My Sadist King

We ascended the stairs, into the light, and his home was revealed to me. I expected the place to be a mess, but there was hardly a thing within those walls. The most memorable thing about the house was the tidiness of the scarce objects. The living room’s only landmark occupant was a cherry leather sofa that had a matching coffee table in front of it to keep it company. Three issues of Time magazine were perfectly aligned across the surface of that table, without a single crease or bent corner on their covers.

The burgundy drapes that lined the two sets of windows near the front door were drawn. If my captor--my king--hadn’t specifically told me that I was about to be given dinner, then I would have never known whether it was day or night. The drapes were so thick that not even the smallest shred of moonlight was shining through. Daylight must have been a different story, but of course, he would never let me up in the living room during that time anyway.

The wooden dining table nearby the living room--which appeared to be handcrafted--had three matching chairs spaced evenly around it. Just beyond the table was the narrow, spotless kitchen. A bulb in the track lighting of the kitchen was burnt out, dim amongst its pearly companions. The granite countertop was cracked and matte, despite how clean it looked, and there were only two things sitting atop it--a knife set and a cutting board. The neatness of everything caused me to wonder if my king even had a job.

He sat me down at the dining table and tossed a shredding rag at my face after he entered the kitchen. “You’ve probably got ten different people’s blood all over your skin,” he said. “You should wipe that off because one of them was a disgusting whore that was probably infected with something.” He opened a cabinet below the kitchen sink, pulling out a rattling item.

When I had wiped most of the blood off my face and arm, I looked over at what was in his hands and gulped. He stood before me, entertained by my dismay, and clutched onto one of two shackles, letting the endless chains fall noisily below. “What, you didn’t think I was going to let you be up here without some restraint, did you?” He leaned towards me and wrapped the shackle around my wrist, locking it. I looked around for what he was going to bind the other shackle to, but I failed to find a reasonable candidate.

The other shackle suddenly clicked and I turned my eyes back to him. It was around his wrist. I was bound to my king by a chain.

“You see, this could go three different ways,” he began. He took a seat at the chair across the table. “You could either cooperate with sharing this chain with me, or you could try to disobey and get jerked along like a dog. And the worst option of all--your stubborn efforts to escape me can result in a dislocated wrist, which I will not fix up for you… So which will it be?”

I looked right into his eyes and said, “I don’t plan on resisting you, my king...”

“Excellent,” he said, clasping his hands together. “The chain is about seven feet long, so there won’t be too much pulling and struggling.” He rose from his seat and walked over to the refrigerator. “You’ll be placed into your other pair of shackles when I put you back down there, anyway.”

I dreaded the thought of being abandoned in the basement once again. Along the hallway that led to the basement, I noticed that there were three different rooms. One of them had unnerved me with its pitch black interior, revealed through a crack in the door. The other two were a mystery.

My king opened a pantry door and pulled out two soup cans in a single hand. “This is all I have at the moment,” he said, setting them next to the stove. “Unless you want to have some of the bodies I keep in the freezer downstairs… I don’t know if you’re a meat-loving gal. It tastes good, though. Just depends on what part of the body you choose.” He placed an empty pot on one of the four stove tops. “I’ve tried almost everything--ass, breasts, calves. I’d say the abdomen is the best.”

I placed my hand over my mouth as I held back an acidic splash of vomit. He peeked over his shoulder with a perverse smirk on his face, chuckling at my blatant disgust. “I’m kidding, by the way,” he said, switching on the flickering stove. “I’d never eat my victims… There’s too much to cherish.”

He opened a drawer and dug noisily through utensils until he retrieved a can opener. Though dinner was my biggest interest, I was distracted by my king as his arm flexed every time he turned the knob of the can opener. There was a lot more muscle on him than I had anticipated. I never liked men who were overly muscular--like those exaggerated wrestlers on TV--and always had a natural affinity for men were just right.

And my king was perfect.

His gaze found me as he poured the cans’ contents into the pot. I shot my eyes down to the table and I clasped my hands together to hide their trembling movements. Seconds later, I expected him to be watching me with a careful eye, but he had turned his head back to his task. That was when I took a really close look at him.

His brown hair had been fixed in the same style from two days ago--in messy, sporadic spikes. The edges of his hairline were soaked with sweat from the raging heat, sticking to his scalp like a freshly watered lawn. Trickles of sweat dripped down his shirtless back, shining underneath the vibrant lights of the kitchen. There was a faded scar underneath his left shoulder blade, measuring up to about six inches. The scar was an uneven line--jagged at the edges--and led me to assume that it had been caused by broken glass or a strip of metal. His ribs stuck out of his sides, harboring a chiseled abdomen below.

“Stop staring at me, Kelly.”

My face fired up and I clenched my teeth together, lowering my eyes again. I had always thought my silent observations of people had been subtle, to say the least. Or my king was just extremely pragmatic.

He turned the stove off, filling up two bowls with hot soup soon after. The chains rattled with each step as he walked over to me. “I hope you’re not a vegetarian,” he said, placing the bowl of beef stew in front of me.

“Thank you, Your Grace.” I stopped myself from snatching up the spoon and devouring the scorching soup. The aroma of what was in front of me was overwhelmingly alluring and my dry mouth salivated instantly.

“Ah, changing up the salutation a bit, are we?” he asked as he sat down. He hunched forward and brought a spoonful of soup in front of his mouth, blowing on it before he indulged. “I like that,” he went on. “Even though ‘Your Grace’ sort of sounds like we’re back in 1537 or something like that.” He paused and shot a confused look at me. “Well, go on,” he said, pointing at my food. “You can eat. I didn’t poison it or anything.”

Within a minute, the soup in my bowl was gone. I hadn’t lifted my head while I shoveled the food down, but I could sense that he was amused by my ravenous gorging. I wiped the soup dripping from the corner of my mouth.

“I’m glad you like it,” he laughed, snorting a bit. “I didn’t think a skinny girl like you could eat like that.” He helped himself to another spoonful of soup and continued to eat as I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“Your Grace…?”

“What?” he asked, his gaze glued to his bowl.

“Why did you kill that woman? … What did she do wrong?”

He dropped his spoon, letting it clash noisily within the bowl, and glared up at me. His eyes were on fire--searing right through mine and setting me ablaze. I felt every muscle in my body tense up from that single look and I lowered my head.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I’m sorry.”

His chair slammed onto its back as he rose to his feet. Three steps were all it took for him to reach me. The chain that connected us jangled as it slithered by his side. The kitchen lights were blocked out by his figure, casting an ocean of shadow upon me. I shuddered madly and my attempts to stay still had only made it worse.

“Look at me...” he demanded.

When I failed to do as he requested, he lifted my chin with one of his skeletal fingers and squatted to meet the level of my eyes. “You want to know why I killed her?” he asked, moving my hair out of my face. “Let me piece it all together…” He looked around the room and eventually said, “No reason.”

“You just… picked her?”

He brought his face closer to mine as he whispered, “I chose her for you. She just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

My eyes wandered down to his lips. The rate of my heart was pounding as though I were sprinting up an impossibly steep hill. I usually panicked when people got close to me, but it was different with my king. Despite the belittlement I felt pouring over my head when he set himself so close to me, I wanted him to close the gap between us.

I’d never wanted anyone to touch me ever since I hit my teen years--not even my own mother. Yet, before me, was the man that had snatched me away from the outside world and somehow, for some reason, I wanted us to converge in intimacy.

“What’s that look you’ve got?” he muttered menacingly. “You want something?”

I turned my cheek but his hand caught it, grabbing ahold of my jaw. The tip of his tongue slid across his lips and hid behind his teeth that were bared in a ruse grin. I forced my vision to the wooden panels beneath us and began to lose control of my rapid breathing. I could feel his eyes drifting along every feature of my face, assimilating every inch of my skin.

“Do I turn you on, Kelly?”

I spoke through my teeth. “No.”

He released his hold on my jaw and lowered himself into a complete squat, reaching into his back pocket and retrieving a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter. He popped a cigarette between his lips and tossed the pack onto the table after shutting the lid. “You see, Kelly, I can tell when people are lying to me…” he said as he lit the cigarette. He inhaled, lighting up the burnt end of the cigarette, and blew smoke in my direction. “It’s just a thing I have. And you, my dear, are lying.”

The smoke scratched away at my dry throat and propelled an ugly cough out of me. He stood on his feet and placed each of his legs on either side of me, sitting on the edge of the table. The silver buckle of his canvas belt beamed just below my chin--only inches away--snagging my attention. Another cloud of smoke sank down to me, raising my eyes along his body and up to his brooding face.

“Why is it so important to you?” I asked.

He arched his back, breathing smoke along my neck. “I like to know when someone gets wet by the thought of me.”

Suddenly, his end of the chain was wrapped loosely around my neck, pinching strands of my hair together. His face was buried in my hair and it took me a moment to figure out what he was doing. The sound of his nostrils inhaling my scalp plunged me into a state of diffidence. I was certain that I didn’t have the most pleasant scent, but he seemed so… indulged.

“You don’t even need to say anything,” he whispered. “Your pulse gives you away.”

His shackled hand clutched onto the chain and tightened the grip around me. The next thing I knew, he had the chain by two hands, choking me. I gasped as my dirty nails scraped at the rusty metal. He watched me as I struggled, slightly cocking his head to the side and watching me with an emotionless expression. I felt the blood rushing into my face when he finally released the chain and pulled it away from me.

I coughed as my lungs recuperated. A minute later, I hissed, “Why don’t you just do it?”

“Do what?”

I scowled at him through the messy clumps of my hair. “Kill me… Just do it already.”

He sat upright and crossed his arms, laughing at me. “Oh, you think I’d kill you this early on?” he asked. “You’re so eager.” His hand came to the side of my face. “You’re much more important to me than that, Kelly… I just like teasing you.” His arms lifted me to my feet and he sucked out another breath of smoke from his cigarette. He leaned his forehead against mine as a veil of smoke surrounded us.

“When I kill you… I’ll make it perfect.”