by Anton Palmer
Daddy’s Girl
Anton Palmer
Copyright 2016 Anton Palmer
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Prologue
“Something’s wrong!”
The woman’s screams were loud enough to wake the dead, but the thick basement walls ensured that every agonised decibel remained cocooned within the small, underground room. Panting hard, the woman’s hair was matted with sweat, her face burning and sheathed in perspiration.
“Please, Samuel, call an ambulance – let me go to the hospital.”
Samuel stroked his wife’s hand and brought it up to his lips, planting a gentle kiss on her slender fingers. “There’s no necessity for a hospital, my darling. The Lord will take care of you.”
The woman yelled again as another contraction hit her. Samuel watched, impassive, as a gush of bright red blood poured from his wife’s vagina, pooling in a shiny wet puddle before slowly soaking into the already saturated mattress beneath her. He remained calm, smiled, and dabbed at her brow with a damp sponge.
“Samuel…at least call a doctor…” The woman was sobbing now, her tears mingling with the sweat of several hours’ fruitless labour. “Please! I’m begging you...something’s not right. I can feel it!”
Her husband stood up from the small stool he had been squatting on and stretched, the bones of his spine cracking in a satisfying manner as he did so. He looked down at his wife, wet and glistening with sweat, on the blood-soaked mattress that had been lain on the dirt floor of the basement. He spoke slowly, carefully, “If something is not right - then it is God’s will. You are being punished for your sins.”
“What sins? Have I not been a good and faithful wife to you?”
Samuel bent down and angrily slapped her blood-splashed thighs. “The sin of fornication!”
“What? I have only ever…fornicated…with you – my husband in the eyes of the Lord!”
He slowly shook his head at her, as if in despair or disbelief, “Fornication for any purpose other than procreation is a sin. Yet you…you dirty slut! You fornicated even after you knew you were with child.”
“With you, my love. With you… I didn’t do it on my own!” The tears flowed even faster, the woman now fully aware that she could never win this argument.
“I am not to blame. “ Her husband continued, “You tempted me with your vile lust! But the Lord knows that I was just the innocent victim of your foul wantonness.”
“Samuel…please…it wasn’t my fault. It was the hormones…”
“Hormones are just God’s way of testing you! If you loved God enough he would have given you the strength to resist your filthy, disgusting urges. But you didn’t…and now the Lord is punishing you for it.”
He bent down and mopped her brow once more, the anger suddenly leaving his voice. “But don’t worry my darling…the child will be safe. I’ll see to that.”
“What do you mean?”
Samuel looked at his wrist-watch in the gloomy light of the weak bulb hanging from a joist above his head. “I’ll give you ten more minutes – any longer and I fear for the baby’s wellbeing. If the child isn’t out by then…” He held up a gleaming scalpel. His wife shuddered, knowing her husband fully intended to cut the baby out of her womb, if necessary. And also knowing that the unborn child was far more important to him than she was.
Another, even stronger contraction gripped her and she shrieked long and hard, bearing down with all her remaining strength as she stared with wide eyes at the wooden crucifix attached to the wall opposite. The cross burned its image into her retinas as she prayed for Jesus, God…anyone, to give her the strength to deliver her baby safely.
More blood, darker this time, oozed from between her gore-spattered thighs, followed by a spray of urine and a sloppy lump of reeking faecal matter. Samuel picked up the excrement with a paper towel and dumped it into a metal bucket behind him, before wiping the excess blood and piss from the mattress with a piece of old rag. The woman panted, breathless and exhausted, sweat flooding from every pore. Samuel again dabbed at her face gently with his sponge.
“Please, my husband. Please call an ambulance…our child is guaranteed to be delivered safely in the hospital. So much better than this dirty basement…”
Samuel threw the sponge down onto the blood-soaked mattress, his face suddenly contorting into a mask of scarlet rage. “And what do you think all those doctors and midwives will say when they see the marks on your body?”
He rolled her onto her flank and traced his fingers along the trails of angry red scars on her back and buttocks, as if to remind her of their existence. Scars from the many floggings he had given her, down here in this very basement, to beat her sins from her body. Similar wounds adorned Samuel’s own body – his, self-inflicted, during regular bouts of purging his own sins.
”They won’t understand. They won’t understand our ways. They will lock us up! Take the child into care – to be raised by…heathens or paedophiles…”
His wife rolled onto her back and turned her head to one side, attempting to bury her face into the filthy mattress – knowing her case was futile. Samuel grasped her hand and bent down to plant a gentle kiss on her wet forehead.
“It’s time.”
“Oh no, Samuel, please…no! Please give me more time, I can do this… I’m your wife for Christ’s sake!”
The woman immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, terror filling her eyes, but she knew it was too late – the blasphemy had been uttered.
Samuel stood above her, sucking in deep breaths, his face twitching as he tried to control his rage, a vein visibly throbbing at his temple. Kneeling down between her legs, he seemed oblivious to the blood and other bodily fluids that immediately began to soak into his trousers.
“I’m sorry, my darling, but it is the Lord’s will…”
The woman screamed as he plunged the razor-sharp scalpel into her abdomen, just below her navel and sliced downward towards her blood-matted pubis. She passed out at the sight of her taut, ripe belly opening up, a stream of blood running down her flanks into the mattress as a yellow layer of fat burst out of the gaping wound. Samuel pulled the fatty layer to one side as he carefully cut through the thin, shiny membrane beneath, revealing her abdominal muscles.
He slashed in short, shallow bursts, over and over, tearing through the blocks of muscle while remaining conscious of not cutting so deep as to harm the child. Despite his care, the blade nicked his wife’s bowel, the stench making him retch as the liquid faeces within spilled out. Along with the excrement, deep red blood was quickly flooding the abdominal cavity, clearly he had also opened an artery or other major vessel.
Undeterred, he continued his slicing until, the womb, bloated with its precious cargo, was plainly visible, Samuel delicately slit open the uterine wall. Amniotic fluid gurgled out as the baby, in breach position, was revealed, and he gently pulled the child from its warm, watery bed.
With the new-born wrapped, snug and warm, in a clean, white blanket, Samuel slapped his unconscious wife in the face until he roused her.
“Look, my darling!”
He held the swaddled child out towards her, “It
’s a girl!”
The woman began to weep, but her sobs were suddenly stifled as her tired lungs struggled for breath. She gasped desperately for air, her lips turning blue as her life-force continued to pour from the ruptured blood vessel in her butchered abdomen.
Samuel observed without emotion as his wife’s eyes filled with fear, both of them knowing her death was imminent. He leant forward and placed a gentle kiss on her hot cheek before snatching the gold crucifix that hung around her throat.
As he sat back on his stool, Samuel felt the child’s lungs fill with her first breaths and he held her close as they watched the mother she would never know, take her last.
ALPHA
1
The Mid-Valleys bank on a Wednesday morning was often quiet, but this particular Wednesday was quieter than usual. The cashiers outnumbered the customers – which was great if you were a customer as you didn’t have to wait in a queue, staring at the backs of other people’s heads – but for Victoria, the gaps between clients meant more time for her colleagues to talk to her.
It wasn’t that she disliked the women she worked with as such, but their idea of conversation was talking about the men they’d had…sex…with; the men they’d like to have sex with; talking about their…toilet parts and monthly cycles. And some of the language that they used…
“Ahem…”
Victoria looked up suddenly as a smartly dressed man in a suit and tie appeared at her window. “Good morning, Sir,” she smiled, “Welcome to the Mid-Valleys bank. How may I help you today?”
The man passed his savings book through the little gap under the counter window. “I’d like to withdraw five hundred pounds, please…”
“If I could just have your signature here, please, Sir…” She passed the customer a withdrawal authorisation form and tapped her fingers lightly against the desk as she waited for him to quickly scan the document and scrawl his mark in the requisite box. The customer passed the form back to her with a grin, his blue eyes appraising her as he did so.
“Are twenty-pound notes ok for you, Sir?”
“Yes. Fine. Thank you.” He watched as Victoria counted out the money, “Quiet in here today, isn’t it?”
“A bit quiet…yes”
“Still, means I have you beautiful ladies all to myself for a change.” He winked at Victoria’s colleague as she groaned at his hackneyed patter.
“There you are, Sir.” Victoria passed the money under the window. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
The man smiled and winked again, “Only in my dreams…”
Once the customer had left the premises, Victoria’s colleague, Mandy, turned, her face beaming, “Oh my God, Victoria. He was totally flirting with you! Did you not notice him checking you out?”
Victoria shrugged, her face starting to flush.
“When you were counting the money…his eyes never left your cleavage for a second. He so wanted you,” she giggled, “and he wasn’t bad looking! No Hollywood ‘A’-lister for sure, but a fuck-sight better than most of the ugly bastards we get in here.”
Victoria winced at Mandy’s ‘curse words’ before looking down at her chest and pulling at her bank-issued navy blouse in an attempt to cover her flesh a bit more.
“What are you doing?” Mandy shrieked, “Don’t cover them up! You’ve got amazing tits! If I had tits like yours I’d buy the best push-up bra going, undo another couple of buttons and have those puppies spilling out onto the desk!
***
Victoria opened her front door and ran straight upstairs to the bathroom. Tearing off her clothes as if they were on fire she stepped into the shower, setting the water temperature to cold. She stood under the freezing stream, teeth chattering, her body racked with shivers.
This was her punishment – her penance.
Her body had incited lust in that customer - and lust was a sin - a sin that she was party to. She blasted the icy water at her breasts, scouring them with the frigid jets, the droplets bouncing off her cold-hardened nipples as she gently fingered the small gold crucifix that hung around her neck.
Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert. Noah in his ark, suffered the flood for forty days and forty nights. Victoria stood in the shower for a full forty minutes. Only then did she consider herself clean. Only then did she consider herself worthy to beg for the Lord’s forgiveness.
She shut off the water and stepped out of the shower cubicle. Naked and dripping wet she walked downstairs to the basement beneath the kitchen and knelt on the old, bloodstained mattress on the dusty dirt floor.
She was no stranger to the basement.
Her father had often dragged her down here. The room where her cries and screams could not be heard by the neighbours. The room where she had spent many nights throughout her childhood, shut up in the cold and the dark to ‘think about what she had done’, urine trickling down her legs at every sound, terrified the Devil was coming to drag her down to Hell.
As the water dripped from her body and soaked into the mattress beneath her, Victoria fixated her gaze on the large wooden cross hanging on the wall. Staring up at the crucifix she prayed over and over for God’s forgiveness, ignoring the smell of damp and decay, ignoring the cold air in the room that caused her wet skin to shiver even harder, her thoughts focussed solely on her prayers…
Eventually, she rose to her feet. God had given her a task. She had heard his voice and knew what she must do.
She walked slowly back up to the kitchen, throwing a hand across her face for a second to shield herself from the bright light that stung her gloom-accustomed eyes. She opened the cutlery drawer, searching for the carving knife. With her fingers locked around the wooden handle, she held the implement in front of her and stared at the shiny steel blade as it glinted in the glare of the kitchen lights. Taking several deep breaths, she steadied her nerves for the task that the Lord had asked of her.
Cupping her left breast in her hand, she gazed at it in disgust for a few seconds, as if the fleshy sack was some kind of foul malignancy, before pressing the tip of the sharp blade against her skin.
God had told her to remove her breasts. To slice them from her body so that they could not incite lust in anyone else, to protect others and herself against the sins of the flesh.
Her knife hand trembled wildly, the mixture of cold and dread causing her muscles to spasm. She stifled a cry in her throat as she pressed the quivering blade harder, a droplet of bright red blood glistening on her pale skin. Dragging the knife across the top of her breast, she screamed as she felt the flesh parting under the razor sharp steel and threw the blade to the floor. Blood ran freely from the freshly opened wound, crimson tears crawling in snake-like tendrils down her breast, dripping from her nipple onto the white-tiled kitchen floor.
Victoria collapsed, sobbing, onto her knees. She raised her face to the ceiling and begged for forgiveness.
God had given her a task. One task. And she had failed him.
“Please, Lord. There must be another way. Another way I can atone. Please, oh merciful, Lord…”
“Do it, bitch!”
Victoria’s breath froze in her lungs.
“Do it, you slut! Cut them off, you filthy whore!”
She shuffled across the floor, slamming her back hard into a cabinet, her eyes wide with terror as she turned her head from side to side, searching for the source of the voice.
But she knew that the source of the voice was not in this room.
Because she knew whose voice it was.
And she knew the owner of the voice was no longer of this Earth.
Her father was dead.
2
The child sat on her father’s knee in front of the living-room fire, wrapped in a warm, white towel. Patting the fluffy material against her delicate skin, her father dried her off after her evening bath and held her head close against his chest as he rubbed the worst of the dampness from her dark curls.
The little girl looked up at her f
ather with her big, round eyes and smiled for a second, her small milk-teeth gleaming in the glow of the fire-light.
“I love you, Daddy!”
“Of course you do. The unconditional love between parent and child...just like God’s love. He sometimes punishes us, but he forgives us and loves us despite our sins.” Her father gently kissed the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her freshly washed hair and whispered, “I love you too, sweetheart.”
Suddenly releasing her from their embrace, he sat the child down on the carpet, still wrapped snugly within the folds of the towel. He stared pensively at his young daughter for a moment before letting out a deep sigh. “But, love isn’t everything, my child. Is it?”
The little girl stared at her father, a twinge of fear gnawing at her gut as she detected the subtle change in his voice – the hint of sternness that she knew would soon turn to anger. She frantically tried to think what she could have done to have caused this change in his mood.
Her father continued, “Trust and obedience. They are just as important as love. Maybe even more important. What do you think, Victoria? Trust and obedience…?”
Victoria’s bottom lip began to tremble. She didn’t know what her father was getting at. Didn’t understand his words.
“Do you remember what Jesus said about telling lies?
The child shook her head slowly.
“Yes you do. What did Jesus say about telling lies?”
“Not to tell lies…”
“That’s right, Victoria - my only child - you must never, ever tell lies. Because what happens to children who tell lies…hmmm?”
“They go to Hell.”
“That’s right. They go to Hell. And what happens to them in Hell?”
“They burn in the fire – for ever and ever!”