by Charity B.
I’m not sure if she’s old enough to really comprehend what I mean, yet from the expression on Sarah’s face, she understands completely.
“Uh…okay,” Sandy says as she looks out the window toward her house. It’s clear how badly she’s longing to go inside.
Nodding toward the cute, little, white trimmed house, I smile at her. “Go on, Sandy Kloss. Try to forget us if you can.”
She startles me, just as she did the first time when she leans forward, reaching between the seats to wrap her arms around my neck.
“I could never forget you. Thank you, Skeleton King.” Sarah holds her hand up in a wave, her smile making me curious as to why it’s so sad. Releasing me from her hold, Sandy grins big enough to show teeth. “Bye, Sarah”
“Bye, Sandy.” Sandy swings open the door, sprinting down the street. “Do you think she’ll say anything?” Sarah asks as I put the car in drive.
It may be stupid and risky trusting a child with our fate, yet something tells me she’ll keep our secret. “I guess we’ll see.” I want to reach over and hold her hand, but I don’t. Even though she doesn’t seem as angry anymore, it doesn’t mean she’s forgiven me.
“Are you okay?”
A slow breath slithers from her lips, and she’s quiet for so long, I assume she’s choosing to ignore me. Maybe she’s still pissed.
“I’m…” She exhales a deep breath. “I wonder if I came from somewhere like Hollyville. Maybe I had parents that were sad when Fink took me away.” Lacing her fingers, she looks over to me. “I wish I could remember what my real name was.”
To a degree, I understand why she wants to know her origins, I just can’t relate. I’ve spent my entire life trying to forget mine. Just thinking about not wanting to remember forces me to.
The twelve minutes must have passed by now. My entire body feels weak and numb. Just as I’m about to give up and fall to the ground, Mom opens the back door.
“Get inside and stand in the kitchen.”
Her disgusted expression has only worsened during our time apart. Not giving her a chance to take back her offer, I shuffle inside as quickly as I can without being able to feel my feet. The heated house is almost too much with the extreme change my skin is experiencing. I’ve been standing in the kitchen for only a few seconds when she comes in after me. I wish she would let me get dressed. It’s mortifying to be naked beneath her gaze.
She stands in front of me with her hands behind her back. My entire body is shaking uncontrollably, my teeth chattering loud in my ears.
“Clasp your hands at the small of your back, and keep them there.” Her voice is so harsh, void of any comfort, making me wonder if she’s always despised me. Has her hate been growing over the years? My palms sweat and my cheeks burn as I hold my hands behind my back, revealing my genitals. “Self-pollution is one of the lowest forms of perversion. You spoil your mind and soul every time you lust after yourself, and I refuse to allow such disgusting behavior in my home. You will not be a man like your father.” I flinch like I do every time she compares us. “Close your eyes, or don’t, but the second you move your hands, I start over.”
She reveals the stick she’s been hiding behind her back, making it hard to catch my breath with the short and rapid tempo my lungs are expanding at. My throat goes dry as my frosty skin beads with sweat. When she brings her arm back, I tense, squeezing my eyes shut.
“AAHHHH!” The scream rips from my throat. I never could have imagined this would be so excruciating.
“One!” my mother barks.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. eleven more to go. For as long as I can remember, whatever my punishment has been, it’s always coincided with my age. I don’t know if I can survive one more let alone eleven.
I can’t pry my eyes open or stop screaming after she switches my flaccid penis. It’s surely cut and bloody; it feels like she’s hacking it off.
It’s impossible to lose track of how many strikes I’ve had with her counting them out loud, and after the seventh one, I can’t physically stand up anymore. Falling to my knees, I sob as snot runs from my nose, dripping to the floor.
“Get up.” There isn’t even a hint of remorse or compassion in her voice over the torture she’s putting me through. No indication that she cares at all.
“Mom,” I gasp through my tears, “Please, I won’t ever do it again, just please stop.”
“GET UP, NOW!” Her fingers fist a chunk of my hair to pull me to my feet. “You made the conscious decision to sully yourself in this house knowing full well how nauseatingly sinful it is. Now, stand up straight, and pay your penance.”
Bleeding scratches are scattered along my burning shaft, and I close my eyes again. If I get through this, I swear, I will never touch myself again.
The next several seconds are agonizing. Each hit only further magnifying the pain. Cries of torment continuously pour from my lips until she finally announces, “Twelve!”
Relief and overwhelming agony swirl around each other, bringing me to my knees. Leaving me to cry in a fetal position on the kitchen floor, she walks away, her shoes clacking against the linoleum.
I’m so lost in the burning between my legs that I barely notice when she returns. “If I ever catch you fondling yourself again, I will take even harsher measures that will have you begging for the switch.”
I look up to see her light a match, bringing it to the magazine and setting it aflame. She watches it burn before dropping it into the sink and turning on the faucet.
After she washes and dries her hands, she snaps her fingers toward my room. “Get dressed, and get in bed.”
Even walking is excruciating. I want so badly to cup my injured genitalia, but there’s no way I’d let her see my hands anywhere near there. With gentle caution, I obey what she says, crawling in between the bed sheets once my pajama pants are on.
Right when I think this horrible night is finally over, my door opens, and she walks in with a long, flat board and some rope from the garage. “Sit up,” she orders. The second I sit upright, she lays the board flat on the bed. “Lie back down.” I’m completely confused about what she’s doing until she ties my arms to the board like I’m on a cross. “Twelve nights. After that, you will have to prove to me that I can trust you.” Once my arms are no longer of use, she binds my feet with the remaining rope.
Walking to my light to turn it off, she looks over her shoulder. “I’m not the only one you’re a disappointment to. You need to pray for Jesus to help you with these urges, and that He will cleanse your filthy mind.”
Slamming the door, she leaves me in the dark.
Not really knowing the best way to respond, I lamely say, “I’m sorry.”
Her eyebrow raises as she turns her body to face me. “For what, exactly? What Fink took from me, or what you did?” she snaps.
My mouth falls open as she clears her throat and settles back into her seat. “I…” I grip the wheel, growling in frustration under my breath. I don’t know how to do this, what to say. “I never wanted to hurt you, Sarah. That night was a lot for me, and I went into self-preservation mode.”
“What are you protecting yourself from?” she asks, turning her head to the side.
After everything, at the very least, I owe her honesty. “My life before Hallows Grove wasn’t a glamorous one. I was so different from everyone else where I lived. They all despised me—even my own parents. I think I’m ultimately terrified of being unwanted. I swear to you, our night together was easily the best one of my entire life, but fearing the day when you really see who I am was too much. Letting you go felt easier than being hurt.”
Contradictory tears fill her eyes despite the sweet smile on her face. “Will you pull over?”
As soon as I put the car in park, her lips are on mine. Regardless of her kiss catching me off guard, I melt into it. Touching her skin again sends bolts of energy through my every nerve ending.
She tells Nothing to get in the back seat as her fingers tug at my jeans,
undoing the button. Her kisses move down my neck while her hot hand slips into my underwear to grasp my extremely solid erection, setting my flesh on fire. “I won’t ever turn you away, and I won’t ever leave,” I groan at the increasing movement of her palm, “because I do see who you truly are, John. It’s you that can’t.”
Nobody has ever spoken to me this way, and it’s a little overwhelming. Grabbing her face, I kiss her hard. I can’t believe this is happening again. Of course I’m still hesitant and terrified, though, for the first time, the hope that her words are true overpowers my fear. She straddles me, her fingers wrapping around the hem of her dress to reveal that she isn’t wearing panties.
“I want to feel you again, and I don’t want to wait to get back to Hallows Grove.” Fuck. She really does hold the power to obliterate me. “I won’t ever change my mind about you. I promise.”
I’m too weak to ever be able to turn her away again, no matter how scared I am. Taking my hand, she wraps it around my cock, as if wanting me to guide myself.
The moment my sensitive tip meets her entrance, I push as hard as I can, her gasping at the intrusion somehow makes me even harder. This ecstasy is something that doesn’t exist aside from Sarah. Every thrust gets me deeper and makes her hold me closer. She grasps my shoulders while she rotates her hips in a way that has me digging my fingernails into her supple flesh.
Without shame or regret, we use each other’s bodi es to drown in euphoria. I want so badly to tell her I love her, but I can’t make the words separate from my tongue.
When she comes, fluid expels from her body in spurts, soaking me and my seat in the process. She gets shy and embarrassed about her orgasms, but I don’t know why. Clearly, she doesn’t know how fucking sexy she looks when she’s overcome by pleasure.
She comes down off the high of her orgasm, looking down at her mess in mortification. I grab her face, attempting to kiss away her insecurity. My own body tenses with building pressure, washing over me with tingling currents. “God, you feel so fucking amazing.” I moan, releasing inside of her hot body.
We stare at each other, panting. Her cheeks are pink as she smiles at me, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t feel right.
Her hands softly touch my cheeks. “Do you believe me now? I don’t want you to be scared anymore.”
I nod because I do. At least, I want to. It’s not fair to not trust her when she’s done nothing other than try to prove her devotion. The truth is that the problem lies within me and has for most of my life.
She climbs off of me to buckle her seatbelt which Nothing takes as an invitation to jump into her lap, his tail thumping against the dashboard in excitement.
Putting the car in drive, I check to make sure the road is clear of traffic before pulling off the shoulder. “Mayor Greer will be even more pissed if he finds out I left, so we should get back home.”
When I released her from Ogier, the thought of her staying with me hadn’t even crossed my mind. All I knew was that I needed her away from there. Now, though, I can’t think of anywhere else she’d stay, and imagining her warmth lying next to me every single night excites me in an unfamiliar way.
“What’s happening?”
Her question rips me from my fantasies. “What?”
Looking through my cassette tapes, she picks Pearl Jam’s Ten and opens it up to read the insert. “At your house, you said that you were waiting on Mayor Greer. Waiting on him for what?”
Her hand feels so perfect inside my own when I take it, squeezing it to remind myself this is really happening, she’s really here. “I broke a lot of the laws that Hallows Grove was founded on. I have no idea what he’ll decide to do to me. Not to mention, taking Sandy back before his go ahead went directly against his orders.”
She glances out the window, silent a few moments before asking, “If they send you away…can I come with you?”
The grin pulling at my cheeks is impossible to wipe from my face. Life outside of Hallows Grove might not be so scary if she were with me. “You would do that?”
She giggles softly as her cheeks turn rosy. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I just want to be wherever you are.”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I release my own bashful chuckle. “I want to be wherever you are too. I just hope my contribution to Hallows Grove is seen as an important enough resource that I’ll be allowed to stay.”
I pull up to the south gates and enter my passcode as her body stiffens, still as stone. My stomach flops around in my gut when she pulls her hand away to cross her arms. It’s natural to think she realized something about me that she’s disgusted by, but if I’m trying to learn how to be with her, I have to ask. “What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t move for some time, her mouth pressed in a hard line. It isn’t until we’re in my driveway that she finally answers. “I just told you I wanted to be with you, that I’ll never leave no matter what, yet you still plan on being with them, don’t you? The dead girls.”
It’s obvious that she’s really upset, so I feel guilty when I can’t control my smile. She’s jealous. Not only does she want me, she wants me all to herself. I hold back my laugh. Now that I’ve had her, the real her, I doubt a corpse would do anything for me.
I grasp the back of her neck to make her look at me. “You’ve ruined the dead for me, Sarah. I’ll never desire them as long as you’re in my bed. However, for now anyway, I still run a business that requires cadavers. I’m still Skeleton King.” The softening of her features initiates the hardening of my cock. I nod toward the house. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Her voice sounds exasperated when she says, “Wait.” When I look at her, she nods toward the backyard. “I need your help with something.”
She takes my hand, Nothing following us as she leads me to the back porch. Kneeling down, she points. “The girl in these bags was my…” her eyes shift up for a moment before finishing, “she was my friend. I don’t want you to sell her pieces off. I want to bury her. She deserves more than becoming someone’s nightstand.”
My eyes travel beneath the steps to see the bags the Sanity Eaters brought me. I have questions, that much is for sure, but the look in her eyes tells me I’ll need to ask them at a later date. Her friend will never know about any of this, so I don’t personally understand why this means so much to Sarah, but I don’t need to comprehend it. All that matters is that it’s important to her.
“Of course. Do you know where? You want to bury her, I mean?”
She softly takes in a breath. “Could we do it in town? At the cemetery?”
There are still a few plots left since almost everyone in town who has died in the last thirty years has been cremated. “Let me talk to Mayor Greer. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. Until then, it’s cold enough out here that she’ll be fine for a few days.”
Once again, she gives me one of her heartbroken smiles. “Thank you. I think she would’ve liked that.”
Sarah and Nothing follow me inside, and as soon as we reach the parlor, his ears perk up right before my doorbell rings. Sarah freezes, instinctively reaching for Nothing.
“Stay here, and be quiet,” I whisper, holding a finger to my lips.
There are only a few people this could be, and I pray it’s not the Vendire brothers coming to lock me up. Opening the door allows me a small amount of relief, though, for how long remains to be seen. Mayor Greer stands on my doorstep, looking a little worse for wear.
He barely lets me verbalize my greeting before his words flood out of him. “Fink’s been able to stabilize Ogier, but he’s still in a coma,” he takes a deep breath before snapping, “and since he has a fucking gunshot wound, taking him to a hospital is out of the question.”
I feel like I’m always either being praised or chastised by Mayor Greer and there’s never an in between. “Would you like to come in?”
He shuffles inside while I close the door. When I turn back to him, I see Sarah’s head pee
king around the corner. So much for staying put. He barely skips a beat. “I think I have Fink calmed down for the time being, but he’s more pissed at you than I am.” Glancing to Sarah, he nods to her. “Hello there, sweetheart.”
With her cover blown, she shows herself, meeting us in the entryway. “Hello, Mayor.”
He turns back to me, pushing his disheveled hair from his face. “Where’s the Mundane girl?” Sarah and I glance at each other as an awkward laugh tumbles from my mouth. His lips press together as his bushy brows push toward his nose. “What?”
My cheeks puff with me holding my breath before I blow the air out and rip off the Band-Aid. “I took her back…to her family.”
Blinking a few times, he balls up his fists, his body visibly tensing as his face takes on a bright shade of red seconds before erupting. “YOU FUCKING WHAT?!” He’s trembling in fury, and I don’t know if speaking would help or hurt my cause at this point. “She was the only thing that was going to keep Fink’s mouth shut! And what happens when she leads the Mundane police right to us?! I have no power to stop them if they have a warrant, you fool!”
“She promised me she wouldn’t.” It sounds like a pretty flimsy safety net now that I’m saying it out loud.
He scoffs, growling as he paces the floor. “You better be right because if she does end up running her mouth, we’re all completely fucked. Fink wants a trial, and honestly, John, he has every right to one.” Shaking his head, he throws his hands up in exasperation. “Without the child, he won’t budge. You’ve brought this on yourself.” He turns to leave before adding over his shoulder. “You’re on house arrest until further notice. I’ll be in touch.”
I exhale a large breath, falling back to lean against the wall as he slams the door behind him. Sarah steps in front of me. “What happens at a trial?”
They are rare. I’ve only ever seen a few, and they never ended well for the accused. “I’ll present my case to the town, and Fink will explain his side. Then the town votes.”
