You

Author's Note: This was inspired by the Caroline Kepnes novel You, which is a terrific read. It contains scenes of graphic nonconsensual sex. It is perhaps the darkest thing I've ever written. Feel free to comment about how sick and twisted I am, but in my defense, I wanted to imitate a different style. Call it my own method of masturbation. As always, I am healing from surgery slowly but surely, and I do appreciate any help from volunteer editors.

*****

It's always about you. What you're doing. Not that I'm ever invited. Just told, sitting there unnoticed behind you, always unsure about how to speak and enter your world.

I only overhear things.

Not that I would be able to make any of the parties you've mentioned.

Unlike the rest of my peers, college is not a community to me. I work. I spend Monday, Wednesday, Friday and weekends manning the register at a seedy adult bookstore, sweeping up condoms and cum. The money I do make, goes into keeping the lot fees paid and making sure there's enough McCormicks for mom in the freezer.

That way she'll keep co-signing my loans.

I don't belong at a school like Texas A&M. Another white-trash boy with an absentee father doesn't make the school more diverse. You wouldn't have come all the way to College Station if the recruitment flier let kids like me in the photo. And while I work away the weekends under the table, I have to hear you complain royally about the city I never see.

Party here, club there. Vapid, oblivious, nonsense...

I know I'm jealous.

I'm not part of your world. I'm fixated on wars: The High Kings of Ireland, the Flight of the Earls, and the end of it all. I'm fixated on Oliver Cromwell...

And what you're wearing. Not that I can help noticing. Jesus Christ do I notice. Every inch of your body. I notice. Especially now, when we're in class, and I can't focus on Cromwell or the goddamn Irish. All I can think about, every day, every fucking second...

You.

I know you made friends with me strategically. I get that. Pretty girls with expertly styled dirty blonde hair and Daddy's credit card don't bother taking notes in class. I take notes in class, but not because I need them. I'm not one of the mindless drones coping down the lecture slides. Or at least I wasn't. Not until you asked me to because I just seem like I'm so smart and so good at school. And god are you just so new and everything seems so big!

You're from a small town in Texas. Clearly for the first time you are not the prettiest girl within driving distance. You're insecure about that. It's transparent. It secretes from your perfect pores. It's why you don't ever show up to class wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. You make yourself up all nice and pretty for me.

You make sure to show off every inch of your beautiful breasts. Low cut dresses, spaghetti tops, blouses that bow down underneath your enormous bust; you show all you can without getting kicked out of class.

Oh and the professors know it.

Only they don't give a fuck about you. You haven't got that yet. They don't give a fuck about your body (and it is quite a body). Most importantly they don't give a fuck about your education. They're all here like me, trying to write a book, and need to be left alone to do it.

I haven't written anything real in days.

That's why I'm in the Irish history class. I'm digging through primary sources of the sack of Wexford during Cromwell's campaign in Ireland. I'm working with Dr. Riley after class and accessing primary sources at the Cushing Library. I actually give a shit about my degree.

You took this class because you thought the professor would be hot and have a cool Irish accent.

Not that you aren't smart. You graduated valedictorian in a small Podunk public school with a graduating class less than 100 students strong. And you make sure to tell everyone, but in a casual way, so that you don't sound like you're bragging.

But you are.

And you have quite the crowd, quite the following. I live in this town, at home with my family. This is my safety school. I can't actually afford any of the more expensive, more prestigious private and state schools despite the few scholarships I received.

You talk to one of the other girls. I don't like her. I don't like any of the other classmates. I'm jealous of them. You're putting on a performance, prancing and posing so that everyone can see you. So that the whole classroom glows in the light of that special bubbly energy you bring to everything with your forced and fake nativity, with your subliminal sexuality. You're sucking out the entire room's attention with your big breasts, with that tight ass, and with that perfectly trimmed pussy.

Of course I don't know you trim your pussy, but I think about it.

I think about how often you play with it.

I think about your bronzed skin, artificially colored over and over again as a meticulous ritual and risk to melanoma.

I think about you all spread out over my bed, your long legs stretched out as I reach up them. My fingers feeling every inch of you. Your pussy feeling every inch of me.

Then I try to think about class. I keep coming back to Wexford. I can see you, imagine you through the sounds, empty noise except for what was in my head. The silent sounds of battle clang over the lecture, over the sounds of keys clacking out notes about the lecture, or more likely about Facebook and Instagram and all that other bullshit.

While everyone else focuses on something else, we are there.

Mostly screams, only they can stand out over the cannon shot. Here and there, the quick succession of a volley catches my attention. But in this fantasy, I'm still focused is always on you. Here wearing one of those peasant skirts, I know stereotypical, it's a green plaid, over a white blouse. It's ripping off of you like some sort of French resistance fighter.

Only you weren't fighting. You aren't even able to run. You're such a scared little thing.

I've written the erotic fiction. I describe the actions of the New Model Army as they storm over the walls. The English taking girl after girl, one after the other, then discarding them. It's not the focus, it's the layers, the context, the attention to detail. The reader wants to get a vivid picture of what life is like. Or what it's supposed to feel like.

I miss the mark for my audience. In my story, I take you. I grab you by the throat and shove you into the nearest hovel, not even really bothering with the chaos going on around me. I want to see your breasts first. I rip off the top of the dress. It's not sweet, it's not a moment of passion.

I'm seeing your nipples, large with the attention, exactly proportional to the size of your breast. They are described through the inexperienced, virginal details of my own imagination as I continue through with the vile act, hiking up your skirt, tearing it away as I ram myself into you, weeping and begging me to stop every second of the way.

Then I cum inside your perfect pussy, leaving you broken there, having to pick up the pieces in this ruined city.

The audience hated it. It sparked a major flame war, which I gleefully encouraged.

Trash, garbage, filth!

Take this sicko's work down!

Variations of everything that boiled down to what the fuck is wrong with you and how dare you write about things that actually happened?

They all want to pretend that our rape fantasies are really consent fantasies where the woman wanted it all along. As if that undoes all the terrible things that really turned us on about the fantasy in the first place. We're not clicking on rape fantasies, we are only into non-consent or reluctance play. Now we can stroke ourselves guilt free.

It's bullshit!

Some of us want to rape, some of us want to be raped. The irony is that once we find each other, is not actually rape. Semantically, it's an impossible fantasy. No actual rapist became one because he read a really dark story.

The audience knows this intellectually, they just need aftercare. They want the author to hold their hand, and say see! She really wanted it after all!

Isn't that worse?

Isn't "she really wanted it" the rationalizing mantra that enables every would be molester and monster?

Sometimes good porn hurts your feelings. Sometimes it makes you sick to your stomach that you found something so sinister arousing. It's entertainment. It's the erotic equivalent of enjoying a scientist sew three people together. Rather just accept that and write about it in the same way that one writes about anthropomorphized avatar aliens, the erotic community neuters an animalistic instinct inherent in us as a species.

Only I'm not even supposed to be writing porn. I have you in my head, a tick burrowed inside of my brain, driving himself deeper and deeper inside my erotic imagination. I can't focus. I find myself no longer taking notes, no longer listening to the professor, even as the exam approaches. I'm wrapped up in my fantasy. My idea of taking you. Of pulling back on your hair and watching her throat extend as I force myself inside of you.

You raise your hand.

And arch your body.

I can see the small of your back, almost to the part between the two cheeks as you stretch. You seem so small, but that's just compared to me.

I can see that you have a tastefully done thistle tattooed on your right cheek. I can just make out a couple of petals, and I'm impressed. It's not the average tramp stamp, and for the first time I'm focused on something other than your body.

"Is this going to be on the test?"

Dr. Riley furrows his brow, annoyed at being interrupted, and goes back to his lecture.

"There is an argument to be made that Cromwell's brutality ultimately save more lives as Ireland soon capitulated..."

But I'm not listening, I'm watching you. Watching your body contort as you stretch. You are clearly bored. Clearly looking for the easy way out of the exam. I'm not surprised when you're waiting for me after class.

"So... um... Red."

You start awkwardly searching for the word because you don't know my name. You only know that I have red hair because you're looking at it. That's okay, because I'm just a tool to you. I'm just a person with useful information in a class that's 60% lecture and 40% reading and you've probably done neither. You spent most of the semester on your phone, checking out the more attractive guys in class.

"How worried are you about the test?"

"Worried enough," I say casually. "This is my major, so I really get a high GPA for grad school."

"Oh really wow, I can't imagine. I'm just hoping to fake my way to C."

And that's what gets to me. History is why the world is the way it is, and you never notice anything unless it directly involves you. And I'm obsessed with you. I write about you. I think about you. I jack off about you, and I need to fuck you.

I hate myself.

And you aren't going to fuck me, not right now, not ever. There is no scene where I describe the English Civil War in enough detail that makes you want to fling off your clothes and roll around with me on a study table in the library. No, you are not coming back to my trailer to have sneaky sex in my twin bed, our bodies intertwining underneath the covers as we try not to wake my mother in the next room.

You're going to use me.

And I can hear the words tumbling out of my mouth without control, powerless as we agree on a time and place to meet. I'm like every other nerd in high school, thinking that you're jutting out your breasts to tease just me. Thinking they are something I might actually touch, something I might actually suck. My imagination, developed by years of being deprived, makes me like I'm almost there as you talk to me, peeling down your red bra.

Because I can actually see the strap.

It's a form of a mild torture.

Like working at the porn store, every day reminded of the sex acts I've never tried. Just one moment would be enough, one time that I could use to absolve the loneliness gnawing at my aching cock. But it never works. It's as though my virginity has transformed into an invisible miasma of desperation instaneously repelling the other sex.

This is why I usually don't talk to girls. This is why I am usually happy just to be left alone with my books. Then I write to get off, because no one else is dark enough. They want fantasy role-play. They want to read 50 Shades of Grey, something sweet and saccurine that blunts any trauma due to an overidentification with blank stock characters.

I want no aftercare. I want to grab my readers by the genitals, then use their hard on to punch them in the gut until they deal with the dark, sick, and twisted fantasies swirling around in all of us.

So of course I'm writing about you again in between classes. You're a nun at Lindisfarne, and I'm the Viking who catches you. I pull up your habit. Then I'm taking you doggie style on the altar. I don't even bother to do anything to undress you, I just force my way into your pussy.

I am rock hard through English Literature.

Then it's time to me with the library. I'm there 15 minutes early, punctual as always, ready to help. You're late, those long legs come walking in not wearing the usual high heels, not the usual blouse that shows off all of your breasts. Just tight yoga pants and an accompanying white sleeveless shirt. You didn't even bother to shower before meeting me.

I'm not low on your sexual priorities list.

I'm invisible.

I've always been invisible, weird, introspective. Maybe it's what turned me into this pent-up creature filled with hostility.

"Hey Red!"

You say it excitedly as you sit next me, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail.

I'm not a person.

I'm a fucking color to you.

And as we talk, I need to explain the most basic things to you. I have to start with the difference between Ireland and the United Kingdom. You pretend to laugh at my jokes. You pretend to be interested. You take my incomplete notes and highlight basic words and facts that aren't even important. I seethe. I fume.

And part of me wants to smack your head against the table as I fuck you roughly.

Part of me believes those few seconds of ecstasy before the staff pulled me out of you would be worth it.

How would prison be any worse than my life?

When I write tonight, frustrated, and finally alleviating myself of this hard on, that's when I'll actually hurt you. Though in the Viking fantasy I just take you as my slave. It's one of the sweeter ones, you can grow into quite the obedient little animal. There's a couple of stories I've written where I treat you like that, and worse.

But tonight has got to be special. I have an idea about setting you up as a French aristocrat during the worst days of the terror. I want the whole city of Paris taking turns with every one of your holes as your neck remains immobilized by the guillotine. Then we'll let you go, grateful and sobbing, hiking up your torn frock as you rush away thanking us.

People are so soft nowadays.

I'm trying to work out the details in my head as I stare at your breasts, ignoring you as you talk on and on about yourself. Jesus Christ can you even focus? All your problems can be solved if you read the damn book!

"So anyways, where do you live?"

"Off-campus," I'm evasive about it.

Who really wants to admit they live at home?

"Did you drive here?"

Is she really fucking asking for a ride?

She is and I'm saying yes. I'm as spineless as my stiffy just because some girl way out of my league is paying attention to me, even if it's just to use me to take her to a party. She's not even going to invite me, because it's really only a sorority thing.

She's tapping her phone now, texting a friend, commenting on a picture or some bullshit like that. Not even bothering to make pleasant conversation.

Then I take a turn.

"You missed a turn. It's okay. It's rerouting."

I'm not sure where I'm going, but I know I'm not taking this bitch to her fucking party.

"Why are we getting on the highway? I told you it's over on north side."

I can hear that she starting to get scared now.

Good.

"You can just let me out here or whatever. I mean it's no big deal. I'll just get an Uber or one of my friends to "

"Stop talking."

I say it with a cold, calm that surprises even me. Inside I'm so nervous, so scared, so skittish. But somehow I'm different. I am more than what I was. I'm my character in one of my stories, a soldier, a villager, a historical nonentity that I can watch act out each step as I pretend not to know where this is leading.

It's not too late now. I can stop and let you out.

But I won't. I've had enough of you. Not just in my car, but in my head.

I lock the door, from my side so that all you can do is paw at the handle like a desperate animal trying to escape the cage.

You start to struggle before we hit the interstate, and I brake hard, the seatbelt knocking the wind out of you as you sputter forward. You reaches for her phone, and I knock it out of your hand. It's easy to keep you restrained, especially as we get up to 60.

"Please just let me go."

You're pathetic already. Far from the proud country girl too pretty and above it all to take your own notes, to take your life seriously.

You are going to take this seriously.

"Give me your phone."

You don't have it.

It's on the floorboard.

That voice again. The confidence, the strength, someone different than I'd ever imagined, even in fiction.

I love it.

You are trembling, shaking, nearly weeping, or at least making the sounds as you hand me the phone. I'm sure I haven't heard you really weep yet. I haven't heard you really beg.

I will though.

I have to.

As I drive towards the deer stand my ex-stepfather keeps on the lease, heading further away from anything familiar to you, I'm still not sure exactly what's going to happen to you. Neither are you. Sometimes you thrash and try and fight me, but a soft punch to your stomach or quick grab of your throat reminds you I'm in charge. You're so small after all.

Large breasts have gotten you out of so much in the past. They aren't doing their trick right now.

And then I decide I need to see them, or at least more of them.

"Take it off."

What a voice!

"What?" You stammer.

But you know damn good and well what I mean. I want to see your tits. I want to see every inch of you because it belongs to me for this moment. It's mine and you don't know it yet. That's what I find most amusing about this pathetic protest. Now, you know what was going to happen to you. But you don't want to face it.

I know the type of girl you are really. Because it's so obvious in the show that you're putting on. The exhibitionist way that you are, just as the kids used to say, so extra in everything you do. You need me to want you. That's what your pretty little sundresses are for. That's what you're low-cut blouses and jeans are for. And fuck if it isn't even what these yoga pants and an old white tank top are for!

So take off your fucking shirt.

I don't need to, but I scream at you, just enough. You're still pretending as a tank top get stuck on the tangle of your ponytail as the trail jostles the pickup. You're past the point of trying to bail, even if you could get past the driver-side lock.

The rest of it.

You are crying as you unclasp your bra.

Not the way I pictured them. I don't know if they're better, or just different because I've never seen breasts outside of the screen before. They seem to drop down a lot more. Your nipples are small, puffy, long and hard as if you've been cold.

And I remember that you're scared. Terrified. Naked and vulnerable at the hands of this monstrous creep.

I can imagine what you're thinking right now. But I don't. I don't bother, and not because I don't care. I'm sure it's pretty much the opposite of what I'm thinking, only instead of will I get caught, it's what will he do.