luddite

But opening the basement door reveals nothing on the steps. Shivering in fear, you close the door tight, but whatever was down there has already accepted your offer.

—

You're face-down in your pillow, a hand tucked between your pants, writhing in frustration, when you hear the voice, cool and rhythmic.

You are really slow. You need a lot to get you there, baby?

Sharp dark hair, hard eyes that don't move from your face, and a countenance that has you paralyzed on the bed. She moves like a snake, rasping and boneless, watching you.

Don't stop on my account. It looks like you need to relax.

Is it the body or the mind that understands what it's looking at? Maybe the body. Your brain is a slippery evasive thing you can't catch while your body recognizes a predator in the room. And you've learned not to run in front of one; makes them suck their teeth in hunger, their blood pump faster, their appetites swell.

I said continue.

Clipped and hollow. She hangs an arm casually off the armchair, an unlit cigarette between her long fingers. All you can do is turn your face to stare at her blankly, your hand moving like she's commandeering it, glancing over your clit and making you squirm.

Mm, that's nice. Did anyone ever teach you, or did you have to teach yourself, babygirl?

A tear drips from your eye into the pillow and you suck in oxygen from room that's now airless. She smiles cruelly and stretches out her legs, long and athletic under loose pants, a queen in a stranger's room. You are very nice to look at. You look very tired though. ¿Te gusta cuando te digo qué hacer?

The orgasm breaks away from you, terrible and motionless, your hips bearing the brunt of the tide hitting you. When your breath comes back, she comes over slowly and drapes the cigarette hand over your hair and your back, down to your bare toes. Then it floats back up to the back of your neck, where she suddenly grips you tight.

Her other hand is smothered by your hips, pushing under, deeper, to find your wet sex. When you squirm hard against her, yanks your hair. Pulls out her hand, fingertips coated in your orgasm. She licks at her fingertips — painted soft pink — and murmurs softly, ¡Qué rico!

Generously, gives you a taste of yourself.

—

You asked why others can't see her.

She laughed in your face. Why would they see me? You brought me home. They didn't. Stupid girl.

—

She warms you up slowly like chocolate melting in small, steady pulses, careful not to scorch. It's not a kindness; it's just a strategy. Girl like you should know better. Stretches out in the armchair again, and gestures for you to undress, play with yourself in front of her. It makes you cry in embarrassment until she's disgusted, but she doesn't tell you to stop. You just rub at yourself until you come limply.

Then it's a hand between your legs in the middle of the night when you're thick in a dream and too drowsy to stop her fully, and she knows exactly how far she can ratchet you until you won't beg her to stop anymore, but just beg in general. A please no just becomes a please.

Say thank you.

You do.

Are you going to come so pretty for me, babygirl?

And you do, explosively, ugly all over her hand. Her hand is not kind, slapping and grabbing your thick ass cheeks and spreading you apart so she can slick her hand up with you.

Smears it over your mouth to stop you from crying.

Then, when she's feeling nice, she wedges a flat sharp tongue up against your pussy and makes you grind against her until you come. Her nails dig into the meat of your legs, slapping them hard when you hesitate or falter. Dame toda tu leche hot against your clit and you're not allowed to touch her, forced to sit on her face even though you're fat and she's not, until your belly pulls taut and the shudders ripple through you, hot and tight. She suckles at your clit hard until you get mad for one second, and she smiles big and awful under your pussy.

—

Dating is useless. You try to bring a man home, once, and she sits in the armchair, smoking. That smirk, those mocking eyes that glitter at you across the bedroom.

You are a lying girl. He doesn't love your big fat ass as much as I do. You think this man eats ass? Pshh. Listen to you. A bad actress, too. You are blowing this man's head up with these sounds. I know what you sound like. Look, he believes you! I am watching two idiots fuck.

She lets you fall asleep that night, even though it takes you ages for how upset you are with her. She tuts at you mockingly, the sweet cruelty filming her dark eyes like sclera.

You're awoken, confused.

Me caneta tu culo gordo.

You don't want to understand her. It's easier not to know.

Don't they say that? If you're about to be in a collision, relax your body as much as possible, so it can withstand the impact. If you tense up, it's much harder. They do say that. You wish it were possible for you to do.

You have one vibrator, a stupid purchase made years ago when you were feeling like a true independent single woman.

She slicks you with her spit and pushes it into you with no warning, no preparation. Strokes it as deep as it can go until the nubs of her fingertips are outside your pussy lips, then pulls it back out, dragging slow against you.

You bury your face in your pillow, a moan caught in your teeth, and she croons at you.

You think this feels good, babygirl? I didn't say I was going to fuck your fat pussy. Shit.

Barely any time to tense up, but just as you mean to, involuntarily, she spreads you apart and teases the vibrator up against your asshole.

Shut up. You brought that hombre feo into my house and try to fuck yourself on his cock in front of me? You think I call you a stupid girl for nothing? There are no thoughts in this pretty head.

I'm sorry

You hear her spit loudly, rubbing fingers over the vibrator. She laughs.

Say please.

An ugly cry wailing out of your body as she pushes it into your asshole. Please. You don't like it, it feels too scary and unfamiliar and shameful for you, but she teases it in deeper until it's not going anywhere soon. Flicks it on so it's buzzing against your muscle.

Now you are going to show me you're sorry.

Suddenly, your ass is the least of your concerns. Because she has never shown you what she likes. She's the first woman you've been with. She pushes you out of the way and sprawls herself out in front of you, spreading her legs wide.

I don't repeat.

You're timid and she nearly boxes your ears, taking your head in her soft hands tightly.

You think I want to be tickled? Use your fucking tongue like a woman.

Your hands are trembling as you pull her thighs tight to you, imitating what she's done, and that's all you can offer her: her own tongue, her own suckles and vigorous laps, until she's slightly moving under your hands. You're desperate to please — no, not please; survive — so you blend in like you've always done. An imitation of the real thing. Enough to get by. Make people happy, make people look away.

Her eyes don't do that though. She keeps your eyes on hers without telling you to, smiling hard and ugly when your tongue laves her swollen clit how she wants. She smiles wider when your tears build up in your eyelashes, desperate to escape, as you seal yourself against her and do your job.

You want me to call you a good girl, mi gordita? You need to do better. Make me come and I'll be nice to you.

The tears run down into the crease of her pussy and the flat hunger in her eyes burns you bright and horrible. Your tongue doesn't change, and she's riding her lithe hips up, faster, off the mattress to meet you until she is inhaling harsh and then breathing out fast fast fast, swearing in Spanish, words you can't pick apart, as she slams her legs around your head to keep you all to herself, bucking you with her. Fingers still rigid around your ears, like she's trying to get inside.

Ah, ah, okay, despacito. Eh! Tch.

You're sure there are marks, maybe bruises from her fingertips across your scalp, into your temple. She pats at you, not gently, not kindly, but softly. Opens her legs wide and makes you lay between them, your head on her soft inner thigh. Take such good care of me, you'll take me home, hm?

it's a hot one tonight, and the churning air feels cleansing somehow, keeping you cool as you take in the scene below you. you don't recognize this place- the trees along the sidewalks look unfamiliar, the street signs and traffic lights not like the ones you see locally. you squint into the night to see if you can parse out anything that might tell you where you are, but no dice. you're too far up, moving too fast, and it's too dark out to look for clues, so you just hang on for the ride as you slowly descend.

suddenly, gunfire pinging off the metal frame of the chopper. the pilot yells something about small arms- moments before a white streak flashes up through the night sky, headed straight for you.

"rpg!" a man screams nearby, his warning nearly cut off by the sound of impact- a shrill whistle before a boom that shakes the solid floor from under your feet, sending you sprawling over the cold metal as you slide along with the listing of the chopper. it's deafening- the cacophony of gunfire, the roar of the engine, the shriek of alarms, all with your pounding heartbeat playing harmony.

bits and bobs are sent flying through the air- metal canisters, a handgun, little metal bits that you can't identify but look like they'd hurt to be hit with. you deliriously think to yourself that if the crash doesn't kill you, maybe the shrapnel will.

because face it- this is it. you're going to die out here, falling to your death our in god-knows-where for god-knows-what-reason, and it's going to be painful. and it's going to be now.

the thought sends you rocketing upright in your bed, panting and sweating and shaking like a leaf. the soft glow of the moon through your sheer curtains is grounding- you're at home, you're in bed, you're safe. there's no crash, no fires, no mobs waiting on the ground to murder you on sight.

it's so much worse at night, so much more terrifying to see through someone else's eyes when you're unconscious and unaware of what's happening. at least now, awake, you can process the scene with a bit more detachment. you aren't the one in the helicopter, after all. you can still see and hear it all- everything is so loud, red lights illuminating the dark hold of the chopper, panicked face of the pilot looking back as the bird goes down. there are mere moments for a stranger's hands to grab the rope dangling nearby and swing to the safety of a nearby rooftop, crashing on hard concrete as the chopper crashed onto the street below. someone else lands bodily close by, and they're slow to get up. fire illuminates the streets below, around where the helo landed- but maybe that was there before the crash? it's hard to say.

after all, it's not like you're in charge of the movie playing in your brain.

slowly, you pad through your dark apartment, not bothering to turn on lights as the scene continues to unfold in your mind.

a gun in hand, scared office workers terrified of a threat just outside, a uniformed man with an ugly beard barking orders both at the workers and over his radio- but the vision is imperfect, faces of everyone but the soldier slightly blurred, their words slightly muddled, as if the whole scene was slightly underwater. in your experience, that means the memory is older- maybe a six or seven years, based on the clarity of some details.

kyle's home, you think to yourself as you pour yourself a glass, leaning against the counter as you sip, trying to regulate your breathing again. normally, you have some sort of warning that he's coming- his thoughts are so loud that you can usually detect him when he's at the end of the block- but tonight he got in too late for you to be aware of his arrival, too late to make plans with friends or a last-minute hotel reservation. it's jarring to have the circus of violence, gore, and morally reprehensible foreign policy to not only act as your alarm clock, but to continue to play out in your mind long after sleep has been shaken loose from you.

it's funny, in a way. you've been able to read people's thoughts ever since you were a little girl, but with everyone else you've ever met in your entire life, it's been manageable. sure, you've heard some fucked up shit that people dwell on in the privacy of their own minds, but for the most part people's thoughts aren't very interesting and just fade into the background like white noise made up of shopping lists, regrets, memories, wishes, and the songs people get stuck in their heads. but your neighbor, kyle? he's unlike any of the rest of them, the contents of his brain seemingly on a mental bullhorn of sorts, coming in more vivid and loud than anyone else you've ever met- which is why it's so awful that he happens to have the most violent job you've ever seen.

in your heart, you're convinced that if you actually met the man that he'd probably be lovely. according to his (loud, inescapable) memories, people really seem to like him. faces light up when he enters rooms, everyone laughs at his jokes and give him easy smiles, people of all genders flirt shamelessly. according to all of his memories that take places in pubs, back gardens, birthday parties, and brunch with loved ones, kyle (or 'gaz', as he's sometimes called) is a stand-up guy. a good son, brother, friend, and teammate. a charming young man with a nice smile and the right mixture of cocky and clever that wins over most everyone he meets- especially mums and grandfathers. they think he's a 'good guy', someone even-keeled, patient, and safe.

you know different.

late at night, his darker memories drift through your wall, robbing you of sleep, appetite, and concentration. bodies being chewed up by the bullets that kyle himself is firing at them. kyle shooting an empty pistol at a child with a pillowcase over his head, and being surprised at the lack of bullets. throwing live grenades and watching the bodies explode, only to march over and shoot the mangled and screaming survivors right in the temple. buildings collapsing under his feet, aircraft falling out of the sky, a man being shoved over a railing moments before the bomb strapped to his chest explodes. kyle's memories are a circus of death and violence, a spectacle of gore and war crimes.

he's a soldier, from what you've gathered. you've seen flashes of places made familiar from the news, of men in uniform clapping him on the shoulder and following him into battle, of meetings you shouldn't know about, of loading in and out of government planes and trucks. all of that interspersed between bodies being blown apart, slashed open, shot, broken, and crushed- all watched through unblinking eyes.

that's the worst part of it, you think. in all his memories, he never looks away from the carnage, never flinches from it. he just moves on, like a machine, his bullets chewing indiscriminately through bodies as he snakes through homes, villages, laboratories, and office buildings. you've seen the memories of him getting praised for it- and felt the pride of being called 'brutal' by his lieutenant,of his captain clapping him on the shoulder and praising him for the carnage he'd left in his wake.

his pride in it all makes you sick.

nothing has ever made you feel less patriotic than the knowledge that kyle thinks he's doing this to protect you and everyone else in this building. it makes you feel downright sick, frankly, to think that he believes that your mere existence in this country merits the violent deaths of all those people in his memories. if you weren't so terrified of the myriad of inventive ways you've seen him kill people, you'd probably call him a murdering wanker to his bloody face.

but you are. so you don't.

instead you currently content yourself to sip at your water, mentally mapping out where in your bathroom cabinet the sleeping pills are, trying to decide if you want to just sleep until the morning and try to find a hotel in the morning, or potentially just sleep through the whole next day instead. your neighbor's thoughts and memories are usually at their most horrible and vivid right after deployment, and prior experience has taught you to either conk out or stay away from home for the first few days after he returns.

god, you should really call your therapist. you'd only started seeing her out of desperation, when kyle's memories were starting to cause you to lose sleep, appetite, and your own will to live. every moment he's home is exquisite torture, and every moment he's away you're just anxiously awaiting the torture to start back up again- and now it has, in the middle of the night, waking you from an otherwise dreamless sleep.

in your sessions you'd been vague about certain details in order to keep from seeming outright delusional- instead opting instead to mention bad dreams, anxiety, and the way that you avoid being home when intrusive memories pop in. your therapist diagnosed you with ptsd on the spot, and you couldn't help the bitter laugh that burst out of you when she said the words. after all, if you're fucked up from all those memories that aren't even yours, how fucked up is the guy actually living them? sure, you're still broken up about witnessing a little boy with a bag over his head having a gun pointed at him- but what the fuck is wrong with the man who actually held the gun? who pulled the trigger and was surprised there were no bullets?

the gunfire and screaming in your mind fades as you head to the bathroom, as kyle's thoughts have turned to something else. he's staring at the phone in his hand, idly scrolling on messages, catching up on stuff he's missed. 'mum' has texted him 14 times over the three months he's been deployed, 'mummy' has texted him over 100 times. there's messages from his sisters, uni friends, and a bunch of flirty texts from unsaved numbers. he flips through those, actively seeking any nudes, not bothering to read the actual messages before he moves on, slowly chipping away at his number of unread messages until he reaches zero.

with any luck, he'll go out looking for someone to go home with tonight. he's horny and restless and looking for a distraction, that much is obvious, and it's only midnight on a friday. he could easily go to a club or something and find someone. he does that sometimes, and it's a beautiful respite for you, especially since he doesn't tend to think about his hookups too much after he's done with them. your eyes slide shut as you watch through his as he weighs his options, checking himself out in the bathroom mirror, rubbing a hand thoughtfully over his stubble as he tries to decide whether or not it's worth going out or just jerking off and going to sleep.

god, you should move. you really should. the problem is that the rent is cheap, the other neighbors are relatively quiet, and it's just a few minutes walk from the bus stop. kyle's presence is literally the only thing ruining it, and you almost feel bad about how much animosity you have towards a man who doesn't even know you're there. he thinks your apartment is vacant, because for the most part, when he's home, it is. you're either in a pill-induced sleep that's only technically not a coma, or earning the rest of your year's rent in marathon basement poker games that keep you occupied for days on end. you just keep on privately resenting him and loathing his career while he remains blissfully ignorant of the fact that you even exist.

it's not healthy, you know that, but a sick sort of hope does keep you hanging on to your lease- after all, his job is dangerous. you've seen it firsthand through his eyes. there's been plenty of close calls, tough scrapes, and life threatening injuries- surely one day he just won't come back from a mission? maybe one day he'll leave and get killed on an op, never to return and plague you with a replay of his various war crimes.

you dry swallow the sleeping pills as soon as kyle decides to stay in tonight, opting to watch a video his buddy 'soap' sent him- a home made porno of some poor girl choking down a hard, ruddy cock with tears clumping and streaking her mascara. the lighting is harsh, and you wince in sympathy as she squints into the too-bright light, clearly not expecting this amateur director to have his phone out. you already know it's soap based on his voice, the way the scottish brogue plays on his vowels as he brushes her tears from her cheek, telling her how bonnie she looks, what a good lass she is for him, to give a little wink for his mates. you don't know if the girl in the video knows this is being shared around their squad. you don't know if she gave permission. what you do know is that kyle never asked either, content to save it to his phone with his hand in his trousers, hand idly stroking himself as he watches the video.

kyle imagines himself with her, how much rougher he'd be, grabbing her pretty blonde hair by the root and forcing her down until she chokes on him, the way her throat would convulse around her cock, how she'd slap his thighs in a wordless plea for mercy. the way her eyes would go big and sad and almost accusing when he wouldn't let up- and then soften up into something more akin to pride when he praises her and tells her how good and sweet and special she is.

the face in his fantasy shifts to a new girl on her knees, a woman you know to be his ex based on the memories you've seen. her appearance makes him recall that he'd looked her up a few months ago and saw she was married- and he spits in his hand and strokes a little more vigorously at the thought of it, his imaginary self violently fucking her throat. soap's video is forgotten, phone discarded as the poor girl's face gets coated in cum and kyle opts to close his eyes in order to ruin his pretty, doe-eyed ex with imaginary punitive sex.

all you can do is watch as you stand in your bathroom, eyes staring into the drain and hands clenching the sides of the sink, praying to god or satan or whoever the fuck it is responsible for giving you this ability to take it back, take it all away, please make it stop. your bathroom is as silent as a tomb, but it's so, so loud in your head. you can hear everything- the imaginary ghlk ghlk ghlk of a poor girl whose only crime was loving kyle once, the refrain of 'take it, take it' both said in his fantasy and muttered out loud in his apartment, and the sound of wet skin-on-skin as he chases his orgasm with a vindictive snarl on his face. when he finally cums, he groans loud enough for you to hear through your shared wall, and it feels like hearing it in stereo as you also listen to it at full volume in your mind.

You wake up with post-text message clarity the next morning, but there’s little you can do to backtrack now. You gave the man your name and number. You spoke to him on the phone about it, albeit briefly. Sure you could call John again and tell him that you thought it over a little more and decided against it, but then—

“It’s gonna cost four thousand dollars.”

Your coworker lets out a hissed breath, wincing. “That’s not cheap.”

It’s a pea-soupy summer morning, all hot and humid with the sky tinted a yellowish colour from forest fires up in the country, the hazy light seeping in through the windows in the office kitchen. Not a cloud in sight. You wouldn't call it a particularly pleasant morning, with the weather as overcast as your mood, but it could always be worse.

She’s the first person outside of a few close friends that you’ve told about going to the clinic at all, but she reacts exactly as you thought she would. It’s both affirming and annoying; it’s not so bad hearing from someone else that four thousand dollars is a bit pricey for a single person, but part of you wishes she’d try to convince you to go through with it. You need someone to push you in a direction—in any direction. 

You nod, mouth screwed into a grimace. “And that’s only for a single try. I think she said it would be closer to, like, twelve thousand dollars altogether.” 

“So are you gonna do it? Or are you gonna keep looking around?”

“I have another appointment next week,” you half-answer, getting cagey all of a sudden. 

The truth is, that appointment isn’t the only thing you’ve got on the books. There’s another dot in your calendar for a few days before, one that seems to glow ominously when you stare at the date as it slowly approaches, lumbering forward one ground-shaking step at a time. 

You wonder how long you can go without telling anyone. Theoretically, you could keep up this ruse for the rest of your life, pretend you always went through with the treatment. Lie through your teeth when your friends ask you if you know anything about the donor. No, they didn’t tell me anything, I just picked a profile with a good medical record and family history. 

Don’t think about how you live in the same city. Don’t think about the likelihood of running into him around town with the baby in tow. 

You shake your head. Those are concerns that you can foist off onto a future version of you. All the current you needs to worry about is making this all a reality. 

You don’t know what to wear out to dinner with him. It’s both a date and not, more of a prelude to the later events of the night. Part of you wonders if you should just text him your address and tell him to skip the preamble and come on over. 

The only reason you don’t is because a little voice at the back of your mind insists that you at least do your due diligence and screen him a little more over dinner. You can always back out at the last minute if a few too many red flags pop up. 

(You tell yourself that as if a strange man offering to knock you up within five minutes of meeting weren’t a big enough red flag on its own.)

John meets you at the restaurant looking every bit as handsome as the day you met him, once again nearly taking your breath away. A little more buttoned up this time though, actually quite dashing in a proper dress shirt and suit jacket, even his shoes polished. 

You have a second to think about calling it off. A second to consider turning tail and getting as far away as possible. Maybe, with enough time, you could scrape together the money for IUI. You could wait a year, or take out a loan with your bank, or pray for a decent enough raise to manage it on your own. 

But then, as the time before, he turns his head and locks eyes with you. 

It would probably be a good idea to take a picture of him, maybe even a picture of his ID, and send it over to one or two of your friends, on the off chance that he turns out to be a dangerous man, but you don’t need to be inundated by a barrage of text messages and phone calls from your friends trying to talk you out of it. You’ve made up your mind. 

Walnut and burgundy furnishings decorate the large room, and the amber glow of candlelight and antique wall sconces saturates the restaurant in a dark, sensual bloom. A server guides John and you to a table right in the middle of the room, a better table than you might’ve hoped to get on your own. You eye him sideways when he pulls your chair out for you. 

His demeanour is so relaxed that if you didn’t already know the purpose of this dinner, you could be forgiven for assuming that you were out on a real date. John certainly acts the part. 

“You know, we didn’t have to do this,” you start awkwardly, eyes gliding over the room to look at all the other well-dressed patrons, some presumably out on actual dates. 

“Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that dinner comes before the rest of the evening.”

“I just mean you didn’t have to. I would’ve been fine just…” getting right down to business, you leave unsaid, hoping that he doesn’t make you spell it out. 

“We’re two civilized adults. I thought we might get to know each other first.”

“Well, what do you want to know about me?”

“This is as much for me as it is for you—don’t you want to know anything about the father of your children?”

You wish he’d keep his voice down. He isn’t wrong though; it would be a good idea for you to take his candidature more seriously, actually ask him questions about himself and his parentage. He already emailed you a recent STI panel and bloodwork results, both done through the fertility clinic back when he was still keen on donating, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about him.

“Alright. How old are you?”

“Forty-six.”

You nod, pleased with yourself for guessing it right. “What do you do for work?”

“Just some work for the government,” he says, brushing the question off. “What else?”

That piques your interest though. “Oh, come on. What are you, M16 or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” John laughs, genuinely amused enough for you to believe him. 

You roll your eyes when he doesn’t elaborate any further though. “Fine, leave me in the dark. Anything else you want to know about me?”

“Where are you in your cycle?” he asks, blunt as a hammer.

A classic spit take moment. It’s a good thing you haven’t ordered a drink yet. 

“I think it’s, uh…it’s coming soon actually. Um. Next week or so.”

He chews on that for a second, mulling over the timing. “That’s fine. We should still be able to make it work.”

There he goes again, making comments that leave you fish-mouthed and stunned, jaw slack with disbelief. Never able to conjure up a good enough retort. 

When the server comes by to take your drink orders, both of you still deliberating over your food, John orders a beer for himself and a mocktail for you, not even bothering to consult you about it. 

“No alcohol,” he reminds you before you have a chance to ask. 

To be fair, the spicy blackberry-basil concoction that the server comes back with a few minutes later is a refreshing burst of fruit and fresh herbs, but that doesn’t excuse the overstep. You ignore it only because you know there’s no use getting worked up when you’ve already made your mind up. It’s a peccadillo in the grand scheme of things considering what he’s doing for you. 

Conversation flows surprisingly well over dinner, but at the back of your mind, you can’t stop thinking about how at the end of the night, he’s going to take you home and fuck you. It creeps back in whenever you let your guard down for a split second. 

So, do you have any hobbies? (In three hours, this man is going to strip you naked and have sex with you)

Do you have any siblings? Any twins running in the family? (In two hours, this man is going to climb on top of you and fuck you until he puts a baby in you)

It’s a lot to keep in your head at the same time.

“How long have you been thinking about doing this?” John asks apropos of nothing, the earlier thread of your conversation evaporating on the spot.  

“I mean, I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, but actually planning to have them…maybe a couple months?”

“Why now? Why not wait a little longer? Wait for someone to start a family with?”

You’re not sure why he’d ask you that, why it would matter. It’s none of his business, quite frankly. You almost want to tell him that, let yourself get righteous, get angry, but you find you can’t fully commit to the anger. It wouldn’t change anything. You aren’t being forced to answer him. 

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m not much of a family man myself. ‘Least not when I was younger, when it counted. Never had the time nor the inclination. Work took me all over—it just wouldn’t have been fair if I had a wife or kids waiting around for me. But since it didn’t seem like having a family was in the cards for me, I thought it would be a waste of good genetics.”

“Oh.” It’s arrogant, but it’s as good an answer as any. 

He waits a beat then lifts an eyebrow when you don’t reciprocate. “So? Why didn’t you wait?”

“I did try, but there wasn’t much out there, and I wanted a baby more than I wanted to be with someone, so…” 

Leave him to fill in the blanks. He met you at the culmination of that longing after all, even changed the course of it, disrupted your plans to place himself at the centre of them.

At the centre for a time, you remind yourself. Not forever. 

After that, he keeps the conversation light, only delving into superficial topics to help pass the time. You excuse yourself after finishing your meal to go to the bathroom, and come back to two coffees laid out on the table with sugar and cream in pretty porcelain cups laid out between them. John must have ordered for you again in your absence. Good thing you like coffee. 

The bill is also there, discretely tucked under John’s napkin, and that makes your stomach flip, realizing that only a coffee now sits between you and the end of this night. 

Then, at a certain point, when all that’s left in your cup is the dregs, sugar spoon bone dry on your plate, John gives you a look from across the table that says it’s time for you both to go. 

Well, here we go, you think a little hysterically as you push back your chair to stand, nearly jumping out of your skin when his hand comes down on your back. 

At your car, you sway back and forth on your heels. “You can, uh…follow behind me, if that works.”

“Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll meet you there?”

You bite your lip, pretending to deliberate, then acquiesce. 

Let him think he’s pulling one on you. You’re bringing him home instead of the other way around because you don’t want to have any memory of a man’s bed when you think about your pregnancy journey. If it’s going to be you alone, then it should be about you alone. Your decision to go out and pick a man to father your baby. 

His participation will be a short blip in your life. A minor footnote. You’ll remember it in bursts throughout the rest of your life: staring at a carton of cream in the dairy aisle of the local grocery store; garden spade buried hilt-deep in a plot of soil, blue bigleaf hydrangea in a pot beside you, sweat dripping down the bow of your lips; your baby’s face, for the rest of your natural life.

In your foyer, his hands glide around your hips, pulling you into his chest, and you realize abruptly that ‘short’ might not have been the most accurate interpretation of what’s about to happen. 

(Honey, you’ve got a storm coming)

“This off first,” John rasps, pulling the bottom of your shirt up and over your head, blinding you for a split second before he yanks it over your arms. 

“Getting right to it, huh?” you joke nervously. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks, staring down at you assessingly, as if staring into your soul. That cuts the humour from the moment. Vacuums it from the room, leaving behind only the crackling, blistering heat of his gaze and his intentions. 

“Yes,” you whisper. Neither of you mention the tremble in your voice and how unsure you sound. 

It doesn’t stop him from undressing you though. Bra pulled down under your breasts, pushing your tits up into his face like an invitation, one he accepts without question, pulling your nipples into his mouth one by one, hands on your hips to hold you in place when you try to squirm away. Not that it’s bad—it’s amazingly good after all, toe-curlingly good to have a man run his tongue over your areolas and suck each sensitive nipple to a stiff peak, until you’re on the verge of coming—but it’s a lot, a lot that you have to wrap your head around, your bra pinched off shortly after that and underwear next.  

Your touch is hesitant at first, fingers barely gliding down his arms and fisting in the fabric of his shirt to jerk it up, but he makes it easy for you to get lost in it, your nerves fizzling out in the heat and fervor.  

You don’t even notice that John has walked you backwards into the bedroom until he pushes you down onto the bed, the mattress bouncing under you. “One second, love—need to get all of this off myself.”

You watch transfixed as the suit jacket comes off first, shrugged off and discarded. He undoes only a few buttons before wrenching it over his head, eyes on you the whole time, his stare never breaking. Scalding hot. 

That’s how you know that despite all his lofty words, this isn’t some favour he’s doing you. He wants this just as badly—wants it with a vigour that you don’t even know if you’ll be able to handle, aware that you are just flesh and blood. There’s a prickle at the back of your mind, a whisper reminding you that nobody knows that he’s here, that he’s a hot-blooded man about to slake his lust with your body. 

Then he slides the elastic waistband of his boxers down his thighs and your mind goes blank when you see the flushed, heavy shaft droop between his legs. 

The two of you work together to shove a pillow under your hips, John fetching it from the top of the bed and you lifting your hips to give him easier access. You don’t have to ask why. 

Nestled between your thighs, John looks up at you with heavy-lidded eyes and says, “Let’s get you all softened up to start, alright, love?” 

The first touch of his lips to your sex sends a lightning bolt up your spine, and then it’s practically an open mouth kiss. Tongue running up the seam of your lips, pushing into the clenched hole at the centre, the bristles of his beard scraping up the insides of your thighs and the thin skin of your labia. 

It’s good, but it’s taking too long and your heart is a rabbiting mess and you can barely think or see straight, so you tangle your fingers in his hair and try to push his head away. “That’s okay, John, I just wanna—oh fuck, can you please just put it in?”

“No, baby, it’s good if you come first,” he murmurs. “Helps it take.”

That floods your system with a frenetic, crazed exhilaration. Baby fever bubbling and boiling, frothing spilling over the top like a pot left on the stovetop for too long. 

You gasp when he tucks a couple fingers into your hole to stretch you out, a perfunctory, almost clinical motion. Just enough to loosen you up for him, unmindful of the way you squirm and whine, rolling your hips to get him to go faster. He does not. 

It doesn’t take much effort on his part after that to get you to come, too worked up and wound up, core squeezing his fingers like a vice until he gives your clit a suck and you squeal, oh, too much, breath ripping through your chest.

They’re wet when he pulls them out, and he dries them off by rubbing them on your belly. 

The shadow of his body draws over yours as he climbs on top of you. It’s as physical as it is visual though, John’s hands always on some part of your body, dragging up your legs and over your arms, fingers spreading over your belly before he runs a hand up between your breasts and over your throat, lingering there just long enough to close around your throat and hold for a second, then skating up to cup your jaw. 

And then he’s all big body on top of you, coaxing your legs around his hips, one hand squishing your cheeks when he bends down to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips, the tongue pushing into your mouth musky with the flavour of your cum. You’d protest if you could, but you can’t, his mouth slanted over yours and demanding. 

“C’mere,” he mumbles against your lips when he draws you in for another kiss, sawing his cock up and down between your folds, coating his length with your juices, until it’s there suddenly, breaching you. 

You have to grab him, loop your arms around his shoulders and squeeze to ground yourself. It’s a lot to take in. He’s a lot to take in. 

“I know, love, I know,” John murmurs soothingly. “Deep breaths, okay?”

You listen to him, letting a shaky breath out. It helps you relax. Barely, but enough to ease the strain a bit. 

He nuzzles his nose into your temple, his breath fanning out against your ear. “A little more, love, alright? You gonna be brave for me?”

“Oh—just get on with it,” you gasp when he eases in another inch, and John laughs in your ear. 

It feels genuinely romantic like this. Your arms wrapped around his neck and his hips slowly rocking into you, whispering sweet nothings like, there we go, you’ve got it, that feel good, love? When he fits his hand around the back of your neck and lifts your head up for a kiss, you swear you see stars. 

The kiss is too much. Too intimate. You wish you would’ve set that boundary ahead of time. It feels pointless now, trapped under the heavy weight of his body and impaled on his member, sucked into it, lips slotting and melting over each other, his tongue running over yours. He’s a good kisser at least, practiced from a lifetime of it. No awkward schoolboy tonguing. 

Too good. You wonder distantly how many other women he’s slept with (probably more than you have any business knowing). If he’s ever gotten anyone else pregnant. Your nails dig into his back instinctively at the thought and he gasps a wet and guttural sound, hips bucking harder. 

He gets rough enough to loosen a bolt of fear in your chest. All of a sudden, it becomes bright and clear in your mind. There’s a grunting, sweating man over you, all two hundred plus pounds of him laid out on top of you, with no protection between you. Raw cock plunging into your pussy. You can barely get a full breath in. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” John grunts, and your eyes flick down instinctively, trying to see past the dense mass of hair on his chest towards the length of his cock sliding into you. He’s pressed too close though. When he catches you looking away from him, he clamps his hand around your face again, forcing your gaze back up. “No, none of that. Eyes on me.”

You think you must gasp. Some horrified sound must escape you because you can feel the aftereffect of it, the big hollow where it used to be. 

His other arm wedges under your back to pull you closer to him, thighs spreading to brace his weight against the mattress before driving into you harder, deeper, the big, concentrated energy of him inescapable.

You can sense it the second before he’s about to come, his eyebrows digging in and his jaw going tight, the vein in his forehead prominent. 

“Christ, you’re gonna take it, aren’t you?” he snarls. “All this fucking cum.” 

On the next stroke in, you dig an ankle into the muscle of his ass and squeeze your inner muscles around his length, grinning hazily to yourself when that makes him shout. 

And then, oh, he surges in and you feel it, hear it, sense it all around you, his fingers from the hand wedged under your back digging hard into the side of your breast. Hips forcefully pumping into you and pushing his cum in deep, your own orgasm lost somewhere in there, a small, forgettable part of it all. 

Eventually, he stops moving over you, letting his cock slip out of you on the next stroke out. You hiss when he does, clenching up involuntarily. With nothing plugging it inside though, his cum leaks out, dripping down the crack of your ass and onto the pillow under your hips. 

John’s hot breath fans over your face as he pants, slowly winding down as well, the red flush in his cheeks still stark, though gradually fading. It’s only in the cooldown that you realize how claustrophobic it is being trapped under him, the sheer weight and heat of his body flush with yours becoming more and more uncomfortable, almost unbearably so. 

When he slumps off to one side, you can finally breathe again, the air rushing into your lungs. There’s sweat in your skin and tears in the corners of your eyes, everything tacky and humid, the frantic beat of your heart only beginning to slow down. The stiffness in your shoulders only dawns on you after a few minutes like that, and you push yourself up onto your elbows just to try to work some of it out. 

“No, don’t get up, love. We’re just gonna lie here for a bit,” he instructs, pushing your shoulder back down. “Better chance of my boys getting the job done if we keep it all in you.”

Of course he just wants to make sure that it takes. That way, you don’t have to do this again. “Oh yeah. I, uh, I didn’t think about that.”

He doesn’t just mean lie there, of course, though your body would like nothing more than to sink into the plush embrace of sleep. Instead he means keeping your hips propped up on the pillow now saturated with cum, and curling you into his side, separating your thighs again to palm your cunt, sliding his fingers through the wet. 

It’s a goopy, sticky mess that John plunges his fingers into, pushing it back up inside of you and shushing you when you whimper, a little gaped from his cock but sore to the touch. 

For much longer than you anticipated, he lies there on his side beside you and keeps two fingers pushed up inside you, blocking any cum from leaking out. 

“How long do we have to do this for?” you ask, voice all high and tight in your throat. 

John hums, unconcerned. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

True to his word, he keeps you there for the full fifteen minutes. Only the sound of your breathing fills the room, quiet otherwise aside from the enormously large weight of his presence, too familiar now with the private corners of your world. 

He doesn’t warn you before idly circling your clit with thumb. You jerk, nearly biting through your lip. “John!”

“Relax, honey, I’m just making you come again.”

“I know that, John—ah, ah, ah—”

A leg hooks over yours, his thigh heavy enough to keep you pinned without even much strength behind it. His fingers don’t so much as twitch inside of you, buried to the fattest knuckle while his thumb circles the tight bud of your clit over and over again until you—

You haven’t finished the thought by the time he draws his fingers out, pearlescent strings of cum webbed between them. He hums approvingly when he sees that, pulling your thighs further apart to admire his work. “Gorgeous. That ought to do it for now.”

Your heart skips a beat and you stare up at him, exhausted, the sweat on the back of your neck now cold. 

One year ago, a woman named Roxanne Miller went missing. Without any close friends or family, it took two weeks for someone to finally notice her disappearance and report it to the police. There were no tearful pleas on the news for her return or adamant demands to keep her case active in hopes she’d be found one day. It was a quiet vanishing. Once the case went cold, it would be easy to assume that it would stay cold. Cold, dead, buried in the ground, forgotten by everyone except Johnny, Simon, Detective Bennett, and you.

You’re at the advantage over everyone right now. You know there’s new interest in her case, and you know where that interest needs to be directed towards for the culprits to be brought to justice. That advantage won’t last forever, though, because Detective Bennett’s not likely to give up trying to reach you, so if you continue to ignore him, he may just show up at your doorstep, searching for answers. If he lets it slip that he’s looking into Roxanne’s disappearance, then the watchful sentry above your front door will report back to your neighbors and your secret weapon will be ripped away.

So again, you have a phone call to make and a meeting to schedule and a plan to formulate for what you’re actually going to do at said meeting. Your first instinct is to walk in and out of the police station without speaking a word about Johnny or Simon or Roxanne, clinging to the safest option where you don’t risk incurring the wrath of your neighbors or implicating yourself in crimes of complicity. And maybe, just maybe, it would prove something to your neighbors. Show them that you’re worth having around with a gesture that demonstrates your loyalty and proper temperament.

But that’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? Not talking to the police, silence with a smile, all your secret keeping—passive, gutless inaction has only gotten you so far. It’s not enough anymore, not when there’s an empty, ravenous basement waiting to consume its next victim and not when your own gluttonous desires include more than just survival and freedom.

So if staying quiet’s not going to cut it, what option does that leave you? Sinking a metaphorical knife in your neighbors’ broad backs, striking first before they get bored of you? Ratting them out to save yourself because if you can’t have them, the police can? Some secret third option that you’ve yet to discover? Leaves you with a headache, that’s what.

To remedy your throbbing temples, you lie on the sofa in your living room, staring at the whirling ceiling fan above you. Scratchy, pilling fabric rubs against your skin as you shift your position. It’s not the soft, worn-in leather of your neighbors’ couch, cool to the touch against the back of your thighs.

And when you turn your head to the side, there’s no one sitting across from you, staring you down like you’re the most amusing thing in the world. Johnny and Simon are instead out in their front yard again this morning, having resumed the removal of their dead shrub. Even from inside, you can still hear the rhythmic sound of shovels striking into dirt. Schick. Schick. Schick. You wonder if this was ever the last thing one of their pets heard before crossing over the rainbow bridge.

Bringing your phone up to eye level, you consider calling Detective Bennett now while your neighbors are busy. You put in his number, but your finger hovers over the call button. A nagging at the back of your skull warns that if you want to keep the conversation private, you’d best not make the call inside your home where unseen eyes and ears could be lurking in the walls.

It’s a new day, so another coffee run wouldn’t seem suspicious, right? Maybe this could be your new routine, and then Johnny and Simon won’t think anything of it when you one day leave the house and take a secret detour to the police station. And you could randomly alternate between the coffee shops at Somerset and Terrace so if your neighbors show up at one location, you could claim to have been at the other.

So focused on strategy and subterfuge, you fail to notice that the distant gravedigging ASMR has stopped. It only comes to your attention when the sound is replaced by a loud knocking on your front door. Scrambling off of the couch, you fly to the entryway because that’s likely either your neighbors or the police, and you don’t want to keep either waiting.

When you open the door, you’re actually relieved it’s Johnny and Simon instead of the alternative, though you do catastrophize a scenario where your neighbors were able to sense your scheming through dark powers and mind reading. There’s no deviance that you can detect in their countenance, though, or no more than the usual amount, at any rate.

“Hi there, neighbor,” Johnny greets, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “We’re goin’ out to get a new shrub.”

You blink owlishly, unsure of why they felt the need to announce this to you.

“We means you too,” Simon dictates. Confused blinking persists.

“Oh. Okay,” you respond. “Um. Why me too, though?”

Johnny tilts his head. “Who else would we bring along?”

You can’t argue with that logic. You can’t argue at all, really.

“I’ll get my shoes.”

...

...

...

Your neighbors’ nursery of choice is on the other side of town. The car ride over is fraught with anxiety between Simon’s questionable driving maneuvers and the chance that this was all a ruse to take you to their favorite camping grounds instead. But you arrive at the garden center physically unharmed. The first thing you notice when stepping out of the car is how strong the sun is today. You commit to memory the feeling of unfiltered warmth on your skin, lest you one day never get to experience it again, all while trailing behind your neighbors as Simon pushes a cart around and Johnny walks beside him.

There’s an array of shovels for sale under a covered area in the middle of the nursery. They hang off of a rack all lined in a row, ordered by length and grouped by the shape of the head. One of them catches your eye by the brand name engraved on the handle. You recognize it from the shovels your neighbors were using yesterday and pause to take a closer look.

“Got somethin’ to bury?” Simon queries, stopping when you do and leaning on the handle of the cart.

“No, but...” You reach out and poke the shovel until it clanks against the one behind it. “...this is the same as yours, right?”

“That’s the one,” Johnny confirms. He walks up behind you, engulfing you as he reaches around and pulls the shovel off the hook, his head nestled against yours. “We’ll get one for ye. Our treat.”

It takes a moment to react because you weren’t fully listening, too distracted by the proximity of his mouth to your neck, the closest he’s been since they both kissed you. (Now five days ago when they last showed you any kind of affection, any shred of warmth or intimacy. You had hoped yesterday that they’d kiss you goodbye, would have settled even for a tap on the ass on the way out, but you left their home with nothing, nothing at all.) Your brain does eventually kick in and think to decline a matching shovel, though.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. You already got me that knife last time, and I haven’t even used that, so...” you fruitlessly reason.

“We never taught you how to handle that knife properly,” Simon states, taking the shovel from Johnny and putting it in the cart.

Your face wrinkles in confusion. “It’s not just...” You pantomime a few concise thrusting motions with an imaginary knife. “Stab-stab?”

“It’s mostly that,” Johnny laughs before sauntering over to you again. “But you gotta know where to stab.” While standing in front of you, he wraps a hand around your wrist and moves your fist towards his chest.

“And when to stab.”

A firm yank suddenly drags you forward until you stumble into him, your pretend knife driving straight into his heart. The rest of you presses against him as well.

“And who to stab,” Simon adds, voice stern and steady like he’s issuing a directive. Johnny winks while you stare at him, wide-eyed and stock-still.

“Aye, that’s the most important part,” he notes.

It’s unsettlingly intimate. You swear you can feel his heartbeat against your fist. You remain paralyzed until Johnny slips his other arm around your waist, giving a quick squeeze before spinning you around and nudging you towards his partner.

“Go on, hen. Give it a try on Simon.”

With small, reluctant steps, you shuffle over to Simon, whose smirk hasn’t faltered since you first wielded your simulated knife. Your neighbor’s size has always intimidated you, but he seems twice as large right now while up close, about to fake-stab him. You raise your clenched fist, eyes scanning his chest, searching for approximately where his heart would be, but hesitate to land a blow, too worried about missing, about disappointing.

“Not gonna get anythin’ done by staring,” Simon instructs. Your eyes snap up to meet his, and as if on command, you follow through without thinking, stabbing him with your not-knife in the chest. It’s a stronger jab than you meant, but it makes no noticeable impact to the thick wall of mass and muscle that is Simon. His smirk grows sharper, twists into a smile. “That’s it. Good.”

The praise drips down onto you. Buzzes in your veins, gives you a rush of adrenaline. You hold your hand there for a moment too long, reveling in the high until you have the sense to be mortified by your reaction.

“O-okay. Got it...” you stammer, hastily breaking contact and stepping back. “Where, when, who. I’ll remember that.” Johnny and Simon exchange a look of what you deduce is pride. But with the lesson over, they resume their plant shopping. You take to following behind them again, hand still clenched tightly around an invisible hilt.

You wonder if you could actually do it. There’s something so final about crossing that line, drawing a blade and striking. Once your weapon makes contact, there’s no turning back. You can’t undo a slice to the flesh, can’t force blood to return to the source. But when backed into a corner with your neighbors flanking you from the left and the cops positioned on the right and the basement door against your back, who knows what you’re capable of?

You have time to contemplate all that while Johnny and Simon inspect dozens of shrubs, searching for the best of the lot. Discerning eyes and high standards keep them from grabbing just any old shrub. This one’s drooping already from not enough water, this one doesn’t have enough new growth coming in. But after much debate, they finally select a nice, lush boxwood and pop it into their cart. And now that they’ve got what they came for, you hope they’ll take you straight home and not out to the woods to christen your new shovel.

But before you can take even two steps towards the exit, you hear a tapping that’s getting louder. Then a shout.

“Someone grab her, please!”

A small, fluffy white dog zooms between the rows of plants and shoots by you like a rocket, free and on the move, leash flailing wildly behind her. The dog’s too quick for you to react, but not quicker than Simon, who snatches her right off the ground once she passes by him. The pooch fidgets and squirms in his arms but can’t escape. A young woman jogs towards you all, flustered and out of breath and presumably the dog’s owner.

“Thank you so much. I didn’t have a good grip on her leash and something startled her, so she just took off,” she explains sheepishly, taking the dog from Simon.

“Lucky for you, we’ve got a knack for catching runaways,” Johnny replies, reaching out and ruffling the top of the dog’s head. He smiles, alluring and brilliant, and you can see the change in the woman’s posture, can clock when she realizes just how handsome your neighbors are as she tucks her hair behind her ear and returns the smile sweetly.

Ignored and awkwardly standing to the side, all you can do is watch. Is this how it starts? A chance meeting with a stranger, Johnny being his charming self, making casual small talk while Simon plays the strong, silent type, both of them evaluating their new acquaintance's appearance and disposition. And then if the appraisal goes well, some time later at a calculated, premeditated moment, this person has a last taste of freedom and vanishes.

You don’t want this woman to meet such a fate. You tell yourself that it’s altruism and a sense of decency that compels this wish, but you know that’s not the whole truth. Your neighbors’ affection is scarce. Finite. You don’t want to share.

You’re not the only one who’s upset that attention has been diverted away from them, though. The woman’s dog has also had enough, letting out two sharp barks and wiggling around in her arms.

“Oh no, don’t you start that,” her owner scolds, shifting her hold on the little furball. “You’ve caused enough trouble for one day, Roxie.”

The name sets you on edge. The hairs on the back of your neck rise as soon as you hear it.

“Roxie, huh?” Johnny comments with an amused chuckle. Baneful sentiment creeps across his face. “We had a Roxie once.”

“She was always tryin’ to escape too,” Simon adds. The same ill-boding fondness haunts his countenance.

If there were any lingering doubts that your neighbors had something to do with Roxanne Miller’s disappearance, this drives a nail in the coffin of that uncertainty. And really you were already convinced of the matter, but it’s different to hear it straight from their mouths. A wave of nausea overtakes you. Sweat beads on your forehead under the heat of the sun that suddenly feels unbearable. You begin to shuffle off to the side, seeking out the cover of a nearby awning, but Simon seizes you by the arm.

“Where you runnin’ off to, neighbor?”

You’re lightly jostled by his grasp which doesn’t help your stomach at all, and you suppress a grimace with a clumsily stitched together smile.

“I was going to go stand in the shade,” you explain. “It’s a little hot.”

Johnny moves in front of you, blocking the oppressing sun, and grabs hold of your face with an unexpected gentleness. “Yer not lookin’ too good, hen. We’ll check out and take you home.”

The woman with the dog, now realizing that you weren’t just some random person lurking nearby, offers one last thank you to your neighbors and makes herself scarce. You hope for her sake and your own that you never see her again.

When you’re back at the car, Simon mixes an electrolyte packet into their water bottle and makes you drink from it. A bit of water dribbles out the corner of your mouth as you gulp it down, and Johnny wipes it off with his thumb, licking his finger pad afterward. You want to soak up the attention fully, but you can’t help but bitterly wonder if they would dote on their new acquaintance or any of their other pets like this. When Roxie was in their care, did they rub lotion on her neck where the collar chafed her skin? Did they make sure she had a balanced diet that accounted for her new life without sun? Were their hands once loving and tender, even if the same hands eventually choked the life out of her?

On the drive home, you rest your head against the car window, staring aimlessly at the world outside passing you by. Simon drives with marginally more caution, perhaps his way of accommodating you, and Johnny carries the conversation for the three of you since you’re not feeling very chatty at the moment. There’s a lull, though, and when that happens, you venture to pose a question.

“Do you ever miss them?” you ask, voice small and wavering. “Roxie and the others.” Saying her name out loud burns your tongue like a curse, skirting the line between the usual charade and an actual discussion about the people they kidnap and murder and bury in lonely graves.

If it bothers your neighbors the same way, they don’t show it. Johnny turns to face you from the passenger’s seat, lips curving into an earnest but knowing smile.

“‘Course we do. Each and every one of them,” he claims.

A pause. Silence other than the hum of the car engine.

“Would you miss me?”

It hurts when it slips out of you, sounding wounded and desperate. Instincts urge you to take it back and hide it away, but you don’t.

Simon meets your gaze through the rearview mirror. “You plannin’ on going somewhere?”

There’s a warning and a threat in the marrow of his words. It answers and doesn’t answer your question, but as unsatisfying as that is, you’re too worn down to press the matter further. You glance between him and Johnny.

“No. I don’t know why I asked that. Sorry.”

It’s not even your real question. What you really want to know is would they miss you more? Are you special and different from the rest or are you just another Roxie, fifth in a line that continues long after you’re gone?

You fretfully brush your thumb back and forth over the car’s leather trim. You’re reminded of your neighbors’ couch at first, but then you think of your knife’s leather sheath. Your fingers slowly curl around the hilt of an imaginary weapon once again. A scar could be something to remember you by, a permanent, irreversible etching on their skin. With so many already littering their bodies, how mad could they be if you added one more?

But is it really a pound of flesh you seek? Maybe all you want is to have carved out even a sliver of their hearts, to hoard a piece for yourself that you get to keep and carry with you to the next life. So when someone speaks your name in the future, Johnny and Simon won’t just miss you—they’ll mourn you.

Where, when, who. The who is the most important part. Who are you willing to hurt to obtain your true, secret desires that you keep locked up deep within you?

In answering that question, the seed of an awful idea sprouts. An idea that is more likely to backfire spectacularly or do nothing at all or mean nothing at all to your neighbors. But it would be significant to you, it would be the change you’ve been searching for, even if it’s the last thing you do in this life. The walls are closing in, and there are familiar pipes running along them. You can’t delay the inevitable any longer. It’s time to draw first blood with your own two hands.