Chapter 9

In a disgusting act of attempted penance, I attend the burial. His parents are dead inside. I can see it on their faces.

I can’t stay. It’s too much. So I head to a local park and find a man walking his dog. I suck him off in the woods while his dog, tied to a tree, watches.

Then there’s another news story.

After Samuel’s funeral and burial, his parents went home, locked the door, each swallowed a handful of painkillers, then went into their only son’s now empty bedroom, and laid down in each other’s arms waiting for sweet release from their pain.

Death came for them, but I’m sure that the sweet release never did.

Why can’t I end it?

Why must I spend my existence in this blood sport of trapping and destroying men. I destroy everyone I touch and they, in turn – inadvertently – destroy everyone they touch.

I’m evil.

I’m a horrid, evil creature, hell-bent on destruction simply so that I can exist another couple of hate-filled days until I need to destroy again.

It’s ending now.

This has to stop. Is this what junkies call “rock bottom?”

I don’t know and I don’t care.

I go out and steal the love – destroy the love – of three men just to give myself the strength to do what needs to be done. After I come down from the high just enough to think coherently, I go to the local pop-up Halloween store and buy a “sexy policewoman” costume.

But I only want the handcuffs.

Racing home – racing against the better judgment that is lurking in the back of my mind – I cuff myself to a pipe in the basement and throw the little key across the room. As I listen to it lightly ping across the concrete floor, I instantly regret that decision.

It’s too late now.

But it’s what I needed to do.

Now, I just wait.

I sit on the floor and wait for death.

I think about my first boyfriend. That bastard.

Maybe facing death – real death – clears the mind? Maybe the first time that I’ve truly feared anything dredges up long-lost memories. I’m getting flashes, then suddenly I can see it all so clearly in my mind’s eye. Vivid. Unimpeded by the distorting gauze of time.

He whispered sweet vows and pledges into my ear and I lapped them up like a starving stray dog, punctuating each one with a light kiss, until I could take no more.

I reached for his cock. It was wonderful in my hand. I could feel the warm beat of his heart urging me forward. Begging me. I bent down to take him into my mouth as he asked and in a voice both gentle and full of power, he beseeched me. “Just take a taste, Tartura. Just a tiny drop on your tongue.”

He knew that once he was able to whet my appetite, just this one time, I would become the insatiable monster that I am now.

The tip of my tongue touched the tip of his dick and I felt the electricity shoot through my body.