AGE OF INSANITY

Chapter 3 : The new beginnings

The office was located smack in the middle of the city. The only convenience was the accessibility. Traffic jams and noise pollution however ruined any charm that could be found in the workplace. The rest of my coworkers did not seem to mind the inconvenience as much as they minded my presence. As soon as I had gotten in the building all the conversation had seized and as I made my way to the director's office, they parted, paving way for me.

They must have been told about me, more precisely they must know who my parents were. The owner's daughter coming to work at the same office as them did not seem like a positive sign. Their fear and obvious intimidation elated my mood. Working here would not be as boring as I had previously thought. As I walked ahead leaving them to gossip I felt a twinge of excitement. They cluttered like rats and I was more than willing to play the cat. Someone had to do it.

The hush that followed when I opened the door was foreboding at best. If I were an ordinary person, I would have paused out of fear. Anyone who could instill that kind of fear from a distance would be an interesting pastime. The door swung open noiselessly not pausing until the end where it stopped just short of hitting the wall. I shut the door behind me and turned to take in the room. His office was immaculate, the man himself was an Adonis.

This is one of those moments in one's life when you come across your destiny and one of those even rarer occasions where you recognize the astronomical event that was unfolding. Handsome is too shallow of a word to describe his facial features. He was the perfect blend between a Greek god and a majestic pharaoh. Even sitting, you could tell he was well over six feet tall. He had thick eyebrows, long lashes, golden brown pupils that were surrounded in a sea of white, his slight pink lips that complimented his caramel skin.

I wonder how it would look like if it was bruised. Maybe I could paint it blue. His most striking feature, however, was his beautiful soulless eyes. Being a sociopath made me more attuned to people's faces. Watching movies and my numerous boyfriends served as learning tools to understand people better. Knowing your enemy is an added advantage and everyone was an enemy until they proved their allegiance. Reading facial expressions is the best way of learning about people. Their reactions to different things created a dichotomous key to figuring out exactly what kind of people they were.

The little twitches that they did not even realize they were making, the wide unmistakable smiles, their unmoving poker faces. The man in front of me had his poker face on. His face right now was a blank canvas that betrayed nothing but his eyes glinted like a sharp knife in the dark. His eyes and that expression were uncannily similar to the one Loice wore. I looked into his golden eyes and all I saw was madness. His blank face could not hide the sheer amount of darkness that was seeping through every one of the crevices. He was dangerous and I did not need a doctor to tell me so.

He had the blank look of a man who had jumped into the abyss and had somehow made it back. His face lifted in what I assumed was a smile. It looked forced, like a toddler in pain but somehow unable to express the right emotion. His smile looked like a Joker's grin, scary and all wrong.

He stood up from his chair stretching to his full height, towering over me as he extended his hands in greeting. I gave him my hands, which he proceeded to engulf with his large ones. They were warm, I had half expected them to be icy cold. I craned my neck to look up to him and was overcome by the urge to kiss him. Just to see what his reaction would be and so I did. I stood on the tip of my toes and pulled his neck down to me before he had the chance to react crashing into his lips with mine. The sexual assault lasted for thirty seconds or less during which neither of us moved as we stared into each other's eyes.

I felt his lips move against mine in what felt like a smile as he stared directly into my soul. I wonder what he saw there. Did he see my recklessness and the unexplainable need to throw myself at the knife? Or did he see the edge that I was ever so slowly crawling towards? He lifted me clean off my feet and set me across from him with the ease of a child carrying a doll. That action made me feel dainty and fragile and the need to assert my position washed over me in form of a blinding rage that caused me to attack his unsuspecting back.

Thanks to Loice I was a master in many violent art forms. Taekwondo, Jujitsu, Hapkido, Krav maga. She had suggested that these sports would provide an outlet for any pent-up need for violence and like all her other suggestions my parents had taken it upon themselves to ensure that I had access to the best instructors that were available. Equipping a sociopath with the technical know-how on how to hurt as many people as possible in as little time seemed like a bad idea but what did I know.

I slid across the floor picked up his right foot and pushed him back with my weight. His surprise caused him to hop backward allowing me to swoop his other leg causing him to fall to the floor. I quickly got on top of him and he immediately flipped over trying to bring me under him a move that I totally anticipated. He stood up just as I wrapped my legs around his waist and put my arms under his left arm bringing my other arm across his neck and linked them choking him in the process. He engaged his muscles using as much force as he could to pull off my arms.

He pushed me down using his weight forcing me to bring my leg up from under him by using my right leg to push on his waist and his reaction providing me with just enough space to put my leg under his neck and adjusted my body so that I was now pulling his arm while restraining his neck. He stopped fighting to tap the floor in surrender.

I climbed back onto his chest wrapping my hands around his neck and applying the pressure. He looked at me then, really looked. Not just staring but studying my face intently. His eyes roamed across every inch of my face as if committing it to memory. His poker mask had fallen but the look he had on was one I did not recognize. I could not tell whether he was thinking about killing me or kissing, maybe it was both. He gently pushed me and I obliged to get off him. He stood up dusting himself off and straightening his suit.

I did the same grateful I had chosen to wear a pantsuit although a skirt would not have stopped me either way. My ego had been hurt and it demanded immediate reparations.

"I am sorry for carrying you without permission, although I did not think you would mind given how you sexually assaulted me" he apologized his deep velvety voice free of any sarcasm as he pushed his chair back and setting himself on it.

He was right in the heat of the moment I had forgotten why it was he was lifting me. It had been to put some distance between us after I had mauled him. My memory was very selective; I only saw the wrongs that were done to me never the ones I inflicted. His words pricked my nearly dead conscience, a light stub that I immediately shook off. So what if I had kissed him, he had no right to shake me off like that.

Whatever the case, this magnificent god towering over me was no ordinary man. A stranger had come to his office and assaulted him and yet from his stoic face, his eyes roamed over me with unmasked curiosity. The corner of his lips twitched in what I knew would be the closest thing to a genuine smile I would get. He did not do the logical thing, to call the police or chase me out of his office instead he stretched out his hands towards me. I wonder if this is what Bonnie felt when she met Clyde.

This deep bubbling feeling from the pit of my stomach, that did not feel like butterflies rather it felt like cracks on the seal of the abyss that was my soul. I looked into his cold eyes and I felt a fiery apprehension drown me. It would not end well for us; from his reaction or lack thereof, we were too similar to be any good for each other. It was not loving or attraction that drew me towards him, it was the promise of mutually assured destruction.

His cold eyes held a promise of a blazing end, igniting my cold, dead heart. As I closed the door behind me making my way to my new office, the sun suddenly seemed brighter than it had been.