RAGE
It was as pure as the rain. Elemental and unbound. Before he knew it he had struck the dashboard in his car and the whole thing shook and the downpour cocooned his impotent fury from the glistening street and the couple frantically crossing it under one black umbrella.
It was unusual for Mark, that kind of anger. He choked the steering wheel with his fists. He had never actually hated anyone until the incident with Kate. He despised the way that she could stick her hands into his life and almost surgically fuck it up. And what made it even worse was that he couldn't strike back. He'd concocted plans; deviously beautiful plans of revenge that could make the elaborate soliloquys of Shakespeare's villains seem unimaginative. The woman was a successful lawyer. When his ex-wife first introduced them just before they'd married, not knowing any better, he would have called this woman "beautiful" or "attractive". She was very fashion-conscious, and always wore something just a little more elaborate, a little more expensive and noticeable, than she had to wear. Her hair was black, long and seemingly just barely contained. With her black-framed glasses and discerning green eyes, she always presented herself as intelligent and in control.
The day after she wrecked his marriage, he actually drove to her cozy eastern-themed apartment flat, to ask her, Why? Why wreck his marriage by propagating such disinformation? The made up rumors and the photo shopped pictures. With her door opened just enough she gleamed at him and said, "Because you were not good enough for her. Frankly, I don't think you're good enough for anyone. A syphilitic whore, maybe. This new guy, the guy I'm setting Sophie up with, is more suited for her I think. I'm the kind of girl who would do anything for my friends, even if they don't even know that they've made a silly mistake." And she firmly closed the door on him.
He knew he could prove that the pictures were photo shopped, he even knew a guy, an expert in those matters who could prove it. The next month Sophie was seeing somebody new. He'd heard from old associates that she was happy; they were going to Hawaii together.
***
Inside the car, listening to the percussive shroud of the rain, all of the bones in his right hand began to fuse together in pain. It was already beginning to swell. The new pictures, the ones taken of his latest girlfriend, Mary, came to mind. They were emailed to him from Kate, and he left them unread for a week. When simple curiosity (he'd even stupidly hoped for some kind of apology) broke him down he'd immediately regretted opening the file.
It was a series of photos, four of them, taken from an unsteady hand. The first one angled downward, on Mary's pale, sweaty ass. Some guy's oversized dick was almost all the way inside of her asshole, spreading it. Mark could make out several globs of cum splotched out all over her ass. In the background he could see Mary's face turned toward the camera grinning with squinted eyes, stupid with pleasure, her face slightly blurred from the movement of the camera, or the motion of her body. It was her expression that hurt him the most.
In the second photo Mary's short curly blond hair was overexposed. It looked like a halo. Her blue eyes looked up, regarding the camera with some kind of faux innocence. Her lips were wrapped tightly around this nameless man's red cock, sucking his sperm out. The third photo was all blurred, slightly. Mark could see Mary sprawled out on a strange unmade bed. Her body was flushed, pink at her breasts and athletic stomach. On her stomach was written, in black marker, "Cum here" with an arrow pointing downward. There was cum all over her, her face and tits, knotted greasily into her golden pubic hair.
He couldn't make it to the fourth picture. He closed the thing, sat up, and calmly, but with trembling fists, said something to his boss about stomach flu.
***
After about an hour he drove home. Perhaps the photographs were fake. It wouldn't be the first time Kate had used such methods. By the time Mark had made it to his sparsely decorated home, he'd decided that the pictures were probably real. He didn't quite know how, it had something to do with the lousy quality of the things.
With a sigh Mark opened the door, and heard that he left the TV on. He went into the living room and saw that a video taken of his and Sophie's wedding was on, though he didn't know how. He saw, in crisp high definition video, Sophie next to this unfamiliar smiling man that was himself sharing their first kiss of married life.
How could she have been so easily swayed? How could I have been so stupid?
He knew that rumors, true or false, had a way of making even trusting people doubt, if iterated enough times.
The gloved hands were around him, at his torso and his face, before he could even defend himself, so lost was he in thought. He kicked backwards, awkwardly, but only grazed his assailant's shin
.
He felt the moist cloth around his lips;
don't breath
, he thought,
keep kicking
. In the mirror before him he caught sight of his attacker, taller than him, and a face that was all flesh. Only slight indentations where the eyes should have been and only a slight downturned crease for a mouth. It was while witnessing this strange, irrational, vision that Mark unwittingly gasped, and his vision turned hazy and indistinct. Soon black clouds formed and commenced to eclipse his unraveling world.
FEAR
It was a cold beyond refuge, unceasing and skin-shivering. It was the cold, and the incessant hum of the air conditioning that brought him to life. He opened his eyes. It was a weird room. Painted a dark blue, and small. Only little more than enough room for the bed--no sheets, no blankets, just a mattress--and small table just to the right of it. On the table was a large jug of water and a single paper cup. Next to the cup was a bowl full of crackers and raisins. There was a large flat-screen television on the wall across from the bed. At the wall to the right of him there was a bright red door. It was the only door in the room. There were no windows. Something warm touched Mark's exposed left calf. He realized he was nude. There was someone next to him, asleep. He tried to pretend that the long black hair and pale skin wasn't familiar.
His neck ached; he reached up to feel his upper spine when his fingers met something cold and metal. It was around his neck and very tight. Turning in bed he saw a chain run from his neck to a tiny black aperture in the wall behind him. The woman next to him (he didn't dare call her by name) also had a chain going from her to the same hole.
Something, some kind of panic, seized him. "Hey!" He shouted. "I don't know what's happening! Somebody let me out!" Despite the cold he felt beads of sweat already forming on his face. He felt the woman beside him shake into wakefulness. She sat up, eyes unfocused with the last remnants of a nightmare, confused.
"W-What's happening? I was just at home... How can I be here?"
She blinked with slow dawning apprehension. She regarded the bed, the television. She felt the chain around her neck, and noticed with discomfort that she was nude. "Is this a nightmare?" Finally she noticed Mark. "Did you do this?" She said with a growing fury.
Before he could reply a merry little five note tune, emitted from hidden speakers, announced itself. A voice followed:
"
Good evening."
Kate and Mark were too stunned to continue into argument.
"
