His hand twisted in her hair at the crown of her head and he pulled hard, dragging her off the couch and making her fall to her knees.
“Now who’s the bitch, Elsa?” His voice was rough, deep, and filled with arrogant demand.
It wasn’t Victor saying those things. She knew that, but her tears came anyway, soaking the blindfold.
“That’s it….” he snarled. “Cry for me, you demanding cunt.”
What had she done? Again… she had asked too much of him. He hadn’t even told her yet and already Mr. Black had clawed his way out to make her pay for doubting Victor’s integrity and honesty.
Silence. Coldness.
Minutes passed before strong hands on her shoulders gently guided her back to the couch and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Victor. He was back. She bit hard into the gag to stifle a cry of joy. He was keeping his promises. All of them.
“My sixteenth birthday was a hot Goddamn mess, to say the least. It started out well enough,” his soft spoken voice lulled her back to a sense of security. “I had friends over. My mom was semi-sober. There were gifts. Girls. Yeah… girls. Jesus, I was such an asshole. I didn’t even know how to talk to them. All I could do was stare at them and stutter.” He cleared his throat and moved behind the couch. “I digress. She ended up drinking too much at the party and getting some of my friends drunk. I found her in my bedroom sucking off one of my classmates. He was drunk, too. What a nightmare. After I kicked everyone out, she went into a rage…”
The lifeless tone his voice had taken on was upsetting.
“She was pissed that I interrupted her fun, I guess. I don’t know. I never knew the reasons for her anger.” He swallowed a couple of times before continuing. “That was the night she told me about who my real father was. She’d always led me to believe my dad was some military hero who had died in an aerial training accident. That old bitch was a good liar. She had me believing that bullshit my whole life.”
The smell of cigarette smoke filled the room following a momentary pause. He was smoking in the house… something he never did. He was anxious. She could hear it in the sound of his breathing, even though his voice sounded robotic and stripped of emotion.
“She met my father at a bar. I mean… of course she met him at a bar. They fucked out back next to a dumpster. Go figure. Both of them pieces of trash…” he sucked hard against the cigarette and exhaled loudly. “She didn’t know his name at the time. It was just a one-time thing. It wasn’t until after he was arrested for all those murders that found out who he was. By then I was a little older so she just kept up the lie.” Inhale. Exhale. “I fucking digress. She rampaged for days after my birthday. I couldn’t do anything right. It was like she had been released from the burden of telling me who my father was, and she was free to take out her anger on me. Her hatred seemed to intensify after that night. She began to beat on me for no Goddamn reason; slap me, hit me, scratch me; like I was just a piece of shit there to take her abuse. And I took it too, because I was fucking stubborn and I wasn't gonna let her know she had broken me.” His mocking laugh oozed disdain. “Rules. She started writing out these ridiculous rules for me to follow. Pages after fucking pages of them…”
His voice finally revealed emotion, but it was the kind of emotion that hooked her in the chest. Rules. He had made himself into his mother.
“You think you got me figured out, right?” A thin thread of mania laced his voice as he laughed. Mr. Black. “She was the original creator of the game. But I honed it. Perfected it. Made it into something better. See, my rules have purpose. I help people.” A note of triumph edged his voice. “My mom just fucked with me.” Inhale. Exhale. Lips being moistened. “The very last rule she ever tried to enforce led to this scar.”
Finally. He had been talking for half an hour, pacing his words slowly, and now he was getting to the point. The air in the room congealed like old blood, and the silence seemed deafening. He had gone completely still; even his breathing seemed to have stopped.
“Pleasure her…” his softly spoken words thickened with anger from across the room.
Elsa shrunk into the couch and tried to make herself small. The storm was coming…
“She wanted me. Jesus fucking Christ, what a disgusting whore. I was only sixteen but I was a man in her eyes. And she fucking wanted me to pleasure her…” Hatred and disgust swirled in the dark cadence of his voice. “Those were her exact words. I remember reading the rule and not knowing what the hell she meant. But she was quick to educate me and she demonstrated. Touching herself, groping her tits and fingering…” he swallowed loudly.
Elsa’s stomach rumbled with nausea, and she felt the bitter backwash of bile rise in her throat. She took it back. She didn’t want to know the reason for the scar. He could keep his secrets.
“God, her smell... I was fucking sixteen. It made no difference. But I was strong then and there was no fucking way I was doing that with her. When she forced herself on me, things got violent. I shoved her hard, knocking her against the television. She hit the back of her head and it knocked her senseless for a few minutes. I remember thinking I had killed her and feeling a sense of relief. I wasn’t that lucky though. When she came to, she backed off. I thought that was the end of it…” Another cigarette lit and the smell of smoke. The dip of the sofa next to her. “Do you like pain, Elsa?”
His silky menacing tone scared the hell out of her and she thrashed her head no.
“I’m not asking for much. Just a little repayment for everything you’re demanding…” Elsa pressed her body into the couch and tried to back away. “It’ll only hurt for a minute…”
Inhale. The crackle of the cherry on his cigarette. Exhale. Movement…
Elsa braced herself for Mr. Black’s brutality. The sensation of heat near her skin made her body jerk and she wailed against the gag. God, no… He had just ghosted his lit cigarette past her thigh, the one scarred from her hot coffee accident, but he stopped just shy of burning her.
“Fine.” A deep, slightly aggravated sigh. “No pain. But you will repay me.”
She had no doubt she would.
He stood and moved away and a wave of adrenaline made her body quiver uncontrollably. Where was Victor? He was in there… he had been the one to stop Mr. Black.
“I was eating dinner when it happened. She had made herself scarce all damned night. It was nice not seeing her and worrying about what the hell she was planning next. But that’s exactly what she had been doing; hiding and planning her attack. When she came into the room, I just ignored her, hoping we would pretend like it never happened. She moved behind me, reached for something…” His voice lowered to a creepy, shiver inducing whisper. “It was cold and sharp. I knew right away what it was. If I hadn’t moved, she would’ve killed me; cut my fucking jugular, but I was quick and she missed…”
The pounding of blood through her veins threatened to drown out the sound of his agonized voice. She swallowed an upsurge of sobs and hid her face in the soft fabric of the sofa.
She didn’t want to hear anymore… She was sorry for making him admit this…
“Mine to do with what I want…” A softer, more ominous tone. “Those were her words just before she put the knife to my throat.”