Page 10 of Little Author

I couldn’t come.

Not really.

I’d tried everything.

My fingers, toys that stopped fucking working, porn that turned my stomach, and dominant men who begged for safewords like cowards while kissing my scars like apologies.

My body was loyal.

It only answered to him now, to the idea of him, to the ache he left behind, like a sickness I never wanted to recover from.

I stood in front of the mirror and slapped my thighs until they stung, I bit my lip until it bled, and screamed into pillows. But it was never enough. The fire fizzled.

The pleasure felt…“Borrowed.”

Every orgasm was a counterfeit.

I wanted dirt, guilt…grave-deep wrong.

I need to go back.

I dressed in silence, threw on a black dress, no bra, nothing underneath, and a coat big enough to hide what I didn’t want the world to see, yet loose enough to fall off if someone tugged it hard enough.

I walked to the alley.

Three blocks.

The city lights hummed with the same indifference they always had, but something in the air felt sharp.

Like a warning I didn’t want to hear.

Or maybe I did.

I passed the place where the blood had dried into the pavement, just a few feet from the fountain where she had been found—a dark marbled stain between the finality of her life and the graffiti-choked brick wall. The scent was gone, but the memory lived in the bricks.

I stood in the spot where he must’ve stood. I could hear the water running down the drain, the same drain where his button had been.

My body felt electric, just knowing he was free, somewhere out there. The pressure was instant, as if someone were shoving my heart down my spine.

I reached between my legs.

No buildup. No teasing.

Just need.

Fingers sliding over soaked skin, my forehead pressed to the wall, my breath caught in my throat, short, sharp, and sinful. My hips rocked slowly and desperately. My body knew this place. It welcomed the depravity.

I imagined him.

Not touching me.

Watching me.

Not helping.

Claiming.

I bit my lip, moaned low, and whispered his name like it had weight.

“Roux…”

Something in the dark shifted.

A presence.

No sound. No footsteps.

Just a cold trickle down my spine. I didn’t stop.

I wanted to be caught.

I needed that thrill.

Whether it was the nosy ass copper or him.

I wanted him to see me like this. See what he did to me.

I pressed two fingers inside my cunt, pounding in and out rough and fast, panting against the brick of the rough-textured fountain, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes as I imagined his voice. It was low and cruel and close to my ear.

“So fucking desperate, aren’t you. Look at you. So wet and ready for me to destroy you. Come for me, Elodie.”

“Yes.” I whimpered to my fantasy, the tears falling faster as I pressed my back into the fountain. He had her like this. She was sitting on the side, her legs open for him just like this.

Did she want him, too?

“Tell me your secrets,” I said on a sigh, rubbing my clit, and falling into the fountain.

The coppers had drained the water, the concrete bit into my exposed thighs, and blood welled as the scrape bit into my skin.

Would he like this? Would he like me bleeding for him?

I wondered if the girls he killed bled for him. There was nothing at the scene that could place him there, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t taste them. They didn’t have penetrative marks, but he could have destroyed their body in pleasure without ever fucking them.

What would he do to me?

I came hard, practically screaming into the foggy night.

I was shaking, knees buckling. My hands were wet, thighs trembling, shame curling around my throat like a collar I craved.

I didn’t open my eyes for a long time, living in the world I created where he whispered praise and licked the blood from my wound like he earned it.

But then I heard a deep, gravelly tone catch in the wind and flow right to me.

Rough, demanding, and proud.

“Mmm. That’s right. Sing for me.”