Page 23

“Great, actually,” I say. “Rhue is a quick study, and he’s very inquisitive. I’m positive we’ll get him the highest possible grades by the end of the year. He’ll rock his SAT’s for sure, Mr. Echeveria.” I pause and take a deep breath.

“Julian, please,” he growls. We’ve reached the second floor now, and he briefly glances over his shoulder. “This way. Let’s see if your bag’s here. My wife’s walk-in closet is the size of Alaska.”

I follow him into the bedroom, though deep down I know I should have stayed downstairs. Everything feels horribly wrong, all of a sudden.

Light pours into the room, diffused through the shimmering pale grey curtains, and I see no sign of my bag, anywhere.

There’s a half-opened door across the room. A sink is visible through the narrow crack, making it obvious that that room is a bathroom. There are no other doors and no sign of a walk-in closet that someone like Julian Echeveria might get lost in.

I don’t know why, but I feel like an idiot. A dead idiot.

“Tell me, how are you getting along with my son?” Julian asks, slowly turning around to face me.

Only now do I see it. The filthy lust in his eyes.

He’s lost that gracious spark I’ve seen before.

He has devolved into something more feral.

This is the quiet before the storm. The calm before the predator’s pounce.

“Great. Well. We work well, together. So, my bag?” I ask, “I really should get going.”

“How did your bag get upstairs, Maddie?” he asks, taking a step forward. And there it is, the question he should have asked. The question I was expecting him to ask. Except, I don’t exactly know that my bag is upstairs, do I?

I take one step back, feeling my throat close up. “I don’t know that it—”

“Were you fucking my son, Madison?”

“Sir, I––”

“Julian!” he snaps and slams the door shut behind me. The bang startles me, and I jump back, but I can’t get out, because he’s too close, and that look in his eyes... “How fucking hard is that to remember?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand what’s—” I lose my voice as he slips an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. He’s hard as a rock, throbbing angrily against my lower abdomen. Fear grips me tight, and I lose my reflexes altogether as he brings his right hand up and closes it around my throat.

“Is that how you lost your bag? Got too high off the taste of my son’s cock and forgot your mind.” Julian hisses the words at me, then follows through with a slide of his tongue down my cheek. My skin crawls and my heart races so fast that I can barely catch my breath.

“Please, don’t,” I manage, trembling like a reed in the wind. “Don’t…it’s not…”

“Shh,” Julian growls, then nibbles on my earlobe, while nausea gathers in the back of my throat. He slips his other hand under my wool dress, finding my panties and the flesh beneath way too fast. I should be screaming right now.

I try to push him away, but his hand tightens around my neck. With his other hand, he slips his fingers deep inside me. Tears spring to my eyes, and I bite my tongue as he lays the law of the land.

“You’re gonna keep quiet and take it like a good girl, Maddie.”

He doesn’t need to tell me the details of what will happen to me if I don’t let this happen.

I can see it in his eyes.

Evil.

A monstrous evil that is somehow being allowed to do this.

I’m crying, and he’s smiling as he rolls my dress up and pushes me closer to the bed. The bed that he shares with Roxanne.

I have to get away. And I try. I do. But the more I struggle, the louder he clicks his teeth, warning me.

“I’ve wanted to see what you’re like from the moment I saw you in your daddy’s shop.” His words make me freeze. There it is. The real threat. His victory over me.

“You’ve brought this on yourself, Maddie,” he whispers and forces me to bend over, pushing me against the foot of the bed.

My upper body is pressed into the covers, and I smell the orchid fragrance of whatever conditioner was used to launder this stuff.

It’s not enough to kill the sickness that threatens to turn me inside out.

“Walking around like this,” he adds, then tears my panties away.

The sound of the fabric is almost like a scream, and I cry harder.

I hear his belt buckle dropping onto the carpet.

No, no, NO! I don’t want this!

But it’s happening whether I want it or not.

“With your short dresses and loose hair,” Julian says, then thrusts himself inside me. I cry out, and he covers my mouth with his hand. “Like a fucking whore.” He starts pushing, and I can almost feel myself stretching and breaking into little bits and pieces. The more I resist, the more it hurts.

The sharp pain makes my insides burn. My hymen.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Julian grunts and moves deeper, having broken my only defense. I can feel the warm blood trickling down my thigh as he takes me, as he claims me and destroys me. He’s loving this. He knows what he’s doing.

This isn’t the euphoria of drugs nor the delirium of booze. No, Julian Echeveria knows exactly what he’s doing, and I can’t do a fucking thing to stop him. I don’t know how long it will last, but maybe…maybe I’m better off if I just let it happen.

If I just shut down and think of something else.

Wait for him to finish.

I lose track of time, blocking his animalistic snarls. The pain dulls, gradually, as I abandon the physical realm. He slaps my ass hard, and I whimper, but it only stings for a half of a second. He thrusts harder and harder, and I hope he doesn’t have much longer.

And then, out of nowhere, I hear creaking.

And a door starts to open. I don’t know why I’ve been looking at it.

Maybe I’m imagining my escape. But none of that is happening.

No, Julian’s got me in his claws. One hand goes under my belly, his fingers finding my raw folds.

He wants to rub my clitoris and incite an orgasm.

Will having one get this over with faster?

The door opens just a creak more.

“You know you like it,” Julian whispers in my ear, then nibbles on the lobe.

And a little more. It’s not Roxanne’s face that comes into view, though. It’s not one of the maid’s either. It’s Rhue’s.

He’s watching us. Horror mars his face into something unfathomable and his eyes flash with the kind of disappointment that cuts deep.

The rhythmic push intensifies. Julian is pounding like a raging beast, and all I can do is stare at Rhue, hoping that this is just a bad dream.

Maybe I’ll wake up soon.

I close my eyes, wishing for the nightmare to go away. But when I open them again, I find myself still here. I can feel Julian’s wretched seed spilling as he finally hits his grand finale, and I swallow back another round of tears as I struggle to numb myself further.

By the time it’s over, I can barely feel my legs, and Julian only has one thing to tell me while he tosses my panties in the bathroom trashcan and rolls my wool dress back down.

“You say a word about this, Maddie, and I will destroy you and your father.”

“It’s Madison,” I say, though I don’t know where this last ounce of strength comes from. I only know that I’m going to use it to walk out of this place and let the nightmare end. I need this to end.

Walking out on my own two feet, I wonder if any of it really happened.

I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve stayed home.

Maybe I’ll go to bed and wake up tomorrow. Maybe everything will be okay, then.

Maybe I imagined it.