“Daddy, I need you,” I start, falling to my knees and bawling my eyes out like I am 5 again. This gets him out of his rut, and just as I hope for, he walks, runs to me, and holds me by my arms.
“Jasmine…what happened?” The genuine softness takes me back, and mellows my heart to give into him. Maybe I can use this to bring us closer, since the last week has been one of ignorance and silence. He is the only family I have now, and the only one who can make this go away.
“Dad…he left me.”
“Who dear, who left you?”
“Winters.”
His thick warm fingers grab me by the hand, and he gently strokes it while calmly looking at me through his glasses. I knocked over a lamp mistakenly in my fall, and in that inertia of a spark, its switch hit the floor and it lit. A yellowish brown glow scatters the dust into the edge of the silk carpet, and his mildly blue eyes with them. They are where I get it from, his eyes. It’s the only thing that connects us, that makes us father and daughter.
“My dear, talk to me. Tell me everything.”
I mellow in the silence. It’s the first time he’s used that voice on me, the soothing voice he only uses in my fading memories. When I was sick once, right after mom had been hospitalized; he would sing me a song with his humming, one from a book I enjoyed immensely as a young girl. I think it was titled Enemy of the Birch, but it escapes me. With Spencer’s betrayal and cold hearted words, the only man I can talk to that can get what I am going through is sitting in the dusty carpet, with me. I just…I can’t trust him, but who else do I have?
“He sent me this…this email that is full of the harshest thing she has never said to me. He said he found,” I let the water flow, just t keep my voice steady on the line, “that he’s found another girl to keep him company, and that-”
I doubt my strength can pull it off. He shoulders my sorrows and caresses my hair, softly whispering, “Ssshhh…It’s going to be alright Jasmine. I promise.”
And that’s when the torrents come. I let them. He lets me. My orifices let loose what they’ve been holding back for hours in my bed. I don’t even want to go back there. It’s too wet. With memories from way back when, of our moments together having the most intimate…
He lied to me. I fell for a guy, a boy, a morsel of a man who could never promise to keep his own. Why should I wait on him, want to see him, need to rip him apart and scream into his bloody ears that I want him to apologize? Is this what it is to truly love? To hope for something that can never be, something that is as far away as the moon, further away than the shiniest star?
“Dad, I still love him. But I just hate him so much!”
“I know Jasmine. My feelings are with you on this matter.”
“What do I do?”
He silently regards my person and smiles. My heart beat falters, knowing what that face is, and always will be. It’s the face of a conniving man, ready to spell out his plan for me, for my future, for his future. I now understand.
I am truly alone in this world.
“Remember my proposal Jasmine? The young and fair young man named Carl?”
Amidst quiet sniffs and silent regret, I nod.
“Well, why don’t you two go out on a date and see how this will end?”
“But, dad…I don’t even-”
“Listen to me Jasmine!” he roars, scaring a whiff of piss out of my nether. I knew he would turn cold, I just knew it. My only hope was sympathy, if not a little empathy to come along with it. “Now I warned you, all those months ago about that boy. I told you none of it would come to bear any fruit. I told you he was no good, that all his poverty and lack of brains would gift you would be misery and pain. You thought your old man was nuts and just wanted you to be sad and angry for the rest of your life, like he is. NOW…now do you see? Do you see how much you are in right now? The pain? The uncanny mirror image of your emotions and mine? You are becoming me, and all I wanted was to protect you from that fate, from that destiny. But now, here you are, on my floor, pouring your guts out at me, having seen the truth of this world.”
Controlling fingers from shaking must be one of those tasks that gods let loose on the earth for us to do that they couldn’t. It’s the one thing no one can control once it starts, especially not a broken girl under an emotionally abusive father. He jerks his foot around and straightens his crop. A little spit radiates his chin, and he makes the effort to wipe it off with the fraying sweater he has on. The mints and chocolate wrappers on his desk insinuate how much malnourished he is.
This is a win for him, I can feel it. Most parents enjoy the victory in saying the four arcane words they are never meant to say, unless it’s for sport. He licks it off the tip of his tongue, and it roadmaps its way up his nose and into his mind, finding a way to let itself out. I can see the muscles creak at his cheeks, and the smug smile slowly reveals itself for me to see and understand. His eyes spark similarly, and his boyish grin is hard to ignore the message so clearly splashed onto his visage.
I told you so.
And this time, all the vibes of anger, all the Mesopotamian rage that should be boiling the fuck out of my blood, all the silly little bursts of energy I should be emitting from my shame or confusion; it’s all lost. I feel nothing. I am nothing.
I want to defend what is mine, what was ours, what never can be, but I go with dad’s whims. He seems to see the future brighter than I can, and what the heck, he knows more about the world than I do. I’m just a bratty daughter who enjoys the riches endowed with his position. What do I know? I don’t know what love is; neither do I understand the concept of commitment. He moved on with those other girls, prettier, smarter and sexier than I am for a reason. I’M not good enough for his taste.
And maybe this time, I’ll accept this truth and listen to the wisdom of the man standing before me. Maybe it’s about time.
“So, Jasmine, daughter of mine, you will go out with Carl tomorrow night. I’ll arrange everything; you don’t have to worry about a thing. He’s the right man for you. I know because I know his family. Do you understand me Jasmine?
I feel his thick throbbing meaty fingers upon my neck, almost visibly waiting to strangle the life out of me. I let him. I am his to sell, to plunder, and to be sold off for money. I have no say in this life. Not anymore.
“Do you understand me?”
“I do, dad. I do.”
“You understand how rich we’re going to be after this, yes?”
“Yes, dad. I get it.”
“Good. Now get to bed and clean up nicely. He would never want to see this mess you’ve become. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I stand up alone. His arms are far away now, grasping his glass of vintage brandy. He must be satisfied of what he has accomplished with me right now on his staining carpet. There is victory in his posture and gait, a whooping hoorah for the good deed he has done for his one and only daughter, for the good of his name and his purse strings. I drag my body to his door and lay a palm on the knob.
“Ha,” I let escape. He turns. I keep my back to him.
“Said something Jasmine?” he asks, the glee in his voice unrestrained.
“Nothing, dad. Good night.”
“Of course Jasmine,” he replies, and his chair creaks at the weight imbued on it. Silence falls, and I turn the knob.
Weight; it’s the entity we worship. Without it nothing would matter; not the beautiful and shiny cars, not the hours spent at the gym, not the urge to live, not the emotions we bear. Tonight, I understand this newfound god of mine. It lets me know how foolish it is to carry myself back to bed and cry once more. I follow the voices in my head that lead me to the bathroom. The door shuts behind me. My body, heavy with riddles and whys, sinks to the bottom of the porcelain. I want to count the sheep, but no. Not this time.
This time I let go.
Chapter 7 – Spencer
Time. It’s the event of the season that never lacks, that always pulls up short, which takes and gives with no bias
. Time has given me the semester, the chance to get the ball rolling. I can’t be more grateful than I already am, can I?
In all the insanity of the joy of college, I have learnt the tiny inconsistencies of the random playboy. It’s almost a routine with Bryce. He wakes up, bright and early, depending on how hammered he is, and brushes his teeth with his head in the shower. After a quick mouth rinse, he jumps into the cold shower and properly wakes up. After five minutes of this bodily torture, he gets out and hands me a sock.
“What’s this for?” I almost always ask, and almost always receive the same answer.
“Hang it by the door buddy, just as you leave,” he would say, rubbing some aftershave on his chest and scraggly chin. Then I would take my chances and grab my coat, ready for a full day of study into the mind of a criminal, while he stayed in our room and fucked the shit out of three different chicks. Per day. Bryce is the kind of bloke who takes Carpe Diem too literally. Then again, why wouldn’t he? He’s been the star player in our school’s basketball team all the way through. And he is good. I mean star athlete good. He got a few eyes during a game with Berkeley, and a few offers to join some serious players in the leagues. He’s still deciding, with his major reason being, “Exploring all the divine and virgin pussy in this college before moving onwards to the real world.” Talk about a man with goals.
But I like Bryce, a lot. He’s been there with me when I could not hack being alone. He even got me a hook up late one night on our third week in session, claiming I needed my ‘tubes tuned’. He wasn’t wrong either, but I turned the redhead down. She went with him instead, at the back of the basketball court bleachers. Bryce couldn’t stop himself that late morning.
“Dude, you should have been the one to tap that. Virgin!”
Then he saw the look on my face, and decided against rubbing anything more in.
“Spencer, come on man. It’s been two weeks since you got that email, and three weeks since she last saw you. You have to get over this bro. Look at you! You’re a sopping mess, and clearly in denial about your sexual appetite. Or maybe that’s just me?”
It was always hard, seeing him enjoy the best time of his college life. Fewer assignments, no commitments, and all the women within the vicinity of the school for him to ravish on. His cool vibe let me see beyond the mask he preferred to wear. I know how hard his life has been growing up. His mom left and his dad killed himself after being let off from work. Being an only child, the trauma did the entire flipping opposite of what anyone would expect. He became kinder, wiser and a whole lot sexier- no homo.
We always decided to go have a drink after class. Just for a bit, for I had gotten work at the deli for half a night’s shift. The manager, Carol, is a bit of an older ball-crusher craving for young meat like me. It took me a while to guess it, with all the lipstick-laced napkins I would find in my apron every morning. She really was something, her lustrous curves filling the cloth with her juicy bits by her thighs, and enough firepower in her bosom to flatten an army of men ready for war. She is a stunning brunette, with length of braid longer than my arms. The killing effect is always her glasses and lollipop-glossed lips, which she always uses when saying ‘hello’ to me in the deepest, quietest way I could ever want.
Bryce dreams of her every night of course; it’s the one thing that keeps him in check without dissing me too much.
“Duuude. Carol is the milf of the century. She so wants you cleaning her floors, if you know what I mean,” he once spat at me, with the trademark burger I just served him dripping with grease down his chin. I looked back and saw her smile, giving me the sexy stare down her lenses, and just a bit higher, closer to her effervescent breasts that, if I’m not wrong, she hoisted up with her left hand and cat-called me with her right. Man she was on heat, a walking volcano, hellfire in high heels.
But my conscience couldn’t. Well, I couldn’t. I still had feelings for Jasmine, even when she broke my heart without a single tone from her lips. Just her words; her unkind and bitter words that left my new beginnings quiet and void. And so, with my misery loving the company of older blokes with age and wisdom and a whole lot of spunk when it came to sass, I studied. I kept close tabs with my professors all the way down my semester, taking in the weeks swiftly and quietly.
Professor Michaels is still my favorite. The salty gray on his head makes up for the unquestionable charisma he hides behind his scowl. It came out more subtle than morose, and a shout of ecstasy jotted out any time we laughed together after class in the laboratory.
“My dear boy, forgive my forward ploy, but why, pray, would you ever want to stay in the confines of science and old boring men, instead of all your hormone-raged and exciting friends? Shouldn’t your youth be better spent making energy with a random school girl and releasing it, umm, together?”
With shallow thought and truth at heart, my answer would always be, “My dear sir, your Alfred is showing.” We have this running joke that one of us has to be a caped crusader, and the other the caring butler. I suppose it so happens that we really frown a lot, when the moment comes along. He’s a good friend, Prof, one of the reasons I moved forward quickly with my schoolwork and got myself a job while still maintaining a cool streak beating everyone’s ass at the Arcade.
The semester, the wild and awesome semester, has finally come to a close. It’s been fun, and even as the remaining students throw a party for the last night, I sullenly sulk away and hide on one of the rooftops. They are the only places that I can truly be free of my thoughts and people. Especially the tallest ones. I love it when people are afraid of heights. It makes more room for me up here.
Pizza and pineapple and Oreos; they are hard to reminisce over when the soft and warm breeze blows by. My hair is all ruffled and dry, and my face feels like a clammed donut. I’ve never been a donut, so I’m not entirely sure what that means, but meh.
The campus is loud. Lights flicker across the halls of study, and I see the janitors maintain the order by walking along with their mops in the different sections of the buildings. They always have a hard time at the last night of the semester, or so I’m told. So they prefer cleaning up the messes as they go, so as to start off the holidays early. Some fireworks atop my dormitory and a shout for “Hip Hip Hoorah!” from an enthusiastic young gent with the height of a giraffe in his veins sweeps a smile on me. Bryce is always the party monster, but it always feels like magic to me how he manages to keep his school work in check. Never failing, but still in the game. Tonight he invited me to an orgy downstairs in the common room. Stacey Brown is to be there, and he promises it to be the fuck of my year. Obviously I took the shortest time to come up with the easiest ‘no’ i could think of. He is used to it by now, and I always get what I deserve when he hears my rejecting offer. A pat on the back and a pursed mouth, coupled with a shake of the head, and then a defeated smile.
I wish I could stop being such an ass all the time. Every time I get the chance to make a friend, I screw it all up in the name of healing, or giving myself the time to heal. Even for Carol, deep inside when all the hostile dominatrix sexual tension is shoved aside, she can be the warmest storyteller in the room. She gets what I’m going through, and the one piece of advice I got from her, before she gave me the softest kiss on the cheek,
“This too shall pass.”
That kinda taught me to never judge a girl by her skirt.
In my pocket, the warm plastic metal buzzes. I wait for a few seconds, hoping for it to buzz out and lie dormant once again. It does, and I breathe out. In a way I wish I could be a smoker. It always looks so cool, up until the Letterman’s dad passed away from throat cancer. My mouth tastes fuzzy now. I should probably leave.
Buzz buzz…
Again? I wonder who it could be at 9.17 in the night. I know with a surety that it’s not Jasmine; I gave up trying to hope. I fiddle with it in hand for a second, and then flip it.
“Spencer! How are you son?”
Relief floods my nose and ears. Weir
d, I know, but they are my comfy spaces.
“Hi mom! It’s been a while since we had a chat. A week, right? H-”
“Don’t play dumb with me Spencer. Ever since I sent you cash for the phone you’ve been inconsistent with your communication skills. What did we agree on?”
“Do we really have to do this h-?”
“Say it with me Spencer.” Oh, fuck.
“Once a week, if not every day,” we rhyme together. I am so glad I’m alone up here. Bryce would never let me leave that down.
“Good, was that so hard?”
“No,” I curtly answer.
“Don’t pout. You brought it upon your silly head,” she sniggers.
My legs dwindle at the far edge of the brick wall. It feels good, better than falling, but my ass hurts slightly. I shift my cheeks a bit.
“How are you, mom? I miss coming home.”
“Oh dear, I’ve missed your company too. The lawn needs mowing, and my God the gutters creak like the multi-orgy of ’89 back in Clyde Owen’s house. Even the pipes, oh my-”
“Mom,” I interrupt, cringing at the graphics, “me-son, and you-mom. Come slow already.”
She laughs maniacally, and I can feel the ruffle of papers on her end. At this time of the night, she must be balancing her books. It must be hard trying to keep it all in check, even with dad’s pension rolling in at the end of every month. Her laugh is a mask, just like my smile.
“Okay, okay. Just saying Spencer. This place would be a lot brighter if you were here. You’re all packed right?”
I nervously tickle the fray at my jacket, and the tingle in my stomach finally gives out into a fart. Silent killers, I call them. It’s one hell of a way to relax. Especially now with the questions and doubts I have, stewing away at my intestines.
“Mom, I don’t think I’m going to be coming home this holiday.”
Triple Pass: An MFMM Reverse Harem Romance Page 40