Page 13 of Black Castle

She knows who it is before she turns. She has always tried her best to avoid him. He isn’t exactly Isadora’s boyfriend. He always comes and goes. He will disappear for months, then reappear like a ghost that refused to stay buried.

He steps closer to Vivienne. Too close for comfort.

“You’re up late,” he says, his voice smooth. Too smooth. They are not friends. So his friendly tone is creepy and unsettling.

But Vivienne nods anyway. She doesn’t want to be verbal with him. She doesn’t want to talk to him. They are not friends. And his behavior is questionable.

“Not gonna say hi, huh?” Vivienne’s skin crawls as his cigarette and alcohol breath tickles her ear.

Hastily, she grabs her bread, abandons the peanut butter, and leaves. The journey to her room is quick and cautious.

But when she tries to shut the door, a hand shoots out, slamming the door open.

“What the hell?” Vivienne’s voice trembles, and she stumbles back. She tries to run, but his weight crashes into her from behind. And just like that, his hands are everywhere.

She tries to scream, but his large palms are over her mouth. The stench of cologne and cigarette choking her.

She fights. But he is stronger. Too strong.

Her ribs still ache from Isadora’s beating. So when he shoves her on the bed and presses his weight on her, she can’t move.

And then comes the part that made her suppress the memory. The part where a sound of pleasure breaks through her choking sobs, barely audible, but she hears it. And he hears it too. And that makes him feel powerful, satisfied, in control. A new purpose flickers in his chest. A purpose she wishes he doesn’t fulfill, but the bastard does. She orgasms when she shouldn’t feel anything. When she should be numb. When she should have rather died fighting him off…

“Morning.” The voice sneaks into her haunting thoughts, snapping her back to reality.

A choked gasp tears through her lips. Her fingers curl around the edge of the counter, the kitchen shifting between that night and now.

“You okay?” She jolts when she feels him behind her. Her breath comes too fast, too shallow, cold sweat coating her face as the butter knife clatters to the counter.

She doesn’t turn around. He is directly behind her, his breath tickling the back of her head. But she can’t turn. She doesn’t want to risk looking at him. She can’t look at him.

“You’re really not much of a talker, huh?” From the corner of her eyes, she sees his hand rest on the counter, and she feels it, his erection pressing against her lower back. “Or do you only talk when there’s a cock inside you?”

Vivienne swallows bile, the bread in her hand feeling like lead.

Her eyes snap shut, tears falling as his disgusting fingers brush against her cheekbone, making her skin crawl. “Well, I do know one thing. And that is, you are just a pretentious little slut, squeezing my cock one second and cutting your wrist the next, like you didn’t enjoy it more than I did.”

A sob breaks out of Vivienne’s lips, her fingers dragging against the wooden counter, chest heaving as more tears track down her cheeks.

“You’re nothing special,” he spits, his nails digging into her jaw. “You think you are, but there is really nothing remarkable about you. Not even your beauty or your body. Nothing at all. You’re just a stupid girl who will only ever be good for a quick fuck, a piece of shit that will still let me bend her over this counter and fuck her real good, you know why?” He jams his hip violently into her, knocking Vivienne’s hip against the edge of the counter, a sharp pain shooting up her body. “Cause she’s nothing but a cheap whore.”

Then she feels it just as he lifts his body off her, something warm and slimy landing on her cheekbone.

He spat on her.

Her sobs grow louder, slicing through the heavy sound of his boot across the tiled floor as he heads for the coffee maker.

The whirring of the coffee maker echoes in the kitchen, but it isn’t effective enough to silence his voice that continues to ring in her head, slithering over her skin, rooting itself deep into the darkest chamber of her mind.

She feels dirty, disgusting…cursed. Isadora was right.

“Quit acting like you didn’t enjoy it.” His words from that night sneaks into her thought, seeping into her bones like a sickness she can’t shake off. “We can do it again so you can remember how hard you came all over my cock.”

Her stomach twists. A sharp, violent churn that makes her body feel foreign, wrong.

The bread is long discarded as she staggers out of the kitchen, her vision a blur of tears, her hands trembling so bad she can barely reach for the door. But she can hear it, the sound of steel against ceramic as he whisks the coffee in his cup.

Reaching her room, she slams the door shut, locking it. Her back hit the wood, and she slides down, knees curling to her chest. The room suddenly feels too big. And she feels smaller and smaller.

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