As the nail bed detached itself she threw her face against the chair. Had she known the pain she’d inflict she may have stopped short of the actual pounding, but she wasn’t very bright at times. She picked herself up from the floor and tugged on the barely attached nail wincing as it tore; she yanked it bleeding and screaming from its soft pink bed. She would sleep and wake and the pain would still be present. Cursed weakness! Water even stung. She felt the cold ceramic now against her dead limbs.

He would surely come again wouldn’t he? Yes, he would come with her screaming death of course he would.

He would surely come again.

“What are you doing, Cecilia?” he asked picking the bloodied woman up from the cracked tiled floor.

“Suffering for God,” she murmured allowing her body to go limp in his strong hands.

“Nonsense! Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You remind me of her.”

The woman’s eyes pierced him shooting from her skull in white hot shards of fury. So much so that he nearly dropped her to the floor. He didn’t know what to say to her. He assumed it was best not to say anything as she was extremely unpredictable.

“Don’t you ever tell me that again,” she said pulling herself from his arms and standing. “You forget who I am, boy!” He looked at her body. She’d clawed herself to ribbons. Linear beads of blood mapped her skin. She almost looked tattooed, like some Maori pattern covered her white skin, textured and smearing.

“Why did you do this to yourself?” he asked wiping his hand across her breasts and placing his fingers in his mouth. Her blood was rich and thick from all the lives she’d taken. He could hear echoes of the dead racing through his veins entrapped in red blood cells there forever.

She pulled his face towards her body. Her fingers gripped his skull causing dull pain at his temples. She would pierce his head like a bowling ball had she not wanted him to fuck her then.

“Don’t ask me silly questions,” she said putting his mouth to her collarbone.