Trapdoor

by Vixen Phillips

  I nod. Anything. Anything, except that most important thing.

  “Tell me about the day we first met.”

  Huh? I shake my head, mystified by this question. How do I even start to tell you the truth, when I’ve become such an expert at hiding myself and my feelings from you?

  But I have to try. He saved my life.

  That means he owns you.

  So what else is new?

  I laugh, and set free the first words that come into my mind. I don’t care whether they make any sense or not; God only knows none of it makes sense to me, and I’ve lived with this knowledge forever. “The first day I met you,” I answer, “I decided to give up selling my body to everyone and anyone who thought they could destroy my soul, because you came along and did such a thing without even touching me.”

  I watch him swallow and nod awkwardly and stare down at the sand. Not the answer you were expecting, huh? Want to throw this little fish back out to sea now?

  “It started with my uncle.” Seems my confession’s in motion, and I can’t stop it. “I didn’t want him to hurt me. I didn’t want him to touch—” I rub at my eyes, resisting the urge to claw at the lids. The images are trickling back in, only I don’t need any instant replay to tell this sorry story. “At least, mostly. It was worse when they tricked me into thinking I did. So much blood, at first. Father found out, of course, from the maid who washed the sheets. He asked me what happened, and truly, I told him.” I laugh, but I’ve long forgotten how it felt to ever be so naive. “So he beat me. He told me I’d go to hell if this was a lie, and even more quickly if it was the truth. He accused me of leading ‘decent men’ to their temptation.” My mother’s religion was based around faith, my father’s around fear and guilt. “While I lay there on the carpet of his study, he took off his belt and whipped me with it. I think before the end he was enjoying it. Later, my uncle came in and said that if I ever told again, he’d hurt me so bad I’d beg him for what he did to me next.

  “I put up with it for a year or two, maybe, before I took off. But by then it was too easy to see what I was, so nothing changed, not really. I was nine years old when it started. I had nothing else.” I’m trying to justify it to him, even after all this time. Even after Noriko, a professional counsellor, had spent months—years—drilling into my consciousness the assurances that none of it was my fault. We both thought I’d been starting to believe her. She’d be so disappointed to hear me talk this way.

  I turn my back on him, ready to give him the chance to withdraw without guilt or the need for pity. “You see it too, don’t you? I don’t deserve your love. I’m just a whore. You’re better off with Wendy. I’m sure she’ll still have you.” Sure, I’m overdoing it, but I just feel so fucking resentful now. I don’t want any of this. Can you really see?

  I want you. Only you.

  “Buy her some flowers, some chocolates, take her out for a romantic dinner at McDonalds. She’ll come round. Look on the bright side. You can be with Damien anytime you want.”

  This last sentence is too much for him. Swearing violently, he rips me around to face him, and glares at me. Then he grabs me by the waist, hoists me over his shoulder, and carries me all the way to the house, caveman-style. I’m not sure yet who really won. But I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

  · § ·

  After hauling me up to my room, he sets me down in front of the heater, then wanders out without a word. I’m left to hug myself, as the warmth from the fan takes too long to seep into my chilled bones. Is he coming back, or abandoning me to my own misery?

  When he returns he’s wearing dry clothes, and carries a towel, a polar fleece top, and some track pants under one arm. Two cups of coffee balance precariously in his other hand. He dumps the clothes at my feet, then sits on the bed and slides the cups onto the bedside table. “Take those wet clothes off and get dry, for Christ’s sake,” he mutters, then moves away to open the window a crack. I watch as he pulls out a pack of his beloved clove cigarettes and lights one up. He doesn’t want to watch me undress. I suppose I shouldn’t blame him.

  My heart feels leaden as I strip off the overcoat and boxers and rub myself quickly with the towel and squeeze the water out of my hair. I try not to think too much as I dress myself again. The top’s a nice shade of purple; it almost matches my damp tresses. Warm, too. Now the only chill remains where heaters and towels won’t reach.

  I turn around. Our eyes meet right away; he’s been watching me. From his pocket, he pulls out a comb and brandishes it in front of me. “Sit down. You look like a drowned rat.” But his voice is kinder.

  He kicks the wet clothes into the far corner, then sits behind me, and runs his hands through my hair before following it through with the comb. Soon I start to relax, despite myself.

  “So beautiful,” he whispers at last, allowing his fingers to brush my neck. A shiver that has nothing to do with cold runs along my spine. Then, “I want to tell you something. About—” He sighs and keeps up the grooming, though I can tell he’s removed all the knots already. “About the day we met. I—I wanted—” He breaks off again, with a laugh. “I never thought you’d want me either. That’s why I said yes to Wendy. That’s why I didn’t kiss you, when we were alone together, that first day when we met.”

  I put my hands up to my face, mainly with the intent to catch my heart as it makes a desperate leap for my throat.

  “But I always loved you. And I still love you. You’re not a whore, not to me. You’re perfect.”

  I shuffle around to face him, take the comb from his hand, and drop it on the floor. We don’t break eye contact for a long time. So many tears. Where do they all go?

  Finally, he puts his arms around me and gently pulls me forward. Panic is never far away—now what does he want?

  Fool. What do you think he wants? A kiss, of course.

  A kiss. I’ve never actually kissed anyone before. Our mouths brush together, innocent enough at first, like when we shared the smoke. This time I focus hard to keep my body steady, my mind tame. Then his tongue licks at my lips, forces them apart, and finds its way inside my mouth. At first I flounder, making a complete mess of it, but once I relax and follow his lead, I find I’m able to kiss him back.

  He guides me down onto the floor, lying protectively on top of me, his hands disappearing beneath the polar fleece to make contact with my skin. Oh, God. I’m certainly not cold anymore, judging by the familiar hardness between my legs, this time pressed against his belly. Nowhere to hide. You always did have a knack for getting this kind of reaction from me, Raven.

  His kisses grow deeper and more desperate. I moan as his tongue spirals around my lips and penetrates my mouth with sharp little stabs, in a rhythm too much like the one I want to share with him. His fingers move up my tummy, my chest, to discover my nipples, which he promptly begins to squeeze and pull. Further down, I can feel the effect I’m having on him, too.

  I giggle as his tongue tickles my neck, then gasp as his hand moves down to my crotch, running the length of my dick. He pulls down the track pants, just enough to reach inside and grab hold of me. Another little moan escapes my lips. I begin to move against him, trying to thrust up into his warm, soft palm.

  For a moment he does nothing more than hold me there. But then he begins to stroke me, his breath heavy in my ear. Oh, what am I doing, Raven? I’ve never wanted anyone before, let alone like this. He raises himself up on one elbow, eyes glazing over, so pure in his need for me. Could you make it all go away? Make me clean again. I feel cleansed when I watch you touch me.

  It hits me, how I want to say the words. I want to say them because they’re true of course, but can I? Could I? “Raven.” His name escapes my lips, beneath a wanton sigh.

  “What?” Instantly, he freezes. “Do you want me to stop?”

  In answer, I push his hand down towards my balls. “I—” No, I can’t. The terrifying reality of it all is almost enough to bring my new-found attraction crashing around me.
<
br />   He asked you if you wanted him to stop. That means if you’d said yes, he would have.

  I love you, Raven. I rehearse the words in my mind, then sit up to aim a lick at his mouth, only to miss and swipe his nose instead.

  With a laugh, he rubs at his nostrils, then swings me around to face in the opposite direction. Grabbing hold of my dick once more, he starts to move against me from behind, nibbling patterns from my ear down to my shoulder. He’s distracting me. But I’m determined to say it. “Raven,” I whisper again. “I—I think I—” Again I falter. Dammit.

  “Hush.” He leans into me, nuzzling my neck. “You don’t need to say it yet. There’s plenty of time.” He laughs again. “Took me four years, after all.”

  A reprieve. I can feel his hardness pressed between the cheeks of my butt. Wanting to be inside me. Wanting to possess me. Thrusting against me in the rhythm I longed for, when we first began to kiss. Could I do that with him, even after they—?

  “God, Pegasus, I really want to fuck you.”

  The words are a hot breath in my ear. Letting out a whimper, I pull away, hurrying to tuck myself into my pants. Once he realises, he grits his teeth and looks away. I wish you were the same as all the rest. At least then I’d know what I was dealing with. And who I was expected to be.

  “Hey. Peggy…I’m sorry.” I allow him to pull me out of my foetal pose, into his embrace. “I didn’t mean now,” he adds, once my shaking’s subsided. “When you’re ready. Only then.”

  “What if I’m never ready?” You’ve seen all my other imperfections tonight, what’s one more between friends?

  “Well, you’ll just have to keep me in a steady supply of Kleenex, is all.” He taps my nose gently. “I’m not like the others, babe.”

  My forced smile is fleeting. That wasn’t what really bothered me. “And is that all we’d be doing?” I make myself look him right in the eye. “Fucking?”

  He shrugs, ashamed, which in turn makes me ashamed—the fear that ran down my spine when he spoke those words almost made me come, right there in his hand. But I need to know.

  “Let’s go to bed.” He switches off the heater and takes a tentative sip of his coffee, then makes a face. I look to my own cup. I’d forgotten all about it. Cold, without a doubt. Guess I was distracted. Like I’m being distracted now. Still, I can’t be too antsy about it when he told me I didn’t have to say the words. And he told me he loved me. I guess that will have to be enough.

  It’s more than I ever had, after all.

  “What about Damien?” I ask, as he turns off the light and crawls into bed behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and cuddling close.

  “Oh, all the rooms have got intercoms connected to mine. Video too.”

  Wow. I can hardly imagine a mother so concerned for her son she’d effectively bug the entire household. “If only I’d known. I could have watched you undress.”

  He chuckles into my hair. “Well, I wasn’t actually the first of my line. Which is why.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Raven One never made it.” He sighs. “I think…maybe that’s when it started, for Ma. Anyway, when she got pregnant with me, you might say she took a few extra precautions.”

  “Oh.” But my mind’s already reeling with fatalistic possibilities. You could have died. Or he, this first Raven, could have lived, and you might never have been born. Or—

  “Go to sleep, Pegasus,” he mutters, as though he read my thoughts.

  I close my eyes, wriggling my body against his in an attempt to snuggle even more tightly together. I never thought I could feel so safe. Never thought I would.

  I’m nearly asleep when he whispers so softly that I almost don’t hear him at all, “And when you’re ready, we won’t just be fucking. We’ll be…making love.”

  I smile, and feather-float down and down, into a peaceful sea of dreams.

  Chapter 7

  Raven: Beyond the Dawn

  “Daddy!”

  Damien lands on my stomach, knocking all the air out of me. Next thing I know, he’s pulling at my hair, poking my eyes, and prodding my lips, experimenting with the magic combination required to wake me. I swat at his hands. No, not yet.

  It’s too late. I sit up in slow motion and reach for the switch on the bedside lamp. Too damn early as well; it’s still dark out. At my side, Pegasus dreams on, most of his face obscured by the long mane of silken hair—dry by now. Even in sleep, his fingers grip the doona, and twitch. I glance at the alarm clock I might’ve forgotten to set. A quarter-to-five, and the memories of last night are coming back in waves. I saved your life, angel one, told you I loved you, showed you all I could to make you stay. And in fifteen minutes, give or take, you’ll be nothing more than smoke and memory again.

  “Breakfast!” Damien announces, as I try and make sense of the fragments rushing past my mind’s eye. Visions of dragging him out of the water, refusing to believe I might already be too late, of his stories of what they did to him, before I could get there, get to him—

  “Hush.” I put a finger to my son’s lips. “You’ll wake him.”

  Of course I’m too selfish to wake him myself. I don’t want you to go. And I don’t want you to take him to her. Please don’t leave me. Not after last night. Just cos I told you what I felt, doesn’t mean any of it’s been magically resolved.

  And is that all we’d be doing? Fucking?

  What the hell do you think I meant when I said I love you?

  Damien wiggles in my arms. He’s reaching out towards Pegasus, for the threads of lilac that cover the pillows. “Pretty hair,” he murmurs, stroking the long tresses, then leans down and plants a kiss on the top of Peg’s head. In his sleep, Pegasus mumbles something in a sing-song voice and snuggles deeper into the pillow. I feel a smile cross my heart. If this is all I ever get, it could be enough.

  When I’m old—or young—and dying of throat cancer or lung cancer or whatever other type of bloody cancer they warn you about on those ridiculous health labels on cigarette packs, at least I can remember a time when two boys and their son existed, together, doing whatever ‘normal’ families do. Definitely more than I’ve ever had.

  “Come on, I’ll fix you some cornflakes and bananas,” I whisper in Damien’s ear. We tiptoe from the room.

  · § ·

  He’s already on his second round when the doorbell rings. I’m standing at the sink, finishing the last of my coffee as I stack the dishwasher. My heart sinks to hear that sound. I’ve been hoping Monty won’t come. Any excuse, really, ranging from flat tyres to last minute crises with Noriko to small, non-life-threatening accidents. I wash the last few grains out of my cup and leave it in the sink. Damn you all to hell.

  “Should I get that?”

  Ma’s soft voice makes me jump. No. We’re not home. Let’s go hide behind the sofa, or upstairs in the bedroom, same as we did whenever Dad was due home from the pub.

  “Sure,” I say instead, though by the time I turn around she’s gone. A moment later I hear cheery greetings passing between the three of them, Monty, Ma, and Damien. What are you sounding so chirpy about? He’s only come to take you away from me. Would that make you happy? To go back to your mama, that bitch who’s done her best to destroy us both?

  Ugh. I rub at my hair. No, I’m not going to let myself even think that way. Bad enough that she fights with him around me—the lesser evil of all her sins, apparently. I won’t stoop to her level. Me? I’m better than that. Which is why I’m just going to stand here and let you both leave, without uttering a single word.

  “Hey there, sunshine.” Monty lurches into the dining room as I march across to clean up the leftovers.

  “Hello.” I drop the bowl into the sink, with enough force to nearly break it. I want to smash something, but I can’t, not here. Ma doesn’t deserve that. It would resurrect too many ghosts from her own painful past, of what made her sick. What I really need right now is a drink.

  If Monty notices my gloom, he
ignores it. “Where’s Peg?” I don’t bother answering. “Not still asleep?” He sighs and takes off his glasses to polish them on his suit. One of his larger hints at frustration. “Better go wake sleeping beauty, I guess.”

  “I’ll do it.” Surprised by the possessive tone in my voice, I’m glad of a reason to shove past him and disappear up the stairs. But just as I reach the landing, the floor above us creaks, and Pegasus appears, looking down on us, looping his hair into a make-shift ponytail.

  “Well, look what crawled out of bed,” Monty drawls. “Are we ready, Cinderella?”

  He giggles as Pegasus tells him, in no uncertain terms, to go and get fucked. “Oh, is that so? I’d be careful how you talk to me, young master Belmont. I do have certain secrets of yours under wraps, after all.” I want to slap that grin off his face. What secrets? His mama? What his family did to him? What? What the hell do you know that I don’t?

  “All things die eventually,” Pegasus murmurs, pushing his way between us. “Even secrets.”

  He moves past us into the kitchen, and Monty turns that grin on me. So that’s what your secrets were about, huh? I turn my back on all of them. I’ve gotta get out of here, before the facade cracks and all the anger and frustration and confusion and despair and hopelessness seeps out like poison gas from a rock. “I should get Damien’s stuff together,” I mutter, but Ma appears, brandishing the backpack. There’s Mr. Rabbit, poking out the top, and I envy him his stuffed oblivion.

  “Oh, no need, darling. I took care of it already.” Fuck. “And some of your things are over there, by the sofa. At least, what I thought you might want to take with you.”

  Take with me? Where am I going?

  I glance up—now they’re all gathered in the living room, watching me expectantly. I crush the little flower of hope that trembles to life inside my chest. “I’m not coming with you.”

  You could cut the air with a knife after that announcement. Ma lets out a sigh of familiar exasperation, and Damien starts mumbling, “Daddy, Daddy,” under his breath.