‘You stay here,’ he whispered over his shoulder. ‘Keep an eye out, just in case I’m spotted. Don’t show yourself unless it’s absolutely necessary.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ He felt a puff of air in his ear and could tell it was imbued with anger. ‘I’m not skulking around here while you go and do all the dirty work.’
This time he turned to face her. ‘Pen, that’s not what I meant. I need you out here covering my arse. Give me a few minutes, watch my back. When the others get here, show them which way I’ve gone. If it turns to shit, then come and get me by all means, but I reckon it’s better that we both don’t walk out there into the unknown.’
Bliss didn’t wait for her to respond; he knew it would only lead to further disagreement, for which they had no time. Instead, he moved. After sidling around the hedge, he crouch-ran over to the steps. He stood in limbo with one foot on the first tread, listening for some response to the groan of wood that had betrayed him. It felt like his own heartbeat might announce his presence, so loud was its pulse in his ears. But he heard no rapid movement inside to suggest he had been either spotted or overheard. Encouraged, he eased up the steps. Wrapping his fingers around the door handle, he gradually levered it downwards. It moved silently, and when he leaned in the door opened with a gentle sigh.
He peered into the home’s living room. A man sat alone in an armchair, both feet raised up on an upholstered stool, watching some panel show with an open can of beer in his hand. The chair he was in faced away from Bliss, who took the opportunity to move away from him to check the two bedrooms and the galley kitchen. Abbi was not here, but she had to be close by. The motorbike had recently been used, but that did not mean it belonged to Des Knowles. In that instant, his fear for Abbi and his abhorrence at what might be happening to her took over.
***
The man liked his sex rough. He squeezed her breasts so tight the pain made her gasp. His teeth nipped at her flesh, barely less than a bite. He thrust himself in and out of her without drawing any obvious pleasure from the movements. This came as no surprise to Abbi. Men like this one felt little or nothing from the sexual act itself. If not for the asphyxiation, he might go on forever without ejaculating, so desensitised was he to the mere mechanics of copulation.
She had felt that unintentional euphoria on many previous occasions, the biological response to oxygen deprivation acting as a stimulant. It was weird and creepy, but she understood the allure. However, she had never been able to fully comprehend the kind of high the asphyxiators themselves drew from choking others. Certainly it was no biological imperative. No, theirs was a psychological need that only power over life and death could satisfy. And if they timed their climax to perfection, the rapture on their faces was like nothing she had ever seen before.
Keeping her eyes squeezed closed while he sucked on her shoulder and grunted with each thrust, Abbi waited for the moment when he would ease himself up off his elbows, draw himself into a squatting position, drag her back into his groin and shift his hands from her breasts to her throat. When it happened, she tried to let her mind wander as the pressure increased. Back to a time when she felt free and life was still full of so many possibilities.
She had to go back to when she was eleven or twelve. That was when a change came upon her that she was never able to fully appreciate, manage, or overcome. A period during which friends became enemies and vice versa, while her parents reeked of desperation and a lack of unity, allowing her to play each off the other. She had become ugly inside, tormented, with a distorted view of the world and those who inhabited it – especially those to whom she had once been so close. It was as if the moment her body began to transform, her psychological makeup altered to the rhythm of her puberty. A rampant toxicity spilled over into every single aspect of her life, dominating her will and leaving her with no desire to escape its clutches.
Abbi’s eyes sprang open when the man’s hands shifted again, wresting her out of her stupor. This time his thick fingers wrapped around her neck and his thumbs began digging deep into her throat. Unkempt nails pierced her flesh, drawing thin ribbons of blood. Still he maintained his rhythmic thrusting, in and out, in and out… But as his grip tightened, so his physical grunts became moans of pleasure. His eyes gleamed like distant stars as they had before, only this time instead of pleading with him to stop, Abbi smiled up at him. Then she began to laugh hysterically. And finally she called out, urging him on, begging him to squeeze harder and not to stop until he had drained her lungs.
***
‘Where is she?’ Bliss demanded for a third time.
At first, Knowles claimed not to know who or what Bliss was talking about. That earned him a backhander across the cheek. When he repeated his denial, Bliss clubbed the man on the bridge of his nose with the meaty part of his fist.
