Page 199 of The Catalyst

There was no “but” whenever Beth said those three little words to me. Only three people ever existed who didn’t tack on a “but” at the end of those three words. One is dead, and the other is biologically obligated to have that unconditional love for me. Not Beth, though. She could walk away from me at any fucking time or just stop feeling that way about me. Nothing is stopping her, not even the semen demon she’s carrying.

There was a time when someone might’ve had that unconditional affection for me, but I never let her use that word. My relationship with Aimee O’Reilly has always been complicated as fuck– it still is. My feelings for her are simply a mixture of nostalgia, shame, annoyance and when I’m desperate enough, a dash of desire. That fleeting emotion is not enough to erase the rest.

Shame is something that makes me very uncomfortable. I probably wouldn’t feel it at all if I hadn’t broken her heart the night her mother whisked her away to be raped and abused on a nightly basis.

Her words from that tape haunt me, specifically the part when Beth asked her if her pedophile stepdad was raping her.

I’ve only ever consented to one man, and it sure as fuck wasn’t him.

Me.

I was seventeen at the time, and she was a thirteen-year-old girl. At the time, it wasn’t illegal, but the idea of touching someone her age made me sick to my stomach. I’ve always been protective of little kids, probably because of the trauma from my dad’s death, and that’s exactly what she was. A fucking kid.

I liked Aimee, but she was completely fucking innocent. I knew she wanted me. She made it perfectly fucking clear, and the fact that her parents and my mom wanted me to marry her when she turned eighteen just seemed to fuel the fire in her heart. So, I made an ass out of myself. I told her that I would never want her, that she was too young for me, and that I didn’t even fucking want her around. I told her that she never took the hint that I wanted to be alone.

I’d lay out in the grass in the dead of night, and most of the time, Aimee joined me. At first, I stayed silent, and she talked as we stared at the stars. I didn’t fucking talk, not to anyone. I hadn’t spoken in years, not since I was released from Arlene Institute, and there we were. A ten-year-old mute and a six-year-old social butterfly staring at the stars.

She told me so many things, some of which I was sure was because I didn’t talk to anyone, but after that first time, I expected her to stay away. Who wants to hang out with someone who never adds to the conversation, right?

Wrong.

She came back every fucking night, and she always had more to say. She even taught me some of the constellations and how they correlated with zodiac signs and shit like that, things that no elementary school kid should know. But she did. She had a bright future ahead of her, and so much as a minimal friendship with the likes of me would’ve destroyed it.

So, that fateful night when we laid under the stars for the thousandth time, and she crawled on top of me and kissed me like her life depended on it, I shoved her off of me, and for the first time in over a decade, I spoke. I tried to be gentle, letting her down by simply saying “no,” but that wasn’t enough. She tried to kiss me again and fucking grabbed my dick through my pants, begging me to take her virginity and be with her.

The situation would've been comical if I didn’t know her. She should’ve known I would turn her down, but she was so shocked by me refusing her. So she kept trying until I exploded and screamed at her.

I guess not only guys struggle to take no for an answer.

She ran away crying, much like she did when I came face to face with her again on my front porch twelve years later.

I guess some things never change.

Like her pressuring me to have sex with her.

That’s what really happened that day when Beth walked in on us fucking on her mother’s kitchen table. All I did was go there to check on her. I wasn’t going to apologize for being an ass because I didn’t do a single fucking thing wrong. No, I just wanted to make sure she was okay since no one had heard a thing from her since the night Beth and I dealt with the pedophile. I was worried, and with what she had been through, I had reasons to be. I was barely in the door for a few seconds before she fucking kissed me. I thought we were done with this tango, but I was wrong, obviously.

Nigel told me that Aimee had issues with Beth, which was fucking bullshit since Beth helped deal with those who hurt Aimee. When he told me the issues came when he let it slip that me and Beth fucked, I almost laughed, literally. Aimee had no claim on me, and yet she thought I belonged to her, so much so that she started drama with Beth. That’s exactly what Aimee is. Drama. Always has been. Always will be.

When she kissed me, I pushed her away…again, but this time, she had an argument prepared. She was no longer a thirteen-year-old girl, which was true. Aimee was hot as fuck, and she knew it.

She added that sex could simply just be that, another fact, and that I was wound tighter than a constrictor. She said she’d let me use her any way I wanted, and she wouldn’t even be offended if I pictured she was someone else.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I was juggling my feelings concerning my crazy girl, I wouldn’t have been so weak as to fall victim to Aimee’s seduction.

So, I fucked Aimee. I ripped her clothes off, threw her on the kitchen table, and gave her the rough fucking she was so desperate for. The entire time Aimee was screaming for me, the only thing I could think about was how Beth looked under me, in my bed, the way she begged me for more. I pictured her naked on the grass in the middle of the fog as I rammed my cock balls deep in her.I remembered the way she looked on her knees with my cock down her throat, tears and blood spilling down her face.

I couldn’t fucking picture anyone else, not even the woman I was fucking. Every time I tried to focus on Aimee, Beth wormed her way back in.

I knew only a few seconds in it didn’t matter who was below me. They would always morph into my crazy girl.

Luckily, I don’t have to deal with that fucking torture because she’s right here with me, and she’s all mine. Mine to hold. Mine to love. Mine tobreed.

Fuck yes, that thought has been rolling around in my mind. I know she’s already pregnant with my little hellspawn, and that barely quells the biological urge to knock her up again. I want to keep her constantly pregnant, and the act of getting there will be hot as fuck. The only issue with that plan is that she’s going to marry Michael Gray as soon as our son is born. That marriage will only last for twelve years, and at that point, she’ll only be thirty. I’ll still be able to knock her up again, even if that means tampering with her birth control.

She’d probably throw a fit over that once she’s pregnant with my kid again, but really, what could she expect? I’ve killed people. She knows this. Why would anything I do surprise her?

This whole thing with us was never intentional, yet some part of me can recognize the genius plan this is for the powers at be.

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