Page 15

Baron Dolce

Jane’s eyes widen when I come down the stairs with the rubber bag in one hand. She shakes her head and scrambles away until she meets the cement wall. “Please,” she whimpers.

I chuckle and stroll over. “You’ve learned to beg so well,” I say, running my hand over the shaven top of her head. The inch of hair isn’t bristly but soft, and her eyes look huge with her hair out of the way. “But you sing even prettier, little birdie. Now turn around and open your ass for me.”

Slowly, she rotates on her knees on the concrete floor. Disgust rises in me before she even bends, lying her chest on the ground and spreading her ass cheeks. She’s too pathetic, too easy. Too obedient. I taught her that, broke her until she doesn’t dare defy me. But now that I’ve had a taste of Mabel for a few days, now that I’ve been challenged, I can hardly bear to look at Jane’s prostrate form. I’m both bored and revolted by her. She’s a repulsive, pathetic thing that doesn’t deserve to live. The urge to kick her over and stomp her into the ground until she stops breathing takes hold.

I shove the plug into her ass roughly, then squeeze the enema bottle. The water pushes air bubbles into her, and she moans in pain. I squeeze harder, forcing the cold water in faster, and she lets out a strangled groan, wrapping an arm around her stomach. She’s cramping already.

I’m fucking bored. There’s no fun in her anymore, now that I have Mabel right here under my roof. Jane is nothing but a liability. I squeeze harder, forcing the water into her faster.

“Please,” she chokes out, clutching her cramping stomach. She writhes, falling sideways, and the nozzle pops free of her. Water and air rush out her anus, and she lies in a puddle of her own expulsion, shuddering with sobs. Disgusting.

“Worthless whore,” I say, stomping over to get my tools.

I find a spreader bar and slap her side with it until she opens her eyes and takes it.

“Get up,” I order. “Put this around your knees.”

Shaking, she drags herself up, buckling the clasps above her bony knees. She has to spread them as wide as they’ll go, and then she kneels on the unforgiving floor, whimpering as she bends to take her punishment again.

“Loathsome, disgusting dog,” I mutter. “On your knees like an animal, begging for my dick. Like I’d fuck that ripped up, deformed cunt.”

I shove the enema back into her without care, clamping my hands around it to force the water into her as fast as it will go. I heard once that forcing air into a woman’s uterus would kill her, and I consider it briefly. I’m ready to be done with Jane. But I’m not sure if that fact was accurate, or how fast she’d die. It could be my do-over though, since I didn’t get to see the man’s life leave his eyes when I killed him.

Jane screams out in pain, but before she can even think about trying to roll away again, I set my foot on the spreader bar between her knees and shift my weight onto it. She shrieks again, her knees grinding into the cement floor as I bear down.

“Now your stomach pain doesn’t seem so bad, does it, little bird?” I taunt as her body writhes below me.

I barely hear the squeak over her pathetic screams and sobs and pleas for mercy. It takes a second to register that the door to the basement opened. Duke’s never interrupted me when I’m with Jane before, and I swing my head around to snap at him, only to see Mabel standing on the shoddy wooden stairs, grey-blue eyes wide, pretty pink lips open in a gasp. She’s the exact opposite of Jane—freshly showered, her wet hair wound up into a ballerina bun, her smooth skin clean and glowing with health, her body clad in a tiny cardigan that matches her eyes over a tan camisole and slim-cut white jeans, her toes hidden in a pair of dainty white slippers.

She looks like a summer on the Cape. Jane looks like Arkansas roadkill.

I turn away and finish emptying the enema bag into a keening Jane before I drop it on the floor between her feet and step back.

“What do you want, Mabel?”

She stares at me a second, then shifts her gaze to Jane.

“Who’s that?”

“That’s Jane,” I say, bending to pat her ass. “My new project.”

Mabel works her jaw back and forth. “Do you fuck her?”

“Of course I fuck her,” I say. “She’s your replacement.”

Mabel’s lips tighten, and she crosses her arms. “Then why am I here?”

I chuckle and raise a brow at her. “Jealous?”

“No,” she says, scowling.

“Then why do you care?”

“Because… Because I thought…”

“You thought you were special?” I ask. “That we loved you?”

“Do you?” she challenges.

I shrug. “You know the answer to that.”

“Actually, I don’t,” she says. “Duke says you do, but I haven’t seen it. You still treat me like you did before. So what’s to stop me from doing what I did before?”

“You want to try it?” I ask. “Go ahead. See what happens.”

Her gaze cuts to Jane, then back.

“Why should I believe anything will change? You still like to hurt me. You’re still fucking other girls.”

“You are jealous,” I marvel, shaking my head.

“I’m confused,” she admits. “If you have her, why bother coming to find me? You already destroyed me. Now you’ve replaced me. So what is my purpose here, exactly?”

I know she’s forcing my hand, but I decide to allow it. Mabel’s always been direct. She doesn’t see the point in games. I like them, but sometimes, to keep her playing, I have to let her capture a pawn.

“We need you,” I admit.

“Why?”

“Because… Duke does.”

“I’m not talking about Duke.”

We stare at each other a long moment.

“I need you too,” I admit at last, going to her. “To keep him happy, but also because… Because you’re you.” I take her hand. “Jane was fine to pass the time, but you… You’re different. You know that. You’re like me.”

“I’m not.”

“Not exactly,” I amend. “But you understand me.”

She stares down at me, not trying to pull her hand away. I wonder how much she still hates to be touched, if she’s finally gotten over her hang up. How many men have touched her since me?

“Then why did you do what you did to me?” she asks, her voice breaking.

“Because I hated it,” I say quietly. “I hated that you figured us out. I thought I had to destroy you. But after losing you, I realized how rare that is. How precious. And I want you with us. Not as my victim, like Jane. Not like before. Like one of us. A partner.”

She stares at Jane still kneeling there on all fours, shaking from the pain, the tube hanging from her ass.

“And why would I want that?” Mabel asks slowly.

“Because I understand you too,” I say. “No one else ever got you like I did. No one let you be truly you. You opened up to me, and I didn’t judge you or make you feel crazy.”

She snorts. “I ended up in a padded room because of you.”

“I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re after,” I say, dropping her hand. “You know it as well as I do. You know that you felt something with me that you can’t feel with anyone else. And that Duke brings out something in you that no one else can. You can have that again. Both of us. Openly. No tricks.”

“You have that with her,” she says, her lip quivering before she bites down on it, her eyes rolling up, away.

“Not even close,” I say gently, perching on the step with her, wrapping my arms around her legs as she stands stiff, refusing to look at me. “We’re not the same without you. I’ve never met anyone like you, Mabel. You’re the only girl who could ever match us—not just me, but Duke too. You understand each of us, but also, you understand both of us together, our dynamic. You complete it.”

She’s quiet a long minute, and then she lets out a soft sniffle before quickly swiping at her nose. “Prove it.”

I’m taken by surprise again, and that same triumph fills me. Not triumph that I beat her, but on her behalf, pride that she is everything I could ask for in a woman, and I have her within my grasp. She’s right that we can’t treat her like before and expect a different outcome. We won that game. This is the start of a new one, and more than that, a new life. One where it’s more than a game, where she gets what she needs too.

“Didn’t I prove myself when I killed a man for fucking you?” I ask. “That should prove how much we want you.”

“Killing other men only proves you want to own me,” she says. “That you will defend what you see as yours by eliminating the competition. Any animal will fight off a challenger to stake a claim over their herd.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” I ask.

“If you love me, prove it by giving up something meaningful to you. If you’re not willing to lose something you love for me, then you don’t love me.”

“Like what?” I ask. “You know I don’t form attachments.”

“Her.”

I look up at her. She’s staring at Jane, her jaw hard.

“You want me to get rid of Jane?” I ask, and even though I was just thinking I hated the pathetic creature, I balk at the idea. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of the hitchhiker. She was my stand-in for Mabel, and even if we have Mabel, sometimes I might need a release that goes too far for a girl I respect.

“Yes,” she says. “If you love me, and you want me to be your partner, you shouldn’t need another girl.”

“And how will you prove you love us?” I ask. “You wouldn’t even say it to save your aunt.”

“I’ve never said I loved anyone.”

I watch her for a moment, in awe of the simplicity of her wondrous mind. She’s the brain I should be dissecting. “Not even your family?”

She scowls. “No.”

“Colt?”

“No.”

“Interesting,” I say, turning back to Jane. “Even I’ve said that. And not just once. Probably to every member of my family. I meant it too.”

“That doesn’t make it true,” she points out.

“But it is,” I say. “I do love everyone in my family. Probably even Crystal. Do you love your family?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?”

She shrugs. “How do you know?”

“How do I know I love my own family?”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s intangible, impossible to measure. How do you know if any emotion is strong enough to be labeled the way it is?”

“I admitted my feelings,” I say, bringing us back to the negotiation. It was always this way with Mabel. She likes the rules spelled out. That’s why she lost her mind when we didn’t play by them. “If you want me to prove it, I will. But not before you admit it too.”

“How do I know?” she asks. “And for that matter, how do you know I’m telling the truth?”

“Because you don’t lie,” I say smugly. “You either love us or not. It’s not that complicated.”

“If I say I love you, will you get rid of her?” She gestures vaguely to Jane, then looks away, at the corner of the ceiling.

“That seems fair.”

“Okay,” she says. “I love you.”

“And my brother?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll need to tell him that.”

“Fine.”

“And if we get rid of her, as long as we don’t have any other girls, we’ll have you.”

“Agreed.”

“You won’t run away again. Ever.”

She hesitates a moment, then gives a curt nod.

“If you do, there will be consequences,” I warn.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Anything else?”

“One more thing.”

I examine her expression, searching it for any possible data I can collect. She’s different than she was three years ago, and I want to know what brought about those changes as well as what they are. Was she so changed by what we did that it entirely shaped her new life, even when she built it far from us? Has she learned to lie as well as endure physical contact? These are questions that require further study. The prospect is far more enticing than anything Jane can teach me.

After we’ve hashed it out, I leave my experiment and follow Mabel up the few steps to the hallway, then the kitchen, where Duke sits eating a bowl of Trix cereal, a bag of frozen peas clutched to his dick with his free hand. I heard him and Mabel going at it all night after we brought her here, and she didn’t get out of bed yesterday. Duke grumbled about not having someone to do our shopping for us, but he went to the store and came back with several bags of frozen vegetables, which he carried back and forth to his bedroom all day.

I let him have her to himself all night and day because I knew that eventually, it wouldn’t be enough for her. She’d come looking for me. And she did. I could have gone in and fucked her with him, but I’d already had her that night. I know it’s important to let Duke have his own thing sometimes, just like I do. Dad knew that.

“You shouldn’t eat that shit,” I say, going to the sink. “It’s full of dye and chemicals.”

Mom knew that. She never allowed us that shit growing up.

While I roll up my sleeves and wash my hands and forearms, Mabel lingers in the doorway. Finally I turn back and nod toward Duke.

“Mabel has something to say to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Duke asks, stopping with his spoon halfway to his mouth.

Mabel rubs her palms on the hips of her white jeans, a gesture I remember from when she was learning to tolerate touch. “I love you,” she says.

Duke stuffs the heaping spoonful of dyed shapes into his mouth and chews for a minute before answering. “What changed your mind?”

“Baron,” she says simply.

“Ah,” he says, stirring the cereal in his bowl. “Of course.”

She gives me a questioning look.

“Now apologize to him for leaving,” I order.

She takes a breath. “I’m sorry I left y’all.”

It seems she has learned to lie. Maybe she always knew. She was always fascinating, more rational than anyone I’d ever met, smart and logical. But she wasn’t like me. She wasn’t like anyone. I think that’s what caught me, and what’s still holding my interest. No matter how much I learned about her—unearthing every detail of her past, hacking into her medical records, following her family tree back a dozen generations—I could never quite solve the final equation.

Through everything, she kept something for herself, some intangible mystery I could never extract or pin down, no matter how thoroughly we broke her. She kept it, and when she left, she took it with her. I suspect it’s the difference between us. Just as I’m missing something most people have, she has something most people don’t. After all, most people are easy enough to figure out. They’re relatively simple.

Mabel is not simple.

Duke finishes a few bites before he pushes his bowl of milk away and looks up at Mabel. “Are you?” he asks. “Sorry, I mean.”

“It won’t happen again,” she says.

“Really,” he says, sounding unimpressed. “Why’s that?”

“I made a promise.”

“And why would do you that?”

“Because you made a promise to me. You and Baron.”

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“Y’all can’t have anyone else, so you get to have me,” she says. “From now on we’re partners. Three corners of a triangle. All equally necessary to the whole, each adding our own unique contribution to satisfy the needs of the other two.”

Duke nods, absorbing the information. Then he asks, “What did we promise you in return?”

“We’re going to get rid of Jane,” I say.

“That’s all?” he asks. “What are you going to do with her?”

“What do you think?” I ask. Even he knows there’s no chance I can release her. After all the things I’ve done to her, if she went to the police, it would be all over. She’d make it sound like something other than it was, like I did it out of malice or sadism, as if I tortured her for pleasure. And once they found out it was a brilliant, good-looking rich guy, it would be front page news—especially if they could also bust the source of the Alice in Wonderland drug that’s now spread across the US and become a favorite with everyone from the Hollywood elite to Wall Street.

“So… What now?” Duke asks. “You’re going to beat her to death, and we dump her body with the other one?”

“I don’t beat her,” I say, affronted by his accusation. “I would never hit a woman. What do you take me for, a monster?”

“Aren’t we all monsters?”

“He has a point,” Mabel says.

“How are you going to kill her?” Duke presses, a frown etched into his brow.

“I’m not,” I say, hanging the kitchen towel neatly on the front of the stove. “You are.”