Page 39 of Heartless Heathens

“You’re willing to take the chance that it’s the latter?” he asked, and I stopped walking.

“What am I supposed to do here?” He didn’t answer. “Exactly. Don’t judge a decision that you can’t make for yourself.” I tsked, shaking my head and walking in front of him.

Once we got into the house I kept walking, not letting my feet stop until we reached the bathroom once again. I dropped her to her feet and pointed to the shower.

“Go wash,” I instructed her.

“Again?” she asked, surprised, and scrunched my nose in discontent at the animal that stood in front of me.

“Yes, again. Civilized people bathe daily Romina,” I told her.

“Some,” Felix corrected from behind me, “Not everyone has a stick up their ass.” He laughed out, but I was only horrified by his confession.

“You don’t shower every day?” I turned to face him, not hiding my revolt.

“I mean, not unless I’m disgusting from sweating, or I got my dick wet.” He shrugged and I fought off the sickly feeling that came with the thought of Felix crawling into his own sheets, night after night, dirty and gross.

“You’re thinking about it real hard, aren’t you?” he smirked and I turned my head to look at him.

“You’re fucking with me?!” I asked him, nearly yelling as my eyes bulged out of my skull.

“I don’t know, am I?” He grinned harder and walked away.

I looked back over to see Romina dropping her clothes to the ground, her body so tiny and fragile from the week she’d spent starving, maybe even longer. I couldn’t look away or stop myself from noticing the way her skin stretched over bones. I twitched from the need to reach out and touch. There was a beauty there that was hidden past the tragedies she might have suffered under Frollo’s hands.

“Do you need help?” I asked flatly as she stood under the turned off shower.

“Do I?” she asked, touching the dials awkwardly without turning them on.

I walked over to the shower and turned it on, the cold water beating down hard and fast and she screeched out a howl that forced me to bite my lip to keep my composure.

If there was still any chance it was an act, it was a damn good show.

The water quickly turned warm. She smiled in relief and hurried under the stream, closing her eyes and humming contentedly. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to, so I didn’t bother pretending like I had to. She didn’t seem to mind that I was watching, so what was the point?

Then the thought crossed my mind that she didn’t mind because she was used to it. Because maybe Frollo watched her too.

The thought made me itch.

A few minutes turned to ten. She had only stood there, under the stream, unmoving.

“Are you going to wash yourself?” I asked and she looked at me with that wondrous look again, I tipped my forehead towards the bar of soap and the loofah that hung on the shower wall.

She took it quickly and lathered it up before scrubbing her body carelessly with it. I shook my head, taking the bar of soap from her and pushing her against the shower wall, disregarding my clothes, soaked from the force of the stream.

“Do you need to be shown how to do everything? Are you pretending or has he really not taught you how to do anything for yourself?” I asked, genuinely wanting the answer to gauge the situation for my own reasons.

“W-what do you mean?” she asked innocently.

I ripped the loofah from her hand and lathered it up twice as much as she had previously, using it to scrub every inch of her body, from top to bottom. I took my time to wash away the traces of Frollo from her skin.

What had he been doing to this girl? And why?

I pulled her under the water again using my hands to rinse the soapy lather off of her. Droplets of water beaded down her breasts, rolling past her nipples and disappearing beneath her. She was a perfect seductress, and she didn’t even know it.

Maybe she did.

Maybe that had been his plan all along.