The Real LJ Idol - Mini-Season - Week 16
The Real LJ Idol - Mini-Season - Week 16
This is my entry for Week 15 of LJ Idol (
therealljidol).
Prompt: “When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."
The music is loud and I can feel the force of the bass thumping in my chest. Strobes of colored light slice through the darkness casting strange shadows across the club goers' faces. I finish the last of my drink in one large, continuous gulp and then slam my glass down onto the bar. With a wave of my hand, I signal the bartender for another and then glance around at my surroundings once again. The dance floor is filled with sweaty, writhing bodies. Couples are tucked into the backs of the red booths lining the sides of the room, their heads bowed close together as they share private conversations. Around me, people loiter at the bar sipping drinks or waving fist fulls of money to get the bartender's attention. To the untrained eye, I'm just taking it all in, but the truth is that I'm looking for something very specific.
"Can I get you a drink?"
Out of the corner of my vision, I'd seen the guy in the tight grey Henley approach from my left, hop up on a bar stool and then scoot it slightly closer to me. I'd also willfully ignored him, but now he was leaning in and demanding my attention.
"I have one," I answer curtly, just as the bartender places a cocktail napkin and my drink refill down on the bar in front of me.
"Oh, well, want to buy me one then?"
I turn and stare at him, one eyebrow arched curiously. His boldness has caught me off guard, which is no an easy feat, and I find myself smirking in response.
"Sure. What do you want?"
"I'll have whatever you're having, sweetheart." He inches his bar stool even closer and offers me what I assume to be his most confident and charming grin. He smells like body odor and tequila.
"No," I snort. "I don't think you will."
His well rehearsed smile falters slightly and he tilts his head as I laugh to myself before leaning across the bar to wave the bartender back over.
"Get this guy a Corona, Mitch, will you?"
Mitch looks from me to the stranger and then back again. There's something melancholy about his expression, but he nods slowly and then sighs before turning on his heels to fetch a bottle from the beer well.
"So, you know the bartender?" The stranger to my left is talking again.
"I know everyone here," I answer. I idly run my finger around the rim of my glass.
"You don't know me."
"No, but I know your type."
The stranger's mouth opens and closes a few times before he finally just shrugs sheepishly. I appreciate his honesty.
"And what type are you?" he asks. I can feel his greedy eyes roaming up and down my body.
The music sounds like it's getting louder and I glare in the direction of the DJ booth as I massage my temples with my pointer fingers. The mass of tangled bodies on the dance floor squirms like a single, unified organism and it makes my stomach turn. The flashing lights are tiny, prickling explosions in my vision, exacerbating the headache I feel forming in the center of my forehead. I grit my teeth and force a glowing smile. Then I lean up close next to the stranger, pushing my chest purposefully against his arm.
"The type that knows what she wants," I coo, my lips brushing lightly against his ear. "Do you want to come back to my place?"
When I pull back, his eyes are wide and his tongue has all but rolled out of his mouth. He's already pushing himself off the bar stool and fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.
"Hell yeah," he says as he tosses a few loose bills down onto the bar.
I link my arm around his, pulling him with me. He reaches down and runs his hand over my ass. I shudder, but I know he'll mistake my shiver of disgust for excitement.
Just as we move away from the bar, Mitch returns with a Corona in hand.
"Sorry, Mitch. Gotta go. Put it on my tab."
Mitch shakes his head sadly and I narrow my eyes in warning. I see him take a resigned swig from the beer bottle before I turn my attention back to the stranger.
"Come on."
--
After a fifteen minute cab ride, we pull up out front of my place and I am flooded with relief. My tight, manufactured smile turns genuine for the first time in the past 40 minutes. The stranger has spent the majority of the trip with his hand fumbling around under my dress and I've spent it making noises that I hope sound more like passion and less like the wretching that they actually are. The opportunity to pull away from him, if even for just a moment, makes me feel like singing with joy. Of course, once we reach the stairs, he's back to my side, his bony arm wrapped around my waist and his leech-like mouth sucking on my neck. The bile in my thoat tastes sour and sick and I grimace as I try to fish my keys out of my purse.
"Just a sec," I say sweetly as I gently try to push him away so I can unlock the door. I quickly find the correct key and slide it in.
"Hope you're ready for this, babe," he murmurs. Refusing to be deterred for even a moment, he roughly snatches my free hand and pushes it against his crotch.
"I hope you are," I respond humorlessly as I push the door open and lead him into the foyer.
He is exactly the type that I expected him to be - naive and overzealous and far too quick to trust a strange young woman he just met. He's too dumb to know that there's no turning back now, too horny to want to try. He's skinnier and shorter than what I would've chosen on my own, but he presented himself to me so easily that I couldn't say no. He'll have to do.
"Come," I say, grabbing the hem of his shirt with one hand, pulling him seductively towards me as I make my way backwards down the hall. My other hand still tightly grasps my key ring and my fingers are expertly filtering through them to find and separate the large, ornate silver ones. When we reach the bedroom door, he tears his eyes away from my chest to glance up and I notice his expression becomes puzzled.
"Um, what kind of shit are you into?" he asks. His eyes are narrowed suspiciously, but there's a hint of excitement and curiosity in his voice.
"Oh, you'll see."
I turn towards the thick oak door and set to work. There are four large, silver locks barring entrance, each with their own designated key. Despite the routine nature of my motions, my fingers tremble slightly as I push each key into it's slot with a click. Familiarity and desensitization has mostly stomped out the fear in my heart, but every now and then it flares up again with an unexpected spark.
When the last lock gives way I turn back to him and bite my lower lip, my hooded eyes filled with what I know will appear to be lust. He grins down at me and leans in for a kiss, which I allow. In fact, I return it with gusto, forcing our lips to smash together as he blindly paws at my arms and chest. I reach behind me and find the door knob with my outstretched fingers then pull my head back slightly so that the stranger has to lean in further to meet my mouth. When I can tell his balance is precarious, I twist the knob and push, side-stepping out of the way all in the same swift motion so that he pitches forward through the doorway. I give his back a shove for good measure, then quickly pull the door closed, trapping him on the other side. I've already begun to make quick work of the locks when I hear his muffled cursing.
"What the fuck?" he yells and there's a series of loud crashes as he kicks at the bottom of the door. "Seriously, bitch, let me out!"
"I'm sorry," I say under my breath, and I mean it sincerely. It's easier now, to trap them like this, those who stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time, but the guilt still weighs on me heavily. "I'm sorry."
I press my hand flat against the outside of the door and feel the vibrations of his kicks and punches. He's still yelling, his voice getting more hoarse and panicked. There's a new sound then, mingling with his howls. It's the tinny sound of metal against metal, the sound of chains. A scratching sound. A snarl.
"What the...?" His voice trails off and he's quiet for a moment. The grating sound of metal dragging against wood fills the silence. And then he's screaming. It's not the pointed, demanding yelling like before, now it's just anguished, terrified wailing. It chills the blood in my veins and I rest my forehead against the door.
The begging comes next. It always does. Through his hysterical sobs, he's begging me to open the door, to let him out, to stop. He calls out to me, to God, to the approaching creature in the darkness, but no answer will come. An inhuman scream joins his and I tightly close my eyes. There's a sound of scratching against the door - his fingernails or hers, I don't know, but before long he's choking and gurgling and I've had enough of this twisted voyeurism.
I push away from the door with a tired sigh and head down the hallway to the laundry room. Piles of discarded clothes lie in heaps around the room, all stained with various nauseating shades of red and brown and green.
I shimmy out of my dress and pull on a pair of old sweats and a stained Yankees t-shirt from a clean-ish pile near the dryer. Then I grab two rubber yellow gloves and a mop from the slop sink in the corner. In a few minutes, she'll be full and I'll need to clean up the mess, as I always do. I am the big sister, after all, and it is my duty to care for her in all the ways that no one else ever could, if they even even would. I lure, I deliver, I discard the evidence. I keep her safe and fed and hidden.
When is a monster not a monster?
When God has abandoned her and the cruel, twisted fingers of fate have turned her into something grotesque and unnatural, but she still needs you in order to survive.
When she's your baby sister.
When you love her.
If you are so moved, please give me a vote over at
therealljidol this week!
This is my entry for Week 15 of LJ Idol (
therealljidol).
Prompt: “When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."
The music is loud and I can feel the force of the bass thumping in my chest. Strobes of colored light slice through the darkness casting strange shadows across the club goers' faces. I finish the last of my drink in one large, continuous gulp and then slam my glass down onto the bar. With a wave of my hand, I signal the bartender for another and then glance around at my surroundings once again. The dance floor is filled with sweaty, writhing bodies. Couples are tucked into the backs of the red booths lining the sides of the room, their heads bowed close together as they share private conversations. Around me, people loiter at the bar sipping drinks or waving fist fulls of money to get the bartender's attention. To the untrained eye, I'm just taking it all in, but the truth is that I'm looking for something very specific.
"Can I get you a drink?"
Out of the corner of my vision, I'd seen the guy in the tight grey Henley approach from my left, hop up on a bar stool and then scoot it slightly closer to me. I'd also willfully ignored him, but now he was leaning in and demanding my attention.
"I have one," I answer curtly, just as the bartender places a cocktail napkin and my drink refill down on the bar in front of me.
"Oh, well, want to buy me one then?"
I turn and stare at him, one eyebrow arched curiously. His boldness has caught me off guard, which is no an easy feat, and I find myself smirking in response.
"Sure. What do you want?"
"I'll have whatever you're having, sweetheart." He inches his bar stool even closer and offers me what I assume to be his most confident and charming grin. He smells like body odor and tequila.
"No," I snort. "I don't think you will."
His well rehearsed smile falters slightly and he tilts his head as I laugh to myself before leaning across the bar to wave the bartender back over.
"Get this guy a Corona, Mitch, will you?"
Mitch looks from me to the stranger and then back again. There's something melancholy about his expression, but he nods slowly and then sighs before turning on his heels to fetch a bottle from the beer well.
"So, you know the bartender?" The stranger to my left is talking again.
"I know everyone here," I answer. I idly run my finger around the rim of my glass.
"You don't know me."
"No, but I know your type."
The stranger's mouth opens and closes a few times before he finally just shrugs sheepishly. I appreciate his honesty.
"And what type are you?" he asks. I can feel his greedy eyes roaming up and down my body.
The music sounds like it's getting louder and I glare in the direction of the DJ booth as I massage my temples with my pointer fingers. The mass of tangled bodies on the dance floor squirms like a single, unified organism and it makes my stomach turn. The flashing lights are tiny, prickling explosions in my vision, exacerbating the headache I feel forming in the center of my forehead. I grit my teeth and force a glowing smile. Then I lean up close next to the stranger, pushing my chest purposefully against his arm.
"The type that knows what she wants," I coo, my lips brushing lightly against his ear. "Do you want to come back to my place?"
When I pull back, his eyes are wide and his tongue has all but rolled out of his mouth. He's already pushing himself off the bar stool and fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.
"Hell yeah," he says as he tosses a few loose bills down onto the bar.
I link my arm around his, pulling him with me. He reaches down and runs his hand over my ass. I shudder, but I know he'll mistake my shiver of disgust for excitement.
Just as we move away from the bar, Mitch returns with a Corona in hand.
"Sorry, Mitch. Gotta go. Put it on my tab."
Mitch shakes his head sadly and I narrow my eyes in warning. I see him take a resigned swig from the beer bottle before I turn my attention back to the stranger.
"Come on."
--
After a fifteen minute cab ride, we pull up out front of my place and I am flooded with relief. My tight, manufactured smile turns genuine for the first time in the past 40 minutes. The stranger has spent the majority of the trip with his hand fumbling around under my dress and I've spent it making noises that I hope sound more like passion and less like the wretching that they actually are. The opportunity to pull away from him, if even for just a moment, makes me feel like singing with joy. Of course, once we reach the stairs, he's back to my side, his bony arm wrapped around my waist and his leech-like mouth sucking on my neck. The bile in my thoat tastes sour and sick and I grimace as I try to fish my keys out of my purse.
"Just a sec," I say sweetly as I gently try to push him away so I can unlock the door. I quickly find the correct key and slide it in.
"Hope you're ready for this, babe," he murmurs. Refusing to be deterred for even a moment, he roughly snatches my free hand and pushes it against his crotch.
"I hope you are," I respond humorlessly as I push the door open and lead him into the foyer.
He is exactly the type that I expected him to be - naive and overzealous and far too quick to trust a strange young woman he just met. He's too dumb to know that there's no turning back now, too horny to want to try. He's skinnier and shorter than what I would've chosen on my own, but he presented himself to me so easily that I couldn't say no. He'll have to do.
"Come," I say, grabbing the hem of his shirt with one hand, pulling him seductively towards me as I make my way backwards down the hall. My other hand still tightly grasps my key ring and my fingers are expertly filtering through them to find and separate the large, ornate silver ones. When we reach the bedroom door, he tears his eyes away from my chest to glance up and I notice his expression becomes puzzled.
"Um, what kind of shit are you into?" he asks. His eyes are narrowed suspiciously, but there's a hint of excitement and curiosity in his voice.
"Oh, you'll see."
I turn towards the thick oak door and set to work. There are four large, silver locks barring entrance, each with their own designated key. Despite the routine nature of my motions, my fingers tremble slightly as I push each key into it's slot with a click. Familiarity and desensitization has mostly stomped out the fear in my heart, but every now and then it flares up again with an unexpected spark.
When the last lock gives way I turn back to him and bite my lower lip, my hooded eyes filled with what I know will appear to be lust. He grins down at me and leans in for a kiss, which I allow. In fact, I return it with gusto, forcing our lips to smash together as he blindly paws at my arms and chest. I reach behind me and find the door knob with my outstretched fingers then pull my head back slightly so that the stranger has to lean in further to meet my mouth. When I can tell his balance is precarious, I twist the knob and push, side-stepping out of the way all in the same swift motion so that he pitches forward through the doorway. I give his back a shove for good measure, then quickly pull the door closed, trapping him on the other side. I've already begun to make quick work of the locks when I hear his muffled cursing.
"What the fuck?" he yells and there's a series of loud crashes as he kicks at the bottom of the door. "Seriously, bitch, let me out!"
"I'm sorry," I say under my breath, and I mean it sincerely. It's easier now, to trap them like this, those who stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time, but the guilt still weighs on me heavily. "I'm sorry."
I press my hand flat against the outside of the door and feel the vibrations of his kicks and punches. He's still yelling, his voice getting more hoarse and panicked. There's a new sound then, mingling with his howls. It's the tinny sound of metal against metal, the sound of chains. A scratching sound. A snarl.
"What the...?" His voice trails off and he's quiet for a moment. The grating sound of metal dragging against wood fills the silence. And then he's screaming. It's not the pointed, demanding yelling like before, now it's just anguished, terrified wailing. It chills the blood in my veins and I rest my forehead against the door.
The begging comes next. It always does. Through his hysterical sobs, he's begging me to open the door, to let him out, to stop. He calls out to me, to God, to the approaching creature in the darkness, but no answer will come. An inhuman scream joins his and I tightly close my eyes. There's a sound of scratching against the door - his fingernails or hers, I don't know, but before long he's choking and gurgling and I've had enough of this twisted voyeurism.
I push away from the door with a tired sigh and head down the hallway to the laundry room. Piles of discarded clothes lie in heaps around the room, all stained with various nauseating shades of red and brown and green.
I shimmy out of my dress and pull on a pair of old sweats and a stained Yankees t-shirt from a clean-ish pile near the dryer. Then I grab two rubber yellow gloves and a mop from the slop sink in the corner. In a few minutes, she'll be full and I'll need to clean up the mess, as I always do. I am the big sister, after all, and it is my duty to care for her in all the ways that no one else ever could, if they even even would. I lure, I deliver, I discard the evidence. I keep her safe and fed and hidden.
When is a monster not a monster?
When God has abandoned her and the cruel, twisted fingers of fate have turned her into something grotesque and unnatural, but she still needs you in order to survive.
When she's your baby sister.
When you love her.
If you are so moved, please give me a vote over at
therealljidol this week!