by Ian Hall
Sophia Rand had made a tidy time capsule of her bedroom; photographs of her dead husband were everywhere, photos of the two of them together, one with him in a uniform. I could see where Alan got his looks from; this guy had been a bit of a hunk.
Sophia crossed to the bed, and pulled back the pink and blue comforter. She carefully picked up a pillow, and held it in front of her.
“Little shit.” She said under her breath. “Your turn now.”
I had to slip out of her way as she quickly made for Alan’s room, still clutching the pillow to her bare breasts.
As I followed her to his bed, I exhaled in shock. She pounced on his bed, holding the pillow down onto his, she cursed, issuing a constant litany. “Your turn now. Your turn now.”
The scales fell from my eyes and I suddenly saw it all. The dark secret from Sophia’s past, the reason for her resentment.
I tensed, even my heart did not beat, as I recalled that morning. Mother coming toward me, pillow held as a weapon. I struggled at first, fists pounding on the mattress below me, legs kicking. Realizing I could not fend her off, even through my terror, I forced my body limp. I held my breath for a very long time, until she removed the pillow and- without pausing to shed a tear for me- left my room.
There I waited until the police came, running out of my sanctuary and into sight of my now-hysterical mother. The display of emotion abruptly ceased as she took in the sight of me. The authorities had seen me as well. Alive. For what they could tell, unharmed. Mother’s opportunity to blame my demise on Father had been missed, his body stretched out and covered on a gurney wheeling toward the ambulance.
I felt safe. For the moment.
Valérie considered me the way one would a caged hamster, “With breeding like yours, it’s no wonder why Amos thinks you’d be a great addition to our ranks.” She sighed, bored by my trivial tragedy. “Anyway. Mama Dragon’s not going to be a problem for you anymore, Alan. She’s been… neutralized.”
I gasped back to life, much the same as the day Mother suffocated me. My ears filled with pressure as the blood raced to my head.
“Don’t worry- she’s not dead. She’s just been given a new perspective on parenting.”
At last my still tongue loosened, “What did you do to her?”
“All I did was listen,” Valérie said with an absent shrug, followed by an unctuous grin, “I thought about doing you a favor and end her despicable existence but Amos thought that was a job best left for you to do.”
“Amos who?”`
“Amos Blanche, Alan. Your new daddy.”
Though the name held no meaning for me, its sound sent a shiver down my spine. Some odd intuition told me I’d better not forget the name.
“He’s still with her- Amos is. Thought she was deserving of a bit of… corporal punishment.”
I felt my jaw fall slack. Valérie responded to my parochial reaction with a nudge of her elbow into my side.
“C’mon, Alan, a sadistic shrew like your mom is probably enjoying every twisted, painful second of it. And she’ll be alright; may walk funny for a few days but other than that…”
Images of my mother, violated in such a fashion, flooded my mind. I wanted to race to her aid, defend her honor and mine, but found myself firmly planted on the sandy bed beneath the bleachers.
“Sophia!” I clipped, watching her with the pillow. “Stop that, right now. Come through to the living room.”
It took her many seconds to cease pressing the pillow onto poor Alan’s bed.
I followed her back to Amos, who had thankfully straightened himself up. “There’s more, Amos. She’s hiding something.”
Amos walked up to her, and literally breathed up her nostrils. “Tell us the truth, Sophia. Not what you think you remember, tell us the total truth.”
She turned to him, but her eyes were not focusing.
“Sophia.” Amos said quietly. I’d never seen him so intense. “Strip away the lie that you’ve believed for years. Tear down the story that you’ve told your friends, your family.” His voice whispered the words, he almost breathed the past part. “Forget what you told the authorities. What actually happened that night?”
I expected emotion, but her face remained calm. “He came back from that woman. I could smell her on him, even through the whiskey on his breath.” She glanced at the door to the garage. “He said he was going to leave me.” A sneer fleetingly passed over her face. “But he was never leaving my house again. I was going to see to that. I had to keep him here. He sat on that chair, and told me he loved her. Told me!” she almost screamed the last, pointing at the chair in which Amos had used her.
“I had to keep him here.” She walked to the chair. “He liked whiskey, so I fed him more; I poured it down his throat. I didn’t even undress him; I wanted him fully clothed. I opened his flies and sucked his… thing… that night, just to keep him hard. Just to keep him interested. I tasted her there too.” Sophia casually strolled to the door to the garage. “Then I sat on him and fucked him as he drank the whiskey I poured into his glass. He might have loved her, but that night he fucked me.” Her face turned suddenly peaceful. “It’s amazing how knocked out a man will get after sex and alcohol. It was no problem to drag the bastard to the garage.”
She stopped, then slowly her hand came up to her mouth. As if she’d faced the truth for the first time in years.
“I laid him on the cement and started up both cars.”
Her hand fell to her side, as she looked at the opening to the bedrooms.
“He was there.”
“He was where, Sophia? Who was there?” Amos said, his face animated, caught up in the story like me.
“Alan was in the doorway. He’d seen it all.”
I stood, breathless, letting the import of her revelation settle on me.
“Sit down, Sophia. Say nothing, do nothing.” Amos commanded quietly.
We looked at each other.
“What a story.” I said, at last having seen the complete family dynamic. “No wonder Alan’s fucked up. If he saw everything, the sex, the whiskey, the car.”
“And then she tried to cover it up by murdering her only son,” Amos said with an obvious appreciation for the demented woman.
I shook my head. “It’s a wonder he made it through at all.”
“He’s perfect.” Amos said. He stood up, and crossed to Sophia. His hand caressed one breast, then the other. “She’s perfect.”
Then he turned to me.
“Valérie, get to Alan, get him a bit heated up. Give me a couple of hours, then bring him here.”
“Yes, sir,” I sped out of there like a bullet. I didn’t want to know what Amos intended for that poor woman, but looking into my darkest soul, I had a good idea. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Valérie’s hand found my thigh, groping in a harsh yet slow massage. At least I had the self-possession enough to flick her away.
Her responding laugh sounded bitter and degrading, “My god, little boy, do you even know what thing between your legs is for?”
Valérie leaned over me, pausing only to saturate my senses with her inebriating breath, “I’ve been sent to show you. Like it or not, your first lesson starts now.”
She worked her fingers over me, stimulating the appropriate reaction, and tugged the zipper down.
“Wow. Not such a little boy after all. I might just be able to have some fun with you after all, Alan Rand.”
She descended upon me. For a moment I sat paralyzed once again. Valérie’s ministrations produced sensations in me that shut down my mind; I felt all body, driven by the desire of my flesh. Yet, as my senses returned, disgust in her and the violation of me overwhelmed any other sentiment.
Just as Mother dealt pain to cower me, this profane creature used pleasure to dim my wits, control me. As Valérie turned her head to expectorate, I grabbed hard to the back of her hair, crushing my beer bottle against the bleachers. With one jagged edge, I gouged into her
jugular, letting her blood ark in a terrific spout, then and dropped her head to let the rest drain into the sand.
Well of all the dirty lowdown tricks I’d ever witnessed, I’d never had one like this; neck stabbed while giving head. I looked at my watch. Thankfully only an hour had passed, but more to my constant gratitude, my body hadn’t been discovered. That would have put the cat amongst the pigeons.
I looked around; no sign of Alan.
I set off for the sports building; I had to find a mirror, find out what damage he’d done.
The changing rooms were quiet, and to my surprise, he’d only cut my neck once. A deep scar and still pretty red, but I knew it would heal very quickly.
I whizzed to Alan’s house, and found Amos waiting in the car outside.
“You’re early,” he said it like an accusation.
I flashed my new injury, “He got away from me.” I quickly told Amos of the beers behind the bleachers.
That earned a delighted smile from my boss, “Very, very good. You’ve earned your pay for the day after all, Valérie. Our Alan may be immune to your charms but you’ve managed to un-cage the beast within.”
Dirty, haughty bastard. I wondered if that’s what this had been about all along. Just to stir Alan’s survival instinct, Amos had seen fit to put my neck on the line, literally.
“He’s coming now,” Amos said, glancing in his rearview mirror.
I crouched behind the driver’s side but I needn’t have bothered; Alan looked distracted beyond belief. Blood showed clearly on his shirt, and on his arms and sleeve. As he threw his bike onto the lawn, I’m not even sure he had his zipper pulled up.
If it hadn’t been my own murder I might have felt some semblance of sorrow for the boy. But I’d had his come in my mouth when he’d tried to cut my head off with a jagged bottle. I still felt a little pissed.
I got up to make my way to the house. Amos waved me down.
“Give them a few minutes,” his smile looked horrific, “there’s about to be a family reunion of sorts and we shouldn’t deny Alan his last moments with his dear mother.”
I walked through the door to find Mother sprawled out over the living room floor. Her dress had been discarded; only a clinging slip shrouded her from the waist down, damp and torn at the seam the entire length of her thigh. The stench of her defilement hung over her like a cloud. Her favorite strand of pearls snapped from around her neck, the little beads littered all around her head.
“Mother!”
I shook at her until she stirred, eyes fluttering open as if coming to from some drunken stupor. She rose to a sit, taking no care to cover her exposed breasts or even seeming to take notice.
“Alan?” she breathed my name like she barely recalled it.
“Yes, Mother.”
A smile, one broad and affectionate, played across her face, “How was school?”
Mother rolled to her knees, dragging herself up to stand by aid of the sofa. There she stood for a long moment, clutching the couch for support, until her vertigo passed. Turning toward me, her eyes roved over my blood-stained garments.
She giggled, “You’ve messed your shirt.”
I pulled my eyes off her breasts and peered down the length of my body. Red blotches had soaked through the fabric and dried it to my chest. I’d urinated myself and there remained a tell-tale trail of wet running down my inner thigh. By her passive acceptance, I might as well have been covered in grass or mud.
“Did you win?” she pressed, still smiling.
The word sounded foreign, “Win?”
“Whatever sport you were playing to have gotten you in such a state.”
Sport? A shadow of a memory flashed through my mind, it seemed more like the remnants of a dream; somewhere back in my childhood there had been a time when I’d been allowed out to play like the other boys. As I recalled, I’d had an aptitude for street hockey.
“Yes, Mother,” I lifted my chin proudly, thinking of my opponent lying dead under the bleachers, “I scored the winning point.”
“Good for you, Ally! Keep it up- someday you’ll be great!”
“Yes, Mother, someday I will be.”
I stood in awed fascination, reunited with the mother I had known before Father’s betrayal snatched her away from me. Indeed, she seemed to see me as the youngster she used to dote over. Even her words of empty encouragement denoted the resurrection of a woman long-dead.
Mother stumbled toward me, “Come on, now- off with those dirty clothes. We’ll get you put to rights before your father comes home and sees your mischief.”
She winked at me, a willing accessory to my deception.
“Yes.” I agreed stupidly, “Father would be displeased if he found me in this condition.”
It seemed a strange play we were performing, and yet here I stood, stripping my clothes when she stood in front of me, almost naked. Mother tapped her foot playfully and waited as I stripped down to my underwear, holding out her arm like a butler while I hung my ruined shirt and trousers over it. I wondered at how long she would scrub at the bloodstains.
“Good. Now get into the tub and be quick.”
I turned to walk down the hall, when the doorbell announced a visitor. I froze in my steps, wondering if anybody might have seen me pedaling home, covered in blood. Wondering if Valérie’s body had already been found.
Still half-naked, Mother scampered to the door excitedly. I remembered a time when she would delight in company. It seemed that old enthusiasm had returned.
A diminutive man, gray of hair, stood in the doorframe. Even from where I stood, his presence bespoke a power his small frame could not account for. Without invitation, he side-stepped my mother, his crinkled face displaying great pleasure in the awkward circumstances he’d found us in: each of us nearly naked, reeking of dried-on fluids.
“Have I interrupted a family bonding moment?”
Mother seemed oblivious to the man’s incendiary jest. I, however, took the full brunt of the insinuation. I felt the heat of embarrassment flush my face.
“Forgive my crudeness,” he said, coming further into the house, “I don’t believe you know who I am. Of course, your mother and I have already met.”
A flash of confusion lighted Mother’s eyes. Only then did I fully realize that for her, the last nine years had never happened. Even the abuse she’d suffered earlier in the day had been wiped from her mind. I had no doubt left to me as to his identity.
I spoke his name as if his coming had been prophesized, “Amos Blanche.”
Another form pushed past my loitering mother, “But, you can call him ‘daddy’.”
Valérie stood at the man’s shoulder. The hole in her neck had healed, leaving only a star-shaped scar; even that appeared to be fading before my eyes.
“Yes, baby, it’s me.” She leered.
The old man checked her with a wave of his arm. Valérie seemed to fade as quickly and completely as that scar. He wasted no time getting to the reason for his visit.
“Do you know what your strength is, young man,” Amos asked, motioning for me to come forward. Despite my embarrassment at my state of dress, I couldn’t help myself from complying. “It’s your hatred- hatred of all that lives and breathes. It was that hatred that kept you alive the morning your mother came to kill you; the same hatred that stabs at the throat of a helpless girl that just wants to suck on your dick.”
Amos motioned for my mother. Like me, she answered to his bidding without pause.
“Problem is, boy, your hatred has no place in the human world. It sets you apart, makes you an outcast. In their world, your hatred is your downfall. In my world, it will elevate you to heights you could never dream of.”
He turned toward Mother, “Fetch your best knife from the kitchen, Sophia.”
Without hesitation, she dropped the bundle of clothes to the ground and trotted away, her breasts bobbling as she went. I watched her go, knowing I could not prevent whatever was going to happen.<
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“She’s really very affable now,” Amos said delightedly, “I’m sure we’ll find her quite docile throughout these proceedings.”
A moment later, Mother returned with a carving knife. A blade I knew well, as it had been shoved under my chin on more than one occasion; most recently for tracking dirt over the freshly-steamed carpet.
Mother stood expressionless, silent and still as a mannequin, posed in a straight posture with the tip of the knife pointed downward.
“Sophia,” Amos said dispassionately, “Give the knife to Alan, please.”
With a bemused expression, she handed it over.
“Alan, would you like to plunge the knife into her abdomen?”
I shook my head.
“Not after all those beatings?” Amos approached me. “Not after she’s slapped you, beat you, whipped you?”
It seemed that every one of the scars on my body began to hurt simultaneously. I began to boil, and Amos knew it. He pressed all the right buttons, and I allowed him.
“Go on. If you want to, you can get your revenge now.”
I gripped the handle tightly, and placed the tip just above the elastic waist of her slip.
“Go on, Alan; be a man.” He stood now so close, his breath buzzed in my ear. “Revenge for years of battery. Revenge for putting that pillow over your face. Revenge for murdering your father!”
I pushed hard, and felt amazed at how little resistance met the blade. I thrust the length of it through her soft belly. Her face grimaced at the pain but she did not cry out. Blood poured from the cut, soaking into her cream underskirt.
“You see,” Amos said empirically, “hate makes such heinousness possible, leaving no room for mercy or reason for justification.”
Amos rounded on my mother, “Again, Alan.”
I dislodged the knife only to repeat the infliction in a fresh spot. At Amos’ silent prodding, I did the same twice more. Her usual grace abandoned her as she pulled herself from the blade, and slumped onto the sofa. Blood now flowed onto the blue flowery pattern.
Amos smiled over my mother, folded in half and bleeding, as if letting me in on some inside joke. I dropped the knife onto the carpet. It splashed blood in tiny spherical droplets.