Masochist: A Contemporary Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 4) Read online

  Masochist

  Ryan B. Schow

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  MASOCHIST

  Copyright © 2016 Ryan Schow. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, cloned, stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this eBook via the Internet or via any other means without the express written permission of the author or publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents—and their usage for storytelling purposes—are crafted for the singular purpose of fictional entertainment and no absolute truths shall be derived from the information contained within. Locales, businesses, events, government institutions and private institutions are used for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes only. Furthermore, any resemblance or reference to an actual living person is used solely for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Design by Milo at Deranged Doctor Design

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  www.RyanSchow.com

  See Note To Reader at the end of this book for an important message from the author, as well as a quick look at what the next book in the series holds.

  Other Works of Fiction by This Author

  From the Swann Series Novels (In Order)

  VANNIE

  SWANN

  MONARCH

  CLONE

  MASOCHIST

  WEAPON

  RAVEN

  ABOMINATION

  ENIGMA

  This is for my Sensei, Mike. Before I started karate under your tutelage, in so many words, you asked me if I wanted the normal way, or the hard way. I’m so glad I took the hard way. To you I owe so many things: my confidence, my “winners reap the rewards” mentality, my understanding of self-defense and my fight. For a person as stubborn as me to be torn from my shell and taught a better way in life, and for that way to bestow upon me so many blessings, is a miracle in itself. Beyond being the finest Sensei I’ve ever known or met, you are a true friend and an inspiration.

  Table of Contents

  Stained

  Scarred up and Sarging

  Baby Darth Vader and the Wondrous Things

  Vessel

  Frosted Steel

  The Early Years

  The Boy and the Red Tide

  Just Disappear Yourself Already

  Oxygen Eating Fairy of Mass Destruction

  Fight Club

  A Bleeding, Wasted Thing

  The Witch’s Clit

  Beautiful Alien

  Wicked Perversions

  Taken

  The Unf*ckable Princess

  Reconnect | Disconnect

  Good Morning Mr. Yummy

  Cooked Potatoes

  The Curious Case of Shelton Gotlieb

  Enemy

  The Swings

  Razor Sharp

  Ruby Skye

  Gusher

  Tattered Wings of the Monarch

  This is the Thick

  A Coward’s Last Stand

  Ode to the Butcher

  Fluffy Orange Massacre

  A Dark, Dirt Eternity

  Mission Not Accomplished

  Awakening

  Unleashed

  The Beginning of the End

  A Less Than Nothing

  The Resurgence of Delta 1A

  Black Rage Blooming

  Epilogue

  Important Note to Reader

  Available Titles in This Series

  Book 5 of the Swann Series Novels: WEAPON

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  THERE’S NOTHING QUITE AS EXCITING AS GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING…

  Only the fly on the wall and your therapist know your darkest secrets. Today you get to be the fly.

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  http://www.RyanSchow.com/VANNIE-eBook-For-FREE/

  “The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangibles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die.”

  —CHUCK PALAHNIUK, CHOKE

  Stained

  1

  The more I try to help others around me, the more I hurt myself. When will I learn? Never probably. I like to think I’m smarter than this, but the truth is, I’m not sure I am and this concerns me. Am I truly a glutton for punishment?

  Am I truly a masochist?

  2

  Leaving my father after everything that happened with Rebecca and that freaking psycho who kidnapped her, running off to Netty’s place in the city, it’s the worst feeling ever. Worse than diarrhea or period cramps. Worse than vomiting in public.

  Inside, I think I’m dying. This thing I’m doing to my father, leaving him behind, it feels like betrayal. But I can’t stay, not in that house, not with those horrific memories.

  What I have to do now is make new memories. Better memories. Not that I won’t miss my father. I will. The way he’s been ever since his transformation, version 2.0 of him, it’s me having the father I’ve always wanted. Even Margaret’s semi-not-hate-able. My tear ducts flex at the thought of leaving them behind.

  And the thought of Rebecca being gone, it’s a rolling sickness I can’t seem to shake. It gets worse wondering how I survived my attack. How I lived. Why I’m still alive.

  Then, for some completely obscene reason, an image of Jacob springs into my mind. A memory of him surfaces like some kind of unfinished business. The staying of tears presses on as my head sorts through the twisted, super-unhealthy history between me and Jacob. The last time I saw him I was rude to him. Basically I shut the front door in his face. And now I’m leaving him behind as well. Do I hate him? Do I want him? Do I still want to hurt him?

  All questions I don’t have answers to. All questions I barely want to contemplate. Yet there it is: Jacob’s perfect, stupid face. His image sits fresh in my mind, so much so that I can’t help feeling the feelings of him, seeing how he looked when he was happy with me, tasting the sweetness of his kiss.

  God, he smelled good, sexy.

  More thoughts course through my mind until one appears and takes me by surprise. An image of fat Savannah pops into my head. The imperfect version 1.0 of myself. She is standing in the hallway of her old school staring at Jacob who is burning her with the most hateful look ever. His lovely, kissable mouth is a riot of taunting words. The laughter coming from his face is an indescribable cruelty.

  Nausea swims inside me. My inside world is a dark place. The pit in my stomach returns and I feel so lost, so utterly helpless. Then I remember I am not that girl. I’m stronger. More in control. Besides, these ne
wer versions of me, they understand revenge. They understand retribution. And now they are beginning to understand and embrace confidence.

  When version 3.0 of myself dumped that cocktail of urine and garbage on Jacob’s head, it was me trying to erase all those awful memories of his behavior, all those tortured feelings I felt. To have the person you’re crushing hard on rip your delicate little heart clean out of your chest and stomp on it with such disdain changes you.

  It changed me.

  But then I think of how he was so sweet to me when Margaret’s scumbag boyfriend, the tasteless writer, so garishly hit on me at dinner. As much as I was once certain Jacob would be the boy I loved to hate, I don’t think I hate him anymore. It’s amazing the varied history this version of me has with him.

  So now I don’t know how I feel. Is this regret? Remorse? Could this be relief? More questions I don’t have answers to. Perhaps I am tormented by all of these emotions. Lord knows I’m tormented! While I don’t know what to do with these feelings, I do know one thing and that’s that I don’t need any more freaking boy problems right now.

  I’ve nearly been killed three times, and my friend’s been taken. Boy problems, OMG, they pale in comparison! Honestly, it’s like having bowel cancer and worrying about butt zits.

  3

  My Audi S5’s navigation system takes me into downtown San Francisco, straight over to Netty’s apartment on King Street by AT&T park. The cement gray and burnt orange colored glass building is massive and beautiful. Very modern looking. The brushed silver lettering saying Avalon at Mission Bay perched on a stone wall in front of the building lets me know I’ve arrived.

  It takes twenty minutes to find a parking spot on the street. The closest is a spot down Berry Street, a decent hike away.

  I fret over my car for a full minute, then say screw it. If it gets broken into, stolen or towed, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me this week. I love my car, but right now, that love has to take a back seat to so many other things.

  In a half-nervous panic, I gather up all my stuff—suitcase, bathroom essentials, black garbage bag full of everything I couldn’t get into the two other cases, and a pillow—then I shuffle-walk down the street to Netty’s place.

  If I wasn’t so clean looking and attractive, people would think of me as recently homeless.

  Another San Francisco transient.

  The luxury apartment building’s entrance, a floating glass canopy leading into a large beautiful lobby, is amazing. Everything is done in brilliant oranges, royal blues and canary yellows. It’s all very geometric. It’s all very avant-garde. Looking around, it’s hard to think about getting raped in a place like this. It all seems safe and sophisticated and opulent.

  I like it already.

  I cross the tiled lobby with my things, drawing questionable looks from strangers, then push the UP button on the elevator and wait. Once the doors open, I ride five floors up, drag my stuff down the hallway and knock on Netty’s front door.

  Netty opens the door and pulls me into a hug. Her gorgeous mother, Irenka, is standing behind her, appraising me and my stuff with soft eyes and full lips. Her hair is longer and darker than I last remember. She looks ten years younger than she should. More like a sister than a mother. And that extra bit of weight she was carrying when she lived in Palo Alto, it’s all gone. She looks skinny, sexy, incredible.

  It nearly escapes my mind that she isn’t supposed to know me. Rather, she doesn’t know I’m fat Savannah in my permanent disguise. I want to say “Hi, you look incredible,” like it’s no big deal, but I don’t. She comes forward to take my things. I show her my best smile, then introduce myself as Abby Swann and thank her for allowing me to stay.

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” she says. Her voice is slightly husky, a sign of the hard turn of events in her life. Or perhaps this is her strength, or even sadness.

  “Thank you—”

  “You can call me Irenka,” she says. It’s easy to forget how beautiful her smile is. She doesn’t show it often.

  “Okay, Irenka. Thank you for letting me stay.”

  In the back of my mind, I’m thinking about heading to the bank in the morning and pulling out some cash to pay her for room and board. After Netty’s father was arrested and sent to a white-collar penitentiary, everything sort of went south for Netty and her mother. The way Netty makes it sound, they’re pretty much living hand to mouth. Looking around this quaint but beautiful home, you wouldn’t know it.

  Netty gives me the tour of the three bedroom apartment, which feels small compared to my father’s new place. What it lacks in square footage, however, it makes up for in elegance. The décor is lavish and cozy. Fluffy white rug, teal colored couch, grey ottoman, silver accents. The paintings are brilliant colors consistent with the rest of the building’s palate: blues, yellows, oranges, whites and reds.

  I’m not the biggest fan ever of maple and oak, but offset with black granite counters and black appliances, the kitchen is inviting.

  “What you pay for is the views,” Irenka says, as if the rest of the place is a giant embarrassment. I remember where they used to live, so I can see how difficult this would have been moving here. For a woman like Irenka, this must feel like rock bottom.

  “I think it’s lovely.”

  “When you don’t have much space to work with,” Irenka says in a deeply apologetic tone, “the process of beautification is…cost effective.”

  The way her voice carries only traces of her Russian accent, you wouldn’t think she’d have such a strong command of the English language, but she does. She once told Netty how ashamed she was of those who migrated from Russia and the Ukraine to America and couldn’t speak the language.

  “They want all the benefits of this country,” she told Netty when I was ten or eleven years old and standing beside her, “and they want our healthcare and our welfare money, but they don’t even have the courtesy to learn the language. It’s disgraceful.”

  At the time, she was taking English as a Second Language courses, along with speech therapy to soften her accent. It’s convenient to forget where you come from when you have millions in the bank.

  We eat at sunset. Out the gigantic picture window, night settles on the bay, and I realize Irenka is right: the illuminated cityscape standing against the dark sky is breathtaking. I feel swept into another world. Into a new life.

  For about a half an hour, we make small talk about nothing important, then watch television and turn in for the night. I have my own bedroom, but Netty comes in and lays down on the bed beside me. She wants to know the details of my attack, of Rebecca’s third kidnapping. Like two kids up well past their bedtime, I whisper my secrets in the dark. I tell her everything. Including the maniac doctor and what he did to me. She knows my secret—how I can heal from nearly everything—and now more than ever she tells me how thankful she is for Gerhard, even though she says he sounds like a dick.

  “I’m going to find her and get her back,” I vow to Netty.

  “I know,” Netty says. Her voice is sad, like she knows what I’m going to do is somehow going to end up bad. I’m sure it will, but for Rebecca’s sake, for my own, I have to at least try.

  4

  The smell of gasoline makes me stir. A stab in my heart has me jolting, squirming, kicking out. I hear myself moaning, fighting for breath through the haze of sleep, but I can’t stop. Really I should be screaming, but my throat feels squeezed shut because someone’s hands are choking me. Thrashing about, kicking like my life depends on it, I ward off my attacker. The struggle wakes me up in a bed wrecked by bad dreams. I sit up fast, my pounding chest still heaving out the fight. My skin is slick with sweat. Tears stain my cheeks. Looking around the black room, everything is unfamiliar.

  My instincts have me wanting to scramble to my feet.

  Where the hell am I?

  Then it all comes flooding back: Netty’s house. The minute I catch my breath, I see the shadow of a body
in the door and startle. My heart racing, I see it’s Netty and I calm down.

  “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” I say in a half-whisper.

  “You were screaming,” she says. She yawns. In my semi-disoriented state, I thought that Netty was sleeping beside me. Then again, the way I’ve been fitfully sleeping ever since the pedophile music producer tried to kill me, I don’t know anyone other than Rebecca who could and would put up with my erratic sleeping behaviors.

  “Just a nightmare,” I say, wiping my eyes. God I wish Rebecca was with me now. Sleeping beside her was so comforting, like the teddy bear you adore and refuse to give up. Rebecca was my friend, my pseudo-sister, my security blanket.

  But it’s more than that. It’s so much more than that. The way my brain seems so twisted with bad dreams and despair, how I can’t shake the worst memories inside my head, anymore I’m thinking I need real therapy. Or something. I just can’t live like this. Not anymore.

  “Do you need a Xanax or something?” Netty says, which is strange with her knowing for years Margaret’s solution to every problem was prescription drugs.

  “Really?” I ask, incredulous.

  “My mom has some sleeping pills from when my father was taken to jail.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I lay back down in bed, right into a big ass sweat stain. It’s wide and damp and I scoot out of it quickly, turning sideways on the edge of the bed because that’s all the dry space this full sized mattress has left.

  “Go back to bed, Nettles. It’s okay, really.”

  This is my life, I tell myself as I hear Netty’s bare feet padding down the hallway’s creaking hardwood floor.

  This is my life and right now I hate every gosh damn inch of it.

  5

  When I wake up, I wake alone. Regrettably. I’m still missing Rebecca like crazy. And I’m missing my gigantic bed with my thousand thread count sheets and my impossibly heavy down comforter. Just for one second, I think about going home. And then the horrors of the last few days come rushing back and suddenly I don’t want to go home.