by King, V. L.
From the opposite side of the barrier, I heard heavy footsteps approaching. “Kady?”
“Thank God, Liam.” I pressed my brow against the white wood. “The door is jammed I think. I can’t get out.”
“Hold on. Stand back, okay baby? I don’t want you getting caught by the rebound. Tell me when you’re at safe distance.” Oh, good grief, he was talking like he was going to test some kind of military defense weapon.
The bed was touching the back of my legs when I gave him the all-clear. A little click followed by Liam’s body charging through the now-opened door, had me sagging with relief. The first words from him were ‘that was new’ which was trailed by his eyes following his hand as he ran it up the frame speculatively, giving it the once over in a nonchalant approach to detect the cause.
“It’s okay, you got it open.”
I meandered sleepily towards my knight in shining armor. Hands which displayed my gratitude rose and were quickly pressed against his powder blue shirt, sweeping and clawing over the body which I loved, a body which I would do anything in this world for, no matter how obscene.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Mr. DeLaney,” I murmured with a flirty grin and was awarded with a soft, delicate kiss. Hmm…he tasted like strawberries.
“Thank you for needing rescuing, Miss Jenson. I’m glad my work here is done. Breakfast?”
Breakfast? He was going to cook? Inwardly scoffing at the thought, I however managed to see past the undomesticated ways of Liam DeLaney and gave myself a stern pep-talk. I should’ve been thankful that he was exiting his comfort zone and making the effort. I nodded my agreement and told him I was going to wash up first.
With a morning kiss to send my world out of orbit, he left me to do my thing.
I’m not going to lie, I half expected to see the apartment looking like a bomb-testing site when I stepped out of the bedroom. As I tread down the hallway, I was beyond amazed to see everything gone. No red plastic cups, no spider webs, skeletons or ghouls. No empty snack bowls, or bowls full of slime, no pumpkin heads or hanging witches, just everything how and where it should be. I smiled and sighed with profound appreciation at the zero amount of workload for yours truly.
Pulling free my blonde locks through the black turtleneck, I spluttered after being whipped in the face by the flicking tips of my hair and I continued to tread lightly to the kitchen, when I overheard hushed voices.
“She is my sister. Don’t think I won—”
“Oh, Brittany, would you really risk stooping that low? Get over it.”
“Good morning,” I piped, sending the pair jumping back and out of their skin when I entered. I giggled to myself. “You know, it’s customary for the party to say ‘good morning’ back, not leave a fucking crater in the ceiling,” I teased, heading for the coffee pot which was obscured by my sister’s curvy form. Her arms were folded across her ample chest, her legs crossed at the ankles as she rested the small of her back on the edge of the counter. She was peeking down at her feet. For Brittany Jenson, she appeared somewhat abashed.
The clashing of vibrant colors from her bright green hair and thick purple pantyhose with a small, red, tartan-like skirt was doing nothing for my eyes. I was half tempted to dial for the fashion police myself. That being said, Brittany had always been in a league of her own. She was a shepherd not a sheep, and I admired her for that.
“Morning, sis.” She sounded on edge. It wasn’t until she finally wrenched her head back that I noticed how pale she was.
“Hey…” Concerned, I instantly set the pot back on its stand and turned to my usually vivacious sister. “Britt, you don’t look so good.”
“She was drinking last night. She’s probably got a hangover.” Liam’s husky explanation came from behind my shoulder as soon as I lifted my hand to her forehead.
“Is that all it is, Britt, just a normal hangover?” I sounded far from convinced. She may have been an adult, but she was still younger than me, so technically she was in my care. And if there was something wrong with my sister, then I wanted to know.
Fidgeting as she gazed over my shoulder, a spell passed in silence. Shifting into her line of sight with widened eyes, I urged her to speak. She finally opened her glossy lips.
“Yes…no…I don’t know…maybe—”
“For the love of God, Brittany, ‘she used to be indecisive, now she’s not so sure’?” I quoted Mom’s motto for uncertainty. My usual sense of humor aimed towards my sibling would have gained me a small niggle of her knuckles in my ribs before hauling me into a hug, at the very least. But she just remained standing there, ashen, trembling and soundless…everything that’s very un-Brittany-like. “You’re worrying me, Brittany.”
I watched on as her focus dwindled from me, to the man behind me. Her sapphire eyes were welling up with every peaceful second that past and she looked…repentant? I don’t know, but I didn’t care for it. As though she couldn’t bear to look at me, she hung her head again.
“Kady baby, if Brittany isn’t well, surely it’s not fair for us to keep her here. Maybe she’d like to go home. You know what it’s like when you’re ill, you want your own bed.”
I couldn’t disagree. Who doesn’t want their own bed when they’re ill? Then again, the selfish part of me wanted to keep my sister around a little while longer. We very rarely had those times anymore, and it had only been a day for God’s sake. Actually, no, it was less than a day I got to spend in the company of my sibling.
Her head was coaxed up with my finger under her chin. A tear fell from her eye and rolled its way unhurried down the side of her face. Cooing her in my ‘big sister’-like fashion, I brushed it away with my thumb. Seeing her ill was something I hated. I hated seeing her cry, but most of all I hated seeing her crying because she felt so damn ill. I framed her face with my hands and swept my tongue over my drying lips.
“I’m sorry, Kady,” she mumbled on a sob.
“Hey, hey, hey, come on, come here, Britt.” Sisterly arms wrapped around each other, I held her close as she snuggled into my neck and surrendered to her tears. It was my action to mimic Mom’s pacifying strokes through her scalp that finally had her sniffles ebbing. “It’ll be okay, Britt. Do you want to go back D.C.?” I asked in her mass of green hair, that self-centered part of me still hoping that she would say ‘no’.
“No, I don’t.” She pulled away and once again, her eyes subtly drifted over my shoulder. She licked her lips, the tip of her tongue capturing a salty droplet which lay peacefully on her lip. “But I think it’s for the best if I do.”
Squashed and disappointed, I simply rolled my lips over my teeth, sighed heavily and enforced a nod. I couldn’t tie her up and command her to stay. “Okay. Let Mom and Dad know about the change of plans. We’ll take you to the airport.”
After a short, kneading stroke of her upper arms, my hands fell to my side with the weight I felt baring on my shoulders, the weight of disappointment. My coffee was retrieved from the unit on my right before I turned and headed to the living room.
“What about breakfast?” Liam called when I was halfway down the hall.
Feeling deflated, I simply retorted, “I’ve lost my appetite.”
By the time I dropped myself into the cushion of the leather couch, feeling the cold, protesting material seeping through my beige Capri-pants, Liam was already storming through the glass and oak door with a plate in his one hand and silverware wrapped in a napkin in the other. Finishing adjusting a coaster and setting my coffee on the table ahead of me, I peeked up.
Liam stood like a God. No, scrap that, he loomed over me like the Devil compelling you to give into temptation. Unfortunately, the temptation which I was seeking was opposing the one which I sensed.
“You will eat, Kady,” he commanded. His eyes reflected the rise of the sunlight from the window behind me before turning hard and obdurate. His freshly shaven block jaw was taut, and the spikes from the spider’s web tattoo on the left of his neck were throbbing and straine
d.
“Liam, please, I am not hungry. I don’t feel like I—”
“I allowed you to sleep in, Kady. I didn’t wake you to help clear the mess which was left here after the party. I wanted to surprise you. Are you really going to be that ungrateful?”
I was contemplating an excuse worthy of the devil aside me when Brittany craned her head around the door and informed us that she was nipping to the store to pick up some milk and her weekly glossy magazine. For a brief moment, I felt a surge of guilt at the unnerved knot in my gut at the mere notion that she was going to be leaving me here alone with the affronted, raging bull, whereas I should have been worried about my ill sister going to the store on her own.
Once the door was shut securely behind her, Liam kneeled down at my side. The squared red plate was set on the table to join my coffee. He proffered me the cutlery after slipping it from the paper napkin.
“Eat.”
A full fried breakfast waited before me. So much fried food, I was sure my cholesterol was going to have a fit.
“What’s that?” I asked cautiously and pointed to the black lump in the middle of the plate.
“Blood sausage.”
At the mention of blood, my head lifted straight to the man on his knees at the coffee table.
“Blood?” Repulsed, my lips curled. There was no way in hell I was going to eat that. I didn’t want to eat anything on that plate, but I would if it meant I could have the black stuff removed from it—the black stuff and the mushrooms.
I was silently marveling at the extremes Liam had gone to with cooking breakfast, but my appreciation retreated as I considered the mere fact that we had been together for nearly three years, he knew full well that I wasn’t a huge eater, especially of fried food. He knew damn well I despised mushrooms and would never touch anything like blood sausage. Why would he go through all of this effort to do something nice when he was aware that I wouldn’t eat most of the contents on it?
“Liam…I–I…” I faltered.
As I smoothed the napkin over my thighs, his eyes combed my torso to meet my gaze. Dark eyebrows rose in mute question.
“Kady, you will eat this. I am going to stay right here, just to make damn fucking sure.” When he offered the cool silverware to me again, I hesitantly took it from his possession. “Do you understand?”
Nodding, I began to work my way through the parts I didn’t mind eating, like the bacon, sausage, and eggs, and steered clear of anything that was touching the parts which I detested.
“Eat the mushrooms,” he charged with a voice not to be dared with.
I swallowed my mouthful and shook my head faintly and apologetic. “I can’t.”
What would I prefer to eat? I questioned myself after the stern words which passed Liam’s lips were repeated again. Would I favor the dark, slick shapes which looked somewhat like slimy bugs and used to have nightmares about as they slipped back up from my throat? Or would I prefer the seasoned blood in a sausage casing? There was no comparison. I could force myself to eat the three handfuls of mushrooms, if it meant I could leave the additional disgusting thing which was goading me on the red surface and making my stomach pole-vault to my throat.
The fork dove into the mass, scooping and raising it to my mouth as hasty as possible. Screwing my eyes shut until dancing, colored spots swept across my lids, I held my breath and chewed like there was no tomorrow.
Ignore the sensation, Kady. Ignore the sensation. I repeated my mantra while striving to disregard the slug-like texture on my tongue.
With each swallow, my throat was becoming less and less compliant. Halting my reflex to pass it down my gullet, the food was left loitering in my mouth while my shoulders hunched, my ribs ached from heaving, and my eyes watered.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, I got through the pile of food I’d always averted, set the fork on the plate, and concentrated on not having the food making a return.
“You haven’t finished.”
Gaping at an insulted-looking Liam, he fisted his hands back through his slicked-back brown hair as I drew in a deep breath.
“Liam, I don’t like mushrooms, but I forced myself to eat them. Please, I really can’t bring myself to eat that.” I gestured to what looked like a clump of coal in the center of the red square.
“Kady.” His mouth curled almost unhinged. An intimidated step was taken towards me while on his knees. “If you were to go to the emergency room to have blood taken and then later fainted, what would the first thought in your head be if you were to have blood taken again?” He spoke in a soft, appeasing tone.
I knitted my fingers together in my lap, feeling as though I was about to get graded on my answer. “Th–that I was going to faint,” I faltered once again.
“Exactly.” He nodded with a deranged grin spanning his face. “Although the results may have come back clear, you’ll always remember the negative element of the action…”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with you cooking me breakfast, Liam.” The crease in my brow had become more of a chasm.
A worrying void of unhinged intention stared back at me. I could see it as clear as day, and I was tumbling down into it. I knew I was going to be broken when I landed. “This is your punishment, Kady, for your insolence last night.”
My punishment? Wait. So he didn’t cook me breakfast as a loving gesture and from the freewill of his heart, he did it to prove a point? He did it for revenge?
“Liam, I apologized to you last night for offering Laurie’s cousin that job when I had no right to.” Eyes locked as I jetted my words, I outstretched my arms and encased his hands in mine. “You said it was okay, that I was forgiven. Please, don’t do it this way,” I begged.
“If an animal shits on your upholstery, you punish it—”
“But I’m not an animal, Liam.” And I didn’t like the insinuation.
His eyebrows lifted in the Liam DeLaney-like way, daring me to be defiant. “No? Are you sure? We are all animals, Kady. And you shit over my business last night. That is something I. Will. Not. Tolerate.” He punctuated clearly, and I hung my head like a schoolgirl getting rebuked by the principle as my arms fell away from him. “Eat!” he directed.
Sullen and teary, I inched to the very edge of the couch and recollected my fork.
“At least next time, you will remember this negative, this consequence for your actions, and you won’t be so inclined to tread that line again, will you, Kady?”
“No, Liam.” I breathed distantly, all the while picking at the coal in the heart of the dish with the prongs of my fork. When a diminutive gathering was settled on one of the silver prongs, I risked a glance at the man in front of me, watching me intently like some wild cat waiting to pounce. Tears tumbled down my cheeks, splattering and dampening the paper napkin covering my lap.
You can do this, Kady. You can do this. Once it’s done, it’s done. Not even the mere contemplation of how happy Liam would be if I did what he wanted was able to penetrate the only thought in my mind, which was: this was too damn cruel.
“Eat!” he bellowed, causing my tears to stream quicker. I jolted and promptly wrapped my lips around the fork. All my energy went on blocking out all taste. It was the sheer fact that I had pig’s blood in my mouth that was making my stomach roll and lurch.
Dry heaves came again, inundating my body with compressing muscles and a tightening ribcage. It was when the fork was hastily snatched from my grasp and the edge was used to slice chunks out of the single item which remained on my plate, that I felt the contents of my stomach claw its way back up my throat. The butterflies and repulsion made itself known, and the evil, commandeering look in his eyes told me that there was no way out of this. He held my jaw in a grave and sturdy grasp.
“Open,” he charged.
For the first time ever, I was scared. I felt undiluted fear. And it was my boyfriend, someone to which was supposed to love and protect me, that made me feel it. A potent arm hurtled forwa
rd, and without time or the ability to protest, the fork was instantly in my mouth. I wrapped my lips around it as he retracted. Yet his grasp didn’t fall away from me. My mouth was held firmly shut with his left hand while he repeated his earlier motion and used the edge of the cutlery to hack off a little extra than what he just stuffed in my mouth with his opposite hand.
I was choking. My throat wasn’t allowing me to swallow the contents force fed to me, and my stomach was begging to be evacuated as the bitter, grainy taste of the pudding tickled my gag reflex. My ribs strained, my shoulders lurched, and my throat opened to allow the fillings in my stomach to be ousted. Regardless of the lingering food which my gullet refused to accept, he forced another forkful into my mouth.
“Don’t think that being sick will get you out of this, Kady, because it won’t,” he cautioned while my parched lips were caressed by my tears, leaving a salty tang coating them like gloss.
Diminutive sprays of food and a garbled rendition of ‘please’ traveled on a sob. But he was unrelenting, he was callous. He was stern and my God, this was by far the most sadistic thing he had ever put me through. A punishment? That was no punishment. It was barbaric. It was inhumane.
I lost count of how many heaves my body spawned. I lost count after four attempts at convincing him to stop with the ways which were causing me nothing but sheer fear. I lost my fight and conceded to his demands, purely to get the rough treatment over with.
Once my body was cooperative and accepted the final mouthful, I removed the napkin from my lap and curled myself up like a snoozing feline in the leather couch, as I fought through the heaves my body was still succumbing to.
Through the muffling of my ears, I heard the distant sound of the buzzer, informing us of Brittany’s return from the store.
“You won’t pull a stunt like that again, will you?” he asked, seeking clarification, his tone and expression completely impassive.
Shaking my head and sniffling back my tears, Liam trudged with his head held high and a perfectly uncaring posture through the glass and oak doors into the hall to let my sister in.