Chapter 25

Don't Touch Me

The plush rabbit mask that shielded his eyes did little to nothing to make his stare any less soul-piercing, because AJ had felt it the whole time she was busy making pancakes for him. It was the first thing he had ordered her to do upon entering her sugary sweet prison, right after he had wished her a good morning, apologizing for leaving her alone and expressing how he hoped she had slept well, either unaware that she had barely any sleep thanks to him or simply not caring about it. The petite woman's limbs felt like they had instantly turned into stone once Mr. Buns had come in and she had been unable to speak. Not because she was refusing to greet him back, but simply because she just couldn't do it, out of the pure fear she had towards her captor. Yes, hatred had always been present as well during these past days, but on that moment, it was the fear that overlapped any other feeling. Luckily she had already hidden the diary and key back in their original spots way before Mr. Buns had returned, thus sparing her from a highly likely brutal beating. All she was capable of was staring back at the plush lunatic while she was sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest and her legs wrapped around her legs, tired eyes widened as she anxiously wondered what he was going to do with her now.

AJ still didn't have a clue of what time it was but she was assuming that it must be close to the afternoon, since the sun had been shining brighter through the gaps of the wooden beams and Mr. Buns requesting her to make lunch for both of them. She had heard the question clearly and she had to put most of the energy she could possibly muster up to get her legs moving. They felt heavy, so ungodly heavy, but she was able to get off the bed and walk towards the fridge. Surprisingly, a dozen eggs and a single bottle of milk had been placed in there, as if Mr. Buns had been planning all along to make her bake pancakes for him. The faint memory of her mother making these for her one time when she was nine years old (AJ believed it happened on a Friday morning, right before she had headed off to school) gave her enough knowledge on how exactly to make them; it was one of the rare good memories she had of Roberta Lee, since that had been one of the very few times where she hadn't been high on heroin and just happened to be acting relatively nice to her. Not for one moment did Mr. Buns, who was sitting at the table, look away from her. It was so fucking creepy and unsettling, but she tried her best to not let it get to her and instead concentrated on the bubbling, creamy liquid in the pan.

The amount of eggs and milk had been enough to make five pancakes in total; four and half ended up on Mr. Buns' plate, the remaining half on AJ's, but she was too scared to protest this absurd unfairness. It quickly turned out that one croissant and orange juice wasn't enough to fill up her stomach, since it was now emitting soft, growling noises. Hunger began to form, growing stronger by the second; the petite woman already knew that one half of a pancake wasn't going to ease it. She bit off small pieces, taking her time. It was difficult to eat in the presence of a deranged psychopath dressed up in a rabbit costume, but she still managed to gulp down the pieces of pancake, which surprisingly didn't even taste half that bad.

You'd expect someone who is fully dressed up in some costume to take off his mask to eat, right? That's what AJ had been secretly hoping for Mr. Buns to do, as it would reveal the true face that sick son of a bitch had been hiding all along. Unfortunately for her, he was everything but stupid. Just like the petite woman, he sliced off tiny pieces of pancake. He slightly pulled the loose fabric around the neck forward with one hand, creating enough space to slip the fork between his still perfectly hidden face and the mask and put the food inside his mouth.

AJ had finished eating her scarce meal by now; just like she had predicted, it had done very little to take the hunger away. What made it even worse was watching her tormenter continuing to eat his lunch, seemingly unmoved by the fact that he had plenty to eat while she was sitting there trying her best to muffle down the gurgles in her stomach by pressing her hands on it.

'It's for your own good, my little sweetheart.' Mr. Buns suddenly said, most likely having heard how hungry she actually was. 'I need you to remain thin and pretty. Because let me tell you… there's absolutely nothing pretty about fat girls. Oh no, not at all. You are far better than them. I know what is right for you. I might let you eat a little bit more if you keep behaving like a good girl, but if you don't… I'm afraid I need to cut your portions until you have taught your lesson. But I have to say, you have been behaving so well now. I know I had to correct you here and there for a bit in the beginning and believe me… it pained me to have to punish you. But it was all for your own good. You are such a beautiful little girl… and you need to stay that way.'

It was quiet between Mr. Buns and his beloved prisoner for a short moment.

'And for how long do you want me to be your... perfect girl?' AJ suddenly asked, her voice become softened thanks to all the emotions she had been forced to go through. 'How long until you'll grow tired of me and go look for another girl?'

'What do you mean by that?'

The petite woman instinctively scooted away. 'Is that why you had killed that many girls back then? Did you become bored with toying with one at some point, so you decide to kill her off to shut her up and move onto the next one? Was that how you worked?'

'Don't be so silly, dear AJ. It doesn't suit you.'

While she had been speaking, she had been mentally preparing herself for him flying into a rage in the blink of an eye and violently 'correcting' her until she'd lie on the floor with blood trickling out of her fresh injuries… it didn't happen. Nothing in that demonic voice indicated that Mr. Buns was going to snap; he was dismissing these questions as if they were amusing him instead of ticking him off. He slowly shook his head.

'That's not how it was like. To me, little girls have always been something that should be treasured. They are the purest, sweetest, most beautiful things out there… I gave each girl all the love and care I had, not once did it cross my mind to replace one, as you had implicated just now. To me, killing off a girl to replace it with another is like a child would break its favorite toy on purpose just to get another one; it's absolutely ridiculous and ungrateful. But no matter how much love and care I gave to a girl… she just couldn't behave. And that made me so… damn… angry…'

'Angry enough to kill them…?'

'I am not to blame for their rudeness! A little girl who doesn't know how to behave like one is nothing more than a disrespectful bitch that deserves to die! I only tried to save them from what they'd eventually become! Do you know what happens to little girls when they grow up, AJ?' At this point, Mr. Buns began to sound truly resentful. 'They lose their innocence. They lose their beauty. They grow up to be whores. They carelessly abandon which they were always supposed to remain and don't even bat an eye about it. But I wouldn't let that happen to them. Not on my watch. You may have grown older and yet… you still look the same. And I'm so grateful for that.'

It was at this moment where the resentment had left his voice and grew softer with adoration; and it made the fear and disgust AJ held towards him this entire time increase by tenfold. Mr. Buns slightly leaned in closer.

'I had lost you once, but I got you back. And as long as we're together… you will always remain my perfect, beautiful, little princess.'

And to show her how much she meant to him, he reached out with his hand and gently stroked the petite woman's right cheek. Feeling the stale-smelling fabric touching her skin made AJ absolutely sick to her stomach and caused ice cold chills to travel to every spot in her body. But then, at the very same time, this unwanted touch brought out something entirely justified and something she had thought to be suppressed by the intense anxiety.

AJ angrily slapped away the arm, the sound of the smack muted by the dusty fabric. She was angry and disgusted enough to glare at her kidnapper.

'You sick fuck…!' she hissed.

That was such a grave mistake to make.

Pure rage exploded from Mr. Buns in less than a second. As if he was stung by a wasp, he got up from his chair and with a furious scream of rage that sounded like only a demon from the deepest pit of Hell could make, took a hold of the dinner and effortless flipped it onto its side, knocking over two chairs in the progress, sending the big teddy bear, one of the Victorian-styled dolls and all of the tableware to the floor. Not one crack was formed in the porcelain of the teacups, plates or the face of the doll, but they were soon crushed with a loud cracking noise when the table tipped over due to the strength it had been thrown over with and landed on them anyway. There was no time whatsoever for AJ to react, be it shielding her face, running away or even trying to fight back. She was slapped across the face with so much strength that she was knocked off her seat. Despite her kidnapper's hand being covered with plush, her cheek still felt like it was set on fire.

One slap didn't mean it was the end of Mr. Buns' unholy rage. In fact, it was only the beginning. As soon as he was standing close enough to her, a rain of kicks and stomps was sent down upon her. It was like multiple sledgehammers were slamming on her arms, ribs, stomach and legs. The only spots that were spared from the abuse were AJ's head and face, but that was only because she managed to shield them with her arms just in time before he began kicking her. Each blow resulted in a loud shriek of pain, all emitted from the petite girl, whose pain-wrecked body was now curled up into a fetal position. If no bones were broken, she would definitely have bruises all over her limbs, she was entirely convinced of that. The kicking and stomping came to an end after an agonizing ten seconds, but it didn't mean in the slightest that her tormentor had grown tired or calmed down. He went down on his knees, pulled her arms away from her face and began beating her repeatedly with his fists. AJ, still letting out shrieks, tried her best to protect her face from the punches by swatting and slapping his arms way each time his fists were getting too close, but to little avail; some blows could still be landed mostly on her cheek bones. Oh Jesus, if he kept it up like this, he'd knock her teeth out, maybe even unconscious or even worse.

After what felt like a century filled with dread of being beaten to death (which were in fact seven seconds), the punches came to an end. Now entirely blinded by his murderous fury, Mr. Buns' hand was placed on the neckline of her dress; it took one hard pull to make the fabric and expose AJ's chest.

Oh no.

AJ's eyes had been clenched shut due to the pain, but once she felt the cold on her chest, her eyes immediately were immediately opened wide with shock. The sheer cold that went through her aching body was strong enough to overlap the throbbing pain. She immediately knew what she was going to be in for… and it had been what she had feared the most during her entire captivity.

She saw him staring down at her chest, she heard him loudly breathing through his hidden nose; it was an eerily easy guess of what went through his mind.

'N-No!' the petite woman screamed. 'No! Don't…!'

All the kicks she had tried to strike him didn't even come close to touching him; she merely scraped against his arm when he took a firm hold of both of her legs and began dragging her towards the bed, causing panic to fully take over. The petite woman desperately tried to grab onto something, no matter what it was, as long as she could hold onto it for dear life. But much to her horror, there was nothing within her reach; all she could do was helplessly screaming at the top of her lungs. Just then, when Mr. Buns had to briefly let go of her legs once they had reached the bed and bend over her in order to grab her by the shoulders, she saw what could possibly be her only chance of fighting back.

'Get the fuck away from me!' AJ shouted at him. With all the strength she had inside him, fueled by the panic, she punched him on the side of his head.

And holy hell… was she close to fully knocking that damn mask off.

The plush rabbit mask slipped off his head for an inch, partially exposing a bare neck. But that was all AJ could see, because before it could slip off even further, he quickly pulled it back into place. This was the one thing that clearly angered him the most; it took one hard punch to her head to make everything go partially dark.

Oh God, oh God, oh God… if she would close her eyes, it would be all over, AJ knew, still holding on to that last bit of consciousness. An insanely rapid heartbeat filled up her entire head; this, along with a strange, high-pitched noise and her own soft yet panicked breathing, was all she could hear. It felt like all control and sensation had left her limbs, the world around her was blurry and darkened. Two hands were shoved underneath her armpits. She was lifted up like she weighed nothing and was tossed onto the bed like she was a ragdoll. Tears of distress began leaking from the corners of her eyes. Still struggling to remain conscious, the petite woman was able to lift her head up enough to catch a glimpse of Mr. Buns, who was now standing right in front of the bed. Something disgusting had already begun to poke through the fabric on his crotch. No more physical strength was left inside her body; he was free to do whatever he wanted with her as soon as he'd get on the bed and that realization made the tears flow harder. AJ stared at him, eyes big with pure distress, expecting him to harm her in the worst way imaginable…

But nothing happened.

Instead of doing what she had feared so much, Mr. Buns took two steps back, facing away from her and shaking his head. AJ tried her hardest to understand what he was mumbling right now; thankfully the high-pitched noise inside her head had grown soft enough to hear it.

'No… No… not this… She needs to stay innocent…' the psychopath mumbled. It was clear that he wasn't talking to her. Was he… discouraging himself? Oh, thank God…

Then, after a few surreal seconds of silence, he looked back at her.

'Look what you just made me do.' Mr. Buns said. 'Now you got your dress ripped up. I made that for you… What a shame, it was such a pretty dress. And I don't have any fabric left to make a new one, now I have to go out and buy fabric. Thank goodness I still know your measurements. You stay here and think about what you have done, young lady.'

As if the horrors that had ensued earlier never had happened, he walked away and exited the bedroom/prison, locking the door behind him and leaving AJ lying on the bed to let her entire body uncontrollably tremble and sob hysterically.