Mens Rea.pdf

Mens Rea- A Guilty Mind by forbidden-fruit81

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5333232/1/

Chapter One – Impetus

Playlist:

"Pretend You Love Me" Shelby Lynne

"Lost" Annie Lennox

"Citizen Erased" Muse

"There Is So Much More" Brett Dennen

"Stay Away" Josh Hoge

"Passion, it lies in all of us. Sleeping...waiting...and though unwanted, unbidden,

it will stir...open its jaws, and howl.

It speaks to us...guides us...passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice

do we have?

Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love...the clarity of

hatred...and the ecstasy of grief.

It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion,

maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow, empty rooms,

shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead."

-Joss Whedon

Saturday, June 7th

The rumbling sounds of angry thunder and the crackling of fiery lightning jolted

him from his slumber. The spattering of hard rain against his windows sounded

like snare drums in his pounding brain and he propped himself up on his elbows,

dazed and confused, staring at the droplets of rain cascading down the large

window across from him. The sounds of the storm echoed through the quiet

room, and though he wanted to more than just stare, he couldn't; his body was

frozen into a statue, his limbs heavy like granite.

The room seemed hazy, the air seeming to ripple like a drop of oil in water, and

he found himself squinting in order to focus on the dark, dank room around him.

Where the hell was he? And why wouldn't his limbs move? He focused on his calf,

tangled into the sheets around him but somehow uncovered from the knee down.

His skin was gray, just like the stone limbs that it covered, and the room was cast

in a blue-gray hue, the dim light filtering in from somewhere outside of the

foreign room.

His eyes, seemingly the only part able to move, scanned the room directly in

front of him, falling upon an oak chest of drawers. The mirror on top was angled

just enough that he could barely make out his face in the reflection, covered in

what looked like dark tears. What the hell? His ears once again focused in on the

sheeting rain brutalizing the glass windowpane, and he slowly realized that his

face was not covered in streaks of tears; rather, it was bathed in the reflections

of the very rain that had awoken him from the weirdest sleep he'd ever

experienced.

His gut was churning with an unfamiliar sense of dread. Something was not right

but for the life of him he couldn't place the feeling. It was as if all happiness had

been sucked from the room into a black hole of nothingness and it chilled his

granite skin to the core. He tried to wiggle his big toe, and realized with grim

satisfaction that at least it could move. He followed step with the other four digits

of his right foot, and cautiously and carefully rolled his ankle in a clockwise

direction.

Gingerly, he bent his leg at the knee, drawing it up his body, freeing it from the

tangled mess of Egyptian cotton. He rolled his torso up to meet his lower half, so

that he was now sitting upright, resting his elbow on his raised knee. Rubbing his

whiskered face into his hands and vainly attempting to wake himself out of the

disconcerting fog, his eyes fell upon a lace camisole that was discarded

haphazardly on the far corner of the enormous bed. Suddenly, images sprung

forth out of his foggy brain.

Firm, ivory breasts revealed as the skimpy excuse for an undergarment was

thrown over her shoulder, her back arched into him, her lithe body atop him, her

strawberry blonde locks falling into her eyes as she expertly rode him.

Tanya.

Yes.

That's where he was. Their bedroom. The faint scent of their sex still lingered in

the air and he inhaled greedily, the atmosphere grounding and settling him. He

rubbed his temples firmly and smiled slightly, resting his still aching brain on top

of his knee as he recalled the night.

Friday, June 6th

A loud crash rang behind him as he lithely dodged a random plate, more than

likely from Pottery Barn, being hurled straight at him. He smirked at her, his

smugness only igniting her already fiery temper more, and he swore he could see

her usually ivory skin turn scarlet red in her current fit of rage.

"YOU ARE SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE!" She hurled insult after insult towards

him, and he continued to smirk at her, unaffected by her spiteful words. He took

a careful step towards her, his arms turned towards her, palms up, peaceful but

not in surrender.

"Careful, love, or we're not going to have any fine china left." He took another

step in her direction and made a move to touch her, but she jerked herself back

in disgust at his effort, moving gracefully out of his grasp with her nimble

dancer's legs.

"Don't you DARE touch me! Don't you fucking dare!" Her words were like ice,

though her body was aflame with hatred for him.

Their evenings ended like this regularly, though this one had started off

pleasantly enough. They'd dined at Rover's, one of their regular date night spots.

It wasn't exactly his favorite, as it was a little too romantic for his tastes and he

wasn't very fond of the menu. It also tended to be one of those "see and be seen

places" by some of Seattle's social elite, and that circle bored him to tears. Tanya

thoroughly enjoyed it, though, so he usually indulged her with dinner there at

least once a month or so. If anything, it shut her up, which was fine by him.

Tonight, however, something had been amiss. Even though dinner was, in fact,

pleasant, it still had an uneasy chill to it, and Tanya was not her usual chatty

buoyant self. Rather, she was almost reserved – pensive at best – and that mood

settled like a rock into Edward's gut. He knew this disposition well by now, even

though she rarely revealed it to him during their four years together. She wanted

to talk. About them. About their future. About marriage.

He had expertly avoided the topic throughout dinner, trying instead to divert her

attention elsewhere. She outright declined both wine and champagne, even her

favorite overpriced glass of Brut Rosé, and that's what had alerted him to the

depths of her sour mood. When she refused dessert, he could almost hear the

storm brew beneath the surface. His hair had stood at attention on his forearms,

but it wasn't fear that propelled the reaction. It was anticipation.

The pressure cooker erupted no sooner than they had stepped over the threshold

of his home in Queen Anne. He hadn't even had time to remove his jacket before

the first piece of bone china smashed into the wall dangerously close to his head,

even closer to the row of windows that lined the kitchen, but not close enough to

make him fearful for either his head or the ridiculously expensive glass panes. It

had only heightened his excitement more. This was going to be good.

He ignored the broken glass at first, slowly removing his jacket sleeve by sleeve,

inch by inch, delighting in the coming confrontation. He casually draped his blazer

over one of the nearby dining table chairs and turned to face her, tapping his foot

on the mahogany hardwood floor, a devilish smirk plastered on his usually

alabaster face.

"And to what do I owe this charming greeting? Was the rabbit confit not to your

liking? Should you have chosen the halibut instead?"

"The rabbit confit was fine." She stood there, her arms lodged in a defensive

stance on her slim ballerina hips. "You. Us. We are not."

Yes. This was definitely the marriage talk.

"We were fine last night. We were fine this morning when you accosted me in my

office, requesting some one-on-one study time with the professor. I'm amazed

that a relationship can change so drastically over the course of just a few hours."

"That was sex. Fucking. What we do best. It's what we always do. But that's not

a relationship! How many times do we have to have this talk?"

"So what exactly is a relationship, Tanya? Can you please fucking enlighten me?

You've got the nice house with the great, million-dollar view of Seattle. You've

got your nice little Audi coupe. You've got the trips to Paris, Milan, Greece, St.

Maarten. You've got the famous boyfriend with the deep pockets and several

turns in the Seattle social circle. What else is it that you want?"

"I'm not a whore."

"You're not? I seem to recall someone wrapping their legs around my waist in the

bathroom of the University of Washington library for a little extra credit."

"Fuck you."

"You already did." He winked cruelly at her as another unidentified flying object

went sailing past him. Tanya stared him down, taking several deep breaths,

opening and shutting her mouth in frustration before finally choosing the words

she wanted.

"Look. Insult me all you want. I know it's your defense mechanism. That is what

YOU do best. I may have the fucking down pat, but you sure as hell have the

corner on the asshole market."

He breathed in, his pants suddenly tighter, his body automatically responding

when she fought back.

"You love me." He said it as a statement, not as a question.

"In a way that defies all sense of earthly reason. Yes. But I can't just fuck you

forever. I need you. I want you. Why won't you marry me?" The anger in her

gray eyes was now replaced with an earnest longing, willing him to simply love

her.

It was that look that usually unhinged him. The one that made the adrenaline

rush into his veins, the fight or flight reaction taking hold of every one of his

senses. He didn't understand where the fear came from, or even the anger, but

he wasn't in the mood for psychoanalysis, either. Instead, he opted for his usual

asshole tactic.

"Because I don't want you."

Her almost dormant anger once again surged to the surface at his cold words and

she grabbed an empty wineglass from the single basin stainless steel sink and

hurled it at him, missing him by inches.

"You are a lying sack of shit!"

He simply stared at her, his face a calm mask of control. "And why is that, love?

You can't handle the truth? You can't understand that I simply don't want

you...like that?"

"You want me. I know you do. Did you know that you talk in your sleep? That you

fucking whimper in your sleep?" Her words shocked him, but his face never gave

away his reaction. "Why the hell else do you think I've put up with your bullshit

for four fucking years? Because you're that good in bed? Hardly. I've had better."

He took two steps towards her and she instinctively took a step back, almost

crouching in defense.

"Does that bother you, Eddie? That I've had better? That you're not the best fuck

I've had? You're actually kind of boring sometimes. I swear to God. If I have to

fuck you missionary one more time, I might fucking run away on my own

accord."

Now she was hitting him where it hurt.

"So you want to marry me," he spat the words out with venom, "so you can have

horrible sex for the rest of your life? Are Manolo Blahniks really worth the

trouble?"

"I want to marry you," she said, mimicking his exact tone, "because I love you.

Against all sense of earthly reason, just as I said a few moments ago. Just like

I've been saying for the past three years. Why is that so hard for you to

understand?"

"I highly doubt that." He scoffed at her admission and she rushed to him, angrily.

"Don't you EVER tell me what I feel! You may be the one with a fucking

doctorate, but I'm the one with the goddamned heart. You wouldn't know love if

it spit you in the face," she sputtered, emphasizing her last words with exactly

that.

He grabbed her jaw in his hand, his green eyes staring angrily into her blue-gray

ones. "Didn't your mother teach you that it was rude to spit? Where are your

manners?" She angrily brushed his hand away from her face and stared him

down.

"Marry me, Edward."

"No."

"Marry me, Edward. Or I will leave you. For good this time. I'm not wasting any

more time on you and your selfishness."

"You won't leave. You wouldn't. I'd have to take back that Audi. You sucked a lot

of dick to get it. Wouldn't want it to go to waste."

"You don't fucking get it, do you? I don't care about a fucking car. Or a trip to Fiji.

Or Antigua. I could give two shits about a designer pair of heels. It's all nice, but

it's not necessary. You spend the money on ME, because that's what you know.

That's all you know. But as far as me? That's not what I want."

"Bullshit."

"Fine, Edward. It's your fucking loss." She turned on her heel and stomped

upstairs to their second-story loft master bedroom. He could hear her jerking

open the closet door to her walk-in closet angrily and pulling out all she could

grasp in one handful. Edward listened to her for several long moments,

determining when he should make his grand entrance into their bedroom. It was

always like this. He slowly trudged up the stairs and quietly watched as she

grabbed a suitcase from the top shelf of her enormous closet and flung it onto the

bed, stuffing as many clothes as she could into the luggage. He leaned against

the doorframe, dangling her car keys on the tip of his finger, taunting her.

"I have your keys."

"I'll call a taxi."

"You have no money."

"I have a fucking job, asshole." She never paused once in her mission. She

walked over to the lingerie drawer in the top of the chest of drawers and yanked

it open, retrieving several undergarments.

"You're not leaving."

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