Page 82 of Degradation

“You’re a psycho.” I spit back. “And absolute psycho.”

His lip curls, he casts his eyes over me and then draws the blade further across my flesh.

It hurts. Every cut, every inch, every bit of me that he slices into.

I throw my head back, I shut my eyes, I hiss and bite my tongue so hard because I don’t want him to know that he’s winning. But he is, isn’t he? He and Gunther too. Both of them, all of them, every guard in this Palace, every man my husband gifts me to. Every single one of them has beaten me.

“You bleed so prettily.” He says, sounding like he’s actually high. Like seeing all of this, all my blood is physically affecting his brainwaves.

My tears start falling heavier. I can’t seem to stop them, and they slide down my cheeks, down onto my chest, mixing with the blood, watering it down.

“So fucking beautiful.” Devin says, staring at me. “You look angelic, like you’ve just fallen from the heights of heaven, and I’m the devil come to claim you.”

I gulp. I can well believe that. He is a devil. He’s a lunatic too. He’s sick and twisted, and just as fucked up as my husband – no, he’s even worse. Because my husband’s barbarity doesn’t feel like this, doesn’t hurt like this.

Gunther is a brute, but Devin, Devin’s madness is calculated, it’s precise.

Devin forces another shameful orgasm from me before he undoes the bindings, and I dare to hope that this is it. That he’s done with me. Afterall, he’s humiliated me, fucked me, cut me up, what more could there be left?

He carries my body because I’m too weak, too limp to stand, and he lets me flop against him.

A vision seems to appear before me. At first, I think it’s Christ himself, that he’s there, carrying me, fresh from his crucifixion, that he’s granting me mercy, granting me my salvation.

Only, with horror, I realise that I’m in front of a mirror, that I’m staring at myself.

It’s not a vision at all. It’s me. I’m the one that is bleeding.

I choke on my breath, my heart feels like it actually stops beating. What has he done to me? What the fuck is it?

He raises a finger tracing the swirls and I hiss at the sharp pain.

“I made you prettier.” He whispers into my ear. “I turned you into a real masterpiece.”

A masterpiece? I stare at myself, at my flesh. He’s carved into it all, he’s cut some sort of pattern, something that streaks across my entirety.

I whimper, realising that this, this is permanent. What he’s done will always be here.

“Now, every time someone looks at you, every time you look at yourself too, you’ll see me, you’ll see my claim. My ownership.”

What the fuck? My legs give way, they buckle beneath me and his arms quickly catch my weight.

“I’m not yours.” I spit. “I never have been. And I never want to be. You bastards might take my body but none of you have a claim on my soul.”

His hand wraps around my throat, he tightens it just enough that my eyes bulge.

“Don’t kid yourself, Paitlyn. You soul was mine from the moment you first saw me. That’s why you follow me around, that’s why your eyes always find mine, why you search me out, why you hunger for me, hunger for my pain, my torment.”

“Like fuck I do.” I snarl.

What madness is he saying? What lies has he convinced himself of? I don’t want him. I don’t want any of them. “You can burn in hell, all of you.” I half-scream.

He groans as if I’ve said something sexy, something tempting. “Hell is where I belong.” He agrees. “And you will be there beside me, burning in our damnation.”

Devin

She’s a vision. A masterpiece I can’t tear my eyes from.

I hold her bleeding body against mine and I carry her back to the bed. She’s lost her fight now, lost all that angry defiance. I can’t tell if I prefer her like this, broken and exhausted because of the hurt I’ve caused, or when she’s flinging insults, when she’s trying to beat me. As if she could.