I was stunned, the fear rooting me to the spot. My eyes flicked past him to the door.
He closed it.
“What do you want? Why did you do this to me?” I asked desperately, fighting for time.
That was what every regret in the world boils down to, right? Wishing you had more time. The second hand was unrelenting, ticking me closer to whatever this guy was about to do to me without mercy. The clock didn’t care that I loved Adam with all of my heart. The clock didn’t want to hear anything about justice or who was right or wrong. Like the submissive version of myself, time only had one job. And that job was to march unrelentingly into the future.
Fenwick came closer and sat on the edge of the bed.
Tremors wound their way up my spine, tingling down my arms and making my hands shake.
“I’ve been watching you for some time,” he said, running his hand through his salt and pepper hair. “You’re perfect, Luke DuPont.”
“Are you the serial killer?” I blurted out.
He chuckled. “Killer? I’m an artist.”
Alarm bells were going off in my head. He didn’t answer the question.
“Tell me about your art,” I said, my heartbeat thundering like a drum. I wondered if Fenwick could hear it.
He stood up and paced through the room, stopping to stare out the large, square window. “I’m an expert Rigger, as you know.”
“Could you show me some of your work, Fenwick?” I asked, trying to delay him. To do everything I could to make him feel important.
He chuckled again, that grandfatherly noise grinding against my ears. “Don’t worry, boy; you’ll see my masterpiece soon enough.”
Masterpiece?
I was trembling so hard that I thought I was going to wiggle out of my own skin.
“They don’t appreciate real art,” he said, gesturing out the window. “Normies.”
Normies? I was suddenly reminded very strongly of Kirk. He used that term all the time. I’d learned that whenever someone used that term, it meant that the person was either a lurker on dark websites, a Reddit neckbeard, or someone with delusions of grandeur.
Fenwick whirled around and flew at me, clambering on the bed like a wild animal. “But that’s not you, is it Luke?! You appreciate real art!”
We were nose to nose. I was terrified.
His breath smelled like death, as if he had a rotten molar buried in his mouth.
“Yes… you get it…” Fenwick said, dipping his body on top of mine.
This was exactly like what happened with Kirk. He had me tied up, restrained… had his way with me, and then left me to rot in that caged basement.
Fenwick licked my neck, his slimy tongue lingering below my earlobe.
I scrunched my face up with disgust, but my anxiety had me paralyzed.
Like I was floating above my body watching the scene unfold, I could picture how this would end. Fenwick would rape me and then leave me in here to starve or take me with him to be a part of his “Masterpiece.” Despair and disgust clouded out my senses, and I felt the tethers of misery bind me to the bed.
“Beautiful… so beautiful…” Fenwick muttered.
My anxiety drowned out all noise as he tore at my shirt.
The monster was wrapping me in a cocoon away from all of my senses, trying to protect me from whatever was happening on top of me.
Then my eyes snapped open as the realization hit me: My anxiety wasn’t a monster at all, and it wasn’t tying me down. It was like an overprotective pet, and all it was trying to do was its own way of keeping me safe from the world.
It was protective, like Adam.
At that moment, all I saw in my mind’s eye was my glorious fiancee.
As if my brain was breaking free from the shackles of fear, I let out a primal scream and threw all of my weight out from under Fenwick.
Even though Fenwick was three times my size, my shift caught him by surprise, and suddenly I was on top.
“Ooh, you’re a Bossy Bottom,” Fenwick said, the flicker of an evil smile crossing his face.
“No bitch, I’m a Power Bottom!” I roared.
I wrapped my long fingers around his throat and squeezed as hard as I could. Adrenaline flowed through me, filling me with something I hadn’t felt in a long time: Pure, unfiltered rage.
Flowing through my fingers was all of the pain that I held inside from what Kirk did to me. All of the fear that held me down. They were twitching with the resentment that lingered for my father leaving my mother, filled with my inadequacies that were cultivated by my family.
All of the hurt and anger and hatred was under my control. The anxiety monster and my own mind were one, and every neuron of self-control I had was focused on squeezing tighter.
Fenwick’s eyes were bloodshot and bulging, his fingers plucking at mine uselessly.
“Luke! Stop!” commanded a familiar voice from the door.
I released my vice grip and Fenwick began to cough.
My eyelids fluttered, and I felt like I’d just snapped out of a trance.
I was barely conscious of a pair of strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me off the man on the bed.
Then I was crying, sobbing more than I ever had, safe against Adam’s uniform.
Adam
I wanted nothing more than to finish what Luke started and snap off that sick fuck’s neck, but I couldn’t because I was surrounded by my coworkers.
Unfortunately, murder in the name of love was frowned upon.
“Solid,” I whispered to Luke. “Solid. Solid. Solid.”
I repeated that word like a lullaby as he trembled in my arms.
Officers and S.W.A.T. Team members rushed into the room, the forces of good vastly filling to outnumber the evil man on the bed.
Claire was the one who cuffed him and read his Miranda rights. Her voice was like a steady cadence in the distance somewhere.
“You’re safe,” I said to Luke, kissing him on the head. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” It took everything in me not to lunge at Fenwick as Claire swiftly led him out
