Page 60 of Reflex

-19-

4:36AM.Spook was adrift in a sea of memory.Shaking.Cold sweat lathered across his skin.Every detail as fresh as the moment in which it had existed.The swirl of pollen and aphids in the air, the coolness of the breeze whispering through leaves.The familiar crackle and crunch of the leaf litter.Earth and woody fragrances entwined with those of arousal.She was bent over the trunk of a tree that had fallen the previous autumn.Her floaty skirt sat tucked around her waist.The floral print panties she detested hugged her ankles.

“Please.”Bright hyacinth-blue eyes already red-ringed pleaded with him on a level her words couldn’t reach.They zapped into some centre in his brain that was linked to different pathways.Both her cheeks were tear-stained, her arse tanned sunburn red, but it wasn’t enough.It was never enough.

The switch was whippy.It whistled when it rent the air and always struck with a percussive clap.

“Please.”

“I’ve hurt you enough.”

Her hair rustled as it slid across her clothing.“Please, Jan.”

She always needed more, and he was nothing if not a giver.

I’m not this person anymore.

He tried to tear himself free of the anchor holding him in the forest, but no matter which way he turned, he always wound up back in the same place.Her cheeks criss-crossed by his handiwork and the pink lips of her pussy shiny with dew.Sometimes her eyes were wide, beseeching.Others, they’d be glassy.Her soul sunken into a trance.

Then he’d be sitting there alone, leaves in his hair, and rends in his clothing, staring in frozen bewilderment at the same patch of silvered bark worn smooth, polished so, by the continual rub of her clothing.

He tasted blood in his mouth.The stench of forest mulch wouldn’t leave his nose.That same dirt sat embedded beneath what remained of his fingernails.

You fucking beast.

You filthy piece of shit.

The gun.The bite of the wire digging into his wrists.Was it him screaming?He could never be sure.

Then came the nausea, and pain so intense it swallowed sound.

Spook opened his eyes, but the darkness of unfamiliar surroundings remained suffocating.Disorientated, he stayed curled into a comma.Hot breath hit the back of his neck.

Scream, bastard.I want to hear exactly how much it hurts.

I’m going to tear you open.

Scream.

Louder.

Fucking scream.

Sounds were impossible.He couldn’t drag enough air into his lungs.Every breath shot fireworks across his ribs.His heart pounded out an increasingly erratic rhythm.

Something hot and silky touched him.

“No!”

A knife, long and sharp, spun before him like a coin.

“No.”

He pushed.Shoved it away, even though the blade sliced his fingers open.

“Breathe.

“You’re scaring me.Please breathe.”