Chapter 1 Sera #2
I make trip after trip in the rain, carrying things inside. The storm shows no sign of letting up, lightning still cutting jagged wounds in the sky.
By the time I’ve set up the air mattress in the main bedroom and eaten a sandwich, it’s fully night. I don’t bother turning on lights as I move through the house. Darkness and I are old friends.
I’m not healing. I’m not growing. I’m hunting, and I need the dark to see what I’m after.
I stand at the window, watching rain streak down the glass. In the distance, through gaps in the trees, I can see the lights of Wichita. Somewhere down there, he is going about his evening. Eating dinner, perhaps. Watching television. Sleeping peacefully in his bed.
Not for much longer.
Thunder cracks, so close it rattles the windows. For an instant, lightning illuminates the yard—and a figure standing at the edge of the trees. Tall, still…and watching the house. Watching me.
When the next flash comes, there’s nothing there.
I smile again, wider this time. “Come in out of the rain,” I whisper against the glass. “I don’t bite.”
Later, I lie on the air mattress, listening to the storm rage outside and the house creak around me.
Sleep feels far away, so my thoughts drift to him.
How he’ll look when he sees me again. If he’ll even recognize me.
I’m not the same woman he destroyed. I’ve evolved into something new. Something that can hurt him back.
The ceiling above me darkens, a shadow spreading like ink across the peeling paint. It moves wrong, not following the path of tree branches outside the window, not cast by anything I can see. It pools directly above me, thickening until it seems solid.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
“I know you’re watching,” I whisper into the darkness.
The house creaks in reply, a long, drawn-out groan of settling wood. Or an acknowledgment.
From downstairs comes a sound—the basement door rattling in its frame. Just once. Hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Then silence.
I close my eyes and smile into the darkness. “Home sweet home.”
No one answers, but something hears me. I can feel it, settling over me, curious and hungry.
My blanket flutters suddenly with a burst of cold air. Something that shouldn’t be on the mattress with me nudges my inner thigh, something hard. Something made of frigid glass. Wiggling slightly, I make it roll away, but then it smacks into my thigh again.
Is that…?
My empty wine bottle. I reach down to feel the curve of the neck, which presses lightly against my underwear and the lips of my pussy underneath.
But I didn’t put the bottle there. It sat right next to my head on the floor only seconds ago.
I run my fingers along the smooth glass of the bottle, tracing the contours and pressing it more firmly against my pussy. The sensation is electric, sending sparks through my nerves, coaxing my body to respond. I shift again, this time spreading my legs wider.
Heat mounts in my core, a steady pulse that spreads outward, igniting my blood. I lift my hips slightly, nudging the bottle underneath my panties.
Awareness skates over my skin like a physical caress. I don’t know how I know, but I know: I’m not alone in this room.
It’s watching me.
It’s putting things under my blanket for me.
It’s curious about what I plan to do next.
I begin to move, slowly at first, rocking my hips against the bottle. The friction on my clit is delicious, sending waves of pleasure coursing through me. The muscles in my thighs tense, and my toes curl as I allow my body to take over, moving instinctively, seeking more.
The bottle rolls against my clit, the pressure and the hard glass creating a contrast that sends me spiraling.
I grip the neck of the bottle, holding it in place as I grind against it, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
The sounds of the storm outside seem to sync with my movements, the thunder and the pounding rain adding a wild rhythm to what I’m doing to my body.
But then another blast of cold air flutters the blanket. My nipples peak into aching points beneath my T-shirt, and I shiver.
And suddenly I’m not fucking an empty wine bottle anymore.
I’m holding a loaded gun between my thighs. My loaded gun, from my duffel bag that should be all the way downstairs.
That’s where I left it anyway. The gun’s always loaded now, just in case.
My body is still begging for release, though. Carefully, I start to bring the gun out from under the blanket to set it aside so that I can continue fucking the bottle.
But a growl emits from directly over my face. My pulse spikes.
Message received. From whom or what, I have no idea.
Keeping my fingers as far away from the safety and the trigger as possible, I lower the gun beneath my panties and rub my clit with the barrel. Then I slowly push the neck of the wine bottle inside my pussy.
I let out a loud moan, the sound echoing through the empty house, and I push and pump harder, faster, chasing the sensation that’s building deep within me, a coiling tension that promises release.
The shadows on the ceiling swirl as if in response to my movements.
This is fucking stupid, reckless, necessary. I don’t stop, can’t stop, as the pressure builds, pushing me closer to the edge. I could shoot my damn clit right off.
The danger in that possibility only makes me writhe harder. The house seems to breathe with me, the creaks and groans matching the wild rhythm of my hips.
The cold steel bites at my clit as I grind the gun barrel against it, the ridges of the sight catching my swollen flesh in a way that makes my vision blur. Still stuffed with the wine bottle, its neck stretching me wide, I can feel the cool glass warming from my heat.
The bottle inside me shifts on its own and rotates, going in deeper, as if an invisible hand between my thighs is twisting it. I cry out, my back arching off the mattress. The stretch burns. It’s both too much and not enough.
I’m so wet that I’m dripping down the bottle’s neck.
The gun’s muzzle grinds over my clit, relentless.
It’s not me moving it or the bottle anymore.
Something else has taken over, and the gun pistons against me, hard, fast. The bottle pulls out almost all the way, then slams back in. I cry out loudly.
The cold metal seeps into my bones, but my cunt is on fire. The contradiction tears a sob from my throat, and tears stream down my temples and into my hair.
The bottle fucks me in brutal, short strokes. The gun drags over my clit until I’m raw. Lightning flashes outside, bleaching the room white for an instant.
And then it happens. I scream, not in pleasure, but in fucking ecstatic ruin. My body locks, back bowed like a drawn bowstring. Every muscle clenches. The bottle feels fused to me, and I gush around it, hot liquid soaking the blanket beneath me.
The gun falls between my legs. The bottle slides out with a wet, obscene pop.
As the last tremors fade, I lie still, my heart pounding in my chest.
For the first time in a long time, I feel alive, connected to myself. To the raw, unbroken part of me that’s been buried beneath layers of trauma and pain.
“Who knew revenge could get me so hot?” I whisper to the room.
The house, a witness and a participant to my strange release, growls in response, and I smile.