Page 6 of The Last Feast

MIRROR, MIRROR

AUGUSTE

Soft grunting reaches my ears before my eyes open and a gentle breeze blows over my naked body.

Goosebumps erupt on my exposed back, but I can’t focus on why I’m suddenly bare when my limbs don’t move as I try to sit up.

Thick electrical wire covered in harsh plastic is wrapped around each of my wrists, stretching them out at my sides.

My ankles are the same, so I’m forced to remain on my knees with my head bowed.

I lift my head from the faux foliage and try to pull myself free, but the restraints squeak as my arms are stretched further, to the point my shoulders burn.

Yet it’s the grunting that makes my heart race when the same happens to my ankles.

Grunting I recognize.

Grunting that belongs to me.

I blink into harsh lights glaring back at me, only to see my own bound body from different angles in the mirrors positioned within the maze, small pools of red collecting on the floor to my right.

Squinting into the large spotlight shining through the mirror, I try to make sense of the crisscrossed wires around the trees to find a weak point and free myself.

The audio of my grunting gets louder.

I attempt to calm my breathing at the fucked up way I’ve been bound.

It’s like a distorted depiction of the Vitruvian Man.

My thighs are slightly apart, knees digging into the harsh ground, my ankles pulled apart to form a V, my arms doing the same as my chest heaves from the strain of remaining balanced on my knees.

Then, she steps out of the fake tress to stand in front of me.

The skull painted on her face has smudged at the corners near her temples, and pride swells in my chest. I did that. I made this powerful fucking woman sweat.

She slowly lifts her foot and presses her sneaker to my cheek, pushing me down to the mossy ground as the grunting gets closer.

The additional pressure makes me groan as my spine is forced to curve due to the way she has me bound.

But she changes the pressure, allowing me to lift my head so I’m staring into the mirror behind the little red drops on the floor.

Leaning into me, she holds my phone in front of my face and asks, “Would your mommy and daddy like to see what you do?”

Fuck!

There, on the screen of my phone, is a video I thought I deleted, one I never should have made in the first place.

My disinterest in humanity never stops me from needing to come, but I dislike their touch.

I never trust it, and I spiral into thoughts about how the other person feels, whether they know I hate them.

Anything. Everything other than being present in the moment.

When I found the fetish site, it felt like it was safer for me to explore without the restricting band of other people’s thoughts. Well, I initially thought it was a fetish site. It’s not—it’s gore.

Genital mutilation specifically.

And there I am, stroking my dick, spitting into my fist, fucking it harder as I watch the clip of someone bound to a metal slab like those found in the morgue while another person in black leather overalls grabs their dick.

The scalpel smoothly parts their skin, the blade thicker than the standard issue medical equipment.

Sharper too, because the white flesh in the cut doesn’t turn red straight away, not until they effortlessly glide the scalpel around their length.

Then crimson liquid fills the cut like a Rutschbahn that the church would have at their funfairs in the summer.

And there I am, grunting louder, my fist moving faster at the sight of it.

“It was a mistake,” I mumble.

She tuts and drags her foot down my cheek before pressing her foot flat to my chest. Gravity pulls me forward, making it easier for her to leave an imprint of the diamond-patterned sole on my skin as she taunts, “That wasn’t my question, was it?

” She clicks the screen, and the arrow to share the video with my entire contact list is right in front of her finger.

“No,” I rush out in a panic. “They don’t know. No one does. Only you.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Only me?” She cocks her head to the side. “Like I’m all-seeing so you can’t hide anything from me?”

I nod—or try to, despite the way my neck aches.

She lowers to her haunches and sets my phone aside without unveiling my shame. There’s wonder in her emerald eyes as she gently traces the shoe print she left on my chest.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Make me feel alive again, and I’ll think about telling you.

” She straightens then follows the snaking wires around my arm to my hand, where they’re weaved through my fingers.

“Or don’t, and I’ll send that video to everyone so they know just how much of a filthy little deviant you are, sweet thief. ”

“I can’t fuck you if I’m tied up.” I shake my arms in the restraints, demonstrating I can barely move.

Her laugh is the softest thing I’ve ever heard.

It lights up her eyes more than the large workers’ lights warming my side, shining directly on the angled mirror to illuminate the space.

A shiver works up my spine as she lifts the hunting knife from the floor then traces a zig-zag pattern on my hand.

I lift my head, silently begging her to move closer.

The cool metal slowly moves over my wrist then my forearm as she softly says, “I don’t need you to fuck me.”

My heart sinks to my stomach.

“What I need, sweet thief,” she says slowly, matching the cadence of her voice to the swirls she traces over my elbow, “is to fuck you. We’re all going to watch you break.”

That haunting face paint becomes even more sinister as she looks up then around the space.

“In the mirrors?” I moan as she increases the pressure of the knife.

“Hmm, at first.”

“Why me?” I ask, genuinely curious. It’s a question I’ve had about a lot of things in my life, but with this woman, there’s no bitterness coating my tongue. I want to know why someone who is clearly powerful enough to take what she wants has decided I’m worthy of her time.

It makes her still with the knife on my bicep, ready to part the muscle. There’s a small crease between her brows, revealing pink-tinged skin in the cracking paint.

“Why have you chosen me?” I repeat.

“I didn’t.” She begins moving again. “You did because you stole from me, and I really dislike people touching what belongs to me.”

“You took my phone, so we’re even.”

“Nope.” She slowly shakes her head then focuses on my naked body.

A lump builds in my throat the longer she stares at me. I’m exposed again, all of me on display with no power to stop her from doing whatever she wants. There aren’t any thoughts regarding my harrowing childhood memories; instead, I want her to like what she sees.

Little drops of red-tinged water continue falling, melting into the twigs and moss as she combs her fingers through my hair. Her voice is lower as she asks, “What was your life like, rich boy?”

Is all this because she wants money?

I gained access to my inheritance when I was twelve, and my parents shipped me off to boarding school.

They didn’t want to deal with me, so I paid my tuition.

I paid the nanny who cared for me when the school was closed.

I paid for everything, even before I got my own accounts.

Paying for my freedom isn’t the issue—the most glaring problem I have is that I’m disappointed greed is her motivation.

“Boring,” I answer, pulling her attention away from my nakedness. “It was boring. Money just gives you a comfortable place to cry, nothing more.”

“And do you?” Dropping to her knees, she holds my jaw. “Do you cry?”

“Not anymore.”

“Would you cry for your audience?” She gestures to my reflections staring back at us. Then, slowly, painstakingly slowly, she leans forward to lick my cheek. “Or would you prefer to scream for your sins?”

She’s insane, totally insane. Maybe I am too, though, because the thought of her punishing me makes my dick twitch. I test her, wanting her to prove she’s here for me. “Do you want money?”

She gives one slow shake of her head then drops her hold on my jaw.

Moving carefully, she keeps the blade on my skin as she crawls under me then pushes her feet between my knees.

My thighs are starting to go numb from being forced to kneel, and the wires tighten around my ankles when she pushes my thighs further apart.

The twigs get caught in her hair, along with the crispy leaves, while my bowing body casts her in shadows, but she relaxes into the ground with her face beneath mine and her knife on my shoulder.

Fuck, she’s beautifully haunting.

My first assessment was right—she’s decay. Right now, splayed out beneath me with her face painted as a skull down to her neck, she looks like I’ve dug through dirt to uncover her. There’s no headstone for me to gain insight into her life, so I beg, “Tell me your name.”

“Guess.” She smiles.

“Sasha?” I offer a strong name.

“Nope. Hana. You nearly got it right.”

The softness doesn’t suit her. It’s a name that has many meanings—flowers, grace, radiance, hope, all the things people use to disguise things or tell themselves it’s better than it is.

Lies. But she’s not hiding her true nature.

She’s at home in the decay covering her features, more at home than I am in my skin.

She threads her arm around me as she shyly whispers, “What’s your name?”

I have the opportunity to reinvent myself, to become more than Auguste Aigner, so I do. I become better, a man without history as I say, “Jamie Adams.”

It’s an old professor’s name who would invite the nanny and me to his house for Christmas when he found out we were staying in Switzerland for the break, one who was confident in who he was, accomplished, with enough family around him that there was no awkward silence around the dinner table when he brought home two strangers.

The strain of lifting my head takes its toll, and I can’t keep it up any longer when she wraps both arms around my waist. It falls, landing beside her, and I groan at the change in position.

Her cunt is right fucking there. My dick yearns to be inside her, yet the fear still swirls in the back of my mind.

But she soothes me as she gently strokes my back with her knife-bearing hand, cooing, “It’s okay to cry.”

Is she a spirit? Some ghoul following me through life so she understands why I’m afraid? Or have all my carefully constructed walls crumbled in front of these mirrors because they were only an illusion to begin with?

No tears fall from my eyes. No horrifying memories play on repeat as I push my nose into her neck, hugging her with the only free parts of my body. It’s as though the bindings on my limbs have successfully restrained the thoughts that plague me.

There’s no Father holding my hand as he leads me into his office while the other children practice their hymns.

There’s no image of my parents’ disgust when I cried to them, admitting everything that happened while they were embarrassed at my emotional outburst.

“Admit your sins,” Hana whispers as she tests my spine with the tips of her nimble fingers. “I’m a merciful God, unlike the false one you know. I’ll cleanse you.”

I believe her as the drips from the leaking roof get faster.

So, I do what she wants. I admit the darkest desire that’s tormented me. “I want to know what it’s like to take a life.”