Taboo Unchained(28)
“Where are we going?” Audra asks after awhile. I've been enjoying the silence, but I can tell it's killing her slowly. For the first five minutes, she sat stone still, eyes glazed over, like she was afraid of the dark. Then she started to fidget. I despise fidgeting, but I let it go, if only to study her movements. Audra swept her hands down her short dress, adjusted the fabric, touched her hair, wet her lips. And now she's making small talk. I mull over her words for a moment and decide it's a valid enough question to answer.
“To the gloriously bedizened abode of Mrs. Clarice Braxton.” I pause at a red light, the corner of my mouth rising in a smirk. Look at me, Lucas Carter, obeying all the simple, insignificant traffic laws. I never speed, never roll through a stop sign, never park on the wrong side of the street. The best way to commit felonies without being caught is to make sure you don't commit any misdemeanors along the way. It all goes back to my sense of balance, of keeping one part of my life squeaky clean while the other is ridiculously filthy. “She's a client of mine, one who happens to own almost sixty acres of forested land.”
Audra mulls this information over for a moment, turning her gaze out the front windshield. The street lights flicker across her face like stripes, highlighting the perfection of her skin¸ the lack of blemishes, the sharp angles of her cheeks.
“You trust her?” she asks, and I laugh. The second time tonight. Interesting. Audra flicks her gaze back to my face, eyes narrowing again. I don't bother to explain myself, but just the simple idea of putting my faith in Mrs. Braxton is amusing. That whore couldn't hold a secret in her loose little cunt if her life depended on it. I've already had more than a dozen social calls from her birdbrained friends, those despicable fucking socialites who think their shit smells like roses. As if I'd ever deign to pay any of them a visit. That's just one of the many reasons I'm considering cutting Clarice off. But after tonight. It has to be after tonight.
I think about having sex with her, and my stomach squirms. Honestly, if this whole charade hadn't happened, I probably would've cut the bitch off the next time she called. Clarice is getting one visit too many from my monster. Hmm.
“She has no idea what I'm planning on doing, and I intend to keep it that way.” I turn onto a suburban street not unlike my own. It's a few blocks from the ritzy neighborhood where Clarice lives, the perfect distance to determine her dedication to me. I park the car and pull out my phone. Mrs. Braxton answers on the second ring.
“Lucas,” she breathes, her voice so sticky sweet with desperation that my lip curls. Audra doesn't miss the expression, even as I wipe it from my face. “I did what you said. I turned off all the cameras and sent the staff home.” She pauses, and in her next sentence, I hear the disgust that was just on my own face mirrored in her words. “Mr. Braxton is spending the night with his paramour, so … ” Clarice trails off and sniffles dramatically. “It'll just be you and me.” I try not to shiver; I don't need Audra Holiday reading me like a goddamn book. As far as she's concerned, I love sliding my cock into Clarice's slick pussy. “Can I come home now? This party's winding down, and everyone else already has a partner.” I hear the loneliness in her voice, the echo of that blackness she carries deep, deep down.
“Not yet,” I tell her firmly, keeping my gaze away from Audra and out the driver's side window. The house nearest us already has its lights on, and I can see people bustling around behind the sheer curtains, shadows of a life I'll never live. I romanticize the idea of a normal life for a moment, thinking on what it would've been like if Aliyah had never died, if the monster had never been born, if my darkness had stayed shriveled in the glow of her beautiful light. “I have to prepare things first.” Clarice whimpers, and I can just imagine her Botox infused little lips jiggling with the sound. “If you step foot inside the gates before I give you the go-ahead, I'll leave and I won't come back. Do you hear me, you miserable, pathetic, little slut?” I let my true hatred for Clarice show in my voice. She loves it when I talk dirty to her, so it's more of a boon than an insult in her mind. I wonder how she'd feel if she knew I meant every word of it?
“Yes, Lucas,” she whispers, and I smile.
“Say a nasty word for me, Clarice,” I command, enjoying the sudden tension across the line. “The foulest, most disgusting thing you can think of.” I wait for a moment, savoring the silence between us. Clarice sniffles.
“Twat,” she gulps, and then hangs up the phone. I very nearly throw the damn thing out the window and say to hell with it all; I'll bury the bastard somewhere else. But there is nowhere else, and time is running out. Even as I glance out the front windshield, the sun is baring its orange head, peeping through the gray-blue clouds of night.