This should be the last installation you see. Here, at least. I’ll try to find a home for this story in a submenu - or perhaps another domain sometime soon.
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This isn’t a story about a rape - forced or consensual. It doesn’t open with a sleeping virgin and end with her sobbing into her sheets over the ‘criminal’ enjoyment she secretly gained from some unknown perpetrator. It is a relationship and the story starts with him seeking her out for his own purposes. Do you think rape was the primary goal? Her subjugation? His exercise of power? Something else? All of the above?

I think this chapter will answer some of those questions.

I don’t know how long I slept after having settled Annerire into her drugged induced sleep. It was the subtle knock at the door that stirred me from the chair, my neck aching from having remained in one spot for too long a time. I glanced over at the bed. Her figure was a small, brocade covered hill in the center. I pushed from the chair, my bones cracking as I rose. I glanced at the time and frowned. It was later than I suspected.

The door opened without my touching it and as such was met with the brunt of my palm slamming it shut. I heard the sound of the wood as it struck the head of Joseph, my muscle, but my most trusted of allies. He was Joe to me and to his rather charming, if loud, wife. He was sitting back on the floor, his hand to the area where a lump would undoubtedly form on his head later. I eased my grip on the Browning that remained tucked under my arm during most of my waking, and obviously sleeping, hours. I offered him my hand. It was a gesture that had meaning. He was my friend, but he was also someone I knew better than to trust completely. I wondered why I did.

‘That how you greet me?’ He reached over and picked up the pack of cigarettes before taking my hand and rising. He rubbed his head again and looked at me with a crooked smile. ‘Eh. I did knock.’

‘Did you?’

He studied me for a moment and then laughed, slapping me on the back hard. ‘You are too paranoid for your own good.’

I shrugged. He walked over to the mirror and leaned forward giving a good natured chuckle. His meaty fingers moved through his graying hair as the smile faded. His steely gaze caught mine in the reflection. ‘You sure you want to go through with this?’

My gaze dropped to my fingers for a moment and I nodded my head before looking at him. He had moved closer to study the still form of Annerire. ‘I need too. It’s like I’m evaporating.’

‘And her?’ He gestured towards the bed. ‘She hate you?’

‘Without question.’ I smiled without humor. I scratched my chin lightly and glanced back at my watch. ‘Give her the meds. I’m going to go find out where Crowne is.’

I moved towards the door. Joe cleared his throat and spoke quietly. ‘He’s downstairs. Setting up.’

I exhaled slowly and nodded my head, opening the door. He spoke before I stepped out. ‘There’s no going back, Marco.’

‘I know.’ My hand still rested on the heavy, dark wood of the door.

‘Think it’s fair to her? Putting her in the middle of a war?’ He said this as he filled the syringe, speaking casually as if the topic were the weather.

‘No.’ I felt my face empty, the stoic mask slide into place. ‘But the true casualties of war aren’t the soldiers that wage it.’

He leaned forward and injected the medicine into her arm. She didn’t stir. He rubbed the spot on her arm with his thumb and then tossed the needle beside the bed. He paused for a moment and looked at me before bending down and pulling her to the edge of the bed by her arm and heaving her over one shoulder seconds later. ‘It’s easier to work when they don’t fight you.’

‘So I hear.’

— — — —

‘I’m done.’ Crowne turned to me and pulled off his rubber gloves and moved the light closer to her back. Annerire was still, remaining unmoving for most of the time it took the artist to finish his work. I placed the journal to my right, sliding the pen in its pages to hold my place. I glanced at Joe whose head was back and mouth open in a manner that strongly suggested sleep. As if I wouldn’t notice the snoring. We really needed to keep better hours. I blinked and rubbed my eyes with my palms, my pupils adjusting to the increasing light as I crossed the room.

There it was written in small scripted text across the center of her back. Two sentences. I moved her hair from the back of her neck and lightly grazed my fingers over the numbers placed there. The area was smooth, he had shaved it bare before he started. I wondered if she would even notice those, so hidden, or soon to be hidden in her hair, when the bolder of the two stretched across a wide expanse of her back.

It was a battle for another time. Casualties. War. Greed. Money. It all blended together at some point until all that remained was a sickly gray. I glanced at Crowne who stood smoking a cigarette on the patio. He was a talented artist. Respected in many circles for the work he did. He was also an alcoholic. And a pedophile.

I nudged Joe who awoke from his ’sleep’ without a sound. I smirked. ‘Laying it on a little thick, weren’t you?’

‘Dramatic license.’ He glanced out at the patio. ‘Ready?’

I nodded. He stood and started walking towards the patio. I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Take her out to the car. I’ll handle this one.’

‘Take all the fun, why dontcha?’ He mumbled the question with that same empty smile I knew I was about to settle on my face. Seconds later, he walked out the door with her tossed neatly over his shoulder, and I walked out of the doors onto the deck to stand beside Crowne.

‘My fee?’ He held out his hand. I dropped the stack of bills into his hand. He started counting it, thumbing through each bill, his lips keeping a soft tally.

‘It’s considered rude to count the money in front of me.’

‘Fuck you. Think I’m going to trust a fucking tightass in a suit?’ He waived the money in front of my face before he tucked it into his dirty jeans. He lit a fresh cigarette and spoke as he exhaled the first cloud of nicotine laden smoke, the cigarette waging drunkenly from his lips. ‘I’m out for number one. Me.’

‘So I hear.’

‘Did your research, eh?’ He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and made a spitting noise as he tried to disengage a piece of tobacco from his tongue. ‘Think I’m give a flying shit? You’ve got your own skeletons, wanker.’

He waived in the general direction of the house and leaned in towards me. His breath washed over me. ‘I’d like to get me a piece of that as well.’ He sneered. ‘A bit old for me.’

I looked at him and he took a step back. I reached inside my jacket and pulled the gun from its holster. I saw the fear register in his eyes and savored it, thrilled in it. It had been a long time since I had killed someone so worthy of death. I paused for a moment, and then pulled the trigger. 5 times.