Page 25 of Deliver us from Evil

When she starts begging me to stop, that’s when I finally feel a climax approaching. But it’s taking too long. Like it’s just out of grasp.

I pull back, wanting to kiss her again. Trying to capture something of the first time.

But the face of the thing I’m fucking is no longer recognizable. It’s still wearing the dress, but that fabric is dirty and tattered. Stained with blood and cum. The dead thing’s face is bloated, disfigured, brutally beaten.

I push away from it, a yell trapped in my throat, but my dick is stuck inside it.

It’s drawing me closer, arms wrapped impossibly tight around the back of my neck.

Its puffy, scarlet lips pucker as if for a kiss.

And then I’m coming inside it. The feeling goes on and on. Hollowing me out. As if it’s not my semen I’m ejaculating, but my organs, and my bones, and my flesh.

My eyes fly open, a horrified gasp rattling deep in my throat. I push into a sit, clamping a hand over my heart. I can feel every violent clang as it pumps adrenaline through my body.

Jesus.

My body’s stuck in some corporeal purgatory between Heaven and Hell. A dopey kind of pleasure from coming on the sheets. A skin-crawling horror from the memory of what I was pumping my load into.

I stumble out of bed, and almost crash into a wall I didn’t expect so nearby.

Where the fuck am I?

Then my memories settle, and I’m back in the real world.

A motel room on I-44. I’d driven until I’d almost fallen asleep at the wheel, and then driven some more until I’d found a place to crash that wasn’t my rental car.

Christ, that dream. No, that fuckingnightmare.

I hit the shower before I’m even fully awake, washing the dream and the feel of decaying pussy off my dick.

I almost puke, but manage to choke it back.

Then I slide down the wall and curl into a ball, letting the water pound onto the top of my head until my scalp feels numb.

UntilIfeel numb.

It doesn’t help. Body and mind, they’re two separate entities.

I wish I could say the basement taught me that, but it didn’t.Mom and Dadtaught me that. They believed in discipline of the corporal kind. Mom with a wooden spoon. Dad with his belt.

I wasn’t a naughty kid, I was high maintenance. Energetic. And they weren’t. When I wanted to play outdoors—they’d lock me in my room. I’d end up breaking things, and then they’d punish me, even though I knew they had enough money to replace anything I ruined.

Only years later did I figure out what the problem was. I had ADHD, and an acute sensitivity to sugar. They never gave a shit about what I ate in between meals. And they’d keep replacing the sweets I ate. Maybe they didn’t realize how bad it was. How it fueled my disobedience.

I guess I’m partly to blame. I never told them how it made my muscles ache and ache and ache until I had to move. Until I ran in circles, or threw things, or bounced on the bed.

My young body was a hormonal shit show. I either couldn’t concentrate, or couldn’t stop concentrating. Especially when I was punished. It was like my brain was working overtime to figure out why I invited pain.

It took years for me to realize that I was inviting it because Ididenjoy it to some extent.

Because when they punished me, I wouldn’t let any of the hurt show. And that confused them. And their confusion brought me great, great pleasure.

I was in my teens before I figured out that I enjoyed causing people harm. Emotional or physical, it didn’t matter. They were the same thing, but experienced at different frequencies.

Cass was the one responsible for that epiphany. He claims the basement turned him into a masochist but I think he was probably one all along.

When Cass ran out of dope or wanted something different to tune out to, he sought out pain. The others refused to give it to him. Me too, at first. Back then, my brothers didn’t know about my darker side. The side that wanted to inflict suffering.

---