Chapter Three

Madelyn

Teeth digging into her bottom lip, Madelyn’s eyes were wide as she watched the video that was playing on her phone. She also found herself incapable of looking away. It was wrong on so many levels, both sick and twisted, and while she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, she found herself aroused by it nonetheless.

All she could do was stare at the screen as the large, tattooed hand jerked the massive and pierced cock with heavy strokes. She had never seen a cock that big before, let alone a pierced one, and she had always been a sucker for tattooed hands as well. The soft, guttural groans that emanated through the phone’s speaker as he pleasured himself turned her on despite the wrongness of it all. The only thing keeping her from sliding her fingers down between her legs to relieve the growing ache was the fact that the video had come from her stalker. It was his cock she was looking at and being turned on by. To top it off, he was jerking off to a picture of her, one he had taken the day she had gone out to lunch with Melanie.

Over the last week, things with Xavier had escalated like something out of all the dark romance novels she liked to read so much. The primal obsession, the need and lust, the ‘touch her and die’ vibes he gave off. She had always wondered what it would be like to have someone feel that way about her, but now that it happened, she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Xavier had somehow gotten ahold of her cell phone number, too, and had been texting her every day since. Sometimes sweet little things like how beautiful she looked that day or that he hoped she had a good day at work. Other times, he sent some of the raunchiest and naughtiest of text messages that caused her face to heat while also needing a change of panties. He texted her as if the two of them were a couple and had been together for a while even though they had never met face to face.

Madelyn never responded, of course, the rational part of her mind knowing that doing so would only encourage him to continue or take things further. However, it was getting increasingly difficult for her to keep ignoring him. Especially when he did stuff like this.

In her messed-up mind, it had become a kind of game. The more he tried to get her attention, the more she ignored him. Push and pull. Cat and mouse. She knew she was the victim here—she wasn’t stupid—but for some reason, she felt like she held all the power. It was a rather addicting and intoxicating feeling when she had spent the majority of her life feeling powerless and helpless.

“Fuck, Madelyn,” Xavier groaned in the video. His voice was husky and deep as his hand pumped his shaft. “I can’t wait to be inside you, baby. See how hard I am just thinking about it? About your pussy gripping and rippling around my cock as I fuck you fast and hard until you scream my name. Mmm.”

Her traitorous pussy clenched in response to his dirty words, and the arousal in his voice caused a small gasp to escape her lips. He shouldn’t have this kind of hold on her, and she knew that she had to be deeply broken and depraved to find enjoyment in something like this, but she couldn’t help it. It was like watching a porno made specifically for her.

“I bet you feel so damn good, little dove, so tight,” he continued.

Madelyn heard his sharp intake of breath as his strokes became harder and more frantic, clearly close to finding his release. It was as if he were imagining what it would actually be like to be inside of her and was getting off on it. That thought caused the ache between her own legs to intensify. She shifted on her bed, the pressure almost too much to bear, as she continued to watch the video, utterly transfixed as if it were the first cock she’d ever seen.

A few moments later, he came with a groan and her name on his lips. His cock twitched in his hand as it shot ropes and ropes of thick, heavy cum all over the picture of her. As that happened, her mind flashed with images of him cumming on her actual face, her breasts, inside of her…

Her breath caught in her throat at the sudden direction her thoughts had turned, and she quickly closed the video just as Xavier had begun to smear his cum around her face in the picture with his fingers.

Resting her head against the headboard, Madelyn ran a shaky hand through her hair. For someone who wanted so desperately to be normal, she was acting anything but. Anyone else would be terrified and would have already gone to the police. They would have then hounded the police until they did something about it. But not her. Instead, she found herself intrigued and curious. She wanted to know: Why her? What was it that caused him to fixate on her?

Her curiosity was eating away at her, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed answers and decided then and there that enough was enough. She pulled up the text message thread with Xavier, her fingers hovering over the keyboard as she tried to figure out what it was she wanted to say. However, before she was able to even type a single word, a loud knock sounded at her front door.

The sound made her jump like a kid who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. She rolled her eyes at her awkwardness and set her phone down on the bed before getting up and heading down the stairs. Taking them two at a time, she skidded to a stop in front of the door and pulled it open.

A smile crept to her lips even as her brows furrowed. “Melanie?” she asked curiously, shaking her head. “What are you—what are you doing here?”

Melanie just held her gaze. “I decided that if you are not going to do anything about this freaking stalker, then I will.”

Eyes narrowing, Madelyn raised an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest.

Melanie, however, ignored her. “Now, I may not be able to do it as a cop since you refuse to file an official report. But I can definitely do it as a friend, so that’s what I’m going to do. Any objections?”

“Do I even have a choice?” Madelyn retorted pointedly. Judging by the look on her friend”s face, she did not.

Instead of responding, Melanie stepped around her and over the threshold, and Madelyn let her pass. Once she was inside, it was then that she realized that Melanie wasn’t alone. Three men flanked her, all of them wearing gray uniforms with their names stitched over the right breast pocket and the name of a security company across the back. They were all carrying toolboxes and packages, and they smiled at her as they passed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why they were there.

Apparently, Melanie was having a security system put in. And an expensive one too, it seemed.

Deciding to leave the front door open so that the guys could go in and out as they needed to, Madelyn followed Melanie into the kitchen where she was helping herself to some of Madelyn’s coffee.

The kitchen wasn’t anything special, but it served its purpose. It had granite countertops and natural wood cabinets, which she felt made it feel more homey, and she recently replaced the fridge with a newer model. The coffee maker and toaster sat on the counter next to the fridge, and the stove sat directly across from the door with the microwave mounted above that.

The walls were a pale yellow, and the floor was white tile, giving the kitchen a bright and happy feel. It was something that she found to be annoying sometimes whenever she woke up cranky. Her favorite part had to be the small kitchen island, though, as one side of the island held the sink and the dishwasher while the other she had set up as a breakfast bar.

“I hope you aren’t expecting me to pay for all this,” she muttered as she grabbed her own mug out of the cabinet next to Melanie.

Melanie laughed and shook her head. “Oh, I know better than to expect that. Though, I’m surprised you aren’t fighting me on it more.”

Madelyn slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, resting her elbows on the counter as she blew on the piping hot coffee. “Think of it as a compromise,” she replied. “Since I won’t file a police report.”

“Which still doesn’t make sense to me, by the way,” her friend grumbled, turning and leaning up against the counter across from her.

She could see the questions swirling in Melanie’s brown eyes, the desire for answers and reason. She could also see the determination, which, to her, meant that she wasn’t going to let this go as easily as Madelyn had hoped. Melanie didn’t like having questions without answers. She knew exactly where this conversation was heading, and she didn’t like it.

“Melanie—” she began with a sigh and a shake of her head.

“Come on, Madelyn. You have to give me something,” Melanie pleaded with her. “I don’t like there being secrets between us.”

“I’m not trying to keep secrets, Mel. It’s just… it’s not something I like to talk about.”

She had only recently started feeling somewhat normal and believed that she and Melanie were in a good place in their friendship. If she told her the truth about her childhood, there was a very real possibility that it would change the way Melanie saw her. She didn’t want that, but judging by the look in Melanie’s eyes, keeping this from her was only hurting her, and Madelyn didn’t want that either. She guessed there was really only one choice to make here.

With a reluctant sigh, Madelyn stared down into the depths of her coffee cup. “I told you my parents were drug addicts and that I didn’t have the best upbringing,” she began.

In front of her, Melanie stiffened but didn’t say anything, clearly not wanting to interrupt. Madelyn was grateful because talking about her past was hard enough.

“But that’s not the whole story,” she continued. “I was born several months premature and addicted to drugs, along with a whole host of problems because of it. I wasn’t supposed to make it, but somehow I did. My parents were both abusive and neglectful throughout my early years, and I had to learn to take care of myself at an early age. I was always hungry and always so lonely because my parents cared more about their drugs than spending time with me or putting food on the table. Then, when I was ten, they found themselves unable to pay for their habit anymore. So, they decided to sell the only thing they had worth anything.” She swallowed hard. “Me.”

“Oh, Madelyn,” Melanie gasped.

Madelyn shook her head, cutting her off. If she didn’t get this out now, she might never be able to. “It went on for years. Once they realized how much money they made from it, they brought home dozens of men every week. Sometimes multiple men a day. Some beat me, some raped me, some beat me while they raped me.”

As she spoke, she could feel herself wanting to recede and hide away. She felt the nightmares of her past creeping closer and closer to her once more, making her want to curl into a ball and cry. However, she fought those urges, that fear, so that she could continue to explain the horrors of her past. For Melanie, she would do this.

“I grew up living in fear of that bedroom door opening night after night, the constant pain. I learned very quickly that I had to lock away that fear and disassociate from everything that was going on because that was the only way I was going to survive.” Madelyn paused to take a sip of her coffee to wetten her now dry throat. “When I was twelve, I had finally gathered up enough courage to go to the police and tell them what was happening. To ask for help. But they, uh, they brushed me off. They didn’t believe me.”

“Are you kidding me?” Melanie exclaimed loudly, making Madelyn jump. However, her friend seemed oblivious to it. “They didn’t do anything?”

Madelyn shook her head. “Turns out the sheriff was one of my regulars, but I guess that’s living in a small town for you. And boy did he make me pay for trying to turn him in.”

“So, how did you get away then?” Melanie’s voice had become soft and full of pity, and Madelyn had to force herself not to cringe. She didn’t want or need Melanie’s pity. She was on the mend. Or, at least, she was trying to be.

“When I was fourteen, I was having some severe abdominal cramping and heavy bleeding,” she explained. “My parents tried to ignore it, saying I would get better in a couple of days. They said it was just a bad period. But when it didn’t ease up, my mom was forced to take me to a hospital a few towns over. When the doctor realized I was having a miscarriage at the age of fourteen, they immediately called the police. It didn’t take long after that for them to figure out what was going on, and I was put in foster care.”

“Damn,” Melanie muttered. “I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything, Mel. I’ve learned to live with the hand I was dealt, or at least, I’m trying to,” she replied. “Unfortunately, that’s not even the end of it.”

Melanie’s face fell, and her entire body sagged. “No.”

Madelyn nodded again. “At sixteen, I was finally pulled from the group home and placed with a family. They seemed really nice, and I was looking forward to a fresh start, to maybe finally getting to experience what it felt like to be loved and cared for. Unfortunately, on my second night there, the dad came into my room, saying that he wanted to ‘welcome me properly.’ I went to the police the next day to tell them what he had done, but they thought I was making it up due to my past. They thought I was searching for more attention like most foster kids did, and I was forced to deal with it for two more years until I turned eighteen and could leave. I may not have been the most well-behaved kid when I went into the system, but I didn’t deserve to be brushed off like that either.”

Melanie sighed, her face an unreadable mask. Madelyn knew that look. She had seen it a dozen times whenever Melanie had come back from a crime scene and had witnessed something so awful that she had to hide what she was truly feeling. It hadn’t been her intention to make Melanie feel that way now, but at least, now she knew the truth about why Madelyn didn’t trust law enforcement.

For several moments, the two of them said nothing as Madelyn allowed her to process the horror that was her life.

“No, you didn’t deserve that,” Melanie finally said after a while. “And I understand now why you don’t trust cops. You’ve been betrayed by them a lot over the years.”

“It’s why I’m so messed up,” she added under her breath.

“Hey,” she said gently, reaching across the island and covering her hand. “You are not messed up, Madelyn. You went through hell as a kid. Now, I may not be a mental health professional, but I think you are pretty damn normal, considering the trauma you went through.”

Madelyn laughed softly, struggling to keep the tears burning the backs of her eyes at bay. “Things don’t affect me like they should, Mel. That’s not normal. That’s why this stalker thing doesn’t even phase me. After everything I went through, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad or as dangerous.” She paused and licked her lips before meeting her friend”s gaze. “This isn’t going to change anything, right? Between us?”

“Is that why you never told me this before? Because you thought it would change the way I see you?”

All Madelyn could do was shrug. It felt silly to admit it now, but that was exactly why she hadn’t said anything.

Melanie smiled at her before she rounded the island. While she couldn’t bring herself to look up at her friend, Melanie leaned over her back and wrapped her arms around Madelyn’s neck.

“Nothing you tell me about who you are or where you came from is going to change things, Madelyn,” she replied before pressing a rough kiss to Madelyn’s cheek. “I know the kind of person you are now, and you are stuck with me.”

Relief flooded Madelyn’s body down to her very soul. It was as if she could feel the weight of that fear being lifted off of her, making her feel lightheaded. She was beyond glad that her past didn’t change the way Melanie saw her; she didn’t know what she would do if she lost her best and only friend.

“Oh joy,” she teased, needing to lighten the mood before she burst into tears.

“Rude.” Melanie playfully slapped Madelyn’s shoulder before going serious once more. “And as for this stalker, I think I’m worried enough for the both of us. I’ve seen how these scenarios can play out.”

“Relax, Mel,” Madelyn told her, taking another sip of her coffee. “I hardly ever leave the house, and with this new security system in place, what more can this guy really do?”

Melanie pressed her lips together but didn’t say anything more on the matter.