Dark Notes

by Pam Godwin

An unassuming person might consider his beefed-up physique and strong Latino features attractive. But appearances are just the skin of the soul, and his soul is rotten.

Which is why I’m moving my biggest challenge to the top of my task list. Today, I’m going to smile.

A few more steps and she glances over her shoulder as if expecting to catch my eyes on her flat ass. I shudder. The arrogant bitch actually thinks I’m interested.

She gave me a teaching job when no one else would, and I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. But I will not bend or cower like her subordinates. She has no idea who she’s dealing with. But she’ll learn.

All I see is blue ice, an endless arctic landscape, like I’m staring into an unknown world.

Thank God, he’s getting close, but how can he do this while holding a conversation with his mother?

Absolutely disgusting. 🤢

With the address from Ivory’s file mapped on my phone, I turn my old GTO onto her street. This doesn’t feel stalkery, but it doesn’t seem completely sane, either.

What can I say? I’ve never needed an excuse to beat someone’s ass. I just didn’t imagine the ass I’d be beating tonight would belong to her brother. Yet here I am.

She has nothing of value to steal. Except her innocence. Though I’m certain that was stolen long ago.

Crying

Is he a family friend? A cousin? A fucking burglar?

Mr. Marceaux was seriously hilarious

“Toxicity” by System Of A Down.

Balakirev’s Islamey is one of the most challenging cadenzas in the whole classical piano repertoire, and she plays it like an expert.

It’s only the fifth day of school, and I’m already plotting all the ways to murder him.

I want to strangle him with his obnoxious yellow-flowered tie for making me write an endless loop of I will not waste Mr. Marceaux’s time.

“Mmm. There’s my girl.”

“Let’s talk about the punishment for throwing shit at your teacher.”

The possibility of getting away with something so wickedly forbidden only feeds my beast and makes me hungrier.

“Where did you go, gorgeous girl?”

A touch? That’s what she wants? She wants affection.

“You’re the kind of man that sets his sights on something and doesn’t let go till he possesses it.”

“She’s not just financially poor. She’s short of love, affection, and protection. She needs a good example in her life, someone with a selfless interest in her.”

“I should stick with what I’m good at.” Like receiving spankings and playing piano? Or even better, playing piano while I spank her.

For the love of God, it was a kiss I’ll remember for the rest of my life, one I’ll compare all future kisses against. But love? What does he even know about that?

Rape. I turn that word over in my head, examining it from all angles. I think I experience it sometimes, but I never know what to do about it. A girl can say she was forced. A man can claim she wanted it. The police decide who’s telling the truth, and if they side with the man? He will retaliate against the girl.

“Sometimes you love people you shouldn’t, and in the endless space of that love, nothing else matters.”

I’m already deliriously drunk on Ivory Westbrook, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll last without giving in.

My infatuation might be ridiculous, but it’s no less real. I’m completely and thoroughly hypnotized by her.

The cadence of our breaths plays a soft song of want and hunger and desire in the background, and while those sexual undertones aren’t necessary in our silent communication, they add rhythm and flavor to the heart of our music.

This is the perfect place to kill someone. No one will see. No one will care.

She’s turned me into a homicidal animal.

Of all my passions, disciplining a woman is the most exhilarating. The most arousing. The reason I work and fuck and breathe. I can do this without destroying her. If I keep my temper in check, I’ll be able to open something inside her she has no idea exists. Pain and pleasure. Fear and arousal. Give and take. Once she understands how these things work together, it will change her, strengthen her, and tie her to me irrevocably.

Christ, this girl… She’s my music, my place in this life, my part in it all.

“Yes, Mr. Marceaux.”

“It’s Emeric.” He stops, turns me to face him, and strokes the pad of his thumb across my cheek. “I’m Mr. Marceaux when I’m your teacher.”

That moment…my God, it feels like a lifetime in the making.

“But I’m not stopping, Ivory.” Another hungry kiss. “You’re mine.”

I knew there was sexual abuse, but part of me believed it was in the past, like it had been a single horrifying moment in her life. I never envisioned years of rape.

How many motherfuckers will I have to kill? And while I’m murdering my way through her nightmares, how will I stop myself from becoming the worst of them all?

She’s in my heart, softening it, mending it, and making it pump again.

She’s fantasia in the flesh, unbound to convention, vibrating beneath my hands and begging to be directed.

“You’re mine, Ivory. That means your problems are mine. Your bills, your worries, your safety…” I kiss the corner of her mouth. “All of it belongs to me.”

“I know how to touch my girl.”

“If you need to talk about it, about them, I want to be the person you turn to.”

“You don’t look like a teacher.” “You don’t look like a student.”

A hug. That’s the thing she values most.

When she realizes just how fucking crazy I am, there’s no telling how fast she’ll run.

“What’s mine is yours, Ivory. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”

“I’m dreaming.”

“Still dreaming?”

“Well…I was in heaven.” I reach up and caress the day-old scruff on his jaw. “Until the devil showed up.”