Killed for Kindness

He loved to cause pain. She was pained by love.

The last one was broken in a week. The one before that lasted 16 days. Before that it was nearly a month. He thought about this before taking her, and worried that he was going too fast. He thought he must be getting too good at it, and that the girls were getting too weak. How dare they break so quickly? Weren't they all so selfish, not just disrespecting him but even subjecting more girls to this life because they couldn't take it. So pathetic.

But his hopes weren't high for this one. She was pretty enough, but life had already been hard on her by the looks of things. Maybe a drug addict, maybe a runaway. Dirty, skinny, poorly dressed: no redeeming qualities besides that face. It was a face he just knew would look wonderful when twisted in agony.

How could she know what would await her? Oh, that face... to see it fearful would be bliss. He knew what to do. At least, he thought he did. Well, it worked with all the others, didn't it? So why...

She looked calmly at his hands, studying the veins that bulged as he gripped a knife, pointed right at her. His degrading and demeaning howls couldn't raise so much as a flinch from her. Even when the blade did find her skin, all the reaction she could manage was a smile.

The first night was long, and it was the first time since childhood that he had ever felt so helpless. He was the only one to suffer: no matter what he did to her she would never cry or scream or beg or even move to stop him. Was she just stupid? Had he really gone through all this and wound up with a stupid one? A feeling of pity rose in him, for the first time ever. Dirty, skinny, and STUPID. He dropped his anger and felt only exhaustion as he lifted a hand towards her one last time, and gently stroked her cheek.

A look of pure terror.

She shook, she cowered, her eyes bulged and a gasp finally escaped those pretty lips.

He thought he must have imagined it. Again, then. The other cheek this time, he stroked with equal softness, and it did not disappoint.

Were her cheeks the weakness? No, he'd already slapped them so many times.

With mounting arousal he advanced, trying and testing until he was certain of what he'd discovered. She could take any pain, but she could not take this. She could not bear the gentleness. Being treated with any kindness hurt far more than any knife, any burn, any broken bones. Being spoken to sweetly would make her cry and scream, though she met all harassment with a smile.

She wasn't stupid, but she was much, much worse.

Once he realised how to hurt her, he would never stop. It was the pain of others that brought him pleasure, but it didn't have to be physical. Physical pain always worked so well in the past though, and he got so brutal he couldn't help killing them, but here was someone who would never die from the pain he caused, unless, that is, you can actually kill someone with kindness.

He washed her. He fed her. He clothed her.

She cried until her throat was raw, and then he gave her medicine for it.

It was already over a month now. She had lasted the longest, and every day she suffered. Every day he lost himself to the throws of arousal at least twice, content with how damn right he was that her crying face was the most wondrous sight in the world.

She was not his first, and he was not hers.

There had been another. Just one. Just one that was so gentle it hurt, so soft it scared, so sweet she lost herself in the honey of love and blinded herself to anything else. The love she received made her forget how to give it. Made her forget who she was supposed to give it to most. There was a man who loved her so much she hurt someone else to keep it, and lost everything.

A very small coffin she was not allowed to see. And then she only knew the streets. She sought the pain she deserved, and accepted what the world gave her graciously. That was how it should have been. She should never have known kindness again.

More months came and went the same. The pain of love never dulled, and the love of pain only grew. It grew until it morphed, a hideous thing with many faces, all turned to look at her and how she cried - but how he didn't want her to always cry anymore. She was the best he'd ever had, after all, and the pity that scratched at him that night was another face of this beastly affection, this obsession. He hurts her so much he loves it, and loves her so much he feels hurt himself by what he does. Does to her. But he's being so disgustingly decent, isn't he? How can he make it better?

He talks to her, while she's curled in the corner and covering her ears. He talks to her about these feelings. She can hear it through her fingers, she knows already what she's dreaded for months is coming true. He even tells her about the other girls, and how much better she is.

With the crust of long-dried tears peeling from her cheeks, she presents him with that knife. Kneeling, begging, she asks for it to stop. Those veined hands of his tuck the clean hair behind her ears, and his eyes on hers are so full of adoration that she has to force down the bile rising in her throat. Something inside of her finally gives way to the pressure.

The knife finds flesh, pushing through like desperate footsteps through a crowd until it fights its way to the destination. Not pain. Not love. Just the end of it all.

She did not smile this time. Neither did he.

Removing the knife as the dead lay on the ground, she walked back to the streets.