by Keri Lake
“Fuck you. Fuck. You!” I slam my palms into his chest, kicking him back a step, before his smile turns to a snarl.
Only a brief flash in my periphery warns of the following crack against my cheekbone that radiates up into my sinuses and kicks my head to the side.
Before I can register the hit rattling my skull, his fingers dig into my jaw, sending a sharp ache into my teeth. “You ever lay a hand on me again without asking, and I will lay you out and fuck you while you’re down.”
Eyes squinting, I grip his wrist to break the hold at my face, but he tightens it.
“You understand? Say, yes, Daddy.”
“Fuck. You.” I know better than to test him. Experience has taught me the consequences of such actions, but my head is so lost to anger, I can’t even think straight. My mouth simply fires off on its own reflex, despite my brain telling me to slow down.
His hand slides down to my throat, and at one obnoxious squeeze, stars burst in front of my eyes while the oxygen sits trapped beneath his grasp. “I think you want to play, don’t you? Does my little whore feel like testing her limits? Huh? Want to see how long I can choke you before you black out?”
Scratching at his arm fails to loosen his grip, and the stars before me seem to get brighter and brighter. I open my mouth to answer, but only a grunted gasp for air escapes me. My chest tugs for more of it, my muscles panicking, trembling in their desperation to break his grip.
His mouth slants over mine, the spearing of his tongue jabbing past my teeth and inciting more panic, as I claw at him for one gasp of oxygen.
Darkness closes in from the fringes, my field of view shrinking, until he drops me to the floor, where I fall into a slump.
I inhale and wheeze, desperate to fill my lungs.
“Go brush your fucking teeth. Almost made me puke kissing you.”
Ignoring him, I focus on the chandelier lamp hanging over the small kitchen table as it grows darker and darker, shrinking into a pinprick I can’t see through.
Voices reach inside the void, and I focus on them. Masculine voices. And boisterous laughter.
“Too much fucking wine.” The sound of Calvin’s voice twists inside my stomach, and I frown.
My eyelids flip open to a blurry scene of four men sitting around my kitchen table. The chandelier sits cockeyed. The scent of cigarettes and beer stirs the nausea already swirling in my gut, and I push up to a sitting position, realizing I’ve been lying on the kitchen floor for however long these men have been here, the stiffness in my cheek and shoulder confirming it.
“Look who’s awake, boys!” Smoke propped between his lips, Calvin shuffles a stack of cards, while the other three spare a quick glance back at me. “Had to rig the light, stupid thing kept hitting Jimmy in the forehead. Might’ve cracked one of the little crystal thingies when he swatted it.”
A throb pounds inside my head. I push to a stand, stumbling backward a step, and I reach out for the stove, just catching my fall.
“C’mere a sec, love. Gotta ask you something.”
“I need to go lie down.”
“In a minute. Just come over here for a sec.”
Instead, I ignore him, truly needing the spinning inside my head to cease. As I pass, a firm grip wraps around my arm, yanking me backward, and I fall awkwardly onto his lap. His arm bands around me, and I squirm, every muscle in my body weak as though still oxygen starved.
“Let me go!”
“I told ya, boys. She’s a feisty one!” Over the chorus of laughter that follows, a hard smack stings my thigh. “I took the liberty of going through your phone while you were out, and I happened to stumble across a mighty interesting little discovery.”
The confession alone is horrifying, but my head can’t even begin to wrap itself around the terrifying nature of him going through my phone.
Abandoning the cards in his left hand, he lifts my phone from somewhere beside him. “You guys ever heard of reverse harem erotica?”
Oh, God. I downloaded a book a few weeks back—a really raunchy story about a woman held against her will by a band of criminals. I only got about halfway through, when the story took a really dark turn, the men totally degrading and disgusting in what they make her do. Unfortunately, I forgot to delete the book off my app.
“From what little I read, just picking up where Ivy, here, left off, it seems to be some kind of rape fantasy, or something. Apparently, this girl in the book is into some pretty kinky shit.”
“I’m not reading it. It’s disgusting.”
“Don’t sound disgusting. And you did read quite a bit of it, from what I seen, love.” His knee bounces below me, jostling my body, and I squirm to get away again, but he holds my arms behind my back, jutting my breasts forward. “Look at them titties, boys. Anyone feel like touchin’ ‘em?” Pressure against my elbows prods me forward into the man sitting next to us. “Go on, it’s your only chance. I don’t like sharing what’s mine, but tonight? I’ll make an exception for you, boys.”
In the pause that follows, the man beside me drops his gaze to my breasts, and his tongue sweeps across his lips like a predator.
“Don’t you fucking touch me!”
“Girl said that in the book, too, but we all know it’s a front. These bitches act like they’re all independent and against rape.” Still holding me bound, Calvin rests his head on my shoulder, and it takes every ounce of restraint not to head-butt his nose. “But they sure love to read the shit, don’t they?”
“Fuck you. I never said I wanted that! It’s fiction, you ignorant ass.”
In all honesty, I have fantasized about threesomes and foursomes, and even a small bit of dubious consent, but only as a fantasy, and certainly not with this prick and his band of misfits.
Curling his fingers into the neck of my shirt, he yanks it down over one breast, exposing my black bra beneath. “Look at that pretty bra. In the book, one of the bastards shoves it into the bitch’s mouth, before fucking her with a dildo. ‘Sat sound like fun to you, Ivy? Sound like a good fucking time? Huh?” He bounces me again, my breast sloppily jostling with the movement. “Touch her, Mike. Feel how nice those titties fit into your palm.”
Eyes on the bastard beside me, I clench my jaw. “You fucking touch me, and I’ll cut your dick off.”
An obnoxious laugh from behind skates along my spine. “She ain’t gonna cut off shit. I got her arms. Go ahead, you have my permission to touch her. Don’t be scared. I’m just a loving boyfriend fulfilling my girl’s secret fantasy.”
With a smile that I can’t tell is real, or meant to appease Calvin, the guy reaches out and grabs a handful of my breast, kneading it in his palm.
Gnashing my teeth, I focus on his face, imagining it smashed and bleeding.
“Oh, yeah.” Calvin groans, prodding his jean-clad cock into me. “How’s that feel, love? ‘Sat make you hot? How bout we lay you out on the table here and let every one of them fuck you, just like the girl in that story? I’ll be a gentleman and hold you down, so everyone gets a turn.”
“Stop! Fucking stop it! Quit fucking touching me!” A hand slaps across my mouth, and I bite down into flesh, nails digging into his fingers with my arm free.
“You can make all the noise you want, bitch. Let’s not forget what happened the last time the police came, based on a complaint.”
The last time, my neighbor ended up with slashed tires and a broken finger. Even if I screamed bloody murder, I doubt any one of them, except Mrs. Garcia, would bother. And unfortunately, she sleeps without her hearing aide in.
“Man, leave her alone.” The young guy sitting opposite Calvin sits guarded, his fingers entwined. Clean cut, wearing a button-down shirt, with his hair gelled back, he doesn’t look like the other two thugs. He looks regal, maybe someone important. Another mysterious contact. “I didn’t come here to play touchy feely with your girlfriend. I came to play cards, and if that’s not happening, I’m out.”
“Listen to Mister I-Only-Fuck-Supermodels over h
ere. What? My girl isn’t hot enough for you?”
“She’s a bit too hot for you, asshole. But I wouldn’t touch your sloppy seconds if someone paid me. Now, let’s get to playing cards.”
A round of laughter bounces off the walls, and my arms are set free. Calvin pushes me off his lap, laughing with the rest of them, and I stumble toward the door. “Get the bed warm for later,” he says, resuming his shuffling of the cards. “If you’re lucky, I’ll bring a cucumber to bed with me.”
Tears fill my eyes as I make my way toward the bathroom, their obnoxious laughter trailing after me. Once inside, I close the door behind me and slide down the wall.
“Hey, don’t be too long!” Calvin’s voice bleeds through the door. “Tony’s gotta piss!”
I cradle my head in my hands. If I could go back eight years, I never would’ve handed over my soul to the devil. I’d have died of starvation first.
3
DAMON
Through the back door of the rectory, I make my way down to the lower level. Father Ruiz, who covers the Spanish mass, lives in the upper level of the building, whereas I opted for the basement. Even when the two of us are here, we rarely run into each other. A large family, full of siblings and cousins, occupies most of his free time, so the only fleeting moments we happen to see each other outside of church might be during morning prayer in the chapel, or in the kitchen, when one of us is cooking. Otherwise, the place is essentially all to myself, and my gray Chartreux, Philippe, for whom Ruiz doesn’t care much.
A half renovated rec room passes on the right, in which all my workout equipment awaits abuse. My bedroom sits adjacent to the guest room at the end of the hall. At some point, a seminarian is expected to occupy the extra space, but for now it’s quiet and vacant. Stillness I would’ve appreciated as much as on any other night, if my head wasn’t all over the place.
Without flipping on the light, I stride through the darkness to the closet at the opposite side of my bed and tug the dangling chain, which flicks on the bare lightbulb inside.
Staring off, I remove my clerical collar and shirt, leaving only the white tank beneath. I can still hear the man’s raspy voice. Smell his breath. The cigarettes and whiskey. Not a drop of remorse on his words. No, he took joy in hurting a child, an innocent lamb, without consequence. And if he’s telling the truth, that child lies buried somewhere up on Angel’s Point—an admission I won’t know to be true for certain, until I’m able to investigate tomorrow at first light, before morning mass.
Massaging the blossoming ache stabbing at my skull, I breathe hard through my nose. My mind is chaos. A battle between my duties as a priest, my commitment to the parish, and my instincts as one who’s already seen the worst parts of hell. As much as I believe we’re all deserving of God’s mercy, there are those among us, wolves amongst the flock, who are, by their very nature, unrepentant predators, the kind that seek out the most innocent and vulnerable.
He could be out there, harming another child.
I slam my fist into the wall beside me. Rattling comes from within the closet, while the slivers of pain shoot up my knuckles. Gripping the doorjamb, I rest my head there, spasms shooting across my jaw with the grinding of my teeth.
Every cell in my body, the parts that make me more man than priest, beg me to hunt the man down and throttle him in vengeance. That very thought is an affront to everything I stand for, but I already know I’m not like my fellow priests. My past alone makes me different, but my thoughts, and my reasons for answering the call, were never fully aligned with other seminarians. While they sought to devote their lives to helping others know God, I sought to escape the violence in my head, to craft and mold my anger and pain into something less destructive, and find peace in the aftermath of that single night, when everything in my world was ripped away. Everyday is a struggle to contain the ire, to keep those skeletons buried deep inside of me, and this man, this unremorseful sinner, broke the ground with his confession, unleashing all that rage.
But still, even the deeply rooted nature of my being stands in conflict, because a confessor is forbidden to use knowledge acquired in confession to the detriment of the penitent. This is what canon law states. This is what priests have been martyred for centuries to protect. Nepomucene, Magallanes slip behind my shuttered lids, all the names of well-known priests who chose death over revealing a confession in times of war and at the threat of torture, while I bite back the enmity burgeoning inside of me. I’m not permitted to report him to the authorities, even if it called to me more so than the rage snaking through my veins, coaxing me to harm another man.
After all, the sacramental seal is inviolable, an act of confidentiality and trust, a privileged encounter between God and the penitent.
I made a vow to uphold the trust of my parishioners. To protect them. A vow that others before me suffered brutal torment and cruel deaths to defend. One that, should I choose to break it, would result in automatic excommunication from the church. Latae sententiae.
And what then? I’ve become all too familiar with what happens when everything is gone, when I’m left alone with my thoughts without distraction, or purpose. One cold breath away from death. I’ve been there before.
I did as I was tasked—to urge him to go to the authorities.
Yet, I can’t just ignore the brutal murder of a child. I can’t.
Opening my eyes brings an object to view at my feet. A torn piece of paper, upon which I love you, daddy is written in orange crayon. The scrap blurs behind my tears as I kneel down to pick it up. In seconds, I’m taken back to the night, eight years ago, when I sat at my desk late into the evening, working on a new deal, and reached inside my coat pocket to pull out the note now lying as nothing more than a memory in my hand.
When I punched the wall, it must’ve fallen out of the box I keep on the top shelf, one housing pictures and memories—vestiges filled to the brim of a past I can’t bear to revisit. I reach up to the shelf, my fingers blindly prodding the opened box, and I drop the note inside. I pull the box to the edge, until I can see the hearts and stars drawn on the surface with multiple colored crayons.
Panic punches my chest at the sight of it, and I quickly replace the lid and push it back, out of sight again.
In eight years, I’ve not found the strength to look inside that box.
Nabbing a pair of sweats from one of the lower shelves, I change out of my clerical garb and throw on a black tank, before exiting the closet.
A small desk in the corner holds my laptop, and I flip it open to random notes I have jotted for Sunday homily. Pulling the Internet up, I type ‘Ames murder’ in the search bar, and I find myself staring at the face of a fair-skinned child, with blonde curls and bright blue eyes that seem to sparkle on the screen. Lia Ames. According to the article, she went missing from her L.A. home over a year ago, and her mother, distraught, urged anyone to come forward with information about her daughter, who suffered from pediatric retinoblastoma blindness. On February 18th, 2016, her babysitter reported the two of them were in the back yard of the girl’s suburban home, when she went inside to grab some water for her. Upon her return, Lia was gone. The babysitter reported that the girl’s service dog hadn’t even barked to suggest a stranger in the backyard, which led them to believe the girl might’ve taken off.
With no warning, a heavy body leaps onto my lap. Back stiff, Philippe settles down on my thighs, nudging my arm for a pet. Snorting, I shake my head and stroke my hand over his soft gray fur. “How’s your day been, buddy? Better than mine, I’ll bet.”
The girl on screen catches my eye once more, and I flick my attention back to Philippe, where his golden amber stare takes me back eight years.
Isabella lays tucked into my arm, as I read the last page of her favorite book, The Little Prince. I’ve grown to hate this book, the ending of it taking on new meaning since her diagnosis, but as it’s her favorite, I read every last word. The smooth skin atop her head brushes under my palm, as I mindlessly cares
s where long chestnut locks, like her mother’s, once hung in loose curls. Stolen in the first weeks of chemotherapy. On her lap, Philippe purrs, enjoying the short-lived attention from her. Unlike before, he doesn’t get to sleep in her bed, not until the chemo is finished, and has taken up sleeping with Val and me at night.
“Daddy?” she asks, as I close the book, setting it on the nightstand beside me. “When I die, will you take care of Philippe?”
Muscles frozen, I frown down at her. “Hey, don’t talk like that. You’re gonna be fine. The chemo is gonna work.”
“Jenna’s brother had Leukemia, and he died.”
“Well, there’s different kinds, and different things affect the outcome, Bella.”
“But he had the same kind. And he was way stronger than me. He could cross the monkey bars in five seconds. It used to take me twelve seconds.” Bottom lip quivering, she looks on the verge of crying. “Mommy says Philippe is an annoying cat, so when I’m gone, who’s going to pet him when you have to work all night?”
“Listen to me, you’re not going anywhere. Philippe is going to get more pets than he can imagine, once your chemo’s over.”
“But if it doesn’t work, will you promise me you’ll take care of Philippe forever? And you’ll pet him for me, whenever he feels sad and lonely?”
“I promise.”
I blink to hold back the tears, as Philippe springs off my lap and saunters back out of the room. Gaze lifted toward the closet, I can just make out the edge of the box shoved toward the back. Part of me wants to grab a bottle of whiskey and drown myself in those memories. To pull out the copy of the book I know is tucked inside, and remember the feeling of having my young daughter lying in my arms as I read it to her.