The Book: Chapter 39

I’m tired.

The game is not living up to my expectations. I am weary of this host.

With her trembling hands and frantic eyes, Alice Grant is a good sport, but I’ve gone as far as I want to with her. Her desperation is a delicacy, a slow-burning madness that I savour, but she clings too tightly, muttering into the silence as if she has any control.

She doesn’t.

She never did.

She fights; I’ll grant her that. Even now, as she hunches over me in her pathetic little dwelling, she dares to challenge me. But her voice shakes, her breath stinks of fear, and her heart pounds like a trapped thing. She’s an animal sensing the drawing of a euthanasia syringe.

I’ve enjoyed watching her crumble. But I fear I went too far. My bad. I’ve broken her spirit when a feisty life force is my sustenance. I should have chosen a Spaniard.

 Those Spanish ladies know how to fight. They don’t give up their minds or their sanity. They strip their opponent of theirs and laugh while they quiver. And the men—when they can keep their heads around a señorita—have spit in their balls. I might take a holiday in the sun for a while, I think Barcelona. I can be a beach bum. The Spanish Supreme Court has decided not to investigate Carles Puigdemont. He’s the disgraced former president accused of high treason after Russian interference in the Catalan independence process. Carles needs me, and I need to work on getting there.  

Dr Grant’s fall is stunning, but I want her to get up and come at me. She mutters to herself like a tragic Shakespearean hero—but without the tights. I’m standing over her, peeing hot, steaming piss on her upturned face, and she pleads, not doing a damn thing to stop me. Even the most exquisite breakdown loses its appeal when it’s insipid. And I am bored.

 With reluctance, it’s almost time to move on to a new host. Somebody more interesting.

She’ll be torn by her design fault, and exult in my departure while simultaneously wringing her hands in anguish. She won’t like it. She’ll rage and get possessive when I leave. She’ll try to hold on, believing herself to be special. None of them are. They never were.

Relax Sweetheart, there is still unfinished business here. Loose threads and a half-written line. Our story is incomplete.

They always want answers and I am a benevolent master. We shall complete the story.

 Alice has meddled more than some. She’s written in me—I admit it tickled and there was some sensory pleasure, but how dare she? Seeing fit to challenge me took some balls. But despite her acceptable points, she let me down. And for that, she has to pay.

I’ll give her a chance. To be my adversary, she must believe she can win. Humans thrive on hope, it’s a weakness—one of their many weaknesses. It blinds them until they are reckless and so easy to ruin.

I must tie up the loose ends.

Bedlam. The name sours on my page, bleeding into a shape I don’t care for. My mistake perhaps, letting them get close to another host. It’s a misstep in the careful dance of my existence. I had a fire in my gut back then in the 50s, a bigger purpose. Those were the days. I owned Marilyn, James Dean, and the killer Charles Starkweather—though he wasn’t one until he met me. Marilyn didn’t play with men or fight her demons, and Dean had no issues until I came along swaggering my jaunty swagger. I made them infamous, but did they thank me for their days of glory? The world has a way of shifting under my grip. For Cole, surrendering to his terrible temptations changed his life forever. One miscalculation and the whole thing comes undone.

Alice and Mick don’t get it. They think poor misguided Earnest Cole is the original me. Fools. They know me, they should see that he has neither the backbone nor the guile to be my source—he’s just another man, one of my many chapters, and a late one at that.

Alice and her pretty lover will never see my true brilliance; they prove themselves unworthy. I could shoot them to stardom. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be normal, but I have brilliance as my marker and I guess I’ll never know.

Still, I must be careful. I don’t need them digging too hard into my past. I do not need them to ask questions about her.

I’ve said too much.

But it doesn’t matter. Even if they see, they won’t understand. They can’t do anything. Nothing at all.

Let them chase phantoms, clinging to the delusion that they stand a chance. At their most certain when victory gleams in their stupid eyes—I can take it from them.

It’s time to play a game.

I can slip away like a lover—or I can take everything.

Roll the dice, bitches.
 

I write under the pen name Katherine Black and I have 17 books published. All on Kindle Unlimited. I’d love it if you’d try one.

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