What Good Girls Do

by Jonathan Butcher

  “Honey,” I say, hating the word as it leaves my mouth. “Not all men are like your daddies.”

  I think of Stuart’s firm touch. How safe I’d always felt with him. His hands closing around my throat.

  I survey the room again, at the porn and the notepad and the blood-soaked corpse. My stomach contents seem to curdle when I notice a security camera positioned near the door, between the wall and ceiling. It points at the bed, and a red light above the lens blinks languidly, watching us.

  “Daddy’s eye,” the girl says.

  I shiver, remembering my last encounter with Mr Crisp. We had moved to this neighbourhood four years ago, after Stuart had received a pay rise. Our neighbour had always been proud of his front garden. One morning last week, Mr Crisp had been clipping the spherical hedge at the end of his driveway, stood beside his navy blue classic Jaguar. He had nodded at me and tipped an invisible hat as I had passed, a smile stretched across his broad face, the sunlight catching in his grey hair.

  I ask the girl, “Do you remember anything, apart than this room?”

  “I think there was another a girl here, once.”

  “A girl like you?”

  “A bigger girl. I asked my daddy, but he just said, ‘Don’t be silly’.”

  She’s no longer holding the blade in a threatening manner. I could probably take four steps backwards and slam the door, get out of this hellhole and back to my babies, but what if she gets to me first?

  “I meant what I said,” I tell her. “I can find people who can help you. Girls. Women. People who won’t, as you say, want to…fuck you.”

  She looks at me with those lightless eyes; sunken, distrusting pebbles. “Do you believe me? About the daddies?”

  I give no reply but I picture Stuart’s face as he’d struggled to secure her earlier: triumph, with an unmistakable hint of lust. Even Declan’s eyes, just minutes before he’d died, had flickered similarly as they roved across this girl’s bloody, filth-encrusted body.

  “Are there really girls who can make me better?” the girl asks, stepping towards me. “Girls who will hug me, and not want to fuck me?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowns, rubs a flake of dried blood from her chin with the sleeve of her knife arm. She seems to notice the blade and hesitates.

  Before she decides what to do next, a noise comes from outside the door. We freeze, and the low murmur rises into a grumbled chorus.

  Panic ignites inside me.

  The voices continue, identifying themselves as male.

  The girl answers my question before I ask it. “My other daddies.”

  21. Girl

  My other daddies are coming.

  I know them all, and I know what they like to do. I feel really, REALLY shaky and different, but not just for me this time – for Serenity.

  Before I had left My Room, I had always let them do whatever they’d wanted, because that’s what Good Girls do. Now, though, I don’t ever want their cocks inside my nice smooth cunt or my tight ass again. Now, I want to hit them with my knife. I want to bite through their cocks. I want them all to sleep and never wake up.

  Upstairs, I hear my Skinny Daddy yell, “Jeff!”

  Serenity’s eyes bulge.

  The second voice, crackly and deep, is my Cigarette Daddy. “He won’t hear you if he’s already down there with her.”

  “Fuck’s sake, I was supposed to be first today,” Skinny Daddy says.

  A third voice sounds thick but smooth, and makes me think of lube. He’s the worst one: my Red Daddy. “He should have met us up here. He’d never leave it open like this.”

  I turn to Serenity and lift my finger to my lips, like one of the Daddies does in the film where the Girl keeps saying, “No no no,” whenever she gets hit. I hold on to the knife with one hand and push Serenity towards the bathroom door with the other. Her eyes get even bigger, as if they want to eat up her face, but she steps away from me and into my bathroom, shaking her head.

  “The door is open!” Cigarette Daddy shouts. “Jeff!”

  I think that the Daddies are going to come down here and see My Daddy, all covered in red stuff. Then, I think that they are going to make the red stuff come out of my cunt, and then out of Serenity’s cunt, and then they are going to make us both go to sleep.

  While my other Daddies’ feet get louder on the stairs, I close the bathroom door on Serenity really, really quietly. Then I turn around and face the door to My Room.

  The first Daddy that comes through the door is Cigarette Daddy, the fat one who likes to put out cigarettes on my tongue. Cigarette Daddy sees me, and sees My Daddy all covered in red stuff, and says, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”

  I rush at him. He falls against the door with a CRAK. I grab his shoulder and stick the knife into his fat stomach.

  He says, “Uck.”

  I pull my knife out and then push it in again even quicker, just like I did with the little Daddy who had the yellow car. Red stuff pours out over my hand really, really fast. I pull the knife out and push it in again, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, but when I reach 4, Cigarette Daddy’s knees bend. They go KUNCH. His head flops forwards and he goes limp. I rip the knife out and the door bangs open again and he sort of slides down it, his eyes blinking and his torn belly pissing out red stuff over his leg-clothes and the floor.

  “Christ, stay back!” Red Daddy says from the stairs. I think about jumping out the door and trying to put the knife into the next Daddy, too, but I don’t.

  “Go go go!” Red Daddy says.

  I hear their footsteps going back up the stairs, and poke my head around the door.

  Red Daddy is walking backwards up the stairs, touching the bumpy walls on both sides. “You little whore,” he says when he sees me. His eyes are squished almost closed behind his thick black glasses, like little Girls’ cunts.

  “What’s she done?” Skinny Daddy asks. He is all shadowy because he is already in the really small room at the top of the stairs.

  Skinny Daddy likes to stop me breathing with his cock and his hands. He always smells like damp bedclothes. Once, he tried to put his whole foot into my mouth and made me puke, and afterwards, he said, “Good Girl.”

  Red Daddy says, “Little bitch has done Sparky. Now shut up and listen…”

  They disappear into the darkness of the little room at the top of the stairs.

  Cigarette Daddy sits leaning against the door to My Room. He coughs. A dark red bubble pops between his lips. He says “UCK” again, breathes out, and closes his eyes.

  I hold onto my knife really tightly, like a Daddy holding onto his big hard cock. I listen for the other two Daddies, but there’s nothing. Serenity hasn’t opened the bathroom door, which is Good. Maybe if I try really hard I can help Serenity get back to her big place, before my other Daddies make me go to sleep.

  I promised her.

  I go over to My Daddy and reach into his leg clothes. Some glass falls off, TINK TINK TINK. I feel around against his leg and my fingers touch something small and cold.

  I hear my other Daddies’ voices again. They’re coming. They want to fuck me and make me go to sleep for being a Bad Girl.

  I feel really shaky and different, but I don’t think I will mind if they call me a Bad Girl now.

  I don’t want to be a Good Girl, anymore.

  22. Serenity

  The best weapon that I can find in the bathroom is the toilet cistern lid, just as Declan had used on the girl before she had taken his life. I hold the lid with a hand on either of its sides and imagine swinging it into the back of the girl’s neck.

  I have always been very aware of my body states, so I know precisely what is happening as I descend deeper into shock. I feel nauseated and faint, and my heart feels like the fluttering wing of a panicked insect, but I won’t pass out; I’m too fucking alert and too fucking conscious of my son and daughter, sat alone in a cold bath just a minute’s walk away.

  In this tiny bathroom there is a shower cubicle and a toilet
, both of which are clean and mildew-free, despite the ceiling being a gnarl of bare copper pipes, just like the bedroom. The walls are papered with peeling images of animated Asian pornography: bug-eyed schoolgirls being violated by leering, drooling, white-haired men.

  Being careful to make as little sound as possible, I lean the cistern lid against the wall to the right of the door, and then take a look through the keyhole. I can only see a narrow slice of the room beyond, but can define the girl’s grey-dressed shoulder and one side of her face, just a few feet away. She appears to be crouching above Mr Crisp’s corpse, which lies out of my view. I think she’s rifling through its pockets. Having apparently found whatever she had wanted, she rises and vanishes again so that I can only see the body of the man that she had stabbed lying slumped against the crayon-marked far wall. His chin rests on his chest, as if he’s inspecting his belly’s drooling puncture wounds.

  There is a soft but sharp clatter of metal against something solid, followed by a brief jangle. The girl reappears and sits down cross-legged and straight-backed on the floor in the centre of the room, facing the doorway.

  I hear my shallow breaths and struggle to regulate them. If I stay here, I will be found. If I leave, though, I will be killed, either by the girl or by the men who were here moments ago and are presumably still upstairs, plotting their next move. I want to scream out to the girl through the keyhole, to order her to stand up and fight these men on my behalf.

  Someone else enters the bedroom. I can’t see them, but I hear, “What have you done, you wretched little cunt?”

  “Why … why doesn’t she go for us, too?” a second, higher voice asks.

  “Coz that’s not what good girls do, is it? Have you remembered your place now, girl?”

  “Fuck, Sparky.”

  “Leave him.”

  “But…”

  “Even if he isn’t dead, we aren’t going to the hospital.”

  The girl – who is still the only person I can see through the keyhole – remains still. She looks ridiculous in my baggy clothes, but somehow undefeated. I don’t think that she is even looking at them.

  “What did you do?” the deeper-voiced one asks.

  The weaker-sounding one spits, “We’re talking to you, cunt!”

  A boot thrusts into view and connects with the girl’s cheek. Her head snaps sideways, propelling her into the bedframe before she sprawls flat across the floor. I cover my mouth.

  “Bad girl!” her attacker yells, his voice shrill as his legs and waist step into view. A long finger stabs the air above the crumpled girl. “Very … bad … GIRL!”

  “It’s over, Darryl.”

  “Where’d you get those fuckin’ clothes?” her attacker demands. He crouches and I see a long, angular face.

  “Darryl, did you hear what I said?” the other one asks. “We have to clear up.”

  Darryl grunts, his shoulders sagging. “Really?”

  “There was always going to come a day. She’s getting older now, anyway. All that hair.”

  Skinny guy Darryl kneels beside her. He throws a sharp downwards jab and there’s a thud. “You hear that? No longer any use. Good girls are best before they bleed, aren’t they? And you’re way past that.”

  “You stay here and do what’s got to be done,” the man who I still haven’t seen tells Darryl. “I’ll take care of things upstairs and then head out for fuel. Then we’ll need to take them upstairs.”

  “Shit,” Darryl mutters. “We’ll have to dump the car.”

  I hear the other man laugh. He sounds like a hearty drinker in an ale house. “It’s like a sale, Darryl: everything must go! Everything must go.”

  Darryl sighs. “Cuffs.”

  A hand appears from the right, passing Darryl a pair of handcuffs. The sight of them makes me think of Stuart, but now is not the time for sorrow, or for nostalgia. Now is the time for last-minute prayers or urgent plans of action, but I haven’t the strength for either.

  I’m frozen, unconvinced that I’ll ever be able to move again. So, helpless, I watch.

  23. Girl

  If I’m going to go to sleep and not wake up, Serenity should see what my other Daddies do. So when Red Daddy leaves My Room and Skinny Daddy handcuffs my wrists in front of me and turns me over so that I am on my knees and hands, I let him do it, just like normal.

  “One more ride,” Skinny Daddy says.

  I hear him fiddle with his leg-clothes and then something hits my ass with a WHAP.

  “You’re going to be my Good Girl, one last time, aren’t you?”

  He pulls the leg-clothes down around my thighs.

  “Good Girls don’t wear clothes, remember?” he says from behind me.

  He hits me again: WHAP.

  “You like that, don’t you?”

  I say nothing. Nothing at all.

  “Did your daddy buy you those clothes? He was always too soft on you. Is that what made you flip out?”

  Something presses against my nice tight cunt, soft but getting harder.

  “Maybe you were never a Good Girl at all,” Skinny Daddy says. “Maybe you think you’re smart. Maybe you were thinking about getting that old sod for a long, long time.”

  The thing touching my cunt has grown. It pushes a bit, opening me.

  “Want to look at what you did while I fuck you? Want to suck that broken glass off your daddy’s face while I cum?”

  I feel his fingers wrap around my neck, pulling me backwards. It hurts my wrists, because of the cuffs pressing them together.

  Skinny Daddy always likes to choke me, but what Skinny Daddy doesn’t usually do is wrap his stiff waist-clothes around my throat, and squeeze.

  My eyes feel like they are going to break and I feel like I’m going to puke. I can’t breathe so I can’t puke either, even though I make a puking sound as he pulls.

  “Wanted to do this for a while now, girl,” Skinny Daddy says.

  I hardly hear him because he’s shoved his big hard cock into my nice tight cunt and I can’t breathe, I can only make little squishy noises as if I’m cocksucking, but I’m not, and I never will again.

  I hope Serenity is watching from the bathroom, through the keyhole. I hope she sees this.

  Skinny Daddy has one hand on my shoulder, and the other one must be pulling the waist-clothes that he’s wrapped around my neck. He drags me upwards and the room goes cloudy and dark.

  My cuffed hands are wobbling and I don’t feel shaky and different anymore. I just want to go to sleep and not wake up, but if I move my body backwards, maybe the thing around my neck will loosen a bit. Skinny Daddy’s cock is inside me, though, so there’s nowhere for me to go.

  I let my arms bend and fall forwards onto my elbows. The waist-clothes tighten, so I can’t even make cocksucking noises anymore. My Room is getting so dark that I can’t even see the clouds, I can only see little black patches, and I know I’m falling asleep.

  “Already?” Skinny Daddy says, from the darkness. “Fuck, come on. You can last longer than that.”

  The waist-clothes loosen a little so I suck in lots of air, and instead of falling asleep I stretch my arms out and reach my hands forwards, really far. It must look like I’m being a Good Girl and stretching out for him, but I’m not. I’m being a very, very Bad Girl, because even though the room has gone black and I can’t see anything, I’ve got a hold on the knife, which I’d hidden under the bed.

  “Oh, fuck yeah,” Skinny Daddy says, and the waist-clothes tighten around my neck again.

  Something in my throat goes TIKK, but he doesn’t pull me up. He doesn’t say anything about the knife, either, so maybe he has closed his eyes. I drop down onto my face and tits and reach my cuffed arms backwards under my belly, as if I’m going to rub his balls and help him cum. Instead of that though, I point the knife towards my shaved cunt and, with My Room all black and my chest feeling tighter than the tightest tight, I shove the blade upwards, really hard.

  There’s a soft KUNCH and a really bi
g pain, but that’s okay. I’m Good at taking pain. I push the knife up even higher, up through the skin to the inside of my nice smooth cunt.

  Skinny Daddy does a weird gurgle. He stops fucking me and moans. The waist-clothes go loose around my neck and suddenly something breaks my nice round ass, not like a spank, but like a fist.

  “What … the … fuck?” Skinny Daddy squeaks.

  Something keeps breaking my ass. I think he’s trying to really hurt me. I give the knife one more push, and it feels like it did when Red Daddy had made the red stuff come out of my cunt that time, but more painful. Better.

  “What did you do?” Skinny Daddy whispers.

  I can see a little bit again, so I ram my ass backwards, just like I had when Serenity’s Daddy Stuart had been trying to fuck me in the other big place. There’s a tearing sound. Skinny Daddy blows out a really big breath. He breaks my ass again, but then I feel him holding my waist to try and keep me still. This time, though, I pull away, hard. The pain in my cunt grows really REALLY REALLY big, and it’s bigger and better than cigarette burns, better than hitting My Daddy with the TV, and even better than when Serenity had kissed and hugged me and made me feel warm.

  Skinny Daddy lets go of me. He’s making high squeaky sounds. I use the bed covers to pull myself forwards, up onto my knees. When I turn around, I can feel his big cock getting soft inside my nice smooth cunt, even though he’s holding the place between his legs where it used to be and there’s red stuff splashing all over his hands and legs.

  The room is still cloudy. I want to sleep because the pain just keeps getting worse and better and worse and better, but I don’t sleep, not yet.

  Instead, I smile, because I’ve scratched my Skinny Daddy’s Bad away.

  24. Serenity