by Matt Shaw
He smiled, “Thank you.”
“Tell me, James, where are you presently sleeping?”
“I have a corner in the dining room.”
“Doesn’t sound very comfortable.”
“It’s okay.”
He was being polite. No doubt he didn’t want to upset me - not that he would have. I don’t get upset when people speak the truth; only when they lie.
“You don’t need to lie to me,” I told him. I hope he takes what I said onboard. The next time he lies will be the last, no matter how small the lie or what the purpose of it. A lie is a lie and can only lead to more.
He smiled, “It’s not too comfortable.”
“We’ll find you a bed. No family member sleeps on the floor like an animal.”
I stood up and James followed my lead. I walked to the study door and opened it, stepping out into the hallway. I held the door open for James and he was soon standing by my side. He thanked me as I closed the study door and locked it with the key in my pocket.
The whole house is open to one and all - family members that is - with the exception of two rooms; the study and my personal bedroom. Both rooms, when I am not in them, are locked. I walked down the hallway keeping one eye on my new Son. He seemed suitably impressed with his surroundings as he took them all in for the first time. No person gets to see the real house until they become a tested family member. This is done to protect all those who reside within. Until they get to this stage in our relationship; they only get to see the apartment.
“You like the house?” I asked him.
“Very much so.”
“My bedroom and my study are off-limits unless I am in there. The rest of the house is yours to do as you please.” I stopped walking and turned to him a moment to really stress the next point, “We only ask you to keep things respectful.”
“Of course.” He nodded.
“Don’t be nervous either. You met a fair few of the family members yesterday obviously. They’re nice people. We all share common interests. You’ll fit in and feel at home in no time.”
I carried on walking down the hallway towards the main hall. The main hall was just as impressive as the rest of the house. Four hallways on the ground floor leading to yet more rooms. Stairs in the centre of the hallway leading to the second floor; the bedrooms.
“I think you’ll be happy here.”
James smiled, “I will be.”
We walked up the stairs to the second floor and I led the way down one of the four hallways. A row of doorways on either side; bedrooms, a bathroom, a secondary office used for planning events such as the one we just held for James. I stopped at the far end of the hallway before it looped back round to the join the second hallway on this side of the house.
“And here’s your new room,” I said. I knocked on the door. It wasn’t locked and I had the right to go into any of the rooms I so chose whenever I felt like it. I expected respect from my sons and daughters and I wouldn’t get that if I didn’t respect them too. The door opened and one of my younger sons appeared there in nothing but boxer shorts. “You could have at least put a dressing gown on.” I walked into the room. James waited in the doorway until I motioned for him to come in too. He entered. “This will be your room.” I introduced him to one of his new room-mates, “This is Charles,” I said. “Charles, you remember James from last night?”
“You were fucking great,” Charles shook James by the hand. “Sorry I didn’t get to welcome you last night. I couldn’t get anywhere fucking near you…”
“Son, swearing is a sign of low intelligence,” I reminded him. He apologised to both me and James. Charles was younger than James. He was in his late twenties and still had a lot to learn but he was keen at least and sometimes that is just as important as experience. I preferred to try and keep people of similar ages in the same rooms but James is one of the older ones here - in his forties, closer to my own age.
“It’s fine. Good to meet you.”
“So which bunk do you want then?” Charles pointed to the two sets of bunks. “At the moment there are two of us in here. Me and Seth. We both have the top bunks but if you’d rather that - I’m cool to swap.”
“Bottom is fine,” James said.
“I think James will just be grateful not to be on the floor for a second night,” I interjected before turning to address James himself, “Get your things up here and make yourself at home. Charles can fill you in when we have dinner and what happens. If you have any questions - and you feel as though your new roommates can’t help - then by all means come and find me and we’ll address them together.”
“Thank you,” James said again. He held his hand out for me to shake. I looked at it and looked back at him. He pulled his hand back with an apology and slipped it into his pocket. I do not shake hands, other than when I first welcome them to the house. No one is allowed to touch me unless it is something I arrange as a night-time treat for both myself and - obviously - them too.
I turned to Charles, “Help him with his stuff and look after him. Any problems, let me know. I shall be in my bedroom.”
I turned and walked from the room, closing the two of them into their bedroom. I returned to my own bedroom and reached into my pocket for the key. I put it into the lock and let myself in. My daughter was still on the bed, star-fished with arms above her head and restraints binding her to the foot of the bed as well as the headboard. Clamps biting down on her nipples and pussy exposed to the warm air. I closed the door and locked it shut, dropping the key into my pocket, with a smile on my face. As I said before - no one is allowed to touch me unless it is something I arrange. She asked me, politely I might add, and I obliged despite having different tastes to what was on offer. It was her reward for being one of the most pro-active members of the family; offering to clean, cook and even helping organise events such as last night.
I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, running my fingers up her bare leg. Her body twitched at my touch and she sighed, widening the gap between legs and lifting her pert arse off the bed giving me better sight of her vagina.
“How have you been?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer me with words. She was sighing, and groaning, playfully fighting against the restraints. I didn’t move from where I was sitting; just kept stroking her bare skin with the tips of my fingers, watching her face for her reactions.
“Did you want me to do it?” I asked softly.
She was begging me with soft moans. I didn’t need to tell her that what happened next was between her and I only. If she were to speak of it outside of the room she’d be cut from the family for good; little girl lost to both us and society. Damaged goods. She understood this and despite being only seventeen years old - she had a smart head on her shoulders. Speaking of which. I reached under the bed and withdrew a cardboard box, placed there earlier this morning before I went to meet James in the office. The flaps were folded together to keep the box contents from being seen but it was easy enough to open with one hand; the other hand still stroking her - edging closer and closer to her pussy.
She craned her neck to see into the box. I tilted it slightly so she could get a better look.
“Do it,” she begged me.
I placed the box on the floor and - with both hands - reached in and pulled out the severed head of Markson. His face was an off-grey colour and the blood and tissues at his neck, where his head had been sliced off, was nothing more than a congealed mess of ‘whoops’. His eyes were open - staring ahead yet seeing nothing. I held him up for the girl to see and she pulled harder on the ropes binding her to the bed as she tried to crane her head further up away from the pillow. I repositioned my hand so that I was holding the head by a scruff of its dark hair and I moved it closer so that it was face to face with her own pretty face. She leaned into it and kissed its dead mouth. I watched on as her tongue forced its way into his mouth before exploring it passionately. I teased her by pulling the head away.
Its mouth was ope
n, from where her tongue had forced it so. I reached into it and pulled out the tongue so it was hanging from the mouth. It was dry from where his mouth had stopped producing saliva now. Didn’t feel human. Regardless I left it there and ran the head (and tongue) down her neck, her breasts, her stomach - right down to her throbbing snatch. I hesitated a moment there as she tried to squirm into a position which got the tongue rubbing against her. I laughed at the sight of how much I was teasing her. She looked at me and then back to the head and begged me to do it. I re-positioned myself on the bed and pushed the head against her cunt. She ground into it too, adding to the pressure the dead tongue hit her clitoris with. She groaned out loud as the pleasure started to overcome her. I reached up to her mouth and pressed the palm of my hand against it to stifle her moans as the orgasm started to brew. I didn’t watch what I was doing with the head - I didn’t need to - instead I concentrated on the look on her face. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her cheeks turned a nice shade of red as her legs started to shake uncontrollably.
I liked to watch.
36 Years Earlier:
A Dysfunctional Family
“You had no right!” Tom’s mother screamed at Chris as soon as she walked into the apartment and saw Tom sitting there, on the sofa, in front of the television.
Alexis immediately stepped in and lead Tom through to the bedroom. She closed the door to try and drown out the coming argument from the living room. Tom sat on the bed and she went and sat next to him, fully aware that the voices could be heard pretty clearly through the thin walls thanks to the shouting.
“You had a son and you sold him for alcohol. Do you know how messed up that is?”
“He was my son to do with as I saw fit!” the mother screamed.
“So you fucking sold him?”
Her name was Samantha. Her friends called her Sam. She was in her thirties (looked older) and wasn’t likely to see forty given the amount she’d regularly drink. Even before Chris went inside - after beating the man he mistakenly believed sold his sister drugs - she was a heavy drinker but, without her brother around, she got worse. If it wasn’t alcohol flowing through her veins, it was other substances. If it wasn’t booze passing her lips in some low-end establishment, it was erect cocks in some dodgy back-alleys. Forty-pounds and they went in uncovered or twenty if the horny fucks didn’t mind wrapping them up first.
“I never wanted him!”
Alexis looked at Tom, hoping he hadn’t heard. He looked to the floor. He had heard.
“You know she doesn’t mean it, don’t you?” Alexis said. Tom didn’t answer. She got up and walked through to the living room and shouted at Chris and Sam to keep it down; reminding them both that Tom was in the other room and could hear everything. Sam didn’t care. She said she wanted him to hear. Chris grabbed her by the arm and dragged her from the apartment out into the grotty looking hallway. Alexis walked back through to where Tom had waited. “They’re just talking things through,” she said. “Everything is going to be just fine,” she said, despite knowing she had no idea how this was going to end up. Tom looked at her but didn’t say anything. There was a coldness in his eyes which made her feel more than just a bit uncomfortable; a distinct lack of humanity when looking into the windows of his soul. She carried on speaking in order to try and kill the awkward silence, “My sister has a son about your age,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to meet him sometime? I’m sure you two would get on like a house on fire.”
“What’s his name?” Tom asked.
“His name is James. They live about thirty minutes from the town; a nice house on the outskirts of the country,” she said - waffling for the sake of filling the silence.
Tom interrupted her, “Does his mum want him?” he asked.
Alexis didn’t know what to say. She looked at the boy and genuinely felt sorry for the position he was in, but it didn’t change the fact she thought it was a bad idea that Chris had gotten involved and brought him to their home. Maybe she would have felt differently had their relationship been different or - more to the point - it wasn’t his first night home from being inside.
She hesitated a moment before finding the words she believed to be correct, “Your mum does love you. She loves you a lot but she isn’t very well. She needs help. Now Chris is out, he’s going to try and give her the help which - in turn - will help you too. But never think she doesn’t love you because it’s simply not true.”
“She says she doesn’t love me.”
Alexis would have found it hard to believe that any mother would tell their son that - even in their darkest hours - but she’d heard it herself from the living room. Not in so many words but for Sam to say she never wanted him… Alexis tried to think of something reassuring to tell the lad but drew a blank.
“She told me before now that she’d wished I’d never been born.”
“She didn’t mean it,” Alexis said, despite knowing it was most likely the truth.
A door slammed from beyond the bedroom which made them both jump. They turned to the bedroom door. Chris appeared there. He looked upset. Angry even. Alexis stood up but didn’t move closer to him. He had that look in his eye she’d seen so many times before. He had that look in his eye which had gotten him in trouble in the first place all those years ago. Tom didn’t get up. He looked back down to the floor.
It was a stupid question, Alexis knew this before she even asked it, but she had to speak up - if only to try and stop him from seething. “Did you get things sorted?”
“My sister is a cunt,” Chris hissed.
Alexis shot Tom a look, worried about his reaction. He hadn’t moved. He didn’t even look as though the word had registered with him; eyes fixed upon the stained carpet floor. At this stage, she realised she was being over-protective. What the boy had heard up to now - although certainly not as rude - was so much more damaging than a word deemed bad by society. Chris looked at the boy. The expression on his face said it all; he was bitterly disappointed he hadn’t been able to help him but there was more to it than that. He didn’t know what his next move should be. He shook his head and walked through to the living room.
Alexis turned to Tom, “Wait here, okay?”
Tom nodded.
Alexis walked through to the living room and closed the bedroom door despite having firsthand experience that it did nothing to really stop the voices from travelling.
“What happened?” she asked although it was pretty obvious.
“She won’t take him.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
“She wants him to be put into a home. She said that if she ends up taking him home from here she’d get in touch with Social Services and tell them to take the boy from her. She’d tell them she is an unfit mother with a drug problem… Have you seen her arms?”
“I told you, we haven’t really spoken much.”
“It’s not just booze she has a problem with.”
Out in the hallway Chris had seen the state of Sam’s arms. Needle marks on both of them from where she’d been injecting God only knows what into her system. It had made him feel sick. Not just because of what his own sister was doing to herself but because he had given eight years of his life trying to put a stop to the problem. He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. He hesitated a moment before looking up to Alexis.
“He’s flesh and blood. I’m not letting him go into a home. He has to stay with us.”
Alexis didn’t move from her spot. She knew Chris was wound up but also knew they didn’t have the space - or the money - to be looking after someone else; especially someone who’d not be able to pay their way.
“We can’t,” she said with a shaky voice, despite her best intentions to keep it sounding strong. “This is my apartment and we do not have the room. My job barely pays the bills and puts food in the cupboards - even if there was room, how are we supposed to feed him?”
“I’ll get a job.”
“Where? People won�
��t exactly be lining up to employ you yet and those that do won’t be paying top wages, because they’ll know you won’t have a choice but to take them.”
“I have some cash at the moment. Earned it inside. It will keep us going for a little while.”
“That’s not good enough and you know it isn’t. It just means we get through it faster than if it were just the two of us.” Alexis paused a moment, “Maybe it’s better that he does go into a foster home or something? At least he will be looked after.”
Chris jumped up and grabbed Alexis by the throat. He squeezed so hard that her eyes started to bulge. She clawed at his hands with her long finger-nails but he refused to let go; a rage seething from every pore of his skin. After what seemed a lifetime to Alexis but a few seconds in reality, he released his grip and she fell to the floor, hacking and wheezing as she struggled to get some oxygen back in her lungs. Chris hadn’t backed away though. His hands were by his side, clenched into tiny balls of hatred. Alexis looked up in time to see him bring one down hard upon her face. She fell onto her back with a pain shooting through her whole head. Chris lifted her from the floor and hit her again; a second and third time with the fourth following closely. He let her go and her head fell back against the hard-floor. Chris took a few steps back - a look of shock in his eyes; surprised by his own actions but there it was again, that damned uncontrollable anger.
“No, no, no!” he cried out as he rushed to Alexis’ side. He hadn’t meant to lash out. Not at her at least. The conversation with his sister had wound him up so tightly he was like a ticking time-bomb. Alexis should have known better than to continue the conversation. She should have remembered what his temper was like. Before he went inside, she was the only one who’d been able to calm him down. Laying on the thin mattress in his cell, he often wished she had been there on that night where he lost it. If she had been - chances are he’d have calmed down enough to realise he had the wrong person and never have lost those eight years. Yet here he was again, kneeling next to another innocent victim in his continued struggles with violence. He pressed two fingers against her neck in search of a pulse. There was one there but it was weak. He looked up to the ceiling as though looking to thank a God watching down on him. He jumped when he realised Tom was standing in the doorway - once again looking at his uncle close by to a body. “It was an accident,” Chris said. “Move out of the way…”
