The Right Path

The Right Path


Victor circled the frail slowly, with all the cold and deadly precision of a true predator. His grey and unfeeling eyes drifted over her with a dismissive and condescending glare. He knew the power was fully in his hands, so he felt no need to rush the situation. He preferred her just as she was now, held in a terrible and horrifying form of suspense. Despite the terror that was coursing through her body, she was still doing all she could to stand tall, desperate to hide her fear.

'Stupid damn fail.' He ruminated, letting a crude leer spread across his lips.

That perfect perfume that had seeped under the door and out into the hallway only moments ago was now a thousand times stronger than he ever thought possible. It rolled off her in swathes, increasing in its potency with every passing minute. As the musky smell of unfettered fear seeped into his nose, Victor felt utterly intoxicated. If he could ever feel drunk, he imagined this is what it would feel like. The sense of power and strength that the smell gave him was exhilarating and unfathomably arousing. He knew there was no fragrance in this world that he preferred; fear had to be his most favourite…especially when it was coming from her. The absolute perfume.

In complete silence he circle the quaking girl once more, relishing in the suffering he was inflicting upon her; his very presence was all the persecution he would need for now. Victor knew how to torture men, it was very simple and it was something he had honed right down to an absolute art. Men responded to physical pain very well, they usually spilled their information or consent within the first few minutes, or at the longest, within an hour. With men, Victor preferred to get his hands as dirty and as bloody as possible. He loved to pull fingernails out from the nail-bed slowly, watching as every strand and fibre struggled in vain to keep the dead skin anchored to the body. The screams that went with nail pulling ranked amongst his favourite sounds. He loved kneecapping; the melody of a shattering patella was music to his ears and the begging that accompanied it was even more harmonious. Limb removal was always a favourite too; he could keep a man alive for a very long time, even minus a major limb like a whole leg. A fully grown man crying and supplicating over a lost limb was quite a wonder to Victor, having never experienced it himself. Victor had realised years ago that he didn’t need fancy equipment or torture devices to inflict pain, in fact they detracted from the pleasure or torture. He learned long ago that his entire body was a tool designed for just two purposes; to end lives and inflict the maximum amount of pain possible.

But women however, women were a very different thing altogether. In his experience women responded much better to psychological torture. Of course, he had no qualms with physical torture for women. He found rape to be the very best way to put a woman through sheer agony, and on the plus side, he got something most enjoyable from it too. It was his favourite way of making a woman suffer; most of the time this was torture enough as she was extremely unlikely to survive the experience, given his sexual proclivities. But women were easier to taunt, easier to break with psychological means. Sleep deprivation, exploitation of phobias, solitary confinement and sensory deprivation were all very successful means of torturing a woman, simply due to the wiring of their brains. Their bones and bodies were far easier to break, however the thrill of breaking their mind and spirit was utterly unrivalled in his eyes. But Victor knew that he wouldn’t even have to break out the blindfold on this little frail, she was going to sing for him before he even had the chance for the real fun to begin. He knew she knew. She knew the reason he was here, and even that simple thought alone was part of the torture, it must have been agonizing for her. He almost pitied her, but the feeling passed rapidly.

He passed within a few feet of her trembling body, stalking her like a panther; then suddenly the frail let slip a sob of a breath. It was so light and so quiet that any normal human wouldn’t have detected the sound. But Victor’s senses were made for sounds like these, the inaudible wisp of sound waves resonating as loud as an explosion in his ears. Victor stopped dead then gravely stepped into the warmth of her body, so close that she could feel his breath wash over the sensitive skin on the back of her neck. Every hair on her body stood on end and her heartbeat kicked up ten notches. He stayed there for what seemed like an age before he spoke.

“That’s a sweet sound frail…wonder if we can coax any more from you?” He paused. “Or…maybe something a little…louder?” He growled from behind, his flat tongue curling round the ‘R’. His voice was course and heavy, like sandpaper on gravel, it reverberated dangerously around her body. She shivered; a mixture of his lewd and poisonous words and the stark realisation of the enormity of her situation.

She could barely speak; the words were there but were stuck in her dry hoarse throat. Her brain was screaming for her to answer him or feel his wrath, but her body was flatly refusing to cooperate. A shudder crept through her body once more but this time more powerful; it rose from her feet and juddered its way up the entire length of her spine; she felt her back stiffen in response.

“Awww frail…quaking for me already? But the fun hasn’t even begun yet.” He growled from behind his fangs.

“I know what you want Victor.” The girl croaked; her voice breaking over his name, her strength all but spent trying to focus on staying upright. But no matter how she held herself, that perfect perfume permeated from her skin, the air of the apartment rank with fear. Victor inhaled it silently and smiled deeply as its coppery scent filled him. As long as he could smell that scent he knew he was doing all the right things.

Victor stepped from behind the girl and placed himself directly in front of her. His colossal frame dwarfed every part of her. Even his shadow was gigantic. With severe eyes, he drank in the sight of her, savouring her inferiority in comparison with him. Her height and her weight were never to be a match for him, it would the work of but a moment for him to sling her down and take what he wanted from her. There would no resistance, no hard fought struggle, no desperate and futile fight. The thought of her beneath him, crying, weeping and thrashing made his groin twitch and ache painfully. His hands itched with an overwhelming desire to reach around her throat, tighten there and then hear her scream. He could rip out her vocal chords, that’d shut her up, but then he wouldn’t hear all those delightful little sounds he liked so much. He’d force them from her, find new and painfully ways to make her cry his name for all the wrong reasons. He’d shove her so hard against the flimsy kitchen wall he’d make the plasterboard crack and crumble. He’d slam into her body so violently that he’d shatter her pelvic bone; she would bleed and scream for mercy from him, she would howl for her own end. He would bite her to death, sink his fangs into her soft tissue and shred the flesh from her body in long slithering strips. He would leave her, convulsing and dying, taking with him all the satisfaction he came for.

“That’s why you’re here…isn’t it?” She rasped throatily. Her eyes were watery, but she wasn’t crying, she was trying to hold herself together. Her simple voice snapped Victor back from his black thoughts. His eyes locked into hers, filled with a murderous rage she had seldom witnessed before. Victor lunged forward and grabbed her chin in his hands, dragging her face so close to him that she could feel him breathing heavily over her. His grip was vice like, as if it were made of iron. His claws extended by mere millimetres, but still enough to catch the surface of her skin, leaving shallow and bleeding puncture marks in their wakes. The frail he held winced audibly as she felt his talons embed in her flesh. Tears welled in her wide eyes but she refused to let them fall.

“You stay the fuck outta’ there ‘path. You go in only when I say you can go in…have you got that? Try a stunt like that again and I will rip your fucking brain outta’ your skull and eat it in front of you, you got that?” He snarled into her face, as he pushed her violently out of his head.

She struggled to nod as Victor held his vice like grip on her face. Her cheeks ached under the agonizing pressure of his ministrations. She managed to croak out a dry yes before he shoved her back so hard she lost her balance and fell, tumbling to the floor in a heap of aching arms and tired legs. She cracked her head sickeningly on the side of the couch as she fell to the ground with a thud.

As she gingerly raised her hand to her head, Victor felt a pang of anger surface inside him; not because of what he had done, but because he knew he would have to be much gentler with her if he planned on keeping her alive for any length of time. His anger was a constant; it wasn’t so much a feeling for him, more of a state of being. He’d learnt to master his rage; he had the upper hand and could control it most effectively. He’d had decades to practise and had a body count to vouch for his attempts. But every once in a while it would burst forth spasmodically and when it did that he lost all control. Very few things made his anger and rage peak that way, but it was the little things that would give rise to his bloodlust. He would have to try and manage his bursts around her, or he risked leaving her torn and bloodied too soon to be able to accomplish what he needed. He would kill her eventually, of that he had no doubt. In fact he was relishing in the very thought of it, of all the ways he could snuff out her miserable and pointless existence. But for now he had to try not to seriously injure, maim or murder her, at least until he had gotten what he came for.

After a few moments of calm and deep contemplation, Victor tentatively reached out a giant hand to the girl who was practically prostrate at his feet. He desperately tried to fight back the burning desire to keep her where she was, lying at his feet. He liked to see women there, the only good place for a woman, her rightful place….either there or beneath his heavy frame crying and convulsing in agony. He shook his head to the left again, fighting with himself to shake the thoughts from his burdened mind. Victor retracted his claws just enough so they didn’t look quite as menacing as usual. He loathed having to play nice; it just wasn’t something he usually had to do. He normally got to play rough, very rough. He was used to breaking things and ending lives, not playing fucking sweet. But he knew that if he didn’t behave himself, she’d be far less inclined to give him what he wanted. Sure he could take it from her any time he desired, rake it from her in loud wails, high pitched screams and torrents of warm spurting O negative, but the effect would never be the same as if she gave it to him willingly.

The frail took his hand deftly, unsure of whether to accept this unusual offer or to shy away from him. After a few seconds of indecision, and a deathly glare from the man above her, she thought it best to accept, or risk more bodily injury. Victor hauled the girl to her feet in a single swift motion, and then steadied her as she regained her balance. To her surprise, he snaked his right hand into her hair and brushed his course fingers over her delicate scalp. She winced under his touch, his knack for tenderness completely lacking. Dragging his fingers from her hair, he inspected the freed hand for traces of blood. He satisfied himself when he found none, knowing she’d suffer from one hell of a headache, but not from any form of severe blood loss or brain injury.

“I know what it is you want Victor.” The girl all but whispered, her voice disappearing into the air like a wisp of steam.

“Then you’ll know that I’m not leaving without it won’t you?”

“But why? Why me? I know there are others out there, others that are far better than I am…why me?”

“Because you’re the best I’ve ever had frail.”

For a normal girl to hear that from the normal lips of a normal man, it would have been the highest accolade she could hope to receive. But this wasn’t the type of compliment she wanted to hear, in fact she wished with all her might it wasn’t the case. She fidgeted uncomfortably under his gaze, her eyes unwilling to meet his, unsure of what she might see hidden beneath them.

“I can’t…I just…I…I can’t be, there’s no way. What about the others?” She was careful not to mention any names, for fear for inciting his rage and bloodlust.

“Fuckin’ amateurs in comparison with you darlin’, they didn’t have a tenth of what you have.”

“Please Victor, there has to be someone else?”

Victor was growing agitated, increasingly so with every syllable that escaped her pursed little lips. He could keep his rage in check most of the time, but he could feel it rising within him. Like a wave of anger it washed over him in a surge of heat and irritation. He could feel his claws extending subconsciously; he watched as her eyes ghosted over his fingers and saw the terror glaze over her chestnut peepers. A swell of fear rolled off her and poisoned the very air he was inhaling. The perfume was getting stronger once more. He was going to try and bottle it one day and keep some on him at all times, the power and sense of complete supremacy it gave him was incredible.

“Look frail, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You know which I’d prefer but I’ll leave the choice to you this time. You can either help me and I’ll let you live, hell I might even reward ya’ if you do a good enough job. Or you can say no, I take what I want as painfully as I can and then I rip your fucking bowels out and use them to redecorate this shit hole you call home. Your choice darlin’.” His voice deepened and rumbled off as a low growl as he spoke directly. She lowered her eyes to the floor, lest she catch his stare and wither beneath its intensity.

She wasn’t answering him and it began to enrage him. Maybe shock held her tongue or maybe she was considering his offer of the ‘hard way’; either way he didn’t have the patience for this type of shit. Patience, in his eyes, was not a virtue and certainly not something an animal like him possessed. It was one of those things that indecisive pussies hid behind when they couldn’t make up their goddamn mind. He hated indecision and how it smelt on the air; he had no time and no use for it, it irritated him to his very core. He glared at her so intently that he thought she might burst into flames in front of him. He contemplated lunging at her delicate throat in a flurry of animalistic rage and launching her clean out of the living room window. It wouldn’t take much effort to ensure she cleared the small room and shattered through the single glazing of her poxy lace covered window. Hell if he threw her right, he could probably ensure the little bitch would live; although she’d be eating and pissing through tubes for a few months if she fell from this height. The thought pleased him very much.

But he stayed his seething temper, although it was against his will. He couldn’t do that to her…as much as he desired to…not right now anyway. He needed her a little too much right now; she had a purpose to fulfil, she had something he wanted badly. Besides, it would take too long to find someone else who could do what she did so well, and he just didn’t have the time to waste searching. But as soon as he was done with her, he’d have to think of a few more endings other than the window; something altogether more….satisfyingly painful.

“So frail…what’s it gonna’ be? Easy? Or…hard?” He put a little too much emphasis on the word hard, undoubtedly ruminating over the ramifications such a word could have.

“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice does it?”

“Sure ya’ do, you’ve always got a choice. It just depends on how much you wanna’ keep all your limbs that’s all darlin’. And do you really need your kidneys anyway?”

She paused.

“If I agree to help you, will I have to…will you want…?”

Victor nodded. “Yeah, it’s part of it…makes it so much more…intense.” He leered suggestively at her, his eyes travelling over the fragile white skin of her shoulders, imaging what it would look like covered in his bite marks and her blood.

The quaking girl raised a delicate hand to her mouth to stop vomit from spewing forth. Her diaphragm leapt into her throat and stuck there; expanding and contracting, sending waves of nausea into her oesophagus. She calmed herself and stayed her pulsating throat.

“What if I can hold it all back…without that?” The pain in her voice was almost tangible. Victor thought he might be able to hold it in his hands if she spoke that way again; like a small warm ball rolling between his massive palms.

“Even if ya’ could frail…I’m takin’ it any way.” He chuckled darkly. He knocked her off balance with his words; he wanted to keep her that way. It was all going much better than he imagined. She still had all of her skin, her limbs and there was no blood…yet.

The girl bowed her head and dropped her hands to her stomach; they rested there for a moment before falling sombrely to her sides. Her head ached; a combination of the bash to the skull and the thoughts that all vied for her attention in that very instant. She knew he could make her life miserable, more than miserable; he’d make it utterly unbearable. She would long for the end and beg for it to come far sooner than he would ever allow. She knew the pain she would suffer at his hands would be far greater if she refused than it would be if she consented. At least if she agreed to his demands she might be able to keep some of his rage at bay, control some of it some how. She knew it was a fool’s hope but she had to cling to something. She had tried before, to control his thoughts, but she failed spectacularly. He caught on to what she was doing; he broke six of her ribs and her left wrist as a punishment. He did it so slowly she could hear her own bones creaking as they were bent in all the wrong ways, she heard them snap and splinter beneath her pale skin. The pain was unimaginable, something she never wanted to experience again. She spent five months dancing in and out of the hospital, attending physiotherapy and taking a whole cocktail of pain relief; now her medical insurance wouldn’t cover her for that type of injury again. Yes, she knew Victor would make her life excruciatingly unbearable if she refused him now.

She raised her head to look at him; she met his glare pound for pound in intensity. Her eyes burned into his and he saw something there he had never seen before. The perfect perfume was suddenly mixed with another potent emotion, something Victor was accustomed to all too well. It just smelt very strange to be coming from her. The frails eyes burned with fury and rage, but she had the good sense to keep it repressed. Her anger had a unique smell; it was quite unlike the heavy musky fragrance of her fear, it wasn’t rich and deep. Her anger smelt invigorating, zesty almost; it was stimulating and revitalizing. If he had to compare it to anything it would be akin to a mixture of fresh lime, seawater and mountain air.

Reluctantly, the frail spoke softly. Her voiced wavered just as she allowed the first word to leave her mouth; it was tinged with uncertainty, nervousness and of course…fear.

“Alright.” She paused, composing herself as best she could. “I’ll do it.”

“Smart move frail…you must value your kidneys after all.” Victor half laughed as he turned on his heavy heels and made for the front door. He could feel her eyes burning right through him as he opened the door and took one step out into the repulsive hallway.

“When do we begin?” She called after him, almost frantic.

He threw a glance over his shoulder; it could have turned her to stone.

“Soon.” He replied, closing the door firmly behind him.