Cabin of Axes - Bea Paige Page 0,60
torturing myself. An hour, two? More? All I know is that the physical pain from the exercise blocks the other kind. The kind that fucking haunts every waking moment of my life.
Today, would’ve been our eight-year anniversary.
Instead it’s two years since she’s been gone. This very room, where I bleed now, is where her heart bled out. A knife to her wrist.
I was too late to save her. I was too fucking late.
In the centre of the studio, I can still see the stain of her despair, a dark shadow pooling across the floor. No amount of scrubbing has been able to get it out.
So, this is all I can do. I add my blood to hers now and in some sick, twisted way, I feel close to her.
Even when I slam my body into the wall, I feel close to her.
Her pain and mine intermingled forever.
Another kind of dance to the one we used to share.
I can no longer use this room as it was originally intended. I will never dance again.
It’s no longer my sanctuary but a place to come and torture myself. A place to remind me that I can never be happy again, not whilst there’s breath still in my body.
The room is still beautiful, with high vaulted ceilings and windows set above the mahogany panels that make up three of the four walls. The fourth is covered in a run of mirrors, the soft wood of the barre running along its length. The same barre her delicate hand would move across, perfect white alabaster skin against the darkened wood.
Ten years ago, I had the grand hall of the manor converted into this dance studio for my wife.
Back then, we would dance here together. Prima ballerina and principal dancer, a match made in ballet heaven.
Until she took her life, that is.
Svetlana and I would make love on the bare wooden floor, our ballet shoes and clothes discarded like scattered petals across the vast hall. This room held our love once. Now it is filled with despair and twisted moments of pain.
I slam into the wall so hard that the wooden panel splits under the impact, a shard of wood embeds itself in my skin. But I don’t stop. I can’t.
This is my punishment.
This is where I come to remind myself why I must never dance again. Why I am not worthy of anything or anyone but the pain I choose to inflict on myself.
I crave pain now.
Svetlana is gone because of me. She would be alive today if I hadn’t betrayed her.
Slamming my fist into the wall, making the dent I’d made with my body even wider; I scream until my lungs burn.
I drove my wife into the deepest pits of hell. I deserve every second of torture.
Turning my back on the hole I’ve made; I lean against the wall until my feet can no longer hold me up. Sliding to the floor, I collapse into a heap. Sweat drips from my chin, falling against my bare chest.
Even after all this time the tears don’t come, just the empty hollow of loss and the swirling pit of grief. It takes me a long time to calm myself enough to do what I must.
Across the room from me, tied to a wooden chair with swathes of red silk is a woman. I’d almost forgotten about her.
Almost.
Her eyes are pressed shut, her scarlet lips parted on a rapid breath. Her chest is heaving with anticipation, with fear? Probably both.
That’s why she’s here after all. She wants domination. She needs to feel alive, just as much as I do.
And I’m going to fuck her until all thought leaves her mind.
This woman is another one of the many who’ve passed through these doors on my search to fill the void that sits like a chasm within my chest. My addiction to the sins of the flesh is what got me into this mess, and what keeps me from being free.
I see the pink slash of her pussy pressed against the hard wood of the chair. Her full breasts and tight nipples, as hard as marbles. She’s been in this room with me before. She knows what to expect and her physical reaction to me tells me she is more than ready to be mine.
I both want her and despise her for what she represents.
My wife is dead because of my sins, because of my craving for something darker than her sweetness was able to give. It should’ve been enough, and