Boiling a pot of water I pour the hot liquid into the mug and dunk the teabag in and out. Garret says herbal tea will help me sleep better but I think it just keeps me awake.
Maybe that’s what he wants so I won’t sleepwalk again.
I’ve often woken up in a state of panic, not knowing where I am when the dreams take hold so vividly that my body follows my mind.
Wrapping my hands around the mug, I sip the hot liquid and then put it down, grabbing up the box and placing it on the couch before sitting beside it and staring at it.
Just open it, Evi.
I pry the lid from its stuck down position. It comes away with a jolt.
A musky scent like an old bookshop full of second hand Mills and Boon books fills my nostrils and causes me to sneeze.
I hate the smell of old cardboard.
There’s a tremble in my hand as I grip the lid tightly and peer inside.
Thud…
Documents sit on top of a pile of paperwork. Bold letters forming words stare back at me from the top page.
Adoption of Evi Devil.
Evi Devil? Devil?
So my birth name is Evi and my new parents kept it. I was given my adoptive parents last name—Reed—but the name Devil glares up at me, turning my stomach to a bubbling acid pit and ingraining itself onto my soul.
Devil.
Evi Devil.
Who the hell were my parents?
Is that a real name or one they changed to Devil?
My date of birth is listed and matches the date I’ve always celebrated.
There’s an article that has my heart slowing as I pull it free.
Mother massacres her own family
Only survivor is nine-year-old daughter who recovers in hospital from a stab wound to the abdomen.
Dropping the newspaper clipping, my head pounds, my skull shrinking and suffocating my brain.
Flashes like glimpses of a speeding train wash through my mind but there’s nothing solid, just scraps that don’t make sense. My thoughts are the enemy, like a jumbled mess of jigsaw pieces that don’t go together. Even if I ordered them to make a picture, the picture would never be complete. Forced memories created from scraps to form an image.
Picking the clipping back up, I continue to read.
The controversial case of Melanie Devil, a mother accused of the brutal massacre of her own family and attempted murder of her daughter ended in court today with a verdict of a guilty plea.
Thud…
Melanie was sentenced to four life sentences.
Thud…
Being led out of the courthouse by officers to begin her sentence in the Central maximum-security prison. Reports confirm Miss Devil was given a full psychological evaluation clearing her of any mental illness.
Thud…
In her testimony that was read out in court Miss Devil offered no apologises. Claiming her family were impure.
“What prompts a person to take the life of innocent children is something we may never understand,” County police said in a statement
I crunch the paper in my fist, unable to read the rest of the words. I get to my feet, racing toward the front door and bursting through it, gasping for oxygen to fill my tightening chest.
The night air greets me, lapping over my skin; the moon big and full casts a blue glow over the calm water.
My heart is almost visible as it pounds violently in my ribcage.
I knew my family had died; my adoptive parents told me as much, but I never knew how or by whose hand.
Not having memories from that time left me blank for information.
No name to follow up on, no old addresses to seek out. No family I could remember.
I was a new person and that was a past life.
My nerves settle, the vibrations in my skin from the blood pumping through them hums to a slow beat.
The water calls to me. Wash away the pain.
Something within the water catches my eye so I pull all my focus to the spot; it’s clothing or… someone.
Daniel…
Racing down the steps and over the rocky stone path to the water’s edge, I focus on the water scanning it for what I saw moments before, but there’s nothing.
The surface is clear and undisturbed. Hairs rise on the back of my neck as goose bumps scatter over my flesh.
A rustling and then footfalls sound from behind me.
Spinning to see who is approaching at this time of night, I take a protective stance.
Sighing, I hold a hand to my chest. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intent. I saw you running down to the water and it’s so late I was worried you may have…” He drifts off, searching the water.
Why was he watching my house?
“How did you see me, Edward?” I ask, looking through the brush at the darkened house he owns.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was on the porch just watching the stillness.”
I bow my head. I know all about not being able to sleep, only I never know I’ve fallen asleep until I wake in strange places I have no memory of going to.
“Evi.” He says my name like a plea and it stirs my stomach.
“What?” I breathe.
“You’re bleeding.” He looks down at my feet. There’s a crimson puddle forming under the sole of my foot.
“I must have cut it on the rocks.”
He bends down and lifts my foot, inspecting the underneath.
“I can’t really see in this light. Let’s get you inside.”
Before I can object, he’s lifting me bridal style into his arms and carrying me back inside.
His hot palms burn a fire over my thigh and thoughts of him throwing me down and ravishing me echo through my mind.
It’s not what I want to happen, it’s almost like it’s what I expect to happen.
Placing me down on my couch, he goes to my kitchen and begins looking in the cupboards.
“First aid is in the bathroom,” I offer, feeling crowded despite the space between us.
His footsteps carry through the house and then he’s back, placing the first aid box on the table and pulling out cleaning swabs and bandages. The veins bulge in his forearms with his movements and Garret comes to mind. What would he think of Dr. Edward being here when he should be here instead?
Sitting opposite me, he takes my ankle in his palm and brings my leg up to rest on his knee.
His regard lifts briefly to my dress that has gathered at the top of my thighs, exposing a glimpse of my cotton panties.
Clearing his throat, he tells me, “It doesn’t look too bad, but a couple of stitches are required. I should go get my medical bag.”
Looking down to see the wound for myself, I frown. I can’t even feel it, but he’s right; there’s a nasty gash seeping with blood that’s created a stain on his pants.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Evi, did you hear me?”
Pulling my gaze from the blood, I nod my head in response.
His lips lift and he pats my knee softly like a doctor to a patient, or a father to his child.
“I’ll be right back and have you fixed up in no time.”
The room expands as he leaves and I feel tiny within its confines.
A crimson display on the sole of my foot draws me in, mesmerizing me.
By the time Edward gets back, he’s flustered, his cheeks red, and a littering of sweat beads along his hairline.
For a man who works out often and is still in his prime, he appears to be sweating and out of breath.
I’m not completely void of the effect I have on men.
It made me a target for bullying in school by popular girls who didn’t like the way their boyfriend’s gapes would follow my movements.
Garret had brought it up a few times in our sessions about the sensuality I display without being conscious of it, but it isn’t my fault.
I don’t project that with intent.
I don’t want the advances I’m often faced with.
Men are just visual creatures and their desires rule over anything else. It’s useful from time to time, and the heady sensation of bringing a grown man like Edward down to his basic need is empowering.
If I choose it, I could make him give in, break his vows, destroy his own will.
Men like Edward always invoke a heady sensation to take over me. My body craves their attention without permission; my mind knows it’s wrong but my body thinks for her slutty self.
Garret was reluctant to link it back to my childhood. Saying it stems back to my childhood and the abuse I suffered is unethical.
“There’s a reason you associate men with authority as sexual creatures, and they affect you on this level due to issues you no doubt had with your father.”
The small scar between my thighs hums with his words.
“Because he abused me?”
“I can’t comment that this stems from abuse, Evi.”
He didn’t need to confirm his thoughts with the correct words; his diagnosis was clear.
But if I don’t remember being abused, how can it affect me in such ways?
He never seemed to have an answer to that question.
“I can’t make premature conclusions about your memories. I can’t interpret your past because that can influence forced memories.”
Edward’s tight smile as he repositions himself in front of me brings my focus back to him. The flush in his cheeks as he lifts my ankle once more is almost comical.
This man is a doctor; he must have been in situations where he has seen more than a flash of a girl’s panties while fixing her up before. But it’s amusing and hot to see the reaction from him; the reaction little me provokes in him.
I watch, transfixed as his gaze that keeps flitting to the exposure between my thighs, my dress having fallen around my waist, my panties on display for his greedy observation. Like father, like son. Peeping toms.
When he swipes his tongue out to wet his bottom lip, I find myself reacting to him.
My nipples harden and I think about what he would do if I slid my hands into my panties and stroked myself right in front of him.
Can he smell my arousal; see the wet essence glistening along the line of my panties?
Knowing I’m creating a damp patch where he can see causes my heart to thunder and my breath to become heavy.
The pulse throbs through my body, ending in my clit that ticks like a time bomb waiting to explode.
“I’m going to numb the area,” he tells me, his tone hoarse with his own thick arousal.
The atmosphere in the room has shifted, the air heavy and hot. My head is like a carousel, spinning with possibilities and conflicting need to come and to clean myself of these bad thoughts.
Lust dilutes his pupils, his tongue constantly moistening his lips. He’s in need, lonely, desperate for contact.
It must be hard living with a grieving wife. Even before their son’s death, she wasn’t the warmest of women.
Thoughts of him fucking his receptionist, maybe a patient here and there, sends my hormones spiraling inside me.
Naughty doctor.
“You don’t need to use anything. A little bit of pain lets us know we’re alive,” I breathe with a sultry purse of my lips.
He’s not sure if I’m being flirty or just brave and it makes me giddy. His scrutiny pins me to the seat, studying me.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
A simper curls the side of my lip.
Why? Hurt me, Edward.
“I’m a big girl, Edward. Just push it in already.”
I relish the small gasp he takes at my words, referring to the needle he has gotten ready to use to stich up the small gash.
When his stare once again drops to my panties, I drop my knees a little more, giving him a better look.
I wonder if he feels like a pervert; I’m only a couple of years older than his sons. The bulge in his trousers excites me further. I did that to him and he got so caught up in just a glimpse that he couldn’t control his body.
Look what I made you do. Who has the power?
“Doctor?” I say, in a sultry slur, wiggling my toes to bring his attention back to my bleeding foot and to let him know I’ve caught him putting his attention elsewhere.
He startles and the crimson stain on his cheeks spreads into his hairline.
“Okay. You ready?”
“I’ve been ready for a while now. I’m dripping, Edward.”
“What?” He exhales, his pupils dilating and glazing over and his once steady hand trembling as he drops his gawk back to the junction between my thighs. I hold back my amusement, tilt my head to the side, and point my finger to the blood dripping between his legs.
“Oh, hell.”
Grabbing some cotton balls, he cleans up the mess.
I’ve grown bored of this game now and want my foot sewed up so he can give it back to me.
As handsome as he is, I’m not desperate enough or horny enough to play games and follow this through with a man who’s old enough to be my father, and whose grieving wife is a short walk away.
I’m a contradiction some days. I can’t keep up with my revolving thoughts.
My attention drifts to the box I opened earlier and the name Devil springs into my mind in big neon lights.
“Have you ever heard of anyone with the last name Devil?” I query, knowing he is a worldly man.
His brow furrows at my question. “It’s a rare name. French decent, I believe.”
“So you have heard of it before?”
I thought it might have been a made up name.
He’s concentrating on my foot and pulling what looks like string through the skin and tying it.
“I’ve heard it once, in the papers. Going back at least a decade now.”
My hands grip the couch cushions at his confession.
Coincidence?
“How could you remember something like that?” I laugh in jest, but the edge in my voice gives away the nerves.
He seems too busy with his mending to notice. He hums and taps his finger a couple of times against the skin on one of my toes while in thought.
“It was a pretty memorable story.” His stare briefly flits to mine before going back to my foot.
“A woman lost her mind and killed her husband and children. Apparently they were legally called Devil and they took the name literally. A house of horrors, according to the newspaper.” He shudders.
“You can’t always believe what you read in the papers though, right?” I laugh, feeling anything but humor inside my bones.
Rubbing the corners of the plaster bandage he has placed over my wound, he shrugs. “The woman confessed. Open and shut case, I believe.”
“I can’t believe you remember something like that.” I observe, taking my foot from his lap. His head tilts to the side, studying me. “It being so long ago,” I clarify.
“I only remember because it was in the next town and our boys were young. It’s hard to understand a parent being capable of harming their children.”
Nodding my head, I pull my dress down over my thighs.
In the next town over? So close.
“Thank you for fixing me up.”
Getting to his feet, he begins putting his medical things back in his bag.
The atmosphere has become awkward, neither of us knowing what to say now. It almost feels like we’ve done something wrong when, in reality, we didn’t bite the forbidden apple.
“I should get back before anyone wakes up and wonders where I am.”
Would they care? I think, but don’t speak the words.
I follow him to the front door and he turns last minute and grasps my waist to his body, smothering me.
He is so much taller than me; it’s only so noticeable now that he’s almost on top of me like I’m wearing him as a coat.
My breath hitches when I realize his lips are descending over my open mouth in a hungry, needy kiss. I didn’t think he would have the balls to act on his desire, but his spontaneous approach catches me off guard and my body doesn’t know whether to resist or roll with it.
I let him kiss me, feel his body, needy and hard against my stomach. The scruff on his chin scrapes and burns my soft skin but I allow him his fill, knowing his reality will come flooding in, and within a few seconds, he pulls away, wide-eyed and jittery.
“I’m sorry. I… that… I shouldn’t have.”
Wiping my thumb over my wet bottom lip, I just stare at him, letting all the chaos collide and spin around in his head.
“I should go.”
Stepping out onto the porch, I watch him practically run through the brush back to his own house.
Dr. Edward Holst lost control. Perversion must run in the family.
I think about the possibility of Leroy watching through the window, catching his father battling his need and losing.
What would Garret think about that?
My attention drifts to the lake and search for whatever it was I saw out here earlier that caused me to run to the water and cut myself. It’s calm and black, like oil instead of water.
A yawn passes my lips and it reminds me of how late it is.
My thoughts drift to Edward and his family.
Will he be weird around me? Will he have a guilty conscious and tell his wife? Or will he harbor desire and act on it again? I’m unsure one way or the other, or how I would react to any or all of those scenarios.
Although I’m young, sex isn’t new to me. From an early age, I’d had desire.
It was usually when I’d find boys watching me, looking at my small tits still in a training bra. Or when my English teacher would walk past my desk and purposely knock my pencil to the floor so I’d have to bend over to retrieve it, giving him an eyeful of my backside when my skirt would ride up.
It was a tingling, a satisfaction to flaunt myself, make them want me. Almost like validation, only once I’d given in to acting out those fantasies, I felt wrong and dirty, and gravitated toward the water to cleanse and swim.
My adoptive parents, Harold and Kate, knew there was something about me lurking under the pretty they worked so hard to achieve.
Harold had once walked in on me in the tub and my instinct told me to remain still, not to cover up my body.
He was mortified and quickly left and wouldn’t speak or look at me over the dinner table for three days.
Garret told me my sexual urges stem from trauma from my life before I was adopted, but how can something affect my character now if the person I was then doesn’t exist anymore?
Locking the front door, I go to my room, willing my body to tire enough for sleep.
Stripping naked, I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom and scan the form reflecting back at me.
My skin tone is a rich olive color. I always assumed I was Italian with my dark curly hair and olive complexion.
My legs are toned and long, and my hips curve out and then pinch in at the waistline.
The pads of my fingers stroke over a small scar, no bigger than an inch, on the right side of my stomach.
Daughter recovering in hospital from a stab wound to the abdomen.
The only mother I remember is my adoptive mom.
She was always attentive and patient with me. She spoiled me with clothes and trips abroad.
Her love was shown in her attendance to every school function, and the photos she insisted on taking to document my existence in this world. She would offer to wash my hair in the bath and always laid out my nightwear on the bed for me.
She read to me before I went to sleep and taught me about being a woman.
She was loving and caring, always offering comfort when girls were cruel to me in high school.
The thought of her being capable of harming me was absurd, so how much must my birth mother have hated me, us, our family, to resort to such drastic measures?
Garret would tell me that she went through a breakdown that affected her brain and caused her to lose herself. I can almost hearing him saying it, like we’ve already had the conversation, and that too faded and got lost inside my brain.
I don’t understand who or what she was, and it leaves me needing to fill in that void.
My gaze lifts back to the mirror.
My skin stretches over my ribcage, little rivets in my skin like waves on an ocean. All the swimming keeps me lean; my breasts sit perky on my chest, the dark pink nipples erect.
I follow the thick curls that hang down my back, turning to study the back of my body. Scars in different shades and sizes display across my back like a blow art painting; the ones you do in kindergarten, where they cut a straw, dip it in paint and make you blow through to create “art”.
My spine chases down to my ass, the cheeks firm and pronounced. They hide forgotten sin. I know if I were to spread the cheeks, old, thick scarring around the hole would taunt me.
I was nine when I lost my memory. So whatever caused the scarring, or who, was lost. A blessing. A curse. Not remembering my life, even if it was horrible, is something that has shaped who I am.
Who am I?
I wish I didn’t care, didn’t need to know, but there is a constant nagging in my subconscious telling me I need to wake up. It’s lonely and I feel constantly disengaged from everything and everyone around me. Who was I? What happened to me? Why don’t I remember?