3. Wrath

Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d,

Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d ~ William Congreve

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves ~ John Dryden

My blood boiled. Once again I had trusted. I had trusted her. I had trusted my own ill advised desires. Years of independence and promises broken still had not taught me to be alone. Enough. I had had enough. I wouldn’t play anymore, put myself on the line.

But no amount of resolutions made and decisive new roads taken would sate my thirst for revenge. Beneath the expensive cut of my suit, behind the immaculate make up – which I had been painting over my thin lipped face since adolescence – there was only the deep, raging of my fast beating heart. I slept with my hands in fists, and awoke hissing.

I had the head to know that the lover whose faithfulness I had lost was not deserving of my wrath. So I avoided her. People make mistakes every day and it was my own bad luck that I was so often on the receiving end of them. I had been collecting scars for all of my adult life.

And I tried, oh how I tried, to contain my slowly growing anger. But there she was, waifish twenty-year-old, blonde and wide eyed, and endlessly irritating. I sat beside her at that bar, sipping my third glass of whiskey as she flipped her hair and tapped her chewed fingernails on the counter, looking around as though she were waiting for prince charming to save her. The kohl around her eyes was smudged from intermittent attempts to keep it in place, and her dress was too expensive, too couture, for the grotty club in which we sat. Every moment of her existing in this place – my getaway, my hideout, the bar I had handpicked as a haven from my daily life – I took as a personal insult. As the evening wore on it became painfully obvious that she wasn’t waiting for anyone, and therefore no one was about to appear and remove the annoyance of her presence from my life.

I couldn’t say at what point exactly I decided to take action, but in one moment of well hidden anger or another, she changed, in my head, from an irritation, to a victim.

Seducing her was easy. I bought her drinks until she couldn’t detect the sneers that accompanied my sultry compliments. I discussed her tabloid interests until she didn’t care that the hand on her thigh was female. I smiled and listened until I had earned her worthless trust. And when she finally decided it was time to go home, she had no choice but to let me hold her up, lest she tumble from her perch and spill onto the filthy floor.

Outside on the damp, shining pavement, she was bent almost double, searching her purse for something she had forgotten the words to describe. Under the guise of concern I asked if she lived nearby, and when she answered that she did not, and it became increasingly clear that she had neither the wherewithal nor the money to get home, I was only too pleased to offer her a bed for the night. My bed.

After twenty minutes spent traversing the dangers of my spiral staircase, we arrived in my dim, over-decorated apartment, and I let her fold, in fits of giggles onto the sofa. I removed my suit and underwear, until I was left in nothing but my white silk slip, standing over her, considering my prey. She was a mess, limbs splayed unconsciously, face running as she sat, surrounded by my beautiful things, all the little details I had picked from around the World to adorn my life, my living space.

It was a tragic sight. Heartbreaking. Well, almost. Looking at her spilled across my furniture like the remnants of an outdated, drugged up Versace model – hair parted straight down the middle, flat on top, but teased out – I should have felt pity and sympathy. But all I saw was another worthless heartbreaker, selfish and ruining the perfect order of my living room as she slowly slid down the sofa, taking my embroidered throw with her. It was all I needed. I pounced.

Her giggling pierced my ears, and I found myself gritting my teeth, reminding myself time and time again that it was only a game now. I knew that to truly rid my sleepless mind of the anger within, I would have to go slowly, extract what I wanted with gentle cunning. A moment’s abandon would not satisfy my desire for destruction.

Breathing deeply I arched my body over hers, perched on poised feet, I leaned forwards and pressed my mouth to her pink lips. For a long while I played with her, kitten-like, turning her over with cupped paws, licking her with my rough tongue, scratching sharp fingernails over her dewy skin. My prey emitted intermittent mews of pleasure, purring and giggling as I teased her. I drew it out, this endless, insufficient foreplay, until she panted and her eyes grew desperate, my unsatisfying caresses driving her wild. And just at that moment, the second in which she changed from passive prey, to lustful huntress, I pinned her down. She pushed against my hands, but her hungry frame was no match for me. I held her there, my arms extended, one hand on her lower abdomen, the other on her breastbone, just below her neck. For the first time, I saw a glimmer of fear in her eyes. It thrilled me beyond measure.

Her hands reached up, clasping my slender arms, nails digging in. With that single, simple, sharp red pain, I growled and saw in her every betrayal, every unfaithful lover, every absent loved one, all the people who had done me wrong. I shook with rage and crept my fingers underneath her skirt. I was not surprised to find she had forgone underwear and with laughable ease, I thrust two fingers inside her eager cunt. She seemed to suck my fingers, succulent, clasping them and as I withdrew, before plunging them in again, I felt her pull me back. Her arms grew slack, my invasion taking her strength away. Even that angered me. What woman was she that could not even fight a violation of her body? Her knees didn’t press together, her body didn’t move away, her hands didn’t shove me. She went limp and let me fuck her with my angry fingers. I wished my nails ragged; I wanted to inflict pain. I dipped my head and through the thin material of her twisted dress I took her tiny nipple in my mouth and bit. She squealed – pathetic – still did not push, just suffered my abuse and arched her back.

It wasn’t enough. I wanted to tear the screams from her body, twist and contort her impossibly lean frame. Wrap her around my little finger.

Turning her onto her stomach I pulled her arms behind her back, hard, until she groaned in pain, then thrusting my fingers back inside her. Soon her arms relaxed into this position and I released them, pressing my knee into the dip at the base of her spine. And then she cried out, writhed, clawed at the sofa, desperate for freedom. I could feel the corners of my mouth lift. With my other hand I ravaged her broad, naked back. Her dress was cut to expose the most amount of skin and her pure white flesh was open to my digging, scratching, probing, blood drawing lust. Across her flawless skin I drew maps in red and pink, skinned and grazed her, until I could see the white and red beneath my fingernails. And then I turned her again, tossed her limp body, taking so little exertion. I bit her lips until they bled, and tore her dress open. She whimpered and I shivered with delight as I saw tears in her eyes, watched her watching me with her glassy stare. Pulling up my slip, I pressed my bare, sopping mound against her puckered cunt, my sinewed thighs pressing her open, until she spread to splitting. She screamed out, the deep pain shooting from her groin, down her inner thigh.

Raising my hand I let my palm slap across her face, my ring leaving a bloody puncture beneath her left eye, the area around visibly smarting. Again. Before I clenched my hand into a fist and swung at her jaw. I heard it click and saw her eye closed and creased in pain. Bruises appeared, and pressing my spasming cunt against hers, I pushed myself onwards. And then she began to fight, placed her palms upon my chest and pushed with all her strength, but my hands were around her throat, pressing enough to make her sputter, as I moved, grinding against her, the sweet pleasure of releasing my wrath, bubbling and joining the exquisite sensations between my thighs. Release combined with the slow tensing of my building orgasm. Throwing my head back, my hands still on her throat, holding her down, I pressed, heard her sputtered screams through a muffled veil of raw lust, and came in jerks and starts, soaking over her impossibly wide spread thighs. I felt sure she was about to break, shatter, snap.

Looking down from my trembling pedestal, I saw her pale and limp, eyelids fluttered closed. I slid down her body and checked the beat of her heart. Slow and weak, but it was there.

Wrath sated, lust fulfilled, I pulled away and left her near-lifeless, twisted body to slumber in bruised pain as I slunk off to bed. For the first time in weeks, I slept deep, all night long.

• • • • •

The Seven Deadly Sins
1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Wrath
4. Sloth
5. Greed
6. Gluttony
7. Lust