2. [Chapter Two: Exposure Therapy]
"Which do you fear more, death or me?"
I lied to Lawrence. I wasn't an intern reporter, and my leave of absence wasn't for an internship. I was supposed to spend a year in that mental hospital to cure my phobia before returning to school, but due to various unforeseen circumstances, my plans fell through.
My phobia is a type of post-traumatic stress disorder. Ever since I witnessed my parents' gruesome death as a child, I've been unable to look at dead flesh—human, animal, blood, bones—anything. I can't even eat cooked meat, like hamburgers or steak; the sight of it makes me vomit. That's why I'm a staunch vegetarian and don't eat animals. Because of this, my ex-girlfriend dragged me into the university's animal protection association, and I ended up volunteering at an animal hospital, helping to care for stray cats and dogs. However, one time, I accidentally wandered into the operating room. A novice doctor started surgery on a cat without properly anesthetizing it. The cat was terrified, covered in blood, and lunged at me, scaring me so much that I fainted on the spot.
I was deeply traumatized and couldn't live a normal life afterward, so I had to seek treatment from a psychiatrist. That's how I met that quack, Charlie Orwell. He cited numerous examples of patients he had successfully treated and confidently assured me that he would cure my persistent phobia. I believed him and went to his clinic every week. Initially, it did have some effect, but later my symptoms suddenly worsened, and he suggested that I apply for a year's leave of absence from school to receive further treatment at his friend's mental hospital.
That's when I learned he was a fervent advocate of exposure therapy. Exposure therapy emphasizes "facing the source of fear," for example, if you're afraid of spiders, they'll put you in a room full of spiders, under thorough preparation and professional control. However, Orwell lacked that level of expertise and understanding. He simply used me as a test subject, injecting me with some unknown drug and then locking me in that enclosed room filled with animal carcasses. I was devastated, completely unable to remember how I escaped. By the time I calmed down, I was already on the roadside, where I met Lawrence.
Around noon, we passed a gas station. Lawrence stopped, rolled down the window, and said to the young man in the employee uniform, "Fill it up, thanks."
He was quite talkative, completely oblivious to the fact that he was a wanted serial killer. He chatted and laughed with the young man, and when he asked who I was to him, he actually put his hand on my butt and gave it a suggestive squeeze. I could feel something leaking out; Lawrence had clearly done it intentionally, after all, he was the one who ejaculated inside. The young man probably thought we were a gay couple and hurried away as fast as he could. If he hadn't been in such a hurry, he might have noticed my pleading look.
Lawrence kept staring at me. After the car pulled out of the gas station, he slowly moved towards me. I was so startled that I slammed into the car door, but it was locked, and I had nowhere to escape. His aggressive gaze sent chills down my spine. Instinctively, I reached out to push his shoulder away, but he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. I screamed in terror. He slammed on the brakes, and the car came to a stop on the sandy side of the road. He held my waist with one hand and a cigarette between his fingers, looking at my terrified expression with a wicked smile. "What are you thinking? Do you think he can save you?"
He pulled a gun from his back pocket and affectionately patted my face with the barrel, warmed by his body heat. Just like yesterday, he shoved the barrel into my mouth, but this time he released the safety. My scalp tingled, and I imagined myself with a bullet piercing the back of my head, my skull reduced to a bloody mess. I trembled with fear. He was about to push the gun further in. I struggled to lean back, trying to get away from this madman. I knew it was futile and might only provoke him, but I couldn't control myself. His eyes were terrifying. He didn't treat me like a human being; in his eyes, we weren't even the same species, so he could do whatever he wanted to me.
His index finger was on the trigger; if he pressed it, I'd be done for. Killing me would be easier for him than killing a rabbit.
But he didn't do it immediately. Like many predators, he had a habit of toying with his prey. He just let me straddle his lap, and I could feel him hard; his erection was pressing against my buttocks, its presence extremely noticeable. He stared at me intently, reveling in my desperate expression, just as he reveled in the cigarette. The cigarette burned quickly, like my slowly fading life force. When only a single butt remained between his fingers, I was so tense I forgot to breathe. As if he hadn't had enough, he licked his lips, gripped my shoulders, and pulled me forward. Our chests pressed together, and he sucked on my Adam's apple, like a lion licking an antelope's neck. He was definitely reliving yesterday's bloody intercourse.
Without warning, he suddenly pulled the gun out of my mouth. I knew he was unpredictable, but I didn't expect him to let me go again. He gently stroked my face, tucking my disheveled hair behind my ear; the movements were almost tender, even his eyes. His eyes were a clear, deep blue, like translucent ice cubes in summer, shimmering with a mesmerizing iridescence in the sunlight. For a moment, I almost succumbed, but then he suddenly shoved the gun barrel into my waistband, forcefully pressing it against my anus. I screamed again, and he burst into a chilling laugh, kneeing me up to raise my buttocks so he could insert the barrel deeper. I lost my balance and fell onto him, and he caught me, whispering in my ear, "You're so funny."
"No, please, please..." I trembled with fear, blurting out incoherently, "Please don't kill me, I'll do anything, anything..."
“Oh,” he buried his face in the crook of my neck and gasped, like a wild animal sniffing its prey, “anything is fine with me?”
"Yes, yes..."
"What if I wanted you?" Lawrence touched my thigh suggestively, with a subtle force that both caused a slight pain and aroused desire. "What if I wanted you... to kill someone for me?"
I was horrified. How could I possibly do such a thing! I get dizzy even when my finger bleeds, and just thinking about what happened yesterday is driving me crazy, let alone doing it myself…
"Can't do it?" His once blood-stained hands erotically kneaded my buttocks, spreading my anus wider to make it easier for the gun barrel, lubricated by semen, to thrust in and out. The squelching sounds made my face flush, and my body involuntarily heated up. He easily found that spot that made my legs weak and ruthlessly ground the muzzle of his gun against it. I gasped, which excited him even more. A twisted smile appeared on his face, the same one he had when he fucked the female corpse's abdomen, as if he were looking through me at that mutilated head with its face smoothed out.
“You can get hard even with that? Your body is really lewd.” Lawrence seemed to enjoy it. I lowered my head in shame, but he insisted on holding my chin up, not allowing me to avoid his gaze. I'm not gay; it's just that he's so adept at manipulating people that I've become so sensitive. He reclined the seat back, leaning back leisurely, but I was tense all over, forced to lie on top of him in humiliation, my buttocks raised high, letting that gun barrel go in and out of my body. My genitals were throbbing painfully, swaying and rubbing against his abdominal muscles, leaving trails of lewd fluid. He raised an eyebrow at his clothes soaked with precum, then suddenly gripped my swaying penis tightly. I screamed in pain; the sound was shameful enough even to my own ears, let alone Lawrence’s.
“You really are… exceptionally gifted,” Lawrence’s voice was somewhat hoarse, full of deep desire, and hot breath flowed into my brain through my ear canal, “…Mr. Ray Mel.”
He called my name for the first time. A jolt of pleasure shot through my spine, and I ejaculated into his palm.
"You came?" Lawrence looked at me incredulously, and I felt increasingly hopeless. I desperately tried to run away, but he roughly grabbed my arm, pressed me firmly against the steering wheel, and chuckled, "Where do you think you're going? You think you can just have your fun and be done with it?"
He forced me to kneel between his legs. He unzipped his pants, and his large penis sprang out, rubbing lewdly against my lips. He gripped my chin with such force that it felt like he was crushing my bones. I had no choice but to open my mouth with tears in my eyes and let him push it inside me.
“If you want to survive, you have to prove your worth,” he said. “If you don’t know how to smoke like those prostitutes…”
I swallowed hard in terror, and he pressed my head down forcefully, using the head of his penis against my constricted throat. He was so big that I couldn't breathe at all; the intense nausea and suffocation made my throat spasm, which only made him feel better. He let out a sigh, roughly pulling my hair and using my mouth like his masturbation aid. I was in extreme pain; tears and saliva streamed uncontrollably down my face, and my scalp felt like it was being torn apart. It felt like an eternity before he finally ejaculated against my throat, giving me no chance to refuse. He pressed down on my Adam's apple, making me swallow all the fishy, salty semen.
Lawrence grabbed my hair and lifted me up, pinching my chin and wiping the white fluid from the corner of my mouth with his thumb. He looked at my sweaty, flushed face with a gaze that was half admiring and half teasing, and said in a casual tone as if commenting on a prostitute, "Nice face, terrible technique."
I was filled with shame and rage, but my throat was swollen, and I couldn't utter a word. He raised his gun again, pointing it at my temple. I never imagined I would die so humiliatingly. If the highway patrol took my body back and found semen in my mouth and anus, would I become the laughingstock of the entire United States? I felt utterly filthy. Whether it was when he raped me yesterday or when he violated me with a gun just now, I could actually feel pleasure. Compared to being killed by a deranged serial killer, this was what disgusted me the most… Was I a pervert like him?
"What are you crying for? How pathetic." Lawrence wiped the tears from my eyes with the muzzle of his gun. "Death or me, which are you more afraid of?"
All I could do was repeat "I don't want to die" over and over again. He listened with pleasure to my desperate pleas, as if I were being praised with the most beautiful words, and smiled with satisfaction.
"You're a trainee reporter, right?"
With my life hanging by a thread, how could I dare tell him I had lied? I could only quickly nod and admit it. Then Lawrence continued, "Do you know shorthand?"
Shorthand is a required course for journalism students. I had just learned the Tilan shorthand method last semester; by deleting and simplifying letters, I could shorthand 150 words per minute. I nodded quickly. Lawrence released my hair, patted the back of my head reassuringly, and took out two cigarettes. He put one in his own lips and handed me the other. I didn't know what he wanted to do, and had no choice but to obey. I could only bite the cigarette, my posture as humble as possible, like a dog taking food from its master.
I think my attempt to please him was effective. He laughed, lit his own cigarette, and then leaned in to light mine. The gesture was ambiguous, like a kiss on the cigarette.
“Well then,” the smoke blurred his features, and his deep blue eyes softened inexplicably, “it’s a pleasure to work with you.”
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