Rae glanced at me, trying to decide how much of herself she wanted to reveal with her response. Her deep blue eyes were searching mine for a hidden meaning or possibly a backhanded compliment, her insecurities were well hidden beneath the surface only I was starting to be ableto pick up on them.
“I could never get revenge in the real world, the best way I ever knew how to was to write about it.”
“Your stories about murdering your bullies are extremely well written and creative. The amount of thought and detail you’ve put into purely fictional scenarios is impressive. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed you wrote from experience instead of strictly fiction.”
Her eyes darkened at my statement, remaining focused on her food that she now pushed around her plate. Was she drifting to that place she hid in so well? One littered with the corpses of everyone who ever wronged her?
“Have you ever wanted to get revenge?” I pressed, wanting to obtain a better grasp on how dark she could be when she wasn’t in a make-believe world. Her imagination was one thing; seeing if her inner beast ever floated to the surface was another entity entirely.
She didn’t look at me for a moment, her fork pausing from pushing her food around on her plate, her appetite seeming to have vanished. I wondered if she had ever voiced her deepest desires, if she had ever trusted anyone that much to see that side of her. The abyss that lurked beneath her sarcastic sunshine exterior, which I so badly craved to see, I wanted to know more. Helping her overcome this obstacle was my main goal, but the more I watched her, the more I read, the more I found myself drawn to wanting to know her on a deeper level.
“It doesn’t matter what I want. Bad people exist in the world. As much as I believe they should suffer from the pain they inflict on people, I would never be able to act upon my desire to be the one to make them pay that price for repentance.”
“It does matter what you want. You didn’t answer my question, Rae.” I knew I was being pushy, but I didn’t care. I needed to know what she was capable of, if I could help her truly process what she had been through in a way I’d never helped anyone before. She’d learn to truly love herself, every dark and twisted piece.
“Yes,” she whispered on a shallow exhale, her chest caving in as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible in case anyone other than me overheard her admission. “Yes, sometimes I find myself thinking about what it would be like to actually act out those fantasies.”
My smile was catlike as I observed her and her fears of what she was saying. She needed someone she could trust to nurture her demons, feeding them to watch them grow and thrive. They didn’t need to hide, not from me.
“You deserve to have everything your heart desires, no matter how dark and depraved,” I whispered back, even though she wouldn’t look up from her plate yet. “You’re not the only one here with macabre thoughts, Raelynn,” at my admission, she glanced up her dark eyes, piercing mine, searching for a lie that she wouldn’t find. I would never lie to her. I would push her with my own immoral inner demons, letting them mingle together onceshe saw me for who I really was. I would never be able to find it in myself to lie to her and break her trust; it was too valuable after so many had mishandled it before. For this woman, whom I had an unhealthy fascination with, I’d risk it all.
“As my therapist, shouldn't you be encouraging healthier ways of coping with trauma instead of murder?” She quipped, finally taking a bite of her food. A tension I didn’t realize I was holding released from my chest when she started eating again. The thought of her going without food was enough to coil my need for control into a tight ball. I’d force her to take care of herself if I needed to.
“As your therapist, it’s my job to make sure all aspects of your well-being are taken care of, the good, the bad, and everything in between. I want to see every side of you thrive under my guidance.” The protective need I felt toward her was a foreign feeling to me. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had relationships before, or participated in the occasional one-night stand. I had never shown a woman any disrespect; every hookup was consensual with a mutual understanding that it was nothing more, not a single one of them had managed to infiltrate my mind like Raelynn had. There was something about her that drew me in like a fly to a spider's web.
“And you think you’re up for that challenge?” She questioned, piercing me with a stare that was impossible for me not to see as a challenge.
“A challenge is what makes it fun, and breaking you out of that shell, exposing the real you underneath, will be the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” I let my knee brush against hers under the table, a gentle pressure that I hoped she understood as my way of accepting the challenge. By her sharp intake of breath the moment I made contact, I knew I was going to be able to break her open in no time, my cock started to harden at the thought of releasing her from her shell and seeing if she was just as depraved as I was. If she’d trust me to control her in a way I never thought was possible before. I had to push my thoughts back, imagining all the things I would do to her once she was at my mercy wouldn’t help my current situation.
Before I could bait her anymore into revealing anything personal, her group started to rise from their tables to line up. She hadn’t noticed anyone get up yet, with her back facing the rest of the room, until I nodded my head in their direction.
“Looks like it’s time for you to head back, I’ll see you tomorrow, Raelynn.”
Slowly she got up, gathering everything and placing it on her tray so the nurse could count everything before they left for their wing. My self-control waned as I watched her walk away to join her group. I couldn’t help but start to appreciate more than just her mind in that moment as her ample hips swayed with each step, her ass so firm in the skin-tight leggings that I had to force myself to close my eyes before anyone noticed I was watching her. Againstmy better judgment, because I knew on every level that this was wrong, I decided I wasn’t just going to break her shell open. I was going to break her to the point she wouldn’t have any other choice but to rebuild herself in a way that wouldn’t be vulnerable to any force other than my own. Raelynn was about to get reacquainted with herself, and I was more than happy to be the one to do it.
Match 3rd 2021
I don’t feel… right.I feel lost, like part of me got swept away in the torrential downpour we received last night with almost no warning whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve smiled all month, let alone felt anything other than the releasing sensation when I tear open my own skin. The sickening numb feeling finally goes away when I give in. I have no tears left in me to shed over the situation, whatever it may be.
My heart knows what I need to do: kick him to the curb and never look back. I have my own house. I don’t rely on him for my bills or help with my own property. So why can’t I bring myself to end things? Did I really invest all this time with someone just to throw it all away? He always promises things will get better when I quit being so difficult to make happy.
I’m not the easiest to get along with. On some level, I’ve always known that. Being friendly and sociable was easy, but that wasn’t the real me, the one who hid from those I cared about. Even Michelle didn’t know how bad my head could truly get sometimes —how I desired for it not to be my skin I was cutting. He deserved to hurt like he made me hurt, a physical representation of my emotional turmoil.
So why couldn’t I tell him that? Was I that pathetic that I couldn’t just text him and tell him it was over? That I was taking my body and heart back? I guess that answers my question since all those texts get deleted. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it would be easier to just end it all.
Chaptereighteen
The Exploiter
September 29th 2023
Never in my life had I been so humiliated at the hands of a woman who used to beg me for sex. I laughed, remembering just how pathetic she had been when I constantly denied her, accusing her of being a nymphomaniac just to see the tears stain her pretty face. Never did I think anything I did would come back to haunt me after I lined everything up so carefully.
Granted, nothing had actually happened yet. My boss had called me this morning while I was on my way to work. The cops had stopped by and wanted to ask me some follow-up questions about the incident with the whore locked up in the insane asylum. Luckily, Trever didn’t like dealing with law enforcement any more than I did, so he sent them on their way. It didn’t solve the problem, though.
If I were a gambling man, which I wasn’t, I would have bet every penny to my name that her good-for-nothing sister was the one pushing them to look into it. There was no way they’d take the word of someone who tried to kill herself in such brutal ways. Localcops might be a few crayons short of a full box, but they weren’t completely dense.
I needed to lie low for a little while though. The cops were the last thing I needed to deal with. Trever hadn’t questioned when I said I needed to take some time off to sort it out. As long as it kept them away from his place of business, he didn’t seem to care. Ditching my cell phone in the river running through Elston Hollow was just a precaution, not a sign that I had anything to worry about or an admission of guilt. If it came down to it, I could always claim that I lost it while walking on the trail that followed the river for several miles.
