Chapter Nine #2
I nodded against the desk, my mouth opening to say “yes” but the sound became a croak as the flat of his hand made stinging contact with my behind.
Caught off guard by the timing of his strike, my unprepared body shifted painfully into the desk.
The burning friction of the wood against the bare skin of my face instantly stung, whilst my thighs plummeted into the desk edge with bruising force.
“Twenty-two it is,” he said gruffly as he moved to strike again.
Blindly, I reached above my head to take hold of the opposite desk edge, seeking its stability to keep my body still and minimize the pain of his next blow.
“You deserve this, don’t you?” he declared as strike two hit home, punishingly on target as he made contact with the already stinging flesh.
I fought back the whimper that threatened to erupt, kept my lids clamped shut to hold in the tears that welled.
“Answer me, God damn you!”
With sickening acceptance, I nodded, the word “yes” leaving me on a choked sob.
“I can’t hear you...” he warned.
“Yes!” I yelped in outright pain as he timed his strike with my response, the impact so precise the crack resounded in my ears, the stinging contact ricocheting like shards of heated ice through my welted skin.
The tears were too much to contain as they fell across my face to trickle onto the desk beneath me.
“Too right!” he exclaimed, the satisfaction at hearing me break ringing through in his tone.
Another sound came from the fireplace, only this time it persisted. I tried to identify it and then it became horrifyingly obvious, it was someone sobbing!
Fear and mortification rife, I tried to look over my shoulder but he refused to let me, his hand thrusting though my hair, pinning my head to the desk.
“I warned you to be quiet,” he bit out, addressing the stranger in the room.
“Please, Edward, please, don’t do this.”
Emma!
I tried to push myself up, to grapple with my skirt and pull it back down but he was too strong. His hands making light work of keeping my body still.
“What did you think would happen?” he threw at her.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
I could hear the anguish in her voice, could sense the shaking of her head and the tears that she was spilling.
“Well, now you do. And once this lesson has been taught, neither of you will dare disrespect me again. Isn’t that so, Abigail?”
I could feel him looking to me and I nodded my head, the movement restricted beneath the downward pressure of his palm.
I prayed that my agreement would be enough, that he would let me go.
Let us both go. I couldn’t be more humiliated, more pained, than I was right now.
As for Emma, she sounded like a sobbing mess. The two of us broken at his hand.
Sure enough, he released my head, my hair falling forward to stick to the damp skin of my face, his downward pressure on my back eased as I sensed him straightening...
The slap that followed was all the more forceful for the sheer surprise of it, the cry it forced from my lungs, throat searingly harsh.
“Edward!” I heard Emma scream just as I heard her move through the room. “Enough!”
“It’s enough, when I say it is enough.”
“Use me,” she pleaded, her voice now directly behind me, right next to him. “Do this to me. Not her. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t!”
I felt my stepfather pause mid-strike, and wondered if Emma had physically stopped him.
“You?” he said, as though surprised. “You’re offering to take her place?”
“Yes,” she said, the hope in her voice clear. “Surely, she has been punished enough now?”
The room fell silent save for our breathing and the shame ringing in my ears.
“Look at her,” Emma tried again, “she is terrified of you.”
“If she was terrified of me” — his hand fisted into my back — “this would never have happened.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, “you, of all people, know the power desire can have over us, it makes us do things we shouldn’t...”
In my mind’s eye, I could see her reaching for my stepfather, her eyes painting a thousand memories for him to think on.
“I know what we did was wrong and I never should have let it happen,” she continued. “You have every right to be angry, but you have dealt with her enough, it’s time you dealt with me.”
The last was said with an air of confidence that took my breath away. She sounded so calm and in control now, like she was working my stepfather and leading him down a path of her choosing.
“Please, Edward,” she actually cooed, “maybe we could even have some fun with it...”
The suggestion on the last had the bile rising in my throat. I really didn’t want to hear this. But there was no denying it was working. Everything she was saying had his hold over me relaxing again, his fist at my back now the flat of his palm as he rested it against me.
Clearly encouraged, Emma continued, “We could have some real, grown up fun, don’t you think?”
Various scenarios involving the two of them flooded my mind, each more sickening than the last. I was trying to push them out when Dad’s command reached me. “Abi, you can go.”
I had been too busy battling off my disgusting imaginings to register he had already stepped away from me entirely and I now lay hunched over his desk by choice.
Dazed and humiliated, I tried to focus my bleary eyes on him above me but he was looking to where I knew Emma stood and I didn’t need to be psychic to know the unsavory thoughts he now entertained. After all, they had just been racing through my own mind. Emma had all but spelled it out for him.
Conflicting emotions raged within me as I scurried backwards off the table. On some level, I was aware of my dress falling to protect my modesty but I was too busy debating what to do to care. Did I just go and abandon Emma or did I stay and protect her? Just like she had done for me.
I risked a look her way and could have laughed at the absurdity of my debate.
She didn’t even spare me a glance now, her focus entirely on my stepfather as she wrestled control of the situation from him.
The mere suggestion that I could be of use at protecting her was ridiculous.
She didn’t need me. I could see my stepfather practically salivating before her, totally wrapped up in what she was about.
If I didn’t dislike him so, I could have felt sorry for the way in which she had so readily ensnared him.
“She is just a naive young girl,” she purred, her fingers tracing paths along his bare forearms, her face one of seductive warmth, any sign of her earlier distress so non-existent that I almost questioned its actual presence.
“Just think what you could do with such strength when handling someone as experienced and as tolerant as me.”
My eyes flitted back and forth between them both, my mind trying to carry out a risk assessment on the scene playing out, my conscience still unable to leave her entirely alone but the open seduction just too much to bear.
And then I saw a smile creep into my stepfather’s features and before Emma could react, he pounced. Taking up her wrist, he yanked her into his hold, pressing her back against his chest with one arm, while the other slipped across her neck as he spun them both to face me.
Dropping his head into the crook of Emma’s shoulder in a typical lover’s fashion, his eyes flew to mine, their glint leaving nothing to the imagination. “You know, honey, maybe Abi would like to stay with us...”
Emma’s skin turned ashen, her eyes wide as she stared at me. The word “go” silently leaving her lips.
It was enough for me.
She had told me to leave. She had it covered.
My stepfather had made it clear what he would expect if I didn’t.
What choice did I have?
Fleeing the room, I didn’t dare stop until I was in the sanctity of my bedroom, my head face down in my pillows, my mind trying to force out the rampaging thoughts of what was now happening downstairs. What would he be doing to her? What would she be letting him do?
I shuddered on a sob, tears streaming now that I didn’t have to put up a fight.
There was one thing I knew for sure: Dad can fuck right off!
The sooner I could get to the bottom of everything, the sooner I could get the hell out of his twisted life and find myself a better one.
I didn’t need him, or his money, not any more.
Whether I had an inheritance or not, it didn’t matter, there was no way I could be part of his sadistic world any longer.