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Sixteen

What the actual fuck is he talking about?

Apparently, my stunned silence is too much for him to bear. Either that or the vexation that’s been festering in him is in need of a release because his hand is practically clawing at his belt buckle, undoing it. “Unbelievable,” he groans, now slipping the belt through the loopholes of his pants, with such speed, the leather audibly whips at the still air. “I don’t know if I should be impressed by your acting skills or insulted by them. Playing dumb isn’t a good look on you. I mean, I’d still fuck but come on. Work with me here. I thought you were better than this? I always thought you were smarter than this somehow, but if you insist on acting like a stupid fucking brat, I think I have something that will get you talking.” His zipper sounds as he lowers it. “Or at the very least, this will get you to open your mouth.”

He laughs.

Well, time may have made him hotter, but this is pathetic. All this to get me to suck his dick.

Sure enough, the head of his cock meets my lips, forcefully parting them as he does, good on his promise to fill my mouth since I refuse to talk to him. Slowly, he stuffs my mouth with his cock. His shaft is so smooth; all of it except the unexpected barbell that presses against the roof of my mouth and onto my tongue. Mouth full of him, robbing me of my opportunity to speak, he holds himself in place, waiting for me to make a move.

The intense need to suck him in, and give him a taste of what I should’ve given him that night, floods me. Making me weak.

“You’re pathetic,” I mumble around his girth.

“No, no, no,” he clicks his tongue, thrusting his hips forward. Controlling the tempo he has fucking my mouth. With every thrust he makes in my mouth, I’m finding the will to not hollow my cheeks around him more and more difficult. “You, my beautiful, slutty, little sister, are the pathetic one,” he practically hisses. With each drive of his length in and out of my mouth, a dry sensation overtakes my mouth. It’s gritty. Rough. “You’ve wanted my cock since the day you laid eyes on me,” he continues as my mouth accepts its fate. The warm, wet hole he needs to get off with—and the one I want him to get off in. My eyes fall shut, and he continues to fuck my mouth. Though now with my submission hanging in the balance, every stroke of his cock elicits a response that feels almost out of body. The story he was just reading lays vivid in my mind.

The cross.

The blood.

So much fucking blood.

It all plays in my head like a movie, the pace of the carnage quickening as he pumps himself in me. “That’s it. You see it, don’t you?”

Yes.

Yes. I see it. But why?

What the fuck did he give me?

I flinch, but he fights me, shoving himself deeper into my throat as his hand strokes my forehead, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Look at us, reunited, the sinner and the saint,” he says with twisted glee.

I open my eyes and for a split second I don’t see Harlan; I see his father. I know it’s not him, but the intrusive thought is too strong to deny, and the image both terrifies and haunts me.

“It’s okay, pecadora,” he calls me. Just like his father used to.

With a snap of his fingers, the snake from before slithers his way back over to me, coiling around my throat, weaving its scales over and under my neck, through my hair, and back around again. Not tight enough to suffocate me, but snug enough that my lungs are burning with anticipation… and fear.

Harlan removes himself from my mouth and buckles his pants while I lay down frozen with the snake on top of me.

A satisfied groan erupts from Harlan’s mouth. “Fuck. Fear looks good on you. But, that’s the thing, I’m tired of looking.” He stops, taking a blotter sheet out from his back pocket. Placing it in view, he rips a square off and then another.

A square with the same emblem on it as the ones we took all those years before flashes before my eyes.

“Open.” I ignore his command and his hand finds my cheeks, prying my mouth open. He places the square on the tip of one of the torn muscles of his tongue and gingerly brings it to my mouth. I try to squirm beneath his touch, but he’s too strong. Success lines his movements as the paper settles on my tongue as he closes my mouth, placing his hand over it. “Seeing you come alive from the dance terror performs on your flesh can only do so much.”

Settling his mouth at my ear, he whispers, “I want to feel your pain,” before cooing, “I want to bathe in it. Now swallow.” His command is firm and demanding as he tightens the hold of his hand over my mouth. “I said swallow.” His hand spreads to my nostrils, as he attempts to cut off my air.

With no fucking choice, and sadly craving the high this will give me, I oblige his request. That’s all it takes to have him remove his hand, still leaving the snake in place. The drugs mix with the ones in my system and it’s the only reason I’m not screaming. My body is too buzzed, my senses fooling me .

Harlan takes his knife, and without hesitation, slices the fabric between my legs, exposing my pussy to him.

“So wet.” He hums in approval. “So fucking wet when you’re scared.” His split tongue dances at my entrance until the competing flesh finds a synchronized rhythm, each end taking turns dipping into my arousal before he unites the torn muscle and has it crash into me all at once. “I wonder how wet you’ll be when the fear no longer excites you, but kills you,” he groans and with his mouth pressed so firmly against my center, the words vibrate through me, making me want his wrath more than I should. I squeeze my legs, wanting to suffocate him, but the slap he places on my skin is so intense, it throws me off.

The lights above me mesh into a kaleidoscope of colors. I’ve never felt this high before. So alive.

“What did you give me?” I pant, writhing my hips at his face, but he moves back, standing up. I watch as he goes back to grab another book from the shelf, except he doesn’t take this one off. He pulls it just enough that the floor moves, and I fall like I’m sinking into the ground.

I stare up as I hear his boots stomp across the floor, nearing me.

He looks down at me.

“An escape.” Those two words are the equivalent to a time machine. Mocking me as they transport me back to when I was the one slipping him the drugs, and he was nervous. I told him the exact thing, to soften the blow of what I made him take. Of what I forced on him.

“Get up,” he instructs. His command hits my system like a whip. Harsh with an undeniable sting, yet it heightens my senses, and the knife in his grip becomes the main focus of my periphery.

He repeats his instruction, and the patience that’s already been dwindling reaches a crescendo of annoyance, so I listen.

As I do so, I try playing it cool so he doesn’t catch on that I noticed his knife, and that I have every intention of grabbing it.

I rise to my feet, and the blood rushes to my head, causing a dark flash over my eyes before it dissipates in the form of white dots, fuzzing my vision, before I can regain it. This feeling of giving up control, and waiting for the rug to be pulled from underneath me with whatever path the drugs will put me on, feels like home. It always does. It shouldn’t, but it gives my mind a comfort that it can’t seek on its own. I feel just like I did the last time we split the blotter sheet. Loopy. Happy. Hopeful.

“Walk,” he points to the small cutout door nestled in the wall.

No. No. No No. I’m not going back there. My inner thoughts try to break through. I know I don’t want to go back there, but I don’t know why. I giggle instead of crying, like I think I want to. I’m not sure anymore. Everything feels off.

“Yes, you are,” he boasts as if he can read my thoughts.

“No,” my lips move, trying to win the war of my dwindling conscience.

“Yes. You. Are.” Harlan grabs hold of my arms, trying to strong arm me, and guides me to the door I now recognize as the beginning to the crawl space that leads from the house all the way to church.

“He’s going to kill you.” Frida’s warning from years ago rings in my ears, giving me the strength I need to fight his touch off, no matter how damning or good it feels.

A surge of strength ignites within me, one that I’ve only ever known myself capable of mentally, but never physically, and I squirm my way from his hold.

The room spins with me as I turn back to face him. My gaze zoning in on the knife. I charge him and snatch it from him. An electrical current of adrenaline renders me prisoner to it, but it gives me the strength I need to fight him off, and maintain possession of the knife. Curling my fingers around the handle, I lift it in the air for barely a second before my hand, now tingling and feeling weightless as ever, plunges into his midsection.

He yelps on impact. Blade still in him, I stare down at the fresh puncture wound. It’s high enough and off to the side that I likely got him in his ribcage .

“What the—” he mewls, but I plunge the knife in deeper. Just for good measure.

The smug grin on his face is so fucking punchable. Too punchable to ignore. Taking a step forward, I rotate my wrist side to side, deepening his wound, but all he does is laugh. Giving me no choice but to take his sadistic laugh and raise him with a punch to the face. His high cheekbones sting my knuckles as I lay a clenched fist down onto his skin.

“You’re a real fucking bitch, you know that?” Blood falls from his lip and small droplets gather, highlighting the bone white shade of his teeth.

“So are you,” I retort, yanking my knife out of him as rivulets of crimson stain the floor on impact.

Harlan doesn’t bother wiping the blood from his mouth, nor does he seem phased by the sizable wound to his abdomen.

With a quick shrug of his shoulders, his bent elbows highlight his lifted hands, motioning for me to come back and give him some more.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this. That can’t be all you got,” he taunts.

Not sure how I want to play this. I assess the room, looking for a way that I can escape. Though of course, I can’t. He’s bolted the door, and the windows are all boarded up. The only way out is through the crawl space.

He claps his hands, taking a sick amount of enjoyment in the fact that he has me cornered.

“Like I told you before, you can run from the truth, but you can’t run from me. Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.” He nudges his chin to the crawl space door as he stands there eerily still, as though he was not stabbed with a very sharp four-inch blade.

Knowing that staying in this room with him isn’t an option, I keep my head turned in his direction to keep an eye on him. I make my way to the crawl space, but my speed is slowed down as I try to keep my jaw from falling to the floor at what I see. Harlan takes his hand to his open wound, dipping his fingers in. Swirling and gathering the blood, he brings it to his mouth.

I begin to enter the crawl space backwards, one foot in the confined hellhole, and the other out still on the floor. I watch him dip his blood-soaked fingers deep into his mouth. He groans, humming around his slick fingers before releasing them.

“For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26:28,” he recites, unwavering in his eye contact with me. “The man upstairs said it himself. Forgiveness only comes from bloodshed. When I catch you, and make no mistake, I will catch you, you will bleed for me. It’s the path to forgiveness. It’s the only way I’ll let you—”

I don’t wait around to let him finish. I contort my body to face forward into the blackened entry of the crawl space and slam the door behind me.

I miss the old Harlan. I miss who he used to be before he scared me as much as he turns me on.

Now I have no choice but to run on my hands and knees from the monster I’ve created, and hope that when he catches me, I can survive a darkness that far surpasses my own.