heya

disclaimer: I own nothing.

a/n: another re-write of a chaper...sorry... but its only a few things, I wanted to change a few things because I re-read it after jess/MontyPythonFan it was a bit confusing so thats why the change.I am working on the next chapter already (about 500 words in to it) which means it will be up on either friday or sunday. By the way I just wanted to say that Ashley is a semi-key factory,there is a point with the strange text messages.Dybdahl thank you for reviewing, glad you find grissom scary lol...he is gonna get weirder and scarier, obsession makes you do the crazy. jess/MontyPythonFan thank you again for reviewing, hope this chapter 10 is better than the last one. dark-girl-faith-sidle what she put there is explained, thank you for review.

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Sara was sat in the kitchen in complete darkness; the blind was down and the curtains were pulled across, the kitchen door was shut, blocking any light that came from the hallway. Before she had answered the door, Sara had been thinking about wretchedness and misery in the world, how she was lucky compared to some people and how selfish she was; she had a lot to be thankful for; she had a house; food; love; everything that she needed provided for her. A sound jolted her; a key turning; then another key; another lock. She heard him hum, or whistle. Chris Beven was perceived by everybody as a perfectly normal, nice man, maybe she had distorted thinking; bad thoughts; faulty perception.

"Susan," he cried out, "Susan." She closed her eyes again as she heard him calling. The acidic tears that made her eyelids swell fell down her bleached bone white cheeks. It was her jailer; her husband. She wanted to feel hate, grow ridged with it even. She couldn't, she loved him, though she couldn't understand why. She could hear his thudding steps come towards her. She wanted to lie on the table and refuse to speak. But she couldn't prevent herself from crying out to him.

"I'm in the kitchen."

The lighting flashed against her eyelids and she looked at the sterile white room.

"Found you," he said in a soft and soothing tone, different to the usual sarcastic and rough one. Susan looked up from her clasped hands, smiling. He smiled back gingerly, showing his yellow-tainted and gapping teeth and his magical eyes that lit up like the flames of hell. He slammed his metal box on the table, the clash of surfaces made Susan's shoulders jump involuntary.

He twisted her face upwards, kissing her, her innocent mouth melting under the pressure of dark, ferocious jaws, sucking her raw rose lips. The wet, matted eyelashes blinked and tickled his face. Her iris's just focused on the ceiling.

"You seem happy tonight," she said as he slithered around her to wash his hands.

"I am. Guess why?"

"I don't know. Tell me." She was smiling, the most genuine smile she had felt in a long time. If he was happy, then that meant so many things. The man turned around and looked at his wife. She was such a gem; he had dug deep in the mines to find this precious one.

"I have got us a performance at the retirement home around the corner." Together him and Sara did low paid magician work that was demeaning and pathetic, anyone could see it. But they needed to money.

"That's fantastic," she breathed, making sure she was happy for him. "When?"

"Tonight," he was still smiling and walked over and knelt down beside her.

"So I need you to go," his fingertips breezed over her gooseberry skin, his huge hairy hand squeezing, "and put your make-up and your costume on."

She looked at him.

"Please not tonight…I am too tired, please…not tonight." She pled quietly, Sara was a silent screamer. He stood up, watching her, staring at her, blanched in a silence fury. His eyes smouldered in to her hair, while her eyes only managed to glow briefly in to the floor. Without looking upwards she moved.

"I'll go get ready."

"Be ready in 30 minuets," he made her shudder from head to feet, as his voice was so gruff. It was impossible to guess from what remote recess of the body it proceeded and it had merely echoed in his throat.

She picked up her empty hairbrush; she hoped that the man with a familiar face had taken her strings of hair. But what if he couldn't look beyond the surface, what if he couldn't see what lies beneath. It was hopeless; a large dull cloud of hopelessness.

Ashley lay on her bed, spread out like a mermaid and dressed in such unfitting and revolting clothes. Dull blue slacks and a lilac top. Her rich swirls and curls of hair were pulled back grimly and tied up. She had reduced her make-up to its basic elements; her natural look was mystically unnatural. Ashley's mom, Miranda, always let her know that she was a mistake when she came in from the drunken streets of New York. It was not alcohol that made her drunk though; for Miranda, her job was her high; her LSD, her crystal meth and lady Heroin all rolled in to one delicious cocktail. Ashley wasn't completely sure what her mother's job was, but she knew it meant she would only see her mother, on average, twice a month. Sometimes it would be three, but that would only happen around Christmas and Ashley's birthday. For how long was a huge variable.

Ashley hated Las Vegas, with a passion. They had moved because Miranda didn't have friends in New York, well she did but only so she could get to the top by either making love eyes at them or slowly stabbing them all in the spines, and she felt it would do her good to get a fresh start for her only daughter. Greg welcomed them of course, it was his nature and the cold bitch Ashley and many others perceived Miranda to be stopped. Instead, Ashley felt like the cold bitch, spoilt and rotten to her core. She had begged Miranda to let her stay with her dad, but he had been sleeping with his assistant. And his assistant's assistant; and the women from the Chicago office; and the girl who he had asked to bring him a coffee. But Dad, her Dad was one of those guys you fell in lust and love with and stayed hooked; dishy, dreamy rock star hair, big eyes and a cheeky, golden smile consisting of perfectly straight white teeth. It was a surprise that his teeth were not rotten and filled with sliver; his voice always was voice smooth and rich like honey. Now Mom was flying, not that that made difference, because of technology she could create a PowerPoint for her meeting in London on her laptop while she was on her cell to Paris while soaring to L.A. Miranda may be under the delusion she was the dominant one in their relationship but that fact that she was rushing to New York to see the man she had not seen for 12 months, showed who was in control.

The flash of her phone and a weak vibrating buzz disturbed her phase of looking at nothingness and interrupted her train of thought. The upside about being a spoilt brat of two wealthy parents, that felt guilty for not spending enough time with their daughter, was that in the way of possessions, she got what she wanted.

It wasn't a number she recognised.

Hi, Ashley, you have a secret admirer.

Lv. J. x x

She suddenly found herself happier and automatically texted back.

The audience that were been entertained by the amateur magician and his masked mystical mistress, were saucy and pedantic and pathetically withered like prunes. The elderly people clapped when he completed a trick that was decorated to seem complex, when actually it was very simple. So far he had done the production of certain objects, like a rabbet out of a hat, transformation which was flowers into a dove, restoration and levitation. Now if was time for his grand finale; vanish.

Chris's cheekbones were prominent his forehead was high and when he smiled at his applause, his slender eyebrows met in the middle. He looked over to his Susan also smiling. Her dead hair was twirled up in a complicated manor and emphasized her cheekbones. She wore a dress with a deep slash neck, sleeveless, knee-length dress trimmed with black ostrich feathers down the front and along the hem. Her ears were decorated with topaz studs. He enjoyed lavishing punches of affection and beatings of love upon her, as well as punches and beatings of other things. She was gleaming in her dress but the beads of sweat were trickling down the back of her neck, seeping in to the fine black material dress which was swathing her like a spider's web. Although she was smiling hard, her lips trembled and she had a sweaty face of elaborate and flawless make-up. She wasn't ready, he had just let her come out of her cave; she didn't want to exchange it for a new one.

She pushed the large, oblong box to the centre of his small stage. It was handcrafted and yellow and had purple stars. Together they showed the audience there was nothing in the box, all the sides were wood.

The magician held her hand and kissed it and made her step up in to the box's opening. She was going to hide away, disappear from peering eyes. But after so many long periods of being imprisoned in small spaces she hissed through her teeth,

"Please don't make me go in."

"Get in the box, Susan…" Chris's anger clamped down on his voice box, and he became motionless and soundless, stricken with overwhelming rage.

"This is embarrassing…Susan"

"Please," she whimpered softly.

They both heard the murmurs of the crowd and Chris forced her in to the magical box. The door slammed and Sara was left in the darkness. She began to weep in a dry quiet way as a dull hopelessness covered everything as the door shut. Her face would become a rainbow of make-up if she didn't stop, and she manoeuvred herself in position to complete the illusion of disappearing. She heard her husband open the door and everyone 'ooh' and 'ahhh' followed by more claps.

It was past midnight and Susan was wakened by Chris, he was shaking her and then he sank down on his knees in front of her. She was Susan again and her punishment for licking the personality of that defiant bitch she used to be, Sara, was the sensation of her legs hurting so much and her thin ankles aching. Her arms ached and there was a new nauseating smell that reminded her of flowers. Her eyes adjusted. There were flowers, many of them, roses, and lilies and tulips and other blossoms sitting proud on stiff stems. It brought a strange image of a crime scene from a long ago, so long Susan thought it was a dream or something she had seen on the television. A woman had killed herself had ordered something close to a hundred bouquets and had arranged them around her bed and then had taken poison. It was one of the most beautiful scenes Susan had in her head.

"You thought I'd died in here, didn't you?"

"I love you, you just make me angry sometimes," Chris cried.

"I understand," Susan said dully. She was unsure it had meant to sound dull whether it came out like that because of the much pain in her face. She thought that perhaps he had broken her jaw and nose.

"I do love you, Susan."

"I love y…" she stopped in pure confusion wondering why she was sobbing down in to her chest. Susan tried to speak again.

"I love you…" She didn't have the courage to stop, or the physical strength she lacked to stop her crying. He picked up her sobbing body and carried her to bed.

"My poor, beloved Susan, my dearest darling."

thanks for reading...again x