Page 6 of The Man Upstairs

Fuck earning credit by being a hero this evening. I’d been a villain a thousand times over back at home, and I deserved to pay for it. I deserved this.

I pictured Katreya’s face, tears streaming. I remembered Grace and Ryan’s horror as they realised what a perverted piece of shit their father was. I imagined Michael’s shock as he realised what a fuck up his brother had become. My mother-in-law, Kristelle, cursing my name.

I recalled the sneers of my disgusted co-workers. I even pictured our stuck-up neighbours, shaking their heads and judging what a lowlife human being I was.

Then I remembered the beauty of our perfect Oxford life, and our Labrador Barney in the garden. Our oak floors, and our huge windows. Our kids running through the living room when they were young. When they still believed in their father.

My hand was trembling, but I kept hold of the pills. I closed my eyes, and tried to accept my fate, tried to push myself to follow through with it, tried to FUCKING DO IT. But I couldn’t. I was still too selfish to rid the world of my betrayals. Still clinging on to the ridiculous notion that one day, somehow, people would find a way to forgive me. But they wouldn’t. I knew that. They’d told me so with crystal clarity.

I threw the fistful of pills across the room. Damn my pitiful existence.

I scraped my nails across my scalp, tugging at my grown-out hair. I silent screamed and rocked back and forth, hating myself for the fucked-up filth I’d been addicted to behind my family’s back. I should have stood right up and made my confession over Sunday roast, or sought out therapy from a professional who wasn’t my fucking wife.

I, Julian Lockley, am a sex addict, who likes the degradation of barely legal girls.

And the saddest thing of all? The God’s honest truth of it?

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change my ways. I wouldn’t have the restraint to keep my filthy dick in my pants and not take advantage of the pretty little princesses on offer.

Even now, on the edge of taking my life, I could feel my sexuality bubbling away under the surface, like a pool of filth brought back to life.

Rosie.

The girl downstairs.

I’d seen her plenty of times in passing. I’d written her off as out of bounds and kept the hell away. I’d ignored the nervous drop of her eyes whenever I crossed her path, and the way she pushed her glasses up her cute little nose. I could live with that.

I could handle how pretty she looked on her way back from her late shifts at the pizza house after college. I could pretend I wasn’t watching her when I lit up a cigarette at the window as she was due home.

But it was different now. I’d seen her in a whole new light tonight. Far more up close and personal.

Desperate. Innocent.

Tiny hands to convey her thanks. A soft voice with a nervousthank you.Trembling fingers as she checked her mother was ok.

I imagined my cock buried deep inside her innocence. Imagined scrawling filth all over her pale skin. Imagined punishing her with slaps to her little tits. Imagined her begging for more.

Fuck it. I deserved a beating, just like the assailant I’d wrestled away.

At least I could thank God for the fact that my perversions were all of legal age or older. I’d seen a celebratory 18thbirthday banner on Rosie’s apartment door less than three weeks after I’d moved in here. I’d frowned at the misfortune of its grotty wooden backdrop – such a contrast against the pretty glitter pink.

Fucking hell, I couldn’t help myself, even now, after playing the hero. I loosened my belt and took my cock in my hand, wondering just how sweetly a girl like her would show her gratitude. Would she hitch up her legs and offer her tender little pussy, subject to every fucked-up demand I made?

My addiction would never fade. That much was clear.

I worked my dick in a frenzy, a high after a low, milking myself to a stream of seedy thoughts, imagining her naked, whimpering at my touch, begging for more, until I blew my fucking load all over the coffee table, managing to aim away from my pill stash, at least. My fountain pen was splattered with cum when I was done, though. So much for the farewell letters.

I lit up a cigarette at the window in the aftermath, staring out at the Crenham Drive misery as my senses came back to me. Both a blessing and a curse.

I knew myself well enough to know where my needs would lead when it came to an innocent little damsel in distress, and I couldn’t let it happen. Not here, in the hovel I’d run to. Rosie didn’t deserve any more demons, so mine had to be tamed, until I had the courage to kill them along with myself.

So, I gave myself one final demand to hold true to.

Whatever I did, whatever I thought, no matter how fucking hard my dick got, it wouldn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. THAT’S what I promised myself.

No matter what, I would stay the fuck away from the girl downstairs.

Chapter Three