by Ella James
HANSEL 4
An Erotic Fairy Tale
ELLA JAMES
For Sharon.
Lady parts of steel – always.
CHAPTER ONE
Lucas
Fourteen Years Ago
I will not beg.
Every time I hear her footsteps, I tell myself: I will not beg.
Not when she opens the flap at the bottom of my door and reaches in to get my empty plate. Not when she reaches in again to lower a new plate onto the rug.
I will not beg because it will not work. Mother loves to hurt me. Begging would only confirm for her that leaving me in this room does just that. If I beg, she will never let me out.
It’s been sixty-seven days since she spoke to me. It’s been thirteen days since I stopped eating the food she brings.
There’s a sink in one corner of my room. It’s plastic, shaped like a trough, and has four legs and a wide drain. I wash the food down the sink, and when it’s too thick, I flush it down the toilet.
In between the times when I hear footsteps, I use the items in my desk. Pencils. Crayons. Chalk. I draw on the loose-leaf paper she left for me. I draw on my wall. I don’t have the energy for much else. That’s good. It’s really good.
Just sleeping.
I write things like: green. Long ago, it was my favorite color. I write things like: pussy. In my dreams, my tongue is always buried in a warm, slick pussy. I don’t know whose.
I do know whose.
I sketch pussy, and I trace three names.
It’s evil. I know that. That’s the other reason that I will not beg. Only fourteen-ish more days, and there will be no more evil.
No more dreams.
I can feel my wrist glowing as I drift in and out of sleep. The door stays closed. I go more and more away. In my cloud of silence, the only name I can remember is Leah.
*
My solitude is punctuated with three sharp raps. And then her voice: “Hansel. It’s Mother. I’m coming in.”
I don’t have time to care. The door swings open. The stale air around me riots, dancing over my skin.
By the time her eyes collide with mine, I’ve managed to push up on one of my elbows.
I tried to steel myself, but…no.
I’m not prepared for her. I never am.
The leather pants. Black leather boots. The curve of her thighs intrigues me. I know what’s between them. I can taste it, as I lie here, reeling.
The light clicks on.
I squint.
Her arms fold underneath her breasts. Her shirt is red: a sweater. Hair is…longer. Pretty face. It’s so ironic. What a pretty face my Mother has.
The eyes on it pop wide. Her mouth twists. “Hansel? What the fuck?”
Her boots click on the floor. She’s standing over me. My heart pounds, making the room spin.
She leans down and slaps my face.
Another slap.
Another slap.
“Geez…us.”
Dizziness.
Her hands are rough, holding my face. Her smell is in my nose.
“I’d like to know what the fuck is wrong with you, you stupid boy. I can see your ribs!” Her nails pinch my cool, bare skin. “Do you think this is your body? Do you think you owe me nothing?”
Slap.
The ceiling tumbles.
“I saved you! I saved your life, and this is how you treat me? By…maiming yourself? What a stupid boy!” Her fingernails push between my lips, and I can taste the bitter chalk of the blue pill that’s shoved into my mouth. “Swallow it!” She slaps the side of my head, and I choke on the pill. “Open your eyes and look at me!”
I can’t.
Her hand on my hip.
Jesus. I’m already getting hard.
I hear her laugh. Her hand around my dick, and… “Oh. Oh God.”
“Good!” She strokes me up and down, and I start panting. “God. Oh God.” I wonder dully what I’ll do if she loses her temper. My heart skitters like a rock over water. Head rush. Fuck—her hand works my dick, jerking up and down.
“There we go. You’re still my horny boy. Don’t pretend that you don’t want this!” Her hand swivels as she repositions herself, and I hear her pull her pants down. Then I feel her moving over me, lowering her warmth onto my face. Wetness on my mouth. She lays down atop me, her breasts pressing into the hollow of my belly.
“You better use your tongue! I want to come.”
My heart is beating so damn hard. I start to lap at her. Her mouth is a velvet glove around my cock. She sucks and strokes. I groan and groan. Despite my lack of strength, I push my feet against the mattress, push myself into her mouth. I’m close. So close. My heart races. I’m waiting. Wait for it…
And then she pops my head out of her mouth and squeezes it in her hand. She sucks my balls into her mouth and—
“FUCK!”
Her teeth.
She sucks harder on my balls, using her damn teeth. Sending spikes of pain through my belly.
I start getting softer. And then, like always, hard again. So much harder as she sucks my balls and makes me ache down to my toes. I come in her mouth, and she sucks it down, then chuckles. Then she moves off me and slaps my cheek.
I think as I sag down onto the mattress that this time, she didn’t come on my face. I don’t remember. Did she?
“You’re pathetic! Sick! Disgusting! I had a surprise for you but fuck it now, Hansel!” She grabs my left wrist. Jerks. I try to sit up, but I’m too dizzy. Fucking Viagra.
“I’ll leave your door open. You can wait in the foyer. I’ll be back tonight sometime with a surprise you don’t deserve!”
My eyes are rolling back into my head as she stomps out the door. I wait for it to slam, but…nothing.
*
I’m not sure how long I’m out, but when I wake up, the first place my eyes go is the door.
It’s open.
Holy fucking hell.
For a little while, it’s enough to just lie there and imagine. But soon, the curiosity turns to fear. Why did she do this? What’s in the foyer? Can I even walk that far?
I push myself up on my elbows, and the room tilts. Not as much as before.
I look down at myself and feel the cloak of shame fall over me.
I did this to myself: not just the sharp hipbones framing my dick—but all of this. It’s my fault that I’m here. I could blame Mother. I could choose to hate her. But why? It’s true, what she says: I could have ended up somewhere worse than here, where the worst things that happen to me are that Mother feels me up and I decide to wash my food down the drain.
I don’t like this room, so I could hate her for that, but it doesn’t look like that’s necessary.
I pull the brown sheet over myself and turn my body slowly so my legs are dangling off the side of the mattress. The door is right in front of me. I can see the shadows from the torches in the hallway. I can smell the smoke.
Mother left the door open.
She let me out.
I wonder if something happened to Boy Blue.
I never liked that little prick, but…fuck. Mother can be a bitch. More than even he deserves. I wouldn’t put it past her to do something terrible to him.
I wonder, as I get onto my knees on the floor, what I did to prompt Mother to take Boy Blue as her roommate anyway. She never told me. I just woke up one morning, and there he was.
I crawl over to my desk. Every time I move, I imagine I can hear my bones creaking. That’s how tired and broken down they feel.
I’m crawling because I know I can’t just get up. The other day, I had a nightmare— The other day, I tried to get up and I couldn’t do it.
I don’t know how long ago that was. A few days, I think? But I’ll
admit it: things have gotten worse since then.
A few more seconds of my kneecaps trembling against the rug, and I can reach the desk. I walk my hands up one of its legs, then grasp the drawer in the middle. I balance on my heels, like a fucking frog with a hard-on, and try to pull with my biceps while I push with my thighs. I grunt a little as I stand. I mutter a curse as my dick hits the desk. I fucking hate Viagra.
I’ve got clothes somewhere in here—the brown shirt and pants she gave me when she put me in this room—but I glance around and I can’t see them. Things are still spinning. My eyes feel heavy.
I have to make it to the foyer, have to see what’s going on, so I start toward the door.
The first few steps are haunted by my memories.
I’m sitting on the side of the bed with my legs dangling off. They say I have to sit like this to get my strength back, but I never do. Not unless the nurses bully me into it. It’s been two days since I woke up. Two days that feel like two hundred—in my mind. My body, on the other hand, feels as if no times has passed since I got here. I feel nauseated and dizzy. Every time I flex my legs or shift my shoulders, my heart beats too hard.
“So what do you think?” asks the woman in the chair beside my bed.
I look down at my bare calves. They look strange, the skin so dark against the white gown. I wrap my right hand around the bed’s rail, squeezing weakly. The other one is in a sling. I like the sling. I think of it like an offering. A bloody sacrifice rejected by the god of her. They can sew it up and wrap it up in bandages, but it will always bleed. I wish she would have taken it.
“Do you want to live at my house?” the woman asks.
I swallow. Damn her fucking voice. It makes my eyes ache and sting. Makes my mouth hot. She looks at me, and my throat tightens. I wish she would just leave.
Instead, she leans forward. “I’ve got three great daughters, Luke. They would be your sisters. Foster sisters.”
I want to make a crack about that. I’ve seen pictures of her ‘great daughters’. They look like great fucks to me. I wonder if saying that would make her leave.
“I don’t need sisters,” I whisper, avoiding her face with my gaze.
“Lucas, you’ve got no one. Is there anyone who cares for you?”
The fullness in my chest and throat begins to choke me as I think of her. Pain stabs through me, swift and searing, and I have no choice. I have to move. To get away.
My feet hit the floor, and my knees buckle.
I see her face in the swirl of the ceiling.
“I’m not sending you to strangers. Shelly would never forgive me. I have a plan for you. You’re coming with me.”
The empty hallway swims in shadows. The torches are always a surprise when I come up on one of them. They’re bright, and I can feel their warmth on my bare shoulders. In between the torches, it’s a little darker, but not too hard to see. I pass a few windows, cloaked in curtains, and there’s light around the edges.
In between two of the doors—I think it’s Rapunzel and Snow White—I stop and try to stroke myself off. I’m tired of this boner. It gets in the way, and makes me think of pussy when I need to focus.
Why’d she let me out, I wonder again as I jack myself off.
Anxiety swells in me, and it turns straight to fear.
I can’t get off. I’m too dizzy. I turn around, facing the direction of the foyer—the direction of the foyer, I think—and I have to put my hand on the wall for balance. I’m so stupid. Mother is right. If she tries some funny shit, I can’t even run.
I move slowly down the hall, looking at everything. The doors, so tall and thick, with little metal keypads beside each knob. The texture of the curtains: fuzzy, almost like velvet, and the color of grape juice. I find a dry leaf on the floor and take the time to bend and pick it up.
I love this. Walking.
After a while, I come upon this statue of a naked man. I laugh when I see it and look from his dick to mine.
I laugh again, and slap him on the arm.
It’s getting easier to move now. I can see the mouth of the hall. Beyond it, a space that looks bigger and brighter. That must be the foyer. I know I’ve seen it before, but I don’t remember very well. Mother used to like to keep me drunk, back when I shared her room.
I walk twenty-one more steps, and I’m there—stepping out of the hallway and into the vast space of the foyer. It’s not like any foyer that I’ve ever seen. That’s for fuck sure. It’s at least two stories tall, with a bunch of paintings and shit hung around, and some weird iron balconies just stuck to the wall, going to nowhere. There’s a fancy lamp thing hanging high over what I think must be the front doors of the house.
I look to the left and right, drinking in the windows, framed by huge curtains; a couple of comfortable looking couches and chairs. I breathe deeply. The air out here smells good and fresh, like cinnamon. I amble across a rug and sink down into one of the couches. It’s soft, sort of like suede, with a bunch of big pillows.
I take my dick in my hand, prop one of the pillows between my legs, and start to work on my boner. A few minutes later, I come into my hand. My eyes are closed before I have a chance to wonder what the big surprise was.
*
When I come to, I’m freezing. I wedge my back and ass into the soft cushions, then freeze because I don’t know where the fuck I am. Nothing looks familiar. Because this is the foyer. Right. I start to shiver as I look around.
It’s dark and shadowy, reminding me of another vast, shadowy room. I nearly puke from even thinking of that night, and have to sit up and put my head between my knees.
I wrap my arms around my legs and just sit there, waiting for something. Thinking. I’m still hard, because at seventeen, I don’t need Viagra. After a minute, I lie down and try to pound another one out. Some of the curtains are still open, so I can see the darkness getting darker as I whack off.
When I’m finished, I wipe my sticky palm on one of the couch pillows and look around for a blanket. I don’t find one, but I do see some lights somewhere outside: twin beacons, like headlights.
My heart thunders. If there are lights outside, that means someone is coming. That…or Mother is gone. She left me here alone. I feel weird about that—surprisingly so. Almost like the way it was when she first left me in my room. As much as I hate that twisted bitch, I hate being alone much more.
Abandoned, I think bitterly. Even just the word rubs something raw inside me.
I get up and walk over to the doors, and listen as her tires crunch over the gravel. Is it cold out there? I go over to a window to the left of the door, because I want to know. It’s not summer. I know that much, because of the leaf I found in the hall.
By the look of a few aspens I can see, and the cool of the glass against my palm, I think it must be fall. I watch, holding my breath, as the lights in the car come on. I feel a rush of relief and disappointment when Mother emerges.
It’s fucking weird to see her outside. She seems pissed off as she opens the back door of her SUV. She leans over, and I see her wrestling with…a rug?
I squint and try to focus my eyes.
That’s when I see it: an arm.
My throat constricts.
So she’s got another “child”. I’ve never seen her bring one into the house before. She used to lock me in the bathroom while she went down into the city. After Boy Blue showed up, she started making me spend nights in there, too, and then a little while longer and I had my own room. Whoopee.
I’m holding my breath as Mother works to get her bound-up body out of the car. My heart is already beating fast, because I have ideas about this. Fears. Hopes. But mostly fears.
And then I see a swatch of pale blonde hair.
I grasp the window sill to keep from sinking down to the floor. I can barely see out the window from my partial crouch, but I can see enough. Mother jerks her slender body around, and I can’t look anymore. I crouch down to the floor and press my head against the wall.
“Oh fuck.” I’m going to puke. “Fuck.”
A strange sound like a sob comes out of my mouth, and a hot, stick feeling twists through me.
It’s my fault.
“Fuck.” I clamp my hand over my mouth. My shoulders start to tremble. Then my arms. I can feel the vibration in my stomach. I hunch over and dry heave on the rug.
“Oh fuck,” I moan. “No.”
I look at my left wrist, at the thick, pink scar there. I imagine blood pouring out, over my hand.
“Her blood is on your hands,” the pastor says.
No one is in the room except the two of us, and all those flashing, beeping monitors.
“You ought to rot in hell, young man.”
I get up and rush to the door, as if I can do something. I tug at my dark hair, which is long and shaggy now. I press my hand against my face and step into the shadows.
“Oh God. Fuck.” I try to breathe. I grit my teeth.
The door opens. I start to pace around beside it.
And then they’re here. Mother is maneuvering her through the doorway, and I can hear her breaths. They’re very loud. She’s flipping out. Struggling—like an animal.
I see her hair. I think I smell her.
Thick heat spreads through me. They move past me—Mother is tugging her along—and I step silently into their wake.
I see Mother lift her up and carry her, and need burns life into my bones.
This girl is mine.
That’s what Mother said. She can live in my room, so I won’t be alone.
She shouldn’t be here, another voice inside my head puts forth.
I didn’t know Mother would really do it. I didn’t think she could, but now she did, and now she’s here. She’s Shelly’s niece. Laura, Lana, or Leah.
This girl would have been my sister. Had her parents not changed the plans at the last minute, found me a “new home,” this triplet would have been my foster sister.
She and Mother disappear into the darkness of the hallway. I take long strides, moving with a sense of purpose for the first time in I don’t even know how long.
I hear a shout, and then a curse, and a bump. By the time I catch up to them, the girl carried lamb-style in Mother’s arms is limp, her long hair hanging down, her neck lolling.
