“Your honor, it’s all right here- signed and dated,”

I, John Wayward, hereby consent to my death at the hands of, Isabella Demois, and assure that this was of my own volition. The perpetrator should not be held legally responsible in any capacity, and doing so would thus be a violation of my last dying wish.

The prosecutor rolled his eyes,

“Ms. Vontrese, you know that this is not a matter of whether or not your client wanted to kill Mr. Wayward, it’s a matter of whether or not she liked it. You are trying to make it out like she had no choice. When she too signed off on this alleged consensual murder, making it, quite frankly, the most premeditated case of manslaughter I’ve ever seen.”

You could feel the judgement radiating off of the minds of the jury.

I know that I’m supposed to appear brave, but every time I hear the cold legality of those words—meant only for paper, my soul convulses. I couldn't help but hide in my hair that morning. There is no latex or leather allowed in the courtroom after all.

˖⁺☁⋆୭.⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹

Mr. Wayward was an unusual man and I mean that in the most uncomplimentary way possible. A Hollywood producer was who had the budget for a trophy wife or at the very least a sugar baby, yet he remained willfully alone. He had that type of pitiful charm that made you feel bad for him—but you hated it, because that sort of bartered empathy was exactly what he wanted. And Mr. Wayward always got what he wanted, even in death.

That day he came in reeking of cigarettes. Unusual but not entirely out of character. As several times he had me chain smoking cigarettes through a rubber tube into a mask strapped around his nose and mouth.

“Bad habits never die. Just find new forms,” he’d often say.

A shaky hand held out that lethal document, the paper dampened with sweat. I could tell he was waiting for me to reply, making his big body small by hunching his shoulders. I know I shouldn’t have been so curious, that I should’ve taken it as a cry for help, but you didn’t know the John that I did. You didn’t smell the eagerness of his sweat that day.

He smiled at my concern, scanning the red velvet walls lined with torture devices. His eyes fixed on the knives while saying,

“Why do you think I’ve been coming here for so long?”

He didn't wait for me to reply,

“I need to be punished, Bunny. The things I’ve done, no one should get away with… For years, I waited and waited for karma to finally catch up with me, but it never did. So I tested it, took matters into my own hands, but it never fixed it. That guilt, it gnawed away until my heart was no more than a pool of blood. But it’s started to bite at my brain, in a way that even pain can’t silence.”

I thought of how he’d grin as the blade slid under his skin. His blood came so easily, with its red pity. How he would sigh in relief with each step of my stiletto, leaving scars on his spine like tallies for his unmentioned sins. Bleeding in between his legs. Thanking me for all that I’ve done. Still, my curiosity was not satiated.

“What exactly have you done John? All you talk about is how everyone walks all over you.”

“Bad things, Bunny. Things I could never say to you until you sign that document.”

“So you’re really serious? you want me to kill you—right here, in the middle of LA?”

“You wouldn’t have to deal with the body Bunny. My driver Jamie is outside waiting and he's ready to take care of it. I have a plot of land up in the redwoods. He's going to drive me there and bury me in my own land. I promise you, nobody will miss me enough to even care to find this document,” he slid it closer to me with a delicate aggression.

“Please. Bunny, I need to die. And I need you to get it right this time”

“This time?!”

“Admit it. You don’t not want to,” he said, stepping closer to me, placing a grazing hand on my shoulder inches away from my neck.

“I gave her the chance. But she wasn’t strong enough, not strong like you.”

“Who’s she?”

“She was always just in such a hurry. I had to get her to calm down. When she finally stopped crying I saw the violet handprints I’d left around her neck… But her eyes, Bunny—they looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen them.”

I eyed my bag hanging on the door,

“Is this what you’re looking for?” he said with more delight than I’d ever heard from him as he pulled out the hunting knife I carried with me at night. I tensed immediately, suddenly becoming Isabella again as I tried to take a step back. To which he tightened his grip on my clavicle and stopped me from going back any further. Then handed me the knife,

“It's all yours now, Isabella. All of the power. You just have to finally be who you’ve been pretending to be. Or maybe, you’re not as strong as I thought,” he said while licking his chapped lips,

“Maybe you’re just like them, pathetic and powerless when it comes down to i—”

I stabbed him in the gut—easier than I thought. The scene was gruesome as the blood seeped through his white button down shirt onto the floor. His expression of fatal surprise caused me to let out a deviant smile.

It was the perfect image of white-collared men and their need to be destroyed. Because they know they’ll always hold the power. They say it’s guilt, but that’s bullshit. They enjoy making their pain my responsibility, projecting their demonized view of women so they can pretend it’s real.

So I twisted the knife until I heard his arteries squelch, penetrating his chest over and over until I stopped having to feel his hot breath on my neck. When that initial smile wore off, the disgust at the warm and thick liquid pouring out at rapid rates caused me to freeze, horrified of who I had now become. It was the only thing left that I had never done and never wanted to do—kill someone. He stole that from me; my last sliver of innocence, my ability to sleep at night, my last hope at moral sanctity. I dropped the knife, as the gaping wounds in his abdomen surrounded him by an overflow of blood pooling from his heart, he said nothing, just moaned out of what should’ve been pain but didn't sound like it. Sitting there looking at me with a smirk of pure sadism and a visible erection, his eyes glazed over the same way they did after he’d finish, as he said his last words,

“Thank you Bunny, you did it. You saved me.”