Origin Of Sin

17. The Haunting of Ventablack

CHAPTER 17 THE HAUNTING VENTABLACK

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ZUEMIER
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It was another morning where I woke up with my head spinning, a headache pounding at my temples and my yesterday blurring with my present.

Rolling a dry tongue around my mouth, I could taste chocolate searing my flesh, and some overpowering the bourbon. I felt as awful as I did at the apartment I passed out it in. Hot, and deteriorating. Like my organ was rotting, my bones straining to support themselves. The clean feeling I woke up with before had totally dissipated and left me feeling the honest effects of the damage I put on my body. My sweat made my head stick to the mahogany table as I desperately tried not to reminisce about last night.

But I could still feel a soft phantom body pressing against mine. I could still hear faint mewl reverberations in my study. Memories of yesterday came in whispers but they thudded inside my skull with an echo. They wouldn't be ignored. The 'Neoma', refused to be forgotten.

I felt another pang and I grabbed a clump of my hair, seeking any sort of relief from this hangover. Sun was slipping through my study's blinds, exposing the weak man that I am for turning to booze, again, when a situation became outside of my control.

So I got up and pulled the curtains before slouching back into the leather chair. I knew it, I called it. The woman was my undoing. I left her feeling so pent up- I felt akin to a loaded humanoid gun and she was teasing, trigger hungry cop. Oh Dark Lord, I felt so angry.

Hell, I'm still angry. The weeks of neatly organized catch up work Elixio gave me we're covered in espresso, creme and faint scents of her within the ink. I spent most of my night -when my nose wasn't above a cup- peering at illegible tea stained pages with the smell of her and creme engulfing my face. My thoughts were painfully reflective, darting to the pain when she bit my lip, to the taste of her tongue, to the softness of her ass. And sometimes, when her scent was particularly strong, my mind slapped me with her face of utter rage before she threw the creme in my face. Or how glossy her eyes were in her vulnerability afterward. Or the now, familiar look of defiance she bore into me before I fucking humped her on the table like a fucking degenerate- No, I didn't get shit done last night.

My mind had become my own, personal torture chamber and the warden was some meal I knew nothing of. But the true icing on the cake that was my absolute shitty night, had to be Elixio. Oh fucking, Elixio.

I don't think I've been so furious as I had been with him when I saw him come into my study after hours deep in my 'work'. He had reprinted some clean pages, brought a meal- he had even bought the fūcking aspirin and the water that I was chasing it with currently.

I couldn't even comprehend a thank you or ask for an explanation for what the hell was going on with the woman he brought to me and was slowly tearing me apart.

I couldn't think because he smelled like her. He was lathered in her sent, head to toe, I could smell her tears, her flesh, her intimacy- fucking everything of her was on him and was now in my study . I didn't give to shit about a forgotten email he meant to mention before or how I wasn't meant to be drinking in treatment. He brought her to the estate. He was the bringer of my chronic migraines. He caused my bubbling fury. He's the reason that every time I fucking blinked, all I could see is her doe-eyed face moaning in abandonment. He's the reason this random woman is haunting my mind- a woman I've only met twice and shared less than 30 words with.

When I saw Elixio in my study, any notes of gratification was engulfed by rage. Rage for him. Rage for her. Rage because what truly pissed me off wasn't that he bought the apocalypse on my already tired body but the simple knowledge he had touched her. I was angry that my anger was sourced from some stupid, ill-placed, possessive, fucking jealousy that was wrapping around my throat, choking me like a noose.