Tasteless

They both sat next to each other on the couch in the living room, donned in their matching nightgowns as they enjoyed each other's company while watching TV. Cherry was pretty much slumped against Brandon's side, her head resting on his shoulder. The fatigue taxing her body made it difficult for her to keep her eyes open.

The lights in the room were off, leaving the TV screen as the only source of light. The distant rumbles in the sky and the soft rustling of the leafs merged together formed a lullaby, soothing Cherry further in relaxation. Having ignored the TV for a long time, Brandon observed his wife. His mouth twitched in a slow smile whenever her long eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, only for them to snap back open when a sudden noise came from the TV before drifting close again.

"I think it is high time to go to bed. Don't you think so?" He said, only to receive a protesting mumble back.She is so far gone.He chuckled inwardly.

"Ah!" As if realization struck her like a lightening bolt, Cherry eyes sprung wide awake as she sat up straight. Brandon frowned at the cold air brushing his shoulder. Eyes bloodshot from sleep snapped at Brandon and he had to use every ounce of strength to stop his laughter from spilling.Look at her, trying so hard to keep her eyes open when she is so tired.

"Brandon." Cherry called through bleary eyes, unsure whether this was a dream or a reality.

"Yes?" He managed to say with mirth threading through his strained voice.

"Back to what you said before… in the car... when you thought that someone had said something to me at the hospital. Is there something I shouldn't know?" Her narrowed drowsy gaze- though full of suspicions- was still delectable and he wished they will never point their hatred at him. The thought alone had him gasping for air.

"Brandon?"

"No, princes." He assured her with a kiss on her forehead, his lips lingering on her soft skin as he recollected himself. "There's nothing going on. I was just… worried that someone had said something to offend you."

"Hmm. Then it is fine…" she breathed as she dozed off again. He gently guided her head back to his shoulder, and, within moments, Cherry was peacefully lost in dreamland. After making sure she was deeply asleep, he carefully picked her up, bringing her up to their room to lay her in bed. After pulling the blanket until under her chin, he placed a small wrapped box beside her on the nightstand with a written note sandwiched between the red ribbon laced around it..

He walked out of the room and before closing the door behind him; threw an inscrutable gaze at the sleeping woman in bed, watching how her chest slowly heaved up and down in tandem with her breathing. He chuckled softly, wishing her a restful sleep in his mind.

Click.

He locked the door almost soundlessly as he closed the door. The smile that was briefly on his lips evaporated in an instant now that Cherry was no longer insight. His feet guided him to his study room, making a beeline to the bookcase where Cherry's book fell from before.

Thumbing along the spines of the worn-out books, he stopped at the one that seemed slightly out of place. With a gentle tug, the book tilted forward, and a soft click echoed through the room. Slowly, a small compartment opened, revealing a hidden electronic safe lock.

Once the beep sound echoed in the room indicating that the correct combinations were dialed in, the bookcase begun to deliberately slide to the right. The wall shuddered under the movement before revealing a man slumped in front of a staircase that cascaded down. The air was cool and musty, and the dim light from the room barely penetrated the darkness beyond.

"Hmphf!" At seeing Brandon towering over him, the man trashed against the cuffs shackled around his ankles and wrist, his cries muffled by the duct tape plastered over his mouth. "Hmph! Hmphh!!" The veins in the man's neck throbbed, trying to push himself off the cold concrete, but it posed difficult with arms tied behind his back.

The man's blue eyes that boiled from anger watched and followed how Brandon, with an indifferent expression, looked down upon him before crouching down. Tilting his head to the side, Brandon studied the vast staircase until it disappeared into the dark abyss before moving his attention back to the grubby man.

"I guess I have to applaud your efforts for climbing all the way to the top, but-." Brandon took a hold of the man's throat and used his other hand to strike down with a force that twisted the man's face the other way. His vision clouded with black spots, a metallic taste coating his tongue.

"I'm pretty mad right now." The way Brandon looked would even bring the most ferocious beast to its knees. His eyes, devoid of any emotions, reflecting the fear-stricken man. He flexed his fingers, cracking them into a fist as he kept delivering blow after blow on the immobile man until his anger gradually subsided.

He sighed, studying his work. In less than a minute, the man's face transformed into a grotesque, swollen mess, oozing blood. Going in and out of consciousness, the man didn't notice Brandon closing their distance, his breath hot on his ears but his words sending shivers down his bones, "Did you hope my wife would find and save you if you kept hitting against the bookcase, Charles?" Brandon snorts at his cannibal client. "Sorry to disappoint you, but these rooms are soundproof, otherwise how would I be able to kill you in silence?"

"HMPFHH!"

"Hmm?"

Charles thrashed around in his hold, the duct tape still upholding its duty of concealing his cries; that consisted hundred percent of profanities. Tears flooded his eyes from the searing pain tormenting his head.

"Right, I forgot about the duct tape. I wondered why it was so quiet." Brandon ripped the tape from Charles' mouth. Coughing violently, the man hacked up the blood that was blocking his airway, spitting it out in disgust.

"What's bloody wrong with you!?" Charles bellowed with a voice scratchy and raw from days of screaming and dehydration.

"I don't have anyone to aim my anger at, so I choose you, the one who got me into this mess." Brandon stated nonchalantly as he pulled out his leather gloves from his pockets and slipped them on.

"I beg you pardon?" Brandon read the confusion wandering on the cannibal's face and added, "If you didn't put in a request for a woman then my wife wouldn't have caught me in the act."

Disbelief joined confusion and as much as the cannibal's bruised eyes allowed, they grew in width, asking the crazy man in front of him with gaze alone if he was serious. "I hope you know how ludicrous you sound right now."

Though Brandon found it difficult to decipher Charles' expression through his mangled face, he could hear the low chortles escaping from the cannibal's chapped lips; adding more coals in the already burning haze, and Brandon would gladly char the man down to the bones. "Shouldn't you be thanking me instead of trying to kill me? She would have figured it out, eventually. Besides, a marriage is doomed to fail if its foundation is built on lies- ARGH!!"

Charles' incessant prattle ceased to exist, globes of cobalt dilated to saucers as they teetered shakingly down; his mind trying to understand where the tortured gurgles echoing in his ears came from. Why his lower face lost any sense of sensation or, even better, why the glint of a knife treated his jaw and tongue like a sandwich- impaling them together.

"I would have gifted death to you earlier had my wife not lost her memories, so thank your lucky stars."

There's nothing to thank about!The man wanted to scream, but didn't want to further egg on the man. Though it may be too late for that, seeing how his vision begun to cloud with black dots.

"Sorry, I'm not like Dean, who would entertain you with a conversation."I seriously don't have time for this. I need to finish this quick.

Creeaack.

It was barely above a whisper but it hit Brandon like a siren. Warning him of something. Brandon frowned, hearing the grating noise aggravate by the second.

With one final thrust through the man's neck, Brandon kicked the convulsing body down the stairs, swiftly exited the place and close the entrance before he could finish listening the melodious cracks of Charles' bones grinding against the stairwell.

Brandon wished he could indulge himself further in carving out Charles' body. Turning it into skewer meat and feed it to the wolves, however-

"Brandon? Are you here?" A voice scratchy with raw sleep shuddered his heart. The warm light that spilled from the halls into the chilling room grappled Brandon's attention as his gaze moved to see Cherry standing in the door opening.

"Why are you not in bed?" Thanks to his heighten senses, he was able to detect her inept footsteps approaching in time, forcing him to deal with Charles earlier than planned. Still, being aware of her presence didn't steady the panic raging in him.

Did she see? He questioned breathlessly.

The ethereal hue of the moon bleeds through the window, painting his back with its color, whilst casting a shadow at his front, making it difficult for Cherry to see Brandon's disheveled state.

Brandon prayed that his unkempt appearance wouldn't be noticeable in front of his wife. But his worries were for naught when he noticed Cherry being unsteady on her feet; her shoulders slouch, mirroring her eyes that remained shut. She may as well have been sleepwalking with the way her body was swaying.

"You weren't next to me when I woke up, so I was worried that you were sleeping on the couch or something," she yawned. This made Brandon blink in bewilderment as he removed his gloves, saturated with Charles' blood. Hurtling the fabric behind the desk, he made a mental note to burn them tomorrow.

"You missed me?"

He took a step closer into the light, revealing his face that was clad in a sheen of sweat from his earlier activity- strands of hair sticking to his forehead. Cherry didn't notice his appearance, nor the expectant gleam in his eyes. More like she couldn't notice it as she adamantly kept her eyes shut- not wanting to go through the pain of having to adjust her eyes to the light.

"Un." She bobbed her head, either in an effort to stay awake or to genuinely answer him. Brandon could hardly contain the smile threatening to escape on his face.

"Then shall we go to bed?"

Cherry nodded, then slowly raised up her arms, prompting one of Brandon's brows to arch in curiosity. "What's this?"

"You were going to carry me anyway, right?" Her head lulled. "I'm, I'm saving…" A yawn. "you some… time." Her words dwindled away in to mumbles and then into snoring as she dozed off again. Brandon caught Cherry in his arms, cradling her against his chest. Turning his head around in search of his wife's crutches, he now noticed how they were nowhere to be seen.

She expected me to carry her."Why did God make you so adorable?" He wondered seriously with a frown on his face.

Hearing something whisper in her ears, Cherry hummed in question; tilting her head up towards the voice, but her eyes still rested.

"It's nothing. Go back to sleep." He spoke softly, mirth laden his voice as the adoration swimming in his gaze aimed at the sleeping beauty in his arms kept growing by the minute. His own body acted on his emotions and before he knew his hand already found his way to Cherry's face, stroking it tentatively. "I just wondered when I can finally eat you up."

Brain drugged with sleepiness Cherry didn't get the underlying message behind Brandon's words and she grumbled, moving her mouth as if she chewed on something, "You can't… eat me… I'm not food".

Brandon almost blurted out a joke about cannibals devouring her whole, but thinking that she wouldn't take the joke well, swallowed the words back down.

He carried her back to their room; placing her gently on the bed before shedding himself from his clothes and joining her under the duvet. Pulling her back into his embrace, Brandon buried his nose in the crown of Cherry's head, inhaling deeply and feeling his body instantly relax. Letting the scent of flowers invite him to a dreamless void.