Page 42 of Fear No Hell
Calliope
Three nights later, I stand in the basement, my eyes locked on the puny man hanging in front of me.
The rain chains are looped into a modified hogtie that anchors his elbows to his back while leaving his hands free.
Months in chains with only IV fluids and nutrients given through the feeding tube in his stomach have rendered Arthur’s body gaunt and grotesque.
Any evidence of excess from his luxurious lifestyle and slowing metabolism is gone now.
His bones jut through pale skin bearing more stitches than Frankenstein’s monster.
The black threads holding him together don’t hide the scars that have formed across most of his body or the looseness of the skin hanging around muscle long wasted, thanks to lack of movement and nutrients.
His stomach has shrunk to the point where, if I wanted to, I could count every one of his ribs.
The only thing keeping him alive now is Sam's healing and his own despicable hatred and disdain for me and Sam.
I see it every day when I stand where I am now: his eyes, sunk deep into the hollows that have formed beneath them, still burning with self-righteous anger.
My methods have changed in the last several weeks.
The fire that raged in me originally has tapered off into simmering loathing.
I’ve broken his body in all recoverable ways; now I want to break his mind.
When the fighting spirit vanishes from his eyes, only then will I give him the sweet release of death.
That day hasn’t come. Not yet, especially not if the way he’s spitting vitriol at me is any indication. When he finally takes a breath, his tongue flicking lizard-like over his chapped lips, I simply ask, “Are you done?” as I drop into the chair next to me.
“Am I—” His face turns puce, unintelligible sputters emerging from his mouth.
“You ungrateful bitch! If it hadn’t been for me, you would have kept roaming around the world, wasting your inspiration on half-wits who could barely string three words together.
I brought fame back to the muses! Me and my fucking work! ”
“With your one book of note.” I tap a claw against my thigh, the runes tattooed along its length exposed by my cut-off jean shorts.
“Your other bestsellers were mediocre cash-grabs. You, me, and the critics all knew it. Wonder if it had anything to do with the way that you were getting your inspiration.”
His hands twitch where they’re pressed against his sides.
“But now is as good a time as any to inspire you.” In spite of days spent like this, a flicker of hope flares to life in his eyes.
As if he thinks I’m going to set him free to write down the ideas that flood his brain.
I snuff out that hope happily when I start speaking again, my tone pitched low in the soothing voice I use to breathe ideas to life in creative brains, and he’s still enchained.
He howls, deep and angry, as I say, “Arthur, write your truth,” before exhaling deeply, releasing intention in a whirl of scarlet magic—so different from the iridescent blue my sorcery used to take—that surrounds him.
It crawls along his limbs, streaking over his torso, forcing its way up his nose and into his mouth.
My willful sharing of inspiration with him now is just as forceful as his stealing of inspiration used to be then.
The magic throttles his angry sounds, constricting his throat until the only thing emerging is angry cries. As the inspiration settles into his body, its scarlet hue settling over his irises, his crying dies away, replaced by fervor. “I-I-I have an idea,” he calls. “I need-I need to write it down!”
I sit in silence. At this point, my presence exacerbates the inspiration more than any words I can say.
“Please!” His hands curl into fists. “It’s such an incredible story—” A hiccup of fear escapes him.
I stay right where I am, right leg crossed over my left knee, tracing the gorgeous patterns of my tattoos. I still have no idea where they came from or why they’re here; all I know is that more appear and the ones already on my skin darken further every time Sam and I are intimate.
“I-I-I—” Arthur trails off, his cloudy eyes darting around the room desperately before they drop to his bare, skeletal chest. The same way they always do.
His torso, sides, and back bear deep grooves; each one is his own work, borne out by a fanatical need to scrawl out the words churning through his brain.
Same as every other night, he snivels as his broken nails dig into his flesh in short, frustrated strokes.
Blood wells up as he carves up and around blindly, each pass a failed attempt to form a word while still being enough to purge the thought from his mind before another takes its place.
His snivels transform into sobs as the hours pass, his sides stained crimson from the epic tale he’s inscribing in his flesh.
Each of Arthur’s weeping gasps send another flare of desire through me, especially with the slow drag of my claws over my tattoos. His agony is a symphony for the lusty thoughts racing through my brain.
I’m more sated now than I ever have been before, even though Sam and I haven’t had sex yet.
My sweet, virginal Sam is slightly less virginal now, though, and eager to have his hands on me anytime he’s home.
I spend more time snuggled in his lap than I do sitting on the furniture, and I know the taste of him: the spearmint of his mouth.
The dark sweetness of his skin. The salty thickness of his cum intermingled with the sweat of my body. And every single bit of him is mine.
Although the day I spent in his bed a month ago marked a massive shift for us, things changed even more a few days ago when he allowed me to help him prepare for bed as he dozed off.
The tears he shed wrecked me, each one a reminder of how cruel the world can be and the pain it can inflict so very easily on those it decides are other.
Sam and I may be something unrecognizable to the rest of the world, but, to each other, we are everything.
We belong to each other. That bone-deep possessiveness, the knowledge that he is mine and I’m his, has settled deep in my psyche, new and not wholly unexpected.
While I did my best to hide the intensity of my possessiveness from Sam, we don’t have secrets.
Except for one.
It’s the only secret I’ve managed to hide from him and, honestly, one of the primary reasons we haven’t had sex yet: I’m scared of what might happen to him if we do. More so than I'm scared of having sex for the first time since the attic.
There’s a darkness I don’t understand unfurling in me.
One that demands revenge and sex, justice and retribution.
The way I see the world is changing, my understanding of good and evil transforming.
Making me realize the concepts of right and wrong are more important than some conceptualization of all-good, all-righteous deities.
When I think of the Olympians who threw me and my sisters away to Mount Helikon, my family who abandoned me to Arthur, I know they were wrong to do so.
Horrible for what they’ve done. And that makes me furious, triggering a sense of justice I didn’t realize I had.
Maybe it’s hubris to think I know better than the Olympians.
If it is, though, then let me be proud. It’s difficult to care when they are part of the very problem they profess to control.
More than my fear of infecting Sam with whatever is impacting me is my fear of my nightly dreams coming true.
The ones filled with a daimonic looking Sam, beautiful in his darkness, who fucks me hard and fast, who fills me with his cum while calling me his goddess.
Every night when I fall asleep, he’s there waiting for me, ebony eyes burning and shadows surrounding him.
I don't understand what these dreams mean, and that terrifies me.
What if I ruin him?
I frown, drawn out of my thoughts as I realize the basement has gone quiet.
From the hollowness of the air around me and the quiet light of dawn making its way through the curtains of the window across the basement, it has been that way for a while.
I blink up at Arthur, only to realize he fainted.
Weak bastard. Even in unconsciousness, though, his lips are still moving, shaping out the story I inspired.
I step towards his limp body and inhale deeply.
Scarlet tendrils rip from his body, streaking across the basement and settling over my tattoos where they dissipate into the dark lines.
With a sigh, I seize the duck tape from the table next to me, rip off a fresh line, and slap it over Arthur’s now-still lips.
I’m tired. The realization smashes into me like a freight train. So exhausted. I need to sleep.
I’m barely able to stay awake long enough to stagger up the stairs to my bedroom, toss off my clothes and pull on one of Sam’s old t-shirts, and crawl into my bed. The sheets still smell of me and Sam, our two scents interwoven like home and love and everything that’s good about my long life.
I can’t stop the thoughtful smile that overtakes my face as Sam's face floats in front of my eyes. When I doze off, it's to thoughts of him, which flit away into dreams filled with blood and sex and magic.