The Seventh Circle

Literotica.com Edition

The author wishes to thank and acknowledge the following:

To everyone who, knowingly or not, inspired or helped in realizing my vision. To Brandi for loving me and putting up with me. To Clive, for teaching me to reach into their very souls. To Tom Raimbault and Sherrie for all the help and moral support.

J.C. Paul

Prologue

"I love you," Marcus said, with all the sincerity he could muster. He held up his left hand and patted the air to suggest she should put the gun down, but all she saw was the empty paleness in the absence of his wedding band.

"Say it again?" The innocent supplication of the request contrasted with her tempestuous eyes. She tilted her head and pulled back the hammer. Her anger grew with each fervent heartbeat. The gun made a sharp click that dared Marcus to speak another word to her.

"I love—" he tried to repeat but the thunderous report drowned out his voice. The vicious copper clad slug tore through his throat and forced his words out the back of his neck. It sprayed a more candid message onto the wall behind him. Marcus clutched at his hemorrhaging neck with both hands as he fell to his knees and onto his back.

"Capricious CHILD!" Gina screamed, "Do you even know what it means?"

"You can't comprehend it! Don't you ever say love again!" She walked toward his suffering prostrate form. His right hand still clutched his steadily gushing throat while the left pawed uselessly at the floor. He couldn't respond. He had little time left. Blood sputtered out of his mouth in place of pleas for mercy. It pooled around his head and dotted his face. If she was going to make her point, she had to move fast.

Gina knelt down beside him. For an instant when their eyes met again, her face softened. His eyes full of fear and doleful resignation, he brushed her arm with the tips of his blood-covered fingers. He really had loved her once, but she was right, every word. A tear rolled out of his eye. Her face became as stone.

"Love isn't a feeling, you worthless asshole!" she yelled. Her writhen face contorted into an almost inhuman caricature as it shook with fury. "Love doesn't feel! It Does! THIS is love," she spat at him, as she shook the weapon. She pushed the barrel hard into his wound. He writhed and gurgled in agony as she continued her invective. Through bloody gnashed teeth, he tried to form a plea for mercy.

"THIS is my love for you." Now she forced her words through her clenched jaw to fight off her own sobs, "It is more kind and merciful than anything you've done for me. TAKE my love. Take it all and DIE!" She squeezed the trigger again.

The second blast shook Marcus out of his sleep. He thrashed in the bed, struggling with the sheets until the quiet dimness of the bedroom came into focus. His chest heaved as he looked around the room. There was nothing threatening or spectacular to agitate him further. The crimson numerals blinked at him from the alarm clock. 5:28 AM. Cold drops of sweat fell from his pale unshaven face. His hands rushed to his throat and he was relieved that it was intact and his quivering hands absent of blood. Just as he began to regain his composure he looked down to see Gina's eyes peeping up at him in quizzical aggravation. He could scarcely have reacted with more alarm if there was a rattlesnake coiled on the pillow next to him. He scrabbled away from her and fell out of the bed.

She knows! Oh God, save me. She knows!

The Seventh Circle

According to Dante, the seventh circle of Hell is peopled with the brutal, cruel, sadistic, vicious and violent. From shooting rampages to serial killings, some suicides but mostly murder, to rend a human soul from its body casts their own into such nightmarish chaos as to plunge themselves beyond hope and drown in the inescapable fury of a river of blood. Adulterers only go as far as the relative comfort of the second circle, where they're caught up in the never-ending torrent of a whirlwind. The truth is to desecrate the sacred trust of a devoted lover rends souls just as well. Dante was wrong. Either sin could prove the lynch pin that cascades us all into oblivion.

We all have our own circles. Plumb the depths of the human psyche and you will find at least seven levels or circles of the self. The first six make up what Jung called the persona, the mask we wear for the world to see. It's mostly us, the real us. We decorate our own masks in a manner we find pleasing and we hope pleases the world. It holds at bay the prying fingers that curiosity may tempt to descry beyond the mask to our real face. The seventh circle is verboten to all but ourselves. Rightly so, it is where we store the unspeakable horrors of the past we wish we could discard, secrets nobody can ever know, and secrets we wish we didn't know about ourselves, thoughts we can't even allow to complete in our own heads. Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, our most trusted confidants, even they to whom we've sworn to devote our lives must never transgress past the sixth, but curiosity and pride are powerful motivators to seek the truth no matter what it is. The pursuit of knowledge is the downfall of man. Truth and knowledge comprise the sickening, the despicable, the vile and revolting, seething and purulent answer to questions we wish to Christ we'd never asked.

Marcus sat alone at the breakfast nook, coffee still too hot to drink, and some slick pitchman on television babbling about the power of oxygen. He had slipped out of the bedroom unusually early though he was not at all groggy. His hands were shaking and his eyes wild as he stared at the morning's headline.

CASANOVA SLASHER TAKES FIFTH VICTIM

COSTAL WASHINGTON GRIPPED IN FEAR

'Police still have no leads in the horrifying and brutal murders of now five area women. The name of the latest victim is being withheld pending notification of her family. Late Tuesday evening a motorist discovered the mutilated body of a young woman in her mid twenties. Police say the killing bears the calling card of what is being dubbed The Casanova Slasher. So far, the killings have frustrated the efforts of detectives with a lack of fingerprint, fiber and DNA evidence. All five victims have been area women in their mid twenties to early thirties found along the side of remote roadways stripped of clothing with multiple stab wounds to the torso and neck, the bodies adorned with a bouquet of red roses. SEE 'SLASHER' A4'

Reading the story gave Marcus something to look at, something real to grasp in his hand and assure him he was awake and sane. The nightmares still swirled in his head, and he didn't even know how he'd gotten home let alone into the bed he'd just lurched out of. Unbuttoning his shirt had been as far as consciousness would allow him to undress, though he had no memory of it. Marcus had left it open as the top three buttons were missing. What had he done last night? They called it E or X. That's not so bad, but was that all? God only knows what else was in those pills and how many had he taken? What he could remember of what he'd done was bad enough. How could he explain this to Gina? How could he make up a convincing lie when he didn't even know the whole truth?

A cool hand touched Marcus' neck, slid around and down his chest, followed by another on the opposite side. A blonde curl of hair distracted Marcus' eyes from their purchase and the angles of a woman's face pressed against his temple.

"Mmm. Morning, baby," Gina purred in his ear, "Rough night? Guess what."

"Roses," Marcus blurted the first word that entered his mind.

"What?"

"Roses. He gives them roses," Marcus intoned, without regard to his wife's cheer. Gina's hand spread and flattened the newspaper against the oak table.

"Don't read that crap, Marcus. God damn papers can't get anything right." Marcus started as if he'd just realized Gina was there. More of habit than passion, his lips grazed the side of hers. Marcus made a face at the burning drops of coffee he'd spilt onto his hand and shook it at the floor.

"What is it?"

"He probably raped them and stuffed their twats with those roses," she said, "It's not romantic. It's disgusting."

"No, your what?"

"Oh. I get my good news today. Stacy and Robert are going to announce the new RVP."

"Regional Vice President," Marcus breathed. He liked the sound it made. This promotion would place his wife over twelve locations throughout the Pacific Northwest Region, and it would double her salary. "We could finish the swimming pool," he said.

"We could move out of this dump! Screw the pool. All it ever does is rain anyway. I hate it here. I want to move."

Marcus didn't agree, but said nothing. Gina was the hub of his universe and her six-digit salary made his forty-thousand-a-year job an inexpensive hobby. He earned just enough that he didn't have to injure his pride by asking his wife for spending money. He wasn't jealous, only confined by this laughable disparity. He couldn't possibly compete or expect to make any decision that affected their lives.

"Stacy's is based in San Francisco, we could live there or Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, I don't care as long as it starts with San. I'll have to fly to different locations anyway."

"You think you have a good chance?"

"I think so. The numbers say so anyway. My store made sixteen million last year. In this shithole, that's staggering. And against Kyrie? She can use her tits to sell perfume." Marcus' lips didn't move but his eyes betrayed his pleasure in remembering the feel of Kyrie's tits in his face and in his mouth. "Men buy from her just to look at her, but what does she know about running a store, let alone a region? Where did you go last night? I didn't see either of you leave." The subject had inevitably swung back to the company Christmas party. Marcus couldn't repress a shudder and only hoped Gina didn't pick up on it.

"Oh, she had too much to drink. I gave her a ride home."

"Have a good time?" Gina's tone was playful and suggestive. "What did you talk about?" The boiling freeze of adrenaline in Marcus' gut set his heart doing somersaults. In desperation, he changed the subject.

"San Francisco?" his tone was hopeful. A sudden reversal and concession might bait her away from this topic.

"You talked about San Francisco?"

"No. It sounds nice. Santa Cruz has a boardwalk..."

"Yeah? Oh shit I gotta go." The theme music to the morning news told her it was "minutes past the hour," and she released Marcus after planting her lips on his coarse cheek. Marcus breathed relief. Everything was fine. Denial is just a river in Egypt.

"Love you," he called after her, but only the front door slamming answered him.

Alone with his reverie, Marcus stared blankly, his coffee held up to his mouth. His hand had fished something out of his gritty pocket, among the coins and lint. His eyes could only just focus on the tablet and the heart pressed into it. The ride in Marcus' pocket had relieved it of a chip on the edge. It was the last one. It could have been an hour he stared at it or a minute before he swallowed it with a torrid mouthful and exhaled through his nose. Sweet, hot and potent, it brought his mind back to last night's encounter and he breathed her name as if he could summon her forth from his very memory.

Kyrie

"Hi. I'm Mr. ..." Marcus became speechless as the woman's shocking eyes captured him in an inextricable grip. Deep and radiant blue with a dark outer ring, they lit up as she turned to look at him. Her teeth looked sharp.

"Mister ah..." he tried again, but the woman interjected.

"Kyrie," she gave him what she guessed he wanted.

"Euler."

"Ellis." She gave her head a small shake and frowned a little in confusion. A dark spiral of hair captivated Marcus as it swayed over her eye. Her fulgent, electric eyes were made up to draw attention to them. Dark shadow and long thick lashes framed her eyes like deadly steel teeth of a trap to ensnare the wayward. Marcus was quickly losing his footing and slipping in.

"Do you work at Stacy's?" Kyrie asked him. Her voice jarred him free from the gravity of her eyes. "I haven't seen you before." Marcus blinked and gave his own head-jiggle.

"Hmm? Oh God, no I don't work here." Kyrie's brow lifted at this, and it became obvious to Marcus that she did work there. He tried to soften the rebuff. "Selling clothes?" He laughed. "No, my er... wife—" Both intelligent and articulate, Marcus was becoming a babbling idiot, and now he'd insulted her. Kyrie didn't seem to notice. She looked up and laughed. She brought her hand the cleft of her bosom. Marcus' eyes locked on her hand. The nails were colored glittering red at the tips. Her fingertips traced the inside of her breast just slightly, barely downward. Maybe he just imagined it. The cleft was deeper than his wife's and her strapless crimson décolletage betrayed about an inch before hugging her breasts so they were all the fuller at the bottom.

"Look! Mistletoe!" Kyrie squealed.

Before Marcus could respond, Kyrie launched herself at his face and mashed her full, sweet-tasting yet strangely cold lips onto his. Marcus couldn't bring himself to push her away. She tasted like a most exotic and intoxicating liquor. He wanted to hold her and return her kiss with fervent ardor, but this couldn't go on. Just as Marcus was trying to muster the will to stop her, Kyrie broke away and cried out, "Gina!" Marcus' heart pounded as he wheeled around. His wife was drawing near behind him.

Gina, who had mastered the art of sociability with an ease and grace that could only belong to a woman, wore a pleasant expression, without the least reproach. Had she seen? She made a gesture to the bar keeper which reminded Marcus why he had come over here. The man stood behind the fragrances counter as a makeshift bar. He was a slight graying middle-aged man wearing a red vest with a handwritten sticker that read "Robert" It was one of those corporate team-building exercises where the boss serves his employees as an act of self-deprecation. Robert was Vice President of Talent Management. That's HR to anyone pulling in less than a quarter million. He glanced at Marcus and Kyrie and gave Gina a crooked grin as he set down two plastic cups half-full of light brown liquor in exchange for a folded twenty.

"Keep it," Gina told him.

"Gina, have you met..." Kyrie stumbled. He hadn't told her his first name.

"Marcus?" Gina suggested, "Yes. My husband. I know." There was an unmistakable shade of condescension in her voice. Kyrie's smile melted and her face turned sober as she withdrew into the background. Her very presence seemed to shrink away next to Gina's commanding eminence.

"I see you've met Kyrie," Gina said, still pleasant if a bit sardonic. It was clear that though Kyrie may have respected or even revered Gina, it was not mutual.

"This is Stacy." Gina presented a tall woman at her side with long blonde hair that hung almost straight with the slightest curl and a few sparse lowlights of brown that rained from her crown to splash on the subtle angles of her shoulder. Stacy was older than any of the group, about forty-six, but not at all unattractive in her own right, and offered her cool, long and elegant hand to Marcus who took up her fingers gently, but didn't go so far as to kiss them.

"Stacy? As in..." Marcus made a sign toward the ceiling. Stacy laughed, and just like Kyrie touched her chest. What was this womanly habit of caressing themselves whenever he made them laugh?

"Yes, that Stacy," the retailing empress answered. Stacy's eyes sparkled at him, but the utmost corner of Gina's eye squeezed by a degree in derision.

The song playing faded out as a new one began to lure couples to the dance floor. It was his and Gina's song. After the guitar and keyboard intro, the familiar rhythmic thump of the bass made Marcus' face light up. He smiled at Gina and pulled her toward him. She followed and leaned her head to his ear.

"I'm working here, sweetheart. Dance with Kyrie," she said in a low tone. Marcus made a face of surprise and said, "You can't leave me alone with her." Again, he smiled.

"Don't be an infant, Marcus," Gina hissed in his ear. She wrapped a hand around his head, gave a grin at Kyrie over his shoulder, who was now talking and laughing with Stacy, and in her deepest most sultry voice said, "Buy her a drink. Dance with her. Talk to her, or do whatever you have to do. Just keep her away from Stacy." Gina's lips grazed Marcus' ear as she spoke and she took the lobe between them before leaning back to look him full in the face.

"Can you do this for me?" she simpered. Marcus could barely contain himself as he made love to his wife with his eyes.

"Go." Gina pulled one arm and pushed the other to turn Marcus toward Kyrie who was now laughing at something Robert had said. Kyrie folded her arms under her bosom and leaned forward.

"Oh, Lord," Marcus uttered in dismay. His wife kissed his cheek and took up Stacy's arm.

"Are you ready?"

"Oh, yes, dear," Stacy said, "Nice to meet you, Marcus. Miss Ellis. Behave yourself, Robert." She nodded at him and the two women walked away together.

Marcus approached Kyrie and touched her arm just above the elbow. Kyrie's skin tingled under his fingers and she turned her vivid face to meet his again. She looked beatified that Marcus was still there and desired her attention. Kyrie's stare consumed the strength of Marcus' arm until it trembled, barely able to hold its own weight.

"Dance with me?" Marcus solicited. Kyrie opened her mouth, but only nodded. She bit her bottom lip and smiled in lieu of empty words that couldn't hope to accomplish the same effect.

Better to have that lip to bite and suck, or to be that lip, pulled into her mouth, squeezed by her teeth and caressed by her tongue?

As the song built up to its ecstatic chorus, Kyrie and Marcus faced each other on the dance floor. Kyrie reached her hands around his neck when Marcus' hands met them awkwardly. Marcus smiled at his own blunder and glided his fingers over Kyrie's arms to her back. The top elastic of her dress was almost grating on his fingers compared to her skin as he lowered his hands to rest in the curve of her back, as low as his conscience would allow. As they began to sway, the singer cried out his demand to know what makes such a desire to dance, to move in unison without going anywhere. Each step they took, each movement of Kyrie's hips under the satin of her dress, fell in synchrony with the rhythm of the music and made Marcus feel like he'd never touched a woman before.

"Are you nervous? You're shaking."

"No. I just..." Marcus faltered, "I haven't danced to this song with anyone but..." he trailed off. "I'm fine."

Kyrie turned and pressed her back to Marcus. Her hair flew into Marcus' face and she began to slide downward, her arms held up for Marcus to glide his fingers over them again. When she came back up, she didn't turn around, but continued grinding into Marcus, her hair still wafting its tang into his face. Marcus' eyes closed and his nostrils opened wider to take her in. A warm tingling rush of frisson crashed into him and rained down his spine as his hands came together just under her breasts. Their utmost bottom teased the very edge of his thumbs. It was all he could take, and his hands began to override Marcus' futile attempts at sensibility and propriety. They moved up almost an imperceptible degree and a thumb began to trace her fullness. He had barely moved half an inch when Kyrie bucked and spun around violently. Her dazzling eyes flashed a hot look of anger. Marcus' hands flew into the position of surrender and he took a step back. Fear and embarrassment swirled in Marcus' head as he tried to think what to say or do next.