Peaches

Twenty

His eyes were black, revealing to me the extents of his malevolence in such a leisurely glance, a cold and unforgiving gaze of disdain. One could lose their very being, their essence of sanity, and faith in the future ahead of them. They were craters of pain and anguish, catastrophic flames to consume the purity and hope in one's very soul.

Rusted, gritty chains secured my compliant figure to the cold steel of his platform, where he managed to inflict his torments of pain and pleasure. I was locked, secured in his tangled mess of a web. Like a moth caught in the ensnaring stick of the spiders' silky web. I wouldn't move, for I knew it only meant more pain.

Searing pain, down to each and every cell, twisting my DNA to another distorted reality of myself. A version of me that was his, caged in his eternal torment. To live or not, I had no means of relief from this anguish.

"Please," I would cry out, weak and distorted, my world was no longer familiar to me. All that I knew for sure was that he was there. He who wished me to call him by the one name that meant power and control in my life

Daddy.

Marcello.

He was all that I knew at that given moment. Present in his twisted image of me, I was exactly as he wanted to see me, broken and dutiful to his every need. He was all that I would ever know, until the day I am granted with the still release of death, it was a pleasure.

‐

"God damn it, my arm is so numb." I grunted out, shifting my arm out from under the plush pillow. "Chris?" I asked with a yawn that ricocheted throughout my body with a violent shake.

The soft playing on his guitar gently woke me from my monstrous dream that seemed inescapable, I was sure that he could hear me fuss, yet he sat gently beside me, patiently waiting for me to leave the confines of my nightmare.

"Good morning." From the warm and focused sound in his tone, he had been awake for quite a while.

I hope it wasn't me.

"Did I keep you up?" I asked in a small voice, snuggling beside him to watch his fingers pluck delicately over the strings.

"Yes," He responded with a faint smile, sighing softly as he peered down at me. "But it's alright. I finished your song, and I think you liked it."

"My song?" Is that what I'm hearing? This beautiful melody that was light and damn near hypnotic, beautiful in every way.

"You like it, don't you?"

"Of course I do." I breathed him in slowly, feeling myself settle back into my mind with his familiar scent. "It's so beautiful."

"You were having a bad dream?"

"About Marcello." I nodded, immediately regretting the blunt nature of my response. "It's okay though, I promise."

"I wanted to help you but you didn't want to wake up, so I just picked up my guitar and, well this is what came out." Bringing his soothing music to a still, he pulled me in and kissed my head tenderly. "I know it's not gonna make it all go away, but I want to make it better somehow. At least for now."

"Please tell me you can stay with me today, at least until I have to go to Honey's."

Holding onto a brief silence, he absentmindedly adjusted the comforter over my bare shoulders. "I have some things to do today, princess."

"For how long?" It was that grimy work of his that sent a chill down my spine, and the fact that most of it had yet to be disclosed. I was afraid for him, I'm sure just as he's afraid for me.