Ivy

It’s Friday, which means I should have been home an hour ago. Today it won’t matter if I’d been sitting there waiting for him with my legs spread wide, he’s still going to come at me with all he’s got. It won’t matter to him that we live in a city where we get rain and sleet one day, snow falling like crazy the next. It won’t matter to him that I’m late because I’d rather not kill myself driving to rush home from getting my thick mane of hair straightened to perfection just the way he likes it. And, it won’t matter to him that I’m doing this right along with millions of people trying to bust their asses to get out of this town. Because today, like every year when this day rolls around, he’ll still take it out on me with his fists and weapon, and I’m the stupid, stupid woman who puts up with it.

His violence is unrestrained, and at times comes out of nowhere. But today, he’s going to make me suffer for still loving a dead man. Little does he know I’ve been suffering every day since the man I’ll always love died. There are times my suffering surfaces with a sudden burst of ferocity. It’s a combination of every emotion you can think of. It burns, it shatters, sweeps me away and engulfs me in so much despair that I feel as if I’m drowning.

My torturous husband may be known as one of the city’s most ruthless attorneys but to me the woman who knows him better than anyone, he’s a sick twisted man. All bogus grins to the cameras, voice deep and powerful. He’s a loyal man to his business partners, a hard as stone statue in the courtroom. A genius who will twist a story to his advantage. A manipulator. However, the minute he steps through our door, he becomes a vile, self-seeking man. One with sharp teeth and claws that can strip you bare, bruise your soul and leave you wishing the last final blow from his fists to your face is the one that ends you right there. That the torment he has caused you over the years stops your bleeding heart from pumping, and for you to just die.

Daily, I’ve worried if I’d wake and wonder would that day be the day I would take my last breath. There were times I wanted it to be. Times I felt like I was, but I needed to hold on. Needed to push through the pain for the man who helped bring me into this world.

My father.

My father is the reason why I’ve stayed. I needed him to be taken care of, and God rest his soul because if the man would’ve been in the right frame of mind, he would have killed the monster I live with before disowning me for the things I allowed Drew to do. I’ve kept up with his violent and near-deadly violence in order to keep my father in one of the best assisted living facilities in the state.

My father raised me on his own. Took me home from the hospital two months after I was born to a junkie of a mother who passed her drug addiction down to me before I took my first breath.

From the stories he used to tell me. They were hooked on heroin when they found out she was pregnant. They sought help, cleaned up their act for the sake of her pregnancy during which my growth was monitored. My father stayed clean. Obviously, she didn’t. She gave birth, signed off her rights and walked away leaving a newborn to fight for her life and a man who did everything to make sure I survived.

My dad worked his fingers to the bone to provide for the two of us. One week after I graduated from high school, he had a stroke which caused our roles to reverse. With a broken heart over losing my boyfriend in a house fire not long before that, I took over and became the parent. Skipped out on going to college and taking a job as a waitress in a run-down truck stop a few miles over the Washington Bridge in New Jersey while Drew and my next door neighbor helped me out. At times, it was too much for all of us, but somehow we managed.

Inhaling a deep breath, I toss back the ibuprofen I pulled from my black Hermes leather bag; the new one Drew bought me and pull into our drive. The idiot thinks I need to be decked out in all things designer. He also thinks my favorite color is black when it’s actually purple. The color of the bruises he loves to leave on my body. It’s rather disgusting to love that color. However, it’s a part of my past memories involving Cade, my recollections are the only part the Antichrist I live with can’t take away from me.

Clutching my hand to my chest, I push the garage door open, pull in and clench my teeth when I see Drew’s SUV parked in his spot. I know what’s coming so I sit and let the main reason why today he’s going to hurt me sink into my bones.

Briefly closing my eyes to avoid crying when the face of the young boy I loved flashes in front of me. I take a deep breath and remember what today is. Cade’s birthday. Twenty-eight-years-old he would have been today.

God, I'll never forget the day I met him, fascination tumbled around me like a hypnotic force.

The day we met tremors rolled through my body, and they didn’t have a thing to do with the shivers I kept getting from our recent move from a small town in Michigan to New York City where my dad’s job transferred. No, those tremors came from the teenage boy across the street. They glided effortlessly over the icy road as he stood there shoveling snow. When he turned around and looked at me, his smile was filled with something so potent it blasted warmth across my flesh that was tucked underneath my winter coat. Our instant attraction zinged and soared through the frosty air. Sticking to my skin, mixing with the snow and begging me to act on it.

My heart sputtered. He kept looking at me in that way a teenage girl dreams of a boy looking at her. Like he wanted to crawl inside and never come out. Fascinated. Bewildered.

His attention solely on me as he stared at me from where he stood beside a car. He made the thin wintry air thick. My freezing body turned scorching hot.

I felt longing. Desire. Lust and need.

It all rattled the thumping beat in my chest.

There’s no use putting this off any further, so I tuck my memories away and grab the few bags of groceries I picked up earlier off the front seat. I shut the garage door, climb out, bump my door closed with my hip and step inside the tomb of a home I live in. I place the bags on the counter, my coat in the closet, slip off my shoes and make my way through the house and up the stairs to my bedroom.

Hello darling, your Stepford wife is home.

A cold hand grasps my throat as I step through the bedroom door. My body tightens and locks. My throat bobs and goes desert dry as I wait for the blow that is sure to come.

“You’re late. Grieving time for you is over, Ivy. Get on your goddamn knees. You need a reminder of who owns you.” The familiar voice I hate flows down my spine, slowing my blood flow to my beating heart. There isn’t anything he could order me to do that he hasn’t done already. Still, what he wants me to do is enough to break my spirit. The one the person I’ve been grieving over would want me to fight to have.

I’ve gathered internal scars from my husband’s hands, feet, and belt. A heart that’s floating somewhere in the Hudson River and determination to make it out of here alive now that I don’t need him anymore. I just need to figure out a place to go. A place where he and his zombies he calls bodyguards can’t find me. It’s been two weeks since the death of my father. Drew knew I’d do anything to assure my father had everything he needed to live comfortably. Since he’s passed, Drew has left me alone, and now the son of a bitch is on a riff to put me through hell.

Over the years, I’ve been beaten to within an inch of my life from the man I grew close to after the horrific death of his family. I mean, we were always friends, but I was in love with his brother, Cade. I’ve never loved Drew, not the way I did Cade. He and his family’s lives ended much too soon. The only one who survived was Drew, and he’s the one who wouldn’t be missed if he’d died.

Drew though, he knows I feel this way, knows I’m still in love with his brother; he’s used it right along with his threats to cut my father off to retain his power over me. A power I wish I would have been strong enough not to let him have.

I’ve allowed my scum of a husband to beat and rape me over and over. His threats of not paying for my dad’s care whispered in a menacing voice while he punched me, took me by force and ordered me to keep my mouth shut.

Drew was all I had left of the man I loved. The good-looking friend who promised me so much if I’d give him a chance to prove he loved me. He swept the naïve girl in me away, all the while knowing I would never fully get over Cade. Once he received the millions of dollars from his parents’ life insurance he asked me to marry him, placed my dad in a facility where they took great care of him and the minute he slipped a ring on my finger, said I do, he made me quit my job, shoved me past the gates of Hell and straight into it.

“I thought we were going out tonight.”

“I am. You’re not. And if you try leaving, you know I’ll track you down. Now get on your knees. Don’t make me ask you again,” he grits out, his expression cold, his eyes filled with rage.

I study him. He and Cade look so much alike, it’s scary. Only I know the difference between the two, it’s in the way they both looked and touched me. Cade would never have treated me this way. I used to wonder what could possess Drew to treat me the way he does. Make me do some of the things he makes me do. Every time I tried, I came up with how sick and twisted his mind has to be. How he gets off on debasing me in a way a sane person will never understand.

Panic shoots through my body. The sensation is making my stomach queasy. Drew hasn’t forced me to do this in a long time. The day we buried my father he told me I had a few weeks to pull my shit together. Even with my heart hurting, they’ve been the most peaceful weeks of my life. Before that, it’s been weeks since he’s touched me sexually. That’s his typical sign he’s screwing someone new. I live for those times, wish they’d come more often. Sleeping with someone else doesn’t stop him from raising his hand to keep me in line though.

“No,” I gasp out, fear gripping my throat when he squeezes my neck hard enough that it seizes and closes my air supply until I’m left with no choice but to drop to my knees and glare up at the hard feral eyes of the man who promised to love, honor, and cherish me. He’s done none of those things. What he’s done is degrade, humiliate, and make me wish the one and only time I tried to kill him by slicing his thigh with a knife, I would have succeeded.

I learned my lesson the day I tried to kill him. He dragged me through the house, up the stairs by my hair, blood dripping all over the floor and made me suck him off with a gun to my head. The minute I was done, he broke my hand by stomping on it. Bones crunched while I screamed out in pain and before he took me to the hospital, he had me clean up his blood, treat his wound and concocted the biggest lie to the doctors by telling them I fell from a ladder.

With his free hand, he undoes his belt, the hissing sound of his zipper going down brings bile up my throat. Internally I yell and scream at myself. I should have run the day I buried my father. I knew he was getting weaker, knew I didn’t have much time left with him and yet I stayed. I have no one to blame for what’s about to happen but myself.

“You’ll do it the way I like it.”

“Please don’t do this, Drew. I’m your wife; you don’t have to make me do this, please.” My voice sways around my heavy breathing. I’d rather him fuck me than make me do this.

“But I do. I’m not fucking stupid, Ivy. You despise me. I see it written all over your face. Hear it in your tone whenever you speak to me. The thing is, you can suck dick like a porn star when you’re scared. Open up and don’t you dare stop until I’ve come down your throat. Don’t be thinking of him when you have my cock in your mouth. My brother is dead. Six feet under, probably burning in hell. He isn’t coming back to save you.”

God, how I wish he would save me. Rise from the dead and cut out this man’s heart.

Every year when Cade’s birthday rolls around, he beats me worse. It’s his sick and twisted way of reminding me of what I lost. He lost them too, and for the life of me, I’ll never understand why he doesn’t bring any of them up except his brother. It’s his jealousy over a dead man. Funny how when he brings him up it’s okay, but whenever anyone else does, he turns into a raging lunatic and takes it out on me. Bringing Cade’s name up is just one of the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way not to do.

“My God, why would you say such a thing? He’s your brother. You lost your entire family. When was the last time you went to their graves, huh?” He’s never gone as far as I know.

I’m going to pay worse for that remark. But I don’t care.

Hearing him talk about Cade that way, for some reason, sets my soul on fire, it bursts into flames like a burning stake driving into my soul. Meant to destroy the remorse, the humiliation and the weakness I’ve let stay alive inside of me for far too long.

“Shut the fuck up about my family. You know the rules. You don’t bring them up, ever. I’ve allowed you to break too many of them since your father died. You will do what I say by crawling to the end of the bed and kneeling the way you were taught. Put that goddamn pretty little mouth to use and suck my dick. On second thought…” I have no time to register his words because the next thing I know his fist flies and connects with the side of my head. My body wobbles sideways, and my vision blurs as I topple over. Doesn’t stop him from pressing his shoe to my throat, applying pressure until my eyes bulge. I knew I was pushing him, and now I’m paying for it.

“Fuck, if I didn’t need you to give me a son I’d crush your windpipe.” I will not give him a son. One of his many flings can. How I wish one of them would. Although, I don’t wish this kind of torture on another human. I swear me not getting pregnant is the only prayer the gods who hate me have answered.

He grabs me under my arms and drags me up his body, spits in my face and strikes me hard enough with the back of his hand that my teeth rattle.

The next punch to my face sends the hatred I have for this man to fly to the forefront of my mind. I press a finger to my lips when a thin trickle of blood seeps out of a corner of my mouth.

I need the little effect the ibuprofen brings to kick in because I’ve not ever gotten used to the pain this unhinged man has inflicted on me. I don't think a person ever truly can.

My blurry eyes travel down the length of his dress pants, his dick bulging and swollen.

Beating me always makes him hard.

I watch as his eyes turn pitch black, hatred and in charge as he lifts off my throat, grabs my hair and drags me across the carpet to the bed. My knees scream in protest. The carpet peeling away a layer of my skin.

Numbness takes over when he positions himself on the edge of the bed, pulls out his dick and points to where he wants me to sit back on my haunches like he’s training a dog.

“Suck, you worthless cunt.” He shoves my face in his lap; his disgusting musky scent is the last thing I inhale before the next breath I take has him tapping the head of his dick on my lips forcing me to open my mouth.

I’d love nothing more than to resist and have him beat me instead, but I’ve no doubt more of that is coming too.

Closing my eyes, I drift to the only place my mind goes when Drew does this to me. I think of Cade and the way he encouraged me on when I’d take him in my mouth. He might have been rough, and in control when we were in bed, but not once did he make me feel like I wasn’t worth everything to him. We were just two young teenagers in love. Learning how to please each other. I wanted to please him in every way.

“Harder, goddamnit. Suck me off.” He grips both sides of my head, thrusts up into me causing me to gag. “Vomit on me bitch, and I’ll beat you worse. Now take it. All of it. Suck my cock hard and deep, Ivy.” I dig deep into the marrow of my bones for the courage to make me keep going instead of begging him to end my life. I almost do until I remember he’d killed the woman I’d been, with the first punch to the gut.

Tears leak from the corner of my eyes as he forces me to open wider, sliding in until he’s hitting the back of my throat. “That’s good, yeah like that.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to pretend he’s Cade. The good brother, the one who treated me with respect. The one who brought me purple tulips. His young face spiraling through my mind. Falling from my skull, cutting through my body like a sweet torment.

My hands dig into the threads of the carpet as the force of his drives threatens to knock me onto my back. My vision blurs, and my brain screams for relief as he presses his hands harder into my scalp. It feels like he’s going to snap my head off from my neck.

His thrusts quicken, his moans of pleasure growing louder. I suck harder, the taste of salty pre-cum sliding across my tongue.

Reaching up with shaky fingers, I gently take hold of his balls and roll them around with my hand the way I know he likes. Seems to get him off faster. One long moan, the sudden stillness of his demanding thrusts and he’s coming down my throat with satisfaction smeared all over his face.

“I’ll take care of our dinner guests tonight. Let them know you have a headache.” He sneers. “Anthony will be downstairs; I’m taking your phone and the keys to your car. Try to leave, and he’ll kill you.” He stuffs himself back into his boxers, does up his pants and levels himself so we’re eye to eye.

I close my eyes; I know what’s coming. I have no choice but to take it.

“This is for telling me no and bringing up his name. Happy fucking birthday, little brother. It’s a damn shame he isn’t here to see I’ve ruined his gift. That’s what he used to call you, isn’t it Ivy. His perfect gift.”

What a sick bastard.

I crumple to the floor as a hard punch comes in contact with the lower part of my stomach. It knocks all the air out of my lungs. My breathing becomes choppy as blow after blow lands in my gut. Kick after kick raining down on my ribs. I cry out. My brain on the edge of turning black. Every blow to my head, every kick sends an intense piercing jar of never-ending agony throughout my whole body. The pitch of nothingness summons to me.

I want to run and hide when he pauses and grabs the item I didn’t see sitting on the edge of the bed. The one thing he uses on me every year this day rolls around. His eyes are hungry as he studies the smooth edge of the blade.

My ears cry out in agony as he uses the sharp edge to cut away my pants, I finally give in to the darkness before he shoves the wooden end of the knife inside me and fucks me with it.