The hydracropsychic effect

~The calm before the storm~Chap.7


Seating himself behind the wheel of his truck Laurent took his first deep breath in two days. He had hurried from Annie's side gushing promises of return and shared passions. One of those promises was a blatant lie. He didn't plan on returning. He wasn't sure what he did intend to do and he considered remaining within close proximity of Annie until he figured it out.

However just as he was beginning to leave the truck, he saw her parent's car pull into the driveway. This drove home a point that he'd been purposely ducking. Yes she was very mature for her age, yes she had the body of a woman, and yes she was the best lay he'd ever had. She's just a child for Christ's sake. Get over it Laurent, he scolded himself. This is all for the best. You know you want this, she does too, and she just doesn't realize it yet. But she will, and by the time she does you'll be long gone wont you? Wont you?

He ran his hands through his hair roughly, enjoying the sharp pain on his scalp. Why had all the women he ever loved forced him to leave? It always seemed like the right thing, and what he wanted were always opposites. He stopped at a gas station and bought his first pack of cigarettes in 2 months. Shit and he had been doing so well too. Oh well, as he was indulging one vice he might as well take up another.

He filled up his tank and went inside to pay, trying to keep a low profile. He leaned against the side of his truck and wondered what he was going to do. Two people were waiting for him. To whom should he go? His options were abject misery, or a wrongful deceit that might destroy a beautiful young woman. Four cigarettes later he was back on the road. He headed straight for the highway. There was no need to stop and think. He would only second-guess himself and his decision. He would not go to either of him.

No use pondering, "What if's?" One way or another the recent past was going to catch up with him, and when it did he wanted to be as far away from Annie as was geographically possible. Sure things seemed to be going perfectly now. He was happier than he had ever been in his life, but it couldn't last. He had realized, or rather as his wife used to inform him "decided" that he was not meant to be happy. So he had settled merely for contentedness. That hadn't worked out quite according to plan either.

Things were going too perfectly. Either he was paranoid, which he reminded himself was an eminent possibility. Or this was simply the calm before the storm. A period of bliss to coerce him into letting his guard down, until the ugly truth pounced on him and he was dragged screaming into the reality of his sordid deeds. He wanted Annie to remember him as a slightly confused but still likeable person. He couldn't stand the thought of her discovering the truth about him, the look of betrayal in her eyes.

He couldn't keep his secret forever. One day she would get fed up with his silence, his sadness and would demand to know the reason for it. His wife would rise from the grave through Annie, demanding an explanation, justice. What would he do then? He already knew the answer to this rhetorical question; he would do what he had always done. He would run.

Best to just quit while he was ahead and cut to the chase. This was just assuming that the police didn't nail him, and then he wouldn't even have the privilege to admit to his own lie. The time they had spent together would have seemed to any one on the outside looking in to be sweet and loving. Yet he knew better. Lurking beneath the furtive glances, the whispered pleas, the lustful embraces, beneath all that was the poison that ran within both of their veins. It bubbled just beneath the surface waiting for the time when it would seep forth.

Fucking Annie had been unlike anything he'd ever known. Yet as he buried his face between her thighs it was not her arousal that he smelt, but the cloying scent of burnt flesh. Her impassioned moans to his ears sounded like agonized screams, shrieking accusations. When she ran her hands down his chest her nails scraping at the jagged marks on his chest he bit back his mewls. They filled with a cold fire that was in itself a vicious pleasure. They stung like they had the night of their infliction. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

" No ones going to hurt you anymore," she had whispered reassuringly. Annie had poked and prodded at these keys to his past, fascinated. When she began to tongue them roughly he could no longer hold back. Wild growls broke loose from him and in a moment of animalistic passion he had pinned her beneath him and impaled her roughly. She gave a whimper of pain as he mercilessly tore through her maidenhead. The sight of the blood trickling down her thighs only maddened him further.

Their coupling was fast-paced and angry, so different from the tenderness of that morning. He fucked her rough and deep delighting in her screams, her sweet, salty tears. Still he knew she was enjoying it. Her eyes were wild as he drove her back against the headboard. With every thrust she brought her hips up to meet him. Her hands clawed at his slick back and as her screams got louder she stifled them by sinking her teeth into his shoulder. This is the real us, he couldn't help but think. Yes, surrender. Open yourself to me.

When they came it was together, he held her crushed against his chest and looked deep into her eyes, and she looked back into his. It was the most intense sexual experience he had ever had. It frightened him. He wanted to pull away lest his mask shift for a moment in his release and she see what lurked behind his eyes. She would not let him; she forced him to stare back. After, they lay sweat soaked and trembling, Annie crying into her hands. He did not try to stop her. He knew she needed it.

He took her three more times that afternoon hard, passionate, and gentle by turns. The time went by all too quickly and soon Annie informed him that he had to leave. He had promised he would come back. He was on the freeway now. He was home free. He planned to make it out of state and spend the night in a shitty motel where he could drink himself into a stupor. Hell maybe he'd venture back out onto the free way after he got himself good and soused. He could destroy a few more lives, hopefully his own included.

During those hours Annie and his wife had fused together in his mind, becoming one entity. Why couldn't she just leave him and Annie alone? No this was not his wife's fault. She was gone now, beyond the reach of blame forever. He hadn't realized he'd been nervously biting his lip until he tasted blood. Goodbye Annie, he thought. "I'm so sorry," he whispered into the silence. And he was, for everything, his wife, his children, himself, and Annie. Most of all Annie, he was going to die with her on his mind, her name on his lips. Yet somehow that seemed appropriate.

Perhaps what hurt most of all was that he hadn't said goodbye. Annie at least deserved that much. A farewell to prove if nothing else that it had all meant something to him, that she was stronger than death. Suddenly he was thoroughly disgusted by his own weakness. He had always run from his problems, run because he had needed to, because others had told him to, he had even wanted to. Why was he running now?

He had read somewhere once that there were two reasons why people do the things that they do. People do things for money, and for love. Was he leaving to get back at himself? Was he unconsciously punishing himself? Or was it for love of Annie? Of course it was the latter. This was all for Annie, for her benefit.

If you really loved her you'd be with her right now. The thought cut through his mind in a split second, and before her knew what was happening he had swerved the car around and was gunning it back toward the direction his heart strings had been pulling him all along."Im going to get out of this Annie, and I'm taking you with me."