Bones (La Douleur Folle #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I fell asleep on my couch. I didn’t mean to, but I always found such a relaxing comfort in looking into the faces of death that I had helped create. I wake up to a wet sweat pant leg from where I had spilled the coffee on myself, and I sigh loudly. I’m not a messy man, and this annoys me that I had done something so normal .

I get to my feet and walk into the kitchen, crouching down in front of the small wooden doors in front of the sink, and pull out a stain cleaner that I use frequently. I reason that if it works on blood, it will work on coffee. And if it doesn’t, I would just rip up the carpet in a rage that would sometimes descend over me, and I would get rid of it.

The rage has nothing to do with control. I am controlled; it is just something that happens every now and again to remind me that I am human. Maybe rage isn’t the best way to describe it. Maybe severe frustration would be a better term.

I quickly walk back into the living room and drop onto my knees just close enough to the stain that I am able to spray it and let the foam set before I scrub it away. I wait almost in frantic impatience as the stain starts to turn white, the foam starting to coat it, and hovering above the spot with an old rag ready and dying to remove any trace of my unconscious misstep.

I’m not a messy man. The longer I hover, the more seconds that tick by, the more I want to rip my hair out. Why does it seem like it is taking so long for the foam to rise? When will it finally give me the signal to scrub away the spot of mess that is taunting me below it? It is almost as if it is laughing at me, telling me that there would be no way I will ever be able to get rid of it.

Fucking finally!

I immediately drop the rag into the raised foam and began to scrub furiously. I don’t want the stain to think it won, I don’t want it to believe that it could sit there, in my home, and mock me each time I come to look at my cabinet. This is where I come to relax and goddamn it, this fucking thing will be gone one way or the other. I refuse to share my home with it.

I’m not crazy.

I understand that this may seem like I am, but I just like to keep a tidy home. I spend a solid minute moving the rag back and forth, quickly, furiously, as deeply into the carpet as I can—beads of sweat starting to form on the side of my face until I dare to lift it and see who has won.

A victorious, smug smile spreads quickly over my face as I get to my feet. I reach down and scoop the stain remover off of the carpet and walk back into the kitchen, placing it back into its dark little home and tossing the rag into the sink. I won’t be able to clean it right away, but I will open the faucet and let a generous amount of scalding hot water pour over it until it will be safe for me to touch again.

The stain cleaner is a special mixture of my own—the secret to die safely when I did. Not that it would come to pass anytime soon, but I just like the idea of having secrets. It helps me stand out when I need to, and it keeps me safe when I felt like the world is crashing down around me.

Secrets aren’t always a good thing, especially not my secrets, but as I’ve said, it’s for the sanity of myself that I keep them and the safety of others that they don’t pass my lips .

Not always.

I won’t tell anyone my secrets until I find her again. I’ll tell her everything; a confession of sorts, get them all out of me, and then when she finally understands what goes on in my head, she’ll accept her fate.

Not that I would.

But then again, I’ve always been something of a fighter. Not necessarily a strong man, though I do like to keep my body in shape. I believe the saying that your body is a temple, and I enjoy having a finely built structure of my very own.

I’m not vain.

Vanity is a vapid trait, and I’ll have no part of it. However, I’ve come to find that most women, and some men, like a particular body frame, and I like to attract those people. The ones that I know will be easiest to seduce usually are used and sent on their way, but the four that I already have made love to in my mind with simple conversation. That’s how I knew I had to keep them.

I like having conversations about almost anything. Someone that can hold my attention long enough to indulge my mindless chatter is definitely someone worth keeping. I’ve never let any of them go except for her.

She’s seduced my thoughts more than once, and I like the game of cat and mouse that we play each time we come across each other. She always leaves me in a stunned euphoria, though I never really retain much of what she says. I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of her voice, the way her eyes lit up when she talked, or my wanton need to sever her fucking head from her neck that kept me coming back to her.

I don’t really remember what she looks like. If her eyes are black, blue, green, or brown. If her hair is black, silver, brown, or red. Her face presents itself as a blank slate each time we meet, and I’m tasked with putting the pieces together.

It’s a thought that keeps me awake at night. Not that I’m one for sleeping much, as I’ve said. I won’t take her head like I had done with the others. I won’t be frantic about it; I won’t be sloppy about it.

I’m not a messy man.

I keep a room refrigerated for things of this nature. The cool air keeps me happy, and the warmth of the blood when it splatters against me is very arousing. The sound of the little drips and drops when I’m done and the screaming is over, are so captivating. A secret melody that only I can witness as they greet Death in the afterlife and are fucked horribly by whatever demons await them.

I try not to have sex with them.

Sex isn’t the point, but sometimes when I’m standing there watching the blood drip from the gaping wound, I can’t help myself. The most I’ve done so far is slide my cock into a hollowed out hole that I’ve made in the neck. It wasn’t for sexual gratification. It was because of a boyish need to know what the blood, bone, and sinew felt like against my skin. A self-discovery of myself, one could argue.

I haven’t done it again.

I want that to be perfectly clear.

There are other holes that I won’t have to hollow out when I bring her here, and I haven’t decided yet if I’ll fuck her when she’s still alive, or if I would do it at all.

There are a lot of things I haven’t decided when it comes to her. The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll make a grand masterpiece of her, and she’ll be happy here. She won’t have a say in the matter, of course, but I want to make sure that she understands fully why she’s being displayed when the time comes.

She’ll discover that there’s more to life than the mundane, everyday nine-to-five jobs that drain so many people. She’ll find out that living paycheck to paycheck, drowning in debt, wondering where the next meal would come from isn’t something that should have to plague anyone.

I’ll take away every fear that I know is lurking inside of her and in the act, I will rid myself of the thoughts that often take over me in the quiet moments I have to myself. The ones that threaten to steal my sanity if I stay still long enough to listen to them.

I am stronger than my thoughts, and I have to find her soon or be relegated to a weeping, insipid human being in the corner of my home behind bricks, wasting away, and waiting for Hell to come and swallow me whole.