“Keep your dick away from me, you fucking homo freak!” I raise the fist of my left hand and hit Mark as hard as I can, enjoying the crack of my knuckles against his skull. In an instant, he goes completely still, sagging against my grip on his hair. The knife is out of my pocket and in my hand before I even realize it. I've had fun trailing Mark, dragging out the satisfaction of release until the last moment, but I can't wait any longer or I'll lose my fucking mind.
The pocket knife doesn't look like much, a three and a quarter inch bit of wood, polished to perfection, a relic of my father's. It's the only item of his I have, and I use it ironically. While the man who donated little more to my existence than a bit of sperm and a heart full of pain used this knife to be a menace to society, a walking, talking jumble of garbage, I use it to dispatch his type. Each time the stainless steel blade meets flesh, I can feel his ghost crying in the afterlife.
My fingers tremble and then tighten, squeezing the blade until my knuckles threaten to burst from my flesh. I drop Mark to the floor with a thump and tuck the weapon away. Once again, I've lost myself to the animal inside. That can't happen – not for a minute, not even for a second. I almost killed Mark right here on Audra's floor, spilled gallons of his blood across her dark stained hardwood. I'm not myself today, not thinking like the Lucas Carter I've shaped and molded to perfection over the last decade.
The knife goes back in my pocket but not before Audra sees it.
“What are … you doing?” Her voice is still strained, drawn from her throat like broken glass. I don't turn around to look at her. What good will that do me? I don't like to come undone, and apparently this woman does that to me. How else can I explain my behavior at this moment? I'm as sloppy as Mark, the douche bag – and I don't use this term lightly – with the stained sweatshirt and the greasy facial hair. Again, I try to convince myself that this woman is not an appropriate client. I pull other dark souls apart at the seams, sew them back together with sinewy thread, not the other way around.
I keep my eyes on Mark's twitchy back. He'll be awake again soon, so it's best I move him now, find a quiet place for us to finish up. I won't torture him – I don't often have time for that. I'll slit his throat and feel his blood drain over my fingers and then I'll move on, the darkness will be pushed at bay for a short while, and I'll start tomorrow morning off with a rough job, visit some of the women I haven't seen in some time. I'm black as pitch inside my heart, but believe it or not, there are others whose breed of demon disturbs even me. At least I keep my pet on a leash.
“Assuaging my desires.” I don't know how else to put it. Frankly, I shouldn't even be putting it at all. I should be keeping my mouth shut, grabbing my new friend around the waist and cutting through empty backyards until I reach a silent spot to finish the deed, somewhere that won't alarm the police when they find the limp body of a useless sack of crap like Mark. Cops don't care what happens to rapists, drug addicts, and common criminals. Neither does the world at large, not for the most part. Apparently Audra Holiday doesn't fall into that category.
“Don't you dare lay a finger on that man.” My head whips up and around, my breath drawn from my lungs. My muscles tighten to a fine point, every inch of my body stretched and swollen and desperate to burst from my skin in a spray of blood and bones.
“What?” The word snaps off my tongue like a slap. Audra takes a step back, marking up her clean floor with grassy prints. She doesn't look scared of me though. I can't imagine that she should, with all of that wrathfulness whirling behind her dark green eyes. I start to pant, struggling with my own control as I watch Audra's unravel like thread.
“I said don't fucking touch him!” she screeches at me, taking a few steps back and drawing a knife from the block on her kitchen counter. “Get the hell out of my house and stay away from me.”
“But I'm exactly what you need,” I whisper, taking solace in her explosion. I don't let myself go like that – I won't. Audra's cheeks are red and her forehead is dotted with beads of sweat. I see her struggle to find some control and watch in morbid fascination as she loses it, throwing the knife as hard as she can. It hits the wall near the front door and sticks there, metal quivering with the force.
“I won't miss next time,” she promises, her nude dress riding all the way up, flashing me red curls and a brazen sense of nakedness, one that shows me that Audra doesn't care for her body the way she should. It doesn't matter who sees it, who touches it, who revels in the pleasure of it. It might seem hard to believe for some, but when you stop caring about your soul, it's simply common knowledge that the care of your body was gone long before that. It's the price of living with that pain and having no outlet for it. I shouldn't have Audra as a client; she won't be good for me. I could, however, be everything for her. My cock thickens in agreement, begging to differ, and I've long since trusted his judgment. I'm not like most men. A simple black lace teddy or a pair of tits doesn't do it for me. My dick is like an arrow, pointing me in the right direction.