Complicated

Chapter Fifty Seven: Escapism

When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
Your faith walks on broken glass

Greenday – 21 Guns

He was kissing her, his hands were mingling through her dark hair as her soft lips brushed his lightly. His thumb was smoothing over the blush of her pale delicate cheek as he became overwhelmed in the sensation. She was bliss. Sheer unadulterated ecstasy pulsated through him as her silky hair caressed his rough unshaven cheeks.

"Your breakfast is getting cold." she whispered between suggestive kisses.

Her slender fingers enclosed around a cool, fresh strawberry from the bowl she had placed them in. Grace used it to trace a pattern across his feverish skin causing him to moan out loud before she popped it into his mouth with a teasing smile.

"Feeling experimental are we?" he asked her, scooping a well of maple syrup onto his fingertip and smearing it down the curve of her throat.

His hot tongue followed close behind, licking the sweetness off of his wife's succulent flesh.

"Hm breakfast in bed was an excellent idea." he breathed into her ear, his fingers tugging impatiently at the sash that was holding her silk pearl coloured robe closed.

That had been the morning after their wedding. They had spent a long, sensual, exhausting night making love to one another. Grace had awoken him late the next morning with a tray of fresh pancakes and an array of toppings. She had placed the tray on the night stand before Don had pulled her back down amongst the sheets to greet his new wife appropriately.

Every moment they were apart was another moment that reminded him that he could never live without her...

It was the memories that kept Don going through the excruciating pain that plagued his battered body. He could barely breathe against the antagonizing fire burning on the surface of his chest. The stench of burnt flesh was in the air, making him sick to the stomach at the knowledge that the smell he was inhaling was his own. The space above his heart was already starting to blister from the press of the curling iron. His wrists were bloody and raw from the ziptie that bound them together behind his back. He had spent hours, manipulating his hands in order to rub the plastic against the jagged metal of the chair's frame.

Before Maplin had returned he thought he has been getting somewhere, there had been hope in his heart, Don had been able to taste freedom. Instead now all he had was the bitterness of his own grief and the sour taste of blood on his tongue.

He had lost track of the amount of cuts Maplin had inflicted upon his flesh. He had dissected the muscular structure of Don's chest so much it looked like a bloody road map of the city. His shirt had been cut away from his body with a large pair of office scissors, there were small pinpricks in his large straining biceps and along his forearms from where Maplin had purposely prodded him.

Don added that to the bottom of the list of ailments he was suffering at the hands of Maplin. His left eye was already swollen so much he could barely see out of it, his lower lip tasted of copper as his tongue probed the split skin.

Maplin was already rubbing the balled up silk night dress from underneath Grace's pillow across his bruised, naked skin. Her familiar floral scent invaded his nostrils yet again bringing tears to his already stinging eyes. All this physical pain was nothing compared to the mental anguish that was ripping and tearing through his entire being. He had stripped that material from her gorgeous pregnant body, drawing it up and over her head before the two of them had made love for the last time. He had watched her fold it and place it underneath her pillow before getting ready for work the morning after.