Page 91 of Inflict

He turned on the shower head to the large walk-in shower, and turned the water on scalding hot, stepping back and leaning against the glass doors. The steam started to fill the room within minutes, but Connor didn’t move to actually get inside the shower, too stuck in his own head to even try to clean the dirty feeling from his hands.

That feeling—that dirtiness—would never go away.

He knew that now.

He hated it.

Connor knew the very worst part had been when he did finally numb to the women and the job; when the girls’ scared faces filled his vision, when their frightened eyes pleaded to him for help without ever saying a word, and he’d felt nothing. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to feel nothing for their plight, but rather, he was trying to protect his own image and his own mind to what he was doing.

And in that moment, when he saw their fear, and he felt nothing, Connor realized how very much like his father he actually could be, when he needed to be. How dead inside, how cold and unfeeling of a human being—how lost of a soul.

It was the pain of that understanding that cut Connor the deepest. He’d done so well for so many years, hiding hurt and burying his problems with layers upon layers of ink on his body. He’d hidden scars and rows of cut marks with skulls surrounded by dying roses. He’d erased years of self-harm and self-deprecation with art he wouldn’t ever dare to ruin. His efforts to bleed out every bit of pain he had felt in his life, the things that made him horrible and awful and undeserving, finally stopped the more skin and scars he covered up.

All that work—all his efforts to ignore the desire to force the hatred and pain out—was gone, just like that.

Connor tugged his shirt off, the lingering scent of cigarettes and stale liquor hanging heavily on the fabric, even after he’d tossed it to the floor. Moving had been a mistake, as it put him directly in front of the mirror, and when he looked up, he only saw a familiar demon staring back at him.

Not himself, with his own features and eyes, but someone all too familiar with the same dark eyes, the same grim sneer, and a profile that spoke of an unfeeling creature. He didn’t see himself, he saw his father.

The urge—the long dormant habit he had kept at bay—to cut what he didn’t like from his body banged around in his mind, like a monster in its cage. Roaring as loudly as it possibly could, and rattling the bars.

It would help …

He would feel good …

It’ll all be gone, for a while …

Connor knew none of those self-harming thoughts were actually true, considering it had been years since he’d put a blade to his own skin purposely, and he still dealt with his inner demons whether he cut or not. But that didn’t mean they were easy to ignore, or even that he wanted to ignore them.

Those urges of his had been handled in other ways over the years—the pain of a tattoo machine, and the resulting work on his body; the men he was asked to punish for whatever their wrongs had been by using his skills to draw as much pain and blood from a living body as was possible. He’d satisfied that shite for a long time.

Too long, maybe.

Slowly, his reflection disappeared in the bathroom mirror, covered by the fog and steam hanging low in the air, and damn near making it hard to breathe. It didn’t matter, it was already too late, and he only vaguely realized his action of pulling one of his many knives from his pocket.

The blade was heavy in his hand, the sharp edge biting against his scarred palm as he squeezed his fingers around the metal.

Connor distinctly remembered every cut he had ever made to anything and everything, over the years of his life, including ones to his own body. He remembered how thinner blades, or even razors, could make the worst slices because of how deep they could go, yet still managed to appear insignificant on the surface until they started to bleed. Sharp blades and dull knives, anything could get it done with the right amount of pressure.

It was cause and effect.

Create pain to destroy pain.

Create scars to hide scars.

Cut in, bleed out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Perhaps his many years of not harming his own person should have been enough to teach him that the high was only temporary, and the feeling would eventually dim before the anxiety and pain came rushing back again.

He should have known.

Connor only felt relief when he pulled on the handle of the knife, drawing it out of his clenched fist, slicing open skin without barely trying at all.

He only wished that relief would have helped.

It didn’t.