1

Then

The first time you told me you loved me you broke my nose. It was dripping onto the kitchen floor in a steady stream of crimson like a leaking water balloon. My face was on fire, and I remember when you pressed the cold compress on my skin and telling me how sorry you were. How sorry that you had hurt me. That I drove you to do it. The way your mascara ran from your eyelids and smeared your cheeks. You had been drinking gin again, even though you told me that you had given it up because of how it made you act.

It was New Year’s eve. Things hadn’t been great recently but you told me it was because you were stressed out at work at the office, and I had asked about who the guy always blowing up your phone was. You shrugged the comment off and gave me some excuse, but you knew that it was still on my mind.

When your work friends came to join us to drink, eat and laugh as we said goodbye to the year and hello to the next one, you looked so happy. So beautiful. But then Mark walked in, and I knew your eyes were more focused on him rather than me. And you could sense mine too, lingering on Cara. You know our past. What I told you anyway. You were always for appearances. The way you smiled, the way you stood. It was all for a show, and it was my show to witness. You made sure of that, laughing, drink in hand, touching Mark’s arm more times than my liking. But you knew what you were doing, always knew what you were doing. You saw me watching you whilst you did it, and those beautiful eyes turned cold, and I saw you look at him for the first time, saw you really look at him, the same way you had looked at me the first time we had met each other, and you knew that I would think things which I should have never thought. Because it was all for show. It was for me, and not for him. He, maybe not so innocently, leant in and kissed your cheek. Your eyes on me at all times as I sat in the corner rocking a whisky.

That night, I think it was around two in the morning, you had been drinking heavily and when the cohort left and the music died, you, not me, decided to bring it up.

“I don’t care,” I said, knowing better than to argue with you when you had been drinking. You had never been aggressive, not physically anyway, before. But that temper was always there, just waiting to come out and bite me like sharks under still water. One little dip past the surface and the teeth were ready to sink into you. Naturally you said it was me. Conflating, projecting as always. But I knew that sinister smile behind those crocodile tears too well by now.

“Talk to me!” You shouted. You’re across the kitchen, nursing the last drops of prosecco. You pick up the half empty bottle. It was round, black. The expensive stuff to celebrate our first New Years together. You reminded me of the first time we met, on the car park of Rubens café that day. You weren’t in your work attire tonight obviously, but you looked incredible, and as I look at you from across the room tonight, your hair still made up, glitter and sequins clinging to your black dress from the poppers and balloons in the main from when the new year was officially here, you looked as dangerous, as deadly, and as alluring as ever, like a poisoned rose with thorns dripping with venom.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said with more contemptment than I should have. “I think you need to go to bed.” There I was, doing it again. I know you hated that. You thought I was trying to run from the conversation, not trying to work things through. Whereas I knew better than to taunt the bull with a red rag when it was already angry. “We can talk in the morning. You’re drunk, and I don’t like it when you drink.”

“You calling me an alcoholic?” Again, you did this often. Jumping to conclusions. Reading between the lines to find meanings that weren’t there. I felt myself growing tort, rigid. I stopped cleaning the dinner plates with half eaten icing clinging to the porcelain. I washed off the suds and let the water run a moment to clear the sink, before putting the cutlery on the draining board. I didn’t want to look at you any longer. I didn’t like seeing you like this, because it’s what I normally saw before the bad side of you came out. I often wondered how something so beautiful, so wonderful to everyone else, could be so cruel. Like Faustus selling his soul to the Devil, the illusion of beauty, until it’s too late.

I think you stood up, or stumbled, I can’t quite remember. But I remember you coming up to me and putting your hands on my waist and nestling your head into my back. Something else you liked to do so often. When you know my guard was up, when you know I don’t want to talk about things, you want to try a different tactic. You throw affection, use it as a weapon to break through the wall around my heart. I shrugged you off with a grunt. I know you too well, and as good as you are at acting, I know your pattens. You’re beautiful, but very predictable. I think I went to the other side of the kitchen to get a clean glass for some water, I can’t remember properly. I had had a couple of beers. Not as many as you though, given by how much you were swaying and how you were slurring your words.

“I fucking hate you, you know.” There we go I remember thinking to myself. That, I remember very clearly. This is where the sharks start jumping out the water to catch the birds hovering above, too afraid to go near the deep black below them.

“You’re drunk, you need to go to bed. I will talk to you in the morning.” I was trying to keep things calm, relaxed. I stood by you as those eyes bored into me. You didn’t need to say anything further, I could feel the heat from your blood boiling as I filled the glass with cold water. “Please Lorna,” I said quietly. If I was too loud, you might tell the police I was shouting at you. That I provoked you. That I caused the fight. It wouldn’t be the first time. I had learned to adapt the way I move, talk and even think around you. I was better at acting than you. Skills I had learned to fine tune since being with you. I was an actor in my own rite, and I was going to win the Oscar tonight. I took another drink and went to move past you.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’m fucking Mark.” You bit so sharply, and I felt the venom lingering on the skin. I tried so hard not to let it in. But I stood there, body turned to rock, staring at the couch through the kitchen door where I was going to be spending my night. “And I fucking loved it.” That little twist of the knife at the end, just to make the pain that little deeper, to open me up, to let the venom really find its way into my blood stream. I bit down hard, and took a breath. I knew better than to react right away. When I turned to face you, you had a smile on your face. Gotcha those eyes said. I didn’t say much, or if I did, I can’t recall. The next thing I remember was pouring the glass of water away and putting it back in the sink. I took the bottle of Prosecco, took one last long drink, felt the bubbles burn my throat, and then took another long gulp to make the fire in my gullet that little more painful. I had been used to pain since being with you. At first it was alien to me, but over time, you have made me want it. To crave it. Still the bull was scooping the dirt with its hooves, and you really wanted me to start waving that red rag so you could charge.

You came to me, to take the bottle from my hand, but I was already emptying it into the sink. “You need to go to bed Lorna. I don’t want to do this tonight.” I moved to the living room. As I passed you, I got a hint of your perfume. I had always hated that brand, and you knew it. “Happy New Year baby,” I said. Red rag waved, come at me with those horns.

You pushed me to the back. Thankfully, I wasn’t as drunk as you, and I stopped myself from falling over, catching myself on the door frame. I turned to you. I think I was laughing. Reservation now gone. “You’re disgusting,” I said. “Childish. Trying to get a rise out of me? You haven’t been fucking anyone. You’re easy, but you aren’t that special.”

“Oh really?” You said, then that smile splayed across your face. You know the one? The one that says I know your hurting and this gives me joy. You turned and spread your hands on the kitchen counter and bent over. “He did me like this first,” and you lifted your leg onto the counter, the bottom of your skirt riding up. You were wearing a thong. You told me you didn’t like wearing those. “And then like this.” You hopped on the counter, skirt around your waist, legs wide open. You held my gaze, then scoffed, laughed, and dropped back to the floor, your heels clicking on the tiled kitchen. My tiled kitchen. You took out a cigarette from the packet next to the toaster and sparked up the poison, taking a deep inhale and holding it. “He’s not as big as you,” you said, blowing the smoke from those rouge lips. “But he’s much better.” You shrugged, arms folded, the smoke burning into the air. “I didn’t know I was a squirter.”

I remember turning, shaking my head, walking to the living room again. The heat in my chest rising, my hands beginning to tremble. But I couldn’t let you see it. I couldn’t let you know you had cut me. I had to get away from you before I did something I regretted, or before I fed your desire for pain. But it was too late. I was in the kitchen again, and I was screaming. Something, anything. I called you a slut, I called you a whore, a liar, manipulator. I told you your outfit looked stupid. I told you that no one could love you because you’re incapable of such things. I said so much, and I knew you loved it. I knew you enjoyed seeing me get like this. I could tell with that look in your eyes, my pain feeding that overflowing cup in your black heart. I had failed again to hold myself together. You knew what to press and how hard. Too much too fast and I’d just walk away. You were good, I knew your patterns, and you got me every time I tried to get away.

You threw the cigarette into the sink and it died with a hiss. I moved to you, rage gripping me. I grabbed your hair and pulled your head back. You smiled and slapped me across the face. Heat pushed itself down to my stomach and then a little farther. I spat in your face, right in that laughing mouth. You tore open my shirt and pulled the buttons apart, those long red nails dragging down my chest, blood pushing from the gouges. I turned you away from me and you pressed your ass against my throbbing dick. I got myself out and you yanked your thong down to your ankles.

“I fucking hate you,” I whispered in your ear as I entered you. I was hard, harder than I had been in so long. I pushed your head into the work surface and took handfuls of your hair. I swung hard, trying to hurt you. Trying to make you feel my pain. You gritted your teeth and screamed my name. Screamed his name. I thought of my ex-girlfriend. Any other girl I had dated before you. And then another. Every hot girl I had ever loved, fucked or hated. Everyone I could think of being inside other than who I was inside of. You pulled away and pushed me onto the kitchen table and moved on top. I grabbed your throat as you climbed on. You thrashed half empty wine glasses onto the ground and plates onto the floor. I wrapped my fingers around your neck and you let me fill you up. Biting your lips. You bit my chest hard, my pecs cheek stinging like hot iron. I called you a whore. You called me worthless as you laughed and fucked me harder, the table shaking. You took handfuls of me and I you, hot breath in my mouth and in yours until I felt you tighten and dig those nails into my chest once more.

You were always quiet when you came. A slight whimper and holding tight. But tonight you howled in ecstasy, your nipples hard, body rigid like an electric bolt had struck you. You were wet and quivering, a flush of the skin and nails drawing blood from my chest. I gripped you tighter and filled you up. We lay on the table for a few moments, heavy breathing, body racing with euphoria and endorphins dancing along our minds. Stallions racing through our blood streams. Tracing the blood across my chest, you giggled. Red lips smudged on perfect teeth.

“I must have gotten a little rough,” you said smiling as you climbed off me and put your underwear back on, stepping over the broken glass. “I’ll get something for that.” You got the towel doused in cold water and I saw that look in your eyes again as you nursed my wounds. The look I saw the day I met you. The look that kept me coming back to you. “I love you.” You whispered under your breath. The sound made me feel sick. I didn’t reply, and for my penance, the tears began to linger on those black eye lids. You hit me for the first time then, punched me in the nose in an explosion of bone and blood. You moved from me, leaving me bleeding. You slept alone that night, and I didn’t sleep at all.