Aero
Pain is necessary.
Pain tells me I’m alive and on the same earth as her.
We need to be in the same existence. Me and my Briony.
Blood drips from my head as my hair clings to my forehead. My left eye is swollen shut, and my lip is most definitely split open. Crusted blood flushes with the fresh blood trickling down my chin. They chained my wrists behind me to a stripper pole through the back of the chair I’m sitting in, and I quickly realize that I’m in the exhibition room, facing a stage.
I’m at Nox’s club.
The light above me shines brightly in its singularity, pointing directly down onto the mess that I am. No shirt, exposing the entirety of my scars they’ve created, bloodied pants, and a face that’s contorted beyond recognition cloaks me now. Everything he ever wanted.
The guard nearby circles with laughter exuding from him, enjoying the superiority of standing above one of the most ruthless and lethal killers he’s more than likely ever met. He thinks he won, his arrogance rotting from the smug grin he wears on his overweight face, not knowing I’ve willingly strapped myself down before him.
He walks near the table of items they’ve set up to the left of me, and I squint through my only available eye, noticing the bottle of wine he grasps by the neck. Someone behind me pulls the top of my hair tightly before I’m jarred back abruptly. My neck bends at an awkward angle, twisting my face up into the light, the shadow of a man above me coming into view.
“Ah, my sweet, sweet boy.” He clicks his tongue. “It’s been many years since we’ve been acquainted.” He bends down toward the side of my head, whispering into my ear in a tone that makes my spine shiver with broken memories of my tortured past. “I’ve missed our lessons dearly.”
Bishop Caldwell.
They’ve brought me into the lion’s den, filled with nothing but the demons of my past.
I pull against my restraints, fighting the hold on my hair as I give everything I have to be released from his grasp, but every part of my body aches as I attempt to twist and turn. Ribs are broken and tendons are torn in the cage I’ve willingly thrown myself in.
Sacrifices often need to be made for the better of the people. So here I am, offering myself up in the hopes that she’ll find that strength I’ve nourished and fostered to save the man that demands her endlessly.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he begins again, circling to the front of me as the guard behind me grips the top of my hair, holding me in place again. “I’m delighted to have learned you’ve lost the faith. That you’ve fallen far away from Christ and the sanctity of your religion.”
I grit through the pain and glare at him with the only sliver of vision I have left.
He hasn’t changed. He’s aged, that much is certain, evident in the purplish divots beneath his eyes and the loose skin that hangs beneath his chin. His unsightly warts have grown on his chin and neck, but he still wears that same haunting face of kindness, those rosy, round cheeks, cloaked in artificial goodness.
“Makes your resurrection all the more entertaining,” he says with a grim smile.
He passes the wine bottle to the guard above me, giving him a light nod.
“The blood of Christ,” he commences, raising his fingers to bless me with the sign of the cross.
The guard holds my head back before he places a white cloth over my face. Without warning, the wine pours over me, filling my mouth and nose with the bitter, astringent taste. Alcohol burns my various cuts as I cough and gag against the slow-pouring liquid, fighting my restraints to no avail.
I inhale some of it as they intended, and my throat constricts, coughing it out of my lungs. The bottle finally runs out, and before I can take a much-needed breath, the cloth is torn from my face and I feel the sharp blunt force of the bottle crack against my head.
Laughter and conversation fill the space again as the darkness slowly retreats from my clouded vision. More voices jump out around me, the ear-splitting ringing in my head slowly subsiding.
I feel as if I’m drowning above ground with the tightening of pain in my chest and the burning in my lungs. Every inhale has a sharp, piercing pain hitting my sides. The smell of iron fills my nostrils, replacing the tart wine, before I realize it’s my own blood I’m inhaling.
They broke my nose, among other things, while I was blacked out. My wrist lay limp in the cuffs, the feeling gone from my fingers entirely. I must’ve been out for a while.
“Thought we lost you there for a second,” the boisterous voice of the one and only Alastor Abbott fills my ears. He slaps my shoulder abruptly, sending a sharp, shooting pain down to my arm. “We need to see the despair in your dead eyes in order for this to work. Happy to see you’re back just in time for your surprise.”
I groan, but the belt in my mouth they’ve tied around the back of my head prevents me from retorting with the rage my soul aches to release.
Saint sits on the edge of the couch adjacent to me, his eyes wandering over even though he appears as if he can barely stomach my appearance. He may not be as vicious as the likes of his father, Alastor, or even Bishop Caldwell, but his reluctance to stand up for what’s right was always his downfall.
If he’s here, then she can’t be too far.
Bishop Caldwell walks from the table, carrying something in his hands.
I attempt to blink the blood out of my only usable eye.
“And if one is ill, let him call The Elders of the church, and let them pray over him and anoint him with the oil in the name of Our Lord,” he professes, stirring the familiar glass vessel in his hand with a white cloth wrapped around it. “And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven…”
It’s the sanctum chrism. The consecrated oil used for sacraments and ecclesiastical functions. But the glass is filled with condensation, meaning only one thing.
“That’s what you are, right, son? Ill?” He nods to the man behind me, and the belt in my mouth loosens before being tossed to the floor beneath us.
Alastor chuckles with Callum to the left of me, enjoying the sick and twisted torture as I rotate my painful jaw.
Caldwell bends down before me, still donning his cassock over his disgustingly rounded belly, expecting some sort of answer.
“Are you ill, my child?”
The endearment floods my system with chaos and an inherent need for destruction as my blood runs hot through my veins.
“Don’t be afraid to answer. The Lord is here.” He smiles, peering around the room. “He’s here to hear your pleas for forgiveness. To hear you beg for your mercy at my hand.”
Memories tear through me of the boy who was endlessly subjected to this torment for years. The boy who fought tirelessly on his own to avenge my mother and hers. The boy who’s allowed this man to continuously take and take. My freedom. My pleasure. My hopes for a future that contained any version of love.
“I’m sicker than I’ve ever been,” I gloat with my steady glare before spitting in his face.
He reaches for the handkerchief that Callum hands him, disappointment littering his smug, round face. My hard gaze connects with Saint’s on the couch, and I hold on to it for a moment before the burning of my flesh begins.
A strangled moan leaves my throat and I grit my teeth to ward off the pain. Hot, searing oil slowly slides its way down my torso, burning a trail of flesh as it settles. The urge to wipe it off comes over me, to escape the pain, but my mind fights the overwhelming pain signals.
Breathe through your nose.
See her gentle and caring eyes before you.
Smell the crisp scent of apple in her luscious, freshly washed hair.
Feel her velvety, warm flesh beneath your fingertips as they graze her curves.
Hear her soft, gentle hums of relaxation.
Another pour of the oil graces my chest, and my body tenses before running through my meditative process for survival yet again.
I hear the door open, then slowly creak closed to the left of me as the shuffling footsteps of another man enter the room.
“They’re both still there,” Nox mutters to someone behind me.
“Good,” Cal replies. “Shouldn’t be much longer here.”
I feel another pour of the hot oil tear into my flesh, and a frustrated sigh leaves Caldwell’s chest.
“Come on now, son. Cry out for me like you used to. Stop holding it all in.” His free hand sweeps some of my hair off my forehead before he cups my cheek, bending forward until we’re face to face. “I used to get so hard for those sweet little whimpers,” he whispers in a disturbingly calm tone.
He shakes his head, disappointed by my lack of agony, as he continues trailing the oil until it meets the tops of my thighs. My arms pull against the cuffs, and I breathe roughly through my nose, my body quivering from the unrelenting torment. The heat scalds as it rests into the fabric of my dark denim, and I witness the faint steam billowing from my lap, cementing the pain.
Her. Think of her.
Her delicate fingers safely trailing my abdomen with their gentle touch. Safe.
Once the glass is emptied and poured over me, he places it and the cloth on the table. His eyes sear my body harder than the oil as he takes his hand and rubs himself over the cassock.
“I think he’s ready for his lap dance now, don’t you?” Callum asks, a smirk on his face as he eyes my burnt, oil-painted thighs. “I think we all are.” He eyes the rest of the men.
Bishop Caldwell takes a seat in a leather recliner to the right of me, his eyes burning holes through me while he continues his demented self-pleasure.
Callum stands to the right of me with his arms folded, and Alastor takes a seat next to Saint. The lights to the main stage turn on, an amber glow highlighting the stripper pole on the platform before us.
“You’ll get a kick out of this, son.” Callum nods to Saint before his eyes fall upon the stage in line with everyone else.
“Ah, yes. My sweet, sweet Brandi,” Alastor hums in approval.
“Fan favorite,” Callum laughs beside me. “Let’s taunt this motherfucker, shall we?” He smiles at the men. “Dangle this last piece of pussy in front of his face before we fuck her shit loose.”
I blink more blood out of my only working eye when I see Brandi’s silhouette on the stage before us.
It appears she’s dressed in her normal attire to appease them. The short, green and black plaid skirt, the white tied-up top, the stockings clipped, the oversized crucifix dangling from her neck, and the short black, chin-length wig to set it all off.
Her back is facing us as the bass of the music pounds through the small exhibition space. A sexy, slow-paced song begins as Brandi grips the top of the pole behind her. She slithers her body before the pole, seemingly making love to the air around her as she continues her enticing tease, her body rolling with an intoxicating energy.
The men are fixated on her, fallen into her trance. A tiger beneath the facade of a kitten. But I’ve never known Brandi to hold a beat, only take cash and allow wicked men to continue indulging in their sins.
I study her movements carefully, watching her sink lower and lower on the pole, her legs parting until her thighs are spread wide and she’s balancing on her platform heels. She arches her back, squatting down on her heels before straightening her knees slowly until she’s folded over. Gripping the pole behind her, she slides up the length of the shiny metal, the hem of her skirt lifting to expose the edge of her round, perfectly toned ass with the pole directly between her cheeks.
The men groan and chuckle with delight when she slowly steps around the pole in her heels, prowling like a majestic lioness, stealthy by nature.
She’s staring down at the stage as she circles; the short hair of her black wig covering her face.
She won’t look up.
“Take his ass to church, Brandi!” one guard hollers.
The music explodes into a wild erotic beat just in time for her to rest her chin on her shoulder, half of her face hidden behind the pole.
One piercing blue eye and an entire galaxy of untold rage.
She peers back at me with the most seductive, most possessively savage stare.
Within that one look, my entire world shifts on its axis.
I’m frozen. Breathless and completely in awe as I gaze back into the eyes of my existence.
That one look says it all.
We’re like us.
