"Where did it all go wrong, Lisa?" Rick asked as he rummaged through her fridge.
"I'd say about the third time you cheated on me. Get out."
"Still not ready to admit that was your fault, I see."
Lisa reached for her cell phone. Rick snatched it up and hurled it at a wall. It shattered. Danielle had bought her that iPhone for her birthday two months ago.
"Why can't women just fucking admit their mistakes?" he asked.
"What mistakes?" She'd made plenty, but she doubted he was referring to any of those.
"You drove me into the arms of other women with your bullshit."
She stared at him.
"Always nagging. And when you weren't nagging, you were sobbing like a fucking child. Demanding I be your damn emotional support animal for all your little traumas." He put enough stink on the word to nearly erase all meaning from it. "A relationship is supposed to be about the future. Our future. I shouldn't have to deal with any shit from before you were lucky enough to meet me. But you could just never get that, could you? So yeah, sometimes I needed intimacy without the crazy."
Lisa doubted Rick knew how to spell intimacy. She looked at the door. The lock wasn't broken. "How did you get in here?"
"Watched that cunt Danny leave. Saw her stick the key under the mat. You need her out of your life, Lisa."
"And you in it?"
"Now you're seeing the big picture." He smiled and tapped a finger on his temple. "You know, I was hurt when I found out you'd blocked my number. But then I saw it as the cry for help it was."
"What do you want, Rick?"
"Baby, I want you. I want us."
She pulled her head away as he went in for a kiss. "So you can cheat on me again?"
He stroked her face. "That won't happen this time. It won't because I know you're ready to love me like a woman is supposed to."
"And a man isn't supposed to hit a woman," she said quietly. She'd spent what defiance she had in her within the first minute of the conversation. And for some reason the cheating had hurt far more than the beatings.
There was an almost imperceptible tilting of his head. "That won't happen anymore. I promise, babe." He kissed her.
She let him. His tongue didn't taste of cotton candy. It tasted of cigarettes and beer. She despised it. She missed it. She felt disgusted. She felt nostalgic.
"I almost forgot," he said as she was undoing his pants. The part of her mind that could question her actions had fled to protect itself, as it always had. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. "I bought my little girl a little gift."
She shook her head, "That's okay, I don't want it."
He ran a finger through her hair, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you sound ungrateful. Why are you always so ungrateful for everything I do for you, Lisa?"
Her lips quivered, "I don't do that shit anymore."
Thunder clapped from a stormless sky out the window to her right. Instead of looking at it, she jerked her head to the left. It wasn't until she felt the pain creeping across the entire right side of her face that she understood. Rick gave her another kiss and then turned her around. He had her pushed up against a table and she could feel him hard against her ass. He held the bag up in her periphery.
"Kicking the habit is a fucking myth, Lisa. This shit is who you are. It's who you've always been and who you'll always be. It's who you were before you even had your first fucking hit. You just needed it in your veins to teach you who you are, and now you need it again to remind you." He dropped the bag on the table in front of her. Everything was ready.
She stared at it, quietly attempting to resist the temptation. She'd only been this close to falling off the wagon once in the last two years. During a spring cleaning spree when she had found a stash she'd forgotten about. She'd called Danielle and begged her to hurry over. Her friend had been there in five minutes. Another few and she would've probably been passed out on the floor. Granted, this had only been a few months into her sobriety.
But she couldn't call her friend now. She couldn't call anyone. The only man in her life she could turn to was a figment of her fucking imagination. This last thought broke her and she reached greedily forward like Bilbo Baggins reaching for the One Ring. She grabbed and opened the baggie.
"That's a good girl," Rick whispered from behind her as he tied a band around her arm for her.
She had the lighter lit under the spoon when he pulled her pants off. She was pulling the plunger on the syringe when he entered her.
The needle was an inch from her forearm when she froze. She could vaguely register the gentle rocking motion of her body as Rick fucked her. She stared at a photo hanging a few feet away on the wall. Her standing next to Danielle, in their cap and gowns. Someone who looked at her life now compared to that picture would look down on her. A college graduate turned tattooed degenerate, they'd think. They wouldn't understand. Her intention had always been to graduate with an art degree and use that to do tattoos. The art degree would give her a leg up in the industry. Something she could proudly display in her parlor. She'd accomplished exactly what she wanted. At least in terms of a career.
She let out a quiet sigh. She knew what she had to do. This wouldn't end until she did. She wouldn't have the strength to make it end any other way. Or perhaps she finally had the strength to make it end as it always should have. She was prepared for whatever consequences came. The consequences of failure. The consequences of success.
She went out of her way to pull her arm down towards herself, where he wouldn't be able to see it. She waited a moment and said, "Oh fuck, Rick. You bought me some good shit, didn't you?"
"You're fucking right I did. You know I take good care of you."
"You know I like romance. And I missed you too." She slid the still full syringe under the zip-lock bag. "Can you fuck me on my back this time. I wanna look in your eyes." She wanted to see his eyes, all right.
He laughed, "You got it."
He turned her over held her down onto the table. He started fucking her again.
"Harder baby. You don't have to be gentle. You know I can take it."
"Fuck yeah you can," he quickened his pace. "You're gonna get rid of that dyke hair."
She nodded, "You get me more of this good shit and I'll even get those implants you always wanted."
She didn't hate guys who preferred big tits. After all, she herself had developed a love for them when experimenting in college. But she did hate guys who weren't satisfied with what a woman had. She'd never insulted his dick after all, despite having had much bigger in the past. She'd convinced herself, convinced herself because she fully believed it, that a guy shouldn't feel bad about that. Yet he'd beat the shit out of her once when she'd casually, and mostly jokingly, suggested he try one of those enhancement supplements.
She pulled her right arm behind herself, feigning that she was bracing herself on the table. She got the syringe in her grip and waited, watching his face. She knew she'd only get one shot at this. She needed to wait until he was completely lost in what he was doing. What happened next shocked her into action, however.
With a grunt, he came in her. He'd never had much in the way of longevity. Nor had he ever cared enough for her pleasure to attempt holding it in. But this had been quick, even for him. After a few heavy breaths, he looked at her face. His smile turned slightly when he saw the look in her eyes. She immediately slammed the syringe into his left eye and pushed down on the plunger. Once she was certain it was all in, she pulled the needle back out. He tried to pull away, but she wrapped her legs around him and held him against her. The yoga pants weren't just for show, after all. She had strong legs. And a nice ass. She'd always worked on that.
She was of the opinion that a nice ass was more impressive than nice tits. Tits are genetic. A roll of the dice. An ass has to be worked on. Sculpted. She'd started working on hers for Rick, hoping he'd somehow love her for it. She still worked on it after he was gone, if only so she could have something on her body to be proud of.
She'd told Danielle this once, and been scolded for it. "You should be proud of who you are already!"
"I am. But that doesn't mean I can't also be proud of this wagon I'm draggin'!"
Danielle had laughed and given her a smack on the rear, to the shock of the few males in the yoga class.
Why this memory chose that moment to fill her mind, she had no idea. But she burst out laughing and slammed the needle back into his eye. Then pulled it out. Then slammed it in again. She'd stabbed him at least three dozen times before his limp body slipped to the floor.
She ran to the bathroom and vomited. She threw the medicine cabinet open so fast she heard the glass break when it hit the wall. She rummaged through while screaming "Please!" repeatedly. She found her morning after pills. They expired next month, but that was good enough. She'd head out and get a new batch as soon as possible for good measure. She took one and hopped in the shower. She washed her vagina out with scalding hot water while crying.
She sat in the shower, weeping. She was unsure how much time passed, but the water was cold by time she returned to reality.
Eventually she went back to the living room. She half expected Rick to be gone like the end of Halloween. After all, Rick had had the blackest eyes. The devil's eyes. She stared at those eyes, glazed over with blood. She looked over at her phone. Danielle had once went on a rant about how electronics these days are designed to break easily on purpose. Built in obsolescence, she called it. Her old Nokia would have laughed off such damage.
She glanced at the handset over on the table. It had been disconnected months ago. She thought of going out to a neighbor, but she was bottomless. The pants she had been wearing were covered in Rick's blood and Rick's ejaculate and Rick's body. She went to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of shorts. She hadn't thought to put any panties on first, and the shorts chafed a little. Then again, after that shower, she was mostly numb down there. The numbness in her heart made up the difference. She was no longer there. She was gone, far gone, in that same abyss her self control always hid in when Rick was there. She'd evicted it, crawled into the hole herself and given her body a command: kill.
She grabbed her laptop, then returned to the kitchen. She sat it on the table and opened it. She started Discord and sent Danielle a video chat invite.
She declined. A moment later, a message came in.
"With a client, sweetie. Just a Japanese symbol so it won't be long."
Lisa sat in silence for seven more minutes until she heard the off-kilter boop-beep-do-boop of a Discord video call. She watched another Lisa's arm reach out and accept.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Danielle said. She could see her friend standing a few feet from the laptop, cleaning her supplies. After a cursory rinse, she dropped the needle into the sharps box and began washing her hands.
"What symbol did the client want?" another Lisa asked. It was the only thing this Pseudo-Lisa could think to say.
"Osaka. Believe it or not, though, this guy was actually Japanese. And from there."
"Funny," Phantom Lisa said from several universes away.
"You doing okay, sweethea..." Danielle turned to the laptop and froze. It was only then that Lisa saw her own video preview and realized that she hadn't bothered to wash of any of the blood that had spurted onto her face. "Lisa? What happened?"
"I...killed Rick."
"You what?" Danielle ran over to the laptop and sat down. "When?"
"About twenty minutes ago," she said in a voice a few pitches higher than her normal, somewhat raspy tone. "While he was fucking me."
"Lisa..." Danielle held her hand to her chest in a fist. There was still clear disbelief in her tone. Not the disbelief of someone who didn't trust her friend. Just the kind of disbelief that comes with such a shock. As if a friend informed you they'd bought a zebra while standing right next to the animal and holding a leash.
Lisa took the laptop and pointed it at the body and said in the same high-pitched, almost robotic voice, "I think I'm going to need new yoga pants."
She sat the laptop back onto the table.
"Lisa, listen to me! Don't move an inch from that spot. I'll be right over."
"Okay. Danny?"
"What?"
"Am I going to jail?"
"Fuck no! Just stay there, I'm on my way."
"Okay. Danny?"
"What?"
"I may have already moved. I, uh, went to the bathroom and took a morning after pill and showered."
"You don't look like you showered."
"I was a little focused on cleaning his fucking jizz out of my cunt! Sorry if I forgot to get behind my ears!"
Danielle stared at her with wide eyes.
Lisa wept, "I'm sorry, Danny."
"Don't apologize to me. Don't you dare apologize to me." Danielle was crying too. "That doesn't matter. He was arrested twice for beating you and we have logs of all the fucked up messages he's left you in the two years since. What was the, um, weapon?"
Lisa looked over at the corpse. The syringe wasn't stuck in the eye. It was on the floor nearby. She reached down and picked it up, then held it up to the camera.
Danielle's eyes widened and she cried out, "Lisa, no!"
She opened her mouth to explain, but Danielle had already bolted. Lisa saw her open the parlor door and run out. She held up a hand and weakly said, "You're supposed to lock up when you leave."
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