Stalk Her

She gasps and stumbles backwards, pulling it from her throat and dropping it to the floor.

I know she’s going to be mad when she comes back from the darkness where the needle will take her, but I can handle her beatings, it’s her boyfriends touch I can’t recover from.

I take off running past the bad man and up the stairs.

My heartbeat pounding in my chest. Sweat drips over my forehead as my hands shake knowing he’s coming for me.

I hear him give chase, his voice growling, and heavy feet sounding on the stairs as he seeks me out.

I wait, breathing as silently as possible so he doesn’t know where I am hiding.

Da dum…da dum…da dum…

When I see the tip of his shoe hit the last step I swallow my fear and swing out with all my might from behind the corridor wall, my miniature bat colliding with his face.

He falls backwards, hands reaching out to grip the wall, but he can’t, and it’s too late. He’s falling.

Da dum…da dum…da dum…

The thud as he hits each step makes my heart jump and my stomach dance with butterflies.

A weird crunch sounds as he lands at the bottom. His neck is at an odd angle, eyes frozen open, looking up at me.

He won’t be hurting me anymore.

“Ewick?” Ebony’s little voice calls to me from her doorway.

Dropping the bat I go scoop her up and take her back to bed, slipping in with her and singing her a lullaby.

Present.

“So I said it’s too soon, but …” she’s still waffling on when I come back to the present.

It’s amazing how little authorities give a shit when a drug addict calls to say she passed out and woke up to her boyfriend having fallen down the stairs.

Ruled accidental death.

No one gives a fuck about the shit stains of our society dying.

“Maggie, did you want something? I’m a busy man.” I grunt, placing the stress ball down and picking up a piece of blank paper, pretending to read it.

“Well, we have lunch with our friends Abigail and Rodney. They want to discuss wedding plans as they don’t want to clash with ours.”

I fucking hate those stuck up cunts, and we have no date set for a wedding, she just thinks she can force one out of me if company is there.

They were her friends, not mine.

I didn’t have friends. Including Lee who kept offering to buy me out of the business I started.

“I can’t today. I need to go check on my sister, she’s had an argument with Richard again.”

My sister was a sucker for pain; she married an abusive piece of shit that likes to think that since the ring was put on her finger two years ago, he can put his hands on her in any form that takes his fancy.

Our mother’s abuse had two very different effects on our psyches.

Ebony is the tormented, where I’m more the tormenter.

“She can’t just call you every time things don’t go her way,” Maggie scoffs, planting her skinny ass in the seat opposite my desk.

Her shiny, blonde hair is straightened to perfection, resting over the tits I bought her for her birthday.

Manicured nails stroke non-existent lint from her skirt as she attempts to cross her legs in a skirt so tight it’s like an extra layer of skin.

Unlike Helen’s, it’s designed to fit that way.

Maggie likes to be looked at, admired, desired.

It’s part of why I chose her for the role of girlfriend.

She’s so self absorbed and in love with herself she doesn’t need love from me.

I only keep her around because it’s nice to have the illusion of normality.

“I know, she knew what he was like when she married him, right?” I state, pushing the button on the intercom.

“Janet, you can take the rest of the afternoon off,” I tell my secretary.

“Oh, are you sure, Mr. Ross?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replies with a confused murmur.

I watch through the glass panel as she grabs her purse and hurries from her office that’s more a foyer for mine than an actual office.

It’s the only two rooms on this floor, and I hate knowing the rat-faced woman is out there looking in at me with puppy dog eyes every chance she gets.

Why did these women have to be attracted to me? It would be much more fun if they weren’t.

I’m told that my height and athletic build, mixed with dark hair and almost black, penetrating eyes, give me an alluring, exotic look that women fall over themselves for.

It makes the hunt almost pointless, if they saw me they would come to me.

Maggie is watching me, trying to determine if I was being sarcastic about the sister comment.

She has never figured me out.

Four years of dating… She’s the cliché of an airhead entitled rich girl if there ever was one.

“So, are you going to come to lunch with me like you said you were going to?” Maggie asks, licking her lips to entice me.