I looked up at him, with falling tears and salt in my mouth. He stood over me with anger pointing his eyebrows toward his nose and snorted softly. It made me think of primal urges and animalistic rites-he was sniffing out his prey. When he caught my scent, he smiled.


Blood seeped slowly from the corner of my mouth and oozed from the split in my forehead. Thirteen blows was all it took to lay a permanent imprint of his fist in my face and the skin had given way with a loud smack on number six. My nose was crooked because it had popped out of place and when he'd noticed, he'd mercilessly popped it back in. My nostrils were lined red, but somehow the swelling was minimal.

He dabbed at my face softly and gently while he smiled at the horror in my eyes. I'd yelled for more when he'd started because I swore that I wouldn't back down. But, around number nine, I'd started to get woozy and fell quiet. That's when he'd gone in for the kill. He surveyed his work now and I could see pride in the depth of his eyes. It was deep in the recesses of his soul, but it was there. He feigned remorse outwardly, but I knew better.

"I'll never love you more than I love you now, " he'd whispered into my ear as he wrapped his arms around me. I caught my breath and held it as he held me. Pieces of me shattered inside and I sat there in total disarray. I cried hard into his shoulder, but I didn't hug him back. I couldn't give him that much-I would hold myself up. I knew for as much as he felt he loved me in that moment and held some sort of regret for what he'd done-this was a game for him. I was the prey; he the hunter. Any small sign of weakness fueled him and heightened his pleasure. I wouldn't give any more to him than I already had.

"Do you know what you mean to me?" he asked. I said nothing and cried softly.

"Everything. You mean everything to me. You are the only thing I have in this world that makes a difference, that matters to me, that is worth anything." he vowed into my hair. His words were always sweet and perfect and melted off his tongue like cotton candy on a hot day. When his anger flared, when he drank, when he wanted a few days reprieve to fuck around-that's when he'd change. Violence would become him and he'd snap. Mostly he'd snap on me, but I'd seen him snap so many times before on so many other people. None of them ever fared as well as I did when he was done, though. He took his time when he beat me and made sure that I didn't break, but he always left a trail on my body to prove he was there.

Except tonight. Tonight he'd sat on me as he'd counted out the lucky number into my face. My nose had given way and my forehead had crumbled and my cheekbones were dust. Now, he nuzzled me and loved me so passionately. More passionately than when he'd caved in my face just a few minutes before.

After he finished cleaning my wounds and he could see small remnants of what I was supposed to look like peeking out from the rubble of my face; he grew hard against me. He rubbed himself against me so I could feel it.

"Look what you do to me," he said, punctuating each word with a small thrust against my belly.

"No matter what happens between us, just the thought of you or to look at you, even like this, makes me so hard I can't even stand it."

"No one else does that to me, baby, only you, because you're mine."

He shook me then, his face suddenly curling in anger.

"Do you hear me?" he yelled, and shook me until my eyeballs rolled back in my sockets.

"I'd kill anyone that even looked at you, " he said as he sat atop me again. A leg over each side of me, he sat crouched over my belly. "I'd strangle him with my bare hands," he said through gritted teeth as his hands circled my throat.

"I'd squeeze the thought and the life right out of him."

Warmth hit me then. It started on my belly and ran down my hips to my left thigh, then pooled on the floor around me. He closed his eyes and moaned in my face as he marked me as his territory. I laid there in shame and fear as he kissed my swollen lips. He sucked my bottom lip and smacked loudly when he tasted fresh blood there.

"God help the man that ever tries to take you away from me." He smiled that handsome smile at me then. The smile that reaches his eyes and makes women fall in love.

I wanted to run away and wash his stink from my body, but I knew that if I even tried to shift an inch, he'd kill me and wouldn't regret it one bit. So, I stayed there, soaked in his urine, until he moved away and pulled me to my feet. He led me to the shower and cleaned me sweetly and slowly. He carried me to the bed without drying me off and made love to me while beads of water dripped from my fingertips onto his back. Sweet love. The kind girls dream about. My body betrayed me and I came violently. When all was said and done, my breathing was ragged and harsh and my yells turned into hoarse whispers.

It was the last time we ever had sex and out of the ten months we spent together, it had the most love in it. For two years he followed me and always made sure his scent still stained me.

Then one day I could take no more of his intruding presence. As he crept around the home I shared with my roommates one evening as I sat alone on the sofa watching reruns of Dynasty, life clicked into place. He knocked on the door and I sat quietly. He banged and pounded at the door and I sat quietly. He kicked the door in and stepped into the living room with murder on his face and I sat quietly. When he started across the room towards me with a smirk on his lips-I shot him.

~Anonymous~