The door opened.
"Mrs. Camilla."
It was her—the maid who had taken care of me before the orphanage.
Her voice was flat, her eyes devoid of the warmth I remembered from a childhood that felt like someone else's.
"I'd... I'd like to see Sophia," I managed.
"Yes." The single word was a brick wall. It shocked me. Did she know? Had the news already poisoned this house, too?
"She's upstairs," she added, stepping aside without another glance.
I walked in immediately. The house smelled of vanilla cake and baked bread, a comforting scent that now felt like a cruel joke. My empty stomach clenched, a traitorous scream of hunger amidst the silence.
I ran up the stairs, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Strange, rhythmic thuds—like someone hitting a surface hard—punctuated the air. And then, screams. Guttural, strained. "Ahhhh... ahhh... ah..."
They were torn from Sophia's throat.
What was happening? Was she hurt?
I rushed down the hallway, my fear for her eclipsing my own terror. Her bedroom door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of light cutting across the dim hall.
Her body was filled with sweat.
The scene inside was not one of pain, but of fervor. Of abandon.
Sophia's legs were hooked over a man's hips, her body colliding with his in a hard, frantic rhythm.
She was naked. He was naked, too.
His hands gripped her waist, anchoring her as she moved, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.
Her body hit his harder with each desperate thrust, a brutal, wet slapping sound that filled the small room. Her breasts, pale and full, rose and fell, trembling with the force of their movement.
The rhythm was nothing like the frantic, clumsy fumbling I remembered with Bran—the tearing pain that was the last physical memory I had of him.
"Ehmmmm, fuck me harder James, harder!"
"Right there. Don't stop. Give it to me."
"Yeah, just like that. Harder."her hand pressed on his chest as she bounced repeatedly, faster.
"Ahhhhh, Yes! You're so good!" James groaned, his hand rose squeezing her breasts like they were ripped fruits ready to devour.
"James, James!!!" The screams I'd heard weren't of distress.
They were guttural cries of passion, torn from Sophia's throat with each driving impact against the headboard, which rattled against the wall in a frantic, percussive beat.
They were having sex. Violent, consuming, oblivious sex.
I couldn't get my eyes off this. It had been four years since I had sex, and it was never even completed. He died.
It was a wound that never healed.
I didn't have the mind to masturbate; I just didn't know how to start, how to bridge the chasm between that memory of shared, frantic failure and the simple, solitary act of self-care.
I just couldn't touch myself...
It felt like a language I'd forgotten, a muscle that had atrophied.
And now I was watching a masterclass. A raw, unvarnished display of a body being used, claimed, and celebrated in a way mine never had been. I just stared, a hollow vessel watching a storm of sensation I could no longer comprehend.
It looked so good—disgusting, yes—but I couldn't stop staring.
A hollow ache spread through me bitting between my thighs. I really need to have sex too.
The thought was a shock, vulgar and urgent amid the chaos. And beneath it, a colder, sharper blade of disbelief: Mr. Charles was dead. His body wasn't even cold, and here was the world, pounding on, hungry and oblivious.
Crazy minds. Or maybe just human ones. And I was standing outside them all.
My eyes were turning blurry. A hot, aching sensation burned between my legs.
I knew this was crazy.
Perhaps I was going crazy.
But I wanted it—wanted this—with a desperation that shamed me.
Maybe I did need a therapist or something.
My body screamed that it wished it were the one on that bed. For one more second, the heat between my legs was the only real thing in my world.
"Fuck!"
James's shout sliced through the room. He'd seen me. Sophia twisted, her eyes wide, meeting mine through the crack in the door. The shock on her face was immediate, total.
"Camilla!"
Her scream—sharp with horror, not concern—jolted me backward. I stumbled away from the door.
A few seconds later, James emerged, hastily buttoning his trousers.
He didn't look at me, his face a mask of irritation and embarrassment as he strode past and down the stairs.
Then Sophia appeared in the doorway, a blanket clutched tightly around her body. Her hair was wild, her skin flushed, but her eyes were cold and clear.
"Why are you here, Camilla?"
Her voice was low, stripped of warmth. It wasn't a question of concern; it was a demand for an explanation from a trespasser. The blanket wrapped around her was a barricade.
I stood in the hallway, still smelling of her sweat and sex and the vanilla from downstairs—a nauseating blend of intimacy and exclusion.
"I'm sorry," I stammered, the words ash in my mouth. "I didn't mean to… interrupt. I just needed to talk."
"Talk? Now?" Her laugh was short, brittle. She yanked the blanket higher, her knuckles white. "What is going on with you, Camilla? Really."
I could feel the weight of the day—the stares, the tape, Gregory Hart's icy verdict—pressing down, threatening to crush the last of my voice. "Nothing."
"Don't." She took a sudden step forward, stopping at the threshold of her room as if an invisible line lay between us. Her whisper was a blade. "You want me to believe nothing is happening? The police were at the office. The whole building is whispering your name. What did Mr. Charles say to you in that hallway before he died?"
I felt my jaw tremble. I forced the truth out, the most palatable fragment. "He told me I was fired."
"Bullshit." The word cracked in the quiet hall. Her eyes, usually so bright with schemes and laughter, were dark, penetrating. "I know you. I know that look. That shattered, silent look you get when the world has kicked you. I fucking won't believe that's all."
The silence between us stretched, thick and choking. I could hear the distant hum of the refrigerator, the echo of James's hurried footsteps from downstairs.
I opened my mouth, and a broken, shameful thing fell out. "He told me to…" I swallowed, my throat clicking. "To suck him...suck his dick."
The change in her was instantaneous and profound. The last remnants of her post-sex glow vanished, leeched away by a cold, stark clarity.
Her lips parted slightly.
Her gaze swept over me—my wine stained dress, my shaking hands—not seeing a friend, but assessing evidence.
When her eyes locked back on mine, they were no longer familiar. They were the eyes of a stranger, of a jury foreman. Clear, certain, and utterly detached.
"Is that why you killed him?"
The air in my lungs turned to stone. A high, thin noise escaped me—not a word, just the sound of breath shearing.
"No!" The denial was a raw scrape. "I didn't! Why do everyone think I did?!"
My voice echoed in the hall, a plea met only by her unblinking, calculated stare. In her silence, I saw the final sanctuary collapse.
She didn't see a victim. She only saw a motive.
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To be continued...