Page 11 of Choke

I sigh, thinking about how Mona takes risks she shouldn’t, not just with eating the food I have delivered to her, but with her job. This situation we’re in can’t sustain us forever.

“We can’t keep doing this, Callum,” I whisper as I cuddle into his arms.

“I know.”

We let the knowledge of our depravity linger between us as I think about how I walked in on Callum a week before, hacking a man to death. This obsession in him bringing out his most callous and maniacal instincts. I want to pretend that I can shake off the shackles Mona Baran imprisoned me with, but the truth is, I can’t. From the moment she came into our lives, I dove head first into the delusion that she craves us like we do her. Butreality tells me otherwise. I close my eyes, bombarded with my sickness and depravity, a disease that spreads like poison.

The first time I snuck into Mona’s apartment was when I discovered she took sleeping pills. Apparently, the time she spent with us had seeped into her psyche and caused her to have terrifying nightmares. That was the moment I knew she’d never want us. Who would want the men responsible for their night terrors in their life? Yet, knowing that didn’t deter me from wanting her, so I decided I would have her any way I could, even if it were through the dysfunctional act of watching her sleep.

At first, my visits were somewhat pure. I snuck into her apartment and sat by her bed while I watched her sleep. But like any drug, the need to take more to maintain the high crept in. That was when I discovered her panties. First, clean ones that I wrapped around my dick as I came while picturing her mouth on me. Then, when that didn’t have the same high, I lifted her used panties to my nose and inhaled, pretending my head was between her legs.

But those moments ceased to be enough, and I was soon stealing her panties and bringing them home. I was always careful, taking one every three to four weeks so she wouldn’t notice.

Tonight, I took it further. I’m ashamed of what I did, but I don’t regret it. If all I can have are those fleeting moments, I’ll be content. They’ll have to sustain me because I know that a life with her will end me.

I touched her tonight. She looked so peaceful as I lifted the blanket and placed my nose on her pussy, licking her with the tip of my tongue. That fleeting, forbidden taste was like salvation, and I craved more.

To avoid waking her, I gently slid my fingers along her slit and into her pussy before bringing them to my nose and inhaling.

“Fuckin’ hell, you’re so sweet.”

When I placed my fingers into my mouth, my eyes rolled back, and I felt light-headed. I was hooked—a junkie.

From that moment, I knew I could never quit Mona Baran.

11

CALLUM

The beauty in the world is so captivating that it chokes you. Beguiling luminescence is all-consuming, and you crave to be near it, no matter the cost. If we’re lucky, we witness this beauty once during our lifetime. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced this wonder twice. With the man who helped me discover my soul and with the girl I failed to save. Perhaps my inability to help her when she was most vulnerable is what set me on the path to making her the center of my universe. A part of me can’t help but think that my desire for her is rooted in the failure I see within myself.

My compulsion with her began out of nowhere, and it’s become a beacon of light, transfixing me.

My obsession isn’t healthy, and though I try to delude myself that it’s benign, I know at its core it’s a flickering light of deviance. Yet even with my understanding of the disease she’s sparked within me, I can’t help myself. I require her presence, even as a casual observer, to feel a modicum of sanity.

She’s a creature of habit, my beautiful girl. Every Saturday, she goes to her foreign language class. She’s learning Farsi, a language she should know since it was her mother tongue, butshe succumbed to the desire for assimilation and lost her ability to speak it fluently. Over the last year, she’s devoted herself to learning what she abandoned.

This brings me to her second task on Saturdays. After class, she visits a coffee shop, one of those pretentious establishments where all the hipster kids hang out. Those places with a million coffee flavors that draw the line at cow’s milk.

She spreads her books on an IKEA table as she sips an iced coffee. She likes her coffee sweet, half almond milk with so much sugar that I fear she’ll put herself into a diabetic coma.

“Can I help you?” the barista asks, drawing my attention from my sweet Mona.

“Tea, orange pekoe, black.”

“Name?”

I panic at her question and blurt the first generic all-American name I can think of. “Bob.”

The Barista arches her eyebrow and tilts her head. “Don’t get many British guys called Bob. Don’t you stick to Robert?”

Aren’t people in the hospitality sector supposed to be sickly sweet? This girl has a chip on her shoulder. “I’m not a Brit.”

“Oh. Where are you from?”

What the fuck is with the hundred and one questions?

“Scotland.”

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