He adds at the end, slapping you with the backhanded portion of his compliment.

“You see, if you’d have done half as much research on Jed Olsen as you did on Ghostface you’d have known then what you know now. Hell if you’d have just gone to the homepage of the newspapers website where you got my phone number from, you’d have seen a big ole picture of all the newspaper staff right there on the front, including yours truly.”

You had honestly thought you were at the bottom of the pit in terms of being freaked out, you honestly believed he couldn’t possibly surprise you any more than he already had but like rotten russian nesting dolls, each horror only encased a smaller more vile atrocity lurking beneath the surface.

And here was the next horror to set your teeth on edge, causing each individual vertebrae in the column of your spine to shift and contract until they were as straight as an arrow. Here were the many layers of the rotting onion, each pulled back to reveal a fresh, new face of decay smiling up at you from beneath.

You still deny it, unaccepting of the truth that sits heavy on your shoulders like a crushing weight. “No. No, that's impossible. You can’t-“

“Can’t be committing the crimes and reporting them too?” He cuts you off, almost giddily. His voice is elevated now, dripping with the excitement of your revelations, a showcase of the intricacies of his carefully crafted cogwork.

“Oh doll, it certainly is possible. Ever heard of Vlado Taneski?” He waits patiently but just as he’d expected there’s no answer from you, not positive or negative in response, only silence, which he doesn’t mind, it gives him a rare teaching opportunity.

“He was a serial killer from Macedonia. He killed three women over the span of three years and he wrote freelance articles reporting on their deaths. As you can imagine, that's something that I just could not get over. It’s… brilliant.”

“It’s not weird or strange to keep the articles written about your murders like trophies if you’re the one who writes them. They just call that a portfolio.” You can feel the confidence rolling off of him in waves, he thinks he’s so clever.

“But he made one fatal error. Can you guess what it was?” You squirm in his lap, not wanting to give into his little games or weird fucking pseudo-educational lectures.

After a moment of silence he grows impatient and you raise your head in alarm as you suddenly register he’s lifted his hand off your ass only a second before you feel it slap down again on your tender cheeks, making you yelp and become lively again, bringing you back to him before he continues.

“He got caught…” He pauses, emphasizing his words impatiently. “…because he used details in his articles that the police did not release to the public.” He reveals, smoothing over the heated skin of your perched ass like one might stroke a curled up cat.

“A stupid mistake that was easily avoidable.” He talks like there’s a manual for this kind of thing, rules laid down and etched in the blood of those who had failed before. A field manual meant to guide the future generations to follow, to learn from their mistakes and make them more effective, more deadly, more elusive.

That sick feeling in your stomach from earlier is churning again and it marinates the back of your throat in a bile so thick you feel like you’ll choke on it, it makes you bold, lets you speak your mind.

“Are you fucking telling me that you do these things, this… sick fucking shit and then wake up in the morning and go sit at a desk all day and write about it? Just… just fucking pretending to be normal and good and shit?”

While he’s not thrilled with your attitude about the situation he’s not stupid. He knows this probably comes as a bit of a shocker to most and he will give you credit for being at least open to discussion on the topic, so he indulges you.

“This isn’t the movies, doll. The world isn’t as black and white as they’d have you believe. There’s a whole world, a whole infinite spectrum of grays in between, toeing the line on both sides. What I’m doing is not new or abnormal under any circumstances. You do realize that, yes?”

You squirm in his lap, you can’t help it. What he’s suggesting is fucking insane. That everyone just oozes dirty little secrets. Like the general public is all walking around with a gaggle of skeletons trailing behind them, just a side effect of the wicked little ways we find to kill the monotonous, obtrusive, overbearing weight of our boredom.

“No. No fuck you. That is not true. Not everyone fucking kills people. You’re fucking sick. You’re fucking insane!” Your voice rises in pitch as you get a bit manic towards the end, coming a bit undone at the seams and to your dismay he only seems to grow more confident and composed as the conversation continues.

“You keep telling yourself I’m batshit crazy but you wanna know the truth?” He leans in close, his hot breath fanning over your neck and ear. “You’re just as batshit as I am, doll.” Your brows furrow, your eyes minutely flick back and forth with your flitting thoughts as you try to decipher just what the hell he’s talking about.

“Bullshit. I’m nothing like you.” His hand comes smacking down on your ass again and it makes you scream. A barrage of unfettered attacks that make you cry out weakly, your ass growing numb from the repetitive abuse.

“These are for lying to me. You say you’re nothing like me but That is bullshit and you know it. I know the sick shit you’re into.” His voice takes another upsweep in tone towards the end and you know he’s smiling above you again.

“You can fucking lie to yourself all you want but don’t try and sell me the same bullshit.” His gloved hand smacks down again right before he makes it clear to you just what he’d meant earlier.

“Every tumblr reblog, every ao3 bookmark, I’ve read them all.” Your body goes rigid beneath him at the mention of your more private social media platforms, the type of content they contain far different than the stuff you post onto Facebook and Instagram for your family and old high school friends to see.

“Porn is porn doll, physical video or written word it doesn’t matter. In fact, I find the latter to often be far more nefarious than the stuff you’ll find on the first page of pornhub. And some of the stuff you’ve been looking into? Well.. I bet you’d shame the shit out of the devil in comparison.”

He chuckles darkly above you as you come face to face with the extent of his knowledge of your dirty little secrets. Everything you’d ever clicked on, every story you’d read through, every indulgent fantasy you’ve ever subscribed to. You don’t know why you thought there were any secrets you could claim to hold sacred against him, he’d probably watched you masturbate to each and every one of them, there was no hiding from him.

“As much as you cry and beg me to stop, I know the truth.” He states plainly, squeezing the heated flesh of your ass just to hear you squeak, just to make sure you’re still with him. “The truth is you fucking love this. And that’s your real punishment, isn’t it?” It makes your blood run cold which only serves to intensify the burn in your ass as it spreads from your cheeks down into the crook between your thighs to your horror.

The laundry list of subject matters you’d perused through in your down time ran on and on in your brain. A growing list of kinks and fantasies, the most private bits of personal information held so close to your chest you’d never even tell your closest friends about and there wasn’t a shred of it he wasn’t privy to. Your mouth hung agape in a shock that ran bone deep, an embarrassment you’d never recover from.

To emphasize his point he started up again, raining smacks down that, emboldened by the new understanding between the two of you, you felt on a whole new level of torment.

“Oh, what am I gonna do with you, doll?” He muses as he continues, doling out smack after smack after devastating smack.

“If I can’t trust you to behave I’m gonna have to do something drastic.” Your eyes widen in alarm, this man’s definition of drastic could mean anything. You can only imagine what fate may befall you if he commits to something he deems drastic. Hell, you’d broken a promise, a verbal agreement held sacred to the authority of five year olds. Legally binding on account of the fact you’d crossed your heart and hoped to die, and now you were being bent over his knee, your ass spanked ruthlessly raw until his handprints were seared into your flesh like brands.

The thought of this man’s definition of drastic frankly terrified you and you caved. “Yes!! Ok, fuck!! I’m sorry! Please! I’m so sorry!” He didn’t stop right away, a few more stinging smacks laid out in perfunct succession across your blazing skin for good measure. “Please!”

Your tears had overtopped the levees of your lash line, warm tributaries that spilled down your cheeks and fell away in fat drops to land somewhere into the abyss between his lap and the cushions of the couch.

“Do you promise to take your promises more seriously?” He asks tauntingly, his smacks landing further down, right overtop the sensitive, unabused skin of the backs of your upper thighs. A blow you knew was intentional, a blow meant to bring you to your knees, meant to bring you to heel. It had the desired effect.

“Yes!! Yes, fuck!! I promise! I fucking promise, just please! Fucking please!!” Your chin trembles as the pain of his punishment rattles you, radiating out from your terribly sore ass and pulsating throughout your entire body in waves. The next time his palm grazes your flushed skin it’s far more gentle and you can tell even through the numbness that’s starting to settle in that he’s removed his glove, choosing to feel the heat of his afflictions without the barrier of the leather.

“Now you need to make it up to me.” Dreaded words you can’t even begin to imagine the exact extent of, but you’ll do anything for him to stop. You can’t possibly bare any more.

In a shaky, uneven tone that sounds pathetic even to your own ears you croak out a soft and almost unwilling “How?” There’s a silence after you utter the single, measly syllable. One that swells and expands until it fills the ambient space of the room around both of you like a vacuum, sucking the air out and leaving behind a greasy miasma of boundless, insidious opportunity in its place.

You can’t stand it any longer, you’ve stared down into the arm of your couch for so long you’ve memorized the way the threads in the fabric weave together, singed into your retinas by the shock of the pain and the burn of your tears. So you chance a look at him, turning your head to get a peek at his face when the anticipation grows too suffocating to stand any longer.

You look up to him, still draped over his knee, your ass throbbing. The tides of pain have started to recede, leaving nothing but alternating waves of heat and arousal in its wake. His smile widens at the sight of you, so quick the plump skin of his bottom lip catches in between his teeth as the idea of exactly how you can make it up to him graces him with its enlightenment. His loose locks hang down over the smooth cliff of his brow and down in front of his bright, gleaming eyes, glinting deviously with malicious excitement.

“That depends, doll. How bad do you really wanna make it up to me?” He asks in smooth jest, confident that he’s got you right where he wants you and ready to capitalize on the fact.

You scowl up at him; dark, hateful thoughts beginning to swirl in the space just behind your eyes. Something he catches in that same instant and all it really takes is lifting his offending hand off your ass and up into the air to correct it. You scramble and shift back, wiping the sour look from your face to replace it with a supplicating pout as the words fly from your puckered lips.

“No!! No! I- I wanna make it up to you. Please! Please let me make it up to you!” It does the trick, he lets his hand sink back down out of the air slowly and settle over your ass again in a soothing swipe, as if to say ‘that’s what I thought’.

He’s not fully broken you just yet; he can tell. Behind the simpering, docile little thing you’re masquerading as there’s an ember of defiance burning in the back of your brain and it pleases him to see it. He’d be a bit disappointed if you were subdued so easily. But there’s something else burning there, a fire of a different kind, one that burns slower. More smolder than outright blaze, and he can see that too, it only stokes the flames of his own desire knowing he’s the cause of it.

It makes his next words fall from his lips in a smooth, pleased purr. “Get off my lap and stand in front of me.” It’s a simple command, but it’s the unspoken commands that sit just behind it that makes you slow to comply— that and the humiliation of having to slide off his lap in the first place.

You swing your legs out off the side first and put your hands on his knees to push yourself up onto your feet. It’s the way your eyes never leave his as you do it that makes something low and dark in his chest stir. Probably unintentional on your part, just wishing to keep your eyes on the threat in the room but it has an effect on him all the same. Once you’ve done as he’s instructed his next command is as simple as the first, yet far more degrading. “Strip.”

Your eyes closed momentarily, you knew this was coming. It wasn’t enough to best you, it wasn’t enough to figure out your simple deceits, it wasn’t enough to humiliate you for them by bending you over his knee and then promptly humbling you by making you beg him for mercy. He wanted all of it, the full monty.

You shifted from foot to foot, thought for just a brief moment about trying to run again before succumbing to the fall of your pride and beginning to strip. You made it no slow, sensual theatric. Simply pulling your clothes off and throwing them to the side before modestly crossing one arm over your chest and the other in front of the apex of your thighs to subtly cover what little you’re able.

Saving yourself the ridicule of stopping halfway only to have him clear his throat and goad you into finishing the task and the mortification that comes with it. If you’re to subjugate yourself to him you may as well be brave about it. Hold your head high and look him in the eye while you do it, even if it’s just an arbitrary display of faux bravado to ease the ache in your already shattered pride.

He’s shifted since you’ve risen from your place on his lap, he takes up the whole of the couch now, sliding over from your side until he’s perched in the center of it. His arms are stretched out, resting over the back on either side, taking up most of its breadth with his impressive arm span. His legs are similarly positioned, his feet set flat out in front of him on either side, man-spreading far and wide with his feet planted into the low pile like he owns the space.

His eyes are currently preoccupied, slowly sweeping up the length of your body from the floor and trailing higher until his dark, lust-blown irises meet yours. A smug, pleased smirk tugs at one corner of his lips.

“My bag is in that chair behind you.” He says, barely lifting a hand up off the backrest to lazily point in the direction he means. “In that bag is my camera, I want you to go retrieve it for me.” Your heart sinks at the thought of more compromising photos, you think for a moment about begging him for an alternative but you’ve had just about as much groveling at his feet you think you can stand for one evening. So instead you turn to make your way towards the armchair in the corner when he stops you with an arrogant, almost melodic “Ah ah ah.”

You stop in your tracks but don’t turn back to him just yet, having to soothe your loathing for him that surges to the surface and taints the features of your face.

“Crawl.” He corrects, and you do turn back to him then, if only to gauge the seriousness of his command but his eyes brook no argument. And so, begrudgingly, you kneel, before settling down on your palms facing away from him, keeping your legs as tight together as humanly possible to try and conceal as much of you from his sight line as you can. It works mostly, until you start to move and then as one of your thighs shifts forward to start your crawl towards your destination and all is revealed. He makes it known by the low, approving growl that sounds from where he’s sat on his throne behind you.

You try and not think about it too hard as you shuffle as quickly as you can to the chair and reach into his bag for the camera, the bulk of it’s not hard to find and you pull it free from the confines of the old messenger bag as you turn to sort of kneel-walk back towards him when he stops you again.

“You can’t carry my camera in your hands and crawl, babygirl. You’re gonna have to find another place to hold it.” He can’t be fucking serious. You chime in at that point, your voice simultaneously light and coquettish while also dark and ground out between the grit of your teeth.

“And how exactly do you expect me to do that?” His answer comes after a soft yet smug smile that tells you he knows exactly how you’re meant to do just that.

“Put the strap between your teeth. That should free your hands up nicely, don’t you think?” If there was ever a single solitary moment in your existence where you could wish to kill someone with just a simple look, now would be the time you’d choose. Glaring daggers at him you’d love nothing more than to watch the tips of sink into the soft fleshy pits of his eyes.

You bite down on the strap and let it hang down from your lips as you resume your trek back towards the couch and if you thought the trip to the chair was the most embarrassing part of the whole ordeal you were dead wrong. There’s something about having to watch him watch you that is oh so much more degrading. The way his eyes keep trailing down to watch where the camera dangles as you sway, the pertinent position of it in relation to the rest of your body.

You watch as he adjusts himself at the sight of you and as much as you loathe to admit it, it sets you aflame. His obvious desire for you, the way he doesn’t even try to hide how he fixates on every aspect of your body, never skipping over the rough or unshapely parts of you. He drinks you in greedily like he’s got a thirst he can never quite quench and it sets your nerves alight with desire despite everything.

When you reach him he reaches out and plucks the strap from between your teeth with a satisfied smirk and you have the audacity to think it’s over when he brings his hand to his forehead animatedly— like he’s just remembered something he can’t believe he’d be so stupid as to forget.

“I almost forgot, doll. I’m gonna need you to get one more thing from the bag for me.” You just stare up at him in disbelief as he explains.

“On the back of the bag in a separate pouch you’ll find my knife, I need you to bring it to me.” You sit in front of him for a moment longer, the shame of your defeat rising in the back of your throat and you let it burn you, hoping that the memory of this will deter you from ever letting this kind of thing happen to you again.

You turn away from him and start to make your way back to the armchair when the telltale flash of his camera illuminates the wall in front of you, the sound of the shutter going off accompanying it along with a new sense of shame for you to wallow in. There’s no getting these images back, they’re in the world now, in his possession and always would be. That thought alone threatens to make you sick.

The shutter clicks off a handful of times behind you again before you make it back to the chair. You flip the bag over and after searching for a minute, you find the separate pouch in question. It’s hidden along the seams and doesn’t look original to the design, after opening it you stick your hand in and pull the cursed thing out into the light before turning back towards him.

It was much bigger in your hand than you’d imagined it to be. The sheath covered blade juts out from the end of your fist, a wicked extension of it. You turn it over a few times in fascination, gripping it proper as you choke up on the hilt, cool to the touch against the web of your hand, and something clicks into place.

It’s when your hand wraps around the curvature of the handle, when the phenolic resin melds against the swell of your palm that a most devious idea pops into your head. Here was the moment at hand, here was another golden opportunity. You had his knife and he had nothing but a camera.

You could saunter over to him and stick the thing right into his neck or go for the lager target and jam the blade right through his chest, lots of vital bits in there, or better yet you could just let the blade bite right into his thigh, let the tip nick his femoral artery and he’d bleed out in minutes.

His voice pulls you from your plotting. “We won’t be needing the sheath, doll.” You couldn’t agree more.

You hear him but don’t look at him, mesmerized as you grip the leather covering the blade and pull, feeling it slide smoothly up and away until the steel beneath is slowly revealed. Its surface is polished and you can’t help but to run your thumb along its blood groove and down along the upsweep of its clip point.

You look up at him and he snaps a shot of you at just that moment, one he can’t help but go back and review. A still of you staring up at him in all your naked glory, his knife gripped in one hand as the other toys with the tip. He thinks to himself it’s probably the single greatest photograph he’s ever taken and he’s going to cherish it for the rest of his life, make a million copies of it so the world will never be rid of it, eternalize it forever.

He’s still staring at it when he orders you. “Bring it to me.” He seemed caught up in the moment which played to your advantage, maybe you could work with that. You flipped the knife around and brought it to your lips. Parting them before settling the cold spine of the knife between your teeth and biting down, holding it in place as you settled back down on all fours and looked up at him from beneath your lashes as you crawled back towards him.

The low, sultry groan he lets out is like music to your ears and you tried to focus on that and not the fact that the blade between your teeth has been saturated with the blood of his victims, people you now knew the names of.

Julie Andrews, Mark Recosta, Donna Blaine.

Claire Richards, Thomas Steiner, Edward Steltz.

James Marsh, Henry Lancaster.

You.

You have to shut your eyes against your overactive imagination as you swear you can see it flowing through the fuller and dripping off the tip just out of your peripherie, swear you can taste the coppery, metallic tang of it on your tongue as you stare into his deep, brown orbs while you crawl towards him. Hellbent on letting him feel the bite of his own blade for once.

The flash of the camera goes off. He’s snapping pictures of you again. Pictures of you stark naked with his blade caught between your teeth, crawling towards him on your hands and knees. He was wrong before. This is the single greatest photograph he’s ever taken.

He swears it’s the most erotic sight he’s ever laid his eyes on. No playboy he’d ever snuck peeks at as a boy; no pornstar— illustrious or otherwise, holds a candle to how you look crawling towards him right now. Not even Helen of Troy could compare to the sight he holds in his viewfinder at this very moment.

The beating of your heart is so erratic against the cage of your ribs you worry it bulges out from your skin with every beat, your palms sweaty against the nap of the carpet beneath you, trembling as you draw near. You’re an arms length away from him now. Now is the time to strike if there ever was one. You stop in front of him, sitting back on your heels but before you can move he’s reaching out and wrapping one deft hand around the handle of the blade, beating you to the punch.

You stare at each other like that, peering into each other's souls, intentions spread bare for both to see plainly. In fact, you’ve never felt more in tune with the man who now torments your life than you ever have. There’s a real, raw understanding between the two of you. There is no deceiving him. There is no escape from him. This is your life now, that’s just how it is until further notice.

He pulls and you release for fear of the edge and its razor kiss and just like that the opportunity is gone. All the anxiety. All the build up. All for not.

He sets the camera aside for now, seemingly done with it at the moment as he takes the blade into the palm of his left hand and stabs the tip down into the armchair of your couch, resting it there as he peers down at you knelt between his thighs.

He makes the next move, just letting you watch as the hand not wielding the blade falls to his lap and begins to smoothly pull at the end of his thin, black belt. Tugging it through the loop and out of the buckle with one practiced hand. With it undone he resumes his lax position, throwing one arm back to rest leisurely over the back of the couch as he looks to you expectantly.

You know what he wants, it’s pretty obvious but you can’t bring yourself to do it on your own anyway. You just sit there and stare at the prominent tent of his dickies, your eyes wide. He knows you need encouragement so he twists the blade against the fabric of the couch, making a crater in it and capturing your attention with the sound of the steel tip ripping the fibers free.

“Don’t make me make you, doll.” He sounds amused but you know the threat behind the statement is real so you force your shaky hands forward against their will. One hand finding one side of the buttoned garment and curling your fingers overtop the hem to grip it and the other finding a similar purchase on the other side.

His flesh is warm and tight against the backs of your knuckles as you maneuver them deftly to unbutton his pants. With the button undone the individual seams want to part away on either side, held only in place by the zipper still tugged to the top of the junction. You grip it with your left hand and pull it down, the low buzzing of it as it rides the track down and separates is loud in the otherwise quiet of the room.

With them loose, he lifts his hips for you to shimmy them down his thighs a bit, which you do with a dour expression but without fuss. He sits now in just his boxers before you and they barely constrain the bulge of him yearning against the fabric for freedom. You look away from the bulk of him for a second to look up into his eyes and when they land on his you know it’s a mistake.

They hold you enraptured with the intensity of their gaze, the brown orbs darkened so considerably they’re almost black. You have the whole of his attention and you’ve never seen someone look more hungry. You have to look away.

You can’t handle the anticipation any longer, it only doubles by the second so you just reach forward and find the seam at the fold of his fly and pull it to the side, it’s all it takes for his cock to spring free and into view, the rigid pillar of him out in the open now right in front of your face.

Your eyes scale the length of it and you gulp. He’s girthy but not overwhelmingly so, it’s the length of him that has you clutching your pearls. You consider the next logical course of action and approximate you may be able to fit half of him in your mouth realistically, any more than that is going to be a challenge. One you’re unsure you’re ready for.

You had had him last night in all his fulty, but under the bizarre circumstances and with all the adrenaline pumping through you, you were sure now that you hadn’t understood the extent of his glory. You must be projecting your astonishment because he chuckles, a low, deep sound that resonates from his chest and snaps you out of it.

“Is something the matter, doll? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He lilts at you, mockingly. His shitty pun is not lost on you, you’re just still too dumbstruck to react to it. That’s when you feel the tip of his knife under the cleft of your chin, lifting your eyes from his cock to his face so you get the full jist of his words and their weight. All too familiar with its edge, you let it carry your gaze to him, unwilling to feel its bite just yet if you can help it.

“You’re not getting out of this, babygirl.” He reminds you sternly, his tone erring on the more serious side now. You know he means it too so you close your eyes as you feel the tip pull away from your face after one last dangerous caress and try to gather yourself.

When you open them again you turn your attention back to the task at hand and reach forward tentatively to wrap a palm around his length. He’s warm and twitches at your touch. Both of you share a sharp inhale at the contact and you can feel his eyes burning holes into you from above as you scoot up as close as you can until you feel your knees bump the skirting before you’re leaning in. You brace your hands on the curved planes of his thighs, your eyes fixating on his tip as you draw nearer before you draw them closed as your lips part and you pull him into your mouth.

He’s contrastly hard against the soft slide of your tongue, like velvet over hardened steel and he tastes clean as you run your tongue experimentally along the hardened ridge of him. You keep your eyes closed as you go and it helps, you find yourself getting into a kind of rhythm, something you’d thought would be impossible to achieve given the circumstances.

His mouth drops open as your tongue runs along the bottom of his shaft, the feel of it grazing against him has his arm drawing forward from where it rests on the back of the couch to caress the back of your head instinctively.

You squeak out in surprise around him at the unexpected touch and while he knows the vibrations that ring out from the sound are unintentional they feel heavenly all the same, and it pulls a groan from low in his throat that grows into a growl towards the end.

You’ve never heard a man get so vocal from a blowjob before. The men you’d blown in the past weren’t exactly silent during, but it’s like every move you make, every drag of your tongue against him pulls something from him and that kind of knowledge, the kind of power that it instills in you has heat pooling low in your belly. Igniting the low burning embers of your arousal from where he’d had you bent over his knee earlier, and that thought alone has you digging your nails into his thighs as you allow his cock to sink down your throat a little further than you’d been letting it.

He feels the head of his cock hit the back of your throat and tighten down around him reflexively, that paired with the way your nails are digging into the flesh of his thighs threatens to make his eyes roll into the back of his head and he knows he can’t take much more of this.

He thought he’d have more self control but the longer you go the more he feels like he’s slipping. He knows what he needs so the hand that’s been caressing the back of your head pulls away from your crown to cup your cheek, which makes you flinch a bit as you’re pulled from your thoughts, but it also makes you open your eyes and instinctively look up at him.

His brows are furrowed, collected in a pinch set above the piercing, brown orbs of his eyes that bore into you and you freeze. They’re dark as they gaze into yours but they swirl with something not immediately identifiable.

It takes a moment for you to realize that in the vast pools of his abject desire, resonating around the edges of his hunger is the soft glow of adoration, something that almost bridges on love. It holds you there, gazing up at him with his cock socketed in between your lips and you watch as his face contorts with pleasure just at the sight of you.

You find you are at odds with yourself again. You know what this man is capable of, you know the deep evil that festers below his augmented surface. The kind of inexcusable rot that makes you toss out even the most polished of apples but the growing swell of your need has you tempted to sweep the facts you’d read through today in great detail under the rug. It’s where this is so clearly headed anyway, there’s no getting out of it. And with the way he’s looking at you, like you’re the sole object of his desires, like you’re the only woman on the planet, you’re having a hard time not letting that have an effect on you.

Just the intensity of his gaze makes your thighs jump, an unexpected spike of need pierces through your unease and it sets you on edge. You start to move again, as more of a distraction against your own bodies reactions than for his pleasure but the choked moan it pulls from him has the opposite effect on you and you have to mime like you’re readjusting just so you can rub your thighs together discreetly, the sound shooting straight to your core.

He’s not having it, the palm on your cheek stiffens and it stills you. Pulling you off of him with an audible plop as he lifts your face from his lap to look up at him again, though he notes how you won’t look him in the eye this time. Just when you feel your resolve beginning to slip, like he already knows he speaks, like he’s plucked the words right out of your thoughts.

“Are you wet for me, doll?” He asks in a pleasure strained voice, his tone low and overwhelming seductive to your chagrin. Though try as you might, you can’t get anything past him it seems.

You can’t bring yourself to answer him, too mortified by the fact to even process it let alone speak. But he doesn’t need you to. He can see it in the desire emanating from the blown pools of your pupils, the way your thighs shift uncomfortably, the way your hands tense in his lap.

“Show me.” He commanded. And as if you’d been hexed one hand slides off his thigh and down your body to the juncture of your thighs, slipping deftly between them to paw at the slick heat of your sex. You pull it back up to the light and hold it before you, both of you examining it before you feel his hand grip your wrist and lift, pulling you up til you’re kneeling in front of him as he leans down the rest of the way. He’s inches from you now, the space between you just large enough to house his hand gripping yours.

You watch on bated breath as he brings your slick coated fingers up to his face and draws them into his mouth, enveloping your index and pointer fingers between his lips and sucking them clean of you right before your very eyes and the sensation of it paired with his intense eye contact has you stifling a moan in the back of your throat.

When the spell breaks he pulls your fingers free from your mouth to pull you up off your knees. He takes his hand off his blade, the tip stuck down into the turf of the arm of your couch like a planted flag long forgotten for bolder claims as he hoists you up with both arms and up into the seat of his lap.

You feel the hardened length of him against the inner crook of your thighs as he seats you into straddling him. You forget about your revulsion, forget about your punishment, forget about his knife just within arms reach as he braces you, splaying a hand at the small of your back as he grips his cock with the other and positions it at the entrance of your slick pussy, never breaking your eye contact.

If he’d had said anything in that moment, if he would’ve hesitated or made you speak it probably would have snapped you out of the haze and things would have gone down differently, but he didn’t and that made all the difference. He simply lets your body weight drop, spearing you open on his cock and making you both moan out together as he fills you.

Your eyes widen in response to the pain, that first sharp pinch of being split open and he hasn’t even drawn flush against you yet. He grips the swells of your hips in the palm of his hands, noting how they fill them perfectly as he drags you down onto him until he’s finally filling you to the brim. Your cries are tinged with discomfort as those last few inches plunge deep and he stills as you both adjust to the stretch.

You try to catch your breath perched astride him but he fills you so completely there hardly feels room for air, like the very length of him pierces into the bellows of your lungs and fills them too. But then he readjusts his grip on your hips and pulls you back up off him all the way to the tip before he guides you back down onto his length again and the pain gives way to pleasure.

The mind-altering, breath-stealing kind that has your eyes fluttering closed and your mouth falling open, the kind that you have to brace yourself against the intensity of and just take it.

When he gets hold of the reins in regards to his own pleasure he starts to move in earnest, his eyes concentrating on the way your face twists and contorts with each subtle movement. Your hands reach forth and find purchase by way of grabbing bunches of his dress shirt in your fists and cling to him as he rocks his hips up into you from below while the hands on your hips guide you ceaselessly up and down his hardened length.

Your vision blurs around the edges and you can't help the noises he pulls from you now, it’s lost on you to care, let alone try to stifle them. Your world begins and ends with each thrust and while it had seemed before that you’d had the upper hand, now that was clearly not the case as your back now maintains a perpetual arch, your moans never quite cease and since he’d pushed into you, you seemed to have long forgotten anything you’d learned today. Your head empty of all thought, as your focus shifts to the feel of his cock dragging in out of your tight, wet heat. He can’t help but to comment on the fact as he coos up at you from below, mockingly.

“Does that feel good, doll?” He snarks up at you from below as he thrusts up into you with just a fraction more force than before, eliciting a low, almost pained groan from you as you clench down around him.

“It’s ok, babygirl. You don’t have to admit it out loud, I know it’s hard. The way you’re gripping my cock tells me everything I need to know.” He keeps up like that, holding you in a pleasured daze until your eyes start to lose focus and your jaw goes slack, but no matter how much he enjoys watching you lose yourself with him buried deep inside you, this is still a punishment and you’re still meant to be making it up to him.

So while you’re blissfully distracted he pulls the tie from around his collar and loosens the knot until the neck is loose and wide. Reaching up, he throws the loop over the top of your thrown back head and lets the soft silken fabric catch around the column of your neck before pulling it taut by the end and jerking you down until your foreheads touch, forcing you to look at him as he stills and watches you pout as the heavenly sensations cease.

Your pleading eyes peer down into his piercing ones as he commands you with a single word that has you moaning low in your throat and complying instantaneously with the authority behind it.

“Bounce.”

Your hands relax their grip on his shirt to brace against his shoulders as you set to work, picking up where he’d left off and trying to find the rhythm he’d set previously with your own movements. It’s a pale comparison but after a moment you find that mind numbing pleasure again even if it feels drip fed instead of a constant flow.

“You know what, doll?” He quips from below you as he watches you set to work while he lounges back into the cushions. “I think you did this on purpose. I think you wanted this.” He lets the statement linger in the air for a moment, collecting weight before he continues.

“What kind of a girl in the kind of situation you’re in gets a chance to be free, a whole five hours while I was at work and you were all by your lonesome— and instead of calling a friend… or a family member… or even the police, you called me.” He chuckles then, a dark, hearty rumble that you can feel resonate through him where he’s buried deep as it vibrates into you.

“You must like being the victim, doll. You’ve done nothing to get out.” His words get to you, you can’t help it. They penetrate your concentration and reverberate, bouncing back and echoing off the walls of your mind because as much as you loathe to admit it, there’s a ring of truth to them. Why hadn’t you called the police? All those doubts you’d had, all those worries about what would happen if you talked to them, were they really the reason you never pulled the trigger? Or was it something else? Something deeper and darker that you just can’t bring yourself to face.

Your eyes squeeze closed at the thought as you drop your hips down onto him and still, your eyes rolling beneath the lids as his tip nudges a spot inside you that steals the breath directly from your lungs. You hear him growl below you before you feel the all too familiar sting of his hand slapping down on the flank of your ass, making you cry out in pain as your eyes fly open to meet his.

He’s leaned forward again, this close you can really see the way the lust clouds the varying hues of his eyes, muddying them together into a dark rich brown that holds you hostage with their intensity. It lets you feel the heat of his breath against your lips and you feel like you’ve got the answer to your burning questions when you find your eyes shifting down to his plush lips wanting to push forward and close the gap between you to taste them.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

You lift your hips and get to work again as he sits back into the cushions and denies you the pleasure. He holds onto the tail end of the tie like a leash to keep you right where he wants you as you pick up the pace again. With the way his hips are angled now that he’s sat back relaxed, his cock drags along your walls every time you lift your hips up and it punches up into that sweet spot every time you drop down, making you gasp without fail as it stabs into it.

You can feel it, the pit of pleasure that pools low in your belly just behind your navel and you know you’re not gonna last much longer. It swells into a cresting wave, one catastrophic in nature that threatens to decimate all in its path and leave you drowning in its wake. Like a suicidal surfer you chase it out to sea, slamming your hips down against his as you start to reach its peak.

That’s when you feel him jerk on the tie around your neck, tightening it until he’s got your attention again. And when he speaks he sounds utterly unbothered, still completely in control as you teeter towards falling apart all over him. Relishing the cock drunk state he’s reduced you to and being this up close and personal to witness it.

“What’s the matter, babygirl?” He taunts, voice dripping in faux concern. “Are you getting fucking close for me?”

Your brows scrunch even further in frustration at his teasing, wishing to both simultaneously throttle him and grovel for your release. You want to shut your eyes against the effects of him, want to shut him out and regain your composure, want to resist this but he grabs your hips again and takes the helm, thrusting up into you from below in a way that leaves you wide eyed and gasping. Your answer is delayed but it’s dripping with desire, born directly from a place of burning need. “Yes!”

But you should have known he wouldn’t let you off that easily. “I don’t know, doll. You’ve been an awfully naughty girl today. If you wanna come I wanna hear you beg me for it.” He growls out as he feels you clench down around him at the sudden shift in dynamic between you.

Your hands ball into fists that dig into the shelves of his shoulders as he drives into you from below and coaxes you towards your release. He knows you’re close so he slows to a crawl and it makes you throw your head back and whine, a beautiful sight that tugs on the floodgates of his own release.

He uses his thrusts to punctuate his points, driving up into you on each word to express the gravity of them. “Beg. Me.” You moan as each one drives home deep and it breaks you as you quake in his grasp.

“Please!! Fucking please!! Let me come!!” You’re past the point of shame, over the humiliation of the position you’re in, all you care about is the precipice of pleasure you’re just out of reach of. You fucking need it, you’re desperate for it, you have to have it.

“Look me in the fucking eyes then.” Your head falls forward and he can see the desperation burning brightly in them, can see the submission yielding in your blown pupils. When he has your full attention he continues, digging down deep one last time to the heart of the problem, to the root of the cause of this entire predicament.

“You broke a promise to me today. I need to hear you say you’re going to keep them from now on.” There’s a part of you, lost deep below the sea of your pleasure that hears his words and knows this is fucked. Out of everything you’d done today he’s upset that you didn’t keep your promise? A promise made in haste to get him— an intruder who’d broken in and terrorized you out of your home as soon as you possibly could. You’d have said anything in that moment to be rid of him.

And what kind of person in their right mind expects a victim to keep promises made under duress to their captors anyway? A person who doesn’t see the situation under that light. That’s who. You keep forgetting. Somehow you keep forgetting this man is obsessed with you, a violent career criminal who’d singled you out as his next victim and then took it a step even further and decided to not only relinquish you of your life but allow you to keep on living it, worse than death he’d hijacked your existence and made you his pet.

But that part of you, that part submerged at the bottom of your pleasure, drowned out by it— that part didn’t currently have the microphone. That part sat at the bottom of your mind living off a lungful of air while the rest of you crumbled and remolded itself into the docile little thing currently perched on his lap with his cock buried to the hilt and his tie cinched tight around your neck as you begged him for more.

“I-I’ll keep them. I swear. I promise.” You stare down into his eyes from above and hope your voice carries the conviction you need it to as it’s strained from the exertion of your cries, both of immense pleasure and bristling pain. Your pussy twitches around him impatiently while you wait to see if he’s satisfied. You get your answer in the form of his hips starting to move again and it pulls a soft, sweet moan of relief from your chest as you cling to him.

He picks the pace back up in earnest, not holding back and the pleasure that courses through you singes the very walls of your veins and threatens to set you alight. His fingers dig deep into the plush flesh of your hips so hard you have no doubt you’ll still be able to feel them tomorrow. Phantom fingers you’ll relive the bruising grip of when you skim your own over the top for days to come.

He’s ruthless, on a path now to see you fall apart for him and he’s not far behind as he drives his hips flush with yours on every thrust, making you feel every single inch. It’s when you lock eyes with him again and in the softest, sweetest drawl he’s ever heard, plead with him one last time.

“Please, Danny!! Please don’t fucking stop!!” It’s in that moment he knows all is not in vain. Right then he wholeheartedly commits to never letting you go as he wraps the slack of the tie around his fist, dragging you down to smash your lips to his. It’s only a second after that that you both fall apart together, you convulsing hard around him as he thrusts up as deep into you as he possibly can and stills, filling you full.

When your bruised lips pull away from him he keeps a tight leash and waits for your eyes to flutter open again. When they do, he whispers heated promises low against your lips where only you can hear.

“You’re mine, doll. You can keep denying it and keep fighting me and we can keep playing these little games with each other if you want but the end result is always gonna be the same. Whether you choose to accept it or not is your prerogative but I’m not gonna stop cause I know…” He breathes low against your lips, chasing them as you pull away in feigned distaste of his words, even as you pulse around him where he’s still nestled deep inside your walls.

His nose brushes yours softly before he continues. “…I know the truth. I know you want this.” He leaves it at that. Letting you stew on the thought as you straddle him, suspended in the haze of a day that’s left you just as lost at the end as you’d been at the start.

But even later on, as you placidly let him help you cook dinner before ultimately retiring to bed together for another night spent with a man who’d forced himself between your sheets, even as he pulls you close in the dark of your bedroom and into the warmth of his arms you know this has only just begun and it’s not over until it’s over. You’d never been one to go quietly into the night.

#evolution of cesare's obsession with lucrezia's neck

read here

happy may the 4th! remember the true spirit of star wars - fight fascists, punch nazis and never give up hope.

and as always, free palestine.