Chapter Twenty-Two #2
The blackness inside me—the thick, impenetrable depression—buried me alive, handcuffing me, gagging me, throwing a hood over my head, and blinding me.
Forcing my eyelids up, I fought against the current and blinked back the dreadful despair.
Victor pushed Ily onto all fours.
He pulled down her G-string.
No...
My heart cracked as Victor landed on his knees behind her and smiled in my direction.
Do something!
Shimmying out of his pyjama bottoms, he said something I couldn’t catch. Words warbled and echoed like pecking crows at my broken brain.
I felt drugged.
Woozy.
His voice came again down a long, thin tunnel.
Fractals of black and white scrambled my eyesight.
Time skipped.
My breathing quickened.
My lower belly grew hotter. The clock on the wall ticked louder. My trousers grew tighter.
“—aren’t you?” Victor’s voice cut through my daze.
What did he say?
I blinked and lurched forward. The room turned upside down.
Was this panic?
Could a person snap and lose all their faculties?
Wedging my elbows on my knees, I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of why I was so lethargic, so goddamn tired. I felt utterly drunk, drowned by the fermenting depression that just wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone.
I winced as my cock speared upright, trying to break through my pants.
Adjusting myself, the tip crawled out of my waistband, hard as stone but without any of the usual sensitivity.
Everything about me felt dead.
Dull.
Bloodless.
Lifeless.
Not panic then.
Death.
So this is what it feels like to die...
A fading.
A falling.
A perishing beneath hopelessness.
“You’re acting as if I roofied you.” Victor laughed. “Come on. I’m being patient, but I can only wait so long.” He flicked a look at the clock hanging by his bathroom door. “It’s been fourteen minutes. You should be good to go.”
Fourteen minutes?
What?!
I scowled and begged my eyes to focus on the clock.
He had to be lying.
It wavered and wobbled, the hands flickering with every heavy thud of my very heavy heart.
“Come on, Henri.” Arching his chin at Rachel, he ordered, “Present on all fours, my pet. That’s it.
Remove your underwear. There’s a good girl.
Come a little closer to Ily. You can hold hands if you like, I know you jewels get comfort from one another.
Good, now face me. I want to watch you as he rides you.
” He grinned. “You better not enjoy it too much.”
“No, Sir V.” Rachel shook her head. “I only ever get pleasure from you.”
“That better be the truth.” He chuckled.
The room spun as Victor raised his voice. “Henri, hurry the fuck up.”
His command.
So similar to my father’s.
Memories opened a trapdoor.
I tripped—
“Onn Ree, whip her, there’s a good boy. Onn Ree, taste her tears, aren’t they sweet? Onn Ree, touch her there. Go on, I won’t tell. Onn Ree, cut her and maybe you’ll be the one to inherit everything instead of my legitimate son.”
With my father’s voice in my head and my mind back there, I couldn’t reach dry land. I drowned beneath the kid who’d had no choice. The prisoner who couldn’t say no. The man who thought he wanted this but now would rather die.
“Henri!” Victor barked. “Don’t make me show you how to fuck her. Just do it.”
“Onn Ree, feel her. Squeeze her. That’s it. Now...put your cock in, it’s alright. She likes it...see? Onn Ree, are you not enjoying yourself? Move faster, boy. Go on—”
My teeth clenched as another gush of nausea threatened to evict every recollection I’d ever repressed.
I wished I’d never unlocked them through writing.
Wished I could go back to that amnesiac existence where I had no idea why I was the way I was.
At least I could’ve survived then. Could’ve pretended I was happy.
But now?
Knowing what I’d done?
Remembering how much I’d hurt our mothers—
Fuck.
I fell off the couch as my stomach roiled.
“Henri, if you don’t appreciate my gift and fuck Rachel immediately, I’ll call the guards and have them help you.”
“Good.” I groaned, pushing to my knees. “Maybe they can beat this out of me.”
A few seconds ticked past. Victor’s heavy huff sounded like a cyclone in my ears.
Finally, he muttered, “I told you, you’re sick.
I’m helping you, don’t you see? Tell you what, if you don’t accept my generosity, I’ll call the guards in and give them a gift instead.
I believe there are four in the corridor at present.
I’ll let each of them have a piece of Ily.
I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to—”
“No.” I crawled toward the woman kneeling on all fours. “I’ll do it,” I slurred.
Victor might’ve gotten me drunk before Ruby Tears, but tonight...my own grief had done that.
“Finally.” Victor sniffed. “I feel as if I’ve aged five years waiting for you to hurry it along.”
“Finally, Onn Ree, took you long enough to get hard. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you come? Have you never had a wet dream before? Go on, try again.”
“Sorry.” I hung my head, unsure if I apologised to my father or Victor.
Rachel looked over her shoulder as I slowed behind her.
Her ice-blue eyes widened at whatever she saw on my face.
I couldn’t look at Ily.
Couldn’t breathe.
All I wanted to do was die.
“Tick-tock, Henri.”
“Time’s ticking, Onn Ree.”
A childhood of despicable instruction took over. Parts of my psyche that were so damaged, so dark that I’d done my utmost to forget them, rose and took charge.
In a fugue, my hands reached for Rachel’s hips.
They were a stranger’s hands.
An enemy’s hands.
A splicing vision settled over my eyes, replaying a piece of my past.
I’d seen this before.
Seen my boyish hand landing on the bare ass of one of our mothers. It blended with my own larger one as I reached for Rachel against my will.
I’d never been able to say no.
I’d screamed the first few times.
I’d fought his hold as he made me abuse them.
I’d tried to shut down, but he soon learned how to keep me present.
Kind words, nice praise, sweet encouragements.
Love.
Motherfucking love had shackled me to such atrocities.
“That’s it, Onn Ree. She’s all yours. They’re all yours. Do you like it?”
“That’s it, mon ami.” Victor’s voice rearranged my memories, inserting himself into them, replacing the role of my sadistic father. “Get your cock out and stick it in her.”
The noise of my zipper as I shoved my pants down merged with the sobs I’d made as a little boy, forced by his father to do such unspeakable things.
The similarities. The sickening déjà vu.
“Good boy, Onn Ree.”
I fisted myself with a quaking hand.
“Do it, Mercer.”
I choked as I notched inside a woman I didn’t want.
“All the way now.”
“You’re doing so well, my son...”
“Thrust, Henri.”
“Thrust, Onn Ree.”
My chin sank onto my chest as I pushed.
I didn’t feel a damn thing.
I checked out.
Went numb.
I’d forgotten for a reason.
I’d forgotten because I couldn’t survive.
The nausea in my stomach as I threw up the rich chocolate cake my father had given me the first time I’d drawn blood. The trembles and shakes as he came for me again and again. The horrors as he tried to make my prepubescent body come. The absolute despair as he taught me how to swing a flogger—
“My turn.” Victor let out a roar as he mounted Ily in front of me.
She cried out.
Her eyes snapped closed.
And that was the moment my entire existence shattered.
I didn’t help her.
I failed her.
Trapped in the past.
Shackled by the boy I’d been.
A boy who’d watched so many women being raped.
A boy who’d been forced to watch and never interfere until it was his turn.
And I couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t cope.
Not anymore.
Not now.
Not again.
My body and heart didn’t break, but my mind?
It snapped like a rubber band.
I flatlined—