What Not To Do When You Have No Heart

WARNING: MENTIONS OF RAPE, IDEOLOGICALLY SENSITIVE MATERIAL AND JUST GENERAL POSSIBLY UPSETTING OR OFFENSIVE CONTENT.


I am detestable.

Every day I leave the house, put on my gloves, hit the town.

There's too much of me and too few girls to go around. I've ended up with the same ones before this way - shove 'em around a bit, rip their clothes, watch their fear. And the power, fuck, the power. Some girls do anything for pretty words. Take them to the fairground, buy them candy floss, tell them you love them, need them, want them and they're yours for the taking. No need to resort to force. Of course, if that's what it takes.

And the worst thing is, I don't even regret it.

She pushed me too far. She was pressing all the right buttons to begin - attractive, flirtacious, skirt above the knee and stupid - God, she was stupid. We went to the bar first. Her friends were there, dog ugly, of no interest. I dropped them by asking her out on a walk in the park, alone, in the moonlight. Girls are suckers for clichés. And she did. Christ, she actually did it. Walked alone, 10:00 PM, with a man whose body has violated others' more times than I care to remember. Stupid bitch. She deserved it.

We sat by a lake. I remember it clearly - we fed the ducks, like I had done as a child with my parents at the pond behind my school. They filled it in, as I remember. Oh well. I saw the spark of alcohol in her eyes and knew that this would be easy. I kissed her - she was all too eager. I recall being a little disappointed. I almost like the thrill of the chase.

She passed out before I was through, but who cares. Did up my pants, left her on the bench, walked to the empty house I call my home. Threadbare, the carpet crumbled beneath my feet and the floorboards creaked worse than the bed of a whore. I stripped again, buried myself in blanket and turn to the side. And there she is. Marie. If you want to blame someone for the girls, blame her.

Whore. A tip for you; don't trust anyone. The moment you do it, rip open your chest, disconnect your heart and place it in their hands as meaningfully as you can place a dripping, bloody organ...that's when it hurts. When you realise that you need your own heart to survive. That you can't just give it away, that you need at least some heart to beat, some heart to feel.

Then what do you do when they walk right off with that heart of yours? What do you do when they take that organ that you need to desperately to survive and tuck it in a cardboard box with a hundred others and stow it away in their attic?

You live without it. That's what you do. You learn, adapt, survive. I've got no heart to give - my love is drained and lust is all that remains. I want like a child and I take like a beggar.

I am detestable.

The worst part is that I don't even regret it.

Wow, amazing. Truly amazing piece of writng.
You really do have talent Charlotte I'm glad I have a friend like you who I can compare stories with, aha.
But yeah, I found this so powerful and strong. It kept me hooked to the end. Though I do think you could have added more to it, like more of a description of why he actually does this. Apart from that wow.
I love it. Especially loved this sentence:

And the worst thing is, I don't even regret it.

So chilling...
Well done!!!

Hi.

I really liked this piece and your MC's throughout were excellent.

However, I have a few questions.

Was your character a boy or a girl? Haha.

Why was your character so angry? Maybe some background information about him. It's a him. (I get that now)

But overall, really passionate and well written.

~ T.K

thank you both (:

and the reason he is so angry is 'cause Marie fucked him over and so he sort of lost faith in love and stuff so ^^;
maybe that wasn't really clear enough. i shall attend to it (:

Okay, first off, the title. I didn't think much of it until after I read, but now I love it. I'm a sucker for good titles.

That being said, the piece does it justice. When I realized the point of view that you were writing from, I was considerably surprised, and didn't really know what was to come. It takes a lot of skill to write from such a perspective and still manage to pull the reader in past the surface -- naturally, our first reaction will always be to form a predisposed opinion, and consequentially have the entire work lost on us. You wrote in a way that avoided that problem.

Stupid bitch. She deserved it.

As a rule, you make really, really great use of contrast in sentence lengths. You choose good parts to emphasize, and you put them in good places. This is definitely one of those situations -- these two sentences come like a slap in the face. The only thing I would suggest would be to put the second sentence as its own line. Three words, very strong, separated from everything else. The first sentence is sharp, but the second sentence makes you think. It makes you delve into the psyche of the subject. Don't let that get lost as just another choppy sentence.

Next:

I remember it clearly - we fed the ducks, like I had done as a child with my parents at the pond behind my school.

This. Perfect, perfect, perfect. It's so subtle, and so soft, but it makes one go back, and reread, and think. Wait, what? What was that? All of a sudden, the subject is human. He is a rapist, a monster; he is terrifying and angry and dispassionate. But suddenly, there's more than that, all due to that one sentence. Now he has a childhood, a time of innocence, and he becomes three dimensional. It's not enough for him to be forgiven, or liked, but it's enough to make him more than an idea. That's what lets the reader into the story -- it's what gets us past the surface. Ideas may be stronger than people, but we still react the most to other humans.

So, in the end, this was wonderful. Unique and well done, as always.

Hey!

My review isn't going to be very constructive I'm afraid, as the others before me have covered everything that I was going to say.

I will however, tell you how much I enjoyed this It flowed well and the content made a good story.

At first you made me hate your MC. You painted him as a monster, not a man, but then when you hinted that he'd had his own heart broken here -

Then what do you do when they walk right off with that heart of yours?

I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him. Not that having your heart broken is an excuse to do the things that he does though.

What do you do when they take that organ that you need to desperately to survive and tuck it in a cardboard box with a hundred others and stow it away in their attic?

Okay, I could be wrong. But I think you meant the first 'to' to be 'so' So it reads -

'What do you do when they take that organ that you need so desperately to survive and tuck it in a cardboard box with a hundred others and stow it away in their attic?'

I want like a child and I take like a beggar.

I liked this line

The only thing I think you should add is more background to how Marie screwed him over. It'll help us to work out why he really does all these horrible things. It might even enable the reader to sympathise with him a little.

Overall, I think you have a brilliant little story here. You write well!

I hope this helps! Thanks for the read

xDudettex

Hello, Xio.

I especially enjoyed this story. It had me hooked from the first line really, if you want to hear the truth. Which I suppose you do. I really liked the way you worded this too. The way you insert short sentences that add punch to your story and also give us a deeper view as to how the main character thinks. Yes, he is a rapist, but I feel terribly bad for him. To get a reader to feel sympathy for one who is generally the enemy takes great writing skills.

There are times when I got sort of confused and had to read over a sentence or two, but that is mostly because I was probably reading too fast.

Did up my pants, left her on the bench, walked to the empty house I call my home.

Poor girl, but this sentence also helps us to understand the main character more and his attitude towards women and how he feels of them.

Speaking of the main character, and I've no idea if you did this on purpose or not, but the fact that he goes without a name adds mystery to his whole persona. All in all, I suppose you can tell that I adored this. I honestly hope you decide to continue this and, if you do, I can hardly wait to read it again.

Cosmic

thank you for your reviews

i pretty much wrote this to experiment with making detestable characters sort-of-kind-of human. i'm glad you think i succeeded.

Dudette, you're correct, that was a typo, i shall adjust that, and Nikki, i shall take your advice on that sentence

this is pretty much a first draft. presuming you can edit posts on this site (which i think you can) i'll keep coming back to this and adjusting it.