sated

originally written oct 25, 2012
posted to a private writing forum between friends

...

Okay. They both did.

The blond's just... manifested themselves differently.

His resulted in destroyed families.
Wives, swept up by irresistible charms and long, well-kept blond hair and impossibly blue eyes, stolen from desperate husbands.
Desperate kids. Desperate for revenge. Desperate to hurt the young, charming man who'd so easily made their wives defect. But unable.
Small children, now motherless. Resenting. Hating a weak father for not securing their mother.
And then-- self-same wives, dropped without batting an eye. No calls. No texts. Nothing. A cut of all ties.
Desperate to have his attention again. To be worth it. Drowning in their helplessness. The lot of them.

His resulted in destroyed businesses.
He was always fond of hostile takeovers-- especially since no one believe this tanned pretty boy was capable of such acts of unspeakable coldness.
But he was. He was entirely capable of annihilating family businesses. Upsetting well-established companies.
Teenagers, silver spoons unceremoniously torn from their mouths, forced to work for a living.
Men who'd spent their lives in the industry, ousted without so much as a going away party.
Wives, accustomed to the finer things, filing for divorce when their fatcat husbands couldn't deliver.
Powerless. Broken. Downtrodden. Just the way he liked them.

His resulted in destroyed lives.
Quick wit and devastating cunning. And good connections. Snitches, they called them. Informants.
Down-and-out beings willing to whisper in his ear about anything-- everything-- for a hot meal. Or narcotics. Alcohol.
Things he readily provided.
Whisperings that destroyed people.
About husbands' infidelity. Wives'. Other women. Other men. Deep, dark secrets.
Skeletons in closets. Far in the backs of closets. Where nobody dared look.
About racketeering. Deals with unfavorables. Mafia bosses. Things that men are killed over. Will be. Have been.
About pay-offs. Fraud. Rumblings that fascinated the government. Fascinated them right into action. Arrests. Convictions.
Blackmail and bribery. Profit for himself. Of course he profited. He always did.

He was intrinsically devastating. Tore entire lifestyles to shreds. Delighted in other's internal anguish.
It was.
Satisfying.

The brunet's manifestation was the polar opposite, although no more or less crushing.

His resulted in sliced skin.
Women, drawn in by the other's blond hair. Women, staying for the other's conventional good looks and his... unconventional ones.
Women, oblivious. Women, eager. Women, bloody.
By the end of the night. Fingers stained red. Bedsheets ruined. The other, grumbling about curtailing the police.
Him, too giddy to care. Pleased with his handiwork.
Mothers, never returning to care for screaming brats.
Sisters, never receiving another hug from a sibling. A parent.
Wives, never once laying beside their husbands in matrimonial serenity.
Battered, bloodied bodies. Bearing little resemblance to their former selves.

His resulted in broken bones.
Wild bar fights. Instigation. Initiation. Over something. Nothing. Everything. None of the above. All at once.
Weapons, from unconventional sources. A broken bar stool. A bottle. His fists, sometimes.
Screaming and shouting and attempts to break it up. Futile. More people join in. A symphony of pain and panic.
Music to his ears.
Noses, shattered and displaced. Arms, snapped. Legs, crushed to misuse. Maybe a broken spine.
Maybe a cracked skull. Maybe the injuries heal. Maybe they don't.
Maybe they die.
He doesn't care. All the agony is good agony.

His resulted in funerals.
Weeping relatives. Loved ones. Distraught.
Their friend. Lover. Father. Husband. Daughter. Son. Wives. Sister. Family.
Lost.
Because of him. Because they looked at him strangely. Because they spoke out of turn.
Because they argued. Because they fought. Physically. Verbally.
Because he had felt like it.
Stopped hearts and bloodied knuckles. Knives. A bullet. It didn't matter.
It all ended in silenced breathing. In coffins. In graveyards. In ashes.
Dust to dust.

Skin is fragile. It can be cut. Sliced. Opened.
Bones are weak. They can be broken. Shattered. Crushed.
Organs are frail. They can be stopped. Ruptured. Filled with liquid.
Bodies are disposable. Lives, easily ended.
Humans, easily destroyed.

Inside and out.

And oh, the satisfaction he gleans from this.

The intrinsic pain, mixed in with his beloved extrinsic pain, that lulls the other into silence about his deeds.
That brings them both peace.

In reality, they are two halves of a whole. Two pieces that complete each other's darkness.
And, in their shared insanity, they are sated.