I knew it wasn't what he said it was but I played along.
I don't protest all that much. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not actually strong or stubborn. Mostly I'm submissive, willing and easy to control. I was never under the impression that it was a bad thing to be that way. It made their lives easier, from Lochlan right down through the line to Ben. The only time it fails is when they think they are controlling my emotions too. Those aren't something that can be shaped with orders, plans and schemes. Those just strike like natural disasters, without warning, so unpredictable and devastating that they have categories for severity and damage. Just like tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.
So there we go across the driveway just before midnight, ostensibly for a late snack and a chance to get some family business out of the way before the week actually begins. It's a short week with a school holiday and some much-needed time off for Lochlan and the past day and a half my arm isn't hurting much at all. I'm game for a jump on the week.
I'm loathe to say no to Caleb too, as that's all I've done lately and he's tried and failed to find a way to make things up to me from afar.
Oh, and Ben is a big old perverted enabler who all but disappeared the moment we walked in, saying he wanted to borrow some vinyl. Jazz masters and classical. Ben might eat the records but Caleb is a casual listener, not some collector of rare editions or anything like that. I hear strains of Glenn Miller coming from the tiny den and I smile because it sounds pretty and jazz is like some incredibly sophisticated other life to me sometimes.
Like Caleb is.
Only it's fleeting. I feel his arms close around me and I press into him. I will blink and be back home later. I feel his lips against my jaw and I fight to clear my mind. I shudder as he exhales into my shoulder and he promises not to bite me so I know this one will be allowed to slip past. I pause, and I know I'm evil too but it's black and warm washing over me, pulling me down, drowning me from the ground up, a rushing torrent of malevolence and corruption that doesn't scare me at all when it should and scares me to pieces when it shouldn't.
That makes it hard.
Hard is the theme of the evening though. He barely pauses to unbutton his shirt, choosing to engage in a mostly-dressed frantic strong-armed indulgence of me and I surrender to that. I surrender mostly to Cole's memory because I still miss him even as I hate him and I still love them both dearly even though these days my busted heart is full. I never meant to apologize for the part of my brain I don't try to control and I wouldn't change a thing save for Lochlan's torrid resentment of the entire arrangement.
But Lochlan doesn't control this world, because this is compartmentalized away from the rest of everything. In this world I'm not a child, I'm a equal and a whore and a submissive and a slave.
A slave with a master who pretends he is nothing of the kind, even as he orders me to the door. The big white door where he prefers me to stand, my back pressed against the chilled wood, arms raised above my head, up on my toes, eyes closed, nose up, shoulders back, mouth open to taste his fingertips as he traces my lips and tongue, eyelashes and earlobes.
When my toes leave the floor and the white lights begin to flash behind my eyelids I start to look for the way back because the path to get here is dark and confusing and difficult to follow back. I call out in the dark for Ben and he responds only his voice is thick and dangerous. I shift and call out for Loch instead but he never answers because he isn't there and then the roaring orders of the Devil begin, the frustration and rage replacing the soft encouragement from before. His time is almost up and he hates that. The record is finished and he hates that too, listening the bump of the needle at the end of the spiral groove.
