The air in my mother's bathroom was cool on my skin, a stark contrast to the heat blooming inside me. I sat on the toilet, my elbows on my knees, breathing through the familiar, heavy pressure in my gut. This was my time, my secret ritual. The door was locked. Outside, the world was quiet. In here, it was just me and the animal truth of my body.
I pushed, a low grunt escaping my lips. The first thick log slid out, a satisfying, stretching fullness that made me sigh. I always took my time. I liked to feel it all, every inch of the release. I didn't reach for the toilet paper. I never did. Not since Marcus laid down the rule. The feeling of being utterly, completely dirty, of carrying the evidence of my most basic function with me… it had started as a humiliation. Now it was a comfort. A boundary. Mine.
I finished, sitting there for a long moment, feeling the wet, messy weight clinging to my skin. I stood up without looking, without wiping. I pulled up my skin-tight leggings, the fabric pressing the mess firmly against me. A familiar, musky scent rose, and I breathed it in. This was my smell now. My choice.
I flushed and unlocked the door, stepping out into the hallway.
My mother was in the living room, pretending to read. I could feel her eyes on me, tracking my movement. The air felt thin, charged with everything we didn't say. A month had passed since the worst of it, since Marcus's last visit that shook the walls and left me broken on the bed for days. The physical wounds had scarred over, but they were tight, painful knots under my skin. The deeper wounds, the ones he and the other one had carved into my psyche, they were wide open and festering.
I needed something from the high shelf in the pantry. I grabbed the step-ladder, the metal cold in my hands. My mom followed, a silent shadow.
"I just need the tomatoes," I said, my voice too bright.
I climbed. The ladder wobbled. As I stretched, my back to her, my ass, clad in those crusted leggings, was right at her eye level. I heard it—the sharp, involuntary intake of breath. A sniff. Then a choked gag, quickly suppressed.
I froze, my fingers brushing the can.
"Hazel."
"Yeah, Mom?"
"The smell. It's… it's worse. It's rotten."
I came down slowly, handed her the can. Her face was pale, her nostrils flared. "It's fine. It's just how it is now."
"It's not fine. It's a bacterial infection waiting to happen. Again."
I shrugged, a hollow gesture. "Marcus likes it."
Her face hardened. "I don't care what Marcus likes. I care that my daughter smells like a backed-up septic tank. I can taste it in the air."
We stood in the narrow pantry, the ghost of every violation hanging between us. "You think I don't know?" I shot back, anger flaring hot and sudden. "I smell it all the time. It's in my clothes. In my hair. I dream about it."
"Then why? For God's sake, why do you keep doing it? This is just filth. It's degrading."
"You think I don't feel degraded?" The words spilled out, desperate and true. "Every second of every day? But it's my degradation. I control who gets close enough to smell it. It's a fucking boundary, Mom. A disgusting, shit-stained boundary, but it's mine. After everything… it's the only thing that feels like mine."
I saw it then, past her disgust—the raw, helpless fear. She was terrified of the person I was becoming. She didn't say another word as I pushed past her, leaving her with the can and the thick, cloying scent of my unwashed truth.
The confrontation left me raw. So when Marcus texted later that day, a simple "Come get me," I went. It was easier than staying in the silence with her. I drove to his place, a dank apartment that smelled of sweat and old beer. He was waiting outside, a mountain of a man, half-orc, eight feet of corded muscle and simmering violence. He didn't greet me. He just got in the car, his bulk making the vehicle sag.
We drove back in silence. But I could feel his eyes on me, hot and possessive. He was in a mood. I could always tell.
Back at my mom's, we walked into the living room. She was there, on the armchair, a magazine held in white-knuckled hands. Marcus's arm draped over my shoulders, a heavy, claiming weight. His other hand, as casual as if he were checking his pocket, slid into the back of my leggings.
His fingers, thick as sausages, found their home immediately, tracing the rim of my asshole, feeling the crusted filth and the painful, raised bumps of half-healed sores. I stiffened, then forced myself to relax, to keep my face neutral. My mom's eyes flicked up, then back down.
"So," Marcus rumbled, his voice vibrating through me. "You got the place looking nice, Mrs. Thunder. Very homey."
His index finger pushed inward, past the tight ring of muscle. I steadied my breath.
"Thank you, Marcus. We try."
His middle finger joined, stretching me with slow, inexorable pressure. My eyes watered. "Yeah. Cozy." He chuckled, his fingers curling, dragging against the inner walls, scraping over scar tissue. "Hazel was just telling me about your little pantry project. Reaching for high shelves. Must be tough."
His thumb found a large, hard bump of old pus and pressed. A sharp gasp escaped me.
"It's fine," I said quickly, voice strained. "The ladder is stable."
"Stable," he repeated, amused. He increased the pressure, his fingernail digging into the center of the bump. I felt a faint, sickening pop inside me. I swayed. His arm tightened, holding me up. "I like stable. Consistency."
He withdrew his thumb, slick with yellowish seepage, and brought it to his lips. He licked it clean, slow and deliberate. My mom made a tiny, choked sound. He grinned, tusks gleaming. "Still got that signature flavor. Aged nicely. You cultivate a good environment, Hazel."
His fingers moved again, more purposefully. They speared deeper, twisting. His nails—thick, blunt—began to scrape. They raked over internal scabs, over rough patches of impacted filth. It was a grating, internal scratching. I felt my face flush with shame and a traitorous heat.
"You're quiet, babe," he said conversationally, his hand working me like he was digging for treasure. "Cat got your tongue?"
"I'm just… listening."
He hummed. His fingers crooked, his nails digging into a deep, unhealed tear. The pain was instant, blinding. I cried out, my body jerking violently.
"Whoa, easy there. Something bite you?" He looked at my mom, eyes gleaming. "You got bugs, Mrs. Thunder? In the pantry maybe?"
Her face was a mask of horror. She was watching his forearm muscles bunch and flex with every brutal movement. "No bugs. It's clean."
"Clean," he scoffed. He forced all four fingers in together, stretching me to a burning, tearing point. His nails were everywhere, scratching, picking, gouging at every pocket of infection and waste. It was a violent excavation. I was panting, tears streaming silently. The smell, intensified by his agitation, began to permeate the air—putrid, earthy, foul.
"You call this clean?" he laughed, a harsh bark. "This is a fucking biohazard. A beautiful, disgusting biohazard. And it's all mine. Every infected ounce of it."
He was performing for her now. He twisted his wrist, knuckles grinding against my tailbone. He hooked his fingers and pulled, as if to turn me inside out. I sobbed.
"You see this, Mrs. Thunder?" he grunted, his own breath coming harder. "This is commitment. This is what it means to really know someone. To know every sick, rotten, delicious part of them."
She looked sick, gripping the chair arms, unable to look away.
"Marcus… please…" I begged, a thin whimper.
"Please what?" He stopped, hand buried to the wrist. "Please keep going? Please show your mom how well I take care of you? Please remind her what happens when you're mine and someone else tries to leave their mark?"
The reference to the other assailant was a cold knife to my gut. He was claiming territory, asserting his violation was supreme. He resumed, fingers scissoring, nails digging with relentless, inhuman intensity. The pain was a universe.
"I think she gets the picture," my mom whispered, voice trembling.
He finally, slowly, withdrew his hand. It emerged with a wet sound, coated in a slurry of brown, green, and red. He examined it, then wiped it casually on my thigh.
"Yeah. I think she does too." He leaned down, his hot, possessive growl in my ear. "Now. What were we saying about the pantry?"
He didn't wait for an answer. His mood had shifted, darkened. The casual violation wasn't enough. He wanted spectacle. He wanted sound.
"Come here," he said, not to me, but to both of us, steering me toward the small bedroom. The walls were paper-thin. My mom stayed rooted in her chair, a statue of dread.
The door closed. The room was tiny, just a bed and a dresser. He turned me, his eyes black with intent. He pushed me onto the bed, the frame groaning. He yanked my leggings down, not bothering to remove them, just baring me. He was already hard.
The first thrust was a declaration of war. He slammed into me with his full weight, and the entire bedframe screeched, slamming against the wall. A cry was ripped from my throat—pure, startled pain. Old scar tissue tore. I felt the hot rush of blood.
He set a brutal, punishing rhythm. Each thrust was a collision. *BANG. BANG. BANG.* The headboard hammered the wall. The sound filled the room and leaked through to the living room. I knew she could hear every impact. I bit my fist to muffle my sounds. He pinned my wrist above my head and increased his pace. The pain was all-consuming, but as the minutes stretched, a shameful heat wormed through the agony. My broken body responded. A choked moan escaped.
He grunted, satisfied. "That's it. Let her hear you."
He shifted, driving deeper, hitting a spot that sent a jolt of electric sensation to my brain. I screamed. It was raw, animalistic. The banging became frantic. Plaster dust sifted from the ceiling. A picture frame crashed.
He didn't stop. He fucked me until pain and forced pleasure blurred into screaming static. I sobbed, begged, my voice growing hoarse. He covered my mouth, but the bed's cacophony was testimony enough. When he finished, it was with a guttural roar. He collapsed on me, then rolled off, pulling me to him, asleep in minutes.
An hour later, he woke hard. He entered me again. It started over.
The cycle repeated. Day bled into night. The screaming, the banging, my animal noises became the apartment's soundtrack. My voice gave out, becoming a ragged rasp. He explored every position, each with the same wall-shaking intensity. On the floor, making the boards tremble. Over the dresser, making the mirror rattle.
By the third day, I was no longer human. I was a raw nerve. My screams lost language. They were the long, drawn-out howls of a gutted creature. I heard glass break in the living room. I heard my mom weeping softly, hopelessly, under the din.
Then, on the final day, he changed.
I was lying in the ruin of sheets, a hollow vessel. He stirred. I heard a low, rumbling groan of transformation. The bed groaned under a sudden, immense increase in weight.
I turned my head.
He was growing. Muscles swelled, veins bulging like ropes under darkening skin. His shoulders broadened. And his cock… it lengthened, thickened, became monstrous. Sixteen inches. Thick as a tree trunk. It hardened with an unforgiving, metallic rigidity.
Terror, pure and icy, flooded me. This was annihilation.
"No," I whispered, scrambling back. "Marcus, please, no…"
His eyes opened. There was only primal hunger. He grabbed my ankle and yanked me to him.
He flipped me onto my stomach, his weight pinning me. He didn't try to enter. He just *drove*.
The pain was beyond anything. It was impalement. It was being split in two. A scream tore from my throat, so loud I felt my cords shred. The thrust lifted the bed off the floor and slammed it down. The wall behind the headboard cracked with a thunderous sound.
He began to move.
It was a relentless, pile-driving assault. Each thrust was seismic. The bedframe splintered. The dresser toppled. Plaster rained in chunks. The entire apartment shook. I heard things falling in the living room. I heard my mother's faint, terrified cry.
My screams were constant. Raw, animal, desperate shrieks for a mercy that didn't exist.
"STOP! PLEASE! I'LL DIE! I'M GOING TO DIE!"
He didn't stop. He grunted, sounds like boulders grinding. The metallic smell of his sweat mixed with the coppery stench of my blood, soaking the mattress. The apartment complex groaned. A neighbor yelled, pounding somewhere.
Hours blurred. My throat was ripped raw; my screams became silent, ragged shrieks. Consciousness flickered. I felt my pelvis crack, my spine compress. I vomited. I blacked out, was jerked back by fresh agony.
The 24-hour mark was a felt reality in my total ruin. The final thrusts were brutal punctuation. With a final, shaking roar, he finished. He pulled out with a wet, sucking sound that seemed to pull my insides with it.
He stood, looked down at me with empty, satisfied eyes. He dressed in silence. He didn't look back. The door opened. Footsteps crossed the living room. The front door closed.
Silence.
It was deafening. It was broken by soft, broken weeping from the living room.
I lay in the wreckage, unable to move. A thing of pulp and pain. Blood pooled, warm beneath me. I thought I might be dying.
The bedroom door opened. My mom stood there, ashen, horror beyond tears in her eyes. She saw the destroyed room, the blood-soaked bed. She saw me.
She didn't speak. She went to the bathroom, returned with a wet cloth. She knelt, began to wipe blood from my thighs. The touch was excruciating. I flinched.
She stopped. Her hand hovered.
"We have to go to the hospital now," she said, her voice a dry leaf.
I tried to shake my head. Pain lanced through me. "Can't."
"Hazel, you are hemorrhaging. I can see it. You can't even move."
"They'll ask… what happened."
She set the cloth down. "I will tell them my daughter's boyfriend is a monster. That he raped her. For days. That's the truth."
It was, and it wasn't. "I let him in."
She met my gaze. No judgment. Just bottomless grief. "I know. I was here. I listened to it. For days, I listened to him kill you. And I did nothing."
"You couldn't."
"I could have called the police the first hour. The first minute. I didn't. Because I was afraid. Afraid of him. Afraid of the questions. Afraid of you hating me. So I let him kill you instead."
She wasn't crying. It was worse.
"It's my body," I whispered, the mantra ashes in my mouth.
"No. It's not. Not anymore. It's a crime scene. And if we don't take it to the people who can at least try to put it back together, you will die in this bed. And I will have to live with that, too."
I had no argument left. No defiance. My body was a shattered vessel. The pain was a universe, and I was a dying star at its center. I looked at her, saw the woman who held me after the first monster left, who promised we'd survive. We didn't. We just found a slower, louder monster.
I gave the slightest nod.
She stood, knees cracking. She went to the phone on the fallen dresser, dialed 911. Her voice was eerily calm. "My daughter has been sexually assaulted. She is severely injured. She is bleeding heavily. Please send an ambulance."
She hung up, came back, took my cold hand in her colder one.
"They're coming."
I squeezed, the weakest pressure. The sirens, when they came, sounded very far away. I closed my eyes. The smell of blood, shit, and him was all around me. It was the smell of my choice. And now, it was the smell of my end.