Her Father, My Master: Enthralled (7 page)

“Don't try to change the subject,
dear,” my mom growled.  “We're having a conversation about your poor life
choices.”

“Now wait just a moment, Mrs.
Waverly,” Steven finally interjected, and my mom glared daggers at him. 
Somehow, he persisted.  “I do not believe that your daughter has made a poor
life choice.  Am I really such a bad man?  I'm not a thug, or a drug dealer. 
I'm a respected professor!  Your daughter could do far worse than me.”

My mom wasn't exactly placated by
this, but it seemed to shut her up, at least.  For now.

We finished our dinner in silence. 
The tension was so thick, I felt like I could cut it with a knife.

*****

Despite Kandace and Steven's
marriage, my mom still tried to put them in separate bedrooms – Steven on the
couch in the den, and Kandace in her own room, which my mom still had yet to
tear down and clean.  The protestations were loud enough that she didn't try
too hard, however.  They both ended up in her room.  My mom must have regretted
letting her get a queen bed in high school.

The rest of the week passed much
like the first night.  Kandace and Steven were so lovey-dovey that it made me
want to vomit, and my mom bored holes in the back of both their heads whenever
they weren't looking.  My dad practically locked himself in his study.  He
hated the tension in the house as much as I did.  He wanted nothing to do with
any of it.  He didn't even care who Kandace married, or that she was married at
all.  He just wanted her to be happy, and he also just wanted to be left alone
to his work.

Thanksgiving itself was...
strange.  There was no other way to put it.  I traditionally helped my mom in
the morning, preparing and stuffing the bird, then getting the usual side
dishes ready to bake – green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes,
cranberries, and so on.  Kandace floated into the kitchen by midmorning.

“Steven has requested that we have
macaroni and cheese, too,” she said with a faked lightness in her tone.  I
could tell that underneath she was still tensed and seething at our mom.

“Well, I'm sorry dear, but I don't
have the ingredients for that,” mom replied, her tone just as light.  She was
just as tense.

“How could you not?” Kandace said,
her voice raising.  She was losing her temper.  “It's just cheese and noodles!”

My mom kept calm.  “Well, it's far
more than that.  There's butter, and milk involved, and I don't have enough
milk.  I don't even have any cheese, now that I think about it.”

“I can't believe this!  You are so
unfair!”

“
I'm
unfair?  You ask me,
the morning of Thanksgiving, for me to make something impossible!  How am I
supposed to make macaroni and cheese with no cheese?”

Kandace stalked over to the fridge
and whipped open the door.  She triumphantly pulled out a packet of cheddar. 
“You do have cheese, you're just lying so you do have to be nice to Steven!”

“There's hardly any cheese in
there,” my mom pointed out. 

Kandace glowered.  “Just make
enough for him, okay?”  She threw the packet on the counter, where it landed
squarely in the bean casserole, and stormed out of the kitchen.

My mom sighed.  She didn't look
angry, so much as very tired, and somewhat defeated.  “I don't know what I'm
going to do with that girl,” she said quietly as she fished the soggy packet
out of the beans.  “She's just been impossible, ever since she left for
college.”

I'd spent the entire altercation
shrinking back towards the pantry, trying to make myself as invisible as
possible.  I was certain that there was going to be a blow-up of epic
proportions.  It seemed like that was what we were all waiting for, all week. 
But my mom seemed calm enough.  For now.

I drew out from my hiding spot. 
“Maybe you should just let her make her own mistakes?” I chanced, and my mom
looked at me.  It wasn't a glare, but a very sad look.

“This is life, sweetie.  You only
get one chance at it.”

“But everyone makes mistakes.”  I
suddenly felt very nervous about my own life choices.  Whatever my parents
thought of Kandace, my own situation would look far worse to them, I was
certain.

“True.  But I'm her mother.  I'm
supposed to protect her from the really bad ones.”

“Is Steven really so bad?  He seems
okay, to me.”

My mom sighed heavily.  “I suppose
you could be right.  Maybe that's what's getting me.  Maybe it's because she
didn't
make a mistake.  Maybe I'm just not ready for her to grow up, and leave us.”

I blinked.  I didn't think my mom
had ever been so candid with me.  It was almost like she was treating me as an
equal, not her child.

But the brief moment was gone, and
my mom shook her hand, handing me the packet.  “Do you know how to make
macaroni and cheese, dear?”

I nodded.  I'd made it several
times for my master, and had it down to a science.

“Good.  Make a bit.  Not too much.”

“Okay.”  I got to work, and my mom
returned to her own.

*****

Maybe it was something I'd said to
my mom, or maybe it was something she realized in herself, but Thanksgiving
dinner was actually civil, and almost pleasant.  The dinner itself was
delicious, and Steven apparently quite enjoyed his own little dish.  There was
really only enough cheese for a single serving, and it seemed like such a waste
of effort, to me, but that's how Kandace was.  What she wanted, she got.

And now it seemed like she was
finally getting acceptance from our parents, as well.

I didn't know how to feel about
that.  On the one hand, I enjoyed the decreased tension in the house.  The edge
was worn off of everyone, and tempers were a little less frayed.  On the other,
I had secretly reveled in the fact that it was Kandace screwing up, and Kandace
that received our mom's criticism.  Usually, it was me.

Were things going to go back to
normal, now?  I was nervous about that.  I had a feeling that my ruse wouldn't
stand up to much scrutiny at all.  All my mom or dad would have to do was call
UVA, and the jig would be up.  I would be found out.

And then what?

Would they kick me out of the
house?  I was already gone.  They couldn't deny me support – my master was
fully supporting me at the moment.  They could cease contact, however.  I didn't
like the thought, but I thought I could handle that.  They couldn't be mad
forever.

Still, I worried about it all
through dinner, and afterward, when everyone had collapsed in various places
around the house in varying states of a food coma.  My dad and Steven hunkered
down in the den, watching football, and my mom went outside to enjoy the
unusually warm evening.  I didn't know where Kandace was.  I went to my room,
and watched some TV with Flicker.

I glanced up when I heard a knock
at the door.

“Who is it?” I asked, still feeling
tense.

“Kandace,” Kandace's muffled voice
rang through the thin wood.

“Oh, okay.”

She took that as invitation to
enter, and opened the door, silently swinging it shut behind her.  “Did you
talk to mom about me and Steven?  Dad swears he didn't say anything.”

“Yeah, a bit,” I admitted.

“Well... thanks.  Dinner was
actually pretty decent.”

“No problem,” I mumbled and shifted
in the bed.  I didn't really want to make things better for her.  She already
had it so easy to begin with.  She had a scholarship – a real, if only partial
scholarship – to a real university.  She was probably getting straight As,
still, and she was married to the presumed love of her life.  Compared to her,
I was a freak.  I was a slave to my former friend's father, and utterly reliant
on him.  I could
never
tell my parents the real story of what was going
on with me.  Not after how I saw the way they treated Kandace.  Her life was
Leave
It To Beaver
, compared to mine.

“Is something on your mind?” she
asked as she sat on my bed.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, I can tell you're
thinking about something.  Is it about college?”

“No.”  I just wanted her to go
away, at the moment.  I didn't want to talk to her, and certainly not about
what was bothering me.

“How did you get that scholarship,
anyways?” she asked, tilting her head ever so cutely.  I hated how she did
that.

And I hated how she drilled right
down to the heart of the matter.  Mr. Hendricks hadn't really told me what to
say about this.  “Academic... something or other,” I mumbled, rolling away from
her now, discarding my laptop on the floor.

“Come on, Krys,
I
got an
academic scholarship, but I was valedictorian.  I was class president.  How did
you pull it off?”

“Just leave me alone, okay?” I
snapped.

I glared over at her, and she
looked hurt.  “I'm just trying to help.  I know mom and dad have been paying a
lot of attention to me, and not as much to you, since we got back.”

“That's always the way it's been. 
Why do you care about it now?”

She frowned.  “You really think
that?”

“Well, of course!  They're always
going on at me about how I should be getting better grades, like you.  How I
should be more like you.”

Kandace laughed, and I glared even
harder at her.  Of course she would think this was funny.

“No, I'm sorry, I don't mean to
laugh.  It's just that, they do the same to me, about you.”

I paused in my glaring.  “They
what?”

“They always tell me that I'm too
much of a bookworm.  That I should be more into sports, like you are.  That I
should socialize and get out more, like you.  They do it to me too.”

That had never occurred to me at
all, and for once I was thrown off.  “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.  I didn't know that.”

Kandace shrugged.  “Well, now you
do.”  She inched closer to me on the bed, and placed a hand over mine.  It was
warm, unlike mine.  “So what's going on with college?  Are you even going to
college?”

“Nothing, and yes, I am,” I said
tersely, walling off again.  Part of me wanted to tell her.  Part of me thought
she of all people might understand.  But I couldn't risk it.  “Did mom or dad
send you up here to find out about me?”

“No,” she replied, looking
offended.  “I'm genuinely curious.  Is that so bad?”

“You've never been curious about my
life before.”  And it was true.  She was so self-absorbed, it made me sick.

“Come on, you know that's not
true.  I went to all your football games.  I hung out with you a lot in high
school!”

Well, that much was true, but it
didn't mean anything.  It was just something she was forced to do, by our
parents.  I snorted and pulled my hand away.

“Fine, be that way,” she snapped,
pulling her hand back.  “You're so selfish!”

“Me?  I'm selfish?  You're the one
who gets all the attention!”  My voice rose to a yell, and cracked.  I was
getting aggravated.  I took a deep breath, urging myself to calm down, and I
did.  My master had taught me so well.

“You got lots of attention too, how
can you not see that?”

“Yeah, the second you left for
college, you went and married that old dude just so you could stay in the spot
light.”

She huffed, and stood up now, her
hands on her hips.  “I
love
Steven!  I didn't just marry him for the
attention!”

I rolled back over and stared at
her now.  “Really?”

“Really!” she yelled and whirled
around, stalking towards the door.  “I don't even know why I try to talk to
you!”  She left the room, slamming the door behind her.

I sighed and drew a blanket up
around me.  Let her be mad.  I didn't care.  But I did have to be careful.  It
was tempting to tell her about Mr. Hendricks, and she was suspicions – far more
suspicious than either of my parents.  I worried that she would try to dig up
some dirt on me, just to make them madder at me than they were at her.  I
couldn't let that happen, but I didn't know what to do about it.

*****

The week drew to a thankful close,
and I was anxious to return to my master.  More than anxious, I was downright
eager.  I had grown so used to nightly sex, and to nightly play, that I found
myself missing it fiercely.  I'd brought a vibrator with me, and an order from
my master to use it nightly, but it just wasn't the same.  I ached for his cock
more than anything in the world by the end of the week.

Kandace didn't question me about
the scholarship any further, or about my obviously strange college setup.  And
neither of my parents cared enough to question me either – after that brief
civil interlude for Thanksgiving, my mom went straight back to harping on my
sister, and ignoring me.  And my dad locked himself away in his study yet
again.

Monday rolled around, and it was
finally time for me to leave.  Kandace and Steven left the prior night – their
drive to Massachusetts was far longer than even my supposed drive to UVA.

“Have a good trip, sweetie,” my mom
said, giving me one of her few hugs.  “Get good grades.”

“Make us proud,” my dad added,
patting me on the shoulder.

“Of course,” I said, and made for
me car.

This had been a brief, strange
interlude, but my real life was with my master now, and I had to get back to
him.

Chapter
6

I breathed a huge sigh of relief
when I pulled up to Mr. Hendrick's house once again.  It was a warm, familiar
place to me, and I so badly wanted something warm and familiar.  The past week
had been entirely too stressful to me.

And I needed to get out of these
clothes.  They made me itch, they scratched my skin – it was unbearable.  It
was amazing how quickly one grew used to being nude all the time, and I craved
it.  Almost as much as I craved my master.

He was waiting for me.  The garage
was open and my section was empty.  I pulled my sedan into it, still worried
about hitting something, and the door eased shut behind me once I was in.  I
could see his dark form on the stairs.