<h4>Chapter 96: _ Blessed, Merciful Alone</h4>


    "Ernesto!" Rosario giggled, shoving at him yfully.


    "Mm," he grunted against her throat, his hands now ravenously tugging at her blouse.


    I was living a nightmare.


    Their clothes rustled, buttons popped, Rosario let out more exaggerated sighs—and then, the smell hit me.


    The sickly sweet perfume.


    The cheap cologne.


    The sweat.


    The scent of my own impending psychotic break.


    Ernesto was dragging her dress down her shoulders, pressing obnoxious, exaggerated kisses down her corbone, his hands grabbing at whatever he could like a man attempting to knead dough with his elbows.


    I wanted to scream.


    No, worse—I wanted to end entire bloodlines. And then... he started narrating.


    "Your skin," Ernesto groaned dramatically, dragging his lips down her chest. "It’s like... silk."


    It was not.


    Rosario giggled again. "Oh, Ernesto—"


    I did not hear the rest because I had just left my body.


    I was floating above the room, looking down at my paralyzed form, watching as the woman who had bathed me, fed me, and put me to bed like an infant, was now getting groped senseless not three feet away from mypletely immobile corpse.


    I willed my soul to escape this prison.


    It did not.


    I prayed for the Devil to take me back.


    He did not.


    I watched, trapped in my own personal purgatory, as Ernesto continued his onught of unskilled, sweaty affection.


    Thrusting into her clumsily, panting and dragging her breast with each pressure.


    Rosario, to her credit, tried to keep up. But she keptughing, gasping, wiggling as if the entire experience tickled rather than aroused her.-


    "Ah, Ernesto... yes! That’s it. Fuck ME!"


    And Ernesto. Oh, Ernesto. The man was performing.


    His hands were everywhere, nowhere, pping, groping, fumbling like an idiot ying Whack-a-Mole with a blindfold.


    His mouth was all over the ce.


    At one point, he made direct eye contact with me as he licked a stripe up Rosari<strong>o’s neck, </strong>his dick still nted in her hole.


    I died.


    I literally died.


    My soul left my body and refused to return. This was it. This was how I finally sumbed to madness.


    Just then, Ernesto moaned.


    Like. Really moaned.


    Like threw his head back and let out a sound so gruff, that I thought he was either having an exorcism or a stroke.


    And I lost it. I did not make a sound. I did not move so much that one would think I was the one cumming and not him.


    But inside my head, entire civilizations crumbled. This was not happening. I was not here. But oh, I was.


    I was right. Fucking. Here.


    Forced to witness this unholy bullshit. I did the only thing I could do.


    I seethed. And I nned. Rosario and Ernesto?


    They would pay.


    Oh, they would pay.


    And when I was done with them, their grandchildren would still be apologizing for this.


    Ernesto finally finished with a grunt so ungodly, that I half-expected the heavens to split open and smite us all.


    Rosario sighed dramatically, limp beneath him as if she had just survived a war. Meanwhile, Ernesto, the absolute menace, remained atop her, panting like he had just run a marathon he was very ill-prepared for.


    And then—because the universe truly hated me he smacked her ass.


    Not once.


    Not twice.


    <i>Three</i> times.


    Loud. Echoing. Wet.


    Each p resounded through the room, sending me further into the abyss of my own suffering.


    "Ah, mi amor," Ernesto groaned, rolling off of her with the grace of a dead whale. "That was something. I bet your husband can’t pleasure you in the ways that I do."


    Something indeed. A war crime, most likely.


    Rosario giggled as she pulled herself from the bed, stretching like a satisfied cat. Her dress was bunched up around her waist, her panties dangling around her thighs.


    "Don’t drag my husband into this, Ernesto, darling."


    And then, came the most horrifying part.


    She didn’t wash up. Not even a cursory wipe.


    Nothing.


    She simply shimmied her panties back up, adjusted her dress, and <i>moved on with her life</i>.


    Like the act she just participated in wasn’t a vition of all that was good and holy.


    Meanwhile, Ernesto stood, tucking himself back into his pants with a <i>self-satisfaction</i> so immense I wanted to strangle him with my own paralyzed hands.


    "Alright, cari?o, I’ll see youter," he said, pressing a final, obnoxiously loud kiss to Rosario’s cheek. "Don’t miss me too much, huh?"


    And with that, the bastard was gone, leaving behind the scent of sweat, cheap cologne, and my own rising homicidal urges.


    Rosario sighed, brushing her hair back, and then, she turned to me, as if remembering I existed.


    As if she hadn’t just engaged in the most monstrosity disy of physical affection I had ever been forced to witness.


    As if she were about to do the unthinkable.


    "Time for lunch, Luisito," she cooed, stepping closer with a warm smile.


    I stared at her in abject horror.


    No. No, she wouldn’t. She <i>couldn’t</i>. But she could.


    And she <i>did</i>.


    She reached for the bowl of food she had prepared earlier; the same one she had set aside <i>before</i> she let Ernesto grope her like a blindfolded man trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube.


    She picked up a spoon. And she stirred.


    And then—then, with hands that had just been <i>everywhere</i>—she scooped up a spoonful of food and held it up to my lips.


    My soul left my body.


    "Open up," she chirped.


    Open what the fuck up? She’s got to be kidding me!


    I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. I just remained immobile, breathing heavily through my nose to show my disapproval.


    "Come on, don’t be difficult." She nudged the spoon against my lips, voice still annoyingly sweet. "You need to eat."


    I did not. I refused. I <i>would</i> not.


    Rosario, apparently unfazed by my tant rejection, sighed dramatically. "Fine. If you won’t eat willingly..."


    And before I could even brace myself, she <i>forced</i> my mouth open with one hand, pried my jaw apart like she was cracking open a stubborn walnut, and <i>dumped</i> the food inside.


    <strong><i>What the?!</i></strong>


    I choked. I gagged. I died.


    But Rosario simply smiled, patting my cheek like I was a fussy child. "See? That wasn’t so bad."


    I was going to murder her.


    And yet, she continued, humming softly as she spooned more food into my unwilling mouth,pletely unbothered by my silent fury.


    Eventually, she finished, wiped my lips as if that made <i>anything</i> better, and tidied up the room.


    Then, after an eternity of torment, she finally left towards dusk.


    And I was alone. Blessed, merciful <i>alone</i>.


    The silence was deafening.


    For the first time in what felt like years, I exhaled. Or at least, I <i>wished</i> I could exhale.


    My body remained still, useless, and heavy. But my mind—oh, my mind was sharp. I seethed, stewed, and plotted a hundred ways to dismantle Ernesto piece by piece.


    But then, exhaustion imed me. And to my surprise, I <i>slept</i>. Not lightly. Not in that restless, half-conscious way I had grown ustomed to.


    But <i>deeply</i>.


    And I dreamed.


    However, it wasn’t of Ernesto’s slow and painful demise, though that was certainly still on the agenda.


    My dream just wasn’t of revenge.


    But of <i>her</i>.


    Of María José.