Testosterone Boys & Harlequin Girls
show: Young and the Restless
notes: I thought this was the last part of the prologue, but looking at my outline, it will get far too long if I type out EVERYTHING. Some parts are longer than others because I stopped at crucial moments, I could start the stories I weave together from. There will be a Part 5 and Part 6 and then shit still be tied together. I apologize for the length. But it was needed. I had to cut back what I could, and leave what I couldn't. The next two pages will be named but afterward, they will be normal chapters with no specific POV. It would be too tedious otherwise. Enjoy.
disclaimer: Nothing is mine, expect the plot.
PROLOGUE
PART IV
bella fisher
She didn't look like a girl who would love classical music, but Bella did. Every note. Every instrument flowing in and out of each other. The whole piece was like the human body: a beating heart, expanding and constricting lungs with every inhale and exhale, sensitive nerves that crackled with its own kind of electricity, and the conductor was its guide. The man at the front would use himself to be the heart, pumping blood to make the movements vital and vibrant. With the endorphins from completing another successful experiment on Bree Sanders running rampant still, Bella's smile never left her face. No, Christian would not take it from her. He couldn't. She had witness a blooming of a rare flower and its petals fall before it withered. Beauty was in something like that and Bella would not allow Christian to make it something ugly.
The essence of Bree with its brilliant vermillion was stark against white. She had to. It was still fresh, still wet and smooth. She couldn't resist so Bella made it to make it apart of her. Iron, copper and wine rested on her tongue and sent her into warm oblivion before she burned it until it turned to dark ash. It didn't make logical sense to keep a physical reminder when the physiological, emotional ones was priceless? Bella stood up from her vanity while still in her soft green terrycloth robe. Residual dampness from the steam and water stayed on her skin and turned on the dock charging her cellphone. Hector Belioz's Symphonie Fantastique wafted like intoxicating mist in her room. It steeped through the walls, wove itself through the pages of her books on the shelves. The music sat on her comfortable bedding and melted through the curtains.
Renewed vigor driven with the thrill of the night drove her to finish the bulk of her paper before she was to get ready for Uncle Mikey's retirement party. Sitting back down at her vanity, she caught the reflection of the dress Aunt Lauren had sent for her sitting spread out on the bed. She smirked at the irony of it. Black with shades of dark crimson red. It was a dress she would never wear, but Bella was open to experimenting on others. Why not keep the momentum moving and conducting one of herself? It was a dress that had a black, backless bodice of velvet with dark red skirt that bloomed outward, giving her the opportunity to show off her legs. She turned her gaze back to the mirror and frowned. There was her mother looking back at her through those damn eyes. She saw the pills, saw her mother's madness and saw raw pain that became too acidic for her to bear. Chloe Mitchell swam in it while Bella Fisher floated above it, controlled its flow and marinated in rough, guttural screams when it burned through the layers of skin and made hard bone soft until there was marrow and entrails. She closed her eyes and held on to the fridges of her beloved playground, the legendary murder house brought to life by the tongues of others. It would come down soon but still, she treasured it and always will.
She had brought her barely used wireless hair straightener out and set it on the vanity beside her wide array of makeup. Bella held the silver and black metal straightener in her hands. It felt as cool as her favourite knife in her palms. There was a certain kind of power in bending anything to one's will and making it obedient. She glanced in the mirror again, looking pensive. Surely, she could make her curls behave in the same way and make it straight. So, that is exactly what she did with a little manufactured heat and mechanical force, Bella began phase one of her self-experiment, watching with every sweep of the hair straightener made curly hair fall bone straight to the middle of her back, piece by piece.
—
The murder house on the dark end of a named street not quite remembered still stood, pristine but worn. The body of Bree Sanders lay beneath still wrought with rigor mortis, to be disposed later but there was no time. Later did not exist anymore. A splash of gasoline poured from an old discarded paint can landed on the front, darkened the wooden flooring until the tiny flame of a match grew upwards to consume it the whole structure? It was going to be demolished later so why not let it come down and disintegrate now. A pang of remorse was felt like an unexpected prick of a needle against the skin. The girl was still inside but a quiet resigned sigh escaped into the night air. Perhaps, it was a means to an end but still, there was a curse that followed it but this had to be done. Gloved hands threw the paint can itself into flames that resembled the hell it held inside until it couldn't be seen anymore.
The flames illuminated the sky in oranges and reds and their hot blue center could be visible at if it was stared at hard enough. Eyes calmly stared at wood darkening, brick burning and smoke growing thicker and thicker but it wouldn't reach visibility until the crack of dawn. That was a sure fact. Those eyes glanced upward where smoke twisted to the heavens and then when the house started to come apart and there was a faint undertone of burning flesh, feet moved away back into the dark from which they stepped out of.
—
Bella finished straightening her hair and sighed satisfied as she worked on securing the brown tresses into a high ponytail. She set a black and red ribbon headband on the crown of her head and started working on her makeup. Bella didn't need too much of it. Just enough. She lived by that word. Too much made the task sloppy, while too little made it imperfect. Glancing downward, she screwed the top of her black mascara and something made her smile. She smiled because technicalities were a funny thing, irritating but hilarious nonetheless. She had been using that to tally the number of successful experiments conducting. In a way, the number had been three. Of course, it was three. Bella had pulled three different exotic flowers from her garden and watched their roots shrivel up and die.
There was one plant bigger than the rest. It wasn't a flower at all. No, this one had no petals but rather leaves. It was a tree in the midst of growth. Jesse was a grand tree, growing in the middle of Nadia and Janice's flowers when Bree's flower had barely started to bloom. The trunk was getting bigger and bigger every day as her soil fertilized it. The leaves were turning bright green, photosynthesis doing the job ordained by nature. Flowers were easy to pick up and pick apart. Trees, however, were a lot of difficult to uproot from the ground. It was harder to move its trunk and snapping the delicate branches was lazy. Was it at full height and strength? No. But it made Bella happy to look at every day. It would make her happier to watch it break apart after she let it give her shelter under its cool shade one last time.
She remembered him fondly. Bella did truly like him. She liked him enough to be infatuated by his dark eyes, chocolate coloured skin, how laid back he was in stark contrast to Connor's neuroticism. His smile revealed a dimple in his left cheek. Bella appreciated that he always remembered her favourite flavour of frozen yogurt and gave her a little extra. He was tall and muscular, his frame sturdy. Bella appreciated that about him and when he made fun of how small she was, she took it as being in jest. Sometimes, they flirted even though she loved Connor. She never perceived it as cheating but as one friend interacting in the same way as another. He had told her honestly that he did want her in a way that crossed their friendship but understood she had a boyfriend.
Bella smiled at him, and nudged him reassuringly that day, "Just because you like me that way, you think it will ruin what we already have?"
A confused look came on that angularly structured face and Bella wondered how sharp, defined lines could be bestowed on a soft-hearted, sweet person. He shrugged, "Well, won't it? I feel stupid even telling you knowing you won't reciprocate. I just don't want things getting weird."
Bella shook her head, taking in another spoonful of her favourite peach frozen yogurt and swallowed the cold confection on her tongue.
"Friends are honest, right? That's all I could want from you. We're," she gestured between them, "fine. My boyfriend knows what we are to each other and is fine with it, too. He gets it."
Bella had lied there. Connor was not fine with her friendship with Jesse. It was often a topic they disagreed on and triggered explosive fights between them. Connor argued that she couldn't be so close to that guy. He forbade it not because he wanted to control her but he loved her too much to be the third person in a dynamic that made feel helpless. The word had eight letters in it but the one connotation made him furious to think about, enraged him because of the possibility that it would consume him. That is what your friendship with him does to me, Bella. It makes feel helpless, not jealous. The number three was not a number he wanted anywhere in his life, especially when it came to her. It could never touch her or them and he wouldn't allow it. Ever.
Bella had shot back that yes, he liked her that way but she didn't. She argued that Jesse was a good person and she liked his company but damnit, it was always him she loved. You can't be jealous every time I hang out with him. I love you, Connor. You, my love, Bella had continued with a soft laugh against his lips before she kissed them to placate him, fit me in ways only you can. In ways I want you to. Only you satisfy me.
She loved the boy who sold across frozen yogurt two blocks away from Fenmore's where she worked part-time for her aunt. She wanted him in ways she could keep. So, she did. Bella took him and made him part of her. Not in a conventional way, of course. But still in a way that was equally memorable.
Jesse Lewis was her beautiful sturdy tree and she would take an especially thick branch away from him and treasure it. Then she would split his trunk in half and count all of the faint circles inside with care and curiosity to see what lay inside of him. Bella would seek to find any treasures embedded inside her tree and protecting because only she knew how. So, on a sunny day in May of last year while Connor exploded with the joy of getting to tour the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania, Bella would start cutting down her glorious tree while keeping her joy to herself.
—
Abandoned cottages seemed to have the reputation of being bad or scary but this one was just one that needed one soul to appreciate it so she did. It was out far away from Genoa City with woods surrounding it perfect for exploring. Bella didn't flip it or anything but worked to clean it and make it decent enough to reside in when she wanted to get away. Her friends were in Miami for Spring Break, even Christian electing to go with them. She remembered that night vividly. When he had agreed, Johnny Abbott had grinned, clapping him on the back.
"About damn time you fucking lived!" Johnny said, with a laugh and a clap to Christian's shoulder. Bella noticed his eyes glittered like sapphires underneath the club lights. "The strippers in Miami. Nothing like 'em. The cream on the crop when it comes to pussy, ass…everything. I know people. I'll introduce you. Maybe there's one into that quiet, mysterious shit you're on. I don't know."
Christian had looked at his cousin quizzically with slight annoyance. He peeled the hand of his shoulder and dropped it.
"I'm only going with you guys to explore the beach and a change of scenery. I'm not a virgin, Johnny. When I want to have sex with a stranger, I'll handle it."
Perhaps, Christian was a renegade underneath all that quietness but Bella still was unnerved by him and it made her angry and want Connor more and more. He could protect her from him. He would protect her. Christian muttered that he needed a drink and with one more undecipherable look directed at her, he got up from the booth and disappeared into the throng of people engaged in their own kinds of debauchery.
Suddenly, it was just her and Johnny alone in this booth. She did like him enough but she wasn't charmed by him. Maybe the universe had orchestrated this so he could shake her and drown her in his charm. He was an actor used to inhabiting the skin of another person, another character archetype before he took it off and he was this. Bella was used to looking underneath the skin so the prospect of an encounter did pique her interest.
Connor had been there before one thing or another had separated the group she blended in. His dad needed him for one thing or another so he left her with four swigs of his bourbon and kissed her with the promise of making it up to her. She merely said okay but discreetly frowned. For someone who didn't like anything in triads, Connor's compulsive need to have his shining moment in the Newman family. It was a wall of flames between them.
He wanted the heavy crown, forged by Victor Newman, on his head. The same crown rested on his aunt, Victoria. She was the woman with the ice in her eyes and the porcelain skin. Next, the crown had rested on his uncle, Nicholas, the man with hard features in his face but a kindness and warmth in his eyes when he smiled. Then the heavy, bedazzled crown had been stolen through trickery by Connor's father before Mr. Newman had built his own hedge fund monarchy.
Mrs. Newman didn't like her all that much despite being a very good friend of her parents: her dad's closest confidante and her mother's best friend once upon a time. She knew that but Bella merely reacted with indifference. Mrs. Newman wanted her nowhere near her sons and stared her with scrutiny while Bella herself, stared at the older woman with a defiant kind of courtesy that only seemed to infuriate her all the more. When Mrs. Newman verbally told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from Connor and Christian, Bella shrugged and calmly told her, "You're their mother. You're protective, but with all due respect, that's for them to decide and I'm quite fond of Connor. Christian and I are friends. Goodnight."
Bella took another sip of her drink and scanned the wide array of people. She saw colours and different auras. There was Katie twirling around in a rainbow of colours. She was enchanted by the movements of a brunette with olive skin before Katie kissed her enclosed in an enclave of music and cocaine with an undertone of ecstasy on the dance floor. Mattie claimed a stripper's pole for herself, dancing on it and around it. She flipped around with grace that was engrained in her dancer's body. She became a ribbon of mocha and caramel curls. Charlie sat at the bar nursing a drink under the weight of a mantle of blood red, his eyes faraway and his face wrought with muted guilt.
Bella noticed his hands as he drained his drink and asked for another. Moses was a drunken shade of sky blue, ascending higher and higher with every recited disjointed stanza of a poem not quite put together while he received a lap dance from a buxom redhead. He stuffed a fifty between her cleavage and kissed her. Bella observed Ava, a sunny yellow, with laughter escaping her lips for one reason for another. She, herself, carried black inside of her and it stayed alive in the essence of her breath and thrived between her heartbeats. Lastly, here was Johnny with his expensive clothes and intoxicating cologne shining a bright, blinding gold. Johnny Abbott would be the shiniest thing she ever collected.
—
It was a Friday night that had somehow morphed into a Saturday morning. Bella had found herself at a club aptly named Lure. It seemed to fit because of the number of people that behaved as if they had no free will. It was as they had reached their Promised Land and their land of milk and honey and they celebrated freely. The club life wasn't her scene, but for once, she wanted to shut her brain off for a night.
Johnny met her eye and smirked, questioning her. She stared at him with a raised eyebrow and laughed a quiet amused laugh. They were alone in a dim fishbowl that vibrated against the sound on the outside. Oh, this was going to plenty of fun. Bella scanned her eyes and saw it: different islands of dark vices and uncontrollable impulses. It made her acute aware of hers, curled up itching to be awakened but held at bay. She took a healthy mouthful of the vodka in her glass. "We're alone."
Bella's red lips pulled themselves in a polite smile, her mask of innocence intact. She met his eyes through her long eyelashes.
"It would seem so, Johnny."
He brought his whiskey to his lips and swallowed it, fire and all before setting it down. He turned it absentmindedly, facets of the crystal glass absorbing light.
"I'm just wondering what you're into, Bella. Aside from my cousins."
Bella almost laughed at the irony of that question. She was almost certain he'd fear her if she gave him the truthful answer and she'd tear him apart if she said it out loud. It wasn't allowed to thrive and breathe outside of her, and unattached. It was safe internally because it would wither and die externally. Bella couldn't allow that. She shrugged with a smile. She never would hurt Johnny Abbott. Bella didn't find him all that intriguing despite his devil-may-care disposition and his James Dean looks but he was amusing enough. He was noticeable so he didn't fit the criteria.
At least, his exterior wasn't all that interesting but Bella realized she could be intrigued by the man underneath the script. The club was loud, the music thumping and she thought the closeness of sweaty bodies enslaved by its pulsing was fascinating. It was as close to the human experience as she could get and she wanted to be in the middle of it.
Her index finger with its nail painted a dark, plum purple absentmindedly fiddled with her straw. She crossed her legs underneath the long table, feet in black six inch heels.
"I'm into a lot of things," Bella replied, mysteriously on purpose. "You're the actor between the two of us. I should be questioning what makes you tick."
Johnny's face lit up and he leaned back, surveying her before he laughed. Bella saw his gold getting brighter and brighter and the golden flakes splattered his skin. He looked at her as she dismissed his surprise with a lift of her bare shoulder. She was wrapped in a short, tight little black dress. She shrugged and laughed, too.
He slid closer beside her and Bella could see the flecks of green in those sapphire eyes.
"A lot of things," Johnny replied, lifting her effortlessly into his lap, "make me tick."
"Connor wouldn't appreciate this. He'd hate it."
"And you love it," Johnny brushed a curl behind her double pierced ear. Another stud was embedded in the top cartilage of that ear as well.
"You sound very sure."
"Babe, I'm always sure."
She laughed, feeling the silk material of his tie. "That doesn't surprise me."
He smiled with a shrug, hand traveling to the small of her back.
"Ah, well in any case, my cousin doesn't have to know."
Bella stared down at him, his cologne a thick musk. He always put himself together immaculately, kept his near done hair perfectly and had a wide array of expensive suits. When he was the product of two rich, warring families, Bella proposed there was enough money to spread and even more to spend. She could see him clearly now. She could see his dark heart of black onyx, his blood of gold and his innards of shining, rare jewels. His hands rested on her hip through the fabric of her black dress and it made her smile. Not Johnny touching her while in close quarters but the idea of ripping that vein in his neck apart with her teeth and getting to taste him. Right now, Bella was into wanting that tiny piece of Johnny Abbott that made the rest of him shine outwardly to the world. Bella wanted his fireflies.
She smiled, coyly still holding his gaze, "I think I have an idea of what makes you tick."
"Enlighten me, sweetheart."
She glanced upwards briefly in thought before her arms fell naturally around his neck. Not because she wanted them there because it was a natural physiological reaction. An unintentional placement of the body.
"I think chasing something drives you, Johnny. The idea of wanting something badly enough. The act of chasing it until you can't think, you get obsessive and you crave it so badly," she said, softly, stroking his face, "you'll scream and break yourself to pieces if you don't get it. So, you'll keep running because adrenaline is both your stimulant and your relaxant. Your morphine and your poison. You chase after what you can't have. I chase things, too."
"Which is?" the actor inquired. She could see his interest was piqued.
"Life. I go after life. It's fulfilling enough for me."
"I could chase you."
Chasing her would get him killed. King Midas was going to touch something wrong one day and freeze himself to gold.
"You don't want to do it."
"Suddenly," Johnny's lips quirked into a smile, "you just became my favourite. What's your poison, Fisher?"
She stared at him, studying the features of his face. This was the face that launched a thousand films and set off the high-pitched squeals of fans. This handsome face broke several hearts and crushed some of them to dust. Johnny Abbott. Bella supposed her kind of poison was slow acting, steady and dripped through her until she became numb. Johnny stared at her with eyes that said he wanted her like the others and she very well could indulge him.
Bella was into the human experience, human feelings and emotions even though she lost the ability to trigger anything in herself. She never quite developed it to begin with. She wanted the pure carnal desire. She wanted to inhale his musk and taste him. She wanted him to feel her acidity and wanted him in ways Connor could not provide her. From this debonair, charming man beneath her, she wanted sins of the flesh and wanted to break what was rumored to be unbreakable. Anything could be if one dug deeply enough. Bella wanted to snap him with his renowned brand of carnality. But not today. Never today. Never. Period.
She bit her bottom lip and stared at his mouth. There it was, the gateway to whatever little of his essence she could take. After all, the rest belonged to a redhead with the aura of flames and heat. She didn't know the situation nor did she care but it wasn't a surprise. Lucy Romalotti. Bella still wanted him and damnit, she'd have him. She kissed him and he reciprocated, hand in her hair and his face smooth underneath her palms. He was warm and welcomed her, his tongue in her mouth. He was greedy and meeting him there, she tasted him slowly to savour it. Bella pulled away first and left him stunned. She had the residue of Johnny's honey and ash on her tongue.
Johnny blinked before he realized what had happened. He had stared at her in part wonder and part scrutiny. His face broke out in a smile, taking up his face. He still glowed and the light buzzed under the pad of her thumb when she stroked his cheek. She took her hand away. It was more than she could take.
"Holy shit," he breathed, shaking his head. "Connor has no idea, does he? He has no idea who you really are."
"I don't follow. Idea of what?" Bella questioned, as his hand rested on her thigh and his hand moved higher until his entire hand disappeared under her short dress. "You know what I want, don't you?"
"I know what everyone wants, you minx," Johnny replied, smoothly. "It's always the small innocent ones who are the most wet. You're the most interesting person I've ever met tonight."
"Surely, there's a lap dance or two waiting for you more interesting than me."
"Never."
Her lips pulled into a coy smile.
He removed his fingers from her, satisfied with pieces of her on him.
"You never answered my question."
Bella laughed, a little breathless and nerves still frayed. Ah, Johnny still wanted to know. Johnny still wanted to know that a small part would not have minded breaking the crystal tumbler he drank out of in her grasp. Did he want to know that she could slit his throat and bathe in his golden honey and wear his diamonds as a necklace?
"You think because we happened to share a moment, I'll bear my soul to you? Will you chase that, too?"
She couldn't bear what she didn't have. He shrugged, still holding her in his lap. Bella didn't mind being perched there. She didn't mind it because Johnny was warm and hot blooded.
"Of course. We've gotten close."
"Yes. We certainly have," Bella conceded, staring him in the eyes again. The spun gold of his hair felt like magic between her fingers. "I'd love nothing more than to reveal what make me truly happy. Believe me," she leaned in and traced his bottom lip with her thumb and the double meaning of her next phrase on the tip of her tongue made her smile. "To tell you what makes me tick, Prince Abbott, means that I'd have to kill you."
"Before you go," Johnny started and his eyes glittered again, "hang out with me again."
Bella smiled down at him and kissed him once again. It would be the last time. The last interaction. Last kiss. Last anything.
She was going to be the first girl to say the one word Johnny Abbott hated.
"No," she answered, whispering against his lips and then smirking against them. Bella separated, hands between his face. He was golden and indeed, was bright. "No."
—
Bella slid off Johnny's lap and disappeared into the throng of sweaty bodies, adrenaline and bathed the club in black until she saw no other colour but hers. All hers. Sunny Miami didn't need her and Bella didn't want it. She didn't want the disarray of Spring Break. Instead, she wanted her solitude. She wanted her week away deep in the woods and to nestle under the roof of her little abandoned cottage. Her family understood that and never questioned it. Bella didn't know if it was because they loved her too much to see her or if they were so afraid they didn't want to see her. The cottage was someone's trash and that was okay. Here lay her treasure on her own operation table to be her playground to play in.
Operation had always been her favourite game as a child.
"Thank you, Dad," Bella said to no one as she filled a syringe with the black liquid of a chemical compound she had cooked up in the recesses of GCU biology lab. She returned the small tiny vial to its resting place in her bra and carefully surveyed the full syringe. Bella walked over to Jesse's hulking but still form. Thankfully, she could see the rise and fall of his chest or all of this would be for nothing. She sighed, using a gloved hand to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. "Let's see what this will do to you."
Afterwards when it was all over, Bella would be kind and send him to where the angels would sing Jesse to his rest.
—
As Bella sat on the old rocking chair soothed by the motion, she smiled softly at the silver table she had brought here a few months back and fitted with steel cuffs for both arms and legs. Just to be safe, she strapped a ball gag to his face tightly and apologized as he stayed quiet from the crack to the back of his head with a shovel. Bella had used his caring nature against him, a weapon to get him here and when he fell, his phone was made into a pile of plastic and glass under her heeled boots.
She knew he was chocolate perfection in the upper area of his body. Jesse was indeed, but she left him bare with his jeans around his ankles and stared at his legs. His thighs were cut with the contour of the muscle and thriving tissue beneath the skin. She marveled at the scrotum, his testicles and how glorious his penis could be when erected. God, he was well hung. Bella watched with bated breath still in that rocking chair as the limp cock twitched and then became a pillar slowly but surely. It had to be hard for more than four hours. She wasn't going to call a medical professional or rush her friend to the emergency room. Instead, she would play with it because it was her shiny new toy. After all, Jesse did want her. He did want more from her so Bella could do nothing but oblige him, while taking some of him into herself.
"Stunning," Bella said, slowly and softly like if she raised her voice any louder, his penis would fall limp and be nothing again. She reached out and gently stroked the tip, the veins in the phallic object became engorged with the contents waiting burst forth. A groan was set loose through the gag strapped onto his face. The limbs started to move underneath the silver restraints and then strain against them. The groans grew louder, more guttural and sounding more painful but Bella would make it stop soon.
She walked over to his side and observed the raised veins in his neck, the way his chest rose and fell with heaving breaths and the way he fought the mechanical force pining him down. She couldn't very well do it, strong as she was. Jesse had the physical means to overpower her and Bella had to rectify that. His eyes flew open and immediately recognized her, brown polls that glittered with surprise, shock and alarm. Jesse physically shook upon laying eyes on her and she soothed him, touching that beautiful face. His bone structure was breathtaking.
"Shhh," she soothed and smiled, touching his face. "I know, I know. I shouldn't have done this to you. But my boyfriend and I are over. It makes me incredibly sad. After all that time, we're over. It's a year of my life I'll never get back, Jesse. I just needed a friend and here you are. Isn't that great that we can be close like this?"
Jesse gave a louder grunt of protest and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against the sensation of his hardened dick and the ache under his skin she had triggered. He sounded muffled and panicked so Bella sighed, and loosened the gag enough that it fell loose around his neck. She always did appreciate the deep sounds the lungs made when sucking in the breath it craved.
"Bella—what—did…" he started, eyes flitting wildly in his disorientation. He screamed again, almost a growl as if something had ripped inside of him. "It hurts…. Fuck—what did you do to me? What did…?" Another scream. Another pulsing of his penis as it continued to stand erect. "I… You're insane! What the…fuck?"
She grabbed both sides of his head and forced it down so he had nowhere to look but her eyes. Jesse had no one to focus on but her. In the expense of this cottage in the middle of oblivion, it would be just him. Jesse and Bella. Bella and Jesse. Here, she could let everything grow and breathe and let her true intentions shine through.
"He sensed that we were more than friends. I had to admit that," Bella said, touching his face with the care of one handling glass. She let her voice break with just enough tearfulness and sadness. "I did want you. I do want you. I wanted you the way I couldn't want him. I couldn't have sex with Connor without seeing you, without feeling you. It—it was an accident when I called out your name, and not his but—but Connor was right. Guess it wasn't an accident in hindsight. It was something I desired. I desire you just like you do me. You have me, not him. I couldn't have sex with him anymore without craving what you felt like, Jesse."
"Let me go!" Jesse yelled, and then strained through another wave of burning. "What are you saying right now? Are you insane?"
Bella clicked her tongue and shook her head as if making and coming to a decision that was never on the table, pun intended. She left him, his legs spread out as far as it would go. Still, the pillar between his legs stood tall and proud and Bella took it in her grip and went up and then down. Jesse let out a moan. It was most likely involuntary, triggered by the nerve endings over stimulated by her drug cocktail. Either way, it made her happy and made her very, very ready.
She squeezed it, engorged with blood, with enough pressure to cause pain.
"No," she answered, coldly now. "I possess you. I don't let go of what's mine."
Bella stepped back and piece by piece she removed articles of clothing from her body. She slid off her hat, letting her signature curls fall free. She walked over with her jacket on the floor and boots sprawled out next to it and turned the dust covered blinds shut. She pulled a face of disgust but shook it off, glancing at Jesse spread out on her table still. This was more important and she couldn't feel like she was being watched. Bella couldn't lose her focus. Jesse shut his eyes, shaking as beads of sweat lined his forehead and ran down the side of his face from his temples. She continued to strip. Bella removed her jeans, stepping out of them. Next came her shirt as it fell on top of the growing pile of clothes until she stood almost naked, wearing pink underwear and a matching pink bra that housed her breasts. Lastly, she pulled her leather gloves off and dropped them. She really wanted to touch him and feel every part of him.
"Please stop fighting or you will force me to hurt you and I don't want to," Bella chided, gently with a soft smile. "Don't worry. I'll make it all better. For both of us."
Jesse strained and fought against the steel, making the veins in his forearms rise.
She stepped towards him and with a slow smile, took off her underwear until she truly was free. Jesse regarded her with focused, stubborn eyes as if he was fighting the physiological reactions using his mental force of will. He cried out and she smirked, feeling herself dampen in anticipation. She traced his face with the back of her hand.
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on," she whispered, running a hand down to feel the ridges of his abdomen through his shirt. Sweat made the white fabric transparent as it made it look as if he was wrapped by saran wrap. Bella let her hands glide over his thigh. A finger dragged down his inner thigh and her hand brushed against the base of his still erect penis and he moaned, deep in his throat. She wasn't talking to him, though. "I want you. Fuck, I want you."
Bella brought her gaze upward and stepped to meet his eyes. This time, the defiance and stubbornness was gone and they pleaded with her.
"Please… stop… I don't want… Don't kill me, please."
Bella got in his face and grinned, drawing an imaginary line across his throat. It was bumpy due to his Adam's apple. It bobbed up and down as he swallowed.
She hissed, "I don't care what you want, Jesse. What you want is to give yourself to me. I will have all of it and watch you submit to me," she smiled, softly reverting back to her normal tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. We're friends. I promise this won't be weird at all. This will be as good for me as it will for you. Only you could do this," she added, tone saccharine sweet. "Just you… I love you."
Bella repeated the phrase over and over as if it were a prayer but she wasn't seeing Jesse anymore. She wasn't seeing him as the sweet boy who cared enough to come here because she called him distraught. Bella wasn't seeing her buddy as the boy who knew her favourite flavour of frozen yogurt and what to say to elicit a smile from her. She climbed on top of him with ease due to years of gymnastics before she transferred her love of moving the body outward to being mesmerized by movements of the inner parts of the body. She swung one leg over so she straddled him. Her heart beat and raced in her chest and without making any bodily contact with her treasure so fucking close, she moaned at the sensation of pleasure coiling itself tightly in her abdomen. Bella raised herself opening her legs at the right angle and with an anticipatory inhale, guided herself.
—
"Mmmm," Bella smiled against his neck and met his frightened eyes. She took her hands and held his face between them. He was buzzing and she let herself absorb it. "You taste so good. You feel even better."
She rode him once in a motion that started slowly and he screamed again before his breath start to turn shallow. Bella pounded herself onto him, forcefully, needing to feel him be ready for her. Jesse had to explode for her and give her his very soul. She wanted his waterfall, Jesse's ocean and his sea. She wanted to swim it all by myself and drown it until he became an earthquake and there was a bloody series of aftershocks.
Bella's anger smashed through her steady patience and fueled her speed as she forced herself to rip him apart and again. Whether or not he wanted to, he raised himself against to enter her deeper than he was. She was hungry, famished, craving satisfaction and he shuddered under her, squeezing his eyes.
"Don't you dare do this to me now!" she growled, sweat breaking out on her skin as she dug her nails into his skin because she didn't want her fingers to slip off the merry-go-round. Bella cursed loudly and screamed so loud, it bounced off the wooden walls. They always had to look at her. They were never allowed to go into the abyss by themselves. Bella ruled the River Styx and would guide them into death because she could control that and them. She could feel herself rip apart, the dark tentacles of her core scratching and clawing in her abdomen.
Digging her nails into his shoulders, Bella continued her ride. She was on a carousel. She was on a merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster. Up and down. Up and down. Round and round, holding onto the pole until she cramped and straddling her hardened horse so tightly, its exterior cracked underneath the force of her thighs. She was a flower waiting to open and letting the petals bloom and aching to let the thorns along their stems get their edges. All she needed were the seeds, little seeds and torrential that would give them life even when his breath would be taken. She wouldn't give it back.
He shook again, and took in a strangled breath. Her hands held his head, half-forcing him and half-guiding him down the river. Bella stared into the brown pools, filling with tears and Jesse gritted his teeth.
Jesse's breathing grew shallow and his eyes rolled into his head until she saw the whites of them. She slapped and then punched him in that beautiful face. His nose began to bleed and for that, she was sorry. Bella wasn't sorry in terms of feeling guilty. "Good…good…Come on, Jesse. Let me have you."
Finally. Finally.
Finally. That was satisfaction. Absolution. Accomplishment.
—
The most beautiful scream ripped from his throat. Bella closed her eyes to feel his orgasm and cried out loudly, feeling her own. He erupted like a volcano and the lava burned her insides. They twisted and Bella saw a silky black ribbon twisting and bending in the slowly building and growing tornado. The screaming was loud, rough and its origin from the soul, it seemed. The endorphins rushed to her head. She saw everything upside down. Bella saw Jesse on top of her, inside her and giving himself to her of his free will. She saw a beautiful union, she saw Jesse's hands in her hair and caressing her face in the throes of sex.
But here she was on top of him unwinding, splitting to glass shards before she was put together again. Jesse fed her until Bella absorbed him and gorged on him. Jesse's body clenched and his muscles tensed and then he orgasmed, shooting one more piece of himself into her. Her heart stopped and so did his.
When it did, Bella's heartbeat started again and slowly she started to steady her breathing. Bella slid herself off and separated for him and his cock slowly but surely fell limp. She didn't move from him but still pulled herself up to straddle his hips. It would have been impolite to not say thank you after something so beautiful. She brought a shaky hand to comb back the curls that had fallen. She grinned, sweat on her body and gooseflesh on her skin.
The blood from his nose had travelled to his upper lip and dried.
"Thank you," she said, softly. Jesse replied with a groan, the veins in his neck making themselves become visible. "I told you this would be good for both of us. I know. It was as intense for you as it was for me. Thank you so much. I love you. Don't you love me?"
Bella watched him, some contours of his face still visible and still mesmerizing. She could take a paintbrush and reproduce it on paper but no. Paper could be carried away and forgotten so she would stare at it and paint it in her mind.
"Don't you love me, Jesse?" she asked again, and then grew angered by his silence. "Hmm? You said you did. Say it!"
Jesse's eyes focused on her and his body began to loosen. His muscles lost some of its firmness and Bella figured the ricin was starting to take effect. She rubbed the reddening injection site on his neck, gently as if trying to soothe him. His skin felt like smooth milk chocolate under her fingers. She bent down and pressed a kiss to his mouth, catching some of the dried blood on his top lip. A renewed craving slithered down her spine and spread out across the surface of her smooth back. He tasted sweet. It was like her favourite kind of chocolate: milk chocolate with light brown caramel inside.
"Say you love me…" she demanded whispering roughly against his mouth, Jesse's vermillion caramel on her tongue. "You fucking love me. You love me like Connor and Christian do. You. Love. Me."
Jesse drifted and began to tremble slowly and then quicker under her. His breathing stopped in his throat, his chest seized and he became rigid. His eyes rolled in the back of his head again and his head rattled. She held it steady between her hands to watch his face contort in frozen pain. His perfect white teeth clamped themselves together as he seized. Bella knew the ricin was wreaking havoc inside of him and forcing his body to find a new source of life.
No, Bella thought with a slow smile on her face, Jesse was leaving her and she would treasure a special part of him and be grateful for what he had given her. The warmth was comfortable and soothing like her mother's ghost had come and rocked to sleep. Bella had given her friend the gift of freedom and peace.
Jesse's seizing slowly lessened in movement until it stopped, blood in his mouth and like the rest, the light and sweetness left his eyes. Bella stared into them, making it they were empty before she closed them.
Bella rested her head against his chest, devoid of heartbeat and breath. She pressed a soft kiss to his sweat soaked material of his shirt and put her head back down.
"I'll remember you, Jesse," Bella said to the air around her. She would remember her friend and his willingness to welcome her. She had done what she set out to do in the end: conduct another successful exploration of another human body and respectfully her cadaver a farewell. "Goodnight sweet prince and the flight of angels sing thee to thy rest…"
Bella finally got off the table when his dark skin lost its shine and began to harden with rigor mortis. She dressed herself and that was all she remembered. The rest of the night was a blur to her as if an unseen hand had pressed fast forward. She found herself removed from her actions and felt as though she could rest because someone else had stepped into the driver's seat. Another pair of hands, cold yet familiar, helped her move Jesse's heavy body, helped her dug the hole deep enough to cover and easy to hop out of. The hands glided, giving off black wisps from its fingers as they moved. Bella covered up the body with the earth it would soon merge into because of decomposition and let the shovel fall numbly from her hands.
Bella looked down at the limp organ in her grasp and smiled fondly. Happiness filled her like a slowly expanding helium balloon. It was her eighth wonder in a world that has hers alone. It was a rare jewel in her hands so she took care of it just as it had taken care of her. Stroking its length from tip to where the testicles had started, she brought to her lips and kissed it. Bella knelt burying that too. She put it deep in the folds of the leaves and cool soil. She would come back for it, one day.
One day when she missed it enough and felt nostalgic, Bella promised to dig it back up and revel in something that had once been majestic and wholly hers.
—
Bella stood from her vanity, smacking her lips for even distribution of her lipstick. She remembered the memory of Jesse's experiment, relieved that she could conjure it. It was out of order, nestled somewhere between Nadia's and Janice's. It was from Estee Lauder and came in a colour called Pure Envy. Silver chandelier earrings hung from her ears. She stood, admiring herself clothed in black and dark red. Her brown hair went from typical curly to shiny straight.
It took a bit of maneuvering but she managed to zip up her dress and adjust the sweetheart neckline so she was comfortable. Her phone rang, Connor's name and face emblazoned on her screen and she welcomed the familiarity. Remembering Christian's two texts in the flurry of Connor's loving ones, she frowned and resisted the itching in her fingers to only to be relieved by throwing her phone against a wall.
Bella found her heels by her bedroom door sure that she had left them downstairs but all the same, slid her feet in them and balanced herself against a wall to buckle them. The threads of confusion started to form in her head but she shook them off until they were as strong as cobwebs. She made her way down the stairs.
Still, her phone rang in between seven missed calls from him.
Bella sighed, answering his eighth call.
"Connor, hi…" Bella greeted, in a light tone. She concentrated on getting down the stairs. "Are you on your way, babe?"
"Yes. Finally," Connor answered, far away with shuffling sounds in the distance. Bella deduced that he was on speaker phone, most likely at home. He added, aggravation on the edges of his tone. "I had to fix something with the florist but I promise, it's all perfect for you. You'd be happy with them, right? Yellow roses. There were eleven of them and I had to fix it because eleven wasn't going to work."
She hated roses but Bella proposed it was the thought behind the gesture. He hated odd numbers that looked strange and foreign to him. She would try to tolerate the bright yellow petals and imagine them to be exquisite as a bouquet of Queen of the Night tulips or Black Dahlias. However, Connor was sweet that way and loved that about him.
She smiled, "You know, I'd be happy with just you. I love you."
"I love you, too," he replied, and Bella knew he meant it. Connor had given his whole heart to her. The least she could do was care for it even when she was more entranced by it being a beating mass of arteries, veins, and ventricles. His aorta was the largest part of him and that is what Bella loved most. "I'm leaving home now to get you."
"Okay."
Bella made it to the bottom of the stairs and when she raised her gaze, she froze.
She heard her blood rushing in her ears, Connor's voice warped and disjointed. A current of Christian Newman hit her this time when it had been a slow trickle. It had dripped on her, cold and now, it was a tidal wave. She couldn't breathe and fought to ground her feet. Bella stepped off the last stair, her heart in her throat. Her hand curled into a fist, her palm being cut by the crescent marks of her nails. Christian waved at her with a knowing smirk, leaning by the window it appears he had climbed through. He had a nice vested suit on that wasn't that formal and Converse shoes were on his feet.
Connor was saying something to her and Bella was swimming upward to get to the surface. Connor's life preserver was within reach. Christian locked the window and he took easy strides to the dark mahogany desk by the door. Just like that, he shoved her back into the depths of a body of water she was trying to avoid.
"What?" she managed to squeeze out, nearly dropping the phone because of the heat of his blue-eyed gaze. Christian casually opened the drawer of the desk and retrieved a flash of silver from it.
"I'm just happy we've been dating for a year. Didn't you hear what I said?"
"No, no," Bella clarified with a smile that hurt to plaster on her face and a reassuring, calm tone that felt like swords in her windpipe. "I heard. I'm happy, too. Best year of my life and I want to have forever with you, baby."
"Me too."
Bella said goodbye, anger churning in her chest and feeling so electric it physically shook her frame. She hung up, took slow steps to stand across from a visitor she wasn't expecting or want. Christian twirled the glinting sliver in his hands, looking at her as daring her to move. Maybe move toward him. Move to kill him. Move to be the gasoline to his smoldering flames. Bella let go of her love and gripped her hatred, so she wouldn't suffocate. She needed to hold onto something and aside from the stuffed pink sock monkey from childhood, that was it.
—
"Ah," Bella said, calmly as a slow smile grew on her face to mask her anger. "You've found me again, haven't you?"
"I always find you which is why you're better off with me."
Bella chuckled and shook her head. "No way that's happening. I'm with Connor."
"That's temporary."
"What are you doing here?"
Christian stopped twirling it but his gaze stayed focused on the thread of silver. It morphed into a thick cord and then became something familiar. It was the letter opener. Bella watched her dad use it to open a letter, a bill, or a promotional letter from one company or another. She wasn't interested in the content but rather, she was interested in the way the blade made rough sounds against the paper but cut through it smoothly.
Christian ran his finger along the foot long blade, careful not to cut himself.
He stepped over to her, and offered it with the hilt pointed at her.
"Triggering you, Bella," he answered, nonchalantly. His smile matched hers. Bella was fighting with him and she would come out victorious. She'd kill for the win. "Only because I know you in a way my brother doesn't. Where did you go tonight before you put yourself together to look as beautiful as you do right now?"
Bella glowered at him, annoyed and defiant, "I could shoot you for climbing my window and breaking into my house."
"You'd love that. You'd also love the way something so simple and ordinary could do so much damage. You would love the idea of something small doing big things that leave an impact," Christian said, ignoring her. He pushed the hilt of the letter opener towards her. His face hardened, his eyes darkening. "Right now, you want to see what it feels like to have this letter opener move and glide against skin. Show me. Show me how you killed Bree Sanders in the inner sanctum of your murder house."
"You're not triggering me, Christian. Annoying me, sure. Amusing me, even."
"No?" Christian challenged, taking her hand and enclosing her fingers around the cool metal. He smiled again, using his free hand to stroke the apple of her cheek and the skin burned. The rosy coloured blush she had carefully applied was changing into an invisible burn mark. "Bree has been cremated and your murder house has been made to ashes. I burned it tonight."
The water that has saturated her had dried. In its place, she felt the black ribbon grow and stretch. The ribbon stopped being smooth and a picture of weird beautiful as whatever little light tried to hit it. No. No. No. No. There was no light anymore. There was a falcon of pure black circling her under its squawking cry cracked her purple sky and ripped her bloody red moon in half. Bella stared at him, shaking. The dark falcon's claws pierced her deeply until she bled. Black inky liquid nestling inside of her slowly leaked. It bled through her dress, leaked out through her pores. It ran down her legs from between her legs, darkening the burgundy half of her dress.
Bella felt it leak from her follicles and matted her newly straight hair. It was all ruined. It was all destroyed. With a burst of strength she knew she had but never exhibited unless she had pushed to her limit, she swiftly snatched the letter opener and pinned Christian down, straddling him. It was a quick series of movements but even with Christian looking up at her smugly, she felt that familiar need.
She held the letter opener against his throat, two brown freckles on the side of his neck and a blue vein under his skin being a path between them. Her hands shook and that made her fearful. There was something familiar in his eyes, something recognizable that stretched and breathed underneath his skin. His eyes dulled to a near slate grey. Bella felt a sharp tremor between her legs and the heat of her anger clash against each other.
"There it is…" Christian observed, and moved to give Bella more access to his throat against the silver, glinting blade. The shadow of a smile pulled his lips upwards. She stared at him while Christian stared through her and she shivered. "You want to know. You've always wanted to know. What it would be like to have the blade cut through my flesh. How smooth it cuts. If I'd bleed slowly or if I'd bleed quickly. Here's your chance. Take it."
"It would be very wise for you to not provoke me. Don't fuck with me," Bella warned, softly yet darkly and pressed the blade against Christian's throat with a little more pressure. "Your mother will lose you tonight if you try me."
"I'm not," Christian replied, flipping her over so she landed on her back. She screamed sharply out of surprise and now, she was the one staring up at him. With the force, the letter opener flew and clattered away from her with a sharp clinking sound. She squirmed against him but he held her down. The strain of her frustration made her laugh, loudly.
"You've been wanting this. You took your chance!"
"Maybe," Christian answered, calmly. His gaze was piercing now and her heart hammered against her ribcage so rapidly, it could have snapped her sternum in many pieces. "But you take a chance with every life you take. There's something dark inside of you, and my brother can't see it because he doesn't want to. He can't. Yet. My brother is brilliant. You know that. He can put a business proposal together in his sleep but you…you've done something to him."
A laugh that sounded more like a broken cackle escaped her lips, stained dark red.
"Well done, Freud."
"You're anything but delicate, Bella. How much?" Christian asked, in curiosity.
Her mouth twisted into a sharp smile and she struggled to move a wrist against him, only for him to effortlessly hold her down in place. She cursed between clenched teeth. Then she screamed, loud and guttural.
"Let me go, asshole!"
"No."
"How much what?"
"Darkness. How much," Christian asked, loudly to get her attention and tracing a fire and ice path down her throat, to her chest and in the center of her abdomen, "is inside of you? Because I see it. It's a thrill for you, I know. Connor is a thrill for you. My brother's emotions, for all his brilliance, are erratic," he smiled, proudly as if he'd won a game Bella didn't know the rules to. "When that brilliance catches up with those unpredictable emotions, he will see you. It's fascinating the way you twist him up and leave him blind. Impressive even."
Bella narrowed her eyes, "He does see me!" she screamed, louder, and scratched his face in a quick smooth movement. Christian's head snapped to the side from the impact before he settled into his typical calm. It was maddening but left Bella curious and she didn't want to be but she was more concerned with wanting to tear him to pieces. She scurried out of his grasp and he stood, wiping the thin line of blood that had welled on his cheek. She stood on shaky legs, and ragged breaths. "He loves me!"
Bella glared at him, eyes fixed on the smeared blood she had drawn and laughed again. She found her footing, adjusted her hair and makeup. She was Connor's perfect girl. She would stay his perfect girl and they would be perfect together. Connor would see nothing but her, and everything encompassing her.
She mocked him, eyes wild and lips in a smile as confident as his.
"He sees all of me, Christian. He sees me when he touches me and says I'm his," she whispered roughly, the smoothness of his ash grey vest under the pads of her fingers. "He sees me when he gives me his heart. He lets me take him until I drain him dry and still, he still sees me."
"Don't you know?" Bella continued, raising her gaze to meet his steely gaze. Her dark brown eyes flitted over to his cheek, the skin raised red and still bleeding but not as much. She bit her bottom lip with a coy smile that did not hold innocent intentions. "Connor's going to continue to love me because I will be all he will ever want or need. The bottom line is," she lowered her tone so it was seductive and ran a delicate finger over the scratch now with remnants of dried blood, "I'm everything he desires."
Christian stopped her hand from tracing a light brown freckle on his neck.
"What are you so scared of?"
Bella retrieved her hand and laughed, "Is that a serious question? I know you want me, too. I can give myself to you and watch him kill you because he loves me enough to protect me. Cain and Abel, no?" she added, with a sigh, touching her hair and smirking. "It sure is something, isn't it?"
Christian snorted and shook his head, "He can take care of himself as long as long as I help it along. Of course, I want you, but I've been going about it all wrong. Someone told me to change my approach. Granted, they must have had their own agenda but it was sound."
"Oh?"
Bella watched him put his hands in his pockets and shrug.
"Yeah. I have," Christian replied and looked at her with that piercing gaze. He was looking through her again. He was searching for something and his lack of fear made Bella bristle. Suddenly, she had no time to long for her letter opener and aching to truly what it felt like to experience it in the way a writer finds harmonious sounds and constants to weave the perfect prose. A shadow of a soft smile appeared on his lips and it contradicted the rough way he pulled her in. "I'm your shadow."
Then he kissed her. When Connor kissed her, Bella could feel the need in them. She could feel him drowning into her and begging her to save him. She felt powerful when she kissed him but Bella needed him, too. She needed him to bend to her will and needed the reckless way Connor would fuck her. His obsessiveness was her high and his compulsion was her aphrodisiac.
When Christian kissed her, Bella didn't know where silence ended and earth-shattering noises start. Bella heard Jesse's guttural scream and he came to life inside her, received its warmth and then slowly left it behind for her. She heard Bree's choking originating from her chest and felt her windpipe bending like a hose under her grip. She saw Nadia's mouth blue from the lips before she jerked around wildly and she spat up white cotton candy. Bella heard nothing from Janice but saw her eyes in vivid technicolour. Christian kissed her slowly and Bella herself start to become dizzy.
The colours had blended together until they were a messy brown. Bella ran her fingers through his mop of hair while kissing his back just as roughly. She felt his colour on her hands. He was grey. Somewhere between. Christian lingered in the middle and that made him an enigma. While Connor smelled of cologne that tickled her nose, Christian smelled of smoke and ash and Bella nearly choked on his fumes.
Then Bella felt herself unravelling. Her dress wasn't so perfect anymore, her lipstick became smudged. She felt Christian's ambiguity and despised it. She had to know. Fuck. She would know. Christian became rough with her as she felt her bare back hit the locked door. If it left a mark, that was fine. It would be proof that Bella was clawing to figure out who Christian Andrew Newman was. Christian pulled away from her, his eyes a shade of blue Bella couldn't look away from. She was breathless. He was trapping her and it made her angry. Her shadowed insides bubbled until everything became like tar.
He stopped, looking at her as if to calculate the many possibilities of what could happen. What he wanted to happen. Bella could see the black bubbles and feel the searing heat under skin so hot, she could almost explode.
The heat scratched at her, making her itchy. Christian did this to her. He was knocking her off-balance. He was turning her inside out. Christian tickled her ribcage and got past her lung, she slapped him before he got deeper. The initial crack reverberated and crackled in the air but electricity never evaporated.
Christian seemed to not be impacted and when Bella went to strike him again, he caught her wrist. Bella pulled her wrist away from him and the grip was broken. She didn't want to think about the 27 bones of his hand, gripping her. Nobody was allowed to do that. Nobody. Nobody was allowed to touch her in a way that shifted power dynamics that made the shadows dissipate. She needed them. Bella loved them. Christian let go.
"I'm late," Christian finally revealed in the silence.
Bella rolled her eyes. "Am I supposed to be interested in that?"
"No. It's a fact. That's all. It doesn't interest me either but I like Gwen's company and it's an easy way to pass the time. Parties like tonight is not my idea of entertainment."
"Get out!" she screamed, eyes flashing. Something churned in her gut. Her brown eyes looked around Christian to lock onto the silver letter opener on the floor. He knew that it lay by his feet. He stepped over it, walked over to the door before leaving, wished her a goodnight with a kiss on the cheek.
She bent down and picked up the letter opener. The cool silver felt like ice and it slowly extinguished Christian's heat underneath her skin. Bella's other hand gripped the blade, slowly shifted to her version of normal. Bella could hear his footsteps, his hand against the doorknob and beginning to turn it. She winced, the sharpness against her palm intensifying. It gave her a feeling of delirium, a high induced by the possibility of feeling blood even it was hers.
Bella could hear his footsteps behind her, his hand on the doorknob and beginning to turn it by the clicking because of its mechanics.
"I'll kill him," she said softly, opening her palm. The pink line was beautiful in the center of it. It was art under her skin. "I'll kill Connor and make him mine forever if you push me."
Even better, she would kill their mother for being in her way. The woman grated her nerves. When they did snap, Bella would let herself snap too and bathe in the bitch's blood.
Christian sighed behind her.
"Goodnight, Bella."
Her heart raced and a cold, shadowed hand worked to soothe and steady it. She grinned and spoke evenly, "Have fun tonight with Gwen, Christian."
The door closed with a slam and a click. Bella turned around and saw a puddle on the floor. It was Christian's colour. He was no longer grey and perhaps, he never was. Her eyes focused on the growing puddle, expanding and trickling upwards. It crawled up the wood of the door and slithered across the ceiling. No, Christian didn't bleed grey.
Like her, Christian was black. He was black. Just like her.
He bled back.
—
Bella's head was being squeezed as she saw black bleeding on the walls. It was being squeezed and she would see stars in her eyes if she came undone. She had to make it better. She would make it better. Glancing at the silver letter opener in her hands, Bella twisted it in her hands. The light hit it and it sparkled silver like moonlight. Bella glanced at the window and the milky coloured orb in the sky shined against black velvet.
She stared, transfixed as the colours shifted to a normalcy only she understood.
The full moon turned blood red again and she smiled, finding her sanity.
Bella looked at the letter opener. Christian was right about something. She did want to see how smoothly the sharp edges glided against skin. She pressed its blade to the base of her finger and applied pressure until a cut formed deep enough to have blood appear. It was dark red, and it bled over a rivulet hanging underneath her biggest finger until it fell off. Her blood was sparkling as if it had absorbed moonlight. She was enthralled by it. Bella brought her bloody hand to her lips. It was smooth and metallic in the back of her throat and was as intoxicating as her favourite Montoya Cabaret red wine.
connor newman
He drove with aching red knuckles that had little cuts. They ran parallel and insect each other. Some were deeper than others. Some were circled with dried blood while others were surface wounds. His knuckles ached but Connor didn't mind. It was the same colour of his velvet tie and Bella's dress. His suit was pressed, the white collared shirt was white and clean. His black suit jacket had its two round buttons buttoned straight. His dark hair was done to his standards of neatness and every so often, he ran his lint roller over his jacket and pants. Eight times for each leg which equaled sixteen and eight times for the left and right sides of his suit jacket. Thirty-two times, Connor worked to be perfect and tonight, he would ooze so much charm, it would run over and drown everyone he met in it.
He didn't need the medicine. He didn't need the therapist. Connor didn't want the Clomipramine. There were thirty of them in the amber coloured pill bottle. One a day. Thirty divided thirty always equaled one. One meant he was alone. He was drowning in the numbers. The number one were like thrown knives that gutted him, and the number eight were handcuffs bent into infinity. The number three and its curves lodged in his throat, making it hard to breathe much less scream. Connor gripped the wheel harder because his head was beginning to pound. Sometimes, there were thirty-one days and still thirty pills were still there. Thirty one couldn't be divided by anything because it equaled a number broken and one Connor couldn't and didn't want to understand. It was as nonsensical as the number 289. 289. The number of tiles on Dr. Forsythe's ceiling of her office, where all the framed pictures of her family and degrees were askew and made him anxious. When he was anxious, Connor became angry. 289 was the number 17 falling on itself. Connor would not let himself collapse fall to jagged pieces. He would not let the imperfections suffocate him.
Connor gripped the steering wheel tighter with a laser focus on the lights and road in front of him. When he needed to drive straight, he did. When Connor needed to turn, he counted the steady sound of the clicking his turn signal made. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven –
"Damnit!" he cursed, loudly and sharply turned left. Seven. It was that number with the sharp edges and straight lines that joined themselves together to form a point that could stab him. It would penetrate his skin and make him bleed. He counted the traffic lights he stopped at when it was red, slowed down when he was amber and drove off when it was green. Three colours. Three choices for him to choose on the road. Three. Three. Three. His head pounded and Connor could feel it splitting apart.
His hands shook as he turned on Bella's street. Connor was almost there. He conjured up her house with its four walls, eight windows from front to back and the four steps he had to climb to get to her. Connor pulled over on a quiet side street, closing his eyes and forcing air into his lungs. He counted his breaths both the exhales and the inhales.
One. Two… Three. Four. Five… Seven. Eight. Nine –
Nine. It was an odd number and had no room in his bubble of even numbers, perfect numbers. The even numbers were bright and shining. When they split in half, they burst like sparklers. The odd numbers were awkward in their formation and in the way they phonetically arranged themselves on his tongue. The number 9 was curvy, multiple times over and swung to slice him like the Grim Reaper's scythe.
Connor couldn't think and he couldn't see because his vision was swimming. His counting became strange and incomprehensible but he did comprehend the cool, soft hand on his face. He smiled, placing his hand on it. She wore white because she was an angel. Her eyes were shinning. He could see magic on her skin and Connor didn't want it to stop feeling it under his skin. She was his, just his and no one else was allowed to have her. Connor was being pulled down in Bella's quicksand but he would not resist because he wanted to suffocate. He wanted to be a part of her just like Bella was part of him.
"You came…"
"You needed me. Of course, I came," Bella replied, softly. She touched his face with the back of her hand. "I love you, y'know."
Connor replied, automatically, as she moved her little frame to straddle him. He was in the driver's seat. Her hands felt like feathers on his face and she smelled like daises in spring. A curl fell in her face and Connor gently moved it to stare at it, into it. She was beautiful, captivating and felt like the cool wind of night on his skin.
"I love you, too."
"Good," she grinned. "Good…"
She pressed slow burning kisses to his neck, his jaw and his mouth. Those feather light hands moved slowly to trace his belt. Connor ached for her so badly, it almost hurt. Bella's glance went from his face, downward as he felt her fingers do a quick dance of unbuckling his belt accompanied by the sound of tinkling bells. He put his head back, slightly inclining his driver's seat and placed his head on the head rest. Connor squeezed his eyes shut, the ache getting more intense and acuter, it made him grit his teeth and nearly taste blood.
"You don't need anyone, babe. You don't need the medication and the shrink," she laughed, making him hear those bells. They made his eardrums tingle and vibrate. The wind she carried with her, brushed his bare lap and caused goosebumps on the skin of his thighs. "Christian hates you. He wants to take it all from you. Your dad loves him more, sweetie. Your mom," she said, softly, feathered hands caressing his penis, "is trying to control you. They're all…trying to control you. Let me love you, Connor. Only I can."
Connor kissed her roughly as he felt himself start to harden in her grasp.
"Let me make it better," Bella whispered against his mouth. "I'll make everything better."
—
He counted the sharpened knives of the dark surface of that gnarled and twisted cocoon as Bella's kisses became more intense, wilder and frenzied. Connor lost his spot. He lost himself in the rapid succession of numbers swirling around him. They were adding themselves, then subtracting, suffocating him with multiplication and then pushed into the abyss of division.
—
Connor felt the cocoon's thorns stab and rip through him. He didn't know anything anymore, couldn't comprehend anything and couldn't feel anything except her. He squeezed his shut and cursed through his teeth, pleasure not running through his body as soft touches and vibrations but felt like stomping that left him carrying within him a series of aftershocks. He imagined Bella's house with the eight windows. He visualized the four steps of her house. Connor would allow his clean shoes to climb those four stairs. Connor then imagined Bella as an angel, a vision spawned from his sweetest dreams and made his nightmares unable to taint him.
Connor smiled, deliriously as he imagined kissing Bella and never breathing again. He didn't want to. The cocoon in his stomach burst like a balloon stretched its limits and pure black butterflies with no colour fluttered around. He saw them flutter around until they stopped, melting into one entity. The liquid thickened until it formed a small wrist, and webbed out to form slender fingers. The fingers expanded to form claws and it touched its face before it scratched him, slowly and painfully.
Connor felt Bella's lips on his bloody cheek and she grinned at him.
"I told you. You're all better. You're so peaceful and you need to hold on to it forever. Your parents will take it from you. Christian will take your happiness away from you the most. He'll take me from you if you let him. Make sure he doesn't, babe."
"How?"
Bella stared him in the eye, the darkness in her face returned.
"Kill him, Connor. That's it."
Connor frowned, "I can't do that, Bella. He's my…brother. He's my family."
"He's an obstacle. I'm your family! If you don't do this, you'll lose me," Bella argued, placing her hands on his face. She was kissing him until he was bending. Connor was being twisted by her and then he heard himself crack and break. Bella pulled away, and he saw her eyes. Her left one was brown and her right one pure black. His hand shook as he fingered a stray, wispy curl. He was bleeding everywhere. "Kill Christian. You're smart."
Connor was hesitant and blinked. His brow furrowed trying to unravel what Bella was asking of him. He was mad at Christian, irritated with him and sometimes, he visualized killing him. But it was never something he could make a reality. Christian never pushed him there. No. No. He wouldn't. There had to be another way.
"No," Connor refused, shaking his head. The doctor talked to him to make sure his head didn't float away. Maybe the medication made him stop submerging himself into the condo's pool and letting himself sink to the bottom finding a peaceful kind of silence. He shook his head. "I won't. I love you with all of my heart. But he's my brother."
Bella stared at him and then glanced down. "Okay," she said, quietly. "Fine."
He offered her a wry smile. "Please don't be mad at me."
"I'm not."
"You're—you're not."
"Of course not," Bella answered and looked at him, smiling at him. He gasped, taking in a sharp intake of breath. Everything hurt. Pain spread out like shot of adrenaline, tainted with corrosive poison. He shook as dark red bloomed against pristine and pressed material. He couldn't breathe. His throat felt like it was closing up. Connor grit his teeth and counted the throbbing in his abdomen and counted Bella's five fingers deeply embedded in it.
"What are you…doing?"
Bella grinned and Connor felt the claws ripping him apart.
"I know, sweetie. It hurts," she soothed, quietly, touching him with her free hand. It lightly scratched his face. The beautiful monster was back and Connor didn't know whether to stay or run away screaming. He wanted to rip all these stained clothes off his body. It made him feel dirty so he screamed. And then screamed some more. "Christian is hurting you right now. He's causing you this pain and it isn't fair. Why wouldn't you let him hurt you? Hurts us? You've failed."
Failure. Disappointment. Loss.
"I'm…sorry," Connor ground out, squeezing his eyes shut. Slowly, in about 228 seconds, the pain melted away. He was clean and perfect again. He heard a quiet sniffle and saw Bella again. Her cheeks were rosy, skin flushed and her eyes shiny with unshed tears. A small one rolled down her cheek and he gently wiped it away. "Don't cry. I hate when you're sad."
"I know you do. I hate being scared of Christian. You have to make him disappear. He's going to hurt you. Is keeping him better than losing me and my love to him? You're the better brother and you'll end up with nothing. It isn't fair, is it?"
"No," he answered, quietly. "No. It's never been…"
Bella took his hand and traced his palm. He ran a slender finger and traced the biggest line in it until it bled. It was silver. A type of silver that didn't metallic but looked like liquefied stardust. Bella told him he was powerful. She told him he was special and he bled brilliance and innovation. She glanced down again, and kissing his plan smiling against it.
"Kill him, Connor. When you get scared, I'll help you. Think of me."
And then she was gone.
—
Connor saw Christian's blood drip between his fingers and didn't mind it all.
—
"Hey, you," Bella greeted him with a kiss. Connor was speechless, unable to verbalize how beautiful she looked in her black and burgundy dress. He suddenly appreciated her dark hair straight and imagined all the ways, he could run her hands through it. She kissed him a little longer, making him place his hands on her face. Her skin was soft in his hands and the sweet smell of her perfume was addictive. She wrapped her arms around his neck loosely before she pulled away. Bella placed another quick kiss to his lips and smiled at him as she had in his car. Bella Fisher was truly his angel and she chased his nightmares away. "Happy anniversary."
Connor presented her with his bouquet of bright yellow flowers. She took them, walking into her house as she followed him.
"They're beautiful. I love them."
He remembered, seeing a bandage around her finger that blended into her skin. Connor hated her seeing hurt, or the idea of it. It was wrapped around her middle finger two times.
"What's with your finger?"
"Oh!" Bella shouted from the kitchen. "I was making a snack and got stupid with a knife. Nothing a Band Aid can't fix. I'm fine, but you're sweet for caring."
Bella turned a corner and re-appeared with the yellow flowers in a clear glass vase, water at the bottom. She set it on the center table and she kissed his cheek. Bella grabbed her clutch from the couch and sighed. She turned around and he saw something change in Bella's tiny frame. Was she mad at him? Had he done something wrong? Were eight flowers not the right wrong when he could given her four to make her happy? Bella looked at him with a smile that didn't reach her eyes and Connor frowned in concern. He walked over to her, stroking her bare shoulders.
"Hey," Connor said, softly, "what's wrong? Was it the flowers because—"
"No, no," Bella shook her head, making her earrings move. She took his hand and held it between her smaller hands. Her hands shook should been warm like they always would. This time, they were cold and Connor resisted the urge to shiver. "You didn't do anything wrong. You're so good to me," she kissed his reddened knuckles. "It's— I did something wrong."
Connor frowned, and his heart began to race. He could feel the hairs at the back of his neck stood up. He forced the anger in his gut to slow down if it couldn't stop entirely.
"What did you do?"
Bella sighed, shifting her gaze away from him. Connor realized his girlfriend sounded like she was on the brink of crying. She exhaled and it sounded shakily and she rubbed her bare shoulders as if protecting herself. Whatever it was, Connor promised he'd protect her. He just needed to know.
"Christian," Bella began, sniffling as tears pooled in her beautiful eyes. "He was here tonight. Before you came. I was wrong because I didn't throw him out when he started…"
She trailed off and Connor counted the ticking of the clock in the living room. He needed to count until he hit an even number. The ticking was steady and to its rhythm, counted. Connor's hands curled to fists so tightly, his nails dug into his palms and half-mooned shaped marks imprinted themselves under her skin. All ten nails dug into the skin and no, the number ten was even but split by two groups of five. Five was odd and it didn't fit. Just like Christian didn't fit. One meant solitude. Two was perfect. Three was suffocating and crowded.
"Started what?" Connor asked, calm but angry. "You need to tell me right now or I will find that shithead brother of mine, get the truth and kill him."
Bella's head snapped up, her eyes wide. "No! Please, don't. It was just that he came here because he knew I was with you. I was alone tonight and he took his chance. I said he wanted to be with me because he was a better man and he was one for me. I'm only telling you because I have to be honest. The last thing I want to do is come between you and your family."
Connor continued counting the ticking of the clock even as his fingers and that clawed hand drove itself into his abdomen and started shredding his insides.
"It doesn't matter," Connor snapped and then apologized but the residue of his anger remained. "Did he kiss you?"
"What?"
"Did he kiss you, Bella?"
"Yes," she answered, after a pause. "But I slapped him for it. I told him – I made it clear that I wanted you and I wasn't going to leave you. He pinned me down to prove a point and I was scared," her lip trembled and she quieted a sob in her throat. Connor still counted the ticking of the clock and the claws tore through him. He felt himself staining the invisible thread with splotches of dark red. "It made me feel dirty and cheap, so I reacted."
"Do you kiss him?"
Bella reared back a little and looked confused, "Why would I do that when I'm with you?"
Connor watched as her eyes flashed with anger. Her eyes went from the dark brown to pure black. Her nails were painted dark red in colour and slowly, he saw the sharp claws again. They looked as if they could cut through steel. Her mouth twisted in a cruel smirk and she laughed.
"Are you serious right now? You think Christian's shadow suffocates you so fucking much that I would rather be with him, and not you? Do you know how insulting it is to ask me that? Hmm? It is our anniversary! What is the matter with you?" Bella continued to scream at him, as Connor stood rooted to his spot. "Why can't you see that I love you? Christian does not fit with us!"
Connor watched her stop mid-rant and she exhaled, the dark eyes and her sharp nails gone.
Bella's eyes filled with tears and she stepped back from him. She said quietly, "I just…" she sniffled. "Connor, I'm sorry I blew up. I didn't mean to. Christian freaked me out, okay? I wasn't expecting him to show up here and kiss me. He caught me off guard. I was hurt that you'd doubt me. I'd never ever hurt you that way. Forgive me, please. I don't mean to be this on edge."
Connor softened and pulled her in. He wiped a small tear from her face. She was his perfect girl, his angel on earth again. She laid his head against him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I know," he replied gently, kissing the top of her head. "I'm sorry, too. It's just that I hate the thought of my brother getting between us. You love me. You chose me. We're happy together. I know that to be true now."
He continued counting the clock's ticking, forcing the numbers to stop stretch as far as possible. Numbers could run on forever. They never stopped. Numbers even ran on when they reached infinity. Infinity. That was permanent, just like Connor and Bella. The clock ticked away, minutes blending into oblivion. Connor stared at Bella in silence. He took in her face. The proportionate features on it and the way one feature would move, triggering others like a domino effect. It was a culmination of some of his favourite expressions from her. Right now, he wanted her to be like his beloved numbers.
Connor wanted Bella for himself to infinity. He wanted to shove herself into an oblivion composed of him, and watch her face as she became his and he heard Bella's soft moans breaking his name into two broken syllables. Connor wanted to make her feel all of him as the two of them became one and Christian was an evaporating ghost of nothingness. Christian wasn't his brother. He wasn't the son of Adam and Chelsea Newman, and he wasn't chasing what he already had. So, Connor kissed her, catching Bella's surprised gasp in his mouth. He kissed her roughly and greedily.
Bella pulled away from him, breathless, flushed skin and a rosy blush in her cheeks.
"Connor, I—"
"I saw you tonight," he cut her off, speaking softly and distantly. He touched her straight hair when he saw her familiar curls. "You were beautiful."
Bella placed her small hand on the one he rested on her cheek and smiled, serenely.
"You needed me."
He nodded, dreams and reality colliding. "Yeah, I did. You came and made me all better."
"Of course. I'll never leave you," Bella promised and kissed him. She tasted of peppermint. Connor stared into her eyes. Brown and glittering with love for him. She smiled. "I'm always here for you. You can trust me," she combed slender fingers gently through his hair by his ear. "I want you, Connor. Please."
Connor stared at her before his face broke out into a smile.
"I feel the same."
—
Connor couldn't breathe, think or even dream in any sequence that made any coherent sense. When Bella looked him in the eyes and said it was just the two of them, he trusted her. When her tiny frame huddled itself against his bigger one, Connor loved her. One day, he was going to marry her. One day, she would be the mother of his children while Christian watched from the sidelines. In the present – the here and now – all Connor could do was count. He counted the several methodical moves he would have to make to beat his cousin, Katie most of all. She was a chess people but it was a different type. Connor would learn and beat her to the Newman throne. Connor would beat everyone to rule the dynasty his grandfather left behind, and Bella would be his queen.
He counted the frenzied steps he had taken while kissing her until they landed in the kitchen. All ten of her fingers were quickly unbuckling his belt. Connor tore her underwear into two ripping sounds of the two sounds black fabric. Suddenly, he was angry because the little, trivial garment became the biggest barrier to what was his. Connor felt a rush of adrenaline and satisfaction when he effortlessly lifted her off her heeled feet and set her on the smooth white kitchen counter. His dick broke through the lips of her vagina and ventured deeper until he entered her and stayed. Connor cursed at how tight she was. Her ocean was dark and black, but he didn't care. It was smooth and stuck to his skin, but this water stayed on him evenly and shined like diamonds were embedded in it.
Connor rapidly counted rapidly in his mind the many times Bella breathily said his name as he fucked her underneath her dress' skirt. He counted the many times she begged not to stop and laughed at the same time. Bella's perfect two legs were open for him and wrapped themselves around his waist. She roughly pulled him in closer to her. Connor counted all the ways he treasured being inside of her, triumphant that he was the one to navigate deep parts of her Christian couldn't possibly scratch the surface of. Bella kissed him and he may have seen that dark glimmer in her eyes. It was clear enough to be salient in her his head. It was distracting him. Bella's eyes were brown and Connor imprinted the warmth of them on his heart. Her heart was scorching against his skin.
He counted one time his pounded into her and on the next thrust, he came and so did she.
Bella smiled at him as he fought to stay surrounded by her fairy dust and take in the beauty that shined in front of him.
Connor would fix his hair, adjusted his tie and made sure his suit was pristine. Then he would watch her adjust her dress and fix her hair. He would sneak up on her and press kisses to her collarbone as she applied her make-up. Connor thought Bella didn't need any. He appreciated the natural aspect of her face. Right now, she whispered a husky "Happy anniversary" against his mouth and kissed him. Connor thought of perfection. It was in his arms. Perfection was under his skin, burrowed in his veins and stretched around his nerves. He counted again, only getting up to two because that was it. It was enough.
He only knew that he wanted this feeling to last forever and so Connor would ensure it was something that would always last. He would tear the sky open for it, and rip the earth in half to attain it.
Connor wanted to have Bella to infinity and beyond. So, he would.
—
"You think…" Bella started, quietly in his car as she drove. She sighed, shaking her head. "Forget it, Connor. It's stupid."
Connor frowned as they ended up at a red light. One. There was one more traffic light until he walked in all charm and swag with the most beautiful girl on his arm. It was his life, and one of the best decisions he never made and his mom had to accept it. He could see the tension in her body, something cloudy and bigger than she could ever be. Still, there was nothing Bella could say to make him question her, doubt her or abandon her. Connor knew his Bella, his beauty.
"You know nothing you tell me is stupid."
Bella focused her eyes back on the road, little hands getting white at the knuckles. She sighed, and shook her head as she pulled into the venue and scanned her eyes for a parking spot.
"It's just I hate that your mom hates me. I don't get it and I can't rack my brain for any reason she has to feel that way. I mean, she's entitled," Bella said, as she found a spot, put the gear in reverse and start to park. "It makes me feel awful if we're being honest. I hate it and it angers me. Maybe she wants an Ivy League trophy blonde for you. I've had to be polite and swallow it but I won't do it any longer if she pushes me. I don't want to cause any friction in your family. I swear to God," she added, parking slowly and made the car stop. "I love you enough, but I can't take it anymore, Connor. I really don't know what I did to make her hate me."
Connor grabbed her arm as she was about to go.
"Stop," he softly commanded and she did, looking at him with hurt in her eyes. He hated that it was even there to begin with. Connor knew his mom didn't approve of her, but why did she question his decisions when she couldn't scrutinize Christian's life decisions. If he stopped and paused, Connor was sure his mother often showed preferences toward Christian over him even though she didn't intend to. Still, it was maddening and made him feel stupid. It made Connor feel inadequate and he never wanted to let that feel that way. Once was too much and he grew to hate that number as much as he did three.
"We have to go. My dad's going to wonder what's keeping me."
"Screw your dad," Connor told her, fiercely and with conviction. "He hates me too. I hate that he thinks and says I'm no good for you. I want to take care of you, damnit! I want to love you until the day I die and after that. So, we're going to shut everyone in there up immediately."
Bella laughed, and rolled her eyes. "How? You gonna propose or something?"
Connor blinked at her and remembering what had been in his glove compartment for four weeks, went into it before he pulled out a little black velvet box. He opened it and Bella gasped, eyes widening before she started laughing.
"Okay, you almost got me. Seriously, great joke, babe. You can't be serious."
There was a prominent, large square cut ruby set against a silver band of diamonds. It sat nestled in the box. He had gone and picked it out, setting it aside for the perfect opportunity. She was truly his match in every way. A perfect half that matched his and made whatever he and Bella was one shining whole. Rubies, the jeweler had told him, the jewel emphasizing love, passion, devotion and increasing happiness.
"I am serious, Bella. I know. We're too young right now. We're not even finished school, but I'm going to breeze the Wharton School of Business and you'll going to be absolutely brilliant when you finish that Master of Science and Ph. D in Biology and become an amazing Medical Examiner. We'll figure it out together," Connor said earnestly as he tried to not laugh at her stunned face. He did smile though. "I just know I won't be without you. I can't be. It's not an option. So, I'm asking you. Would you, Bella Fisher, do me the honour of becoming my wife? Marry me."
Bella glanced down at the ring and then back at him.
"Is that real?"
"Of course, it is."
"A…real ruby? I've always wanted one."
"I know you have one," Connor answered, touching her hair. He was touching a cloud. "Nothing but the best for you, babe. All you have to say is yes."
She shook her head, "Connor, I—it's too much. I couldn't possibly—no."
"Answer me one question. Actually two. Do you love me?"
"You know I do."
Connor looked into her eyes, and took her hand.
"Will you love me forever?"
Bella smiled, softly and touched his face with her free hand, "Always."
"Okay," Connor said, and kissed her fingers. "Say yes, Bella. Let me put this ring on your finger and we'll tell the world I'm yours for life. That's all I want."
She stared at him before her face slowly lit up with a smile.
"I love the sound of that," she replied and then nodded with a laugh. "Yes. Yes, Connor Newman, I will marry you. Yes, I will absolutely marry you."
Connor grinned and slid the ring on her finger. The stone's center was dark and got redder and redder as the light slowly moved away from it. He smiled proudly at his judgment and how perfectly the jewelry sat on her finger. He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed Bella for the first as her fiancé. Fiancée. That word had three syllables but he would fix that. My fiancée. Now, that statement had four syllables of fact and truth in it.
Bella pulled apart and rested her forehead against his.
"You're mine forever like you're supposed to be. Happy anniversary, fiancée."
"Back at you," Connor replied, and kissed her cheek. "Let's go celebrate our engagement."
—
The club was decorated intimately. Connor wasn't expecting too many people to be here, even it was a big deal. Of course, Genoa City's top lawyer was retiring with his son, Bella's cousin, taking over. He hoped to take over the family empire one day. Connor always kept his aspirations to ascend to power at Newman Enterprises. It was the only time the number one didn't taste bitterly in his mouth because it was based on fact. The throne only had room for one and it was him. No more, no less. People he knew and strangers alike floated around too slowly for Connor to count them accurately, but when he scanned the room, he squeezed Bella's hand, smiling down at her when he caught her gaze. He paused at the Club's entry away beside its revolving door and kissed her, her face in his hands.
"I think I see my parents," Connor said, softly after breaking the kiss. She looked at him with a nod, and he placed his hand on the small of her back and gently pushed her in the direction of his family. His mother looked beautiful and his dad looked as sharp as Connor aspired to be. He heard Bella's audibly sigh and whispered that everything was fine. Of course, he was an engaged man and his parents were going to be happy for him and welcome Bella into the family. It wouldn't be a long engagement. It would be just 64 weeks. One year and three months. 52 plus 12. Bella would have to agree with him. She would because she loved him enough and it was their magic number. She had helped him find it.
"Dad," Connor greeted, with a nod and charming smile. He extended it his hand, and his dad matched his and shook it firmly twice.
"Hi, son. Bella. It's good to see you again."
Bella smiled, politely, as his dad acknowledged her, "Likewise, Mr. Newman."
Connor watched his mom in her beautiful dress shift and plaster a smile on her face from his periphery and the small amount of irritation crept in. She touched his arm and kissed his cheek with a hug.
"Hi, honey," she greeted him, genuinely and let her eyes flit over to Bella. She wore that tolerant smile. It was the one his mom wore when she didn't like someone but had to be nice for the sake of outward appearances. She could con everyone, but she couldn't lie to him. "Hi, Bella. It's nice to see you."
She sighed, quietly, stared his mother in the face and said, "I wish that wasn't true on your part, Mrs. Newman. It's fine. I hope it will be one day. Maybe your son loving me will persuade you," she glanced over across the room. "Um, I think I see my family. Excuse me. Again, Mr. Newman – have a good night."
She kissed him goodbye and Connor watched her disappear into a sea of people and waiters holding trays with food and champagne flutes.
Chelsea glanced over at his dad and said, "Adam, I think I see Mr. Hadley over there. I'll join you. I just need to speak with Connor."
His dad got the drift, adjusted the lapels of his suit and with another handshake from his father walked away to meet one of his one of his hedge fund associates. It wasn't like Connor didn't have a vague of who Mr. Hadley once. He had met the gentleman twice. However, Connor was too irritated and anxious to care. When it was just the two of them, Connor turned around to meet his mother's face, frowning.
"Mom, I love you, but honestly," Connor questioned, trying to push down his frustration, "I can't do this. I can't be a buffer between you and the woman I love when you go out of your way to make her feel bad. Her mom was your best friend. Dad killed her kid. Bella doesn't have her mom and it can't be easy. It's not fair."
His mother narrowed her eyes, grabbed his arm and steered him away to a quiet section of the club where their conversation couldn't reach ears and no prying eyes could see it the tension between them.
"I know! Because I was there! I saw Chloe die inside. I saw your dad torture himself under crushing guilt even though it was an accident. I will tell you what it's not fair, Connor," Chelsea argued, angrily. "It isn't fair for you to continue to date her when she's conning you! The bottom is she's controlling you! I spent a good chunk of my life being selfish for my own benefit than I had you and Christian and you two became everything to me! Bella hurts you! That's what she is doing to you! There's something off with her. I feel it. She's coming between you and your brother. ! You know how hard it is for me as it is for as your mother to watch that? Because of Delia," her voice broke, "you can see. I'm asking you right now. Begging. Please open your eyes when Bella is concerned."
Connor watched angry tears fill her eyes, and then push them back.
She continued, softer, touching his face. "She has a hold on you, baby. You're brilliant. You're smart. You have the biggest heart I know, and with all of your issues, you still rise above. I love you so much, Connor. You're a catch and someday, some girl will walk into your life and love you genuinely but Bella isn't it. Open your eyes and see it. Please. Please don't let her poison you anymore. Christian shouldn't have to go through the same thing. It's unhealthy. Bella is making you sicker. Listen to me. Please, honey."
"Christian's fine!" he snapped, picture of him with Bella tonight vivid in his mind. He closed his eyes to keep his anger in cheek and steady his breathing by counting. He mentally counted, making it to fifteen and pushing himself to count up to sixteen. There. Connor felt everything return emotionally to homeostasis. Balance. Perfection and order. He apologized. "Mom, I'm sorry. Christian's a raw subject with me, okay?"
His mother looked at him quizzically, "Why? Why would your brother be a problem?"
"Because he's actively trying to take the woman I love from me!"
She glared at him, sighing, "Connor, get rid of her. I'm not asking you, I'm telling you!"
He might have been disrespectful, but he laughed. The notion was humorous. Connor would never let Bella go. She would let him go either. Bella was right. She was always right. His parents did love Christian more than him, paid him more attention, and valued him more they could ever him. Connor could have cured cancer, ended world hunger and found some brilliant way to eradicate poverty. It wouldn't be enough if Christian eclipsed him in every way that mattered.
"You wouldn't do this to Christian, Mom," he sneered. He chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course, you wouldn't because he's the favourite. You'd encourage him to have Bella so I lose her. Sure, you would because she's not good for me! But perfect for him!"
His mom reared back like he had slapped her.
"Connor," his mother said his name quietly. "Please look at me."
"Why do I have to—"
"I said, look at me! Now!"
So, he did.
"Oh my God, Connor," Chelsea said in quiet realization and alarm in her eyes. "Don't tell me you've stopped taking your medication. You wouldn't do that… You wouldn't…"
Connor put his hands in his pockets and coolly shrugged.
"I would, and I did. I hate the way they make me feel, Mom. I don't want to be drugged up anymore," he explained, as if answering a question about the weather or today's performance on the stock market. He knew both by the way. Connor was organized that way because disorder was bad. Disarray was detrimental. "I don't need the meds."
"Did Bella tell you that?"
"No, she didn't. She just echoed what I've been thinking," Connor clarified. "We're partners, Mom. More than partners. She's my fiancée. You're going to have to find a way to deal with her for real and not just tolerate it. If you love me, you will."
"She's your what?"
"She's engaged. To me. As in, by next year, Bella will be your daughter-in-law."
Chelsea narrowed her eyes in simmering anger. "No!" she answered, vehemently. "No! I forbid it."
He smiled, and kissed her cheek, "It's my life. You don't get a say anymore. If you'll excuse me, I have to go deal with my future father-in-law glaring at me while I try not to drink myself silly and smile. I love you."
Connor sighed, walking away. Everything would have been better if Christian wasn't here. It had to be. It would be better for everyone. As he walked through the crowd to find his lady in red, he marveled at how happy he was and how happy he could continue to be. There was only one way.
You should have suffocated him in his crib, Connor. You should have.
charlie ashby
Detachment.
It was alarmingly easy how it was to do this himself. It was easy for him be comfortable with the life he was entrenched in when Uncle Malcolm wanted him out. Charlie was amazed at how well he could rationalize the divide. Right now, he was Ava's boyfriend getting ready to take her to some party he didn't care, but he needed any excuse to take her out. Not this. Not Uncle Malcolm's second-in-command. Not the temporary guy in charge since Uncle Malcolm was in business in New York.
Suddenly, the weight of the entire Winters organization fell on his shoulders. Charlie walked over to his bar, poured himself a drink and downed it in one gulp. He still felt Frankie and Sam's eyes on him and it annoyed him. Charlie inhaled deeply, and turned around to stare the other two men in the face. Frankie and Sam were the two people in the inner circle he trusted and in some ways, Charlie was wary of them. He had learned very young that was trust was not absolute nor was it concrete. Loyalty was everything and was rewarded, but Charlie worked to stay two or three steps in case, someone was on the brink of switching where their loyalties lay.
Frankie Russo was a slight man. Someone he had known since he and Mattie were eleven years old. Mattie loved Uncle Frankie but remained far removed from what Uncle Malcolm hid behind his façade. Charlie was intrigued by it. He was fascinated by the danger and his curiosity grew with the more knowledge of it he picked it up. It was a secret. It was one that Charlie kept that he grew up the kid who helped everyone, smiled and was known to be a kid who would be kind to everyone. That was true.
He was raised to be a peacemaker as he got older, it was a easy role to be in. Nobody fucked with him because he never did that and he had tolerance for it. it was a rare occurrence to see Charlie Ashby enraged. Charlie was raised to be the one who could see different points of view and merge those perspectives to be the universal friend. Or, according to Katie, friend of friends.
Yet Charlie knew behind that easygoing exterior lay a paradoxical part of himself. This life was ever changing. It was erratic and went from one injury to the injury. One death to the next. One calculated chess match in which the placement of pieces could result in death both ways. Charlie was aware that his calmness under pressure and his ability to be a nice guy was also a danger. He also controlled the chess pieces, moved them before the time to come to do so. Charlie could be alone and navigate this organization and do what had to be done.
Sam was a father figure. He had known Charlie since the age of thirteen. His dad wasn't around of no fault of his own. It was hard to be around when he couldn't be. The closest Charlie got to his father was at the cemetery but he had stopped going. He had to look forward, make sure Mattie was okay and support his mom. Mattie wasn't okay and his mother found reasons to be push forward although the grief would always be there. Sam was the muscle for uncle so Charlie could trust him in contrast to Frankie's figure. Frankie had olive skin, green eyes and a prominent nose. It had a slight bump on the bridge from a break he sustained from a street fight he was involved years decades ago. Sam was a big, hulky man who looked intimidating but was a teddy bear underneath the gruff exterior.
Now, here they are in his living room when Charlie was dressed and about to pick up his girlfriend for a night on the town. They were never going to be at the Club for Michael Baldwin's retirement party. He wanted to take out to a nice restaurant and knew a really cool spot downtown.
"Look, Charlie, Boss is outta town handling somethin' so we gotta have you deal with it," Frank started, in his thick New York accent, "it's a damn shame we gotta drop in like this but it's important."
"There are others to take care of whatever pressing thing is there."
Sam stared in the face, and clapped him on the shoulder, affectionately.
"There's you, Charlie. Just you."
He knew what that meant. Of course, Charlie couldn't leave.
Charlie sighed, "How important?"
Sam looked him in the eyes and said seriously, "Call your girl. Tell her you'll be late."
Charlie looked at Sam, eyes hardened. This was never allowed about to touch Ava. Ever. Like he told Uncle Malcolm, she was a separate entity for all this. She was too good of a person to be touched and tainted by this. So, Charlie worked to protect from it. If Ava and the Organization ever intersected and hurt her, he would never forgive himself. He would hate himself. Knowing that, Charlie knew there would be a time he would have no choice but to break her in order to save her. However, he would prove Uncle Malcolm wrong. But now wasn't it.
"What's goin' down?"
"We had an informant the whole fuckin' time," Frankie told him in disgust. Charlie cursed, anger that usually stayed dormant quietly roused itself. This was something to be taken care of and cut down before it grew out of control. He had to deal with it before it eroded the calm he had worked his life to keep close to him. It was to keep the monster at bay. If it was going to escape from the emotional island, Charlie wanted to control it. "Someone's coming for Boss' territory."
"Who?" Charlie questioned, calmly. His eyes flitted over to the dark mahogany drawer where a .45 chrome semi automatic lay nestled in a locked box. He remembered when his uncle gave it to him as a gift and as a symbol of trust and a token of thanks for his allegiance to the Winters Organization and him. Charlie's eyes went from Frankie to Sam and back to Frankie. "I have to handle this shit and leave my girlfriend. I respect the both of you, but don't waste my time. Who infiltrated us?"
When they told him who had betrayed them, Charlie stared at them for a moment and he made a decision with a nod. Someone close to them had broken their sacred code and for that, there was one only suitable solution. It was a consequence also, depending on the perspective.
He exhaled and shrugged, "Handle it. I'll call you with any additional orders."
Charlie wasn't surprised. He was expecting this.
Charlie watched Sam and Frankie look at each other. He watched a look pass between them and then they turned those eyes on him.
"Okay. Anything else that I have to know about?"
"It's serious and fucked up," Sam disclosed and cursed.
"We were scared to tell you and I'm not scared'a nothin'"
Charlie's heart hammered in his chest but he stayed level-headed.
"Tell me what?"
Sam clapped a strong hand on his shoulder, and stared him in the eye.
"Caleb," Frankie said, grimly setting his jaw. "Your uncle is out."
"What?"
"He escaped. He's been out of Tasmania for some time. No one knows where he is right now."
A chill ran up his spine and settled in his veins. Those veins carried blood similar to his uncle. In Caleb's face, he saw his father and nothing else.
"Go," he ordered, stoically. "I'll handle this myself. Thank you."
Charlie waited until he was alone. There was panic, trepidation, fear of what the hell was going to happen and anger. It was more anger because how the fuck did he not entertain this possibility? Surely, the Australian cattle mob wouldn't have been this foolish. But damnit, they were. That carefully stitched quilt of calm and clarity was unravelling. The patches were being dark stained. A loud tearing noise exploded in his head and Charlie picked up a marbled vase on the center table and threw it against a wall.
He inhaled sharply, the vibrating sound of his phone sounded like the buzzing of a large wasp, circling around in preparation to stinging him. Charlie shook as he pulled it out. The iPhone slipped through unusually clumsy fingers and clattered on his floor. Charlie bent down to pick it up and began to frantically sew his security blanket together while centering himself.
To be a monster or let the monster become him. That was the question.
—
"Hey, what's up?" Charlie greeted and went into that default easy-going demeanor. He let the sound of his girlfriend's voice rest in his ears, and slowly drip into his veins like morphine. It could have the potential to be poison.
"We still on for tonight?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm still down if you were."
In his mind, Ava rolled her beautiful eyes and laughed. "Of course, but can we meet up at the hospital?"
Charlie's heart slowly started to race and he felt his stomach lurch.
"Hospital?" he questioned, unable to keep the panic out of his voice. "Holy shit. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," Ava assured him and explained why she was there. "I was waiting for you, and my dad texted me to let me know he was back from Australia. He was there for some medical conference and to see my brother, Max. My niece was just born so he went down there to see her."
Charlie let himself let out a sigh of relief. Ava was fine. Of course, Ava would go to the hospital. She was working to follow in her dad's footsteps and she was a doctor's kid.
"Oh. Okay," Charlie replied, and winced at a pain that was physically felt in his head. It was a light throbbing that sharp undertones. It was as if his beloved football cleats had turned him. Instead of giving traction to ran around and take his opponents down, the spiked bottoms took him down with pain blooming. "Yeah, I'm totally cool with meeting at the hospital."
"Great. We can drive to the Club in separate cars—"
"Ava," Charlie started, cutting her off, "I'm not in the mood to go to the club anymore. Seems like we'd be going just because we have to. I think it will go on without us. Besides, Mattie just flew in tonight and something came up with her."
She was silent on the phone and then sounded surprised.
"Mattie…is back?"
"Yeah. She's at my mom's for the time being."
"You'd think she would call her roomie and give her a heads up."
Now, it was her turn to reassure her in the midst of re-assuring himself.
"I'm pretty sure she has her reasons."
"You're her twin."
"Baby, she will tell you in her own time," he sighed, heaviness in his chest. An internal weight the size of Australia settled behind his sternum. "I'm going to meet you at the hospital. You're sure nothing's wrong?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm only here because of my dad. Are you okay?"
Charlie resisted the urge to throw up. Caleb was the Claudius to his Hamlet and he didn't ask for it. In some ways, he had by making this crucial decision. He didn't want to separate himself from it. There was too power entrusted to him and too much numbness seeping into him when he entered that bubble of organized crime. It was a bubble with thin walls and Caleb's bloody hands could pop it. He forced a smile.
"What?"
"I'm just wondering if you're okay."
"Uh," Charlie answered, his eyes staring fixedly at a drawer. "Yeah. I'm going to be a little later. There's something I need to handle. I'll be fast."
"Okay. See you soon," Ava said, finally and Charlie held on to the imagine of the warm sunshine in her smile and the halo above her head. "Just don't make me miss you too much."
This time his smile was genuine. "I won't."
Charlie hung up and exhaled. Pocketing his phone, he strode over to his drawer and pulled out a medium sized black box. The chrome gun rested safely in its dark velvet. Suddenly, he was operating in autopilot and he could detach himself. He put Ava in a little radiant and buried it in the darkness that grew as the roaring grew louder and caused a sort of pressure and throbbing in his temple. He could feel it but it didn't hurt. Using the heel of his hand, Charlie pushed the magazine into the gun, the metal icy in his palm.
There was just comfortable stoicism now.
Charlie shoved the gun into the waist band of his pants from the back, adjusted his jacket and stepped over the remains of the vase his mother gave him. He calmly opened the door to his apartment and let his door close behind him. His phone buzzed again, and Charlie pulled it, furrowing a brow. He grew curious until he wasn't anymore. Two words made Charlie's free hand curl into a fist until his knuckles ached, begging to collide any surface. Anything for some kind of sweet release.
—
Unknown
Hello, nephew.
