Experiment in Terror 09 Dust to Dust(41)

I only had one thing.

I had to hurt him. Or I was going to die at his hand.

While he grinned down at me, his eyes darker than sin and filled with hate I didn’t even know existed, I gathered all my strength and plowed my head up into his nose.

The headbutt was enough to surprise him and in that moment, I punched with him right fist into his head. He yelped and then I jerked my knee toward his balls.

That was the final straw. He released me with an anguished cry and I was able to roll out from under him. I immediately got to my feet and ran over to the desk and picked up the heaviest object I could find, a lamp.

“Jesus, Perry,” he said, trying to get to his knees with his eyes pinched shut, coughing up a lung. I could barely breathe myself, my windpipe feeling crushed and bruised, so I had no sympathy if I ruined his balls. “If you don’t like it rough, just say so.”

I adjusted my grip on the lamp, holding it out from me like a weapon, breathing heavily in an attempt to get all the lost air back in my lungs.

He got to his feet and, without looking at me, hobbled over to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, leaving me alone in the room to try and figure out what had happened.

It seemed like him now, but that had not been him. I knew Dex, knew him with my heart and soul and that had not been him inside of me. It had not been his tongue, it not been his touch. I looked into his eyes and I didn’t sense his beautiful soul. I sensed nothingness, foul and black and endless, a gateway to a world I prayed I’d never see.

It hadn’t been in my head. That had all been real.

I gingerly put the lamp back and grabbed my room key off of the desk. I waited by the bathroom door for a second and heard the toilet flush. I wanted to be out of here before he came back out.

I quickly left the room and ran up the stairs straight to Maximus’s. I pounded on the door and when Maximus answered it, his eyes nearly fell out of his head.

“Dear Lord, Perry, what the hell happened to you?” he asked and I pushed past him into the room, tears stinging my eyes. I tried to hold it together but as soon as the door closed, I started crying. Maximus immediately put his arms around me, holding me for a minute before he stepped back to inspect me with a horrified eye.

“What happened?” he asked again. “Where is Dex? Is he okay?”

My lips twisted into a grimace. “I don’t know. I kneed him in the balls pretty hard.”

He raised a brow. “Did Dex do this to you?”

“He did. But it wasn’t him. I know it wasn’t.” I sniffed and walked over to the mirror. I gasped at the sight of my reflection staring back. My throat was already showing pinkish purple finger marks on it, my neck was bleeding from several wounds and the blood had smeared along my shoulders and collarbone. There was no way Dex could have done any of this.

I eyed Maximus in the mirror.

“I see,” he said. “Where is he now?”

“He’s in the bathroom. He seemed to be himself again but he never really looked at me. I don’t know what he thinks just happened. God, I hope he doesn’t, he’s going to hate himself.”

“How did it start?” he asked.

I gave him a look. “Well, when a man and a woman love each other…”

“That’s not funny,” he said. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” I said, turning around to face him. “I don’t know what happened. As soon as we were in the room, he started being really rough with me, more so than usual. Talking dirtier than usual. He was like an animal. Way more so than normal.” I took in a deep breath. I couldn’t get the fear out of me. I was so afraid he was going to really hurt me, kill me.

A strange look passed over his face, like he was considering something for the first time. “Perry,” he said carefully, “this is going to sound odd, but do you remember when we…um, you and I…had…”

“Sex?”

He nodded. “Yeah. That. It kind of got weird there for a moment, do you remember?”

“Kind of,” I said, not really wanting to remember that shit.

“Well what do you remember?”

“Oh come on, you want details of what it was like to have sex with you?”

“I promise I’m going somewhere with this,” he said, raising his palms to me. “You started to act in a similar way. Violent. Not yourself. Do you remember doing that and if you do, what was going through your head at the time?”

I couldn’t really remember. I’d put that whole time period under the rug. But when I really thought about it, I recalled feeling like this incredible power had taken over me, like I’d suddenly become blood thirsty. Like I hated Maximus and wanted to hurt him. I relished the hate, the desire to destroy and inflict pain. It was me and not me at the same time and if Maximus hadn’t stopped me, I didn’t know what would have happened.