The Hand that Feeds

by K.M. Mixon

I want to know he’s not angry with me before I leave. He reaches over toward me, hand cupping my face gently as if he hadn’t just almost killed me moments ago. “You know I’d never hurt you, I just… I’m a dark man. One enamored with a stupid fucking girl. It’s going to ruin me.”

And I’m scared at how I just resigned to dying by his hand. I love life. I love everything about life. So why had I just given over to him like I would be fine leaving this world?

Neo leans forward and licks my tears away—each one. A week ago, I’d have gagged at the thought. Now, though, I preen, sitting up a little straighter, leaning my head back so that he gets them all. “Did you crawl in here to check on me?” he asks, and I nod.

Here I go, being his stupid girl again.

He’s panting, holding my face like it’s the most precious thing in the world to him as he gives over to me. I feel so fucking powerful beneath him.

“These are the only tears I want to see on these cheeks. The ones that come because you’re so eager to feed.”

“You know how well I take being ignored, whore. So, why don’t you answer me before I forget who you are to me.” Who am I to him?

“So? I already told you I can’t hurt you. You’ve seen me try. If

“Did I hurt you, truly? Or is your idea of harm skewed by what society says it is? Because when I lifted you off your feet by your throat, stupid girl, you didn’t see the flicker of excitement in your eyes as I did. I got to watch you live. Even when I stood over you in the mess of crumbled table, my foot on your chest, you looked up at me like I was your God. Don’t deny yourself what I can give you just because of what others would think or say. Because that would make you a stupid girl.”

But all I can think about is how my conversation with Lyla was cut short and how she felt pressed against my front. Her heart was pattering with fear, sending exhilarating strikes of excitement through me. I hate being interrupted when I’m playing. And she’s my new favorite toy.

I laugh from a place of deep-seated, fucked up depravity. “Or what, hm? What will you do?”

Her shivering body is teasing the fuck out of me as I step into her. She takes me in.

I don’t give a fuck if she’s scared of me or disgusted by what I do. I only care that she keeps coming back to me. She’s an addiction I’m not ready to curb.

I have to know how she’d look covered in it. I’ve already proved to myself I can’t harm her. So this will be the next best thing.

She doesn’t hesitate, and I know I’ve got my hooks in her. Once she gets past the bullshit in her fucking head, that’s when I get to see the stupid, stupid girl I can’t get enough of.

“I’m going to hold you to this fucking floor, covered in my victim’s blood, and fill your pussy full of cum.”

“Are you on birth control?” I grit out, trying not to spill until I’m ready, but she feels too good. She shakes her head, thinking it’ll stop me, but it’s not why I asked. “Good,” I reply, thrusting harder, deeper.

“Making sure you don’t waste a drop of what I gave you. After I fuck you, I want you to stay like this for twenty minutes before you move.

The way he came inside me and then made me sit with it as if he was trying to get me pregnant. Fuck, it was the hottest thing I ever had happen to me, and I can’t explain why. Even to myself.

I stiffen as he pours shampoo into my hair, working it through my thick mane. He turns me, tipping my head back as he rinses it clean. “You’ll be staying with me tonight, stupid girl. You and I have some things to discuss.”

“Don’t interfere with the crew in the living room, Lyla. Go into the bedroom and shut the door. I wouldn’t want to have to gouge anyone’s eyeballs out tonight.”

I close my eyes to ground myself, but all I can see behind them is the beauty of the both of us covered in blood, fucking like two animals after a kill.

Neo tips my face upward, looking down at me with his empty, gray eyes. He nods once and then helps me stand.

“You were so beautiful,” Neo says, and I notice his shaking voice.

“No one has ever surprised me as much as you do. No one has ever seemed so… right,” he admits.

When I’m seated on him, he lets his head fall forward, his forehead touching mine. For a long time, we sit like that. Half of me still thinks he’s asleep. “You’ll be my stupid girl forever. I’ll never give you up.”

He’s hard beneath me, and even though I had him inside me hours ago, I want him again. He makes me greedy. Feral.

He pulls back, looking deep into my eyes, and it’s the first time I see his with any life floating on their surface. “If I have to kill us both, you’ll be mine forever, Lyla. So don’t get any other ideas in your stupid little head, do you understand me.”

“He’s so commanding. His presence. The way he makes me feel. It’s like I’m completely alone when I’m with him.”

What makes me burst into tears as I pull out of the asylum, however, is the idea that I want to get further involved with Neo. I want to be beside him at night when I go to sleep. I want to kiss him good morning, as we did this morning. But he needs to be a different man to do those things. Or I need to be a different woman.

Or he took a piece of me. I’m a puzzle without that final piece to make me whole. And without him, I fear I never will be. But doing the right thing is rarely easy, right?

I’ve always been a crayon short of a full fucking box, but since Lyla disappeared from the hospital, I’ve lost every color except for fucking black.

“You’d better find that stupid little girl that belongs to me, Kevin. Or yours is going to be the blood they wash off this floor. Do you understand me?”

“You have twenty-four hours, Kevin. And if you have no word on where she is, I will make life a living hell for you.”

Do I sound too eager? Possibly. But it’s now been over a week since I saw her. Since I touched her. Since I ran my nose against her hair and breathed her in. Fuck, you sound more deranged than usual.

The only time there’s been color within was when she was near.

“Too bad you didn’t come back with Lyla; you could’ve lived,”

smirk. “I need to know where to find a stupid little girl who thought she could run from me.”

My mind wanders back to his intense, cold eyes filling with blossoming life and color as he thrust inside me. As if I was reviving his still heart. As if I was causing it to beat again. But when he pulled out of me, did he feel it still? Was the organ in his chest still alive when I wasn’t feeding it life?

don’t let it stop me from packing my luggage before I lose my nerve. Even though I know he’s terrible for me, everything in me wants to crawl back to him and beg him to forgive my stupidity.

A killer is on the loose, and I’m number one on his list. He’s coming for me.

Guilt builds in my stomach because I know if Neo finds him here, he’ll kill him.

She leads a man into her townhouse and slams the door shut. My chest heaves with angry breaths, my fingers curling into the bark of the tree I’ve been hidden behind for fucking hours, waiting for her to return. I cased the place and found my way into her basement from the storm door behind the townhouse.

If I go in there feeling as I do now, I can’t be held accountable for what happens. And what if she’s the one I kill?

Lifting my leg, I kick at the handle, and it gives way to me quickly.

It’s only been nine days since I last saw her, yet the excitement in my stomach is palpable as if it’s been years.

notice how slowly she removes it, letting it brush its way up my thigh before she retreats. I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling.

Lyla has been sitting on the basement stairs like a good girl at my behest, but she can’t be rewarded because she ran from me. She has to be taught a lesson, but I can barely figure out what I want to do as I look at her.

I’ve never wanted to keep anyone alive and never wanted to make someone scream in pleasure until her. I can’t quit her. There’s no way to kill her unless I go with her.

I’m too fucked up to read her, and it makes me even angrier.