by Brianna Hale
Valeria casts her eyes to the heavens. “Hope for what?”
“That there’s still justice in the world.”
I sit back, enjoying the sight of Lolita quivering in righteous anger on my behalf. How I’d like to pat my knee and invite her to have a cuddle in my lap. Maybe slide those straps down her shoulders and tell her that daddy wants to suck her nipples.
“Or he did,” she adds miserably. “No one’s heard of him for months.”
I clear my throat to distract myself. “Whomever he is, the Black Fox must have a bigger head than all Spain by now.”
“You think he’s still around then?” Lolita asks, a hopeful note in her voice.
I smile sleekly at her. “Oh, certainly. He’s still prowling the streets at night, looking for young women to snatch up and ravish with kisses.” I say this with relish, imagining pulling Lolita’s squirming body against mine in the dark and whispering that it is I, the Black Fox, I’m not going to hurt her, I’m just going to taste her a little.
Lolita swallows, and says hoarsely, “The Black Fox would never do that.”
Wouldn’t he.
“Do shut up about that idiot,” Valeria drawls. “He’s long gone, whoever he was. Sometimes I wonder if he ever existed.”
A taut silence stretches, and then Lolita says defiantly, “He did. I met him once.”
“Oh, don’t lie,” Valeria snaps.
I agree with my wife. I would remember her.
Lolita leans forward, and the cleft between her breasts deepens. “I did! I saw him. I was coming home from—from church in the dark.”
The way her cheeks turn pink makes me certain she was coming home from anywhere but church. Where was she really returning from? A boy’s house? My hands clench angrily in my lap, but I make my tone relaxed as I ask, “What did you see, Lolita?”
Her eyes meet mine, and they’re filled with gentle wonder. “It was winter, and not very late. I was hurrying, and I dropped my…my prayer book. When I turned around, he was there.”
Valeria scoffs and takes another sip of her wine.
Lolita’s expression turns dreamy. “He was standing in the middle of the street, which had been empty just a moment ago. I could only see the silhouette of his cape and hat. He was so tall. So broad, and he had an aura about him, like you can’t help but feel safe just because he’s near. He’s a dangerous man, but he meant me no harm. I knew that without a doubt.”
I watch her, transfixed by the recollection flickering over her lovely face. Her hand is on the tabletop. I imagine picking it up and pressing a burning kiss to her palm.
I remember.
It wasn’t winter, like she said. It was very warm, actually, and past midnight. I suppose she changed her story to winter to make it seem more proper that she was out alone after dark. I picked up her book and handed it to her. I didn’t get a good look at her face, but as I slipped back into the shadows, my lungs suddenly burned as if I was drowning. A voice in my head told me I had to go back to her, and for some reason, I obeyed. I hurried and looked for her. I ran this way and that down the deserted streets, listening for her light footsteps, peering hard through the dark for a glimpse of her skirt. But I was too late. She was gone.
“When was this?” Valeria asks suspiciously.
Lolita blinks, and comes back into herself. “Oh, years and years ago.”
It wasn’t years and years ago. It was just one year ago. I open my mouth to scold her for telling such lies, but catch myself just in time. She really will lie about anything. My hands itch to pull her over my knee and spank the truth out of her. I want her confession in gulping sobs with her luscious ass blazing beneath my hands and her slit wet with need. That it was hot and late. That she wanted me, and that she’s sorry, so very sorry, that she slipped away into the darkness out of my reach, when she could have been mine, then, now and always.
Because now it’s too late. I married her mother.
I lift my glass of wine to my lips and toss it down in one huge swallow to prevent a roar of anger and despair from escaping my chest. I was wrong. I never outran the curse. It gave me just enough rope to hang myself with.
2
Lolita
The hilltop castillo rises before us as Zacarias drives us out of the town, all sheer sandstone walls and impressive battlements. It’s been in the family for generations. Our ancestors used to receive rents from all the people who lived hereabouts and take a cut of everything they farmed. I think Mama regrets the end of feudalism and the spread of democracy. She would have enjoyed being treated like a queen by the townsfolk.
I sit behind the driver’s seat. My new stepfather’s broad shoulders fill my vision. I watch the way his muscles bunch beneath his shirt as he makes a left-hand turn, and then glare out the window.
This summer is going to be hell. My stomach sinks even further as I remember that I won’t be returning to school come the fall. Mama has already made it clear that university is out of the question, and I’m to be married instead. She’s promised to find me a husband who will “curb my unruly ways.” Whatever that means. Probably lock me up and never let me do anything I want to do.
Zacarias turns the car smoothly through the castillo gates and draws up beside the water fountain that dominates the front entrance. The taxi driver who collected me from Madrid Airport will have already dropped off my luggage. Everything I own is now within the castillo, and it owns every inch of me.
I look up at the ornate stone carvings that decorate the sheer walls. Over the years as I’ve grown and Mama’s become stricter, I learned to hate this place. A beautiful prison. Maybe if I was allowed to be happy here then I could have grown to love it, but to me, it’s no more enticing than a jail cell.
Mama and Zacarias are talking and don’t notice as I head up the marble staircase to my room. I push open my bedroom door and step onto the cream carpet, taking in the four-poster bed and the gleaming en suite through the door. The balcony doors are open and I walk out onto the terrace, which is the only thing I like about this room that my mother decorated for me. I take deep breaths of the country air and gaze around at the hills, the olive groves, the winding streets of the medieval village below. The clouds spotting the azure sky. Everything about this place is heavenly, but it’s the devils who make hell, not the flames.
I play with my necklace, remembering Zacarias’ face as he spoke such vulgar things about the Black Fox. There’s another devil for me to contend with now—until Mama grows bored with him, at least. She grew bored with my father and cast him out when I was eleven. He never tried to see me again, and then he died when I was fourteen. I can barely remember him.
With a sigh, I go inside and collapse onto my bed. It can’t be true that the Black Fox has disappeared. He’s been protecting this area of the country almost as long as I’ve been alive. This countryside used to be filled with corrupt officials, murderers and rapists, and the Black Fox took them all down, one by one. He didn’t kill anyone or hurt them if he didn’t have to. He didn’t even dispense punishment. He just brought criminals into the light of day and handed them over to police whom he trusted, often in creative ways. A man who defrauded a charity was found tied to the statue he’d erected to himself with a list of stolen transactions pinned to his clothing. A mayor who groped his staff and blackmailed them into silence was handcuffed naked in the town square with I AM A PERVERT written over and over on his body in red paint. I think I love his sense of irony the best.
Did love.
My eyes fill with tears. Please, Señor, don’t be gone. We need you. I need you. I need to believe there’s at least a flicker of goodness in this corrupt and greedy world.
I listen to the clock down in the town strike two, and my eyes drift closed.
I wake several hours later, get myself out of bed and go downstairs. I might not be allowed to go to university, but there are some distance education courses on environmental law and human rights that I’ve enrolled in. I need to tell my mother,
because if my textbooks arrive without notice then she’ll throw them in the trash and tell me I’m a sneak for going behind her back.
As I walk along the corridor to the living room, I hear voices.
“…don’t know what I’m going to do about her.”
It’s Mama’s voice. She must be talking about me. I don’t like eavesdropping, but I have to know what she’s telling Zacarias about me, and how much of a foe she’s turning him into.
“If we don’t have her married quickly, she’ll spend her days whoring around the town. I used to catch her with the village boys, and they were trying to get their hands under her dress. Disgusting.”
My face floods with color. I never whored, and I didn’t let boys put their hands up my dresses, either. I was kissed, once, and of course Mama saw and assumed the worst, calling me a slut and that I was no better than filth if I let the poor local boys touch me. I tried telling her that it was just a kiss and to stop being so obsessed with class like it’s four hundred years ago, but she wouldn’t listen to me.
I peer around the door in time to see Zacarias’ eyes narrow. “She’s not a virgin?”
Mama has a glass of white wine in her hand and she’s changed into a flowing dress. There are heavy gold bangles on her wrists. “I can’t be sure. I wish I knew.”
My mouth falls open in shock. You can mind your own business!
Zacarias glares out the window, his jaw tight. “I’ll keep a close eye on her. I won’t stand for that sort of behavior under my roof.”
His roof. He only just met me and he thinks he can dictate what I do? I’m a grown woman, not a child.
Mama simpers at her husband. “Mi amor, I knew I could count on you. Be as strict and forceful as you need with her. Her father was weak, and I’ve always thought she needed a real man to teach her how to behave.”
Zacarias smiles and takes her hand. “With pleasure, my dear wife.”
I think I’m going to be sick, but at least I know now. Mama’s married a man who’s just as horrible as she can be.
I back up a few paces, and then walk with purposeful, noisy steps through the doorway, as if I’ve only just come downstairs. Blanca, Mama’s toy poodle, jumps up from the sofa and gambols around my feet, yapping gaily.
“I’m going down into town to see Sofía,” I announce, naming one of my old friends from when I was small. Sofía’s mother used to be employed here as a cleaner. Mama hated that I befriended her daughter, saying that it wasn’t proper.
Mama takes a sip of her wine and grimaces. “Must you? I don’t want you catching fleas and bringing them home.”
My fists clench at my sides, but I fight to keep my voice gracious. “Can I get you anything while I’m in town?”
I glance at Zacarias and find that he’s gazing at me speculatively. His dark hair is swept back and there’s a short, dark beard on his jaw. His brown eyes are nearly black, and though he seems relaxed, I sense a storm going on behind those eyes.
A storm that rages because he’s looking at me.
I look away quickly, telling myself not to be so fanciful. My mind’s playing tricks on me because I don’t like him.
“No,” Mama says with a sigh. “You can go. If you must.”
“Back by eleven,” Zacarias calls after me, as if it’s his business what time I come home. I go back upstairs to get my things. Telling Mama about my coursework can wait for another day.
I let myself out the back door and hurry down the winding gravel footpath into the town. As the castillo disappears behind me, I find I can breathe again.
Hours later, night falls, and I haven’t gone to see Sofía. Solitude is what I crave right now, and space to think. At nine, the restaurants around the square start to fill with people, and my belly rumbles when I catch the scent of roasting beef. I buy a bocadillo from a street vendor, a sandwich filled with sliced meats and mustard, and eat it walking around and gazing at the people. Simple pleasures. Small freedoms. I enjoy them. At the boarding school our days were strictly regimented and we were never allowed to go anywhere alone. There were no men, either, apart from a few crusty old professors.
My gaze lingers on the tanned, strong men in crisp white shirts sitting outside restaurants. Men at café tables playing cards and drinking coffee, their tight T-shirts showing off their muscular backs. Any one of them might be the Black Fox. Would I know him, if our eyes met? I feel that I would, somehow.
Sometime later I see that it’s five minutes to eleven, and I’m on the far side of town. Reluctantly, I turn my feet towards home. The streets are dark and I walk quickly. A thin sliver of moon hangs in the sky, providing just enough light to show me the way up to the castillo.
At twenty minutes past eleven I open the door at the rear of the castillo and step into the long, cool corridor. There are angry voices echoing from one of the rooms ahead. I creep forward, curious to know what the fight is about; hoping that it’s not about me.
I peer through a crack in the open door and see that Zacarias is pacing up and down, looking like he’s ready to do murder. Mama is sitting on the sofa in her dressing gown, her hands clenched in her lap.
“Zacarias, I hate that she’s been here less than a day and she’s already making you worry and lose sleep. Please go to bed.”
He growls, and the sound is like the warning snarl of a wild beast. Fear plunges through my body.
“No. Lolita is going to be punished for this.”
3
Zacarias
“If she’s not back in ten more minutes, I’ll go and look for her myself.” I’ll tear her from the arms of whatever horny teenage disaster has his sweaty mitts all over her. Or she might be hurt, lying bleeding somewhere, attacked—
A figure steps into the room, her eyes blazing. “For heaven’s sake. I’m only twenty minutes late.”
The relief I feel that Lolita’s safe is quickly overtaken by all-consuming rage.
Valeria leaps to her feet. “There you are! Lolita, it’s after curf—”
I hold out my arm, preventing her from going to her daughter. “Go to bed. I’ll deal with her myself.”
My wife gazes up at me with doe-eyes, and then meekly does what I say. Lolita watches in shock as her mother walks quickly out of the room without even looking at her.
“Mama’s never done what a man has told her to do her whole life,” Lolita says.
I believe it. I’ve never given Valeria a direct order before, because I haven’t wanted to and she’d probably laugh at me. But something more powerful than any of us in charge tonight and it’s lending its power to me. I feel it thrumming through me as I slowly approach my stepdaughter.
“You’re late.”
Lolita backs up toward the door, her terrified eyes never leaving my face. I put out my hand and shove the door closed, crowding her against it. “Who were you with?”
Lolita swallows and stares up at me with huge eyes. She can sense it, too, this power crackling through me. It’s like a hit of adrenalin and a shot of whisky, making me invincible.
“No one.”
I slam my fist against the door, and she jumps. “Don’t lie to me.” The scent from her body is of the warm summer night and fragrant flowers. I’d know, wouldn’t I, if she’s had some man pressed against her? I grasp her chin and turn her head in the light, examining her lips and throat. Her mouth isn’t swollen with kisses. There are no red bite-marks on her creamy neck. The tight band around my heart eases a little.
She yanks her chin from my hand and glares at me. “Get your hands off me.”
“In this house, you will obey my rules,” I seethe.
“Go to hell.”
So that’s how it’s going to be. That’s how she thinks it will be, anyway. I’m glad she’s misbehaved on her very first night. We can get things straight from the beginning. “Say you’re sorry for breaking the rules.”
Lolita forces a laugh. There’s defiance in her eyes, but fear, too. She isn’t sure how far I’m willing to take t
his.
All the way.
I reach down and slowly unbuckle my belt, the black leather sliding through the silver buckle. “Last chance, Lolita. Say, I’m sorry, daddy.”
Her voice is a horrified whisper. “You wouldn’t dare.”
There’s nothing I wouldn’t dare do right now. There’s a voice whispering in the back of my mind, showing me the way forward. I loop the belt around her neck and draw her to me. “Tell daddy you’re sorry, and I’ll let you off just this once.”
Her eyes flicker with panic but she doesn’t say anything. I tighten the belt around her throat until she struggles to breathe. “I’ve got all night. You’ve got about a minute till you pass out.”
“I’m sorry,” she finally chokes out.
“I’m sorry, daddy,” I prompt.
Her face creases with revulsion. I smile a slow, smoldering smile, anticipating how sweet it will sound from her pretty pink mouth.
“I’m sorry, daddy.”
Her lips are so close to mine that I could drop a kiss onto them. Her breasts are pressed against my chest. I can smell her innocence, just begging to be consumed.
A delicacy like Lolita is meant to be savored. Slowly, I loosen my hold on the belt, slide it free from her neck and step back. “Daddy forgives you.”
Lolita takes great, heaving breaths. “I’ll tell Mama what you just did. What you made me call you, you pervert.”
I chuckle, threading my belt back through my pants. “Go ahead. It’s not as if she’ll believe you, you filthy little liar.”
Lolita bursts into tears, yanks the door open, and runs from the room. I watch her disappear down the hall, still grinning.
Then the smile dies on my face.
I stagger and clutch the door frame as horror crashes over me. What the fuck was I just doing to my stepdaughter? The righteous anger that sustained me all evening and told me that terrorizing Lolita was the right thing to do has evaporated, and I’m left cold and empty. I hear a snatch of malicious laughter, and whip around.