Inferno

by Yolanda Olson

  Vaughn quietly begins to follow Pater out of the room, and even though I know it’ll fall on deaf ears, I can’t let this possibly be the last time I see him without saying what I feel in my heart.

  “I love you, Vaughn,” I call out to him urgently.

  He doesn’t return the sentiment. He doesn’t even cast me one final glance, and even though Pater said he’s not going to hurt him, I can’t help but feel like this is the last time I’ll ever see him again.

  “Wait,” Pater says to him sternly. “Your mother is talking to you; show a little respect, huh?”

  Vaughn clenches his fists by his sides and turns slowly to look at me. We finally lock eyes, but the look he gives me tells me I’ve lost him.

  “She’s not my mother.”

  Chapter Ten

  The pain of his words wounds me as deeply as what I was forced to do to Eloy, but it’s because he speaks a bitter truth. An honesty that is so raw and uncommon in this house that hearing it for the first time since this entire charade started is like a blow to the heart.

  I don’t know how long it’s been since they’ve left this room. Time means nothing when everything you love has collapsed around you because of your own actions. When your will is no longer your own and you’re forced to survive by any means dictated to you, you do what you must.

  What happens when you choose to fight against the will of Pater is far worse than what I did to Eloy, and what he’s most likely doing to Vaughn. For now, I’ll comply. I’ll listen. I’ll take every blow to my heart until it finally gives out, and because of my choices, I’ll survive.

  “Hey, you alright?”

  A strong hand rests gently on my shoulder and I shudder. Not out of revulsion, but the need to feel his touch comforting me. Pater may be an evil man when it comes to many things, myself included, but he always attempts to make sure I’m okay.

  “I’ll be fine,” I whisper as a tear rolls down my cheek.

  He crouches down and uses his hand to gently lift my face up. He’s searching my eyes, looking for some sign of deception, but he’ll find none.

  I will be fine.

  I always am.

  “Come on. You can stay in my bed tonight,” he says, gently pulling me off the ground.

  “I don’t...” want to, I finish to myself. While I appreciate his comforting hands on me, that’s all I want. I don’t want to feel him roughly moving inside of me until he’s satisfied himself with no regard for how much it hurts me.

  “I’m not looking for anything tonight, Joce. Especially not any arguments,” he replies tiredly. “I just want you to have somewhere comfortable to sleep.”

  I let him get me to my feet, but he can tell I have no intention of following him.

  “Alright, you’ve got two choices,” he says, rubbing his stubble irritably. “You can sleep in my bed, or I can throw you back into that hole. Ladies’ choice.”

  Normally the answer would be simple and instantaneous, but there’s nothing normal about this anymore. Eloy is dead. Vaughn is... I don’t even know where the hell Vaughn is. And the man that took him from me doesn’t seem like he’s going to talk about it, either.

  My heart is telling me to accept the oubliette. After all, I still owe him a day in the darkness and solitude, but my mind is telling me to stay in his bed. I won’t be of any use to Vaughn if I’m tired and hungry, and being in the house will afford me the chance to rest and eat when Pater falls asleep.

  “I have a condition,” I say, as I wipe away tears. “Will you meet it?”

  Pater looks at me through narrowed eyes, but nods in acceptance. Since this is his home and we abide by his rules, he’s not bound to any promise he makes. I know it just as much as he does, but I can only hope he’ll allow me this small token of kindness.

  “I want to know what you’ve done with Vaughn,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest and meeting his narrowed eyes with a stubborn stare.

  A slow, malicious grin spreads across his handsome face and I can feel myself starting to waiver in the mock confidence I’ve presented.

  “I dumped him,” he says, chuckling. “If he doesn’t have respect for his mother, he definitely doesn’t have any for his father. Can’t keep a little shit like that around.”

  In an odd moment of clarity, I’m surprised that I feel nothing. No more sorrow, no more hope, no more hatred toward Pater. And what I feel least of all as his words ring through my mind is my soul.

  It’s gone now.

  All of it.

  By taking both the boys from me, he’s taken everything. It’s just me and Pater now, and by his assuming that he’s relieved me of the duties of being a mother, he’s given me something else I haven’t felt in years.

  The will to fight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pater has his arm wrapped tightly enough around me that I can’t leave the bed without him knowing, but loose enough that I’m free to move around until I’m comfortable.

  “Hey, Joce?” he asks, punctuating his question with a wide yawn.

  “Yes Pater?” I ask tiredly.

  I’m holding his arm tightly, almost as though I’m trying to pull something good out of the cesspool that he’s become, but I know it’s all in vain.

  “When I said I dumped Vaughn? You didn’t ask where.”

  “It’s not my place to question you, Pater,” I reply quietly.

  He chuckles as he nuzzles up closer to me. “I’m glad you chose to come with me. I didn’t want to put you in the oubliette. It would have made things too crowded.”

  “What?” I ask in confusion.

  “And I’m not exactly sure he’s alive, anyway. I did give him one hell of a push, after all,” he admits sleepily.

  It’s another mind game; a trick. If I believe that Vaughn is alive, he knows I won’t resist him, but if I believe he’s dead, I’ll gladly go to my death and take Pater with me.

  “What’s a girl to do?” he asks in a sing-song voice. He chuckles as he begins to run his fingers up and down my arm. The slight tingling sensation, the shock-wave his touch sends throughout my body, makes me both sick and almost happy.

  Almost.

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” I reply as evenly as I can. It takes more bravery than I’ve ever mustered before to lay a challenge so boldly at his feet, and another chuckle is his response. He’s accepted I’ll do what I must in order to end this entire fucking charade, and I know he won’t make it easy.

  “Tomorrow, baby girl. We’ll worry about all of this tomorrow,” he says, sliding his arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him still.

  “And the day after that?” I ask, turning to face him.

  “Will there be another day?” he inquires, looking into my eyes.

  “You’re leaving it up to me?” I ask in surprise.

  A smile spreads across his full lips. He turns himself onto his back and folds an arm underneath his head. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling and I can tell he is very carefully picking his next words.

  “Honestly? No. I prefer if you would just go along and say there will be another day after tomorrow, and a day after that. I know this hasn’t been easy for you, but at some point, I’m really gonna need you to just try. Think you can do that for me?”

  The truth is that I have been trying. I’ve done everything Pater has asked of me, and he still wants more. There’s no satisfying a man of his appetites, regardless of what they are, and my only reasons for even caring are either dead or dying.

  And here I am: lying in his bed like a whore, ready to please the man who bought her affections for the night.

  “Pater?” I ask, as I sit up in the bed and pull my knees up to my chest.

  “Yes, Jocelyn?”

  “Can I speak freely?”

  “Yes.”

  I take a deep breath and wrap my arms around my knees, resting my face against them so I can look at him. His reactions never lie; he may have a serpen
t’s tongue, but his face will always betray him and tell me the truth.

  “Why are you doing this? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to kill me too?” I ask quietly.

  He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them, I can almost swear I see tears forming. But Pater doesn’t cry; he’s the man of this house, and the only emotions he’s ever shown us are the ones he chooses. Crying is for the weak, according to him, and Pater is far from weak.

  “Because the three of you have always been my favorites,” he replies irritably. “Now go the fuck to sleep or I’m dumping you in the fucking ground with Vaughn.”

  His attempt at a threat actually makes me laugh. To think I would fear death at this point when I would gladly decompose by my son’s side is laughable to me.

  “Don’t bother. I’ll throw myself in the fucking pit,” I say, getting off the bed and walking toward the door.

  “Hey. HEY!” he bellows as soon as I open it.

  I turn and give him a sharp glare, watching his face go from anger to amusement in a matter of seconds. He pats the empty side of the bed next to him where I was sitting not moments before, and I sigh.

  A part of me wants to see tomorrow and the day after, but the heroine in me wants to see this come to an end.

  “You coming? Or do I have to fetch you?” he asks, tilting his head to the side, the grin widening over his face.

  It’s maddening.

  This entire fucking thing is maddening because I do love him in a way, but I loathe him just the same.

  One more night.

  One more day.

  When I wake up in the morning, I’ll have decided if it’s worth seeing the day after.

  Chapter Twelve

  I wake up with a terrible headache and the weight of the world on top of me. It’s astounding to me that I was able to sleep at all, but now I’m awake I find myself in a terrible situation.

  Pater’s face is hovering inches from mine, and his breathing is slightly labored. It’s not the weight of the world I feel lying on top of me, it’s the weight of the man that holds me here against my will. He’s pushing his cock inside me, slowly, deliberately; in a way that only Pater can. He wanted me to wake up to find him on top of me. He wanted me to feel every thrust he’s been lovingly pushing into me while I slept.

  He wanted me to experience everything he promised me he didn’t want the night before, and it’s because he wants me to understand that he’s the one who will decide if tomorrow comes or not.

  “You’re so pretty when you sleep,” he whispers, brushing his lips against mine.

  I hate my body for reacting to this. I didn’t consent to this. I didn’t want to wake up to him fucking me, but I did consent to be in his bed, so I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

  “Pater’s almost done, baby girl,” he says softly, as his breathing becomes even more labored.

  He gently places his forehead against mine as I lie beneath him, pinned to the bed and waiting for him to fill me with his seed. It’s what he wants most of all. He wants me to become a mother – he always has – I’ve just been able to convince him otherwise, since we still had Vaughn and Eloy.

  It takes no more than three thrusts before I feel the warmth of him spilling into me. He lets out a loud moan as he finishes and lets his body fall on mine, his head lying on my shoulder.

  “You’re going to make such an amazing mother again someday. You did such a wonderful job with those two little bastards,” he says gently.

  “Thank you, Pater,” I say quietly, fighting tears that are dangerously close to spilling over.

  I place my hands on his shoulders and attempt to give him a gentle shove, but he’s still hard and still inside me, showing no signs of moving.

  “Not yet, Joce. Let’s just lay here like this a little while longer,” he says happily, turning his head up toward me and nuzzling my neck with his lips.

  I can’t help but wonder if this is what love is like. To have someone who would do anything to keep you, no matter the cost, with no care of what the outside world would think.

  I finally feel him become flaccid and he pulls himself out of me, turning his back to me as he gets comfortable on the bed.

  Maybe it’s not love, after all.

  “When did you start to hate me?” he asks quietly. “And don’t lie to me, please.”

  The question takes me by surprise, because I was always so damn sure he never cared what I thought of him. His demand for the truth tells me he’ll do his mind reading trick that still fascinates me.

  “When you made me your wife,” I reply bluntly.

  Pater sighs loudly and rolls onto his back. “Would you have preferred that I just killed you instead?”

  “Yes,” I admit softly.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” he spits back bitterly. He sits up and runs his hands over his face, then sighs as he glances at me. “You have to understand something. I’ve always loved you the most. That day that I cut you from your worthless mother was the happiest day of my life. You stopped crying as soon as I held you against me, and the way you looked at me...” Pater’s words trail off for a moment as he shakes his head, “I knew right then and there that we would be something great someday.”

  “If I knew that this is what my life was going to become, along with Vaughn and Eloy’s, I should have just drawn the blades across our throats when you took us out of Mama,” I spit back.

  His desperate attempt at trying to become some kind of human right before my eyes are falling on deaf ears. I’ve had enough of these fucking games, and with as much as I want it to be over, I want my pound of flesh first. The only way to get that from him is to antagonize him to the point of no return.

  “’Mama’,” he repeats in a mocking tone. “She was worthless. The only thing that bitch was good for was giving me three kids, and then, once Eloy was born, I was done with her. She died the way she came into this world: screaming and covered in blood.”

  I attempt to push myself off the bed, but he grips me by my arm and pulls me right back next to him.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way with us, Jocelyn. Ever since I put you in your mother’s womb, I knew you would take her place. Like she had taken the place of the wife before her. I think we work, don’t you? You’re a pain in the ass and I know how to handle you accordingly. I like these games, and being inside you is the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life. Fuck society and their rules; we’re meant to be together,” he says with his damn grin sitting on his ruggedly handsome face.

  The same face that was vaguely reflected in Vaughn, and almost an exact match to Eloy’s. The eyes I’m looking into are passed down through blood, and that smile is something I used to wear before all this started. But I have to remind myself that this hasn’t been the face of my father for a long time; it’s always been the face of the man who destroys everything he can’t control, and uses people until he gets bored with them.

  “How much longer is this going to drag on, Pater? How much longer am I stuck here being your wife?” I ask him irritably.

  “Until you have my baby, of course,” he replies as his grin widens. “Then we’ll see what fate has in store for you.”

  That’s been his plan this entire time. That’s been his motive in every wife he’s taken.

  Isolate the body.

  Break the soul.

  Break the spirit.

  Fill them with his child and if the child is up to his standards, kill her and replace her with the next one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pater is sitting at the dining room table, reading his newspaper and occasionally sipping on his coffee. He’s invited me to sit with him, but so far the offer of food has not been made, and I’m close to snatching that fucking paper from his hands and eating it.

  I don’t know when the last time is that I ate. It must have been a few days ago, when one of the boys dropped some scraps into the darkness, and with as unbelievable as it may seem, that’s usually enough
to hold me over for a little while.

  I have to check the oubliette.

  Clearing my throat, I begin to drum my fingers along the tabletop. It’s a small enough distraction that he peers at me over the top of his newspaper, before he reaches over and puts his hand on mine to stop me.

  “What’s up?” he asks curiously.

  “I’m more worried about what’s down,” I reply tiredly.

  “What?”

  A rare look of confusion crosses his face, and I sigh as I slide my hand away from underneath his. I glance out the window behind him, and don what I hope is a meaningful look, but if he understands what I want, he’s choosing to ignore it.

  “Well?” he asks, shaking out his newspaper. He licks his thumb as he flips the page and keeps his eyes trained on me expectantly.

  “I’m hungry,” I admit quietly. It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not the entire truth. I am hungry; however, I’m more concerned with taking my scraps to Vaughn.

  If he’s still alive.

  “You can eat,” he says with a nod as he turns his eyes back to his article. I almost faint with relief, because he’s never given us food so easily. I think it has to be because he’s already attempting to make me pregnant, so it makes him slightly kinder.

  I know better, though. I know that trusting a man like Pater, no matter what the circumstance, is a more dangerous game than anything he could possibly dream up.

  “Thank you,” I reply softly.

  I get to my feet and walk toward the counter where there is still one steak left on a greasy plate. There’s a spoonful of home fries and one strip of bacon, too. I quickly pile it onto a clean plate and, as I’m placing it into the microwave for a quick reheat, I hear Pater slide his chair back.

  In a matter of a few steps, he’s standing next to me, washing his hands in the sink, and I can feel myself start to tremble again. I know he feels my fear when he gives me a sidelong glance and smirks. He doesn’t say anything, though. He dries his hands off on a dishtowel, pulls the drawer open next to me, and fishes out a fork. Once the microwave dings, he opens the door, pulls out the plate and takes it back to the table.