That Sik Luv

by Jescie Hall

My beautiful little doll. I can’t wait to watch her break beneath me.

A doll with a stain. A toy with imperfections. A woman with a weapon.

“Just another lamb to the slaughter, love,” I whisper, reaching up and wiping one of the tears from her face with my thumb, eyeing it in disgust. “Don’t cry for him. Those tears look fucking hideous on you.”

“No one hurts you, but me,” he says definitively, as if it’s supposed to bring me some sort of comfort. He nuzzles his head against me again like he’s rubbing his scent on me, or my scent on him, before whispering into my ear, “But the pain I’ll bring upon you is the kind you’ll need. The kind your body begs for me to find deep inside that sweet little exterior. The kind your insides scream to release but are muffled with deceptions of sin.”

“Recognize Briony, that I’m the air to your fire. All you need to do is fan the flame.”

“You won.” Her voice breaks, sounding entirely defeated. “Oh, sweetheart,” I whisper, running my lips along her jaw, finding my way to her ear. “Don’t you see? We both win this way.”

“You’re a woman without a voice, Briony,” he whispers against my lips. “Let me be the throat through which you scream.”

“Dare me to set fire to this night and I will.”

I’m mentally planning my escape. Simultaneously mapping all the fires I’m about to dare this devious man to ignite.

“Aero.” She gasps with the only air she has left. But it’s not in fear; it’s only in recognition. “Hi baby,” I coo, lifting my mask from my face in the shadows.

“Are you scared of me?” I whisper against her skin, feeling the rising pulse of her neck against my palm. “Yes,” she chokes out. “And yet, you keep seeking me out.” Her chest heaves as the breaths come quick and choppy before she swallows and I feel the roll of her throat. “It’s warmer near the fire,” she whispers back.

She’s willing herself to burn beneath the only man she’ll ever want to serve and obey. The one who will worship her in ways that make her God flush with fury.

Something about the danger of being in my presence, forcing her to enjoy something she’s learned a lifetime to deny, excites her to her twisted little core. It’s lovely.

Another man using me to his own advantage by ways of seduction and unfortunate truths. What he doesn’t realize is I’m already a dagger. Shielded and hidden in a world where I thought my knowledge and drive protected me. I know I’m playing with fire. But Aero has yet to learn of the flames bound to burn him.

“Now you know how I feel every time I’m without you,” I say, slapping the side of her face gently with each word. “I can’t. Fucking. Breathe.”

“I’ve never wanted to be a slut,” she whispers, staring at me dangerously. A grin forms behind my mask, and I get the urge to bite into my lip. “Or someone’s queen,” she continues, dropping her tone and raising her chin defiantly. I hear a light click and the muscles of my back pull taut as my spine straightens. “I’m a King.” She sneers in my face as an arm swings free, and I feel the sharp pain of the blade hitting my neck.

“But I don’t even—” “I’ll kill everyone,” he interrupts. “Anyone who gets in the way of letting you live.”

“Call for your God now, church girl,” he says gruffly, “Because after I dirty you the way I intend, you’re gonna need some saving to cling to.”

“I mean it, Briony. You’ll need to aim better next time,” he says in a taunting tone. “If you want a life that doesn’t have me in it, you’ll have to fucking kill me yourself. I’m yours, and you are forever mine.”

“Now shut the fuck up and follow me,” he says through gritted teeth. He’s just such a sweet and caring soul.

“For we are God’s masterpiece...” he quotes near my ear, staring into my eyes in the reflection before us. “Your beauty is my chokehold.” “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,”

I gaze at my image. The woman before me, made in His image. The one who seeks freedom in the expression of her body, the opening of her soul to another. Yes, there is no marital union between us, but does that make what we’re doing of any less worth? Are we idolizing all the things the Lord himself asks us to deny? Is my God a truly jealous God?

“There is right and there is wrong. There is good and there is evil,” he continues. “But their definitions bend for those who wield the ability to manufacture their own fate. The words distort for them. Conform to what they need to hold tight the power over naivety. But in this life, Briony, the disadvantaged either break or build from the shards of their own shattered bones. The weak hit a darkness so low that existence becomes secondary to revealing the pragmatic truths.”

“Where have you been all this time?” I ask breathlessly. I see the roll of his throat as he steps in closer to me, my legs spreading open on the counter to accommodate him. His palm plants behind me as the other cups the side of my neck. He towers over me again, the intensity of his stare paralyzing me. He gazes down at my lips before his tongue dips out and licks his own. Eyes of fire set themselves ablaze before me, pulling me into his feverishness. “Finding you,” he whispers against my lips, as if there was no other reason for his existence. “The Devil’s Doll.”

“I’ve never thought you were anything less than what I know you to be,” he declares, short of breath, a passion in his direct stare that has me holding my breath. “You are the fire that burns stagnant, the coals and ash yearning for the chance to ignite, ready to burn cities to the ground in your fierceness. A force more powerful than any man that came before you. You are my fucking existence, Briony. I live and breathe for you alone. I am yours eternally, entirely at your mercy.”

He’s always known, beneath the surface of the religion I professed, that there was a woman whose thoughts ran wild. A mind that outdated codes and morals couldn’t detain. A woman who sought truths along with realism and unfiltered revelation. A woman who was ready for the war on the brink of her horizon.

My little firecracker is about to light up this world and find comfort in her revenge. When she’s ready. And she’s so close. But this reality of hers I’ve held secret has the potential to break her past the point of repair. I have to be careful with this fragile flower. Her petals are too fresh to hold her bloom.

The eternal stain of condemnation. The Devil’s Doll.

“What we have together isn’t definable by a word created by another man. No combination of letters or formulated language can encompass the magnitude of our tragedies. Our pain. Our euphoria.” His eyes find mine, searching deep through me as his fingers softly stroke my hair behind my ear. “Love is beneath us,” he states confidently.

“I feel like death isn’t something he deserves.” His face hardens as I continue. “I want him to suffer. To burn. From the inside out.”

“I want to take away the only thing that would dismantle the institution, ruining him with the same stain they’ve smeared upon us.” Aero’s head nuzzles into my neck, where I feel his warm, wet tongue trail up my throat, licking and urging for more. “I want to take his virginity.” He pauses against my neck, his mouth open and his tongue stilling against my flesh. Raising his head, he looks down at me with an unreadable expression. I see the war behind his eyes as he imagines the possibility, with a push and a pull of the heart he pretends to lack. Revenge. Possession. Vengeance. Claim.

“Whatever revenge you desire. It will be yours.”

“Look at her!” I demand. “C’mon, give me a reason to take off the top of your skull.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I ask, pissed and caught off guard. “What?” she asks casually, pushing my hand away and tipping her head to the side near her shoulder, looking every part the vixen she’s become. “Don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of your own pain?”

She stands, checking his pants pockets until she finds the key to the cuffs, before placing a heel on the side of his cheek. His eyes grow wide with caution. “I’m not missing anything, Nox,” she says to him, her heel indenting the side of his face. “And no one, especially not a strung-out pimp from Detroit, disrespects Aero in front of me.” Oh, fuck. Nox’s eyes glance over at me as I sit back with a satisfied grin on my face, cocking my brow. She was listening the whole time. I didn’t think she could hear us. “Aw man, y’all are so fucked up.” He laughs against the rug beneath him. “I love it.” I knew he would. “Remove my heel with your teeth,” she commands. He does, eagerly. “Kiss my foot,” she says with an angelic smile. He smiles back at her before kissing the edge of her toes. “Now open your mouth,” she commands, pushing her pretty pink toenail against his lips. “And show me how good you can suck.” “Marry me?” he asks abruptly against her foot. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“Fuck you!” Nox spits out, looking down at the mess we made on his pants. “Yeah, thanks for everything, Nox.” I smile coyly up at Aero as he grins back approvingly, gripping me by the neck and leading me to the door. “And fuck you, too!” he shouts back, and just before the door closes I hear him murmur with amusement, “Sick, selfish fucks.”

“I am yours as much as you are mine. It’s different. It’s primal. It’s a display of adoration and insurmountable trust. I strengthen you, rather than just claim you. Not simply ownership. We are beyond that. Their definitions, beneath us.” How do I make her understand the depth of my emotions without using the tainted words they have trained her to understand? Is murdering two men and gouging out the eye of another not enough?

I’ve worked through my trauma by not working through it at all.

“I’d bleed out for you, Briony. I’d fucking kill anyone so you could live. I’d kill you if I needed to, just to follow you to your grave so you can know the depths to which I’d fall to show I couldn’t fucking survive without you. I’d sabotage every aspect of your privileged, fake little life until you realized you’re only your best self with me by your side. I’d never stop.”

“You, Aero, are the throat from which I’ve been allowed to scream,” she whispers, the power of centuries of goddesses in her unwavering tone as her hand grips the edge of my towel, pulling it beneath the cuts of my tatted abdomen. “But I’m the eyes through which you’ll finally realize your worth.”

“Heal me, for I am healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.”

“You deserve better than the mess they made of me.” He kisses me again, as if discovering he genuinely likes the feel of our lips together. “But you’ll never find out, little doll, because I’m never letting you go.”

“We’re of the same matter, you and I. We’re violently ripped from the same dirtied cloth.”

“Whatever way you love is the way I desire,”

“I’ll defend you endlessly. Until there’s nothing left of the world we burn. My dying day.”

“You’re the only glimpse of heaven I’ll ever see,” he murmurs, rocking into me. “The only redemption I’ll ever need.”

Her brows knit as she peers back up at me. “I was trying something.” A soft look of understanding finds me. “Well, by all means,” she whispers, smiling down at her wrist in my hand, cuddling her cheek back against me. “Continue.”

“I went to a women’s clinic a town over, where no one knew me, and got set up with a prescription for my own protection.” “But it’s considered intrinsically evil to the church, meddling in Christ’s will—” “Guess I made my own rules,” she interrupts, cocking a brow with all the confidence in the world. A proud grin grows across my face. There she is again.

“Trust that I’ve got you. I need you to love this because I plan on doing it often.” My heart tumbles inside of my chest at the statement. A statement very unlike the man I first met. “Okay?” he asks softly, gaining my attention before moving. I swallow before licking my lips. “Okay.”

“Goddamn,” he sighs, both of us still breathless and in a cloud of bliss, trying to wrap our heads around what we just shared. “Just…everything. All at once.”