Defiance (New Adult Romance) (Isaac & Maya) (34 page)

44

Isaac

“Come in,” my father says.

“Hello,” I whisper as I quietly enter the room, surprised to see my dad holding Glory in his lap as he rocks back and forth in the oversized recliner. I’m less surprised to see the sheets crumpled on the bed around a giant wet spot, but seriously, what the fuck part of brain blood clot do they not understand? Maya had a bad cough and I barely touched her for weeks. I’d pity Gloria, but if she didn’t want to do this anymore, she should stop batting her fuck-me eyes every time he’s around. “How’s Glory feeling?” I ask, my stomach turning as I sit in the chair across from his.

“Good, I think,” he chuckles, glancing at the bed. “Not that she’d tell me with words.”

“Sorry I’m back so late,” I mutter.

“I expected you to be gone all night.”

And I suspect that you would have been pissed off if that’s what I’d done
. “I was too worried about her.”

My father grins at me. “She was happy that you went out and had fun.”

“She’d be happy that I came home afterward, if she wasn’t asleep.”

“Perhaps,” he replies.

“I’m tired, too. Do you want me to tell the nurse to get a fresh pair of sheets before I go to bed?”

“Stay up a little longer, Isaac,” he demands in a deceptively friendly tone. “I’d like to speak with you.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to keep my disgust in check. “What about?”

“You obviously just got laid.”

I’m really fucking glad that extra Xanax is starting to kick in. It makes me so sick that he can tell. “So? She honestly doesn’t care anymore. If she did I wouldn’t have done it, or I would have at least had the courtesy to stay gone until morning.”

“I know. That’s not why I brought it up.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Well, if you just got laid, why do you still look so unsatisfied?” he asks.

There is no fucking way he’s as concerned as he sounds, so I don’t answer for a few moments, hoping this question will somehow disappear. No luck. “I’m just tired,” I explain.

“Answer me truthfully.”

I almost laugh because that can’t fucking happen. My dick is just fine, it’s the rest of me that’s in agony because I need to be lying next to the woman I was just inside. I need to wake up to Maya’s beautiful face, send her off to school with a full belly and words of encouragement for her test, and maybe even a tingling, sated clit if that’s what she wanted to calm her nerves. But I can’t explain any of this and live to see morning, so I just say, “I don’t really know why, honestly.”

“What do you do when you want sex now? Find a nice, attractive girl your age at a bar somewhere and woo her into bed with you?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you hold back when you finally got her there tonight? Or did you leave her sore, confused, and crying when you left?”

Fuck. That is such a messed up question. “I held back.”

“Is that what you usually do?”

“Look, Dad,” I yawn. “If this is the part where you offer me to visit your harem, I very much appreciate it, but no thanks.”

“That’s not what I’m getting at, though you’re always welcome. Requested even, when the girls have earned a reward,” he laughs.

My father expects a twisted smile to cross my face that mimics his, so that’s what I do. “That’s nice to know.”

“Do you regret not doing what you wanted to that girl tonight?”

“I’m not really sure.”

“Yes, you are. Tell me.”

I inhale deeply, closing my eyes. I don’t have it in me to take his orders anymore but I don’t have a choice. Actually I do. I’m doing this for a reason and keeping that in mind will make this so much easier. “Yes, I guess I do regret it on some level.”

“She had fun, didn’t she?” he laughs.

“Yeah, she did.” The arrogant grin I’m wearing now is authentic, just like that last statement. I can still taste Maya on my lips.

“Do you think you’ll see her again?”

Fuck yes I will
. “Maybe.”

“Do you want to?”

More than anything.
“I’m not sure.”

“Was she pretty?” he asks.

She’s the most beautiful woman that’s ever walked the Earth.
“Yeah, she was the best looking girl at the bar.”

“Do you think you’d want to marry her one day?”

That’s what I’m doing the day after you’re in the fucking ground or rotting behind bars.
“I just met her tonight, Dad,” I laugh.

“Hey, it could be her, though, right? She could be the one, you never know.”

I knew the moment I saw her
. “I guess.”

“You pleased her, didn’t you?” My father isn’t really asking, he already knows. “You get off on that part.”

I fucking live for it.
“I do.”

“You want to get married, don’t you Isaac?”

More than anything
. “Most people do.”

“Yes, but you really want it, don’t you? You want to take care of someone, to be taken care of by her. Please her. Perhaps even love her.”
Of course that part would be optional for you
. “You’re not like other boys your age, it’s not something you’ll do when you start feeling old because that’s what people do.”

“Um… I mean, I don’t want to get married tomorrow or anything,” I say, even though that’s exactly what I want to do. “But I don’t want to wait until I’m 35 or 40 either.”

“Then it’s good that you’re trying to hold back, Isaac.”

“It is?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”

“Which was?”

“Thinking that you can get everything you need from one woman,” he explains.

I already do.
“Oh.”

“When I met Gloria, she was very sweet and innocent.” That is so hard to imagine. “She was so young and impressionable. And astonishingly beautiful of course, but she still is. I took all the rest of it away. I manipulated her, molded her, forced her to be what I thought I wanted her to be and I loved every moment of it. Unfortunately, I’ve regretted every moment since then.”

Well, that was quite a confession. I’m not sure how to respond. “You did?”

“By the time I was done with her, she was perfect for my bed, but not my life.”

I glance down at Glory’s face, wondering what she was like back then, what she would be like today if they’d never crossed paths. Her eyes open and stare at me, her mouth pursed together, but she stays motionless in his lap. I knew she had to be awake. This has to be so difficult for her to hear. “Is that why you married someone else?”

“Yes. And I was unsatisfied with Melanie the entire time because she wasn’t the one for me. I broke the one for me, and once you break someone that way, there’s no undoing it. I miss the way Glory used to smile and laugh. I can still hear it sometimes, but only in my memory.” Does he seriously look sad right now? That is so weird. “When you find the one for you, don’t break her.”

“That’s not what I intend to do, Dad.”

“I didn’t either. It was simply impossible to resist. She was so willing. Yours will be too, it’s more difficult tha
n you realize. But you have to get what you need somewhere else. You must get it out of your system before you come home.”

This is an extremely fucked up heart to heart to have with your father, but he a
ctually means well. And now I feel self-conscious and wondering if that’s what I’m doing to Maya. “What if you find someone that’s already broken?” I ask quietly, surprising myself at my honesty.

My father starts to answer, then pauses, his brow furrowing. “That’s an interesting thought, Isaac. Do you think you’d like that?”

If I say yes, I might fuck this up. “I don’t know.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Um… I guess it’s hard to imagine someone normal wanting me,” I answer.

His eyes widen, and I wonder if what I’m seeing is a glimmer of regret that defines the concept of too little, too late. “You’re still too young to settle down. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. I’m not in a hurry.”

“Good. You need a girlfriend.”
I have one
. “An official girlfriend, someone that you can practice with. A nice, normal girl that could never understand what lives inside you.”

“I’ll fuck up and show her,” I tell him, which is probably what would have happened, but I say it because it seems like the right thing to say.

“Not if you can get it out of your system, Isaac.”

I nod, looking down at Glory who has been staring at me with a blank expression on her face for a while, but her lips curled into a triumphant smile on that last line. It already happened. He did it. This is the home stretch. “You’re probably right, Dad. Thanks for talking to me about this, I really appreciate it and I’ll definitely keep it in mind.”

“Go tell that nurse we need clean sheets,” he orders. “I want to show you something.”

My mouth goes dry as my heart skips a few beats. Holy shit. This is it. Maya’s intuition was right, it’s a good thing I came back tonight. “Okay,” I whisper.

I stand in the doorway watching as the nurse changes the sheets while my father cradles Glory, kissing the top of her head and murmuring something to her. I wonder if what he said about his regret is true. He took her virginity when she was a naïve and innocent freshmen in college. She bought him a sex slave five years later. What the hell could have happened between them in that time frame? I don’t even know why I’m pondering this, because I know. He broke her. Like he broke me. Like Luke broke Maya. Like he assumes I’ll want to break whoever he’s about to give me. I should really be asking myself why that last part isn’t true. Why don’t I want to pass that on? Or would I, if I couldn’t get it out of my system with someone who’s just as messed up as I am?

My father rises and lays Glory in her bed where she whines and reaches out to me. I hug her, wondering if this exchange will bother my dad, but it appears to please him.

“She’s downstairs,” Glory whispers into my ear as she clings to my neck.

“Get some rest,” I tell her, tucking the blankets around her shoulders. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Glory nods, squeezing my hand. My father gestures for me to start walking down the stairs that lead to the basement. His footsteps behind me are so loud and distinct, it makes my skin crawl. This march is too familiar, I’ve pushed away memories of descending in to a pit with my father walking behind me for so long I forgot how terrible it was. I wonder if it reminds him of the same thing, or if it’s just another walk down a well-made, well-lit staircase for him. Why wouldn’t it be? It was just another day for him back then, too.

“I want you to keep an open mind,” my father says as we reach the bottom.

“An open mind?”

“Yes. And it’s alright if you refuse, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. It was Glory’s idea. She thinks that you need this and she knows you better than you know yourself. Keep that in mind also.”

“Need what, Dad? What are we doing down here?” I ask as he leads me to a coat closet in Glory’s finished basement. Jesus Christ, how long has the poor girl been in a fucking closet?

“An outlet for your… darker urges,” he explains, opening the door.

It’s so black in there. I hear scuffling and a sharp inhalation as my father flicks the light switches on and off until he finds the one that illuminates the closet. My mouth drops open and I take a step backwards when I see the young woman huddled in the corner with her back towards us. I thought it would be hard to act surprised, but it’s not. Faking excitement will be the difficult part. How the fuck did I not think about that?

“I’m sure she has a name, but I don’t know what it is. You can make her tell you or give her one that suits you, whichever you prefer.”

“What?” I gasp.

“She’s unspoiled. You’ll be her first and her last. Her only, unless you want to share her. I can’t picture you doing that, though,” he says. “But again, whatever you prefer.” Whistling toward her like she’s a dog, my father bends down to the floor and grabs a long leather cord that I somehow didn’t notice was attached to her. “Look up,” he orders, tugging the leash. The girl just whimpers and curls into a tighter ball. “She doesn’t speak any English.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Yes, you do, Isaac,” he laughs. “Again, you don’t have to take her, but you want to, I know you do.” He sounds so hopeful. Glory said I’m a reflection of him, perhaps he really is looking for confirmation.

“How long do I get to keep her?”

My father’s smile gets bigger than I’ve ever seen it. “Like I said, Isaac. You’ll be her first and her last. I’m expecting that will be a long time, considering your fetish for older women.”

“How old is she?” I ask, stepping closer to her and crouching down because that’s what someone who was excited about this would probably do at this point.