By the end of the month, her skin had turned a waxen shade of white-gray and her body was nothing more than a cluster of bones sticking out from her ribcage. A few weeks later, the childhood roundness had left her cheeks and her skin had a strange papery feel to it when he ran his tongue along the valley of her chest. She always remained limp in his arms, a little doll whose limbs had stiffened to their sides.

When he peels off her clothes in order to satisfy his sickly desires, she neither responds nor protests. She only knows that if she doesn't move, it would all end quicker and maybe – maybe he would stop mistreating her and allow her to recuperate under his abuse.

When he did get tired of her, it was because her body had deteriorated so much, the old games of pinching her skin so hard that it bruised and using his knife to cut his own markings into the flat plane of her legs didn't excite him anymore. She would still sleep by his side, undressed to his liking, but he grew less aroused by every passing day. By the fifth month of living with her, he only played with her out of boredom or to relieve his anger. He could care less if she collapsed under his tactics.

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It was a matter of time before he started accompanying Axel to local strip clubs and bars just to experience the city life he was missing out during all those months of staying in his apartment, running his business. On those days, he would lock her in his room, just so that she couldn't escape when he was away. By the second week of his new lifestyle, the idea of killing her was beginning to seem likely.

He would get ideas of how to kill her when he was drunk. Rolling images – figments of his twisted thoughts would play in his mind while he poured himself another drink. He thought about slowly choking that small neck of hers until her skin turned blue and her eyes rolled back into her head. He thought about raping her before he quickly slit her throat – a pool of blood gathering under the sheets. He thought of killing her slowly, cutting off those pale fingers that she used to draw, making his way towards her collarbone where he would linger before cutting off sections of her flawless skin. She would scream, she would beg for mercy for him to end it already – but he would ignore her pleas. Her life was like a flower sitting unprotected in an empty field. With any given moment, he could crush it and the flower wouldn't have anything to say about it because everyone knew that flowers did not have minds of their own. Even if they did, what defenses would they put up in order to stop him from doing what he wanted?

All choices – all methods seemed good to him. But he wouldn't kill her, yet. She could still prove of some value to him – for another scheme had crossed his mind.

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One day, he stumbled home to his apartment room late at night. Even though Axel said that he could drink an ungodly amount of alcohol before he got drunk, somewhere between his second bottle of vodka and Hennessey's, he had gotten intoxicated. When he did, he was an uncontrollable beast, unusually cruel to the point where he lashed out at everyone in the bar and Axel [drunk himself] had to drive him home.

On the backseat of the car, he was roughly kissing the lipstick mouth of some prostitute whose hair was dyed a bright lemon yellow. He remembered her teeth biting into the inside of his lip, until blood ran down his mouth. He pulled back astonished. What kind of woman was she – to resist him, a member of the notorious Organization? For a moment he thought of slapping her like he usually did when Namine resisted against him, but he beat back the temptation. Instead, he pushed himself back towards the mysterious woman, intending to kiss her even if she didn't want to.

The lemon-head pulled a set of knives from her pocket, pressing the flat blades against his neck. He laughed, pulling out his own knife. She hissed at such retaliation, digging her knives deeper into his neck. She whispered cruelly into his ear, breath smelling like the red cherries the bartender would put into his drink –

"No money, no service."

Right, she was a prostitute. He dug into the pocket of his black overcoat and trickled a shower of green bills onto her lap. She counted the money and seemingly satisfied, she climbed onto his lap, legs grinding against his – lips moving harshly against his own –

And it was all a blur then. Axel had stopped in front his apartment, wrenched the two apart and pushed them into the lobby. The guy at the check-in desk seemed alarmed at their arrival, but he didn't say anything once Axel glared at him with emerald eyes. Once they got into the elevator, he and that lemon-head were kissing again. God, he wanted to peel back that skin-tight black shirt she was wearing and have his way with her –

Axel unlocked the door for him; his hands were too drunk to steady the keys. They burst through the door, violently collapsing onto the couch that waited their arrival. Axel smirked, closing the door before he removed her clothes – and she slid the overcoat off his chest.

"Have fun," he said through the closed door although they were both too far away to hear him. "I hope that blond girl of yours isn't too upset that you've abandoned her for some other skinny bitch."

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Inside the apartment room, behind the locked door of his room, Namine shook in revulsion and in half-fear at the sounds of their lovemaking. She curled up closer towards her chest, leaned against the door and waited for the shaking to subside and for the door to be unlocked.

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When he woke up, he was in a nasty mood, his groins were flaring and his head ached of a hangover. Perched at his elbow, was the woman he had spent the night with yesterday. Under the dirtied sheets, she procured a couple of cigarettes, offered one to him while she held the lighter. He lit the cigarette end, bought it to his mouth and took a deep inhale before exhaling. He never liked smoking in general – he preferred weed to nicotine, but he smoked anyways.

His eye caught a set of knives placed onto the table – her clothes and his clothes lying in a jumble under it. A small compact mirror had fallen out of her pants pocket and next to it, was his knife. While she smoked, he rummaged through the contents of her shirt pockets. She didn't do anything to protest though. He found black eyeliner and eyeshadow, the money he had given her, a small bag of crack and a needle filled with heroin. He looked back at her. She had green-blue eyes – peroxide hair that was gelled to her head. Her makeup was smudged and ruined and she had the overall look of a junkie – but she was hard – and beautiful.

"What's your name?" he asked. His hand found the inside of her thigh and began rubbing it in small circles. She kicked him on the leg and he withdrew his touch.

"Larxene. Don't wear it out," she said, lighting another cigarette. "If you want more service, you're going to have to pay for it."

"What if I don't want to pay for it? What if I forced you to have sex with me?"

"I'll kill you," she said simply, a pretty smile on those pretty lips. She took her knives from the table and ran a finger down one of them. "These knives had killed a fair number of men that tried to have their way with me without paying. Oh look –" she spotted a small copper-brown stain on one of her knives. "A bloodstain. How lovely." Her sharp fingers rubbed away the crusty blood.

"You're quite aggressive when you want to," he said, eyeing her set of knives. "Bur I like it." He tipped her chin forward, cobalt blue eyes meeting green-blue ones. "Don't you like me too?"

"The fuck I don't," she said without batting an eye. "I'm only for it for the money."

She slapped his hand away, grabbed her clothes and began dressing herself. As she slipped that black tank top over her head and over those perfect breasts, he looked at her, thinking of some way to make her stay for a little longer.

He dug into his pants pocket, taking out a wad of cash. He counted a few twenties, a scant number of fifties before handing it to her. She was just beginning to put her panties back on.

"Come by during the afternoon?"

She took the money, pocketing it inside her shirt. "Alright then."

He sat back with a feeling of content, reaching under his couch for the bag of weed he had stashed and watched her hips sway as she walked to the door, pulled it open and stepped outside. When she slammed it shut, he knew he was gone –

At least for the morning.