She (Excerpt) by M.J. Cross

            She sat in the passenger seat, glowing and pregnant, smiling out the window, and Nico Requeña felt numb to it all. A cold had settled deep in him, in a place where no medication or counseling could reach.

            He was driving. His attention should’ve been held by the road, but he was haunted by thoughts of the past few months. His world was falling apart. He had seen things. He went to too many funerals. He even had his own encounter with death. His life was spiraling out of control.

            Then she entered it, willing to submit to him, and to give him the control he so desperately needed. He always held back and felt less than, until her. He unleashed himself on her in a way he couldn’t do in any other area of his life. She brought the beast out of him.

            But she wasn’t what she appeared to be.

            “I think tonight’s gonna be a good night,” She said with a beautiful smile. Strands of her dark hair touched her lips. She was incredibly enticing though she barely did anything. That was the power she had over him. To get him to submit without even trying.

            He squeezed the steering wheel with both hands, until his knuckles itched with pain. Anything to keep his hands from going to her.

            “Almost there,” he said as if he were made of tin and lacked a heart.

            “Why hurry?” She asked, reached across the armrest, and grabbed between of his thighs. “Maybe we have time to pull over somewhere?”

            He kept his head forward, afraid to look her in the eyes.

            Her nails etched a course from his knee to his crotch. The closer she got, the faster his breathing became. She massaged his throbbing desire, until he trembled, and despite his best efforts, moaned. Her nimble white fingers teased at his hard flesh under his jeans.

            She knew how to get his blood boiling.

            He imagined himself pulling over to the side of the road and giving her what she wanted. He’d punish her relentlessly, and he wouldn’t stop until he was too exhausted to continue. She would lap all of it up like bread to oil. What did she have to worry about? She was already pregnant.

           Her hand in his lap felt right, but the desire she expressed wasn’t real. The life growing in her stomach wasn’t real either. He had to keep reminding himself that she didn’t deserve to be addressed by name, because she wasn’t human. She was a predator fighting to survive.

            Everything in his life was wrong because of her.

            He wouldn’t dare let go of the steering wheel, and said, “Maybe another time.”

            He could feel her frown as she pulled her hand away. A part of him frowned with her.

            The momentary warmth that threatened to evaporate his inner cold receded, and the numbing chill returned with a venenge. It hardened him further.

            She buckled up, and with arms crossed, she asked, “Where are we going?”

            To your death, he thought.

            She had to die.

            How Nico: a man who worked with people for a living; a man who believed in God; a man who witnessed the death of the only people he cared about; achieved the right amount of apathy where he was prepared to take another’s life was a tragedy; a tragedy that began long before he met her.