Like Pulling Teeth: Part Two

A/N:Are you ready? Buckle up. From here on out, TW's for almost anything you can think of. I promise, it will be worth it. Very explicit.

As always, thank you for reading. It has been a wild ride writing this story, and I am so grateful for the support I have received for something as strange as this! Comments and reviews of all sorts are greatly appreciated; if you would like me to finish this story, please take a moment to let me know what you think! :)

"I hope you will forgive me for a great many things, as it may be I do worse. I have that feeling, that instinct that squirms through your belly. There will be great violence done here. And I bleed into that violence." Jonathan Sims, "Hive [MAG032]", for The Magnus Archives

Of course, such ridiculous sentiments had never passed my dear girl's lips. Christine did not protest, not once; not once! I reminded myself, as I collected myself against her, panting boorishly into the yellow tangle of her hair, not once! as I clutched her sweating, trembling flesh to the wet wool of my waistcoat, and my spent cock slowly drained of its urgency within her––no! the girl had made no complaint at all!––and yet, even now, that bitter fluid, that blood, that propellant of disaster, returned to flood my damned brain, and in those sobering moments I admit I might have––for only an instant––begun to doubt .

But for only an instant! What did she know? Nothing! What I had enacted upon her was a blessed thing; I, in my generosity, had simply rescued Christine from a fate far darker than anything that might have befallen her by my hand, tonight––even if the thing had been, well, a lot like pulling teeth. It will go without saying that my dining-table, naturally, had never been my planned setting of our supernal union, but nor were any of the other almost-venues; for I had imagined the petals of a hundred varietals of oriental roses, crisp cotton sheets trimmed in persian lace, and heady liqueurs I might sip from the cavities in the girl's warm skin, that first time––her soft hands in my hair and on my cheek, as I pressed kisses to her white wrists and she sighed my name in my ear––or something along those lines. But I suppose the table had served. Something had to, eventually, and what was done, was finally, finally done.

Christine would come to appreciate my efforts in time. For all my prudence, my restraint regarding the girl's constant, insistent temptations––surely I deserved recompense! I had earned it, had I not?

And so, whatever she might have said, as I had spent myself within her, I regarded little of it and resolved never to think of it again––a talent I am rather apt at, if past experiences can be trusted. The confused and bloody mess of the girl, pressed to me by her softly naked breasts, with her long, broken fingernails scarring the flesh of my wrists and her panting breaths still coming hot and fast in my ear, however, was doing absolutely nothing to soothe my exhausted nerves.

My head had been spinning for some time now, an unfortunate sensation which, as a long time participant in a whole host of vices, I am much too familiar with. I am sure I could have benefitted from another long draught of brandy, that rallying fluid; and in the periphery of my too-bright vision I could just discern the glittering remains of my most recent bottle, as it lay shattered on my stone floors like any one of the ill-fated mirrors I had, in my repugnant weakness and gluttony for anguish, these last several years beneath the Earth, attempted to keep down here below. Despite that familiar, rising madness I saw the girl before me clearer than I had ever seen the sun; the only light, the only reflection I needed was here, pressed to my sweating front, but red and broken and fractured––like all the rest––untouchable, impenetrable, perfect, oh no, no, not anymore––

I do not allow myself to dwell on such unhappy thoughts.

I had already determined it most constructive that I not detach myself from Christine too quickly; I had to ensure that what I had done to her had not been for naught. If I wanted to chain the girl to me, I was quickly realizing that a baby certainly held more sway than lost virtue. For all I knew, dear little Christine had always been looking for an excuse to behave loosely; I have seen such behavior in spoilt and fallen women, before––and I, with my surgery , had effectively freed her from any repression of propriety. If I was not rigorous in my methods, I might only have sent her running to that idiot boy, and faster.

Whether or not that villainous aristocrat ever bedded my girl, of course, I would still have to kill him. I have no fondness for loose ends.

But to the situation at hand! The boy could wait a few hours more; the bleeding woman at my front, however lovely, could not.

Although she had proved pleasantly complacent at the time of my ecstatic release, Christine had since begun to writhe against the front of me, even as I steadied myself on her petite frame. Whatever my true age might be––for I had lost track some decades previous, and what are numbers but bone-clocks to mere mortals, ticking away their own human frailty in fear of death! I am death itself, and such trivialities matter not to I! Still––I must accede that I am no longer a young man, nor do I possess a young man's strength or can claim his endurance––ah, aha! unlike that little shit of a boy, who has only that to his credit! could that be what she sees in him?––and as such, consummately spending myself inside Christine had been an enervating experience, albeit rapturous in more ways than one. I was in no state to stand upright; in fact, had I not been bound to the table-top via my cock in the girl, I might have collapsed on my knees to the floor.

And so, probably drooling monstrously, I pressed her closer still against me, until the frizzy fluff of her dandelion hair teased at my nostrils and wound between my teeth, and our two beating hearts moved together as one.

"By God, I love you, Christine," I whispered, wetly, shamelessly, into that yellow crown, and with all the breathless mania of sublime exhaustion, though the timing of my declaration was perhaps––as it so often is at unfortunate fault of being––uninspired. I heard no response from the girl but the susurrus of her stiff and sodden garments against the moist wool and wrinkled linen of my shirt front, and with a thoughtlessly familiar gesture, I pinched the fat of her upper arms until she uttered a sweetly concordant cry to appease me.

Ah. I do not know what came over me; the child was mine, and willingly so––I had no reason to harm her. I never would, again. Now I loosed her hot and fleshy biceps from my grip, taking care to stroke my cool fingertips overtop the freshly-bruised and heated skin, though dear Christine said nothing more.

It is shameful to admit that I desired very much, in that moment, to chatter excitedly at the girl, for a deluge of sounds and notes had since begun to flood my senses in the time post my release, and I greatly desired to share them with her. I have always imagined that a good wife would care about those same things that I cared about, and would want to hear such thoughts from my mouth despite her assured revulsion for me, even and perhaps especially in our most intimate moments. I have never, as of yet, found a woman who cared to listen––though, until my dear Christine, I had never yet had a wife!

But my wife, it would seem, still needed some time to adjust to such conjugal normalcy. As such, I would not allow her continued silence to unnerve me; in fact, in those slivers of mindfulness between insanity and ecstasy, I had known to expect such reticence from her. I have always understood Christine to be nothing other than a secretive, private little thing, if her continued insistence about keeping her bedroom door closed in the evenings and other such diffident quirks were to be any indication. If I am honest with myself, which I do attempt to be, I am not assured that Christine has yet managed to get over my spying on her through her dressing room mirror all those months––for the girl is not entirely stupid, and just as she remembered our interactions between the glass, so too must she realize what she had unknowingly made me privy to. Mainly, her sweet, silent splashes at the wash bowl in nothing but her pulled-up chemise, and the innocent examination of her woman's body in her long mirror, as she haltingly explored the curves and sensitive places still new and alien to a child such as herself.

I have often wondered, if when the girl put on such charming theatrics, cupping her fat tits and sliding her little fingers overtop her smoothness before me in her magic mirror, as she so often did in those quiet moments between rehearsal and real life, if she were not, in truth, putting on a show for the man who hid behind it, after all––but of course, she must not have been. She could not have known. There was never meant to be a man behind that mirror; only the holy Angel, floating high above her, and he, in all his faultless glory, would never stoop to pull himself at a wink of her tight virgin cunt.

My watchful eye behind that cursed mirror had never been the last of my voyeurism, I fear. There had been other sights, too, in other locales––her bathroom window in the little flat off the Rue des Victoires, especially––that Christine could never have expected me to see, and it would certainly mortify the girl to know of (for I admit that I have never been much for respecting the world's rules of privacy, as the world has done little by way of respect for me). But I had no intention of ever revealing to her that I had seen all that I did: she has gleaned enough, and besides, she certainly thinks poorly enough of me already.

And so, even after eleven long nights spent in my home (though I could usually have her out of her clothes and into others I found more pleasing at little more than a snap of my impatient fingers) darling Christine, ever the portrait of impenetrable modesty, still outright refused to undress herself in front of me without coercion, despite my assurances that I had already witnessed more than my fair share of all her secret bits beneath her skirts, and there was simply nothing underneath that she could need to hide from me, ever again.

But that was before I had bedded the child. Surely she would not continue to refuse me since; as my wife, there would be no more torn dresses. No more tears, on her knees, on the floor.

She would do precisely as her husband bade her!

It was a pleasing fantasy, no doubt. I had often imagined my dear Christine, pliant beneath my wandering hands, sighing quietly instead of stiffening as I slid her mass of petticoats over her hips to drop heavily to the carpet, mewling with desire instead of whimpering as I unlaced the bindings of her corset to see her almost-bare flesh beneath the sheer cotton of her chemise. Despite my less-than-optimal interactions with the girl in honest, truthful life, in the oneric world of my mind's eye, I could picture something different, better, more perfect; I would stroke her finely peaked nipple atop the fabric as she shuddered with excitement, as breathing my name like a prayer, she would grasp her wrinkled chemise in her small fists and pull it up over her yellow head, willingly, wanting me, wanting me and only me and never him, not him, not him at all, and then as I kissed her bare breasts she would take my fingers in her own and guide them down between her legs, moaning the monster's human name in her siren's voice, Erik, as I entered her, actually entered her, Erik, Erik, without fear, without a fight, without complaint––

But I must be patient. All this in time, surely––only later! Now, clouded again by that bitter veil of reality, I was forced to witness only that which was there before me, pressed to my sweating front. Christine's nervously uneven breaths rasped against my chest as her heartbeat thrummed like a wounded thing's; sighing, I buried my head in the tangle of her crown and sniffed.

You see, a hypnotist truly hates to break the spell.

I felt her struggling weakly against me and managed to shift to allow her movements; in doing so I realized what, in my ignorance, the dear thing had been attempting to do: for though I still had her skewered there on the limp remains of my passion, obscene flesh to obscene flesh, she was fascinatingly, adorably, attempting to cover herself––her little hands working between the crush of us, clutching at the erotic ruin of her gown as it fell open about her naked, sticking flesh with one scrabbling palm, as the other pushed at the sodden silk of her skirts to cover her deliciously bare and sweat-glistening thighs. Despite my having only just been inside her, it would seem that the sweet child was still attempting to retain her darling modesty! Though I cannot say that I was surprised; Christine was, frustratingly, the only girl I had ever known to treat her own tits as though they were a holy treasure, to be locked away in some sacred priory vault.

As I have said, the girl's naked form was hardly a new sight to these old eyes. But even beyond my voyeuristic habit of leering, I admit, I had in truth experienced all her parts, if not technically entered or enjoyed them, and not only in an ocular manner. Before the events of tonight I had, on several occasions now, examined her fat, delicious flesh, and with it, all her neat little holes––tucked, sealed, and always, always dry as a dead whore's, at least at the start––though only in passing, really, or by necessity, and as such, I had (as might be assumed of a man such as I presented with one similar challenge) withstood a few alarmingly close calls these past eleven days as regards my having-of-her. Anytime I had put the child to her toilette, or readied her for bed––or came upon her when I had not anticipated her being there––well, suffice it to say that I was not always proud of my actions. Still, the girl had come out of it chaste, in the technical sense, and mostly unblemished, and so my promise had held. That whole ordeal some nights ago featuring my poor violin had been my most severe indiscretion of the lot of them, and for my near-abandonment to the task , the certain catalyst for this , the penultimate miscue, so to speak––though I digress. That tooth needed to come out, and no matter what the infuriating child might presently try to claim, I had really done nothing improper at all, not now, or any time previous!

But old habits do die hard. Recognizing the delightful irony in her current bashfulness, I fought the overpowering urge to tear the rest of her torn garments from her and bind her, naked on the table-top; to force her open and spread wide and helpless beneath my devouring gaze, and fingers, and more, more––for oh, what delicious and penetrative fantasies could I enact with her now, had I only designed to do so! Every sick thought that had ever crossed my mind, in battle with my moral self, my self that wanted a wife, a wife, a wife ––why, every one was now available to me! It was so easy to give in!

Whatever would I do with darling Christine?

Anything I could imagine.

And thus I understood in that instant––as I felt her wriggle there, little tits jiggling against the front of me as she prodded at her weeping mouth with her wet fingertips––exactly why I had fought against surrender for so long, exactly why I had earlier made that damnable and useless promise to the child to wait, when the desired thing had always been readily and easily available to me; the true danger had never lay in the desperate act itself, but in all that which follows after the surrender!

I have always suffered little strength in resisting my own imagination; for men like I, constrained to lonely darkness, it can be a fickle master. Now, unbidden, a thousand profane visions flooded my mind, each one fouler, more deviant than the last––of the same sinister breed which had tormented me all these months with any close proximity to the girl, and rising to an inescapable tumult these past eleven days, then a throbbing, mindless desperation: I could see, almost as clearly as I saw the top of the girl's tangled head––and perhaps meaningfully, with more clarity than I had ever envisioned the girl willingly undressing for me––my horrible, malformed self, bent over the child out there in the Parisian world above, fucking her limp body against the itchy dirt-grass of the Bois just as I had set myself upon so many girls before her, and screaming ones too––but Christine would never, she would never, because she liked it, and as such I never needed to take her to the Bois at all––and oh, now, my sweet petite Christine crushed by my weight against the dank stone wall in the shadowed vestibule behind a trapdoor, as I covered her mouth with my fist and had her with the show going on in the Garnier above our heads, reveling in the thunderous cacophony of applause from a thousand pairs of hands as I spent myself inside her––oh, how they worshipped me, and she among them!––and see, see, virtuous, prurient Christine, wet and dripping on all fours, moaning her timid gratification as I defiled her, subdued her, mortified her in front of her pretty boy and all his like in those red velvet cunts they call boxes, beneath the proscenium arch as if her dripping holes were the evening's entertainment, spreading her thighs and making him look upon all that I had done, knowing I had her, seeing I had her––that beautiful boy, jealous of me––

And then I saw her, as I always saw her, as I saw them all ever since her––my lovely lascivious little Christine, on her red knees, sputtering at the end of my faithful cord of cat gut with the plunderous length of my cock down her throat––oh, and it would be so easy, too easy––clawing my thighs with her fingertips until the dead flesh bled beneath my trousers and her fingers dropped, cool and still, to the floor––

No, no, never! Not again! But now the spectres twisted and altered, tormenting me, confusing me, even as her soft, honest body pressed against mine––a mad tirade of kisses, caresses, lust, release––until my vision was overwhelmed with the light of her, the brilliance of her, and all I could see was wondrous, angelic Christine, my lovely, loving wife, writhing above me on my mother's bed, just as my dead parents must have once done in creating me, just as a wife might do if she loved me, as she kissed my ruined lips and rolled her hips against me, bending low to whisper those forbidden words into the ruin of my ear––

I always cry with such fantasies; I hate them.

In a kismet of distraction, Christine's agitated wriggling had attained a certain furor which was now requiring my immediate intervention. "Please, let me down," she mumbled against me, charmingly battling my chest with her fingertips and the cushiony flats of her palms, "let me down, now, please!" I gave an exhausted laugh in relief at the temporary cessation of such inescapably invasive fancies, and slid my fingertips through the tangle of her yellow hair, arranging the damp and sticking mass about her shoulders.

"Patience, my love," I chastised her, if only to hear the child's answering whimper. I was enjoying very much the quivery sound that crept from my songbird's bruised throat and vibrated against the front of my own, so much like the most intimate of lover's kisses; I did not yet desire to surrender such a sublime and rare pleasure.

She burbled sweetly into my chest in answer, though her clawing fingers stilled.

Despite her unsettled fidgeting, I still had her wedged against me in such a position that her hot cunt was yet unlikely to relinquish the dull knife of my cock without an intentional separation of our bodies––for even limp, the thing is of an uncannily immense length and girth, and was certainly lodged deep inside of the child, probably somewhere about her stomach, still shoving my hot seed into her ready womb––for surely, just as I enjoy the act of filling them, all women enjoy the sensation of being filled, so the more potent my instrument, the better suited it was for her gratification. I had continued to pin her to me not only for my own assurance that she had properly taken up my seed, but for the girl's continued enjoyment, of course, (despite it being a sublime torture for me to do so, for the act sent shockwaves of unbearable, exhausted diversion shooting up and out the depths of me with her every slight movement.) Narrow-hipped, unbroken little Christine was surely stinging from the brute force of my entry, and though I truly did not ever wish real harm on the girl, I admit the idea that she would still feel the bruise of my invasion deep inside her even when I was not, gave me that certain sort of satisfaction that only those with full control over another living being can feel––for I have indeed suffered at either end of it––well. It is a strange power, indeed. Though she would not have to wait long to feel the full and swollen length of me again, as that suggestive tingling between my thighs had again begun, despite my impotent flaccidity, and I was already looking forward to having the child once or twice more tonight, as soon as I was able to do so.

Now Christine mumbled excitedly into my loosed and wrinkled shirt front, "please, please," and with another long exhale into her musky crown, I determined it time I appeased the poor thing.

"Lay back then, love" I told her gently, as I began to guide her shivering form backward to the table, folding carefully overtop her with both arms wrapped tenderly about her, such that my soft cock remained, industriously, within her wet heat. She crossed her arms rigidly across her chest even as I held her, surrendering entirely to my handling of her; I admit I found the gesture sweet and charming, and so I took more time than might have been necessary to resituate her frail, limp little shape before me.

"Erik," she whispered, as soon as I got a view of her red face. Her eyes were wide and watery; her full lips ruddy with blood. "Erik––you––you did––"

Perhaps the child was still a little high. I sighed. "Yes, love, I do suppose I did," I told her easily, and with an odd and unattractive noise like a croak, she closed those pretty blue eyes.

It was no matter, I assured myself. Christine only needed a few moments more, surely––for it was no small thing we two had engaged in, not to her––and she would be behaving like the good wife I had so wished for!

Now I eased myself to standing between her slack, inelegantly dangling legs––again shielded almost to the knees by the stained mess of skirts she had so intently pushed overtop the exposed skin––and scrupulously, I took up one of her tremulous, unresisting limbs, then the other, to carefully fold at the knee and position the sweating soles of her delicate feet flat against the table's surface. Then, shuffling her backward on the dining-table such that her plump bottom sat evenly on the wood with a comfortable degree of space between it and her little feet, I slid the deflated and aching red stain of my cock from between her still-trembling thighs, and watched beneath the wrinkled tent of her skirts as my ruin of her oozed steadily out from within and onto the dining table, to pool in the shadowed crease of her rear and about her fleshy butt-cheeks as they flattened against the table-top.

It really was quite beautiful to behold.

See, little Christine was not the first girl I had taken, not by a longshot, and not even the first I had claimed the virginity of, and yet she was without question, the most perfect, most beautiful, most pure––my wife, and the only woman deserving of that honor –– and as such, to see that bloody stain between her marble thighs was a sight more holy to these devout eyes than any other; like a pilgrim witnessing the red tears of the miraculous pieta, was I then, such rapture did my wife's ruined cunt inspire in me.

I had truly made the ideal choice in Christine. And this, after some number of failed attempts!

But I do not like to speak of that.

Beneath the half-shroud of her skirts, her white, lace-trimmed panties––having earlier torn right down the center as a result of my attentions ––gathered at her thighs in two ragged loops twisted about the soft flesh, in much a pleasant symmetry to the two rolls of her stockings that adorned her ankles, like two of the most erotic anklets the shah could have gifted a favored daughter, the finest jewel of his harem. With respect to that appealing vision, I took up the soft fabric in the sweep of my palm and slid one stocking to the floor, shifting the child's elegant foot to free it, and then the other––for now I envisioned my darling Christine reclining in sheer silks within the shadows of a curtained divan, as heady perfumed air teased my nostrils, and the low hum of the tar maddenned my senses, as she raised a finger to grant me passage into that forbidden sanctuary––

"Erik," she muttered, gazing up at my dark ceiling as I peered at her over her trembling knees, suddenly returned to the dank sterility of my dining-room, "Erik, I feel very strange." She fixed her stare to mine. "I think I may be ill––"

"That will pass," I told her, as gently as my thrumming heart would allow. I sighed, blinking away that vaporous vision. "All is well, my love. You did very well, exceedingly so."

My bride continued to watch me steadily from her place below me, and I soon realized I must have been staring. To my mild surprise and enormous pleasure Christine had not yet made any attempt at escaping me, rather, she hardly even shifted on the table at all from where I set her! And though I enjoyed seeing that rare sort of complacency from the normally-pugnacious thing, she had duly continued to clutch the ragged front of her torn gown in both fists, and press them together across the front of her with her plump arms folded overtop in that admittedly enticing attempt to conceal her lovely nakedness, which could only serve to amuse me for so long, as surely, the child understood. She knows how well I like to espy those pretty tits, and how little tolerance I have for her attempts to shield them from me, should I set my sights upon them.

And so my impatience began to heat the cold flesh of my ears. I had made Christine my wife! My wife! Why was she not yet behaving as such?

A broken vein of cracked and crusted red had crept into those ghosts of lines on her face and been turned to powder in the cleft of her chin; gazing down upon her, I thought her like a pretty child who had found her mother's rouge and spread the naughty red stain about her mouth and cheeks, in innocence's sensuous replication of womanhood. Her lovely little girl's braid had long ago come undone in a similarly suggestive and womanly manner, and now her curtain of downy yellow hair swept about her in long waves, tangled and knotted at the ends, all wound up with blood and spit and sweat and everything else one could imagine there.

And I did! The sickly image of myself combing my own hot seed through her soft curls flooded behind my eyes like a torture; I shook my head as if the vision were a bothersome fly, and blinked like a street-cretin until I could escape it.

And yet, in the dim and flickering light of my subterranean dining-room, that repugnant beast within me must have found the thought exceedingly charming, for I believe I must have smiled at the girl, even toothily; now, the result of this momentary lapse was a tremulous pout reflected in that darling face beneath me. Even concealed by the shroud of my mask, my smile has often brought about a similar reaction, and so I am generally immune to such reactive horror––though I quickly rearranged what I can claim of a mouth to its usual expression of stern dignity, so as not to further upset the poor thing. She has endured her fair share of shocks for one night, I think.

"Does anything hurt, Christine?" I asked her without again meeting her eyes, though I could certainly feel the heat of her gaze still upon me. Instead I busied myself with the disordered fly of my trousers, tucking my spent instrument within the soiled, damp wool. With a fingernail I scratched at the crusting fluid which marred the zibeline at the crux of my groin––the stain of the girl, as I had crushed her slick body close to mine, pounding my lust into her soft, obliging flesh––as beneath me Christine sighed audibly, her bloodless little toes curling over the table's edge.

"Christine," I warned her, abandoning the lost cause of a stain at my crotch with a sigh. The girl does know better than not to answer me. Nothing frustrates me half as much as her obdurate silences! I felt the anger twitching in my fingers even now; with a long exhale, I spread the terse digits wide against my trouser-legs, distractedly dragging the mucid flesh of my palms against the fabric to dry them.

When I did again meet her stare, Christine inhaled sharply and shot her gaze up at the ceiling. Her wriggly little toes stilled. "Yes, Erik… it hurts," she said then, eyes wide and sightless; breathily, preciously, as if she weren't sure of herself or anything at all, "yes, I think so…"

"Well, I had tried to avoid that, dear," I mused, now touching my fingertips to the warm, ruddy cap of her knee. "If you had been a light more agreeable, the procedure would not have taken nearly as long as it did, and the laughing-gas might have fully done its job. You would never have felt an unpleasant thing at all." As if the things had a mind all their own, the backs of my fingers began to slide down the bare inside of her thigh as I spoke to her; I could feel the goose-flesh rise on the exposed skin as Christine went rigid at my caress. "I know it was not exactly something you were excited to engage in… but was it really so unpleasant, after all, my love? Perhaps it was not as terrible as you had expected it to be…as you had so, so desperately feared... " My palm followed the curve of her leg to slip beneath her wrinkled skirts, and graze the soft strip of sticky skin at the very top of her thigh, that crepe-paper crease just before the v of her deliciously-overflowing cunt, that wrinkle of young flesh still red and shining from the despicable drumming of my wasted body against her unspoilt one––

"No," she whispered, and I felt her sticking skin flinch beneath my touch, "no––I did not like it––"

"Because it hurt?"

"Yes––but more than that––Erik, please––"

"Tell me, then," I commanded, slowly but silkily, hardly conscious of my own words as I ran a finger up and down, up and down, wetting my nail in her spilt fluids, tracing that hypnotic, salvific warmth, "tell me where it hurts, Christine…let your Erik make it so much better…"

When she did not again answer, I curled my hand about the flesh of her rump and squeezed, just once, quickly digging my fingernails into the hot mound of her ruddy ass-cheek to force her gasp. "Is it your mouth, then, my love?" I said again with a certain detachment, mildly intrigued by the ragged tone my normally-sirenic voice had so suddenly taken on, for the change has never been indicative of good things to come, "your tooth? Inside? "

Christine showed me her stained teeth as I repeated the gesture, this time dipping forward to press my lips again to that damp flesh at the interior side of her folded knee. Guiding her trembling limbs apart by the pressure of my hand, I opened my mouth against her skin, to slide my tongue down the inside of her thigh as my fingers rounded her ass to tease at the slick mouth of her sex. "Where, Christine?" I murmured against her skin, kissing her, sucking at the flesh, pushing her skirts aside to ease my impulsion, even as she gave a quiet whine above me, "tell me where, love––"

When the tip of my finger slid, just barely, into her ready cunt, the girl jerked her leg from my grasp. "There, now," she spat, with an anguished sound, "is that what you would like to hear? This is what hurts, Erik! You are hurting me, now !"

So the drug had worn off!

I was taken momentarily aback by the surprising acerbity of the child's tone, and as such, straightened and relinquished my hold on her thigh; as I did she sighed throatily and let fall her head again to the table-top, gazed a moment out past her shoulder, and squeezed her eyelids tightly shut.

Thoughtlessly, I stroked at the bothersome ache determinedly building between my thighs.

I admit it still unnerved me to see the discomfited look that had continued to paint my dear Christine's face, and yet I allowed her to remain this way, concealing herself from me with her arms wrapped about her half-bare front and her naked knees again pressed rigidly together, though as a result of all her frantic fussing––and my own assisting fingers––her skirts had gathered again about her soft belly, and the swollen pink lips of her hypnotic hole revealed themselves fully to me, like a fat, drooling mouth there between the gap in her tensed and tremulous thighs. The tip of my finger was still wet with her; as she looked on from below, now peeking up at me from between her half-closed dandelion eyelashes, I slid that noble digit between my dry lips; she gave something of a whimper and again pinched her eyes shut tight.

Mindless of the bestial action, I slid my palm into my open fly to grope at my own sweating testicles, hanging like empty sacks from my half-hard shaft; kneading myself there, willing the bags to fill, I gazed upon her sweetly pouting mouth, and idly wondered if she would gag, should I grab her yellow head and shove the lot between those parted lips.

Damn her for inspiring such unloving fantasies! For a moment forgetting myself, I groaned throatily into my own caresses, as the girl gave a keening sound beneath me. As I watched her, still enraptured of my shameful self-flagellation, Christine leaned to one side and brought both red knees to the table-top, pressed them tightly together, and curled them up to her chest like the child she was, her arms still wrapped protectively about her front, blue silk fanning out in a ruined mass about her, and that fat little puss still peeking adorably from between her lovely rump-cheeks and skirts.

I was not unfamiliar with this pose; she often slept in one such charming position, having granted me much satisfaction to behold this past week, and earlier still, if I am honest about it (for I have rarely allowed Christine to sleep without a chaperone, for honest reasons, as well as less-honorable ones.) But now, even as my cruel fingers moved up the length of my shaft, slowly pulling my hot flesh to half-hardness, even as the poor girl whimpered as I watched, that bothersome doubt began again to sting at my ruined cheeks, hissing and taunting beneath the flesh, as my traitorous heart throbbed in the cavern of my chest––why does she still hide! it whispered, why does she refuse to meet your eye!

I drew my hand from my trousers and balled my fingers into a fist, pressing the taut flesh to my lips, as the girl began to rock slowly on the table beneath me.

What I had done, I was not wrong in doing! All this time, these eleven tormenting days, I had never even touched her! Never! Not really! Not like that , at least. And not whilst she slept––whilst she was sleeping–– and for all my other faults, and all my other crimes against the child, surely that must count for something, because fuck, would it have been easy! Could Christine not give me credit for my pious regard? I had not even raped her, and I could!

Though I must admit that if the girl had opened her eyes on any of these ill-fated evenings––pinched tightly shut, every night, it would seem, just as they were now beneath me––she would have been profoundly appalled by what she might have seen, and so, in my consideration of her I had attempted to shield her from such alarming visions, but again––well. Christine had come to know me rather intimately over these past eleven days, I am afraid. I might boast an aptitude for sticking to shadows, but, unfortunately, so too have I always lacked control over my more base desires, and my regrettable need to satisfy them.

Something told me I might have lost any last semblance of that control. But why should I need it? Whether she continued to resist or not, the girl was my wife! Every night, I could take it. All of it. Every night, she was mine––

Screaming, probably. My stomach sank to my knees at the thought.

Something would have to be done about that.

On the table-top before me I might have thought Christine was sleeping now, if her soft little body did not shudder as it did. Shifting in her false slumber, the dear thing suddenly squeezed her knees together, shivering the half-exposed muscles of her lovely red rump, and gave a troubled cry, as if something had surprised her, opening her eyes wide and shutting them just as quickly––and looking down, there it was: a delectable dribbling, an unmistakably milky sap trailed in a gentle rush from between those fat cunt lips to spill about her inner thigh––the last of me, sluicing from within her in completion of its noble task.

"Oh, God," she murmured, curling tighter into herself, "oh, God––no––no––"

I breathed a long exhale, watching new moisture build in the little fans of her pale lashes, still pressed tightly shut, and ran my fingers through the chaos of my hair, surely only aggravating it further upon my scalp.

Ten nights ago, this lovely child now crying in a sad heap on my dining-table, with my filthy seed and her bloody maidenhead spilling from between her trembling thighs, had taken my hand and––with more excitement, more breathless passion than I ever would have dreamt possible that a woman might hold for me, and this one especially––allowed me to spirit her beyond her magic mirror and down, down to my subterranean home, five stories beneath the surface of the Earth, as if I were the dark and holy Hades to her exalted Persephone.

That magic had expired by the very next day.

Five nights later, she saw my monster's true face, and four nights after that, I pinned her to the floor beneath me with a broken violin in my fist, to enact upon her a foolish and aberrant––and frankly, mortifying–– thing I would very much prefer to forget, as I am sure she would as well. Three nights following, I took both her tooth and her virginity, rough and bloody, upon this very dining table, and so, as they say, here we are.

Plan and God laughs! Well. God has always laughed at me. But I digress.

See, for all my past experiences with love ––or what a beast such as I might equate to that uniquely human concept––I have never had the misfortune to love as I now loved, and as such, though I have rarely desired a female that I did not at some juncture somehow claim , I have never attempted so arduously to win a woman as I have with my darling Christine.

From the instant I set eyes on her in her dressing-room, I was lost to her spell. The girl was beautiful, but not more so than any of the crowds of gorgeous whores that filled these Opera walls; despite being something of a connoisseur, I am a poor judge of beauty, as all women, even the ugliest among them, are more beautiful than I.

It was so much more than beauty.

She needed me. No one has ever needed me before. I could sense it in the way she prayed to me, begged the enigma of me to show myself at her side. Her father had recently passed, see; she wanted a daddy, and just as I had become a monster, a ghost, for others before her, so too was I prepared to take on that mantle.

She called me her Angel of Music. I taught her to sing.

But I was no father to her. Behind that filthy mirror, I would have my cock in my fist before she ever opened her mouth. I cannot count the times I had nearly broken the glass to claim her; with my lust my fantasies only increased in depravity, until somehow, always, I saw her with eyes blown red instead of blue, and I was holding her there on that hateful velvet chaise––that same, damned velvet chaise––my noose wrapped about her screaming throat, as this sick Satan spilled himself inside––

No. In my way, I truly loved the child.

I would not hurt her.

Because there beyond the mirror glass, she really did love me too, I think. A version of me, at least––and surely, that must count for something. A beggar at the feast will accept what he is offered.

Well. Whatever she might have felt for me then, she certainly did not feel it anymore.

I had planned initially never to open the mirror-door. Never again, at least. To watch and speak to the lovely child was enough––to hear that Angel's voice as she sang, to spill my foul seed against her holy image behind the glass––and certainly, the separation was safest, for both she and I.

But of course, I wanted more. I became obsessed with my little Christine, so kind and loving in her manner towards me––a treatment which, having gone a lifetime without, I could not bear to part with. For a moment I even believed––I managed to convince myself––that the darker parts of me could be swallowed up in the light of her; that hurt and pain and death would have no footing in me with her by my side, and so I began to fantasize of a life with her, a normal life. A normal wife. She only had to love me, for me.

For that to occur, she would have to see me.

And so, at last, I brought her down below.

After the pomp and splendor of our descent had begun to fade, and the girl realized that she had been taken to a mordant cavern underground, and not ascended to some Angel's Heavenly palace among the clouds, dead daddy waiting with open arms, her mood began to darken and her lip to tremble, and though I sang to her all the sweetest songs I knew, icy ballads of her cold homeland and heated melodies of the darker world I have known, she pulled her fingers from their rightful place in my open palm, to bury her pretty face in her hands.

So Christine did not take the grand reveal as well as I might have liked. As soon as she came to recognize the place I had deposited her as a fairly-regular-if-subterranean home, she spent several frustrating hours crying and trembling inexplicably on the floor of my dead mother's bedroom, myself, flabbergasted, squatting and groveling on the floor by her side. I had entertained my own intentions for the evening––as the rabid ache in my trousers could surely attest––and yet, rather than overwhelm her with my own desires (for there would be time enough for that later, I was sure) I focused the whole of my energies on dutifully seeing to the girl, attempting to ease her troubled state with my own innocent affection, pressing my lips to the hem of her skirts and the tops of her shoes, and other such submissions, though my cock was as hard as a log as I did so, and I have been known to lose control of my fingers in such a state.

As she gazed at me from her crumpled position on my floor, myself prostrate and very-obviously erect, she fixed upon me an expression the likes of which I have seen too many times before: fear, and awe, of the biblical sort and something more; a useful emotion to inspire in others, I suppose, but I did not wish it from the child, that night. I had expected––rather, I had hoped––that Christine would look upon me as nothing more than the friend she knew and knew love for, and a man.

But alas! The girl could not see me as such.

Despite her tears and shudders, and my own mounting confusion and outright panic, I truly did attempt to soothe her. In supplication, I pressed on her a simple cup of heated milk, as one might prepare for a fussing child, (but with more than a few drops laudanum mixed in to calm her), though I admit I did not mention the drug's inclusion to the dear thing. I knelt before her with the cup in my two hands for nearly an hour, singing softly and helplessly bidding the girl to drink, please, drink––

As soon as I had pulled her behind that mirror, see, I had kissed her; hard and wet and desperately, running my palms over her body, stroking, caressing every part of her, the untouchable softness I had come to know so well from afar. She did not resist me, rather––like such a lovely, good girl––she parted her lips and let my tongue sample hers, sliding her cool fingers into my hair, and when I pushed her against the shadow-glass, she moaned into my open mouth.

The girl had looked confused when we broke apart, and rightly so, I suppose, for she had anticipated an unearthly spectacle, and not the dark figure who held her then, hot palms like vices digging into her soft sides. She stared wide-eyed up at me, pressing her pretty fingers to her panting, bitten lips, as I slid my mindless palms down the length of her trembling belly, fighting that ravening hunger which had risen in me like a flood. 'You wear a mask,' she said, stupidly, lowering her heavy gaze to watch my descending fingers.

'I do,' I told her, brusquely, as my palm slid between her thighs, pushing her many skirts into that hot v. She gasped, perfect breast heaving, and still she did not run––

'You are a man,' she breathed, as I closed the space between us, pressing my honest body against her softness; she made the sweetest whimper I have ever heard at my advance.

'I am a man.'

Then the child began to cry.

Ah, tears, the Devil's only weakness! I might have done any number of terrible things to her then, for all the reeling of my overwhelming thoughts; instead, hating to see that damning water fall, I took her hand in silence, and sweeping from her, I led her down below.

And she had not allowed me to kiss her since, until tonight.

Later, that first, miserable night together, as I watched her silently sipping her cold, drugged tea on the floor of the girlish bedroom I had prepared for her, I could not escape that recent bliss, of her soft lips upon my lips, her searching tongue, hot and desirous, in my needy mouth; I wanted more, I wanted all of it; and so the animal claimed hold of me, as I touched my lips to her trembling throat, and let my nervous fingers slide the curve of her, from cheek to tit to hip to thigh.

She mewled so, so sweetly as I eased her rigid legs apart.

'Angel, wait,' she murmured, pressing her weight onto her palms, then her elbows, as I impelled her backwards with the relentless burden of my serpents shape, 'Angel, I do not think–– oh , oh my God––'

If I took her as she slept, I reasoned––or as soon as the numbing drug took hold, probably right there where she half-crumpled on the floor––it would be that much easier for she and I both. No pain, for her, and no fear. No screaming. The dosage I had supplied her with would last throughout the night and more; providing me with ample hours in which to take her, clean her… and take her again, should I so desire. And surely she wanted it from me––her lustful, audacious behavior during our descent had proved as much, had it not?

Even if she had already begun again to cry, behind her closed-tight eyelashes.

Ah, but no, for it would not do: if Christine was to love me, to marry me, she must do so with her eyes wide open. My usual methods would not suffice. Perhaps she would not entirely resist me, after all…

Perhaps she would not scream.

When I descended upon her then, folding over her to press her against the florid carpeting by a hand atop her waist, my other winding in the fabric of her drab skirt, sliding it up her thigh with my fingers just barely beneath it, the clumsy thing cried out and spilled her cup. Through the gaps in my mask I felt her breath on my demon's flesh as she whispered beneath me, weakly, infuriatingly, damnably and indisregardably, 'no, please, not like this––Angel––Erik, Erik, no––not now, not like this––' and pausing, with one hand still as a dead man's beneath her skirt––though I could feel the salvific heat of her so near to my reaching fingertips––I made that crucial judgement which has ended us here.

I would wait until the girl would not cry.

Where whores and conquests may scream and protest––for whores have never taken kindly to this face, as can only be expected of these dirges of their sex––a wife must not. It is the very purpose of a wife! To love unequivocally, to desire, even when the recipient of her affection is little deserving of such regard. I had seen it enough in the world-of-men above to recognize the truth in it, even when it exceeded explanation––ugly cocks with lovely, loving wives, all of them fucking and wanting to fuck, making little babies and touching fingertips in the streets––it was the nature of things, was it not?

It would be the way with mine.

And I may know better than most, that rape can only harden the heart.

Anyway. As I had anticipated, my darling Christine could not handle the stuff I had so thoughtfully dosed her with, lightweight that she was. Soon she crumpled prettily (and so temptingly) to the floor––knocked clean out, and from only three drops!––and so I readied her for bed and, though her mouth had fallen slackly and invitingly open, I simply undressed her and put her to sleep.

And patient gentleman that I am, I did not even kiss her as she slept! Or do anything else, for that matter.

I waited! I waited!

What a difference my kind consideration has rent! The darling girl despises me all the same.

Perhaps this illusion was doomed from the start. The very thing I wanted most from the girl, was the very thing she feared; see, for all my deceptions in attempting to woo her, I suspect that Christine had taken most poorly to the shock of my being not an Angel but––as she said so herself––a man , and then perhaps moreso, my unambiguous desire for those earthly things all men demand of nubile, pretty women. She certainly seemed to understand me well enough, after I pushed my tongue into her mouth that first night, and crawled my fingers beneath her skirts.

Apparently, it had never once occurred to her that the sweet-voiced Angel she loved and trusted like a daddy might want nothing more than to spread her fat thighs and fuck her into her dressing-room carpet.

This, it nearly sickened me to think on.

So I will not.

The girl awoke some twelve hours post my dosing of her to find herself almost-fully dressed in my mother's bed, and duly realized she had been drugged; if I were a cleverer man, I might have re-fastened her buttons when I had finished looking , but alas, it would seem I was much too distracted at the time for reasonable behavior. And so, as a result of my carelessness, dear, disheveled Christine came raving to tea the following afternoon, calling me all manner of beastly titles and demanding I confess whatever I had enacted upon her.

At first I would not lower myself to answer such offenses. Attempting civil behavior, I offered the girl a cup of tea, though she outright refused to take a cup, instead crashing the little silver tray from my unresisting palms, most acidly and in a manner much unsuited to a young lady such as herself; and so, if only to impede this maddening outburst, I found myself swearing to the girl for the remainder of that day that I had not touched her and would not––well, more specifically, I said only that I would not take her virginity unless she gave it to me willingly––and so the promise was made and my soul revealed, and the girl learned the shameful truth: that despite whatever I might threaten, whatever flailing attempts I may make to woo her, I had no intention of ever taking her struggling.

The idea of the girl screaming beneath me is a horror to me even now. Though I never revealed the words to her, I could see her understanding in the squaring of her shoulders and the rise of her tautened chin; for the moment, Christine believed she had bested me.

And yet, innocent that she was, she cannot have realized all she truly had to fear of me.

Ah. But the poor girl knew now, did she not?

In her current state resembling a limp pile upon my table-top, Christine still appeared less-than-amiable towards me, shuddering steadily in her child's pose with her blue eyes tightly shut, though, of course, it would be more than a lie to pretend I had come to expect anything less of her. I desired greatly to kiss her again, softly, sweetly, and have her kiss me in return, but I knew––though I hated to admit to it––that the girl would not take kindly to my maw of a mouth so soon again upon her own, so prettily-formed. Not after what I had just done.

But her disagreeable mood would surely pass. Truly, I could see no reason for her current bout of ill-considered petulance rather than simply more of her usual childish insolence––of which the girl appeared to have in excess––as I had wronged her in no way; surely, just as I had broken her of so many other unwelcome behaviors, so too would I break her of this. It was purely for the child's own benefit that I had done as I had.

And yet, it is a strange thing, to take a wife as I have done. A virgin, bleeding and whimpering on a table-top, however much she wanted it––for there can be no doubt that she wanted it, stroking at me as she did, finally returning my desire––it is a hard feeling to describe.

Had I done wrongly? No. Surely not. I had good reason for all of it. And I had not broken my promise; Christine had not complained once as the thing was done, and she was not sleeping, either!

Still the thought nagged at me, like the worm hidden in an ear of sweet-corn: if not wrongly, perhaps I had, in fact, acted too hastily? But I had given her eleven days, and the occasion was more than fortuitous! Eleven days! It is more than enough! I steadied myself on the reassurance that, as the thing was bound to happen to her at some point, what complaint could she have for the time being now? And I could not have allowed her to carry on with that foppish boy, besides. What I had done, if abrupt, would effectively separate the two lovebirds, and permanently! For the dear girl was much too good for him or any other like him; she deserved a man who knew what was best for her, and one who knew how to keep her. If she would not meet my eye, damn her, then let her!

That damned tooth needed to come out. The rest had just been convenient.

Whatever she might think of me now, whatever she had thought before, Christine would soon see that her only choice was the man who stood before her, the man who loved her and desired her––the man who would do anything for her, even if it hurt.

"My love," I offered, softly, with a likely-apparent frustration, albeit mild; still, Christine ignored me.

As I knew that she had now fallen full-tilt into one of her fouler moods––long, arduous dramas usually spent sobbing quietly beside the hearth, refusing to eat, generally occurring after some very mild transgression on my part––and therefore would not regard my doing so, I sighed and slipped off my mask, which had begun to sting as it rubbed the salt of my sweat into my uneven flesh. With two fingertips I prodded at the sore patches of my face, raw and ruined as the girls red cunt beneath me––if one could even call this gnarled thing above my shoulders by such a human word.

I do not hate the horror of my face, as one might expect. I see the glory in it! Who else among men can draw screams from mere glances, as I can do? This curse, this repulsive stain of me upon this black and stinking Earth––it is the Devil's gift, for I am unique in this world! This face is beyond compare; there are none alive who might hope to equal me for terror so inflicted. Believe it, for I have looked!

All the same, I hate to let Christine see it.

These days, I had taken to wearing my leather shroud even in my sleep, though the girl had seen what lay underneath on more than one unfortunate occasion, despite my best efforts not to expose the distasteful thing to her. Never had that reveal been under pleasant circumstances––the Devil's tricks doth proclaim themselves as they might be expected to, for he is a vicious master––and I have a tendency to use my face to terrify in a way that mere words and actions are not alone capable. I am sure that my wife must carry quite the aversion to the sight, and likely will, forever. But who does not? It is a very ugly face.

Ah. And now, with unrestrained horror, she was looking up at me again.

"Christine," I appealed to her, the stinking mask dangling limply from my fingers. "I can put it back on––"

"Keep it off," she hissed. Her blue eyes narrowed to thin slits at the sight of my naked flesh. "Keep the damned thing off. You look as you should this way."

Too soon, again, I felt the urge to strike the girl.

"Your puerility does not suit you, my dear––at least, not anymore ," I snapped, perhaps somewhat cruelly, though I quickly regretted the words at the wide-eyed expression she wore. I had dearly hoped that after , I might never feel that shameful desire to harm her ever again, be it with speech or violence; now, in the too-familiar dissolution of yet another foolish dream, I shut my eyes and passed a hand over my face. "I should not have said that," I appealed to her silence, after some moments, placing the mask face up on the table beside her with measured severity, "but you must learn not to upset me so. It only leads to such unpleasantries. You know this well, my love."

"I was under the impression that it was quite impossible to do anything other than upset you," she replied in a growl, though I ignored her.

I had entirely forgotten that my own finger was bleeding. Now I noticed it by the dark red stain my touch had left on the moulded surface of the mask, and bringing my fingertip to my lip to suck the blood (though I do bleed very little) I noted Christine's plain expression of disgust––for the girl possessed not even the smallest grain of courtesy, to pretend she was not entirely repulsed by me. Now, in a grasp at some civility I lowered my hand and said to her, as gently as I could at that time manage: "I am sorry about the dress, Christine. But it is only one of many. I will get you another––better––"

"Don't," spat the ungrateful thing, "I hated it, as I have hated every one."

So now the child found herself too good for my apology? When I had no reason to give her one! In a ravage of sudden, mindless outrage––terrible and yet familiar––I groped for her ankle and twisted the pale flesh in opposition to the bone, squeezing; Christine yelped like a kicked dog and panted quite appealingly, and in that adrenic rush I felt the familiar surge of blood as it again teased my poor, ravening sex. With greater force than would ever have been required to restrain her, and something of a snorting laugh, I yanked her thin leg up and over, and again flung her wide before me; and though Christine did not resist me, and her thighs fell slackly open, she scrabbled at the table-top with her broken fingernails and whimpered, to my unbridled satisfaction, "please, Erik, I am sorry I said it!"

"You are not, but you might be!" I told her. My wife must learn to respect me!

Now, with my right hand pressing her straining leg by the fat to the table's hard surface, I slid the middle finger of my left down into the slick valley between those two fat pillows of her sex––like the pearly gates themselves, opening before me, blessed heaven just beyond that shivering entrance––and carefully, I spread her red lips apart with my first and third fingers. The heat of the girl's wet cunt seared the ice of my flesh, and I became pleasantly aware of her resultant shiver as it traveled down the invasion of my touch, to resonate deep within the core of her––and though she appeared to resist her own lascivious reaction to me, as she had so often done before, in so many delicious ways, she gave a desirous whimper and arched her back into my caress.

I had trained my darling wife well.

"Please, leave me be!" she whined, and twisted her rump about the tabletop to evade me, though I held her fast against it. "Not now, please––not this ––Erik, I said I was sorry!"

"Sorry?" I echoed, running a circle about the sweet pink nub of her clit. She gasped; though she might demur, surely that beguiling, irresistible heat was building in her too.

There were other ways to bind the girl to me besides a baby; this, I fear, both she and I understood too well.

But as my expert fingertips stroked her wantonly shuddering clit, and her hips began to writhe about beneath me, the delicate thing continued weakly, aggrivatingly, eyelids shut tight over those incomparably blue eyes, "not now, Erik… not this! Please, you will have me betray myself––I beg of you, I cannot! You must understand what you have just done––you musn't make me bear this–– not this , by God, it is a cruelty like no other––"

"Bear it, my love?" I echoed gently, wetting my fingertip in the remains of my own cooling seed as it drooled from her torn hole and returning the finger, to her sweet mewling, to that dirty pink bead. "It is hardly a thing to be borne. " I slid a palm up the side of her rump, steadying her writhing flesh against my working fingers, adding, as she gave a helpless cry of irresistible pleasure, "see, dear, how you like what Erik does to you?"

"I do not like it," she spat, with more venom than I might have anticipated. She was struggling to close her thighs to bar me; resisting her easily, I pressed the sweating limbs further apart by the sharps of my elbows, leaning into her shivering flesh. Accepting her defeat, Christine stilled, supine beneath me, and whispered, urgently, deliciously, "please, Erik. Stop this! If you love me you will not make me––have you not said you loved me?"

"I love you more than you could possibly fathom, my dear," I said, warming myself in the girl's seductive heat as I slowly entered her to my second knuckle. Resisting the appeal of her fluttering muscles on my finger I eased myself inside as far as I could reach, until she gave a harrowed groan beneath me, and then, just as carefully, I withdrew, only to be momentarily distracted by the meaningful sight which met my gaze: "Christine, everything I do is out of love for you," I breathed, as rapturously, I stared at the creamy, dark stain that had pulled away on my finger. "Everything I do, I do for you."

Now the girl was silent.

I regarded her there, with her eyelids still squeezed tightly shut and her bloodied cheek pressed hard to the tabletop, and after a moment's pause, wrenched her still-struggling legs further apart by the conjoined efforts of my elbow, and the hand still curled like a vice about her sweating limb. Easing inside her again, I hooked the tip of my reaching finger against that secret spot, that hallowed treasure within her, such that she shivered and a shallow breath rushed past her lips. As I prodded her there, stroking and teasing at the insides of her––till now forbidden to me, and so achingly desired––the lovely thing curled her fingers tightly in the scraps of her torn bodice and all the shuddering muscles of her abdomen sparked to tense attention.

"Come now, Christine," I said silkily, exciting in the delicious squish of my finger entering her again, again, again; the sweet-smelling spray that gathered about my knuckles as they pushed at the fat of her sex, the sight of me inside of her, "you remember your lessons. Sing for your Angel…"

She would not. Despite my efforts to ensure her comfort, her pleasure––always!––still, in aggravatingly continued silence she cowed beneath me, like a fox trapped by the hounds in its hole, as if she thought that by doing so she might escape my notice; if only to prove to my wife that she could not, would not, never again! my first finger joined the second, and I pressed inside her deeper, thrusting within her harder, then again, smashing the sharp points of my knuckles against that tender flesh, until her spine curled from the table's surface, and a loudly pained cry was forced from between those pinched tight lips.

Damn her! Pain was never my intention!

I tore my wet fingers from her with a snort. That breathless pule might have been its own sort of music to my ears––that same, sweet, sadly-sensuous melody of every girl who had come before––and yet, here, spilling from the bloody mouth of my own dear wife, it served only to turn my stomach and frustrate me greatly. I meant Christine no harm by my actions, no violence against her; I was simply attempting to return the pleasure she had so charmingly granted me earlier, the pleasure that I knew the child was able to receive––even if she had, unsurprisingly, proven less than enthusiastic on my previous attempts to show her as much––though I can now admit that I have not always employed the most cordial of methods for my unfortunately-urgent seductions, despite my best attempts to accommodate the girl's needs, as well as my own, of course…

It has been a long eleven days.

I had expected her to deny me, at first. I had anticipated it. No woman has ever done otherwise. It is why I employed the methods I chose; I knew, despite her initial cold reception, Christine would warm to me in time. But if, post-marriage, the girl continued to resist me, to refuse me, what had I become? I hated the thought of my wife laying limp and lifeless beneath me in my mother's bed––and lay beneath me she must––for if Christine could not be bothered to enjoy the thing, to relish in it, then what had all of it been for? My wife would be a proper wife and a good one; my wife would learn to want me, me, revolting, repulsive me, and I knew how best to make her learn.

I am no rapist. I pay my dues!

See, I have always been a great giver of women's pleasure. I have made it my occupation to understand the inner workings of their soft, mysterious female bodies, and as such, I hold the keys to those pretty jewel boxes nestled between their fleshy thighs. A consolation for the burden of my abhorrent flesh against theirs––beautiful, fair, soft, and by rights, forbidden. I am a sort of Don Juan, you know!

And girls who enjoy the thing never scream.

My particular talents placed me in a valuable position: I knew precisely what my reticent little Christine needed. I had already bent towards her to focus on appeasing her when suddenly, up darted her yellow head of fluff to sputter out, "don't, please, Erik. You have had it of me; it is done. Please, let it go––I cannot abide it, not now. Let me be, I beg it of you––"

"A foolish thought!" I told her. "I have taken my pleasure in you, love, and now you must have the same. It would be ungentlemanly for me to do otherwise––a crime, perhaps––" I closed my eyes for a moment, willing the cruel thoughts to subside, assuring myself under my breath, "no––no––she wanted it––Erik knows––"

She sighed, and the sound sent a dagger in me. "I did not and you know it well," she whispered, though I ignored her lies. "I can have no pleasure with you, please––Erik, let it be all, for tonight! You have taken of me what you intended––"

Still clutching her spread and trembling thighs, my long nails pressing hard into her flesh, my own hot frustration pounding in my chest, I hissed at her, "I intended to pull a tooth, and one that hurt you, child! And yet you offer no words of thanks for my efforts, and refuse me, still!" In a push and violent release I struck the table-top between her parted thighs with the still-slick hand I had only just pulled from within her, spattering the girl's own moisture about her skin. Christine flinched and swallowed a squeak as I continued, "there are no barriers between us now, don't you see? I am staring at your broken cunt!"

And I flicked her there, hard, between her legs.

She sniffed a sharp inhale, as her palm shot down her belly and dug between her legs to cup at her sex and sheild it from me. "You are a fool, if you expect me to believe that was all you intended," she huffed at me, red-cheeked and adorably indignant. "You––oh! You are no gentleman, and you never have been!" She said this last as if it were her gravest insult, and in that instant I wanted dearly to kiss my darling wife again, and all the other things besides, and so I bent towards her to attempt just that; but the girl snapped her teeth together behind her taut and bloodied lips, snarling, and so, only mildly deterred, I straightened.

"You would do well to heed me, girl," I said, quietly. There would be time enough for kisses, later.

She wriggled about on the stained and splattered table-top, wrestling with the scraps of her bodice across her half-bare chest, attempting still––and still ridiculously, though I had not yet the heart to tear it from her, the effect being such a sweet one––to hide herself, but now, with only the inept aid of a single hand to conceal such plump and arousing breasts. I could easily glimpse the shadowy tease of one soft nipple beneath the eclipse of her forearm.

"Ah, well, Christine," I said sardonically, arranging my misshapen face in the mein of utmost distaste, though my expression was somehow directed only at that dusky tit, "if you insist on complaining all evening, by all means, dear, you might as well get up and clean the mess you've made of my dining-table!" I did not mean this, not really, but I do enjoy teasing my wife when the moment presents itself. Is that not what husbands do?

She gasped––for she is still unaccustomed to my particular sense of humor––and with an angry shuffle and a sweet little bounce, exposed even more of that dark nipple. Now, laughing, I dove for the tempting thing, swatting the child's fingers aside as I took it up between my finger and thumb, and then presently my mouth; and soon, even as her plump thighs beat weakly against my sides, even as she groaned beneath me, "oh, God, Erik, no! " I had nestled my hideous face between those fat cushions, licking and snorting most indecently, as if she were my own lovely little mother, despite the brave woman herself having never granted me such a sublime and entirely common and normal pleasure.

All the better! When my darling wife became pregnant herself, I might have that belated opportunity!

So I sucked her nipple, just because I could. "Erik, you treat me unfairly!" dear Christine cried, wriggling beneath my hand and grabbing uselessly at my wrists, for my serpent's fingers had lighted over her body to press one of her fragile biceps to the table-top, and turn the little tit out and bouncing like a fat pancake, "oh–– stop that! ––you cannot believe that I would ever have––"

"Ah! And yet it is done, my love, is it not?" I explained, and squinting up at her with the fat of her tit still pressed against my naked chin, I met her eye. "See, innocent thing, you did ." Still shoving aside her scrabbling hands, I gave the tit a little slap, and pinched its jiggling nipple in punctuation.

Christine really was an excellent choice for a wife. My cock was stiff as a fist even now! I thrust my hips against the table's edge to show the girl my appreciation; she groaned.

And as I have explained, I do love to tease her. Now, folding overtop her wriggling form, I propped myself on an elbow just aside her torso, such that her hummingbird's chest trembled only inches apart from my own, and my horror of a face wagged just above her pretty red one. She squinted and shied from the sight of it, of course.

"Christine, Christine, how pious you are now! When you did not protest so much only moments ago!" I reminded her casually, absently rolling a nipple betwixt forefinger and thumb, "you say you did not want me to do as I did to you––and such a lovely thing it was, a pity you did not enjoy it more, though soon enough you will, I trust––and yet, darling girl, did you ever refuse me? Can you claim, this time, you even once uttered no ?"

"I wasn't sure––" she breathed, as I indulged in the moist heat of her ragged words against my throat, "I would never have allowed you––you know I would not!"

I continued, unmoved: "Christine, my dear, I really do hate to be vulgar, but you were the one to touch me first, this night––and rather enthusiastically, I might add. I was simply attending to your dental health, when you molested me! I am a victim of your voracious lust, it would seem!" And I laughed.

"You know you were not––you knew what you did, Erik––you planned this!"

Indeed I had not planned this, not really. Not all of it. I had, in fact, been attempting to prevent it!

But I had not considered the girl's suggestive complacency under the influence of my chosen drug. Her willingness, her pliability. I had not anticipated that I might find a living, breathing, soaking wet little doll on my dining-table, instead of the sobbing, screaming girl I had so-far become accustomed to.

And what could be done? The girl had, technically, allowed it , and I had done it , and now, she was my wife, and probably pregnant besides.

So I ignored her. "Oh, innocent little Christine!" I said triumphantly, now assured of my own righteousness, for no fault could be claimed of I, "would a girl who did not want me lick me as you have done? Would she spread her legs and pull up her skirts, and open her mouth to moan against me, as you have done? Shameless, desperate slut, you let me put my fingers inside you, Christine, inside you, atop your damned skirts, as you moaned into my ear––you didn't even cry to feel me there! You didn't! And I knew that you were ready, finally ready, you wanted it, I knew––" Now, with renewed vigor, I gripped the ragged fabric at either side of her bare chest, loutishly tearing the remains of her gown from her shoulders and wrestling it down her plump forearms to hang about her back, all-the-while dragging my tongue over her flesh between those two shivering mounds of her lovely tits. She struggled against my hold, flopping like a caught fish from side to side with the same mad look in her eye, so with more strength than would ever be needed to restrain the girl, I forced her wrists to the table-top above her yellow head and pinned them there in a single hand. Christine gasped out a cry and fought my capture, complaining prettily, as I ground my hips against the table's edge between her spread thighs, groaning at the inviting contact of my half-concealed cock-tip with her hot skin. "You sold yourself to me long ago, Christine," I reminded her, though my voice had lost a good deal of its former mirth, "you ate this goblin's fruits! Are you such a fool to claim I have somehow wronged you?"

Bucking violently against my hold, she cried out: "you raped me!"

"Did I, Christine? Did I?" I growled at her, in a vain and failing attempt to stifle the thing, suddenly rising in my throat like hot sick, even as I pressed the girl's wrists harder against the table-top, knowing as she winced beneath me that I bruised the fragile flesh, knowing that with only the slightest pressure more I could shatter her sparrow's bones, "you lying whore! You callow tart! You asked for it!"

"I would never and you know it well!" she insisted, though her big nipples had gone hard as rocks beneath my hands and lips, and a meaningful flush began to color the shimmering paleness of her bare chest––clearly, despite her protestations, the slut was enjoying this!

She wanted it. She wanted it!

I had never wronged her!

And so I pressed her, taunted her: "for days, my sweet, your pretty pink cunt has beleaguered me! You tease me, knowingly, do you deny it? What sweet, prurient sighs I have heard uttered from these lying lips! What did you think you were doing, innocent girl, when you pranced in your whore's dresses about my living-room, jiggling your fat tits before my eyes like smoked hams to a starving man––"

"You forced me into those dresses," she whined, "Erik, please––"

"No matter! Tonight, Christine, you did it, tonight! You pulled your dress up for me, girl! You bade me touch it! When have you ever done such a thing before? When have you ever wanted me––" I might have bucked my hips against her now, hard, once or thrice or more; I cannot be certain. I admit I did lose hold of myself for a moment as I growled into her chest, "oh, Christine––only a wanton whore would take my cock in her pretty hands as you have, wife––you may believe it, for I have tested the theory! And you, pious girl, seem to have done the dirty thing for free! It is I who should be disgusted with you!" I had not meant to reveal that one sorry fact to her, and so with a snort of frustration, I bit her nipple too zealously, and as the girl cried out, I tasted her fresh blood on my tongue.

Not that it was especially important to our future together, our married life, but I would prefer Christine did not know of that particular vice of mine. You see, there are things one may pay a woman for, that others who come for free can not be convinced, by any means, to do, at least not without an exhaustive struggle. Even with my little wife, my more perverse hobbies will be hard ones to rid myself of––for they are only whores, after all––if I do not want to do the same to Christine. And yet, there were far worse things the girl would come to learn of me in time, I was sure. Such things cannot always be concealed, no matter how hard we try. Still, the judgemental child must have disapproved of this thing , for whence she recovered from this––very small, mind you––injury, she groaned throatily, still wriggling beneath me, and cried out: "only a monster would behave as you do!"

I rolled my eyes emphatically. "A monster, Christine? Perhaps––but it is you who hungers for this monster's cock!"

"By God, please––" she groaned, clearly appalled with me, though I am not easily affected by such prejudicial regard, "please, you mustn't––no––no––stop––I would never, never–– "

"Oh, you protest now to preserve your dignity, but you did it all, whore, and so, so eagerly!" I interrupted her, matter-of-factly, still prodding to distraction at that enthralling tit. "Your charming little moans, Christine, or do you deny them? Your hot little fingers against my flesh? Was I not meant to take it as an invitation? I may love you, but I hope you will not be such a fool to think you are somehow deserving of special treatment, Christine––some delicate consideration, perhaps? You are no lady, must I remind you? You are the theatre's concubine, girl––expensive, but open wide for business!––and I have done nothing more with your body than any other man would have done in the same situation!"

"I have never been assaulted by a dentist before, Erik!" she cried.

"Because you have never been to one, beggar-girl!" I countered, smugly. For surely, had any man found this lovely girl limp and lascivious beneath them, they would have done the same as I, would they not? By God, if I had sent the girl to the dentist, he would have ravaged her the moment I left the room, and in all the most deliciously indecent of ways––yes, sliding his fat cock into her gaping, sleeping mouth, choking her with the stinking flesh––I'll kill him!––but how could I blame him? For I had entertained the very same fantasy, oh, a hundred times, quietly pulling myself at her bedside as she slept, with her full lips open wide and drooling against her clean, white pillow, as I slid my fingers about that moist hole––

In doing the thing I had done to her, I was simply ensuring her safety! I had only protected the girl from worse men than I, and as I loved her, I would ensure she was in the presence of no man other than I, ever again!

And she would thank me for it!

Her sweet voice had gone shrill and ragged as she mumbled, bewildered, "Erik, how can you say such things to me?"

I would not hear it; I could not, in truth, for all the blood pounding in my ears. "You wanted me, Christine," I spat, pointing a shaking finger at her, as now my aggravation with the child had reached that familiar threshold, that tipping point of danger, and my desire for doing-the-thing was rapidly giving way to doing-the- thing, "do not deny it now. Your hot virgin cunt was dripping your desire for me down your fat thighs before I ever, ever touched you! And after all those lovely whimpers these past few nights––you know you liked it––yes, whore ––say you did–– "

"No!"

"––Damn you, do not lie!" I struck the table with a fist just aside her fat tit, driving my knuckles into the soft veneer, as I roared above her, showering her shuddering, naked chest with my hot spit, "you were desperate, girl, desperate for Erik to finally fuck you!"

She fell silent and blessedly still. Then, as I panted wildly above her, relaxing my tense fingers against the table's surface and bringing them again to her breast, to cup the soft flesh in a failing attempt at steadying my frantic pulse, she whispered: "you bade me do it, Erik––you said––"

"But surely you did not have to, Christine!" I growled from my half-crouch overtop her, fixing my revolting stare to hers. I had begun to eye the girls quivery throat with some intensity, and even now as my fingers were engaged with her softer, fleshier parts, they had begun to twitch and curl of their own accord, creeping up the flat of her chest as if they had a mind of their own. Stopping that damning advancement before I could no longer forestall it, I dragged my palms down her wriggling sides, and pulled her toward me with both hands on her hips, to ground myself against her; yes, I would have to take the girl again.

But she would have to stop struggling! If she would not…

Oblivious to this new danger she had found herself in, Christine cried out: "you cannot be serious! I would never have allowed you, had I been given the choice! Then, or now! None of it! When have I ever given you that impression? You have demanded what you wished of me these past days––nights––I cannot tell any longer, I am so lost––oh, God, Erik! What have you done to me? I have had no choice but to comply. My body is no longer my own! You have used me unfairly, terribly––how could you imagine I would ever have desired this? What signal can you claim that I have given you, before tonight?"

"You wanted what I did, Christine! I know! "

"I wanted my rape?" she hissed at me, "when did I say so? Was it when you forced your numbing drugs to my lips? When you wrestled me atop a dining-table? "

I closed my eyes and spat, "it was no rape, damn you!"

"No? No ?"

"You asked for all of it, Delilah, you did––"

"Erik, no!" she wailed, "how can you claim such a thing? How can you believe-oh, Erik, was I asking for it , as you hurt me-as you tore my clothing from me?"

"I paid for those dresses; I will do with them what I please!" I shouted, as all the heat of my blood raged in my ears. I thrust my palms overtop them to silence the noisome, pounding, rushing, throbbing nothing! Did the idiot child not understand what I might do to her if she could not silence herself?

But stupid Christine continued as if I had not opened my mouth at all. "Oh––God, Erik, I hated it, I hated it! How could you think otherwise? Every time––it makes me sick to think––Erik, I pleaded with you, to let me go, I begged you, please, and still, when you touched me––"

"I never touched you, child," I spat. "Not until tonight and you know it––"

"You know what you were doing––what you made me––oh, God, Erik, I cannot say it, I never wanted it! I was a virgin––damn you, damn you! ––did you not know?"

"Of course I knew!" I shouted, for that corrosive truth was not one I could have easily denied, having occupied every instant of my waking thought these past eleven nights–– "And so you remained one, until tonight––"

"Was I one? Does it matter after what you have put me through?"

I snorted. "I promised never to fuck you screaming, girl, and I did not. I promised nothing more! Do you deny that?"

"Erik," she cried, chest heaving much too-appealingly, "I did not understand, I could not prevent it––I could never prevent it––" now her eyes were wide and shining, as she curled forward to reach a hand out to me, still looming overtop her, "tell me it is a dream, please––I have been dreaming, dreaming––what is this poison you have given me, what have you made me do? How have you so easily deceived me? Erik, why––" As her words dissolved into breathless nonsense, her fingers fell before I could capture them, and her frantic gaze shot past me to wherever she must have imagined the gas-bags to have landed. She was wrong: I had flung the spent things far further off than that.

I am, unfortunately, often overzealous.

Now, listening to the girl's harried rambling, I lifted from overtop her to press my palms to the table-top at either side of her thighs, just beneath my arched form. The breath hissed through my teeth as I exhaled loudly and spat, too harshly, "collect yourself, girl!"

Again flat on her back, she muttered to my ceiling, blue eyes like empty holes in that red face, "I am not deserving of this, I have not done any wrong! I have been good… I am only dreaming…"

I shook her lightly by the bicep; frowning, she fixed her clouded stare to mine. "You were meant to be an Angel once," she muttered, "my father sent you to me… what have you made of me?"

Unfortunately, this would not be the first time the touch of my flesh had lost a girl her mind, though I am afraid, perhaps foolishly, that I had anticipated a better reaction from Christine.

I could not meet her eye. "Really, Christine," I said after some moments, to my hands more than anything else, "you speak as if I have imprisoned you, and denied you any free will at all. You are not so very much under my power as all this." My eyes swept the table-top, frantic for evidence otherwise, among the pools of child's blood and torn fabric, and the little silver pliers that held that damning tooth. "Look––if I told you to kill yourself with the scalpel I have here, right now," I said finally with some nauseated exhaustion, my stare fixed in the toppled tray's direction, desiring hatefully––and duly hating myself for that desire––to simply take the blade up myself and quiet her, "are you trying to claim that you would have to do whatever I commanded, simply because I spoke the words?"

Then I frowned, because as I watched the girl's expression go slack, and her blood-encrusted lips fall just slightly open, I knew exactly what she knew: that if I bade her to, eventually––after eleven days, perhaps––she might.

Or I would find a way to make her.

And now all the water that had flooded the dam rushed away, and I was left drained and staring at the evidence of what I had done; this precious girl I had so loved and groomed and protected and now, had destroyed in another of my senseless rages.

Eleven days was nothing, nothing! I never should have brought Christine down below.

I should have waited. I could have waited!

Can I not learn?

"Oh, sweet child," I said finally, "forgive me."

She would not look up at me. In the shining pinkness that had flooded her nose and ears, and the prunish way she pouted and squeezed her eyelids shut tight, I could easily tell that the girl had begun to cry.

I was not unused to her tears, though she did usually attempt to conceal them from me.

In the haze of moments following my gentle release of her, Christine again pressed her knees tightly together, and shoved her ruined skirts over her thighs with her fists. Her tears became loud and hacking; soon the girl had flung both her arms up over her head to fold across her face and hide herself from me, despite her bare breasts hanging out at the front of her, their big soft nipples jiggling against her chest with every loud sob. She had apparently given up trying to shield their nakedness from me; something turned in my stomach at the realization.

It would seem that I had finally gotten what I desired.

"Christine––" I muttered, to her hacking, sputtering tears.

Listening to the girl weep unattractively behind her arms, I made a short step aside to allow both her legs to dangle slackly from the table at the knees, and stared down at them as they hung before the floor. To her side, a swath of ruddy moisture had pooled on the tables surface––a vile alchemy of her blood and sex, and mine. I sighed, and after running a fingertip through it in an attempt to ignore the sobbing lump of flesh before me, I brought the stuff to the holes of my nose, inhaling the sweet coppery nectar of the girl's scent.

Christine was a flower, indeed. A perfect, red rosebud, and only mine to pick, unless I should fail and starve the plant. Perhaps I already had. Though I do try, I fear I have never been much of a gardener.

I rubbed that carnal sludge to dust in my fist.

Ah. But we are born to repeat our same mistakes until we die, are we not?

Once, in this empire beneath the Earth, I happened on a darker girl, with a gypsy's black hair, skin like honey wine and a whore's red lips.

A seamstress; I had seen her in the Garnier many times before. I have always had an eye for attractive women.

She had no home despite her position's requirement of one; and so, in a sweetly treacherous attempt to keep her secret, she slept and did her washing up in the private loneliness of the third cellar. I had come upon her naked from the waist, in only her sheer petticoat––as if she had been too shy to take the thing off despite her underground solitude, and instead pulled her chemise out from under the waistband in an adorable attempt to conceal herself. Streams of cool water trailed down her bare breasts from her soapy cloth and made the fabric sheer enough to almost see the stain of her black cunt between her fleshy thighs––no, I can never forget that vision of her; as a nymph, a magical thing, golden flesh steaming with moisture despite the chill, small brown nipples pert and aware, a goddess in the shadows of my kingdom underground.

An offering for the minotaur in the maze, it would seem. There are so rarely girls down below. I have nearly always had to go outside to find them.

I was pressed against her by the time she realized I was there. She gasped and dropped her dripping rag, but my gypsy girl never screamed.

And I had my fingers about her lips, besides.

I took her there, on her softly naked belly, on the dirt floor beside her wash-basin and her little book of Spanish poems, and when I was done I spread her legs wide and drank up all of her juices; and though her nails dug into my wrists as her sweet brown body spasmed against my mouth as she cried out in the dark, I knew her tears had been of pleasure.

I had done the girl no wrong.

In return for the favor she had granted me, I gave the little seamstress a home. I brought her down below. For her secret, she would keep mine. And she would stay.

She knew what would befall her if she did not.

She was beautiful and good to me, and hardly made a sound at all when I pushed myself inside her again, that first night on my mother's bed, and then again, and again, and every night after that. For months, she was mine. I pulled my many puppet's strings to secure her continued employment despite her frequent absences and broken fingers, and so she swore herself to me. She worked above and lived below, and by the orange light of my hearth, she wrought for me such wondrous things. Greatest of all, her crowning achievement, her masterpiece––the red garb of Death himself!

How apt of her.

When, by the flickering glow of the dying fire, I would take her sewing from her, and place myself between her thighs, the girl would sigh and wrap her fingers, sweetly, in my hair. And though she would close her eyes and turn her cheek when I brought my mouth to hers, still she would part her lips and quietly kiss me, and when I slipped my fingers beneath her skirts, she was slick and warm to my touch, and she made all the quiet noises a good woman is meant to do.

Not like Christine, who only complains, and cries.

Back then, I never thought much of marriage. My gypsy seamstress was my queen, and she was bound to me; but she was beautiful, innocent and fairly pure, and naturally, she had a young suitor. A dark-skinned chauffeur she would meet clandestinely in the opera stables, even as the show went on above, and I waited for her down below. He was a young and serious thing, and I admit I resented him, for even as she took me I knew the girl closed her eyes and saw his black face; and if she were not already bedding him I knew she would gladly spread her legs the moment I gave her the chance. Women are quick to become whores when their cunts have lost their rarity, this, I know well––and as the silly girl attended to him quite devotedly, asking for favors in his interest and begging time to see him as she was wont to do, it was only natural to assume that she would have eagerly sated his wicked desires, had he only asked it of her.

I never caught them at it, but I still believe she did. Otherwise, I fear, I did not have to do what I did to her, and I might still see her in my sitting-room in the evenings, looking down between her jet eyelashes as I stared at her from my chair across the hearth.

She must have.

One night she came home to me in a charming frenzy, though admittedly, I had expected as much. Her young man was injured, harmed in some way, kidnapped, or robbed, she wailed at me, pleading, help him! You must help him! She had not heard from him now for three days, and it was not like him to do such a thing––

'Darling girl,' I had told her, stroking her dark hair and tear-stained cheek, slipping my thumb between her plump russet lips, 'your boy has abandoned you. I saw it myself. He took a bag and boarded the train to Calais. I am sorry, my love. You will not see him again.' I did know what had become of him, after all, and yet the truth was not exactly aligned with the tale I spun; see, his handsome face was stuck in the mud at the bottom of the Seine, and would never again grace my dear girl's mouth with its dead lips.

Death is another sort of Abandonment, I suppose, though I am ever master of the one, and have always lacked control over the other.

She never smiled much after that.

Her belly had already begun to round and soften when her boy went away, and her lovely tits to swell––and though she did pretend for some time that the thing was not happening, and I greatly enjoyed the voluptuous changes to her form as I sunk into her soft body night after night––I knew I would have to deal with it in the end.

My queen had big black eyes; her gypsy's eyes. I had seen their like long ago. I remember still the exact twilit shade of those fine eyes that sad evening, as she fell to her knees at my feet, small fingers scrabbling at my trouser-buttons.

Marry me, she had begged me, so sweetly, though her words were garbled, thick and wet, as I thrust against her gagging mouth, that cruel string of fate dangling from my traitor's fingers.

Help me, Erik. This was your doing. Please, do not leave me to ruin––

Take responsibility for what you have done!

Unfortunately, she died that night.

I sang the girl a requiem, bolder and sweeter by far than any that had come before or might hope to follow after, and left her to be discovered behind the set of "Opera" in the best dress I had for her that could still cover the unsightly bulge at her front. With her young man long gone, the poor thing was not remembered up above for for some weeks after that, but by then I had already recovered and buried the body on the banks of my black lake, with her little book of Spanish poems and a box of fine Belgian chocolates in the shapes of flowers I knew her to favor, as the forgotten girl had already begun to rot, and I hated to keep stumbling upon her pretty corpse.

Lovely Sophia. Your meager stone remains there still.

The same fate must not befall my dear Christine. I would not act so hastily another time.

And now, I was ready for a child, besides.

I ran my clammy fingers over my mess of a forehead and through the tangle of my hair, and breathing heavily through those ragged holes I call my nostrils, I stared down at my miserable wife, sprawled and sobbing across my dining-table.

"Christine," I said lightly. The girl ignored me; despite having ceased the distasteful violence of her crying, her arms were still flung about her head. I tapped a short rhythm on the table-top. "Christine," I repeated, somewhat more gratingly, and flicked at the side of her tit with a fingernail, charmingly pruning up the nipple; she winced, but granted me no reply.

"Perhaps I can accede that my behavior has been somewhat rash, Christine," I appealed to her quietly, "tonight… and before. But I hardly think that such a reaction is helping in any respect, not now…"

She mumbled from beneath the shield of her plump arms: "go away, I beg of you––"

"I have no intention of doing such a thing," I told her, "as you should well know. Now show me your face, girl. Enough of this."

She shook her head, shuddering her soft body about beneath my eye.

I thought about dragging her forward and having her again; or better yet, flipping her over and fucking her into the table such that I would no longer have to abide that crying face––for despite my being well accustomed to the tears of women, aggrivating and seemingly unavoidable, even when said women have been more than compensated for the detestable thing, it had never been my intention with Christine. A wife was a wife and she was not a simple body, a receptacle of filthy lust; she was a living, breathing woman who smiled when I kissed her and said my name, softly, as I took her, and never, never, never cried or laughed or screamed.

And as such, I must treat her with a mite more consideration than I would a purchased companion, or a flight of fancy.

For what it is worth, I had attempted, these past eleven days––despite my other transgressions––to do just that. I bought her flowers. Baskets of them. I emptied the stocks of three shops on the rue de Rivoli for her arrival, covering what felt like every surface of my underground cottage with the ugly, purposeless frivolities, stinking up my rooms with their dying flesh in her name.

But Christine, apparently, has little taste for blooms.

That was not all; dresses, I bought her––a closet full of the most glorious dresses, in silks, brocades and taffetas, custom cut and colored to the most flattering designs for the girl's unique, magnificent shape, with gloves and little shoes, and hats and such to match––

Well. Most of them are in tatters now, but I will purchase others. I have far too much capital for my own good, I expect, and have been waiting a long time for a reason to spend it.

Was the girl worth my efforts? Watching her cry on my table-top, I must admit, in that moment, I felt entirely certain that she was not.

Now I said to her, too harshly, crossing my arms tersely across my wrinkled chest, "this has gone on long enough. Get up, damn you, Christine, or I shall have to make you!"

When she would not do as I commanded, I reached across her to peel her hot arms from her red cheeks; in another insolent endeavor at disobeying me, she pressed her eyelids shut tight and pursed her lips, furrowing her brow like the child she was. With renewed frustration, I snorted and released her arms to drop heavily to her sides, thrilling in the hard, staccato slap slap as they struck the table-top––hard and likely-painfully––beneath me. She attempted to bring the fallen limbs back up to cover her face; with something of a groan, I pressed both of her hot forearms to the table's surface, until her jerking movements ceased, and I knew she had given up the attempt.

"Ah, well," I said finally, slowly releasing the slack limbs and watching this stupid girl, my stupid, useless wife , as she pretended I was not right there before her, "did you know that you were ovulating? You are most certainly pregnant, Christine; I am, unfortunately, a virile man, if an ugly one." I allowed a palm to slip overtop the girl's trembling belly-muscles, enchanted by the hot living flesh beneath my cold, death's hand, wondering how soon her girlish belly would fatten and her firm tits to swell, as my child devoured her from within; bringing my hand again to my side I told her, almost-honestly, "all will be well, my love. You mustn't be afraid. I am prepared for this."

I could not have been sure, naturally. I had taken the child properly only once, and in poor Sophia's case––well, suffice it to say there had been multiple instances before the baby had taken hold in her. I have never been one for a sheep's-gut sheath. Still, what harm could be had in a little manipulation? Christine had always proven eager to engage in a taste of the fantastic, from time to time. "I imagine it does not warrant my saying, but surely you understand that you can have no choice but to marry me now," I said, though this addition was only for her benefit, as the girl was very clearly, already my wife. But women do like paperwork and proof, and it would be easy enough to draft up some sort of document to please her, and say some pretty words.

"What?" Her red-rimmed eyes shot open.

"You will be my wife, Christine! Forever!" I repeated, overloud, as my hands balled themselves into rigid fists at my sides, "no more of the boy, you hear? I do not want to see him skulking around you, not anymore. I have had you and as such you are mine, and mine entirely! I intend to do right by you. I will marry you, straightaway. I love you, and I will take care of you. And your child."

"No––" she breathed, "that is a prison sentence and you know it––"

"It is taken care of! Look, I will be good to you! I will buy you anything you need––"

"No!" she shouted, "I will not do it! No!"

I could feel my patience with the girl again growing thin. I slammed a fist on the table and left it there, palm down, fingers flat and spreading as I stared down upon it; dry blood like rust stained the knuckles of all five fingers, blackening the furrows in my old skin. "I have had you, child!" I explained, cursing the tremor in my voice, "can you not see you have no choice now but to accept me?" Panting furiously, I met her eye to implore her, my ugly mouth twisting in humiliating supplication, "Christine, why resist? You do not need to worry about any of it. You shall not face your ruin. None may call you a whore. No one has to know! We shall be husband and wife, and baby, et cetera, and up above we will walk arm in arm with the little thing, through the stalls in the shops and no one will ever know I had you before the wedding, because all they will see is a respectable gentleman and a noble lady who loves him. You may keep your honor as you should. Even your Vicomte could find no fault in you!"

"You cannot be serious," she said, and though her bloodshot eyes were still wet with tears, her eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline and as she strained her neck up at me, she looked again as if she might laugh; though this time, her mirth incited me to very much the opposite effect as it had before. "By God, Erik––do you think you are somehow doing me a favor?"

The girl was not intoxicated, not anymore. I did not like it when she laughed at me.

"I have never been much for the jokes of women, Christine, and you, above all others, should know this––"

She snorted! "If I laugh at you, it is only because you are a pitiful fool, Erik, and you behave as one!"

"Am I a fool to you, Christine?" I roared, closing the space between us in one echoing step and shoving her still-dangling legs apart with both hands, "you think your husband is a fool? I think he was interrupted previously, and on his wedding night! "

Her steely expression collapsed into one of blank fear as she gave a cry and flung both arms out about her sides to grip the table's edges. Wriggling against my hold, panting urgently, she said, "Erik, this is not a marriage! What you have done to me is not a marriage!"

"It shall be," I roared, spittle flying from my wasted lips, "when the damnable thing is again consummated!"

"I will scream, remember," she pleaded, "Erik, I will scream! Have you forgotten? Stop this! You do not want me to scream––"

Ha! It made no difference to me now.

But she continued, whining and squirming against my hold even as I positioned myself between her legs (for the girl was simply no match for me, and all this wriggling was more absurd than a pig still squealing as it was slid upon a burning spit) "Remember what you said, Erik––your promise, remember your promise––oh––" for I had captured her naked rump in both fists, digging my nails into the soft flesh as I dragged her close against me, "I was not myself and so you had me, but you will never do it again! I know this is not what you truly want––Erik, please, by God–– stop! ––you do not need to go through with it!"

"I already have, you stupid child," I hissed, now lifting and arranging her flailing limbs such that they were again spread wide on the table-top, though the blue balloon of her skirts billowed and puffed about us both; striking and flattening the maddening fabric with my palms, shoving and tearing it out of my path, I shouted my frustration at her, "do you not understand? Fuck the promise! It is too late! The thing is done!" She gave a breathless groan as I added, with only slightly more composure, as pressing my fingernails into the fat flesh of her inner thighs, I felt her squirm and push against me, "keep your legs open this time or you shall regret it, Christine. None of that kicking or wriggling you are so fond of, or by God, I will have your damned legs!"

She must have perceived the threat in my stare––and for all I knew, I might have actually done it––for now she began to chant, raggedly, madly, "you will not do it again, Erik! I could not fight you then, but I will fight you now––" her sirens voice rising to a fevered pitch as she swung her yellow head from side to side, "oh, I will fight you, by God I will, I swear it––I will––oh, God––save me––save me––"

"Hush, stupid thing!" I shouted, "your idle threats mean little!"

With the taut backs of four fingers, I struck the child across the mouth to quiet her, then, as she panted, shocked silent and thankfully still––save for the ragged, rushing hiss of each moist breath––I dragged my open palm about her ruddy cheek and between her parted lips, wiping the fresh blood from her red front teeth with my own skin, and whispered, my demon's voice like silk, "when have you ever fought me before?"

See, I have not always treated the girl as I should.

"Do not hurt me again," she breathed, clutching her struck cheek, "Erik, please––"

Ah. And now she really was afraid of me. Though I had to concede that it was likely she always had been, even from the very start, and if I am honest, she was right to be so. I had not enough fingers and maybe even toes to count the occasions on which I had harmed the girl before tonight, be it by small but efficient means, like pinches and slaps for her exhausting behaviors, or lasting damages like the trips, the pushes, and other such violent unpleasantries––the instance involving my poor violin, but no, no, I shall not think on that––for it was always accidental! Or at the very least, unintentional. And the girl must learn to remove herself from my presence when I am in one such rage!

I cannot be held responsible for what I might do if she could not.

Now I ran my tongue across and over my excuse for lips as the useless thing watched from below, wincing and wrinkling her dripping nose at me; then, for that swallowing anger had come upon me like a blinding wave, unstoppable, despicable, cold as death, and painfully, soothingly familiar, I said to her: "why must you insist on behaving thusly, Christine? It is a simple thing I ask of you, to open your legs for me now. You are no virgin. Why must you resist? You incite me so… awful, the things you make me want to do… always, to you! I never intended to treat you so, girl, can you not see? Erik is not so very terrible…he does not want to be. But if you could only behave––no, it is all your fault! Why can you not act as you are meant to?"

"Erik, please—" she breathed, "don't––" Her palm still clutched protectively over her struck cheek; and now the wicked fantasies clawed in my harried brain like tearing fingers; break her, they whispered, strike her again––

Fuck her. Kill her.

Fuck her again.

"Damn you!" I shouted, suddenly, hating the thoughts, "little bitch , infuriating whore!" I did not know what to do with my hands; my fists, like living creatures, shuddered and sweated at my sides, as all my strength drove to my arms to contain them there. "Damn you," I said again, softer now, hearing the shameful submission in my voice, hearing the pain, the decades of it, the endless, reliefless torture–– "I have tried, Christine––so hard, you cannot imagine––"

She was trembling on the table-top beneath me; her tits heaving with her every labored breath as she bent her chin to stare up at me from her supine pose, fat red lip quivering like a punished child's. The beautiful, blue flesh of all her many bruises shown like terrible jewels, just another necklace, another gown I had forced upon her; damaged, aching flesh about her throat, on the side of her sharp rib, between her pretty breasts––a painting, that I had made of the girl, all yellow, red, and purple-blue.

Beautiful, in its way. The only sort of beauty allowed one such as me.

I wish I were not so skilled of an artist.

"What else, Erik," she breathed, as my frantic stare met hers, "what more can you possibly do to me, before you are satisfied!"

I could beat her. I could wrap my fingers, my cat gut chord, around that rasping, white throat, and squeeze until all the life drained from those pretty blue eyes. I could chain her, whip her, lock her in a cage; I could watch her, screaming, as man after man forced himself inside, throw my coins and jeer at her trembling form––

I could bring her to the dungeon, and do it to her there.

Ah, but see, those are the crimes of long-dead men. I would never do such a thing to her.

I would do worse.

Now I muttered, glaring down at the whimpering thing as if she were my helpless prey, for I had already stuck my dagger in her, "I can do things to you, little wife, that you could not even fathom… did you guess? You have… your darling Erik could do such rotten things to you…"

She reached for my hand at my side, groping forward gracelessly to capture it. Taking my numb flesh in her bloodied palms she stroked at me, squeezed me; in a mad instant––and God knows what sort of deranged look this ravaged face fixed upon her as she did it––she pressed my cold fingers to her hot, steaming mouth to cover the flesh in hard, desperate kisses, pleading, weakly, "Erik––please––"

The girl was terrified, as right she should be. We both knew what I was capable of doing to the poor thing when I was angry. However close I might have come, we both knew that I had not yet reached that point with her; see, from there, there could be no turning back.

But in my deranged state, I fear, her distress could move me little. I tore my confused fingers from her clutches, mindlessly, threateningly curling my fists in the still air between us. I needed relief, release––from the grip of my hands about her gasping throat or the swallow of her enclosing flesh, I cared not which. My mind was reeling, all desire and fury––

"Touch me, girl," I commanded, suddenly pressing my hips against the table's edge such that my obvious erection rested on its surface, pulsing and twitching atop the cool wood, "spare your false kisses. Take my cock in your sweet hands, just as you have done before. Come now," I told her wide-eyed stare, "no more begging. You owe me this."

When she would not raise her white fingers from the table-top, I lunged for her nearest hand, gripping her small wrist and smashing the flat of her palm against my hot length as she gave a cry; forcing her movements I ground myself into that softly trembling touch, masturbating my half-clothed cock in her resisting palm. Soon I felt my eyelids growing heavy, heard my own animal groaning spilling shamelessly from between my parted lips, as that cruel, evil pleasure began its terrible descent of my curved spine; soothing, alleviating my terrifying rage with only another kind of horror. Thrusting my hips into her touch until the table again began to shift and groan, I reached for her, as tangling my sweating fingers in her hair, squeezing tight to force her cries, I groaned, " fuck , Christine, yes––"

When the sticky pre-seed of my near-release had soaked through the tangle of my shirt and trousers to wet the girl's wriggling fingers, she tore her palm from my slack, distracted grip, to wipe the foul liquid from her skin in the blue mess of her ruined skirts.

"I cannot," she breathed, that same, ever-present look of horror staining that perfect face, "I know what you want, everything you want, and I cannot do it. Please, do not make me––"

I struck her again. I couldn't have prevented myself if I had tried; this madness is buried much too deep.

Beaten into me, as I shall do for her.

As the girl recoiled, a narrow stream of dark blood slipping from a red nostril, she whispered, wide-eyed, "is this love, to you?"

"As if you know anything of it!" I roared, showing the girl my too-sharp teeth.

Beneath me, Christine was frowning, her stained mouth hanging open and trembling like a struck dog's, but I liked the pain of it, I wanted the pain of it––the fear in that perfect expression––and so I growled, half-hollowly, as if the man who spoke the words were not I at all, and yet more me than I ever was previous, more me than the girl had ever known me to be, "the love I feel for you is maddening––it is a hellfire, devouring and destroying, consuming all in its path, yourself, and I along with it… it frightens me, too… I need you, Christine, can you not see?"

Fresh tears streamed down her ruddy cheeks; I hated her for them as she stammered, "do not do this––"

I laughed. "Do what, my dear? Fuck you? Love you? My darling, lovely girl, I can do anything I want. I could tear you apart if I so wished it…oh, easily, much too easily, I am afraid… I could make it so no man would ever desire you again, so they would scream in terror to see your spread legs just as you scream to see this face ––" now I struck my own ruined cheek and the girl gasped and dug her white fingers into her own tangled skirts, but with a fist I shoved them aside, capturing and shaking both wrists about her belly, as her clawing fingers stilled in my grip, "––you claim that I have hurt you? That I have raped you, ruined you? Oh, sweet Christine––you know nothing of it! I have been more than good to you. More than considerate. Have I not seen to your needs, your every whim? I played the part well… your doting lover, your slave… your dead daddy, little girl! And has he not pleased you? It could have been so easy for you… a kiss, that is all. A kiss, a sigh… but there she stays, hating Erik, loathing Erik… stop looking at him! "

"Erik, no––not like this, please––bring me to the bed, at least. Not here," she breathed, entirely desperate, "please do not do it here!" but her eyelids snapped shut all the same.

"Raped you, raped you… " I turned the hateful words over in my mouth, feeling the cruel sting of them on my tongue, "sweet, delicious Christine… I could have raped you that first night you followed me down below, you know… I really could have raped you. Just like a sweet little pussy cat, following me, you were… kissing your Angel, and rubbing your dripping cunt on his thigh, you filthy, fucking whore…you know what you were doing. I meant to, I am sure you have guessed. I could have done it. But you cried and I made you a promise, and did I not keep it? I did, for eleven days…even when it would have been so easy to slip inside in the dark. You get so wet at night, you know… so, so wet. You know . And yet I have kept my promise still, whimpering bitch, still, and you cannot deny it!" I had begun to drag my hands down the insides of her spread thighs, thoughtlessly, senselessly, I ground the girl's legs into the table with my steady motions; now I fixed my stare to the spread, pink taint of Christine's straining cunt, directing my speech only at that hot mouth, hearing its soundless reply in my pounding ears––

"I still could…" I told it, "do you wonder what it feels like? Not like the nice thing I did to you… you have never been fucked––it hurts, you know, actually hurts––though I am sure that shit boy would do the thing gladly, that lecher… be wary of him, Christine––you never know what men might do––men you trust. Men you love––mark your Erik, girl, he knows––"

"Erik, stop––stop this," breathed my bride beneath me, her same, sad supplication: it had disarmed me, to hear the words from somewhere other than that hot pink cunt-mouth, and so, wavering somewhat on my leaden feet I slid my gaze up her naked, trembling body to seek the sound. Now I wrinkled my brow to squint at her, fixing my clouded gaze on the dark crust of her speaking-lips.

I told them: "I gave you time to love me!"

"You are frightening me––please––"

"You would do well to be frightened, child. Most are… I tried to be good to you, to make you love me! But you will not… why is that so? I could ruin you, child. Ruin you. Kill you, Christine––I do not want to––did you know what I have meant to do with you? What I have had to stop myself from doing––oh, so many times––so much worse by far than the mild treatment you have so far got, I assure you… my God, girl, if you only knew what visions this damned mind could construct––I do not want to, really, I swear it––" She was shaking that pretty yellow head beneath me, muttering something; I nodded. "Ah! Now she begins to understand. See! Your Erik only does the naughty things he does when he wants to do something much worse, I am afraid… much, much worse… or do you doubt that your Erik is capable of it? Ah, aha… but I have done it all before…"

My palm had slid between the folds of my trousers to again paw at my hated, ready length as I spoke to her; I met her eye, knowing she understood what I intended now.

"I will scream," she said, transfixed, terrified: her last defense. "I will––"

"Scream all you like, Christine," I roared, suddenly, again wrenching her wide before me, "I no longer care. I love the sound! I live for it! Ask me how many women have done the same! You are my wife, and even if you are a bad one, I will take you, and take you again, until I am spent or you or both of us is dead. Do you understand, wife? You will do as I say." But I could not tear my cock from that horrible grip of my too-tight fist, even as her spread cunt panted and stretched beneath me, wet and waiting, wanting to be filled––so fucking easy to just fucking fill––

Damn her, damn her! She knew I could not do it.

Not to her. Not this .

And then it was I who was screaming, wailing my long, desperate roar of anguish, opening my mouth wide as if I meant to swallow the world in terrible sound; and it was as if my cock was screaming too, and every cell in my blood, from the tips of my splayed fingers to my gnarled toes. The heat pounded and throbbed in my ruined cheeks and malformed ears, surely reddening my transparent flesh such that I must have appeared to the girl every ounce the Devil that she believes me to be, and still I was screaming, as blood vessels burst in my ugly, offensive eyes, and spittle flew from my flailing tongue––screaming, as if by screaming I could rid myself of the curse this of this loathsome face, the curse of this evil voice, simply by exhausting it, until my wretched lungs felt as though they were collapsing under the deluge of dreadful sound, and then, sputtering out like a candle, I quieted, and crushed my sweating palms atop my aching eyes.

In the panting silence which followed, Christine gazed up at me, wide blue eyes filled with water, red cheeks stained with its tracks, and breathed, "Angel––why––"

And then she flinched and gasped hoarsely as with two fingers I entered her again, for I did so suddenly and without pronouncement, pressing at her thigh with one hand as I slid between her sickeningly swollen folds with the other. I should have liked to say she made a sound of pleasure but fuck that, of course she did not! The girl hated this! For contrary to Christine's poor opinion of me, if I am anything, well––I am no fool.

It did not matter. I am only accustomed to getting a version of what I want, and never the real thing. I could take her with my fingers if I could not do my cock, and if hate was all I could get from her, then hate I would take.

And for all her whining, she did not attempt to close her legs.

For several thunderously silent moments––save for the percussive animal grunting that spilled from her drooling lips with my every push––I prodded at her ruddy cunt-hole with two rapacious fingers, I fucked her with these excuses for instruments instead of a rape, stretching the torn skin apart and teasing the inner walls of her with my fingertips as her bottom wriggled limply beneath my hand, making revolting suckling noises every time her fat flesh lifted from or touched the table-top. She flung a hand out and over her lips as I worked within her, stifling her own tender cries; for all the tension in her jaw and cheek it appeared as if she bit the skin.

But I fear I was entirely lost to the thing, again.

"How do you like it," I growled at her, already raving like a maniac, an imbicile, fucking her hard and fast with my fingers, feeling her slop and spit against my invasion with every deep thrust as I ignored the fact that it was only my fingers, only my repulsive, wraith-like fingers fucking the girl as every cell in my body wanted to fuck the girl, "how does it feel, Christine, now that you have finally taken your Angel inside, to feel him, clawing within, consuming the all of you, knowing he will continue to use you as you have always wished he would?"

"Erik, please!" she plead from between her spread fingers, "this is not the way!" but I heard that salaciously meaningful quiver deep in the cavity of her throat, from the still-dripping cunt of her voice-box that I had also just fucked and would, assuredly, fuck again, even if I had to drug her after all. "Please, Erik––wait, wait!––why now?" she asked when I could manage no reply, as she strained her neck forward to watch my assault, choking on her darling groans, even as her forbidden fluids spattered from her open, broken hole with my every thrust, "for all your waiting, all the times you nearly––oh––why give in to it tonight? Could you not have spared me a week?"

If stupid, my Christine was certainly a brave girl: even now, she was trying to distract me!

I would not be so easily moved. " Eleven days, my love," I corrected her, now driving my fingers inside her and over that entrancingly throbbing nub with an almost procedural focus, choosing not to remind the girl (for unless she was a complete and utter dolt––an actual potentiality––she must have known it well) that I had, in essence, maintained an unbearable and raging erection, even when I had attempted to temporarily sate it, for all eleven of those long days. "It seemed prudent, Christine."

"Prudent! "

"I did not want to hurt you, child!" I admitted again in my frustration, letting a nail clip the tender skin inside; she yelped. "When will you learn to trust that I am always acting in your best interest?"

Her answering sigh was weak and thin. "You said you would wait––you should have waited!"

"For what, my dear?" I sighed, to the steady sluicing of my continued invasion. "Had you planned to seduce me tomorrow? When I came to you tonight at your bedside, would you have finally asked me beneath the sheets?"

Her head, which had again been lolling on the table, shot up to throw a minacious glance at me; "no!" she shouted, and again overcome, with a sweet little groan, it dropped just as quickly to the yellow cushion of her matted hair.

"No! " I parroted back at her, pinching her swollen clit; she gave a suggestive moan of the sort which I was more than familiar; that resistive, defiant cry of irresistible desire that I had so often drawn from those parted lips. Had I been the first to treat her to the sensation?

Surely not. There are only so many things a man may claim of a woman before what he has taken is a crime. Still, as I pushed my fingers again and again within her, fucking her harder, faster, with each mindless thrust, I wondered, idly, on how many occasions had the girl climaxed before I first had her––surely, she had not done so by the hand of another, for how haltingly she took me now (though I would have the fingers of any man who dared touch her cunt besides I.) I imagine, like all little girls of her charming type––and some I had even had the pleasure to espy in the Garnier's dark shadows––she must have fucked herself at least once or twice with her curious, nervous fingers, moaning in surprise as she slipped inside herself… or maybe, maybe… after she got used to the sensation of being filled, and after the filling was not enough filling for her fat, hungry cunt… the sweet, dirty thing might have employed one of those pretty perfume bottles she decorated her dressing room with, those rose-colored and green glass cocks that littered her tables like salacious secrets––yes, I was sure of it––so often, she must have taken one from its counter, to grip in her hot fist and slip it beneath her skirts, folding spread knees to belly just as I gripped her now, God, yes––gliding the cool, ridged glass against her hot wet holes, teasing herself, parting her lips, closing her eyes––breaking the glass––no!––no––only cautiously fucking herself, sweetly fucking herself, adorably, perfectly, beautifully fucking herself, yes––a thousand fucks, a thousand thrusts into her little hole and maybe her bottom hole or her drooling mouth or all three, even three at once in all of her sweet spots at the very same time, fucking herself to the thought of that blonde chit––just like I was fucking her! Fucking herself like all women fucked themselves, all of them whores, like Sophia and Annalisa, and Margaret, and Christine––yes, fucking everyone else but poor ugly Erik, pitiful, pathetic Erik, distasteful, revolting Erik––powerful, deserving Erik! They owed him! All of them, stupid, useless women, foolish wives and queens and whores, soaking little green glass bottles and weak pink cocks instead of Erik's dying, dying, always-dying cock, until all their sugary juices poured down their white legs, and oh, fuck, just as I was sure Christine had done, stupid slut that she was, fuck, fucking herself and fucking everyone else and still not fucking Erik, not without fucking crying, no, fuck, not without fucking closing her fucking blue eyes––

" Erik! " she screamed, as I pounded in and out of her, snorting like an animal as I did it.

Ah. I forget myself. Christine was a virgin until only moments ago. I had broken her apart myself. The bottles had only ever been bottles, and I was clawing madly inside that virgin's bleeding cunt.

Besides, I knew exactly how many times my darling wife had come.

"Fuck, Erik–– " whimpered the girl, and I wondered if I had been speaking aloud. My pace began to slow, though my ragged breaths did not.

Still, my hesitation was a brief one, for now I began my task in earnest. My cock was still aching like a wound between my thighs with little hope for relief, and as I have said, I can easily become overzealous.

And it is very difficult to stop a thing, mid-thing, I fear, no matter what one knows is best.

Tearing from within her my two fingers with a repulsively delightful suckling sound, I dipped low to capture the sweet child by both ankles, which had until then been charmingly pressed against my groin, wriggling toes unknowingly teasing my aching shaft (in a pleasant but distracting occupation that Christine would surely have been disgusted by, should she have realized what she did) even as her spread knees flapped and flailed upon the table-top; now, spreading my reach wide, I pressed her legs high in the air above her in a single fist, then quickly drove them against her again, such that her trembling knees folded forward towards her quivery bare belly, and her red chin was caught between her two shapely calves. She grunted with surprise as her round bottom simply lifted clear off the sticking table-top; staring down upon her I slapped those delicious peach-cheeks, only once, ignoring her shriek (of veiled lust for me, no doubt!) simply because I could not resist its being there.

And why should I have to! The thought alone was enough to make me shudder; I was thankful that her little toes had ceased their charming assault on my sex, or I might have ended this new game already, even if I had to strangle the girl to do it!

"Erik, please," she whined from between her two calves, though even an idiot such as she must have seen the futility in her continued whimpering, for all the use it had ever done her before, "I do not want to die––"

It was a strange observation at that moment, admittedly, and duly it jarred me, though it accomplished very little in deterring me; I could not pause to dwell on it––my mind had, unfortunately, ceased to function with any sanity at all.

And so my attention was returned to the pretty meat beneath me. Between the smooth hills of her white rear and plump thighs again rose the fat mouth of Christine's raw little puss, that wet glide of her sex nestled between its two soft cushions. Sticky red dribbled still from her raw and ruined cunt-hole, making a mess of her soft curls and pink inner thighs and slipping into the softly hairy halidom of her virgin asshole; "no––" breathed the sweet thing, her slick lips sliding and spreading against each other like a mouth whispering the hated words itself, "no––no––don't––" as exhaling roughly I shifted the girls body this way and that by my hold on her ankles, angling all her sweet secret parts again to my gaze.

I would never be tired of that sublime view.

"Come now, darling girl," I said above her, my words taunting, cruel, "do not be so shy. You know how much your Erik adores this pretty cunt."

She gave me no reply but more of the same husky panting, breath steaming up between her fat calves; showing me her adorable talent for oppression once again, she collapsed into my hold and went slack against the table-top with a low groan.

Weakly, she appealed to me, "I never asked for what you gave––I never wanted––"

"You did not cry out for an Angel?" I teased her. "A holy, perfect Angel, to come to sweet Christine just as Gabriel once did to Mary, to fuck her and fill her with a sacred child, so she could be special too?"

"Erik, no!" she groaned, appalled by either my honesty or my blasphemy, or both, "Erik, I never wanted this! If I had known from the start–– "

"Then you should have paid more mind to your wishes," I spat, "and the little prayers you say in the dark, for one never knows who is listening at the door!"

"You have deceived me––"

But I silenced her, sick of her pleading, pressing her down harder at the ankles such that her thighs spread wider about her bottom and belly; with a grunt the bendy little thing's knees struck the table on either side of her wriggling tits, and her cunt mouth and little blonde asshole were again spread wide beneath my gaze. I slid my fingers from within her––ruddy, milky-white, thick and sticky as a sin––to trace a provocative circle around that new, soft hole.

I had not known the child's cheeks could go any redder: a considerable feat, as she was still covered in blood! She gazed up at me through her watery yellow eyelashes from between the spread of her bent legs. "Please," she breathed against her thigh, "do what you must––I know that you will do it all anyway––but please, Erik, not that. Take me to the bed, you like it on the bed! Oh, God, just not that! Do not shame me like this!"

"Christine, my dear," I chastised her, eyeing her little holes as they squinted up at me, "why this propriety? This pretty pink bottom and I are not strangers, she needs no cover from Erik's admiring gaze." She squealed as I poked the tip of my littlest finger into her dirty hole, and I delighted in feeling the muscle clench frantically, bewitchingly about my flesh; as she gave a hiccuping whine I slid the finger easily from her, adding, "no, no part of you is forbidden to me, not now. I have seen it all, tasted it all, and sampled all your secret parts! Does it make you feel squeamish to know that the holy Angel has touched you there? That your beloved Erik touches you now?" I treated myself to another slow dive into the girl's squirming ass, now with my longest finger; panting gently overtop her, I fucked her, slowly, sweetly, letting my free fingertips tease against her smooth taint and softly frizzy hair as she began again to chant her too-enticing chorus of no no no beneath me, no no no no––"such an ugly place, little wife… but Erik loves even the ugliest parts of you! "

And then, suddenly dissolving into a savage and irresistible mirth as I tore my buried finger from the child's ravished ass––my ass! Mine! fuck ––and slapping my stinking fingers across her ruddy rump-flesh, I shouted, "silly, stupid girl! It is hardly a shameful thing to shit!"

It really was a foul thing to say! My wife, as expected, did not grasp the humor in it.

But I amuse myself, as I always have. I must, with only myself for company! Laughing still and admittedly, somewhat crazily, I treated her fat, flailing bottom to another slap, then like kindling to the fire, another, harder and more vicious than the first; and by the third impassioned strike the girl's eyes appeared as if to roll back in her head but at least she was quiet, and blessedly unresistant. I struck her again, again, then again, whipping the backs of my fingers and soon my palm over the reddened and goose-fleshed skin, still sticky with my own seed that had spilled out from inside her and crusted against her ass-cheeks in streams of cream and ruddy-brown, as my every blow made her twist and whine; and still, in sweeping motions, in a steady rhythm I struck her rump and her cunt and the backs of her thighs, listening to the girls quiet grunts and breathless squeals beneath me. Soon Christine was crying out again, wailing with every strike, and yet I struck her and struck her again, again, oh God, again, castigating the helpless flesh beneath me, vanquishing it, wasting it for anyone other than I––until finally, panting, with all the mania of my want, my need, my gluttonous hunger, hard and hot in my voice, I raved above her, "little bitch, do you love me now?" and as soon as I had said it, I was disgusted with myself for asking.

I could have anticipated her reply.

"I––hate you," she grunted from between her knees, in the breathless intermissions between my frenzied slaps, "I hate––you––"

"Tsk tsk!" I began, with remarkable composure, with regards to the assault I still committed against her rump, and the foolish answer the girl had so-far given me, "hate is a very strong word, little wife, and much too hard for a pretty pink mouth such as your own! It is a far easier thing to love, Christine, despite your unwillingness to master the skill!" Now I gave her a final hit, a crown for all the others, knocking her nearly to her side as she coughed out a sob and I roared above her, "but you will learn it, where you have failed before!"

"I will never do such a thing and you know it well!" she rasped, recovering, as I eyed the shining red welt I had made of her rear with an angry excitement that pulsed and throbbed between my thighs, devouring, desperate, "I will tell you again! I do not love you, I do not love you! I have told you every day, every horrible night. How many times must I say it?" As she spoke, the little muscles of her sex moved and fluttered; with a sputtering gasp she went silent as I slid a finger between her hot folds, from end to end to quiet her.

"If not I," I hissed out, seeking her swollen clit and tracing a careful circle about it, "it must be the pretty Vicomte you love, who turns your head with a fantasy of escaping your lot, and does nothing to keep true to his word?" I eased two fingers again within her hot hole, as the flesh sucked and burbled at my enduring depredation, adding softly, cruelly, "shall I kill him, Christine?"

She opened her eyes in a panic, forcing between ragged breaths, "you promised, Erik! You will not harm him! Oh––everysick whim, I have done as you wished, willingly––and for what––"

" Willingly? " I echoed, suddenly driving myself within her with such vigor that the girl slid several inches down the table-top.

"Erik, by God, please!" she continued, with mounting desperation––and apparently unbothered by my considerate reminder of her appalling dishonesty––as she flailed at my hand now dragging her back towards me and pinning her once again, "you promised––you promised! You will not hurt him! He has done nothing wrong!"

"He loves you, and that is crime enough!" I roared. Sliding inside once more, I quickly began to beat within her a frantic rhythm, fucking her bent form with my fingers as if she werent a girl at all, and yet I was lost to it, mad with it, this cruel mockery of penetration, of consummation, as I growled above her, "if you did not insist upon loving him instead of I, Christine––your husband––he would have no need for fear! Promises, promises––so many damned promises ––you promised yourself to I, Christine, and have you kept that promise you made? It is you alone who has put him in danger, child, for your deceit, your lies, and for what? The Comte will never let him marry you. If you ever wanted to stay with that boy, you would have to kill the more important brother first. Are you prepared to do such a thing for love?" My panting breaths disfigured my words, and yet I could not quiet neither my speech nor what had become an admittedly-brutal ravage of the girl, even if the attack were with my hands and not my sex; now I added a third finger to my assault, knowing it was likely too much for her, knowing it was hurting her––and I did not want to hurt her, oh God, always, always hurting her––as pounding deep inside, I added in a growl, "or, little love, did you expect Erik to pave that way for you too?"

"Stop talking about him!" she moaned into her palm, tense and straining before her turned face, as to my great satisfaction, her other hand shot out to grip at the table's edge. Now she bucked against my fingers, smearing bloody wet against the table-top with her fat rump-cheeks and womanly thighs, moaning deliciously, "you must let it go! Please! I refused him––oh, oh my God, Erik–– I do not even see him! I do not love him!"

"You lie, but if you say so, why still refuse me!" I spat, my madness forever mounting, "you are not going to be so young and lovely forever, child––tell me who else wants you, tell me, where are your lines of respectable suitors? Do not be such a fool, Christine––they are all waiting in the grand foyer to eye la Sorelli's fine legs, the Comte and the little Comte, and all those other puffed-up cocks among them! And they will have yours too, any way you like, if you wish to be such a slut as Sorelli!"

She said nothing I could discern any meaning in or felt any great desire to hear, so I pulled my fingers from her to give her slobbering hole another slap, and as the child yelped and gave a strangled sob––oh, it was my name, she had been repeating it, over and over and over––I dove inside her again. "You may not love me but you will have me!" I panted, ignoring her whimpering pleas, "for what were your other options, Christine? Tell me, what were your grand plans? Do you think the boy would want you still, after he had you? And surely he would, had I not, sooner. I have done right by you, I pleased you–– I never harmed you! Not really, damn you! Can you not understand the danger you could have been in? Eleven days, Christine! Eleven days! Do you know how long that is for me? With you around? I have urges, sweet girl, a man's urges, but worse, darker––oh, God––Christine! I never even touched you!" I gave a heaving and mucilaginous grunt in an attempt to quiet my words like vomit, my words that always revealed too much, too much, too much––" fuck , fuck! Christine, not really! "

"How can you speak something so absurd! You lie to yourself as much as you do I!" she huffed, adding, "oh, save me, save me––"

"Stupid, ridiculous child! I am protecting you!" I managed, to an accompanying stream of spittle across her bare chest.

"I need to be protected from you!"

"You are a naive thing, Christine," I growled, "but all men are only base and filthy animals, even your Angel, and even your beautiful Prince. Especially him. You think Erik is a beast, when he does what he does in the dark? You don't know what that boy and his brother speak of you. What they would do to you if they had the chance. Worse than your Erik has ever done, I can assure you! Worse than anything Erik wants to do… and what must they think of you now, little girl? Gone in the dead of night––a mysterious benefactor––oh, you know, you know perfectly well and so do they! I have heard them in the shadows, Christine, whispering and planning how to have you themselves, oh, many times, countless times––such filthy things they want from you, innocent girl––and so much more than that! You are not the only prize they seek, Christine––I have seen them behind the closed doors of all the other pretty girl's rooms too! I have seen them lift their skirts!" This last was a lie, of course. Much of it was; it had to be. That dolt of a boy had proved nothing but honorable, to my great displeasure, for I, of course, had not. Still, I had seen his bastard of a brother bent over behind the Prima Ballerina in the Garnier's dark corners on more than one occasion, putting on such an indecent spectacle that I had nearly come to la Sorelli myself, despite her consistently sub-par dancing––for the girl's backstage performance was certainly riveting in a way her theatrics could never ascend to, moaning and begging and licking her fat lips as she took the limp-dicked Comte on her knees.

Ah, but the Comte could keep her. I was not sure if I could bear it if the Prima Ballerina did not behave the same with me as I had seen her do with him, and then––well, the Garnier would be out a dancer, at the very least.

But Christine had no need to know such things.

"Raoul loves me," she said, weakly.

"And you think I do not, Christine?" I countered. I had for a moment forgotten that I had three fingers buried inside of the girl; now I twisted the long bones around and dove them further within, wriggling them about and prodding at her insides, panting, "the boy wanted you as much as I wanted you, but for nothing more than this cunt! No man wants to marry a theatre trollop, sweet girl. No man such as that––if one might even call him one. He is a child, dear… but see, I would! I want you! I would take you as you are, used up, ugly and wasted, and I would love you for it, no matter how many cocks you had held between those sad lips…Christine, I would love you all the more for it! Him, see, he would abandon you just as soon as he had you, as soon as he sullied you… or had you off to his stately brother for a fuck!" I snorted with derision, knowing the girl would never fight him or him as she had done me, "or would you like that, Christine? What an honor, my dear! ah, aha, ahahaha––all the honorable de Chagny cocks in your tight little holes? You cry over Erik's big cock but you would take his in a second. Do you think about it, child, choking with the boy's aristocratic prick lodged in your throat, as his pretty yellow curls get stuck in your white teeth?" She stumbled over a reply that had little to do with civilized speech, some doltish and common insult I no longer have the ears for, like 'animal' or 'monster', etcetera, etcetera, and so I bent low to shout into her gaping face: "ah, whore, why speak when we have nothing useful to say?" to another chorus of her cretinous groaning, adding, with another ruthless, stabbing thrust within her, "you are much more pleasing, dear, when you are dead silent!"

"Don't!" she cried out, suddenly frantic, "I did what you wished of me! I let you––oh, not like this––"

My fingers were aching as my old joints complained at the assault and yet I only thrust inside the girl harder, rolling her ass high above my dining table by my steadily increasing pressure on her legs, as she wriggled like a worm on a hook. She had at some point taken to swatting at my hand around her ankles, panting as she curled the tight muscles of her trembling, naked abdomen to fold herself forward and reach up at me; instead I pressed her bottom lower, slipping my palm down the child's legs in one fluid motion to grasp her by her fleshy calves as she cried out and dropped, shallow-breathed, to the table with a sensuous slap.

"God forgive me," my little wife whined, bucking her hips into my fingers even as she fought to escape me. Her puss was drooling blood and milk––and likely piss, the filthy child––down her spread and swollen cunt-mouth and into the pale curls, tucked into the ruddy cleft of her rump; sliding a finger from within her, I traced that erotic torrent, to force the whole of my littlest finger again into her stinking asshole.

She squealed rather delightfully at that. "Please, Erik, by God, no!"

"Oh, grow up, Christine," I spat, "you are my damned wife, and you are lucky it's not my cock I stuff in your ass!"

Though I fully intended to do so, later. I had gone quite enchantingly insane, I fear. Only the Devil might know what I could do to the child in such a state.

Ah. But I knew full well, did I not?

Perhaps I am the Devil after all.

Now I fucked her dirty hole with my finger, quickly shoving two more from the same hand back into the girl's red cunt and thrusting my fist against her with such unrestrained power it was as if I were punching her there, again and again, between her thighs, and I will admit that in that state I greatly felt the girl deserved the abuse, and took great pleasure in administering it. For every strike Christine grunted raggedly, as if each were a new and unexpected shock, and soon I was working within her as hard and as fast as I could go––and then I was slowing, focusing entirely on the strike, the strike like a breath, like a heartbeat, steady, satisfying, then another, another––and in my hold on her calves I could feel her flailing legs go rigid; now they slowly folded towards her, touching knees to tits, rolling forward upon herself on the table-top with her bottom-bits entirely open to my desires. I found I hardly needed to hold the girl in that charming position at all; my hand was only a guide, for even as I struck her there, my darling Christine was doing exactly what I had directed her to!

She whimpered: "please––stop––Erik––hurts––"

"Yes, I'm sure it does!" I roared, entirely, entrancingly benumbed to her suffering, as I so often had become before, "you should learn from my Aminta, dear––she takes her pain in stride, like a true heroine! My Aminta knows what is good for her! She knows how to please a man!" Even I could hear the desperation like a stink in my words as I continued, begging her, "surrender, you damned whore! Are you nothing better? I chose you! I saved you! Enjoy it, Christine, you stupid child, enjoy me––I do not want to hurt you––I know you can! I have seen you! What is it that is different about my fingers, Erik's fingers, my fingers, inside!––you whore, you callow fucking slut––that you'll moan for this ugly mouth in the dark but not now? That you still will not take my cock? Enjoy it, Christine, like you want to––like you always do! Enjoy it, God damn you!"

"I will never!" she groaned, "what you do to me is a crime––oh God, I cannot help it––please, oh, mother, Mother Mary protect me–– "

"You will not say such things when you are moaning your fucking husband's name! Fuck you, Christine––I am not a damned rapist, child! I am not! You like it!" I could feel the shameful anguish building within me now, burbling up and pouring over like a flood, for I was lost, lost and damn us both if this continued; and I would surely crush her pelvis or kill her infant if I could not stop myself, and yet, spittle flew from my drooling mouth as I thrust against and inside her at an inhuman speed, feeling the flesh catch and tear on my dry fingers, the blood and slime splatter against my white knuckles, roaring, raving, "damn you, you useless cunt! You will come for Erik!"

"I cannot if you kill me!" she cried, and I knew she did not lie. "Erik, you are killing me!"

I tore my three fingers from within her, and released her calves that had been pinned by my palm; her legs dropped forward to the table-top like two delicious corpses, tumbling about my arched back as they fell. As soon as Christine's wriggly toes had touched the table the stupid girl began to scramble backward atop it––much like a pretty little crab, it occurred to me, like a pretty little red crab that had been carelessly stomped into the sand. With a groan I lunged forward and captured the child about the throat, just beneath her delicate chin, as she choked on a surprised cry and met my assuredly fiendish stare with her big wide wet blue eyes––just as she might if she were that crushed little crab, and I, the boot.

Now she sputtered into my hold, chanting without blinking, " hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus––"

"Don't you dare, Christine!" I roared at her, shaking her chin by my grasp about her throat, such that her matted curls swept clean the scum from my table-top and her blue eyes lolled in her head, "I will not hear filth! "

"–– pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death–– oh, God–– hail Mary, full of grace–– "

"Cease it, you damned child!" For these were the same hateful words the girl would utter into her wet palms these past eleven days, as I slid my fingers down her silken front to tear her garments from her, as I pushed her skirts up to her knees as she trembled in her chair by the fire, as she curled beneath the blankets with me standing sentinel at her dark bedside––damn her, I hated them! Pernicious phrases, tainted phrases! When all the girl needed to say, all she ever needed to say, was yes, yes, yes! ––now in my insanity I squeezed my fingers about her throat, too hard and harder still, until the objectionable phrases dissolved into gasping nonsense, then nothing at all; because fuck her desperate pleas to a God that did not exist! I was her husband! I, her God! And I would make the child see Heaven, as I had before! And then she would love me, love me, love me like the holy Angel I once was to her, love me like the God she cried to, every night on her aching knees, even as I dragged her to her feet to throw her atop my sorry mother's bed! Her fingers groped at my hand about her sputtering throat as I pushed between her scrambling legs and skewered the sweet thing upon my fingers once more, first two, now three, no, fuck her, fuck her and her sad, blue eyes, her sad eyes looking ever upward, ever up and never, never, fucking never down below! Four, I thrust into the girls bleeding cunt, four fingers tearing and moving and digging like burrowing creatures, like foul parasites working up inside of her, until I wasn't fucking the child at all, not one, but all of them, every one, every pink-lipped woman who cried no before I ever said my name, who screamed at the sight of my face, and sobbed at the touch of my flesh––for what are women but useless cunts! And who needs love from a cunt, for a cunt cannot love as I can love, as I deserve to be loved!––and now I was simply reaching, digging deep into the core of the cunt beneath me with all five long fingers, to christen the infant I had placed in its womb, to claim whatever from it I could possibly desire, to drag her soul from deep inside; and when I leveraged myself by an elbow against the tabletop, to force myself into it further it bucked against me, writhing and fighting––

––and oh, here was Christine, my darling wife Christine, as she wrenched herself from my hand about her throat to let out a piercing scream; a scream, breathless and prurient, dynamic and destroying––like the most terrible and sublime of melodies, more glorious than any high C I could have trained that throat to produce, far holier than any useless prayer, and more damning than any curse––

Always, always screaming.

She sucked in her breath, coughing, though her scream still echoed like a pestilence in my insensate ears; looking down upon her now I hated her, despised her. What good had I for another useless, screaming woman? Was my love not simple, desperate lust, as it were with all the rest? And had I not sated it inside her own red cunt?

I had taken from her all that I could, all that she was capable of giving; was I not finished with the girl?

Ah, but there was always more I could take; that last, penultimate theft. I laughed and flexed all the fingers of my right hand before me even as my left was still almost entirely swallowed up in the poor thing, but the girl had stilled for the moment. Glaring down upon her injured, whimpering form, I said to her, my voice strangely flat and lifeless, for even I could not convince myself in that moment that the words were true: "Christine, I love you very much."

She was still panting and staring down the shuddering drum of her naked chest, past her sweat-dampened belly and between her legs; she gave a provocative yelp as I made a quarter-turn within her. "You are sick," she forced out raggedly, as if the obvious fact had only just occurred to her, though the pain apparent in the perfect instrument of her siren's voice now delighted me to no end, "there is something wrong with you, something even fouler than your face, Erik––you must see that you are sick––"

"Sick?" I echoed, chewing at the malformed swell of my lip. "Do you think so, Christine? Ah. Perhaps it is true!" And then as the red-eyed thing attempted again to scream, I thrust an arm forward and caught her about the throat, because she must not endanger her voice, and frankly, I cared very little for her pitch!

Now I stretched my delirious fingers about the white, soft skin, no, I squeezed just enough to feel the subduing sweetness of my hand stopping her breath, the utter submission of a life beneath my hand, and then, as the child shook her head and pouted sweetly, begging, praying, not again to the Mother that had abandoned her, no no no, but to the only God that truly loved her, the only God who could ever protect her––no no no please Erik no––I dragged my stinking palm up along her chin, distorting her fat, broken lip––no no please no––and as she fought me, skewered with all my fingers in her dead cunt hole on one end I slid four more into the girl's sputtering mouth––no no no no Erik no God Erik no––I hooked her just behind her bloody bottom teeth, and there, like a fat Christmas goose I pinned her from inside to the table-top.

That shut her up nicely!

What Christine had always denied me, see, was to exist inside her––physically and spiritually. She could not surrender her flawed and false independence for subservience to me, loyalty to me and love, for me; and so she had shunned me, reviled me, and denied herself all the pleasures I alone could offer her. But I no longer sought her permission, I suppose. I had fluttered my questioning fingers over her fat tits and between her sweating thighs enough times to know the child's eternal answering––never entering, never penetrating, never taking, only begging, pleading, want me want me love me––and in return, only refusal, refusal, refusal––

Now, I took.

And I would take it all.

"Please," sputtered the skewered thing against my plunderous fingers, "Erik, please––" and her sorry pleas reminded me, oddly, with a nauseating turn of my stomach, of lovely Sophia's own soft utterances on the night the poor thing left me all alone, "you do not want me like this––I know, Erik, I know––you do not want to harm me. You want me alive! This is not what you want, Erik––please, let me go––"

"You do not care to know what Erik wants," I whispered, my focus unwavering, resolute; though she tried to shake her head in answer, I held her fast beneath me. "I want you how I may take you, my love," I told her, "I always have." And then, because I was sick of trying to be anyone else but myself for the child, I added, "and you, Christine… you will have no option but to take me as I come."

She sputtered: "but not like this––please––"

But I tightened my grasp about her jaw until she coughed and silenced, and her fingernails clawed at my inexorable grip, as I glared down upon her, "listen to me, and do as I say, or you will live to regret it––if you should live at all, my dear." I watched her perfect blue eyes widen and spill over with new water––interesting, how even eyes can scream––as I said to her, in a voice strangely calm and yet, not strange at all but familiar, comfortable, powerful, "shall we try again, Christine? You are going to enjoy this."

It was not a question.

Now in earnest, like a madman, as if the girl were some instrument of the Devil himself I played her. Entranced, I forced myself further inside my whimpering wife, letting the throbbing rhythm which overwhelmed my sex, my ears, set my cruel tempo––I drove all my long fingers deep, down into the girls hot hole, pushing my cold seed and her child's blood into her eager womb, feeling her life about my hands as she jerked and convulsed and kicked out beneath me. That too, was music, that, my pandemonius accompaniment, the repeating thud like a baseline of the girls sticking limbs meeting the tabletop, again and again––the arrhythmic cacophony of slaps and grunts and moans as her fleshy bottom and thighs and calves and shoulders and arms and sides and tits and cheeks and teeth, teeth as the child bit and snapped at my fingers, lovely white, healthy, perfect teeth as pale as my dead flesh between her snarling lips, and now her teeth were only another part of me, an extension of all that I am and all I could craft her into, simply, more fingers drawn out from the white insanity of my limb, and like a tree she was I and I was she, and here, here was the circle I crafted of her, from her to me to her and back again, for I was inside her, I was her, I was her voice and her heart and her cunt and her womb just as she was my hands and my eyes and my steadily beating heart and my long, low breaths and the hot heat, the life that throbbed and sang between my legs in foul, rapturous passions, for I wanted her and needed her, and this was love, love, love love love––

But again she broke free of my hold, which surprised me greatly at that moment, as I had forgotten where I was, and what I enacted upon the girl. And as I recoiled, glancing at the whimpering and bloody meat beneath me with some curiosity, the dear thing kicked me!

Which quickly struck me from my reverie.

"Easy, girl!" I roared, with all the mania of instinctual, animal aggression, and tore my sodden fingers from within her with a delectable pop . Panting, hacking, she tried for a second strike but I captured her frail ankle in my freshly-bloodied fist and twisted, crashing flesh and bone to table-top as her other foot flew up to drive against my chest. This, I admit, took me by surprise (for who would have guessed that the fragile thing had it in her!) and so, staggering backward, I did release her; and just as soon as I had, a chaos of little fingers and long nails were scrabbling at me, scratching and swatting, as she screamed and complained beneath me, like a rabid little animal in existential desperation.

It was darling, in a way.

But now was not the time for it! With the flat of my palm I struck out against her, catching the child squarely on her scrambling chest, and as such, knocked the frantic wind from within her; with a satisfying thunk , the dear thing fell again, panting, to the table-top. She did not move for some moments, but brought a hand to her throat and coughed doggedly off towards her side.

Distracted by the delectable odor of her, the sugary sweetness my dear Christine had left in a ruddy shimmer on my pale flesh, I ran my tongue up the sodden surface of my cold and clammy arm; I gathered the blood and wet-salt of her in the cup of my tongue before swallowing my prize to the pretty things apparent horror.

If she believed me a monster, let me be one! I wear the mantle with pride, for I have been little else, to any and all who have come before!

Glaring down upon her as she panted beneath, I brought three fingers to my wasted lips in a mime of a loud kiss, and raising my eyes to my black ceiling, I showed the girl how delicious I found her.

Then, though her mouth had fallen slackly open, I winked.

"You, you revolting fiend, you abhorrent demon!" She chastised me, breathlessly, both hands still fluttering uselessly about her throat as if she expected me to again capture her there. New purple had slowly discolored the cream of her skin on her neck and at the center of her heaving breast. "Rape me! Kill me! But I shall never be your damned plaything!" she screamed, baring her teeth such that I could not again stuff my fingers inside.

"You are my wife, are you not?" I replied in an undertone. It would appear that Christine had learned better than to attempt another escape; as such, she eyed me, panting, and spat a wad of foamy blood upon my table-top. I gave a long snort at her incivility. "That was disgusting," I told her, glancing at the dirty mess she had made, still steaming on the table. Wiping my still-wet lips on my wrist I added, silkily, "as my wife, you will have to learn better manners than that ."

"I hate you," she muttered, glaring. I am sick of the phrase.

"That may be so, Christine," I answered, quietly, my hands again at my groin. "Now open your legs. You know what I am going to do, and if you resist me again, I will only treat you in kind. Let it be the consummation of our vows. I shall hear your sweet noises as you feel me inside. All of me. You will enjoy it, and so shall I."

She did not do as I commanded. "Please, Erik," she breathed. She wiped at her spilled spit with her palm, and rubbed it clean in the blue silk mess of what remained of her skirts. " Please."

"Open them, Christine."

"You have done enough!" she panted, enticing, terrified, "do you mean to cleave me in two?"

"I will continue until the job is finished!" I spat, tearing at the fabric of my fly such that several buttons scattered across the table and onto the floor. "You shall fuck me, girl, and love it, and I shall know if you pretend, Christine. Remember, I know all the little noises you make when you come!"

All the drained blood seemed to flood again to her face at that.

"I am not capable of it, Erik, not like this! You cannot force it upon me when I am not able!"

"You never seem to want it all, infuriating thing, and yet, there she is––there you are––every night, every God-damned night, moaning and panting and clutching your pillow as Erik sucks your swollen puss beneath your nightgown! What is so different, really? Why do you complain? Christine––you were meant to love me for it!" I could feel the horror of my flesh distorting and collapsing as my jaw wagged low and drool sputtered from my parted lips. Panting, I let the sour liquid spill down my ruined chin to drip against the tabletop. "Damn you, damn you! Why do you not want me now?"

"Oh, Erik," she said raggedly, wet tits heaving wildly as she struggled to find each breath, "Erik, I have never wanted it––"

I snorted. "But you like it," I reminded her. "You would not react so if you did not!"

"I hate every moment of it, as much as I hate you."

I could not look at her. "Liar!" I roared, " liar! " as hot tears began to spill down the distorted hollows of my cheeks. I struck the table with a fist; she flinched.

And though she opened her mouth wide in a terrible scream, as my cock raged like another monster against my shaking thigh, it was only my fingers I shoved again inside her.

"Often we [...] feel the urge to protect and worship beautiful things or people. But it is dangerous folly to ignore the fact that often we also feel the urge to injure or destroy them. With ethics, as with psychology, you cannot just lop off the negative or contradictory impulses and hope for the best."

— Maggie Nelson, "The Art of Cruelty"

A/N: Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for the finale in Like Pulling Teeth: Part Three.

If you want to see Part Three, please leave a comment or review! It means a lot to me to hear what you think.

-Cat