Restless Heart [3] | Hot Date
♩ Steve Kemp
You thought you were dark, and you are, but the charming surgeon you’re becoming addicted to is testing the extents of your morality.
} previous chapter: Painkiller
content warning: this is a dark fic, and this series explores taboo topics such as abuse and assault, abduction, deteriorating mental health and mental illness, graphic depictions of gore. Think of a trigger warning: it applies to my work.
addition content warnings here!
The magazines are way out of date, and nearly half of them have covers with something to do with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, so their contents aren’t nearly half interesting, but a page catches your eye; it’s one of those stupid “Is he the one?” quizzes from a Cosmopolitan or something, and you audibly gag as you flip through it, but you can’t help but wish Steve had left you with a pen so you could have some fun filling it out–you’ll ask him next time he comes around; there are some crossword puzzles that might take your mind off everything.
Deciding you need to stretch your legs by limping one lap around the room, you set the pages aside and prepare to stand up, when you hear the tell-tale sign of the heavy basement door opening and closing, and Steve’s confident footsteps as he makes his way down. You decide to wait, and just as you have that thought, you realise how out of it you really are; you’re nearly excited to see him again, and the brief thought that he didn’t come down to speak to you and instead do whatever it is he does to the other women makes you frown slightly. It’s just boredom, you tell yourself, before you’re snapped out of your thoughts by the chime of an electronic tag, and then the sliding of the door that separates you from freedom, and between freedom and slow death stands Steve, looking much better than you’d like to give him credit for, with a freshly shaven face and a navy shirt. He smells good, too.
“Hot date?” you question, unimpressed, but his small chuckle lets you know he suspects your apathy is masking curiosity, and maybe even a little resentment that’s actually slight jealousy.
“It’s not with you, so no.”
You roll your eyes and prop yourself up on your forearms. “Well?”
It takes him a second to realise you’re asking why he’s here, and you can’t miss that split second of hesitation, like he doesn’t really have a reason other than wanting to see you. But maybe you’re delusional. He quickly swerves around the topic by nodding towards the open magazine laying to the side of your mattress. “What’re you reading there?”
You reach to snatch it away but somehow he crosses the room and beats you to it, standing up straight as he reads it down to you.
“‘Is he the one? Ladies, it’s exhausting to date men. Does he like this dress or is he lying? Does he love me or love the sex? This quiz solves it all.’ Wow.” He shuts the magazine and tosses it back to the floor as you groan.
“Random page,” you grumble.
“You can’t be that bored.”
“Actually, I can,” you snap, looking back up at him, annoyed. “Could you give me a pen? I can do some crosswords or whatever, but I might be a little rusty on 90s pop culture references.”
He gives you a flat look but reaches into his pocket and hands you a blue ballpoint pen.
“God, you’re old; who even carries around pens anymore.” You roll your eyes but accept it (secretly grateful) and flip the tabloid to a crossword page, trying to ignore him, but his stare (that you can feel on you, and see out of the corner of your eye) hinders your ability to focus.
“What?” you ask as you look up at him, meeting his eyes that hold an unreadable expression. After just a few more moments of what seems like studying you, he relents, and mutters, “Nothing.”
You give him a quick (sarcastic) tight-lipped smile and turn your attention back to the pages, and not on how the scent of his cologne is overpowering any ability you may possess to concentrate, and your pulse has picked up a little, and your grip on the pen is just a little too tight.
When you hear his disappearing footsteps and then the big door shut, you let out a sigh of relief and drop the pen. Leaning your forehead against your hand, you let out a long breath with your eyes shut.
Once you’ve filled out one (which takes longer than you’d like to admit), you turn the pages to look for another, but something catches your eye: in a random article, the words You can survive this are underlined, and that makes you perk up and look around you, as if whoever had the black pen might be hiding behind a pillar and watching you read it. Though it’s meant to be comforting, you can’t help but feel a little bitter. Maybe it was some woman trying her best to stay positive, and she actually didn’t survive him, but what if she did? What if there was a girl Steve really took a liking to, and he didn’t kill her—she’s still alive, and if she’s still alive, she must be with him. So he has a girlfriend—or, a wife.
You gag out loud as you shut the magazine. You want to be disgusted with him, but you’re disgusted with yourself, that instead of mourning this poor delusional woman who’s probably not only dead but digested and literally turned to shit, your mind immediately went to hating her for what she might have with him, and even if she’s not in the picture now (you seriously doubt Steve would ever let anyone who knew about this get away, so, realistically, she’s either dead or still with him) the thought that you won’t be the first girl he could ever really fall in love with in what you assume must be his years of doing this, makes you irrationally angry, and you can feel that jealousy creeping up your throat like bile, and you honestly want to kill her.
But maybe you’re different, you’re special, and he’s obsessed with you, and he definitely won’t cut you up again, because even if he doesn’t like you, there’s got to be something he finds appealing–he slept with you! Even if it didn’t really mean anything, you doubt he could ever be that turned on by someone he wasn’t physically attracted to, let alone go for hours. Thinking back to that night, maybe it meant more than you realised. He seemed really… interested in your pleasure. Most men just chase their own high, and maybe that was all too much effort to put into just securing a prize. He’s ridiculously attractive, it nearly makes you sick—it wouldn’t take much convincing to get a woman to go anywhere with him, let alone multiple orgasms. And maybe you’re being delusional about this, but it’s better than wallowing in constant misery and self pity, and as ashamed as you are about it, maybe getting a little excited is better than sitting around being bored, too.
It’s hard to tell time, so you really just fall asleep whenever you feel tired, and you do want to sleep, but you’re feeling… restless. Thinking about Steve with another woman got you all riled up, but thinking of Steve with you is getting you all worked up, and you can’t ignore the discomfort you’re feeling, or the fact that if you don’t do something about it you’ll actually ruin your underwear, and you’re fucking sure you’ll never hear the end of it if that’s the case.
So, you try to push down the shame, and the thought that even if you can ignore it for now, maybe when it’s over you’ll feel dirty, and that discomfort will be far worse to live with than if you just tossed and turned for a little bit.
Testing the waters, you tentatively slip a hand down your pants, just to graze over your underwear, but once you’ve done that, you can’t really talk yourself out of going further.
♡
Steve’s been doing this for years, and, yes, Ann managed to escape her regular fate and become his wife instead, but she never really interfered with his work. He’s always known these dates are just to gain trust, and he thought that was why he was able to stay so detached and never really feel like he was betraying Ann, but tonight, something’s different.
The blonde sitting in front of him obviously can’t tell, but he’s a little off his game tonight. It’s taking him a little too long to answer her questions, to give her a smile when she gives him one, and his flirtiness just feels a little flat today, and though it doesn’t bother her (the poor woman doesn’t know any better), it really bothers him.
You really bother him. You are really bothering him. He can’t focus on pretending to care about the lady sitting across from him, but she seems far too enamoured with him to care even if he just outright said his true intentions. Her reaction to the revelation that he’s a surgeon—a giggle and twirling a light strand around her index finger—made him all the more certain this wouldn’t be at all difficult, that she was a dumb bitch he could have wrapped around his finger without even lifting it, but he’s more concerned with the idea he’s losing his touch than that this specific instance is the end. And he can not ignore it’s because you’re on his mind.
The last time he did this was with you, and it’s really sticking with him for some reason. He knows he shouldn’t have slept with you—he’s never done that before and will never do it again—but it’s not any type of guilt that’s got him hung up, so what the hell is it? Maybe it’s because he saw you before leaving, and that’s all.
I forgot to get her stuff out, he thinks. He’s got your ass in the freezer and so he should really think about moving it soon, but his clientele likes to know a little about each meal, and he hasn’t yet compiled a ‘profile’ on you. That’s why you’re on his mind, because he forgot.
His heart’s not in this one. He’s still going to go through with it, because the man’s got to make a living, but it’s like he’s developed a new sort of apathy—not like a lack of empathy, but a mild form of disgust at… something he can’t place. Certainly not with himself, not for his work, at least. And it’s not to say his ‘heart’ is ever really in it, but he sort of likes the work he does. While some might consider his methods to be misogynistic, he actually sees it as appreciating women.
Steve likes women, he loves women, loves everything about them, but especially their bodies. Not even in a sexual way, but just as he appreciates art. He’s in two minds about his work in plastic surgery, specifically; most of the time it’s reconstructive, like for burn victims or after car crashes, and that makes him feel good, but he does occasionally take on the cosmetic surgery case, and it both saddens and excites him.
On the one hand, he hates that the most beautiful women will come in looking for a nose job, or ‘better’ breasts, or liposuction or similar, but he can’t deny he loves touching their flesh, loves cutting them open and appreciating their beauty from the inside out. Whenever a patient asks him what he thinks, he says she looks great—never that she was better than before, but that she looks great, because she does. In truth, he’d say he preferred them before, but it’s not his place.
“Steve?”
“Hm?” He realises the chatty woman whose name he’s forgotten is speaking to him, and he directs his stare away from an unfocused spot in the centre of her face to her flirty eyes.
“I asked what you’re thinking about. Not another girl, I hope.”
He laughs, and takes another slip of his drink.
Maybe he won’t call this girl. He’s a little picky about who exactly he sells because sometimes clients like to know about their purchases’ personalities, and he has a feeling they might be less satisfied with their meal if they knew they were supposed to be savouring an unsavoury personality, and he doesn’t like to lie.
It may not seem like it, but Steve truly doesn’t really like to outright lie, more so by omission. He’s lied to you twice: about the trip, and about not having a wife, and neither of those made him feel great.
When a song’s stuck in your head, the best thing to do is to listen to it, so maybe if you’re stuck in his head, the best thing to do would be to see you, and soon he’s making any excuse to cut dinner short and drive back to his house.
♩
[thank you for the support my beloved taglist: @keito-123, @darkles-6, @stayonmars, @gbispunk, @cjand10]
